Dragon 1/350 Buchanan - some comments

 

jtilley wrote:

There are, though, a few features of this kit that I find, if not disappointing, a little...well, puzzling.

First thank you for your comments on the kit. Both good and bad. You might as well hear it straight from the horses mouth. 

 

jtilley wrote:

.....The recessed portholes under the forecastle deck are particularly well-cast.  Unfortunately, though, photos confirm that, as one would expect, by the period represented by the kit (1942) the Buchanan's hull scuttles had been plated over.  .

That hull will serve as the basis for all of the future Benson/Gleaves class ships. The port holes were plated over before Buchanan went to war. The hull is a complex part and we had to find a happy medium. A bit of a compromise, but it is easy to fill than to drill new ones. Especially since the portholes follow the upward sweep of the main deck instead of being parallel to the waterline.

 

jtilley wrote:

2.  Except for those scuttles, the hawsehole lips, the aforementioned bilge keels, and the screws and rudders, there's no detail on the exterior of the hull.  The sonar dome, for instance, is conspicuous by its absence..

The Benson Gleaves class is basically a smooth hulled ship. The only visible plate lines are the two horizontal lines that run almost the full length of the ship. I have a lot of high resolution photos and the vertical lines are almost invisible. It really wasn't worth the trouble to do lines. The direction the mold pulls would stip the horizontal lines anyway. To get that effect you would need another slide in the mold. Too much cost not enough benefit. Besides those who want to to model these effects can scribe or mask them. There are some great tips on how to do plating on ModelWarships.com. Devin Poore's USS Laffey build comes to mind. The sonor dome is modeled in it's retracted mode. ;) Sorry I was still trying to find details on the sonar when we ran out of time. After 2 years work, we had to get something on the market, as many modelers were screaming about the delays.  Also one piece upper hull vs two piece. No contest, single is better to build as it is easier to fit a deck with one hull part than two hull halves and internal braces. The two hull halves is a compromise to allow more detail to be molded without slides. This was the best way to mold the hull, and the fit on the latest test shots for kit #2 proves this.

 

jtilley wrote:

3.  Dragon says the decks feature the "finest tread pattern ever reproduced."  I guess that's true, but having looked at the surfaces in question under magnification I've concluded that there's no genuine "tread pattern" there; just an extremely fine stippled texture.

I like the effect, but we will do better on our next kit. I had mixed feelings about this. Some like it some don't, but it is so fine that you can wipe it out by just using a heavy application of paint.

jtilley wrote:

4.  I really don't care for the way the foremast is molded - in two pieces,

I don't like the two part mast ether. But long tiny parts like that are hard to mold. To help give the mast strength a photo etch ladder was included to overlap the joint. Advanced modelers will replace this with brass anyway so I didn't lose any sleep over it.

jtilley wrote:

5.  The kit includes two frets of beautiful photo-etched brass parts, ....What I have trouble understanding is why some other parts aren't on the brass frets.

We didn't do everything to keep cost down, and to help the aftermarket companies stay in business.  I am looking forward to seeing what Gold Medal Models, White Ensign, and others come out with. The majority of modelers don't use the PE so that is just extra goodies in the kit. Not a big deal to me since I will probably use the aftermarket upgrade set anyway.

 

 

jtilley wrote:

6.  The most amusing mistake in the kit - and I do think this one qualifies as a mistake - concerns the instruction sheet.

Small editing error. I didn't notice that. But will look for it in the future. I don't mind the nit pick, as I want the next kit to be even better. We raised the bar with this one, and intend to keep on raising it. We have an ongoing list of complaints and praise for the kit on ModelWarships.com. I'm sure the next one will have some editing errors and molding issues, but it will be better.

 Timothy Dike AKA Cadman 

JMart wrote:

Here is the official announcement of the next Buchanan: http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/ships/dd/dd-484/dd484-45-pre/dragon-poster.html Seems Dragon has gone the "Limited release by Cyber-hobby" way with this kit... in the armor world, this means the first batch is snatched up immediately and then it starts to re-pop on Ebay at much higher values.

What are the major differences between the '42 and '45?

I like the General and Naval Officers

Here is the official announcement of the next Buchanan:

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/ships/dd/dd-484/dd484-45-pre/dragon-poster.html

Seems Dragon has gone the "Limited release by Cyber-hobby" way with this kit... in the armor world, this means the first batch is snatched up immediately and then it starts to re-pop on Ebay at much higher values.

Agreed. How does the expression go? '90% of statistics are made up on the spot!'  Once in a while I have run into a split-hull ship model that has caused a few problems, but nothing a bit of clamping couldn't deal with.  Usually this was caused by a bit of distortion in the hull halves 'out of the box,' and I have always thought this was due to insufficient cooling of the plastic before packaging, or perhaps storage in an overheated area, but I may well be wrong.  As far as finishing a split-hull model, the actual areas requiring sanding and filling are generally quite small (really just the bow and stern, as the bottom is not particularly visible), and certainly are not likely to remove or obscure any hull details.  In fact, until this thread began, I never thought about this 'issue' at all.  Does anyone else have a different experience? 

Gee, I called for an end to the feud twice before this entry with no notice.  Certainly, personal attacks are despicable.  Such anger has no place in these forums.

Hasegawa's 1/350 scale battleships are molded in port and starboard full hull halves that fit very nicely together.  I have no objection to this kind of structural molding as long as the halves and the decks fit well.

