This is Hamman in 1/700 scale. (If the link works...) It is not completed quite yet (will be part of a diorama) but wanted to share my first ship model in ten years.

It is from the Niko resin kit (Sims class) so I'm not sure if the tophamper outfit is 100% correct, but it is close.

http://s279.photobucket.com/albums/kk142/fedgoat/?action=view¤t=009.jpg

I have learned much from this site and will continue to do so.


Best-

Rob Willis

Rob,

The image did not work, nor is the link you provided valid.


But never fear, I got it to work for you!

Well, thank you! I never have been smarter than the machine...

Not to worry, it took me a few attempts to get that one to work.

That is nice work.

If you would be interested it would make a nice On Display build.

Very nice Rob.

Kenny

Sweet build. Now you just have to do a Yorktown (CV-5) to go with her!

In fact, she is in the dock right now. Hope to write a full boring painful article about the entire diorama.

I'm making slides. Want to see my slides? (CAUTION: Many younger members make not understand this term. Please ignore it and move along. And no, I'm not really making slides.)

niec work! and yes, would love to see more..cheers

This is Trumpeter Hornet being converted to the crippled Yorktown at Midway. If the images appear.

Yorktown 1

Yorktown 2

Sweet! I love that! Looking forward to seeing more pictures.

If you like it so far, I should probably make this a formal build blog. In that light, I guess I should backtrack a bit and start at the start. This will be my first electronic build, so forgive the photos, I don't understand why my camera does what it does...

I have wanted to build a diorama of Hamman and Yorktown at Midway for 20 years. The finished piece will show the scene seconds before they were torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-168.

When I started down this road, the only kits available for the carrier were the Tamiya offerings, good but underscale, etc. There was no Sims-class kit available for Hamman. I ordered plans, and was going to scratchbuild her. The project, like so many, was put on hold.

Fast-forward, I was delighted to see (after a long hobby break) that Niko had released some resin Sims-class DD's, and I ordered one up. I built most of the kit in front of the TV over the New Years break, then finished it (almost, crew, guns, etc. still need to be added) on the very dusty model table. I built her according (I thought) to her appearance at the moment in question. After doing some more in-depth research, I had to make some changes to her, and live with a few problems that I couldn't re-do.

This entire project will be one where the observor will spot problems. I will point out most of them myself. I found many mistakes after it was too late to correct them. But...

The point of this diorama is to evoke the SPIRIT of the moment, not the nuts and bolts. This has been hard for me, because I'm a nuts-and-bolts guy. So, some artistic license has been taken to make certain points. I would do it differently next time.

So, refering the Hamman model...

She appears in the camo scheme put on early in 1942. The starboard whaleboat is missing because it will be located on the port side of Y., having ferried the salvage crew to that ship.

The frantic crew and 20mm's will be located later, because they need to be in accord with the final orientation of the torpedos in the water.

The standard historical accounts of the sinking suggest that Hamman, after getting the torpedo alert, went full steam reverse on her port (inside to Yorktown) screw, trying to pull away from Yorktown. This action, according to the books, broke her support and mooring lines to Yorktown. Thus, my Hamman was built bow-down-a**-high, with the idea that churning water would be lifting her stern.

Further research suggests (proves) that this didn't happen, exactly. Hamman had no head of steam, only secondary power, to turn that screw. Thus, the bow-down attitude is, effectively, wrong. However, in the final piece she will be shown pulling some water with that screw, for effect and because I suspect, she was in fact starting to move to the rear. Everything happened so fast, no one is sure what happened. What is clear, to me at least, is that the photos of Hamman sinking show her well to rear of Yorktown. I thus conclude that, with both ships churning ahead at about one knot (in tow), something opened that distance between the two ships.

After reading some difficult-to-find eyewitness accounts, much has been altered concerning the final diorama layout.

Next time, I will talk about my attempt to make Yorktown from a sow's ear. And, I will start her build from the (sort of) beginning as well.

The Trumpeter Hornet kit is a mixed bag of nice moldings, strange engineering, and serious shape problems. Allow the hull shape is wrong, I was only going to use part of it, so I wasn't too concerned. Sadly, I would find out later that the shape problem carries up the sides of the ship, making for some odd geometry problems.

The first step was to glue the full hull together and let it cure. After some quick clean up, the hull was ready to cut. Officila reports say that Yorktown's list had been corrected to about 22 degrees by the salvage party. In order to cut an accurate cut around the complex shape, I resorted to grandson's toolbox. I placed a large blob of Playdough on a flat table and nested the hull into it, adjusting the list on both axis. I made a styrene jig to check the 22 degree list several times; when satisfied, I tape a permanent marker to a small riser to bring it to the proper waterline level, then carefully ran it around the perimeter of the ship, leaving a straight line on the hull in the right spot. Out with the Dremel cutter, files, and sanding table, and ta da, the crippled ship is in progress.

Messy table, eh?


The hanger deck, etc., was glued into place, and general construction commenced. FIrst, I replicated the Coral Sea plate damage on the exposed hull. This was overdone to make it visible - the damage, though severe, probably wouldn't be quite this pronounced in scale.

Plate damage

The degaussing cables were fashioned from lead wire and superglued in place, small details added around the hull, etc. The large boom on the starboard quarter wasn't included and needed scratching together, along with the hatch and access ladder.

Photos of Yorktown show that when abadoned nearly every shutter and door was wide open along the hanger deck. Much work was done to open those areas that weren't molded as such.

