Buckley Class??

There's a Naval Institute booknon the Buckleys. "The Buckley Class Destroyer Escorts" by Bruce Hampton Franklin, it was published in '99 and should still be available. It has several pages of plan drawings in it but they may be too small for you to work from. The drawings were from Bethlehem Shipbuilding and Franklin gives as his source for them the National Archives, Cartographic and Architectural Branch, holding number RG19/5929/reel 1. Might be able to order them there, though I have no clue as to $$$. Best of luck.....Jake

Oops - obviously not the Revell kit! During the late forties and early fifties several manufacturers produced wood kits of American naval vessels. Sounds like you may have one of them - or maybe it was scratchbuilt? At any rate, it sounds like a fascinating artifact. If it's three feet long, it's considerably bigger than 1/250 scale - more like 1/100. Those destroyer escorts were small ships.

Your info is appreciated and will probably come in handy, but to clarify...the model that I found is laminated mahogany under what proved to be six layers of various shades of grey paint. The only thing that remains on this ship are the main above deck superstructure and gun tubs. From the side it would appear to be a silhouette. I suspect it was made in the 40's and judging by H20 stains this was a pond toy. A 36" pond toy. The lines are nice and I wanted to take a crack at a project.

Sounds like you've bought a Revell Buckley-class destroyer. The kit was initially released (as the U.S.S. Buckley) in the early or mid sixties. It's been back several times since under several names, including a couple of odd ones: the Nationalist Chinese frigate Tai Chou and the British H.M.S. Bligh. I don't believe the moldings ever got changed.

Plans of this class are fairly easy to come by. I believe The Floating Drydock sells several different versions. Maybe the best source for the modeler, though, is the book The Destroyer Escort England, by Al Ross, in the Conway Maritime Press/Naval Institute Press "Anatomy of the Ship" series. It contains lots of drawings of a Buckley-class DE and most of the relevant fittings (guns, radar, depth charges, etc.).

The old Revell kit is basically a nice one; the detail on some parts is among the best the plastic ship kit industry achieved during that "golden age." (Take a look at the superstructure bulkheads, which have such things as fire extinguishers and brooms molding on them.) The biggest problem, if I remember right, concerns the guns, which aren't up to the quality of the other moldings.

Gold Medal Models makes a photo-etched metal detail set for this kit. That should really dress it up.

Hope this helps. It's a nice old kit of a handsome ship. Good luck.