Just started building this one tonight, she's a re-badge of the 1970s Heller kit. Actually looks quite nice for the age, and will be subject of a full build review. I'm building her completely OOB, and am already finding it hard to resist the temptation to tweak here and there Damn AMS...

I never knew Airfix did a re-badge of the Heller kit. The other day our local IPMS club had a model auction. The guy in the club who builds mostly ships was shocked when he got about $30 for a Heller 1/400 Hood. We both understood it was supposed to be one of the worst Hoods on the market. I'm not sure if that is because of fit or accuracy issues. After seeing your Flower Class I'm sure that even if this is a "sow's ear" you can make it into a "silk purse."

Sadly I'm forbidden from doing too much to her - one of the review stipulations is that she must be OOB. However I'm sure drilling gun barrels, adding rigging and so on will be allowed

Just sent you a PM.

This is a surprise to me too Rodger, as I did the original Airfix one hmm, let me see, must have been in the late '60s I think, about the only warship I've ever done. I seem to remember filler and elastic bands featured quite a lot! Was it really a Heller remould? I assumed it was their own. Be interesting to see how this develops...

I have already brought the filler to 'Alert 5'

There is also a 1/600 HMS Hood by Airfix.Far as I know it was always Airfix who made it. I've got it in my stash. It's quite a bit smaller than this one Ripster is speaking about. From looking the kit over I think that filler and elastic bands are probably well called for on her.

Done a little more today, working to something of a deadline (that Skipper is a hard taskmaster :-) ) so I need to keep going...

The deck fitted quite nicely in fact, only a little filler required. But I have to say that some of the parts are VERY crude - check out the AA gun (?) on top of the B turret...





This is the worst fitting part of the deck (so far...) I've filled it with a strip of styrene now



More to come tomorrow with luck!

This build is giving me an appetite for Trumpeter's 1/350 Hood - isn't that being released soon?

The armament atop B turret is not a gun but an anti sub device called an UP launcher. From HMS Hood site:

http://www.hmshood.com/ship/specifications/aaa.html#UP

7" Naval Wire Barrage, Unrotated Projectile

Type: Mark I
Number of Tubes: 20 (smooth bore)
Rocket: 7 in./178 mm fin stabilised rocket (3 in. / 76 mm motor)
Warhead: 8 oz / .14 kg aerial mine (CE)

Fuze: No. 700 and No. 720
Rate of Fire: Salvoes of 10
Maximum Altitude: @ 1,000 ft / 305 m
Elevation Angle (Max. / Min.): ? ° / @ 45°
Training: 360°
Comments: Hood was outfitted with 5 UP mounts which were added in 1940. One was atop "B" turret, and the remaining four on the Shelter Deck. In general, the UP, or "Unrotated Projectile," (AKA "rocket-on-a-string") was a largely unsuccessful attempt at a low altitude anti-aircraft defence system. Concept- When hostile aircraft were detected, the UP "layer" (operator) would manually launch a salvo/spread of 10 rockets.

Upon reaching @1000ft, the rockets would detonate and expel mines attached to three parachutes by @400ft of cable. Aircraft flying through the aerial minefield would snag the cables and pull the mines into themselves. In reality, the system was slow & cumbersome. The aerial minefields were clearly visible & easily avoidable. This, coupled with other factors such as the volatile nature of the cordite/rockets & the risk of mines floating back onto the launching ship, doomed this weapon to mothballs. There are no records of UPs bringing down any aircraft.

Thanks for the info Mike ( and the link). I'm actually trying to avoid too many references, so that I don't get tempted to mod the kit.

That said, the Hood Association site is very hard to resist!

the original airfix is 600scale in her 1939 fit not a bad kit white ensign makes a lot of resin ships boats and pom pom guns so you can build a nice little model. as for the heller kit thats 400 scale and adifferent fit. both airfix and heller are now owned by humbrol with all kits being made in france so its not surprising that theres some cross boxing going on. im building the heller illustrious right now and it needs a lot of help, so good luck on your hood build.

Yes I've used WEM stuff before, in fact have some of their PE and pom-poms on the 1/700 King George V I'm building for Dreadnoughts (still waiting for my 8-barrel guns if you're reading this John!)

However the Hood has to be OOB for a build review as I thnk I mentioned. Although tough to resist the temptation to fix bits here and there it's actually quite refreshing to just basically build something!

Time for the daily sitrep! Finished sanding and filling the hull, and also done some more work on the shelter deck. Have decided I'll have to build and paint this one as a series of sub-assemblies (will explain why in the build review). A few snaps of today's progress, more in the gallery.

Comments are welcome, as ever!

Nice looking ship so far. As for me, I'm a patient man. I will wait for the 350 Trumpeter kit, even then , I won't be able to afford it and as I have so many other kits to work on it would be a year or two before i would even have time to do anything other than collect PE and reference material.

I'd love to get the Trumpeter kit as well - though I think she would take a little bit longer to build than this one...

I've also got a whole bunch of stuff in my stash. Mostly 1/35 armour, and some 1/16 figs. And a 1/48 Swordfish and Walrus, plus a 1/600 Ark Royal (which I really must get started for the Flat Tops campaign).

That's not forgetting the 1/16 machine gunner, 1/24 Me 109, and 1/700 King George V, all of which I need to get finished...

Hi Graham

Your HMS Hood is coming out great - and I might add that I have requested a OOB built so that this could be built in an short period and not making you spend a large amount of money in AM parts
You can go the extra mile on Trumpeters Hood

Looking good - Keep up
And a big thank you to the rest of the guys who have been helping Graham with nice details and excellent resources

Skipper

As you may know I've been having snags uploading pics. Anyway, have got around that for the time being by using Internet Explorer (ugh!), so there are now some updated pics of the Hood build in my gallery. Hope to have the review done fairly soon now.

In the meantime, a couple of tasters:

Hi Graham!
Glad that you're working the bugs out of your upload problem, mate...software conflictions, pain in the butt!!
Your build is looking FINE, Bro, looking forward to seeing much more! Thanks for sharing the build update!
~Gunny

Cheers Gunny.

Am now a lot further down the road with painting her, so will try to get some more up to date pics posted later today. For now I have to clean out one of my parrots' cages....

You Hood is going great Graham!

Well...I ask you not to go crazy on AM stuff, and now you want to build the Trumpeter Hood - not my fault!!
:)

Keep up the excellent work
Skipper

Just curious, and not particularly bothered by it - but why has this thread moved into the Carriers forum?

JimS fault :-)

I managed to put it back into the right place!

Skipper

Doh...sorry.... getting my Hood's and Arc Royal's mixed up. hehe

Maybe it was an H brain-glitch and I was thinking Hornet?

Jim

My recognition's not great but even I can tell the difference between Ark and Hood

;)