That leads to another issue; I keep reading such statements made earlier in this thread that " over 90 percent of shipmodelers . . ." and "97 percent of ship modelers . . .".  I have also read similar comments in other threads. For example, "Ship modelers make up only 13 percent of all modelers." or "Sailing ship modelers make up only x percent of all ship modelers."  I wonder about the methodology used in reaching those statistics.  As a ship modeler for over 50 years and as an historian, I have never seen a scientifically conducted poll, survey, questionairre, or other research method.  Data obtained only from sales figures are highly questionable given the limited availability of a wide variety of kits, at least until recently.  How do the manufacturers triangulate their data? What methods are used to determine the reliability and validity of their data?

In other words, I am highly sceptical when I read such statements.  Manufacturers have been using such statistics to limit our hobby for decades.  We should all question these statements and keep writing our letters!

Bill Morrison

jtilley wrote:

I feel more than a little guilty for having started this thread, because it has indeed descended to a level of discourse that I find highly distasteful - and that, as I hope everybody concerned will believe, I never intended it to reach.  I hope, though, that we can return to a degree of civility in talking about this superb kit for just a little longer

I agree with you here..shame that many discussions in this forum end up as a spitting match, very reminiscent of academic petty squabbles. I hope you still continue to post your opinions and reviews, there are valuable and informative!

"I haven't seen the new Hasegawa 1/350 battleships unassembled.  How are their hulls broken down?  And do any of you fellow Ship Forum members have strong opinions one way or another about hulls that are molded in port and starboard halves?  More specifically, if Dragon, having established the first-rate reputation that it has, were to release another destroyer, would any of you decline to buy it because the hull was split port/starboard?  I certainly wouldn't.  As a matter of fact, at this point I'm likely to buy just about any new ship those people make.  And I wish they'd think about getting into the sailing ship field"

- I dont have any of Hasegawas new 350 BBs, but a ModelShipWrights review of the 350 Mikasa BB states:

"The hull halves match up nicely and require minimal filler and cleanup. An immediate problem is that there is NO hull detail below the waterline. With the exception of thick bilge keels and four bilge holes, nothing. No ribs, steel plate, or torpedo doors. Considering "

from another review:

"Sprue A provides the full hull halves, split down the centerline. Those of us interested in building a waterline version will have to rely on some surgery. Fortunately, the internal bracing for the two hull halves are above the waterline and should not interfere with the surgery required."

Trumpeter's recent 350 BB offerings are one piece hulls (Richelieu, NC, etc).

I have a minuscule amount of modelling experience compared to you guys (being a hobby returnee). I recently started Dragon's 350 USS Kidd (split hull); fit was not very good. however, I take that as part of the "craft' we all need to learn. With the new (to me) welding glues like Tenax and circular sanding tools like Flexi-files, the prospect of a seamless hull joining is not out of the reach of beginner modelers (akin to a seamless aircraft hull construction). All builds have "painful" portions; ship rigging, complex canopy masking, indy track links.

If I want a waterline ship, i can choose from the myriad of past offerings (old "waterline series), or some of the newer kits with waterline options. This summary may be oversimplistic, but if a beginner/intermediate modeller wants a waterline ship, there are plenty of available choices, old and new. An advanced modeller should be able to make most kits into a waterline version, as long as the cut does not slice thru internal bracings. Over at MSW there is a build log of someone who is building a waterline version of Has' Nagato (one way to deal with the "CAD" lines ;).

Finally, to answer your last query, I would not make a buying decision based on hull splits. Dragon new releases would get my ship money, unless its a different/rare subject (eg SOYA). Trumpeter seems to still make many accuracy errors, but would purchase if I read enough good reviews. Hasegawa? Probably skip for now due to the Nagatos' CAD lines. But all depends on subject matter, quality and COST.

And I share with you the hope that one of the "big boys" releases a good plastic sail ship model for those of us who dont have the skills to build the wooden types!

 

I feel more than a little guilty for having started this thread, because it has indeed descended to a level of discourse that I find highly distasteful - and that, as I hope everybody concerned will believe, I never intended it to reach.  I hope, though, that we can return to a degree of civility in talking about this superb kit for just a little longer, for two reasons.  One - I need to retreat from a point I made earlier, and two - I think one of the points that have been raised is worth discussing, for reasons that go beyond this particular kit.

Having had my poor old post-middle-aged eyes directed into the proper places, I can confirm that the upper decks of the Dragon Buchanan do have a barely-perceptible cross-hatched pattern engraved in them.  It's so faint that I can only see it when the light is at the right angle, but it's there all right.  I've put a "later edit" notation to that effect in my original post.

I was interested in - and frankly more than a little surprised by - Mr. Smith's assertion that "almost the entire steelnavy era crowd loathes port and starboard split hulls."  I have no reason to think he's mistaken - and I imagine that was indeed a big consideration in Dragon's decision to split the hull top/bottom.  But I'm having trouble understanding why those modelers feel that way. 

Maybe part of the problem is that my principal interest is in sailing ships.  Nearly all plastic sailing ship hulls are split port/starboard.  (The only exceptions that come to mind immediately are the Pyro Gertrude L. Thebaud, the nice little Imai waterline sail training ships, and the three Monogram "beginner kits," the Constitution, Cutty Sark, and United States, that were released in the late seventies when the company was looking desperately for ways to attract new customers.)  Sailing ship modelers take it for granted that sticking the hull halves together and smoothing the joint is a basic part of building a model - just as aircraft modelers take it for granted that they're going to have to deal with seams running down the middles of fuselages.

