Just got done building The Deutschland the other day, gonna try and prime it this week and get it painted in the next 2 or 3 depending on my schedule.

aargh

I haven’t been able to anything on the USS Pennsylvania this week. Lots of other things needed done.
I’m hoping I have time to finish the deck tomorrow. If so I’ll get the pictures up Monday.


Steve I really like the way the Bismarck turned out. Good job.

I'm wanting to do a Viet Nam era dio. I unfortunatly plan to use a couple of major pieces that I've previously built (m113 and M54 duece and a half) in it. So I am trying to see what I can do to submit it for my participation piece in the Viet Nam campaign, and then add / expand it for what I want. Right now, I am fininshing up my m151 jeep and starting to work on some figures. Gonna call it CHECKPOINT (for) CHARLIE. I've got a while to work on this, and as the Flattop campaign doesn't start until December, and other than ordering those Vindicators and Buffaloes, my Lexington has all the bells and whistles in the box for the backdating conversion. I still have to push and get approval for my "MEOW" campaign..I've got 5 Tigers and 1 Panther sitting in my stash.

Steve, nice job on your build!! I sure am a LONG way from finishing my Missouri.

But I did make some more progress over the weekend. In addition to all three main gun turrets being complete, I have now finished all 10 of the 5" turrets as well. They are real "hybrids" as I used the L'Arsenal resin turrets, GMM hatches and sights, Steve Nuttall's brass barrels, and added a scratch build "boom" on 4 of the turrets. (OK, it's only a 10mm strip of styrene!)

I also decided to replace the small "nub" pin on the deck where they mount. Instead, I drilled out a hole and put all the turrets on a small dowel rod. Not only did that help in working on them and painting them, but now they will rotate and won't be prone to fall off as they would have sitting on the pin.

You didn't think that after all that work I was going to GLUE them down did you :-) :-) :-)

I'll try and get around to posting some photos.

I think that next I'll start on the remaining 40mm mounts.


Tom

I finally have the deck panted.

Here are the shots I said I would post.





I still have to seal it.

Now I’m getting the small pieces that go on the deck ready and painted as well as working on the upper deck.

WOW Tom, She is going to be a museum piece when you finish with her. How much detail are you going to add to the superstructure? Goodies like liferings and porthole covers? How about super thin acetate to simulate the bridge windows? I've seen pictures of the 40mm mounts and they are spectacular.

I'm going to use as much of both the regular and supplemental Missouri sets that GMM makes as I can. There are a ton of watertight door/hatches, stand pipes, oxygen/aceteylene tanks etc in there, so it's a ton of stuff. They even include WINDSHIELD WIPERS for the bridge windows. Thank goodness I've got one of those lighted magnifying glasses on a stand to work with. I can't believe I ever used to work without one!!

On my Enterprise, I did put in some clear acetate over the "Pri-Fly" which is on the side of the island, but I didn't do it on all the bridge windows and in retrospect wish I had. The big deal was that I went around the kit AFTER it had been assembled and added all the PE, so trying to do the bridge windows on that would have been too much work.

But with a brand new kit, if I'm going to put wipers on the windows the least I can do is make it look like there's glass behind them!!

I've been collecting stuff to add on to this kit for a long time so I'm going to try and use as much as I can. I already know that I've got two or three different versions of some of the stuff. But I can pick and choose, and mix and match stuff so that whosever stuff looks the best is what goes on.

Just gonna take a long time!

Tom

Gunny and all -

First, apologies to those that I haven't gotten your 1/700 Dreadnoughts kits to yet. I've been "stuck" in Florida at Tyndall AFB on business for basically the last 3 out of 4 weeks and am behind in getting those kits out. Hope to catch up this week. Send me a PM reminder for those who still have one coming and I'll do a double check against my list.

If anyone is curious, I've posted a picture in my Gallery of what I've been working on. Not a "floaty thing", but still not a bad build for 1:1 scale.

