My new 1/350 Indianapolis & 1/144 Snowberry Corvette both unfinished

 Nino, even old I can still paint. I spent the day getting the Imai Pirate ship ready to paint & just finished it. I did the deck with tamiya Deck Tan, pretty gray, & will pencill the grooves with one of my old drafting pencils with the full size lead in an electric sharpener. It does a great job , & worth having. I used to design with the big ones & now everyting is little. After the pencil, I will stain the decks. I am trying to think what i will do with the Great Western's decks. They will be Tamiya Deck Brownish & stained

 Thank you for the painting compliment, I haven't got my Great Wetern yet & was sure it would be here today. I has been 13 days since i ordered it. I guess California & Russia have the same postage system. I ill start it tomorrow, because it's in my little city now. Thanks again for the plans. 

The Corvette turned out terrific. And your Indianapolis looks so real it reminds me of a picture I saw awhile back showing a similar profile of the Stdb Bow.  Beautiful clean paint job on all three kits!

     Thanks Gene.

just beautiful as always gene ,

steve5

I left a little too much Tempara black on the subs limber holes, so I will clean it out before I dullcote it again. The sub was easy except for those darn railings. Too small for me anymore. I really enjoyed the Corvette, but the Indy & sub were too small anymore. Maybe I ought to build 1 to 1. 

  Here is the 1/350 Indianapolis & I-58 sub that sunk her.

 Here are the mostly finished Indianapolis, I-58 Jap sub & Corvette in 3 posts.

GM, I know the Yamota was sunk by carrier planes because my brother on the Indiana & the South Dakota were sent to sink it. They were not happy about going up against 18 guns, but when they got there all there was left was live & dead japs & battleship trash. 

   I think they had over 300 planes & lost 12. I would not have made a sailor, because I don't like the ocean. I lived next to it for 40 years & 26 years ago I moved up as hign as I could get in NC. I love to build little ship models, but forget the ocean.

   I just finished the Jap I-58 last night & everything except tht darn little PE railing was easy. I will put it on with my Indianapolis pretty soon.

Gene, Musashi was sunk by aircraft from Task Force 38; the fleet carriers Lexington, Franklin, Essex, Enterprise and Intrepid.

All of those corvettes I listed are 1/72. Our little lady seems to only have decals for Snowberry. Mine will be Compass Rose, K49 from the book and movie. She'll be in Mid Gray and Dark Gray, not that attractive WA camouflage.

I may start her soon, you've inspired me. She will have the short forecastle, well deck and fore mast of the original ones, no radar. Lewis guns insted of Oerlikons, but otherwise pretty much like yours.

I think the decision of um, should one weather her is the modelers own. A thing I always find strange is a heavily weathered full hull ship model with a pristine bottom.

Battle of Leyte Gulf, spread out over a lot of square miles of water.  Olendorf's Pearl Harbor suvivors pounded the Japanese coming out of the strait, crossing their "T", and the Japanese admiral thought the was up against CV's instead of CVE's.  Taffy 3 screamed for help, but the Japanese turned away before it could arrive. 3's aircraft were making dry runs like a hornet nest kicked over, doing everything they could to draw fire, distract and annoy the Japanese surface fleet.

Goldhammer & scott, I have always liked models not weathered too much or at all, that's why my train layouts always looked like Disneyland. At least that;s what my wife said.

  GM, I forgot to ask, what scale were all those other Corvette's, other than the big 1/72? I remember what the Corvette's did during the war & have talked to my brother a lot about the little destroyers & D E's . He went with Halsey & all the other new BB's & carrier's to sink the Japs while all the old US ships were in the Philippines to fight the biggest naval battle in history. And that was with jeep carrier's & DD's & DE's & old BB's. Didn't they sink the Musashi & turned back the Yamato ?

An absolute beauty, and shows way more patience than I will ever have. I kind of prefer clean models, and agree with scott.

Thanks GM, It was really a fun build & have you started yours yet?  I put the flag on now as it was drying. I wet one side of the decal & put it on the other side with the paper still on . When dry & ACed a fine piece of thread to the flag & hung it.

  On the railings, I finally settled on .020 brass posts & .010 or .011 rails Alot easier glueing with the fine wire. I sand all the wire with a 320 sanding stick flat on the desk & lacquer wash it & it glued way better. I put the posts in long & clip them off to ht. Then glue the rails outside the posts.I got some fast AC & touched each post with the wire at the top & the center wire is a guess & they look good. I started with .o16 top rail on top & it was harder. I used .006 for rails on the radome as it is small.

   Neat picture.

Gene, that's a swell model. This whole Matchbox/ Revell Corvette line started out as Matchbox HMS Bluebell, with decal options for HMCS Snowberry or USS Saucy. Then it was released by Revell as USS Saucy. before being rereleased as HMCS Snowberry with decal options for HMS Campanula.