The old, original 1/700 "Waterline Series" kits from Tamiya, Hasegawa, Fujimi, and Aoshima, also released back in the seventies, generated gasps of awe because (with a few exceptions) their hulls and maindecks were cast integrally, thereby saving the modeler the problem of cleaning up a joint where the hull met the deck.  In view of the mediocre standards of parts fit that we were used to in those days, that made sense.  But if the hull and deck parts are cast separately, as in the Dragon Buchanan, that advantage disappears.  (Let it be noted that, on the basis of dry-fitting, it looks to me like the fit between the decks and the hull of that kit is excellent.) 

After I thought about this a bit I got out my unbuilt Tamiya 1/700 U.S.S. Missouri.  (It, too, is awaiting my attention in my embarrassingly big stash.)  Its hull is molded in port and starboard halves; the modeler assembles them to a "waterline plate" with five thick reinforcing "bulkheads" mounted on it to make the hull stable.  The port and starboard halves, unsupported, amount to strips of styrene with curvature molded into them; if you hold one of those hull halves at one end, the other end will flap almost like a piece of paper.  But the "waterline plate" and the "bulkheads" make the resulting assembly plenty sturdy.  The fit of the halves at the bow and stern (the only places where they touch) seems to be excellent; if any filling and/or sanding is necessary, the combined length of the two seams will be less than an inch.

The hull halves of that 1/700 battleship are considerably longer than the hull of the 1/350 Buchanan.  In height, they're almost identical at the stern; at the extreme bow the Buchanan is about 1/32" taller than the Missouri.  It looks to me like the same kind of tooling that made the Missouri's hull halves would be perfectly capable of doing the same thing for a 1/350 destroyer - with no slide molding or other unusual technology necessary. 

That Missouri is strictly a waterline kit, and adding the underwater hull inevitably would create some additional complexity - and the potential of more seams to fill.  The manufacturers' track record for making tight-fitting hull halves isn't exactly distinguished.  (One of my all-time favorite small-scale warship kits, though it's about thirty years old now, is the Italeri 1/720 H.M.S. Hood.  Its hull is molded in four parts:  port upper, starboard upper, port lower, starboard lower.  The fit between the two lower halves is, to put it mildly, not up to the standard set by the rest of the kit.)  But I'll bet a modern company like Dragon or Tamiya is perfectly capable of making a pair of full hull halves that would fit together as well as the halves of the typical aircraft fuselage - i.e., pretty daggone well.  And I continue to think that Airfix was onto something with its idea of molding a full hull in halves, with a scribed waterline inside.   

Several parts of the Tamiya Missouri (not the hull halves, admittedly) have "flashed-over" holes in them to accommodate such things as anti-aircraft mounts, so the same parts can be used for other members of the Iowa class.  Surely the same approach would work for scuttles in a hull, if it were molded in port and starboard halves.  (The modeler could pick which scuttles to drill out, depending on the date.)  And yes - fore and aft of the armor belt on the Tamiya 1/700 Missouri are a series of extremely fine raised lines representing the edges of the hull plates.

On its website, Tamiya uses the fact that several of its latest ship kits (the Indianapolis, Missouri, Iowa, New Jersey, Mikuma, Mogami, Kumano, Suzuya, Repulse, and maybe one or two others) have hulls that are "divided in two halves in order to reproduce the finest details" as a means of promoting them: http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/31342mikuma/index.htm .   I can't claim to have read every review of those kits that's been published in print or posted on the web, but I have the impression that all of them have been well-received - for good reason.

I can't blame the manufacturers if they're responding to market research in splitting their hulls top/bottom.  But I hope the Tamiya approach catches on, and that the 1/350 kits will catch up.

I haven't seen the new Hasegawa 1/350 battleships unassembled.  How are their hulls broken down?  And do any of you fellow Ship Forum members have strong opinions one way or another about hulls that are molded in port and starboard halves?  More specifically, if Dragon, having established the first-rate reputation that it has, were to release another destroyer, would any of you decline to buy it because the hull was split port/starboard?  I certainly wouldn't.  As a matter of fact, at this point I'm likely to buy just about any new ship those people make.  And I wish they'd think about getting into the sailing ship field.

As I have said at the very beginning, in this, and several other threads, I really like the USS Buchanan kit, and everyone else who has bought says the same thing!  What amazes me is the vicious personal attacks from Mr Smith and from Mr White that have come at the mere suggestion that something else might be done with this kit, or its follow-ons in the future!  And in Mr Smith's case, he supposedly has had something to do with the production of this kit (my apologies Mr White!)?  I rather think if his superiors at Dragon had any idea of the kind of tone he has taken in such a public forum might in fact result in his losing his job forthwith (if this has not already happened)!  Worse still, similar commentary has apparently come from people who have no vested interest in the production of the kit itself, but at the end of the day, are simply other modellers (Mr. White)! 

Look folks, NO kit is EVER perfect, and this kit is no exception!  Technology, and the demands of the market will outstrip this kit, even as the Tamiya 'Fletcher' kit was eventually outstripped.  Place no confidence in the superiority of current technology and production methods, as this too shall pass.  While the Buchanan may be considered 'state of the art' now, next week, next month, next year, it will be considered passe or entirely outdated.  Frankly gentlemen, and as I have stated before, you have your opinions, your thoughts and suggestions, I have mine, others have theirs, and really, there is nothing more to be said on this topic. 

I agree with the "knotted panties" comment.  Gentlemen, why criticize one of the finest plastic model ship kits ever produced?  More importantly, why criticize each other in personal attacks?  It's ridiculous.

Mr. Smith, thank you for your insight. I, for one, appreciate your time and efforts. No defense of this kit is necessary (unlike Hasegawa's NAGATO and MUTSU!).  Even with those kits, Hasegawa did a tremendous job except for those CAD lines.