Blade48mrd

Well, it's about time we hear from you, mate!...thought you might have really been swept away in that Raptor! :-) ...by the way, Mike, thanks for the pic's...supreme jealousy abounds!!! I would love to get that close to one of these beauties....anyways, welcome back Mike, now it's time to get caught up!!!
Gunny

Greetings, Tom...
I really can't wait to see some pics of this one...I didn't use any extra goodies on my Dreadnoughts entry, (lack of wallet weight! :-) ) but I've got some major plans for Flattops...you've really got my interest tweaked, Bro...show us some pic's!
Gunny

C'mon Tom !!!

Come up for a little air & get some progress pix out here .... BTW did you see that L"Arsenal has a new 20mm set (AC350-38) with sights, handwheels, etc.

John

Well by popular demand, here are a couple of shots:





Tom

I saw that. I already have the Flagship 20mm, and one of the GMM sets (either the Missouri fittings or the "extra" Missouri fittings set) has sights and hand wheels, so I'll probably stick with what I have.

(Since I have enough extra stuff to do the entire CLASS!!!!)

Tom

Hi Tom,

The 40mm Tub, the 5'' Turrets and the #2 Turret looks amazing!!!You have done an exquisite work with the L'Arsenal parts!
You just have to fix those little things that usually these pictures highlight so well like the little unpainted spots of the PE nets on #2 Turret and the demarcation line on the greys (horizontal - vertical surfaces)

From this little sample I can say that the USS Missouri will be a GREAT MODEL!

Congrats once again,

Skipper

Turrets are looking great as expected. Save all that extra PE, I've got an envelope full. I used some extra bits and pieces I had left over from other kits on my Bismarck. A couple of years back I used the extra railings to go back and sort of update my Yamato as i didn't have PE when I built her. I plan to pick up a NC with a PE set and still need one for my NJ. That will replenish my goodie pieces.

Yeah, that's always the problem with these close up shots, you get to see all the "warts". It's really hard to mask such small details, so after an overall haze gray, I opted to hand paint the deck blue on the horizontal surfaces of the turret, so there's always the inevitable wiggle.

The float baskets I painted the entire sheet before I removed, formed and glued them in place.

Much better than trying to paint at the end :-) but you do have to watch for the small flaking off that happens.

I posted a couple of other views in the Dreadnaught Progress Report Gallery, so anyone interested can check those out.

Now on the the remaining (EIGHTEEN. UGH!!) 40 mm assys. At least there are only 49 of the 20 mm mounts to do.

Tom

Greetings, Tom!
Your progress thus far looks excellent, mate, and your close-up shots are great...really can't wait to see some more (hint~hint~hint~ )...keep up the good work, and I've got to say that it is truly wonderful to see some of the quality of workmanship that has been done within this campaign to date!
Gunny

Nice work Tom, How did you accomplish the gas bags? I thought perhaps you might have backed them with plastic and then used globs of white glue to form the bags? They turned out really nice. I have to echo Skipper's comments about the 40MM guns, they're indeed well done! Just curious, how much time did you spend on these? If they rest of Mo turns out as nice as what you've shared thus far, you'll have a very nice ship to display.

Keep commenting about the PE stuff, I've still to figure out how I should tackle mine. I'm not sure if I should form and paint then attach or attach then paint. There are several spots on the Az that will present problems approaching it either way. Thanks for being the lab rat.... :-) :-)

I look forward to seeing more!
Steve

Thanks, Steve! You're not going to believe what I did with the gas bags!! I simply took the kit part, which was one piece with the plastic barrel and the molded bag on the other end, and cut off the barrel right where they joined. Then I cemented the bag onto the turret, and after it was thoroughly set, I use a drill bit just the same size as the large diameter of the brass barrel, and drilled a hole through the bag and into the turret. I used the good old "Mk 1 eyeball" to figure out the elevation, and before I secured one barrel into place, use that as a visual to line up the next one.

I used a round file to make sure the barrel would go into the hole without flopping around too much.

In order to make sure the barrels lined up properly, I took a piece of sheet styrene, and carefully drilled three holes of exactly the diameter of the tips of the barrels, exactly the distance apart as the centerlines.

Once I had the first barrel into the turret and secured at the proper "elevation" and "square", I put the next one into the turret, and used my "template" to keep it lined up until the glue set up.

Took a while, but the same template works for all three turrets, so it was WAY worth the effort.