Because the list will allow the veiwer to see into the hanger deck, some work was done to create a busy interior (on the port side only...). The underside of the flight deck was detailed as well, and the whole things dirtied up. Bit of debris, wreckage, etc were strewn about for effect. Although the record is unclear, even at this late hour it appears that the salvage crew was still trying to get disabled and spare aircraft out of the ship and dumped overboard. I whipped up a spare TBD, sans wing panels (there is a photo that day showing just such a bird being manhandled), and built a little tractor to pull itinto position.

Fire hoses (a bit overscale, but OK) and a few crew members were added for effect. Almost none of this will be seen when the ship is closed up, but I wanted something for the flashlight crowd to look at.

hanger stern

hanger forward

"miniature shadowbox"

flight deck interior

More later.

Rob,

That is awesome - simply awesome! Can't wait to see more!

Just beautiful work, thanks for sharing!

Very nice work on the hanger deck Rob.

Kenny

Thanks for the encouragement, folks.

Much of the hull photoetch work has been done. I am using WEM Enterprise/Hornet set, which was designed for the Tamiya kits. I suspect that because of the scale problem mentioned some of these parts will be undersized for this project (the funnel grills, for example, are far too small for the Trump kit).

I'm not very good at bending railing into the more complex shapes, but most of the brass is in place. One frustration is the lack of good drawings or photos of exactly what Yorktown looked like at Midway. Thus, smaller fittings etc. may not be correct. For example, I filled a number of portholes because I read that Enterprise had many of hers welded shut early on. I don't know if my solution is correct, but too late now...

My method for attaching railing is typical, I guess. I anchor one end with superglue, then "tackweld" the rest in place in a few spots. Then, I float a heavy bead of superglue into the gap. When it has cured for a minute, I use a Q-tip soaked in Desolve debonder to rub the joint, slowly removing and smoothing the glue. In the end, you have a strong, seamless, smooth joint. It takes a lot of Q-tips and some practice, but it works nicely. Of course, you can only use this method before you paint, the debonder eats paint as well as suprglue.

One of the references I am using for this project is the Ship Craft 3, Yorktown Class Aircraft Carriers, which has nice drawings and wonderful build-ups by various modelers. Of course, the Yorktown plans are for a 1940 fit, so detective work is needed to complete the full picture.

The next big step was to re-create the 5-inch gun galleries. Yorktown, unlike Hornet, had rounded (instead of square) cut-outs at these guns positions. This isn't the only problem, however. Remember that hull shape problem? The geometry carries up the sides, making the shapes of the battery supports and galley plans wrong.

In short, the splinter shields of all four galleries should run parallel to the ship centerline. They don't, which means that the modeler needs to do some surgery to correct this. I found this out too late to do a proper job of it; you will do it early on, like a proper modeler.

gallery shape problem

The above image shows the very strangly shaped kit part (in this case, the port rear gun platform) and the in-progress replacment. Note the rounded projections vs. square, and the straight lines on the replacment. It will look better when done, but leaves the modeler with another problem...later.

The image below shows the forward platforms being altered to proper fit. I sanded the kit parts into a blank state, then glued slivers cut from a circle of styrene sheet to the edges, based on the plans in the book. .010 strip was then scored at proper intervals to accomodate the kinks and corners in the splinter shield and then carefully superglued along the edges. When the new shield was in place, the top and bottom was trimmed and sanded to the proper height.

Note the platform supports on the forward hull: The edges should be parallel to the centerline, but aren't molded that way. I have sanded mine to a better profile, but there are still some shape issues.

platforms

The portside galleries will have sections of the shield cut away to reflect the gun-dumping operation in progress.

The new galleries should fit pretty well if you are careful. Again, do this operation early on to save yourself a headache.

dryfit

More later.

The new galleries are installed and ready-ammo boxes replaced.

here

Note the comparison between the kit part and the new part as installed.

and here

But as mentioned before, this creates a new problem: The hull SHOULD sweep upward and out to meet the bottom of the rear galleries. It doesn't even come close, and again, I could have fixed this if I had caught it soon enough. I had to compromise and leave and "overhang" on the rear positions. Be warned...

rear hull

again

More later...

Great work there Rob. I like what your doing alot.. Thanks for posting the pictures.
I like the action on the hangar deck.

Great work. I'm very interested in your project as I WILL do at least one CV-5 model someday. Martin and I keep talking about what it'll take to correct the Trumpeter and Yankee Model Works 1/350th kits to make an accurate Yorktown, and it makes me want to scratch build.

Thanks guys, I am no expert, I am relying upon info from research and other modelers hard work. But, I will post my interpretations as I go. Fixes are possible, and surely better than mine, but 90% of the game is spotting the problems, as you well know.

More later...

Work has proceded to the catwalks. One of the annoying features of the Trump kit the poorly engineered catwalks and particulary the shape of the 20mm gun shields. Strangly, the Tamiya kit did a far better job, and their efforts are actually a bit over-scale, as compared to the drawings I'm using.

gun tubs

I decided to graft these mounts into place where needed (after cutting out the crude molded mount blobs in each), and suppliment/reshape the other sections of catwalk to better fit the plans. The result is not perfect, but better than the kit efforts. The starboard walks are mostly done, the port side will be a bear, however.

starboard aft

starboard forward

Also, both the front and rear 5 inch gun galleries have had sections cut out of the splinter shields to represent the on-going lightning work (the rear gallery has a section of plate hanging, suggesting that the work has just been interrupted...which it has).

port rear gallery

More later...