Bill Morrison

This threads reminds me of some of the academia fights I used to enjoy (NOT) at the conferences I used to attend, sort of whose PhD is longer.

For my 2cents (and 30USD), I rather but this kit (and five more) at 30$ plus 30-40$ in PE than buy another 300$ (kit + pe) nagato with <whatevers> lines all over the hull. Bears repeating, Dragon is/will be getting a lot more of my modelling money than any other vendor.

I have got to laugh at all the knotted panties this thread has generated. 

Well, at last a spirited defense for a kit has been made by someone associated with its manufacture!

Not even close to a defense, that would imply offense. What you got was the reasoning behind some decisions, do learn to differentiate the two. 

That said, and as I have stated in several other threads, I think the Dragon USS Buchanan is one of the finest 1/350 scale ships around, and agree fully that any 'improvements' that could be made would be either 'gilding the lilly,' or add enormously to the costs.

Thanks from the team that worked on it. That last word is the critical word....costs. 

(though I still would love to see an 'oilcanning' version one day, since one of the primary things most modellers do is apply great efforts to 'weather' a subject, be it ship, plane, or armor!)

You aren't likely to ever see it in 1/350, over 90% are built full hull in the clean dockyard style, regardless of how long the vessel had been in service prior to wearing a given paint scheme. Of the remaining 10% of the market, maybe 25% of them want oilcanning molded on the hull, that makes it 2.5% of the total 1/350 market. That's the reality of the market. The waterline guys should just be thankful Dragon molded the hull for ease of waterlining and unlike most they placed the split at minimum draft instead of the typical maximum draft for waterlined kits. Keep in mind, over 90% of the 1/350 market DOES NOT WANT oilcanning or heavy weathering like the plane and tank guys love. That market force right there and percentage that want a given feature preclude it ever happening in kit form.....deal with it.

I appreciate Mr. Smith's having taken the trouble to respond.  Though he seems to have gotten a little emotional about the comments that have been made in this thread, he hasn't actually said much that contradicts my original post.  That said, since, Mr. Smith seems to have characterized my comments as "semi-accurate," I'll respond.

You're welcome, now stop confusing emphatic with emotional. You got as straight a set of facts as possible from anyone other than the decision makers at Dragon or Tim Dike. Some things they just decided to do or not do as pleased them. And a number of your statements were only semi-accurate. 

It seems to me, though, that it would make more sense to treat such openings the way the manufacturers treat such things as the mounting holes for parts that vary from ship to ship:  mold them as countersunk depressions on the inside of the part, so the modeler can drill them out if and when appropriate.

Then you know little or nothing about the molding process, you just added a number of slides at very tight tolerances in a very complicated moving unit for the geometry of that specific part, which is a common part to all kits that may be made from the basic design.  

In any case, as I noted the first time around, this point belongs under the heading of "no big deal."  We're not talking about an error of the magnitude that's got purchasers of the Hasegawa battleships incensed; we're talking about a small error in accuracy that's easily fixed.

I agree exept it being an accuracy issue, it is a common part planned for further use where that feature will be needed. It makes more sense economically to have the feature. Dragon should have indicated on the instructions to fill the portholes so the error would be on the instructions, not the part, that's fairly common on some Hasegawa aircraft for panel lines and some Dragon tanks for small things molded on parts common to most but not all variants of the base vehicle. 

I agree that the sonar dome should not have been cast integrally with the hull.  But why couldn't it have been cast as a separate part?  I also agree that a number of other external features of the hull would have been worth showing.

You'd have to ask Dragon why they didn't for the dome. The gross features would be worth showing but not at the cost of making it less buildable or driving up the cost of the mold. 

We all know there are limitations to the molding process, and that everything that's added to a kit costs the manufacturer money.  But if we accept the legitimacy of the argument that it's ok to leave something off because putting it on would "not be cost-effective," where do we stop?

The stopping point is where it would turn a 1/350 destroyer that retails for under $50 to one that would require a retail of $100 to recoup costs. Put a slide in the mold, approx. quadruple the cost for the part, require tolerances to 5 decimal places quintuple the cost of that cut and the risk of rejecting the mold for missing the tolerance.

Was the inclusion of those two little preformed pieces of brass for the shields around the sky lookout positions cost-effective?  I doubt it.

Actually it was, they already have most of the tooling needed from their armor line and the part could not accurately be done in injected plastic with a reasonable rejection rate.

And I still think it would be practicable to represent hull plating on this scale - albeit probably not on a two-piece hull split at the waterline.

For sure not on any hull that isn't one piece. Now go back to adding slides to the mold, tolerances and potential for rejecting the mold for a bad cut. Quintuple the cost of each cut then add in the risk of not holding a 5 decimal place tolerance on a compound curved structure. Not cost effective for an affordable injected kit. The resin guys can do it cost effectively with their manufacturing process but the injection companies can't. Unless you want it 3 or 4 times scale with much looser tolaerances and end up with a cartoonish looking hull.

Several of Mr. Smith's comments seem to be based on the assumption that the hull had to be produced that way.  I don't understand why.  Other companies have shown hull plating reasonably effectively in kits (though I admit I can't offhand think of one in 1/350) with their hulls cast in port and starboard halves - which would make the casting of the hull plating lines simpler.

You still have a seam with plates that cross it. Not rocket science by any stretch, it just can't be done cost effectively, deal with that fact. One of the reasons the hull is done like it is, is to make the 10% of the 1/350 market that likes waterlined hulls happy. Another is the internal bracing that prevents flex after assembling the parts. Almost the entire steelnavy era crowd loathes port and starboard split hulls, they just do not build well and are not as rigid after assembly.

