The Dragon Benson/Laffey/Gleaves destroyer series is said to be one of the best USN injection molded kits out there.Got one in the box as well as the Cyber Hobby pe upgrade set and it is very impressive. I am looking at building a San Franscisco cruiser sometime. Trumpeter has a couple of those that seem to be pretty good and there are a fair amount of upgrades for them also. Those are the only 350th USN ships I've really looked into.

Hey Doogs,

I am not a great builder of ships,but I did enjoy Trumpeters Lexington and Hornet,no big problems,being a novice,I still able to do a decent job.I also did Aoshima,s Takao and Hasegawa,s Yukikaze.For the future I will attempt Akagi and Independance.There,s a lot of good stuff to try out,hope this helps a little.

The Trumpeter USS San Francisco CA-38 is my favorite in your category. The perfect combo of a good kit at a reasonable price, and a beautiful ship.

The second most decorated ship in the USN in WW2.

Always the advocate for Revell...

The newly tooled Bismarck and Tirpitz by RoG are really good as are most of their newer releases. They do need PE railings though as the kit ones are rather overscaled. Cant beat the german dazzle camo

And dont forget their fletcher class destroyer in 1/144 scale. Excellent base for superdetailing. I have seen a guy really going for it on a dutch language forum and man did that model rock.... The same fletcher is also available as an after war modified german vessel.

Richard

Thanks gents! I've recently become fascinated by the various fleet actions off Guadalcanal in the fall of '42 (I highly recommend Neptune's Inferno...great read), so the San Francisco and Fletcher both pique my interest!

Richard - man...a 1/144 destroyer! You definitely know how to get my attention! 30+ inches is perhaps bigger than I'd been intending to go, and the 20" or so on the San Fran is probably better, but I'm such a sucker for presence. 

Will have to think on this one for a bit...

Doogs,

Oh its big allright But not as big as the revell type VII in 1/72 scale (most fun i ever had weathering that beast) and only slightly larger than a 1/350 Bismarck...

And quite affordable i might add so lots of opportunity to have the old ball and chain agree with some aftermarket goodies.

Did some googling for you and even though the dutch lingo is unreadable to you the pictures might wet your appetite even more. The builder on this dutch forum tries to superdetail his fletcher to depict an accurate USS Chevalier:

http://www.modelbrouwers.nl/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=22226&hilit=fletcher

But ok...ok.. ill stop torturing you now

Richard

In general In terms of Molding quality and fit I would rank Aoshima, Dragon, and Hasegawa up at the top.Dragon gets beat up for their instructions and small parts, but in the case of the later, they're after high quality and it's how they do it to get it.

Trumpeter can be so-so; stay away from their Fletcher (USS The Sullivans) kit unless you like crude and bad. Lower to upper hull fit is typically annoying/bad for anything larger than a destroyer.

Academy is close to Trumpeter in quality but not quite as good; they aim at a lower price and it sometimes shows, but they're by no means crude or toy like.

Tamiya's molds are pretty old now; they're not bad, but the Revell of Germany Bismark is definitely nicer than the Tamiya. Their Fletcher is good, but suffers from underscale guns, which may or may not be worth paying attention to depending on your outlook.

Zvezda is similar to Academy and Trumpeter.

As far as WWII USN ships go, you're mainly going to be looking at Dragon, Tamiya, and Trumpeter. Hasegawa has done a nice CVE "Gambier Bay," but otherwise they and Aoshima concentrate on Japanese ships.

P.S. if you REALLY want to get big, look at the Revell 1/72nd Gato ;)

Thanks for the heads up, Tracy!

Do any of y'all have any thoughts on the Dragon USS Laffey?

Looks like it might be a nice "break-in" kit. 

I've got the Buchanan kit (same basic kit - a few differences) and it's nice. Hull and deck fit is good, superstructure detail is fine; the annoyance is that it's so good you have to be really careful about not "erasing" it when you fix what little gaps there are. I broke with the instructions order and put the superstructure deck house bulkheads down first, and then the decks above, instead of assembling them and fitting them to the deck. That way I was able to press the bulkheads firmly up against the cut in the deck. It only required a wee bit of Mr. Surfacer to fill the joint after that.

I bought my first model in 14? 15? years and am building a 1/350 Gleaves-class destroyer for my future father-in-law. I bought the two-set  from Dragon.

A lot has changed in the last 14 years. What happened to Pollyscale and Aeromaster paints? I'll have to find the right colors for the model(s).

Testors bought both up and killed them, although they kept the Pollyscale line going for a while. For ship paints your best bet right now is the White Ensign Models line; LifeColor has brought out some USN paints but some of their colors have accuracy issues. If you want to mix your own, I would suggest picking up some paint chips from Snyder & Short at ShipCamouflage.com

https://www.whiteensignmodels.com/

http://www.shipcamouflage.com/

The ShipCamouflage camo database is quite helpful as well.

