Dragon 1/700 CL-52 USS Juneau

What scheme do you have in mind?  Given that the ship only served for ten months in commission, I think the three different schemes showing on navsource would be all the possibilities there are.  Does Ms 12(modified) not appeal to you?

Fot those reading- the three schemes are overall gray, Mod 12R which seems here to be either dark blue or dark gray spoltches on medium gray hull and medium gray splotched over light gray on the superstructures, and last dark blue or dark gray and black waves over gray on the hull, different on each side, and the same or slightly lightened camouflage on the upper works. Then arguments errupt about last minute changes to a single color.

Since the second seems to be the most well documented, I'll go with that. Think Hornet in concept. I'd prefer to do the later one but I don't really understand it, hence the earlier question. I also have a Gator mask set for the ship. I've used them before (again Hornet) and they are quite effective.

The Floating Drydock monograph on the Juneau has a photo w/ caption which says: “... her warpaint is a very non-standard design.  Superstructure in Measure 12 (modified). Hull scheme is unique. Design exhibits European influence with its false bow (German) and the use of waves (British).  Hull has four different colors:  dark wave is  Sea blue (5-S),  patch around pennant number is Ocean Gray (5-O),  [a Small patch aft of the pennant number and above the waves] is probably Haze Gray (5-H), and the bow and upper hull is Light Gray (5-L).“. 

“Splotches on the superstructure appear to have  a harder edge “ than seen in February 11, 1942 photo.  

Glenn Arnold’s Atlanta Class Cruisers of World War Two has a color drawing as above but is missing the 5-H patch aft of the pennant number patch

Thank you, Ed. I've heard the FD monograph had useful information, but haven't been able to find a copy.

Started this nice model. Wow what a lot of extra parts, typical Dragon.

Because the 5" twin gun houses are the same (I guess) as those on the flight deck of an Essex CV, and I need 8 of them, Dragon threw in two sprues from that class with islands, stacks, bridge decks etc. of CV-9.

I like to paint the decks first and then mask them off. Here's a dumb trick. 

I scan all of the sprues, and make a set of prints for each color. Here's Deck Blue 20-B.

The hull construction became a departure from OOB (out of the box), into scratchbuilding.

I initially glued the below waterline part on, but it looked all wrong.

Following the guidance of the late Prof. Tilley, I have always found drawings of my subjects and made copies at the appropriate scale.

In this case, those of the Atlanta Class by Raven.

Indeed, the submerged depth was shallow by 0.15 inches on the drawing, or a little more than 9 feet at scale and that a lot.

I cut a "plug", in this case a full hull plan footprint, on my little table saw.

It was laminated under the waterline hull part, and the original submerged part was laminated to it.

The stern third or so was incorrect and the result was replacing the sternmost part of that, or cutting it off.

The armor belt on the model was incorrect in several ways. It extended all the way back as cast, to the transom. In fact it only went from the front end of the engineering and control spaces below deck at a line about at the front of the front bridge superstructure, to the rear of the stern engine room.

The model as cast had the belt about 24" thick; it was 3.75" thick.

I relpaced the lower part of the belt with styrene strip on the plug part of the hull. That worked out well. Here are the results so far:

Bill,

  Thanks for these tips on the Dragon kit.  I have their Atlanta and San Diego and have only started to collect Pics and Plans.  I think I would have missed the lower hull depth and Armor belt issues.   Keep those tips coming!

  And your fixes are looking good, as usual.

           Jim.

P.S.  That's the cleanest looking bottles of paint, ever!   I clean my bottles but my lids are atrocious. 'Course they'll never rust...

Thanks much. This is also San Diego, but the kit can be built as Juneau.

Its an older Pit Road Model. Believe me, if you’d attached the lower hull you would immediately see the problem.

As for the armor belt; no drawings I have seen show it and photos clearly show the forward end but not the rear termination.

I found a written reference somewhere about that and then looked at a very schematic cut away showing the aft end of the rear engine room at about the first of the three gun rooms at the stern.

The props, shafts and rudder are junk. Not hard to replace.

I just put together the masks for the hull.

Port and Starboard on 6/1/42 are well documented, after that it's a little contentious about just how she was painted, but this is what I have.

Port:

Starboard:

Both from Navsource.

Drawing with both views enlarged to model scale. Portside got a little incomplete so it took me a couple of tries in the middle there:

Tamiya tape overlayed, ready to be cut.

I've painted the hull above the waterline 5-L. so the masks will be from the deck down for the next coat: 5-N. I am trying out AK Interactive on this model and so far It is going on well.