Just before it got out of the warship business, Airfix figured out a good, simple solution to the "full-vs.-waterline hull" problem:  mold the full hull in port and starboard halves, with an incised groove at the waterline on the inside.  The modeler who wants a full-hull model does nothing; the one who wants a waterline model "waterlines" the kit in a few minutes by running an X-acto knife along the groove.  I wonder why other companies haven't gone that route.

See above re:loathing that type of hull split. Personally I think all 1/350 and larger ships should be molded full hull and the waterline crowd can just learn how to use a height gauge and saw, for that matter just learn to make a jig for the ripfence of a tablesaw and have at it (yes I do jig resin hulls with heavy overpour blocks just like that and zip most of it off on my 10" tablesaw, no big deal).

I did take another look at the various deck components.  (If I'm reading Mr. Smith's post correctly, this is the only point on which he says I'm actually mistaken.)  If there's a "diamond" tread pattern I sure can't see it, even under magnification.  (I didn't use the word "random" to describe it, by the way.  There's nothing random about it.)   I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Smith that it would have been better to leave the pattern off.  On the other hand, the texture is so fine that anything other than the thinnest layer of paint will obscure it.  It can hardly be said to have messed up the appearance of the model.  I think this one falls in the category of "it doesn't make any difference one way or the other."  (But was the application of that texture cost-effective?)

I bet you're looking at the wrong parts, only the upper decks aft of the focsl break have it, you can't miss it. It's accurate for the FSDD Kearny built batch of which Buchanan was part. If you're putting paint on heavy enough to obscure it, you're using way too much paint. I think you're looking at the typical slightly grainy texture of EDM on the main and focsl decks. Dragon saw the diamond tread on the hi-res photos and decided they just had to do it, despite all advice against it.

My intention, like I said, is to make a replacement foremast out of brass.  But I still don't see why the plastic one had to be made in two parts - or why the bell (or the antenna trunks, for that matter) got left off.

Logical break point for a different style of mast most likely. Not that it matters for those that rig, plastic masts that thin are only useful as a master for turning brass. Got me on the bell and antenna trunks. 

Apparently the absence of the photo-etched parts I mentioned was, as I assumed, due to economic considerations.  I confess I have trouble understanding why Dragon thought the seats for the 1.1-inch guns and the binoculars in the sky lookout positions needed to be represented and the structure and rails for the searchlight platform didn't - to say nothing of the radar screen.  I don't - and never did - blame Mr. Smith or any of the other designers for any of that.

You can't really represent the sights, seats and binoculars close to scale any other way. I find the lack of PE for the searchlight tower puzzling myself. Become familiar with their current armor kits to know why they like some PE fiddlies. 

Mr. Smith makes some interesting and helpful comments about the color scheme - but never gets around to explaining why the instructions (except the overall camouflage diagram) don't tell the modeler what color goes where.  I repeat:  it looks like an editing error.  It's hard to believe that Dragon, having included that long list of colors in the introductory section, deliberately omitted any indication of which color should go on which part.

WWII camouflage USN ships just aren't that detailed for colors and very rarely in 1/350 would you need to worry about it. It's not like a sailing ship or aircraft cockpit with lots of fiddly bits painted different colors, camouflaged vessels typically had everything exposed painted unless there was a valid mechanical reason not to. Other than the light boxes, anchor chains and 20mm's there is nothing to call out. I do agree they should have for those parts but they are also learning a whole new genre for them.

It looks more like they intended to put together the instruction diagrams the way virtually all the company's others are, and somebody simply made a human error somewhere in the process.

They were adamant about the format of instructions, we tried to change a lot of the build order. I think it has more to do with the multi-language pictogram thing than anything else.

I agree with Mr. Smith about "oil-canning."  It would be extremely difficult for a manufacturer to reproduce at this scale, and in my opinion is the sort of thing that's better left to the individual modeler.  (It might be said to fall in the same category as "weathering.")

Especially considering every ship is different, even from itself at various times. The Benson-Gleaves class as a general rule did not oilcan badly during the war. Of the 300 or so photos I have of the class, only Lansdowne and Lardner show any signifcant oilcanning and only at their extreme sterns and it's *maybe* as deep as their plating is thick (.00142" in scale at most). Oher B-G's do show some "skin puckering" in Boston Navy Yard or Puget Sound Navy Yard in cold weather but see them later in the Med. or South Pacific and the puckering is gone, this applies as late as early 1946. Too subtle and too variable for the class and scale, not worth irritating the 97% of the market that doesn't want it.

Mr. Smith ends his first paragraph with the assertion that the kit "isn't perfect...but...darned close."  I'll go further than that.  It comes closer than any other ship kit I've ever encountered.  If the standards of plastic twentieth-century warship kits never get any higher than this, I won't complain.

Just wait.........ths team and Dragon know that better is possible. Keeping it in the reasonable price range is the challenge. 

Well, now you have me curious!  Mr. Smith argued against 'oilcanning' using the simple argument that 'most people' want a dockyard model, and made no mention of real difficulty in doing so.  A reasonable commercial argument!  As such things as plate lines, tiny seats, individual sailors with shirt pockets and all sorts of other tiny details at 1/350 scale can be apparently molded without difficulty, it seems to me that an 'oilcanning' effect might not be too difficult to mold if it was wanted (no more difficult than a cambered wood deck, I would imagine).  Certainly, I have seen all sorts of surface details molded at very tiny scales (the diamond tread pattern, for one, 'eyebrows' over portlight scuttles for another), and an 'oilcanning' effect would certainly be very much larger than any of these.  Can anyone tell me what the technical difficulties for producing such an effect might be?