As far as the 40 mm goes, the first one seemed to take forever because I was "figuring out" how it worked. The toughest part was figuring out exactly how to bend the seat so it sits properly and doesn't interfere with the shield. The second one went a bit faster. I put the whole thing together first, and then painted. I'm going to do the next bunch just a little differently however. I hand painted the whole thing by brush because it's so small, and that does get to be a pain, getting into all the small interior spaces.

The solution hit me after I got the first two completed. The rest will be mounted onto a small dowel rod, which solves a whole BUNCH of problems:

1) It makes handling much easier when you build.

2) It allows me to "stick it" into something to hold it in place and use the air brush to do the over all painting.

3) When I'm done, I now can use the dowel to insert the mount into it's location and have it traverse. (The two on the main turrets are secured in the straight ahead position.)

I know, I know. DUH!!!!!!!!


I'd guess that total time to do each one (and I'm going to "batch build" the rest) will probably work out to at least one hour each, by the time you include everything from the time you take the pieces off the tree until you finish the detail painting at the end.

UGH!!!

Tom

Brass barrel..ah ha! I'd noted the sliver of brass along the edge of the gas bag and thought maybe you'd used a brass sleeve to to secure it. Of course I was thinking, how they heck did he do that?! Well, I think that the thoughtfulness in your approach to this is resulting in a fantastic model. I tend to get a little nervous about my progress when guys like Steve have cranked out theirs already, but then I feel better knowing that I'm not the only one who is moving along slowly. I picked up the old issue of FSM that had Ashey's Az conversion to the Penn. That guy makes that look all too easy... However, the article is useful for improvements to the Arizona.

I think your Mo is going to look great when finished. I hope that my Az turns out ....respectable.


Steve

My biggest concern will be trying to finish by the deadline. But as glad as I am that we're doing a campaign (who knows how much longer the Missouri would have stayed in the box without it!), I still want to make sure I do the best job I can, even if I am slow!

Tom

I'm playing catch up on messages - new job and being away for two weeks on vacation will do that do you - so if this has been said before, my apologies for repeating...

Flagship Models and Gold Medal Models both make PE sets for the Kongo Class BB's. They are meant to fit the original Hasegawa release and the Fujimi versions of these ships. They won't fit the re-tooled Hasegawa versions very well. Something I found out last year halfway through a build of the Hiei!

Anyway, both sets are good - but the GMM railings are better than the Flagship set, IMO.

I finished mine because I had the whole operation planned out. I had the kit a year ago and then researched and decided what I wanted to do. Got lucky and Ladymodelbuilder2 ran off some supersized prints for me off of her color plotter. Then I accumulated all those little goodies. I also cleared my model docket so that on August 1, I got started. I had the advantage of having 3 weeks off between school so I could work on him 7 or 8 hours a day....or even more if I desired. So, don't judge your progress by mine, I had a lot of advantages. Wait till flattops. It'll take 4 months I estimate on the Lexington. what with all the conversions of the superstructure and aircraft. Assuming I'm still just going to school. Hopefully I'll pick up work that pays or intern for a law firm whcih will add to the time. As you know Tom, a lot of that Mighty Mo will fall into place after you get the PE work done. I built mine a couple of yars ago just with the GMM PE set and I think it took 6 weeks. That is one sweet kit and it looked so good, it and my Essex re displayed on top of my entertainment cente in the Living room. The trick is, just keep plugging. have your plan and follow it and just remember there are still 6 months left

Well, IMHO, I think you'll make the deadline in fine shape. I wouldn't call it "slow" I'd call it...attention to detail. You are far ahead of me and I'm still trying to prep for the PE. As each day passes I get a little closer to panic mode. I think I'll take a page from Steve's manual and have all this stuff laid out and ready for Flattops.

http://photobucket.com/albums/b50/Jeremy1072/?

I started planking the decks on my Bismarck this week. Its been going pretty good. Ive added a few more pictures of the decks to my link. This is not what the final decks will look like. I still have to sand and stain them. Im alot farther along then it looks. I have alot of the sub assemblies done on the superstructure, the main and secondary turrets are done. But this planking might put me behind a little bit. Hows everyones projects going?

Jeremy

P.S.
How the heck do you post a single pic instead of a url. I tried for a half hour and gave up.