As promised, my entry in Gary's Dreadnought Campaign, the Tamiya 1/350 USS Missouri, is complete. I finished the last of the work on Saturday, even having time to complete and stain the base, which actually didn't take much time at all.

I've posted several shots in the Complete Gallery and a couple of others in the "In Progress" as I didn't want to take up too much space.

The kit is so big, it's hard to get the entire ship in one shot without losing all the detail, so I threw in some close-ups as well.

Here's a few shots. Seems very strange to be done, since I've been working just about constantly since the middle of August!!

Enjoy!

Ahh, yes, Mr. Hathaway, Ol Mo' looks stunning, modeled with your talents, mate! It's definitely worth the wait ! Tom, I'm sure Skipp's gonna want a couple dozen pictures of this beauty for a MOD, so you might as well get busy! Thanks for all of your hard work and participation in this campaign, my friend, and I , like you, hate to see it end...but we have MORE fantastic MSW campaigns coming up (and going on! )
~Gunny

Very nice Tom.....
I really am amazed at the details.

Excellent work, and I'm also impressed that you finished her in that timescale (being deadly serious there - Campanula took me over two years!)

It was certainly a matter of "discussion" between myself and SWMBO :-) :-) !

One thing that people who know me will say, is that I am a finisher! And having the "deadline" imposed by the Campaign certainly puts the finish line into sharper focus.

I have put in a lot of time over the 9 months, probably somewhere around 500 hours, perhaps a bit more, although I wasn't keeping track until recently.

I got concerned that I might not finish on time back at the beginning of April, so I put a "project plan" together. I seriously underestimated the number of hours required to complete from that point (103 as opposed to 67), but to stay somewhat on track, I just worked more hours each day to compensate :-)

I have to admit that sitting around yesterday afternoon and just relaxing felt a bit "different"!!

Tom

A gorgeous build there Tom, inspirational. That is my favorite camo scheme on WW2 American warships. Thanks for keeping us up to date throughout the build process.

Thanks, I like it as well, for a couple of reasons. For starters, as near as I can tell, I don't she never wore the original Ms 32 22d except in the Atlantic while she was working up. If she carried that into to Pacific at all, I'm pretty sure she never saw any action in that scheme.

The other reason is that, that sort of scheme is just too hard for me to do :-)

Tom

NICE very nice !

I know the feeling of 'being done' and not having to 'work' on something. It is a very strange feeling.

Your effort since Aug. was well worth it, the battleship is a grand show piece.

Well done.

Great work Tom - what a fantastic build!

Wow! Amazing!

I have been watching this from the beginning and now I see it was worth it. Congratulations.

Cagin.

Shoot Tom, you still have 2 weeks left. You can still scratch build some oars to put in the whale boats, or super-detail the Kingfisher interiors and motors :-) :-)

seriously my friend. I am and have been totally and amazed by your devotion to detail and the amount of skill you showed in doing this kit up. I built mine 3 yaers ago and I added a PE set mainly for railings and to replace cranes and catapults. Even at 10 feet away mine still pales in comparison

Thanks everyone, it has really been quite a learning experience and a lot of fun. I was lucky enough to have a LOT of reference material with various books etc, and my problem is that if I can see something in the photos and that's not the way they did it in the kit, I immediately start trying to figure out how I'm going to "fix" it! Must have come from my grandfather, who spent a long time working at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Va.

And I certainly don't want to forget to mention all the helpful advice from all you more experienced shipwrights!!!


I did make a conscious choice to leave off the leadsman's platforms as well as the accomodation ladders, which would not have been rigged with the ship underway at sea. Other than that, I've pretty much used up all the PE that fits!

I have seen some photos which show the ladders stowed on the main deck below the bridge, and I may add those as additional details in the stowed position. But other than that I think I'm done.

(Unless.................say, maybe I could make a tarp covering for the life boats. Hmmmm............ :-) :-) )


Tom