destroyer

Well that is a question which must be turned back to you. You need to answer some questions before an answer to that question can be given

What scale? They range from 1:125 down to 1:2400 (or smaller)

What medium? Styrene, resin, white metal, paper?

Modern or historical?

Which country?

How much are you willing to pay?

How much work are you willing to put into the kit?

my grandfather served on DD 539 the USS tingy, and asked me to build one for him. money is no object and I would like it to be in plastic either 1/350 or bigger. I can get the decals seperate, and i am willing to putin alot of work

The USS Tingey (DD-539) was a Fletcher-class destroyer. She was originally launched in 1943, served until 1946, recommisisoned again in 1951 and served until 1963.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/539.htm

When was your Grandfather on her? There is not a Korea/post-Korea Fletcher kit in 1:350 scale. The closest you can get for that is the Skywave USS Callaghan in 1:700 scale. It includes various bridge configurations as well as weapon & radar fits.

There is not a off-the-shelf kit in 1:350 scale styrene model of a WWII square-bridge Fletcher. The Tamiya offering is a round bridge (i.e. early variant).

Tom's Modelworks offers a conversion kit to convert the round-bridge to square-bridge. Besides the bridge it includes various gun & weapon fits. Call, it may be out of production.

http://www.tomsmodelworks.com/default.asp

Yankee Modelworks makes some very nice resin & brass square-bridge Fletchers .

Their USS Johnston is good
http://yankeemodelworks.com/kits.htm

If you want to go larger, Iron Shipwright offers a 1:192 scale resin & brass Fletcher

http://www.commanderseries.com/pages/Fletcher.html


I'll caution you away from the Lindberg 'Blue Devil' destroyer. About all it has going for it is that it is big(1:125 scale). Most of the shapes are in chunky, accurate and need to be totally rebuilt or replaced. This kit is best for R/C where accuracy doesn't matter and strenght matters more.


There are some 1:700 scale WWII Fletcher destroyers, but you mentioned 1:350 scale. I'll let you digest these things first.

There is an English company that has a 1/96 Fletcher.
Having overcome a seniors moment I can tell you that the company is Deans Marine.
Unable to give price but check their web site.
Dai

I second all the above recommendations. If you're at all interested in a wood kit, you might also check out the 1/192 U.S.S. Kidd from Bluejacket ( www.bluejacketinc.com ). It's a basically sound kit that, with some work, can be made into a real masterpiece.