Already addressed above. You obviously have no idea of the costs of researching each individual "pattern" or whether enough photos of said "pattern" exist for every vessel at every time, at useful resolutions, not web-based lo-res. You also obviously have no idea of how molds are cut, what it costs to hold the required tolerances neccessary to prevent turning out a "drag queen cartoon" of a ship. Back to commercial...........it's not worth irritating the 97% of the market that doesn't want it.

This is what I have been talking about.  This 'oilcanning' is on the aricraft carrier 'Franklin D. Roosevelt,' and really shows up at certain angles.  In this case, the oilcanning resulted from pounding into a heavy storm in the Gulf of Tonkin, but will stay there pretty much indefinitely until either the plates are replaced, or they get faired as a part of repainting (unlikely to happen in either case).  In reality, you don't see it 'sometimes' on ships, but almost invariably on any ship that has seen some hard service (I note that Dragon is coming out with an 'end of the war' version of Buchanan as well, which certainly qualifies for 'hard service').

See above re:Benson-Gleaves class and lack of oilcanning during the war. See also thermal effects re:"skin pucker" vs. true oilcanning.  You make assumptions here without any factual basis. You keep harping on a  "feature" that an insignificant portion of the market wants that would probably triple the cost of cutting the mold in scale.

Yes, the compound shapes of ship hulls are tricky for molding.  So are the shapes of aircraft wings, fuselages, etc. yet very subtle platelines, rivets, you name it have been available on these for quite a long time.

Hulls are significantly more complex forms, it wasn't until the last few years you could even get software in the multi-thousand dollar range that could accurately loft a hull, especially the older hull forms that were originally done by hand. Now name me a single 1/350 scale aircraft or tank with in scale details. Wait, you can't. Not even 1/48 aircraft are truly detailed in scale. Now name me a single injected kit with details that are continuous for 12" where the detail is a maximum of .00142" high along a compound curve with a tolerance of +/- .0001"........I'm waiting.

Perhaps the the upper mold of 'Buchanan' could be made in two pieces, so as to make such additional details more possible.  Certainly there has been no evidence of problems in portlight placement, etc, etc.

Learn what a tolerance is......... 

Ordinarily when fitting hull parts together, any filling and sanding to be done is on a very limited area, not the whole hull, as this would certainly eliminate most hull details, not just oilcanning.

You need to learn how hulls are constructed, there is almost no place to place a seam without it being so close to a detail of .00142" maximum that you won't destroy the detail with any amount of sanding, no matter how light. It is not physically possible in this scale. One piece hull is the only way. You're asking for details as fine or finer than the mold parting lines at the ends of the bilge keels.

Perhaps it is just not possible to mold-in oilcanning with current technology, or in a cost-effective manner, but that doesn't mean it cannot be done in the future (in other words, it was a suggestion to think about for future production).  More importantly, model companies produce kits for customers to buy, not to suit themselves, so whether YOU want a particular feature or not is rather beside the point, don't you think?

See market percentage, etc. ad nauseum above. 

Here's another one...

 

Well, it appears we have got to the root of the misconception.  I (and others, I think) were under the impression that you were somehow associated with the production of this kit by Dragon, but apparently this is not the case.  That means you are just a modeller like the rest of us, and your opinion is of no greater interest or impact than any of the rest of us. In other words, what you want to do with your kit, and/or what kind of kits and/or what kind of features you are looking for is no better or worse, or less, or more important than anyone else's.  In that case, I return to my original thought/suggestion, which was, wouldn't it be cool if the manufacturers could somehow reproduce the 'oilcanning' effect in the mold, especially if they are going to issue a 'before,' as well as an 'after' kit!  If you want to build a dockyard model for yourself, that's fine, and there is nothing wrong with that, enjoy and make it as shiny as you like.  But a lot of people like to produce a lot of different weathering effects in order to produce a model that represents the ship 'in service,' and that is equally an excellent objective, and the two are not mutually exclusive.  I think we can end this discussion now.

searat12 wrote:

I think it is pretty obvious here that you have an outstanding opinion of yourself and your work, and that is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is not very good for customer relations.

Actually, I don't have a high opinion of myself or my work... I've been around too many good modelers for that to happen. I'm also NOT a representative of Dragon; I provided some information for the Essex class, that was it. I did provide some feedback on pictures of some of the test shots and said I didn't like the diamond tread, but you can see how far that got. I'm just an amateur researcher and historian, but I do regular research in the national archives and have a familiarity for the records that is above some historians... I'm not tooting my horn, just saying don't dismiss me out of hand.

And these aren't attacks on you; you made an assumption about the figures being easy and it was an incorrect assumption. Correcting assumptions aren't personal attacks. And I found your lecture about what companies do a little one-sided; yes they do produce kits for customers to buy, but they have to do it at a cost that the customer will bear, and recoup an investment that will leave them healthy so that they can work on the NEXT project. Don't forget it was YOU who wanted the feature, not me.

Back to the oil canning and hull plating. Your  Israeli F-15 is a prime example of what I'm talking about. The lines are RECESSED and grossly over scale; you never see panel lines on a plane like that unless they're weathered or the lighting is juuuuuuust right. I'll even choose a F-15 to use as an example. This Agressor F-15 has both light and dark paints, sunlight and shadow. Note that you can see the panel lines on the bottom, but that these lines, when you look at them, are visible because of the STAINING caused by fluids and discharge or wear. If you look at the undersides of the wings, no panel lines are visible. Note that it's harder to see the panel lines in general on the darker paint, or in the sunlight areas where details are blown out by the more intense light.

