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1/96 USS Kearsarge - work in progress

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  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 1:13 AM
A good source for that scale is Warship Models Underway. Their forums are at http://www.wmunderway.8m.com/cgi/yabb/YaBB.cgi  I too am building a 1/96th scale ship. Mine is the USS North Carolina.
  • Member since
    January 2006
Posted by EPinniger on Saturday, July 8, 2006 1:44 PM
The seams in the deck are actually more visible in real life than in the photos, though hopefully once the armament and deck fittings are installed they won't be too bad. I filled them in with gap-filler CA, but unfortunately there is still a noticeable line there.
Replacing the deck with real wood is the best option (as with the Constitution) but I didn't really want to go that far, especially since it would cover up both the gun rails and the location points for the fittings and superstructure.

The weathered effect on the deck was made by first painting overall with Revell Earth Brown (acrylic) and then dry-brushing very heavily in the direction of the grain with Revell Stone Grey. (this is actually a pale cream colour). I then added an overall wash of heavily thinned burnt umber oil paint, with irregular patches of black wash, and finally added a lighter drybrush of Stone Grey over the top.
I think I might have overdone it a bit - then again my model represents the ship 25+ years after it was built - unless the deck planking had been replaced, it'd be looking fairly worn by then.

Anyway, I've nearly finished the fittings in the area under the forecastle now (this needs to be done before installing the foc'sle deck, as it's almost completely inaccessible afterwards) and will post a photo once it's done.
 
  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Friday, July 7, 2006 9:13 PM
Man that is looking good.  I love the weathering so far.
  • Member since
    December 2002
  • From: Greenville,Michigan
Posted by millard on Friday, July 7, 2006 8:18 PM

If you can find a copy of "How To Build Plastic Ship Models" By Les Wilkens.He has a page of pictures of the Kearsarge he build.Its been out of print for several years.On he's model he laid a wood deck and used typewriter paper to make his gun tracks.

Rod

  • Member since
    June 2006
  • From: Carmichael, CA
Posted by Carmike on Friday, July 7, 2006 2:55 PM

It looks like you're off to a good start.  I'm just about to start work on the Alabama (the kit has been sitting on the shelf for 20 years, so it's time).  You've done a great job in eliminating the seams between the three pieces of the deck, which has always seemed to be the weakest point of these kits.  Do you have any suggestions / tips that you could pass along - they would be very gratefully received.

Good luck with the Kearsarge. 

  • Member since
    January 2006
1/96 USS Kearsarge - work in progress
Posted by EPinniger on Friday, July 7, 2006 9:43 AM
Whilst this is a well-known kit, there don't seem to be many photos of built models out there on the web (in fact I haven't found any so far) so I thought I'd post some pictures of my build.

So far the hull and deck are assembled (the forecastle is not fitted yet) and painted, including basic weathering and drybrushing. Some minor retouching to the stripes is also needed. With large ship models I usually paint the hull before assembling the rest of the model - otherwise you usually end up damaging the rigging/fittings whilst painting.





Not really much to see at the minute but I will post more photos in this thread as the build progresses.

I am building the kit more or less OOB, representing the Kearsarge in 1880s configuration, with a few additional details such as bulwark interior ribs, glazed portholes + windows, etc.

Despite the flash, mould lines and sink marks, I'm very impressed with this kit. After building the Revell/Matchbox 1/72 Flower-class corvette (which needs much of the fine detail to be scratchbuilt) and recently starting the Lindberg 1/125 Fletcher-class destroyer (which needs virtually ALL the fine detail, and a lot of the larger components, to be scratchbuilt or heavily modified if you want a detailed + accurate finished model) it's a refreshing change to build a kit which is as comprehensively detailed as this "out of the box" - especially considering that it's more or less a contemporary of the above 2 kits.
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