Thunderbolt379

CM2 -- re "blackmast" could it be an early stirring of the Navy practice of using black as a warning of electromagnetic hazard? I read many years ago that, certainly by the 60s, above a certain height everything would be painted black to indicate a danger area for technicians -- the high power radio and radar systems would fry any living thing up there in short order. I remember reading a first hand account of a technician who had been in the black zone when a radar was accidentally switched on and if he hadn't cleared out fast he would have been dead.

M/TB379

How about the land of the long white cloud Some of the most beautiful scenery you'll ever see in your life. There are places here you can go where every photo you take is postcard quality.

Scorpiomikey

You should travel. Ideal time to do it.

oh gosh yes, I would LOVE to travel. Where to first?? :P

CallSignOWL

checkmateking02

Ah, but you already have the skills, young Jedi.  Look at the work you do with those detailed cockpits!

awww, thanks!

and great work everyone. I've been in a bit of a hiatus because of work, family and getting ready for my senior year at UNL.  (I'm gonna be graduating in less than a year and I still have NO IDEA of what Im going to do afterwards! (panic!!))

Hopefully Ill get settled in nicely, and get building a bit for relaxation

You should travel. Ideal time to do it.

As a sometime builder of ships,  I can really appreciate the work going into the Wisconsin. It's a big job, and is looking great.

Cheers

Tony

checkmateking02

Ah, but you already have the skills, young Jedi.  Look at the work you do with those detailed cockpits!

awww, thanks!

and great work everyone. I've been in a bit of a hiatus because of work, family and getting ready for my senior year at UNL.  (I'm gonna be graduating in less than a year and I still have NO IDEA of what Im going to do afterwards! (panic!!))

Hopefully Ill get settled in nicely, and get building a bit for relaxation

CM2 -- re "blackmast" could it be an early stirring of the Navy practice of using black as a warning of electromagnetic hazard? I read many years ago that, certainly by the 60s, above a certain height everything would be painted black to indicate a danger area for technicians -- the high power radio and radar systems would fry any living thing up there in short order. I remember reading a first hand account of a technician who had been in the black zone when a radar was accidentally switched on and if he hadn't cleared out fast he would have been dead.

M/TB379

Thanks, Bish & Gamera:  always appreciate the comments and encouragement. 

When I was looking up photos for my next ship, BB-60, USS Alabama, I noticed that the same "black mast" phenomenon was evident on certain photos of her too.  But I haven't been able to find any documents or acknowledgements of the practice on any sites so far.  Maybe it was an individual thing, but then, that would be strange to find two different ships following the same informal custom.  I really don't know what was going on, but the darker mast was evident in the photo, so I just went with it.

Construction step 16 involves some forward superstructure components.  First the pieces.

Here is a close up of Wisky's main radar, the SK model.  The mast is the original kit, the array is more photoetch from LionsRoar.

And the last two are differing views of the completed assembly, with the penny-pose.

At this point there are only construction steps 17 and 18 remaining, so you won't have to put up with ship posts too much longer.  Thanks for your comments and your viewing.

CMK02: Just great work there, whenever I try to get that level of detail I end up wrecking the part next to what I'm working on.

More great work Stik. I would have thought smoke staining would have been mostly on the front of the mast. Pisting it black on the real thing would make sense, as this would cover any staining. So i think you have made a good choice.

Construction step 15 involves the aft funnel.  So the photos show the parts, then the assembled stack.

The last photo shows the mast installed.  The construction sequence calls for this to go on during the final assembly step, but unfortunately the mast part did not fit well and took some work to make it acceptable.  Plus I wanted to put a flag on the mast, and that would have been more difficult if I'd waited.  The mast has no yardarm, which is should have.  I suppose I could have added one from sprue or something, but I didn't.

 One detail I caught from a contemporary color photo is that the mast above the stack seems to be painted in a darker color, although it might be smoke stain.  Whatever it was, I painted the mast above the stack flat black.

Thank you all again for looking.

Ah, but you already have the skills, young Jedi.  Look at the work you do with those detailed cockpits!

i still cant imagine the patience needed for one of them boats......

Below are photos of construction step 14, which consists of superstructure including the bridge (I think it is).  The bridge configuration is one of the differences between the four Iowa-class battleships.  Iowa and New Jersey had rounded bridge configurations, whereas Missouri and Wisconsin's bridge was more squarish, as you can see.

First photo shows the unassembled pieces.

The last four photos are different angles of the assembled piece.  There is another one of the Mk 37 gun directors, a couple of 40mm's, and a searchlight evident.  The main pieces were split horizontally, and went together like a layer cake.  The last photo is the traditional "penny-pose" for sizing.

Again, thank you for looking.

Thanks, Mike and Big Dog, for the nice comments.  Very much appreciated.  Hope things will work out, Mike.

And your cockpit is looking good, Big Dog.  I don't have much success with them, painting all the little dials and such. 

More construction information now, on Wisconsin.  First, construction step nine is not much different than the previous couple of steps--more gun tubs for the 40mm.  But here are two more masked and then finished with guns in place.

Construction steps 10 and 11 were already accomplished out of sequence, when I built the hull and decks.  Below is construction step 12, one of the towers with gun-directing radar.  I have no idea what kind of radar it's supposed to represent.

Step 13 is more fire-direction radar, and this one I know--the Mk 37.  It's a photo-etched piece from LionsRoar.

