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Conversion complete(this time for sure): USS Arizonas pre WWI

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  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 4:46 PM

If I thought I could have removed the bulge’s and it would have looked at least as good as if I hadn't tried, I'd have considered it. I've had mixed results with this type of surgery, with more bad then good. After the nine failed deck prints I lost much of my initial enthusiasm for the project (I really, really hate having to clean out the vat after failed prints). Still not sure what that's about.

 

Anyway all that said, here are a couple curated post primer pictures.

 



BTW: the casemated guns are all there, not that anyone will ever see them, they look like the raised pair flanking the bridge.

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    April 2005
Posted by ddp59 on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 1:56 PM

i just want to show you how i did it for future refence as knew once you glued the "new" upper deck, you were not going to remove the "wannabe" bulges.

did you print the "full" 5" 51cal guns for the midship casements or just the gun barrels like you are going to do to the bow & stern casement guns?

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 1:34 PM

Hi Dave, I plan to paint her in good old boring Standard #5 gray, you won that debate hands down... and I had such high hopes for a more colorful palate. And while I appreciate your help, I'm drawing a line in the sand with removing her torpedo bulges! Especially now that the top works are done. So please, for the love of God! Stand down on removing them blasted torpedo bulges! It ain't going to happen brother! Smile

 

I am definitely one of them older, unexperienced modelers of which you speak - and I like it that way! Less stress.

 

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    April 2005
Posted by ddp59 on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 12:53 PM

being older does not mean more experienced as i have seen older modelers leave exposed seams on their models that experienced would not leave. i'm almost 65.

Joe, how does someone register onto your site so i can send pictures of the non-bulged Tennessee using an Arizona hull? are you going to paint that model?

  • Member since
    October 2019
  • From: New Braunfels, Texas
Posted by Tanker-Builder on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 12:45 PM

Hi Again Joe!

        yeah, These young un's don't know how stubborn, we older(Read, More experienced) modelers can be.I have a feeling you and I will be around for Roll Call for sure! Now as far as the modeling, I do have to take some time off, like three or four days at a time, But I get other stuff done that needs my attention!

       I am diving back in tomorrow to Decal the 'Severn" I am putting a dark blue wash on her today. I do hope it's dry by tomorrow afternoon. Those Decals are gorgeous. Gosh, I wish I could send photos from my phone here! i keep my phome on my bench for talks with my son. He is back to work part time and sounds happier! So he'll start doing his R.C. and Armor stuff again!

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 12:16 PM

TB, it’s good to hear you've got coping mechanisms to allow you to keep doing what you love. With me, it’ll likely be my sight that takes me out of model building, I’ve got the beginnings of something that looks a lot like macular degeneration going on… (explains a lot right?!) You never know though, something else may come up from behind and steal the win! The golden years are fun that way.

 With any luck we'll both be doing this long after we run out of shelve space.

 Speaking of no shelve space, I finished most of the major construction on the Revell Uss Arizona 1917 conversion. l still want to shave off the port holes and add the gun barrels to the bow and stern casemates. Thought it should be done towards the end of construction as I’d be chronically snapping them off with handling otherwise.

Shout out to Dave for guilting me into adding them!
I needed the prodding, I tend to be a lazy modeler otherwise…



Hopefully the painting will go smoothly and I do want to do some minimal rigging. I like the looks of the parallel horizontally run lines separated by suspended rods, that this era of US dreadnoughts had.

 

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    October 2019
  • From: New Braunfels, Texas
Posted by Tanker-Builder on Tuesday, May 28, 2024 6:23 PM

Hi Joe!

        Surprisingly there's good news wrapped up in this.The Doctor says in that it's assailed me so late in life, I won't have to deal with a lot of the other problems.

         Now here's the Kicker. When I am working on such things as the Arizona/Missouri planking I don't shake at all. Well, I cheat too! There are positions I can put the hands in that stabilizes them so's I can still model and if you wanna believe it, Paint a fairly straight Waterline without tape.