This is important as when we build models we need to compensate for light as we're trying to represent shadow and highlight at 1/350th or 1/700th the size in full light.

Caveat: unless you're just building for fun, to which I say Have at it!

Regardless, we need to look at photos and determine what we're actually seeing before we try and replicate it. For example, are you seeing panel lines here or the result of  paint chipping away from the very corner of a joint and rusting to form a COLOR outline of the panels?

So let's get back to the Buchana kit. How much oilcanning do you see in this 1944 picture, after Lansdown has seen a couple years of service? I see irregular distortion here and there from tug or dock hits, but no regular oilcanning pattern. There is a VERY faint lap joint seam visivle on the bow, which I'll cover in the next paragraph. How about this picture of the former Woodworth in 1951 (PS, notice the portholes are back)?  I see a lot of evidence of bumps from other ships, tugs, and docks, but only a little bit of oil canning, and when I hold my Buchanan kit up between the screen and myself the bow matches when it's about six inches away, meaning the forward end of that ship is the equivilent of about six inches away from me in viewpoint; what differences in surface height are we talking about if I can barely see it in 350th at six inches?

Reguarding the hull plating joints; these were lap joints for the most part and were not flush. A recessed panel line as on that F-15 you posted would be grossly incorrect in that scale. One plate was over the top of the other one at the edge with a lap joint. Representing a lap joint in that scale would involve a lot more than just a simple line. You *barely* see that joint ever, especially for anything longer than say 75 feet of hull.

Only on light paint, only in moderate to bright light, unless weathering has exposed the edge and caused rust to darken it or the vantage point is less than 50 feet away.

And that, is my *opinion* as to why oil canning and plating shoul not be done by a  manufacturer.

Gentlemen,

Let's agree to keep this within certain bounds of decorum.  We must realize that there are many of us who know a great deal about ships, the effects of the sea on those ships, and of naval/maritime history.  This knowledge is not limited to one or two of us; many of us have practical experience, many of us have academic knowledge, and many of us have both.  I myself was not only a professional sailor for 24 years, but I earned my MA in History with a focus on Maritime and Naval History under Ben Laboree, Bill Fowler, and Ted Sloan at the Munson Institute in the Mystic Seaport Museum. Professor Tilley certainly must be familiar with those names.  But, there is much that anyone of you can teach me about my modeling.  Let's respect that and keep our discussions amicable.

As far as whether we or the manufacturers model the "oilcanning" or "waffleing" of hull plates that occurs with hard use of every ship; doesn't that depend upon whether one is modeling the ship as built or as the result of heavy use.  If the latter, to what extent should the modeler look at the individual photographic record to determine precisely which plates were involved and to what extent?  How picky do we want to get?

And for panel lines on ships . . . they are a very visible feature on all ships.  They should be included to some extent on larger scale ship models (CAD lines are NOT panel lines).

Bill Morrison

 

Looks like quite a few recessed panel lines here, at 1/72 scale too...

Tracy White wrote:

searat12 wrote: More importantly, model companies produce kits for customers to buy, not to suit themselves, so whether YOU want a particular feature or not is rather beside the point, don't you think? And thank you for negating YOUR requested feature at the same time! What I mean by you only see oil canning some times is that past a certain difference, or in different paint schemes, it's not apparent. I am an aircraft modeler originally. I still buy more aircraft than I do ships. I am also a licensed (but non practicing) airframe and powerplant mechanic who has been around the real thing quite a bit. Your statement about subtle platelines and rivets does not stand up to scruitiny. In my book; all panel lines and rivets are grossly over scale, and no one has done a slightly-raised panel in injection molded plastic that I've seen. Would you care to list a couple of examples? We clearly have a difference of opinion here. I hope you get some satisfaction at some point with some ship kit but hope it's not on one I want to build!

I think it is pretty obvious here that you have an outstanding opinion of yourself and your work, and that is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is not very good for customer relations.  Please read carefully ALL that I have written, stop being so defensive of your work, and take both my, and Professor Tilley's comments as suggestions for improvement/upgrade/future endeavours, not criticism of what has been done so far.  One final point, no modeller is EVER satisfied with ANY level of detail, and there are always improvements that can be made, and will be asked for.  That is what keeps the business moving forward.  Take it for what it is, not as some sort of personal attack (cuz it ain't!).

Agreed.  As I have stated in this, and other threads, the Dragon USS Buchanan is one of the finest 1/350 scale model ships I have ever seen, and everyone else on this and other threads has said the same thing.  The only dispute I have is the idea that a model manufacturer makes kits for itself, and is not interested in hearing suggestions for future subjects.  As you noted, 'oil canning' takes place over time and service.  Dragon has released a 'dockyard' model of USS Buchanan circa 1942.  That's fine and dandy.  They are about to release another edition of USS Buchanan, this time 1945.  Do you agree that after all the trials and tribulations, storms and what have you of three years of almost constant warfare in the Pacific, in all conditions and all weathers a fair bit of 'oil canning' is going to be likely??

searat12 wrote:

More importantly, model companies produce kits for customers to buy, not to suit themselves, so whether YOU want a particular feature or not is rather beside the point, don't you think?

And thank you for negating YOUR requested feature at the same time! What I mean by you only see oil canning some times is that past a certain difference, or in different paint schemes, it's not apparent.