So deep down in there is a British ship, but the Canadian-built are similar.

These are fascinating little ships that all went through many modifications.

For instance, here's an earlier version with the mast in front of the bridge.

That whole radar enclosure was built of teak, held together with wood dowels and glazed with Perspex.

A cover was kept over it in port to hide the antennas.

gene1

 Here are some more, buy one you'll like it.

 

 

  It is a pretty thing & I was going to weather & rust it, but I will see. After seeing that special on the Indianapolis, I want to finish that & the I-58 Jap sub that sunk it. I also just won an Airfix 1/144 Great Western on ebay, but it has no instructions. Has anyone got a set that you can email me. I would sure appreciate it. It looks like it has all the parts & at $30, I couldn't pass it.     Gene

 

That is a “pretty thing”. No weathering needed…(but, maybe rust at the hawse holes?)

Also,  I picked up an Airfix Great Western a few years ago while planning for retirement. It has Instructions although a bit yellowed.  I will send'em today.   Gonna be Bitmap files since I had to go B/W to remove the Yellowing of the paper.  If you want another format, jpg, tiff, etc... I can do that too.

I will PM you with my info so you know what to watch for. I will use your listed email in your FSM Bio.

     Jim

Hello Gene,

I would not weather it, the colors and contrasts make it look very well balanced and pleasing as it is.  

Steve, Marcus & Pat, Thanks a lot & Steve you are the AMAZING guy. That Victory of yours is really a super honey. What a beauty.

WOW!

you never cease to amaze me gene , that's just grand ,

steve5

Hi,

That looks great.

Pat

 Here are some more, buy one you'll like it.

  It is a pretty thing & I was going to weather & rust it, but I will see. After seeing that special on the Indianapolis, I want to finish that & the I-58 Jap sub that sunk it. I also just won an Airfix 1/144 Great Western on ebay, but it has no instructions. Has anyone got a set that you can email me. I would sure appreciate it. It looks like it has all the parts & at $30, I couldn't pass it.     Gene

 I just did all this and lost it. maybe too long. I will do it in 2 . I just finished my Corvette, at least 98% done. It has been fun & now I am a self proclaimed Corvette expert at nearly 87 years old. 

Don Stauffer

left the radars out in the elements

Also, the tuning of emitting and recieving antennae were adjusted and tuned usin very fine threads, often brass, so galvanic corrosion in salt spray was an issue, too.

Much of that was obviated by the intorduction of centimeter wavelength radar (thanks to Randal & Boot's cavity magentron).  However, priority was given to aircraft installations for CM radar.

Contemporary US radar used larger arrays, which could be tuned at the radar shack end of the waveguides.  But, required larger, precision fitted waveguides, which the RN versions did not.  But, did need an enclosure to protect the arrays.

Now, USN TACAN antennae were covered, to protect the arrays.  As were some RDF antennae.

Gene;

 Hey ! Even the large one has stuff that seems heavy for the scale .All my friends thought I was nuts! Measuring stanchions and uprights to bring them to scale on an operational R.C. Version taken directly from the 1/72 scale kit  T.B.

Gene,

Once again, stunning work!

Bill

gene1

  The Snowberry is coming along real good & has been a real fun kit. I got the bridge done today along with the lighthouse looking structure. What is that, radar?

Yep, that is the radome!  Funny what they did for radomes in those days.  Often they just left the radars out in the elements, so that lighthouse structure was kind of advanced for its day :-)

  The Snowberry is coming along real good & has been a real fun kit. I got the bridge done today along with the lighthouse looking structure. What is that, radar? I used .020 wire for the posts & .006 wire for the rails on that part & .020 & .010 for the rails on the forward gun. The thin wire glues & works a lot easier. Always sand & lacquer wash your wire before you glue it. Works a lot better as there must be a coating on the wire that glue doesn't like. 

   I used the kit ladders & those X braces under the bridge. I thinned them by sanding & they do look better. I used a black magic marker to mark those braces on the clear part. Look good, as painting would have been hard for me. I will finish it next week & then back to the INDY & sub.

That a fine and professional job you did on that kit. Everything looks real good.

Jay Jay, Thanks that's a real nice offer, but I am close to being done with the Indy & it is the last 1/350 I will build. I have been retired for 26 years and I loved every day of it. I built a ton of models, a full train layout & shot a bunch of pistols & even drew a bunch of house plans. Now I'm building ship models. t doesn't get any better then that. 

  At nearly 87, I have hopes of finishing plastic ships. By the way those were 1/144 brass rails I made, not 1/350. 1/144 nearly put me in the hatch, & I still have some more to do for the Snowberry.