The whole assembly above is very delicate.  I used diluted white glue to attach the stand to the base and then the radar itself to the stand.  Once the glue has dried, it seems to hold pretty well.

Thank you all for looking.

I finally was able to get started on my build for this. I got really bowed up by a deadline over in the Monogram Mafia that has had me too busy to post and delayed some of my other builds. For this build I am doing a Revell P-47D Razorback T-Bolt. I have the Testor's kit and was going to do them side by side for this build, but upon finding out the Testor's kit has Decals for a Tuskegee Airman Jug I am going to put that one aside so I can do it some justice at a future date. So far I have the cockpit painted and the fuselage ready to close up.

There has been some stunning stuff going on so far in the GB. Normally Helicopters just don't do much for me, but that Chinook of Bish's is the cat's meow. I really like checkmateking02's 1/700th planes. I can't handle even 1/72nd aircraft anymore and just can't imagine getting 1/700th to look anywhere near that good.

Amazing work happening here -- 1:700 scares the pants off me, I find 1:72 a bit small these days (but still do it!). I got my airbrush back a week ago but haven't set up to paint yet -- house cleaning this week, the odd crisis blowing through the family, and a deadlined magazine build that I need to have done, photographed and emailed out by the end of the month... but the Raiden will be happening asap!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

A little bit of progress on the Mirage.

Need to sand the wing to fuse joints now.

Theuns

No I haven't actually glued them on yet Gamera, they were just stuck on with a little blu tak to see how it would look with weapons on. I reckon I'd take the gold medal for knocking parts off models so there is no way I'd glue missles on before decalling.

Thanks, Gamera, and I do have to use an opti-visor.  I've had it since I used to paint 54mm miniatures (which I don't do anymore since Imrie-Risley dropped their paintline).  Couldn't work in 1:700 without it.

Thanks, Bish.  I'll be returning to 1:72 aircraft.  I have two Hurricanes, a Spitfire and a Fairey Battle under construction at the moment too.  They are a lot easier to see and I do like RAF camouflage from the BoB era.  I think it's really sharp.

Here are construction steps six, seven and eight. These consist of some platforms for the 40mm anti-aircraft guns.

In this case, I painted the darker deck blue first, then the lighter haze gray, because I thought masking would be easier this way.  Photos show how I masked the parts; then the platforms painted; finally with the guns installed.

I dry-brushed with a lighter version of haze gray, then applied a pin wash.

Thanks again for looking.

Being a devote 72nd builder, you have my complete admiration for what you have done with these.

Wow guys!

BW: Really nice work there, do you normally attach the missiles before decaling though? I'd knock them all off before I finished.

Richard: Sharp job, yes the British colours and markings do really set her off from other P-47s!

CMK02: Wow, I still don't see how you guys can do something so small, guess I could use an optic-visor for my eyes but my fingers don't really go that small.

Each aircraft consists of four pieces.  The wings and fuselage are one piece, the main float under the fuselage is separate, and each one of the two wing floats is separate.  To paint the three floats, even by hand with a brush, I had to stick them on a piece of masking tape.  There wasn't anything else there to hang on to with 1:1 fingers.

I used white glue (Aleene's and Elmer's brands) to glue the parts together after painting, since I was certain that I would smear any CA all over the place, trying to get the parts into position.

Here's what they looked like on the sprue.

Did the aircraft need any assembaly or are they one complete piece.

Gee, Ms OWL and Bish, you are both too, too kind.  It took about two full weeks to get these done, what with waiting a day or two for paint to dry between coats, and then all the brush touch up.  The three-color scheme was a challenge.  The rest of the ship was easy in comparison.

Which now brings me to construction step five.  This was an emplacement for two 20mm anti-aircraft guns, located at the very prow of the ship--where Jack and Rose would have been, if they'd sailed on Wisconsin instead of Titanic.

First, the individual parts, then the parts assembled.  I waited till I had the emplacement glued down before I added the jackstaff.  Some photos of Wisconsin from WWII show no jackstaff in place, but if I'd left it off, there'd have been a gaping hole.

Thanks for looking.

Now thats some painting check. My hat off to you for those buddy.

ohmygosh!!! Those are super tiny!!!!!!

great work checkmate

I finally finished up construction step four for USS Wisconsin--building her three observation-recon planes, OS2U Kingfishers.  The Fujimi kit came with what looks like Seaking aircraft, and it appears that BB-63, USS Missouri, might have carried these, but Wisky was equipped with Kingfishers, so I bought a box of Trumpeter's 1/700 models, and built five of them for the "Floatplane" group build currently going on.

The first photo below shows the two that will not be on Wisky, posed with a penny for size.

The second photo shows all five aircraft, with the Wisky's complement in the foreground.  I found one photo of a VO-9 aircraft from BB-64, returning with a rescued pilot from USS Shangri-la (CV-38).  It showed a number "1" on the engine cowl, so I added a "2" and a "3" for the other planes--although I can't prove they really existed.

The last photo is a closer view of aircraft "1" from VO-9, the source for USS Wisconsin's observation planes.  I did a google check on the web, but found nothing at all about this unit.

I kept on working at BB-64 while finishing the floatplanes, so I finished the build last night, and will post photos of the remaining construction steps and the finished product a little at a time.

Thanks for looking.

Nice looking Thunderbolt, Richard.  Excellent work.

very nice Kermit! Ill get the front page updated