       It seems that my Movement  is engulfed in a period of  neural Blankness.This allows me to do things Like 1/350 P.E. Such as the "SOYA Third Corps."( Hasegawa) Man, talk about extra fine! Oy!  Some of the moldings are that small too!

     Arizona Update. Lookit the photo(The last one) very close. You can see the light playing games with the light on the various angles of the Turrets. Maybe that's where some of the confusion about their color is coming from?

          

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Tuesday, May 28, 2024 12:57 PM

I may choose to represent them as seen bellow, but definitely won’t be opening up the casements.

 

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Tuesday, May 28, 2024 12:48 PM

Nope - No guns for those casements on my Arizona.

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    April 2005
Posted by ddp59 on Tuesday, May 28, 2024 11:33 AM

i'm talking about the guns that where in those casements til sometime 1918,

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Tuesday, May 28, 2024 11:26 AM

Thanks for the update TB - I was curious how work on your Arizona was coming along and if you'd go wood for the decks. I love the look but wood hate the work. Smile
Many modelers easily exceed my max available levels of patience and ability. Probably a big part of my attraction to 3D printing, short cut...

You're a singularly unique individual and I enjoy having you around and reading your posts and comments, I'm hoping you can keep the blasted Parkinson's at bay for as long as you care to and keep doing what you love.

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Tuesday, May 28, 2024 9:35 AM

ddp59

Joe, the ship still had the casement guns at the beginning of 1918.

http://navsource.org/archives/01/017/01newhome.jpg

http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/39a.htm

 



I agree, but they were often closed
On the Revell kit they are there and closed, and while that was no doubt a permanent situation on the actual ship. IMO the look is the same or at least close enough, to the point where nothing I could change would be a cosmetic improvement.

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    April 2005
Posted by ddp59 on Tuesday, May 28, 2024 8:06 AM

Joe, the ship still had the casement guns at the beginning of 1918.

http://navsource.org/archives/01/017/01newhome.jpg

http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/39a.htm

  • Member since
    October 2019
  • From: New Braunfels, Texas
Posted by Tanker-Builder on Tuesday, May 28, 2024 7:40 AM

JoeSMG;

      She's been put away for a while. I didn't plan this But, Health has a way of interfering. I will say this though. I settled on a medium light Blue Grey. The Turret tops are the colors they were purported to be, with the Bloomers and all canvas as being dark Sea Blue.

      Admiral Kidd had not given the order to paint ship! So She will always be surrounded by an air of mystery there. The Model on display at the Memorial is#5 U.S.Navy Haze grey which a darker and slightly more blue looking than the grey in the Canal!

      As to the Wood Decks. They will be there. A plank at a time. I had a friend of mine skive two ships worth of Silver Oak(A Texas tree) to the proper thickness and width. There's, between the "Missouri" in 1945 fit and her ( The Arizona) over Forty-Five hundred planks four feet long that will need to be installed.That's alright though. When the "Parky" flares I can set them aside and just let it pass. I hope I get them done before I cross over though, hell, I have been around Eight Decades and one Year. Where has all the time gone?

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Monday, May 27, 2024 11:58 PM

The holes were a simple fix, mostly just filled them, about 8 in all. The bow and stern casements I'm leaving as is, plenty of photos of the early Arizona out there and most of them show those casements closed up, some with a gun barrel poking out some with no barrel showing.

 

I knew going into this, that the level of effort I was willing to put into a $25.00 Revell kit wasn't going to win any prizes, but this project has been (kind of) fun and definitely educational as to the difficulties of 3d printing replacement parts for kit moding.

 

I did get to glue the deck on including the printed casemated hull section and that was plenty tricky. spent the next three hours filling gaps as best I could. As usual, once finished, I now know how it could be done much better were I to do it again...

 

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    April 2005
Posted by ddp59 on Monday, May 27, 2024 6:41 PM

what are you going to do about the 2 holes on the main deck & what are you going to do about the gun casements at the bow & stern?

