I have built 1/35" armor for the past 5 years, but I would like to expannd upon my building techniques. What model would be a 1/300" or 1/700" scale challenge for a builder with moderate skills? I'm not looking to trick out a basic kit with PE, but I am able to scratch build as needed. I would prefer a larger ship, because I feel the scale would be an easier transition. Any advice is very appreciated.

Hi Rob,
Welcome to Modelshipwrights, mate!

It's always a pleasure to see modelers broadening their horizons, and trying other genres in the hobby...There are many, many, ship kits in both resin and plastic to choose from, and lately, us shipbuilders have been given some fine new additions in both mediums to choose from...one of the finest new additions in plastic injection that I would reccomend for a modeler with moderate skills to tackle as a first build would be DML's new 1/350 scale USS Buchanan DD484-1942, and it's PE upgrade kit...beautiful vessel, great kit, and with moderate skills, should be a fine first ship model...whatever you decide, my friend, please share your build with us and if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Check out our onsite review of the kit here...

Keep Modeling!
~Gunny

hello Rob,
welcome to MSW,there is a great crew of modelers here.i would suggest the USS San Francisco in 1/350 scale.the parts are well made and there is PE if you want to tricking it out.
i also second Marks views on the USS Buchanan,she is a well made kit.
hope this helps,
cheers,
Bruce

Rob,
Welcome.

You are in good company, several of us have also done armor at times in the past.

If you need any help at all, do not hesitate to ask there are plenty of good fellows around to help.

I have checked out both kits put forward and I have to say that I am impressed with the the level of detail that an "OOB" 1/350 scale kit contains. I will be going to my LHS this weekend and will picking up a kit to build. I will attepmt my first ever "build log", so I will be counting on you guys to tell me what I need to include/leave out.
I have a basic ship building question, do most follow the instructions to the letter, or work on sub-assemballies? I'm just trying to get the feel for this type of build/post before I begin.
Thanks in advance for your input.

You might want to wait for the Gold Medal Models Photo-etch if you decide to do Buchanan; the Cybermodeler set contains some errors and omissions.

I usually build sub assemblies. Deck details can be easily broken off or make camouflage more difficult if you're doing a more intense scheme like dazzle or Measure 12 Mod. But, if you were doing something like Measure 1, with it's overall Dark Gray, you could assemble everything before painting because it's all the same color.

If you haven't read up on Ship camouflage I'd recommend Snyder & Short's ShipCamouflage.com Warship Camouflage section. The US Navy had a somewhat arcane / somewhat logical system; Measure 1 was solid and Measure 2 was "graded" with a darker color on the bottom and lighter color to match the sky above... later they changed colors around and Measure 1 because Measure 11 and Measure 2 became Measure 12... another revision and Measure 11 became Measure 21.... I think the pattern may be becoming clear.

Regardless, we have descriptions of the camouflage and a database of camouflage on ships by year, so if a particular ship's history interests you, you can look and see which camouflage scheme she was in.

"Measure 1 was solid and Measure 2 was "graded" with a darker color on the bottom and lighter color to match the sky above... later they changed colors around and Measure 1 because Measure 11 and Measure 2 became Measure 12... another revision and Measure 11 became Measure 21.... I think the pattern may be becoming clear"

WOW! I strive to be correct on any model I build, so I have my work cut out for me! This is shapping up to be more fun than matching the correct tracks for an early/late war track pattern for a German Luch's!

Welcome to the "Light Side" Rob

Funny, Im just completing my first armor kit ever, trying out that dot-filter technique, cant wait to try it on ships!

Another kit that is recomended as a "first ship" in 350 scale is the Tamiya Fletcher DD-445, which is found at very reasonable prices. You could a lot of just a bit of PE depending on taste, skill and money! Another choice as a "bridge" between armor and ship is one of a myriad of 1:72 scale motor and torpedo boats, also found at very reasonable prices (15-25$USD).

Finally, and this is a MUST~! Bookmark, read and study Mike Ashey's website and in the modelling books section, peruse the BUILDING AND DETAILING SCALE MODEL SHIPS book in PDF format. Many people in this forum (myself included) have his ship modelling books and have nothing but great things to say about them!