I loved the Polly scale paints and am buying the last ones I can find before I can buy no more.  I much prefer to paint in acrylic paints. To the best of my knowledge, WEM does not produce a range of acrylic colors.  Neither Tamiya or Model Master paints offers the range of colors that Polly Scale did.  Can anyone make a suggestion about others I might not have heard about?

Bill

There are some who are swearing by Vallejo paints, but I haven't personally tried them. They were originally targeted at figure painters so they brush very well.

http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/

Vallejo makes excellent acryllics, they both brush and airbrush very well.

And there's a nice conversion table available for mixes suitable for ship modellers.

The Tamiya Yukikaze destroyer and the Mogami and Tone cruisers are beautiful kits as well. In my opinion among the absolutly best for people with only a few ship models behind them.

You may also want to look at Trumpete's USS England DE.

Tracy,

Thanks!  I will look into them.  Are they available at art stores?

Bill

I guess it depends on the art store. I haven't seen them in the local Michaels chains but I have in one of the Hobby Towns.

Tracy,

I'll check with my LHS to see if they can get them.  I'd like to try them.

Bill

I use Vallejo paints pretty frequently and LOVE them. Hands down my favorite acrylics.

They thin down well with Future, Vallejo's own thinner, or Testors acrylic thinner. They also thin with water, but I've had issues with that, especially through the airbrush.

Coverage is stunningly good. Vallejo brushes better than any other paint I've tried, outside of maybe artist oils. I use it for almost all of my brush painting needs.

Through the airbrush, I've had some mixed results. I've found it sprays well when thinned with Future or Testors acrylic thinner. With Future, the result is a smooth, hard, semi-gloss finish. The downsides, so far as I've found them, are that 1) the Model Color line doesn't reduce very well at all, so I'd still stick with something else for filtering work and 2) I've had problems getting them to spray in fine lines, so I'd be hesitant to use them for freehand camo.

I've also found, to my chagrin, that Microset and Microsol can eat through Future and Future-thinned Vallejo (though admittedly, after vigorous use to try to remove a decal-gone-bad).

Moving forward, I want to move more and more to Vallejo. IMO they're probably the best all-around paints on the market. 

Oh...and you can get them through Squadron, Great Models, Sprue Brothers, etc. My LHS stocks Model Color, but intermittently...last I was there the rack was pretty stripped down, no blacks or grays, tons of salmon red and lavender and whatnot.

If you check out the Dauntless in the completed builds section of my blog, it's a Vallejo job. As is the Mossie nightfighter. And the blue nose on the P-51D. And the tracks on the Panzer III.

I'd feel bad if I didn't at least put in a plug for 'The Showboat' - the USS North Carolina BB 55 if you should decide to go 'big'.

I've been aboard her about a half dozen times and man she's a beautiful ship.

Oh man...after reading about the performance the Washington put in off Guadalcanal in Neptune's Inferno, that one's might tempting! 

Think I need to go with something a bit more manageable first (heavily leaning toward the Laffey)...but the North Carolina Class is definitely on the radar. I also especially love the waterline option!

The waterline option is actually preferable in many ways as the Trumpeter hull upper and lower pieces fit badly; the lower piece is distorted in a way that makes it narrower than the upper piece. The first level of the superstructure is too tall (as near as I can figure they forgot to "take back" the thickness of the deck piece because it's almost exactly that much too tall) which stretches out the placement of the portholes in relationship to the watertight doors; it just looks a bit odd to me. Otherwise it's a good foundation for a conversion to Washington, and even better, there's a kit of Kirishima available as well (albeit a lot more expensive)

Ouch! Thanks Tracy, I've seen quite a few of these built up at shows (I live about two hours from North Carolina) and thought about picking one up. I had so no idea the kit had that many problems- still it's the only injection molded kit in 1/350th unless you want to pop for the expensive resin model.

Fujimi Hiryu...

Manstein's revenge

Fujimi Hiryu...

Call me a homer, but my interests, ship-wise, lie pretty much exclusively with US warships and maybe, maybe the occasional Brit (Dreadnought...)

Gamera

Ouch! Thanks Tracy, I've seen quite a few of these built up at shows (I live about two hours from North Carolina) and thought about picking one up.

Well, it's not perfect but it's buildable. I'm trying to not sound like I'm dumping on it, just cautioning for people that might be really excited. It still LOOKS like North Carolina, and many people are completely happy with the kit, but some are disappointed too when they start working on that hull and find themselves having to shore the insides with wood to spread it out...

That's precisely what I did to my lower hull on the North Carolina, which I converted to Washington. That is one of my favorite US battleships!

Bill

Tracy & Bill: Thanks guys! Now that I know what the problems are I can make sure to brace the hull and correct the other problems as I build her if I do pick one up.