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Monday, May 27, 2024 4:34 PM

ddp59

Is the new upper deck smooth or printed to shows planking which would be out of scale? what are you going to do about the 2 holes on the main deck that was for the aircraft crane & deck catapult?

 

 
The deck is smoth-ish. I printed a smooth deck a bit on it's side, at about a 20 degree angle this inadvertently leaves faint layer lines running bow to stern (and they kind of look like planking). Did I do this on purpose? Yep. Does it better match the Revell part because I did? Sure. Is it perfect? Heck no!

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Monday, May 27, 2024 4:25 PM

ddp59

was the main deck cut done on a Monday or a Friday?

 

An excellent question demonstrating a keen understanding of Murphy’s Laws - It was a Monday (today), with a mild hangover...

 

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    April 2005
Posted by ddp59 on Monday, May 27, 2024 3:12 PM

i see you could not tell the difference between the upper deck where the bow is & the main deck where the stern is. was the main deck cut done on a Monday or a Friday? is the new upper deck smooth or printed to shows planking which would be out of scale? what are you going to do about the 2 holes on the main deck that was for the aircraft crane & deck catapult?

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Monday, May 27, 2024 2:47 PM

Take a look at the bow deck, see where the Revell deck ends and the printed deck starts?

Yup, I bone sawed the wrong deck peice... It's been that kind of a project.

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    April 2005
Posted by ddp59 on Monday, May 27, 2024 2:40 PM

would be about the same color as the vertical sides of the ship.

what happened to the main deck that caused the seam?

just in case you don't have this.

BB-39 USS Arizona Technical Drawings (1915)

https://archive.org/details/bb39ga1915/page/n5/mode/2up

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Monday, May 27, 2024 12:59 PM

I finally got a halfway decent, casemated upper deck replacement to print for my 1917 Revell USS Arizona project. I've had a bear of a time with this. The printer and/or my designs had issues causing my prints of the deck part to unexpectedly fail in odd ways. The bad prints weren't total failures though, and allowed me to determine if my measurements needed adjusting  (and they did). Nine print attempts and a bottle of resin latter, I have my first mockup pic to share.

 

The hull halves have been cut away to accept the casemated section then glued together. The casemated guns are glued into the new deck part and the main guns are secured to the deck parts but that's it, nothing else is glued down yet.

Don't even think of asking me about the seam on the stern deck part...

I do have a new question to put to the forum:
In the picture below I rendered the canvas parts tan, is that accurate?
Or did the US navy typically paint (or dye?) the canvas to match the rest of the ship?

Any thoughts?

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    April 2005
Posted by ddp59 on Monday, April 1, 2024 8:12 PM

that is why i use ie11 as no popup ads compared to google chrome.

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Monday, April 1, 2024 5:17 PM

Man! so many popup adds I can barrely reply!

Great picture CaptainMac. Brings up yet another question: Anyone know what & when the colors on the cage masts were? The older shots from the teens look like they could be standard gray #5 but seem likely to be darker. In the latter pictures they look black or dark shade on blue.

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    April 2005
Posted by ddp59 on Monday, April 1, 2024 11:13 AM

except it has been colorized so not true colors.

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • From: Formerly Bryan, now Arlington, Texas
Posted by CapnMac82 on Monday, April 1, 2024 10:58 AM

Not really the right time era, but this 1930 color image of USS Idaho & USS Texas was just too nice not to share:

  • Member since
    April 2005
Posted by ddp59 on Monday, April 1, 2024 9:45 AM

go thru this link about painting ww1 era US navy ships. https://www.subchaser.org/painting-and-cementing-vessels-usn

  • Member since
    April 2005
Posted by ddp59 on Friday, March 29, 2024 11:14 PM

no problem.

  • Member since
    January 2021
Posted by JoeSMG on Friday, March 29, 2024 10:50 PM

Great information, thank you again guys.

- Joe the SMG

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • From: Formerly Bryan, now Arlington, Texas
Posted by CapnMac82 on Friday, March 29, 2024 5:08 PM

ANd, USN was keen on a mid-brown linoleum on Signal bridge decks.

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