Cheers, and dont forget to blog your WIPs! Cheers

Welcome to the ship side of things. I go back and forth between 1/35th scale armor and ships, and I prefer to work in 1/350 because I find the 1/700 too small for me when it comes to scratch building things and adding details. (I.E. I over do the details!) There are a lot of folks who do some amazing things in 1/700 but I find it too small for me. The trade off of course is that when building a battleship or carrier, you need a lot of space to display it.

I'm in the middle of building the Tamiya Fletcher (actually I'm modifying the heck out of it) and it's a very good kit to get your feet wet. It's straight forward right out of the box if you want to do that, and there's a lot of aftermarket stuff available if you want to get adventurous!

I also recommend building sub-assemblies as Tracy suggests. If you've got some specific questions at any point, don't hesitate to ask. You may not get exactly the SAME answer from everybody as we all tend to have developed our own techniques which work for us, but you can be sure that we're all glad to help! Believe me, we've all made plenty of mistakes and don't mind helping others avoid learning the hard way!

Most of us seem to be in concordance as to 350 scale. The botom line is bang for your buck. HOw much are you willing to invest in a kit. A tricked out Nagato or Kongo in 350 scale as well as a Modern Enterprise or Nimitz will bring you up to the $200 mark. It will take several months to build. A Tamiya Fletcher OOB might run $30 at most and can be done in a week. Of course there is middle ground as well. Most of the Tamiya bttleships though old are still great kits with erasonabe accuarcy, and some you can pick up on ebay fo $50 -60. A good $40 brass kit for railings and improved cranes radars and catapaults ad you can have a display kit. Of course you can be like my good friend Tom and take 6 months to do one with brass barrels new and improved 5" turrets and 40mm guns and somescratch built goodies

If you've been tackling the recent Dragon German Armor kits, there should be no problem building whatever kit you choose. Ships like tanks are pretty much well engineered kits and straight forward builds. SOme have problems that need to e corrected, like the hull math up in Trumpeter's North Carolina (reminescent of the Dragon Initial Tigr I with the front area problem) If you know in advance and listen to the advice of those who went before, it is a piece of cake.

Good luck in whatever choice you make. I'm sure you'll grow to love it as much as building a tank kit.

I'm an avid builder of both

I have read through all the reviews on this site and some from different Ship building areas. I have decided to pick up two mid rated kit's, that I may have the ability to be expanded upon. Actually, I have ordered two seperate base kits. The plan is to start both at the same time, I will take my time with each.
At what point should I post pictures? When the hull's are complete, sub's complete, or straight OOB?
All comments are welcome and anticipated.

Ahoy Rob,
Well mate, that's entirely your choice, my friend...you can actually start a "BLOG" thread for each kit in the 'Carpenter Shop" forum, and follow along the entire build(s) of both seperately from start to finish, if you wish...there are many other "BLOGS" in progress onsite now (they're the posts with the little yellow gear icon in front of them), which you can assign your threads as a BLOG yourself...if you look to the top of your message box when you're starting a new topic, there's a box that you can check that states "Blog? Click to indicate this is going to be a build log topic." right under the Topic Title box, and when you click this box, it automatically assigne the thread as a BLOG and places the gear icon on the thread...

BLOG threads are helpful to all modelers as they follow along the entire build, pointing out the goods and bads, ups and downs, of the build and kit, and can be a learning tool as a whole...so if you're up for it, you can start with a picture of the box and contents, and keep posting images as you go...

~Gunny

Hi Rob-

I too am an armor builder who is new to ships-I posted here recently for some help on a Tamiya 700th scale Hornet for a display my local club is doing. I received prompt responses to all my questions. The guys here are great. I just finished building the ship and started painting yesterday. The Tamiya Hornet is an old kit-one of the sprues said 1974 on it! But it went together ok all in all. There is some flash and mold shift-but nothing difficult. I agree about the scale though-I have a 350th scale Tamiya Missouri which I will tackle later this year which I'm sure will be less fiddly due to it's scale. Overall, I had fun building the Hornet and will post pics of the finished product soon. There's alot of websites you can research with much info depending on how detailed you want to go. Good luck and let us know how you do.

Rich