I am an aircraft modeler originally. I still buy more aircraft than I do ships. I am also a licensed (but non practicing) airframe and powerplant mechanic who has been around the real thing quite a bit. Your statement about subtle platelines and rivets does not stand up to scruitiny. In my book; all panel lines and rivets are grossly over scale, and no one has done a slightly-raised panel in injection molded plastic that I've seen. Would you care to list a couple of examples?

We clearly have a difference of opinion here. I hope you get some satisfaction at some point with some ship kit but hope it's not on one I want to build!

One thing to keep in mind about replicating oil canning is that the younger a hull, the less of an effect one will see.  Oil canning develops over the life of the ship.  The modeler should check photos of the appropriate time in the ship's life before busting out the Xacto or Dremel to avoid overdoing the affect.

I hope that other ship kit manufacturers will take a lesson from Dragon's Buchanan.  IMHO, no other plastic ship model is as accurately shaped or filled with as much detail, or contains as well-cast crew figures if any at all. 

The modeler who recognizes the very minor problems with the Dragon kit discussed here can easily correct themif he or she so chooses.  Not so with kits made by other manufacturers, even those produced recently.

IMHO, it is very fair to criticise a plastic kit costing about $100 if the parts don't fit well and the hull is noticebly inaccurately shaped, especially if the kit is of a subject that is very well documented photographically and where accurate plans are easily available (e.g. Bath Iron Works real builders plans or others from Floating Drydock).   Parts fit and inaccurately shpaed hull is not easy to correct.  Trumpter kits go for around $100 and their 1/350 North Carolina, Hornet and Essex kits have these two major problems, Hornet being the worst of the three.  We've all seen comments about the Hasegawa "Excell spread sheet" hull detailing.  Imagine an plastic aircraft model produced after the year 2000 that had a rivet pattern arranged like that.  The howls from the aircraft modeling community would be deafening.

As a specific example of parts fit and accuracy, consider the recently released Trumpter 1/350 Yorktown.  It's a good kit but suffers from a noticeable hull shape problem similar to, but not as bad as, their Hornet kit's supertanker hull.  Although marketed as "Yorktown 1944" the kit does not portray Yorktown as she appeared at any time during her service life.  Worse, the parts fit is terrible and every single part required reshaping and ejector pin mark filling.  After two years of trying to correct the most glaring problems of Trumpeter's 1/350 Yorktown kit parts, I am very reluctant to plop down any money on another Trumpter product.  Having to make so many corrections simply sucked too much of the joy out of building the kit.  

Although I am just starting Dragon's Buchanan, I am not having any of the same problems with the Dragon kit. It's a joy to build.  I'd gladly purchase another Dragon ship kit.

Yup, these are all good suggestions, and I have heard and seen others.  In the submarine example above, there are two things going on, one is 'oilcanning,' and the other is platelines, which according to Tracy above, is also 'impossible' to mold.  But all the 'fixes' take a number of steps, require a number of different products, etc, etc, etc.  All I suggested originally was 'wouldn't it be cool if they could simply mold in the 'oilcanning' and save us all a lot of extra work?'  I had no idea this would cause such a fuss!

you could attempt to replicate that with some of the techniques used in WW1/canvas aircraft, even soft-skinned armor. Lighter shades/light pre-shade in the middle "panel", preshade black at the edge,very thin (stretched sprue or similar) at the edges, cover with some Mr Surfacer and lightly sand. Basecoat paint, then finish with a sludge wash in one direction (brush stroke), so the thinned washed accumulates against your "edge", giving an appearance of a "dimple". Not sure if this would work at the larger scales (350).

Great picture btw, thanks for sharing.

Here's another one...

This is what I have been talking about.  This 'oilcanning' is on the aricraft carrier 'Franklin D. Roosevelt,' and really shows up at certain angles.  In this case, the oilcanning resulted from pounding into a heavy storm in the Gulf of Tonkin, but will stay there pretty much indefinitely until either the plates are replaced, or they get faired as a part of repainting (unlikely to happen in either case).  In reality, you don't see it 'sometimes' on ships, but almost invariably on any ship that has seen some hard service (I note that Dragon is coming out with an 'end of the war' version of Buchanan as well, which certainly qualifies for 'hard service'). 

Yes, the compound shapes of ship hulls are tricky for molding.  So are the shapes of aircraft wings, fuselages, etc. yet very subtle platelines, rivets, you name it have been available on these for quite a long time.  Perhaps the the upper mold of 'Buchanan' could be made in two pieces, so as to make such additional details more possible.  Certainly there has been no evidence of problems in portlight placement, etc, etc.  Ordinarily when fitting hull parts together, any filling and sanding to be done is on a very limited area, not the whole hull, as this would certainly eliminate most hull details, not just oilcanning.  Perhaps it is just not possible to mold-in oilcanning with current technology, or in a cost-effective manner, but that doesn't mean it cannot be done in the future (in other words, it was a suggestion to think about for future production).  More importantly, model companies produce kits for customers to buy, not to suit themselves, so whether YOU want a particular feature or not is rather beside the point, don't you think?

Who said there was no difficulties with the figures? It's very easy to say "It shouldn't be a problem to do this" when you've never actually worked the problem or technology before yourself.

Most of the details you mention are on flat pieces... they can be done with a two-piece mold coming at each other from 180 degrees and pulling straight back. The hull is a much more dynamic shape, with compound curves. Think of the models you've built that just used two pieces and how the details got softer as the surface became more "vertical" in regards to the sides of the mold

In order to get the bilge keels as good as they did Dragon had to use slide molds composed of more than two parts, coming in at different angles. The tolerances required for this are much higher. Now, imagine you want to add plating in a uniform, subtle, pattern across an entire hull, you're going to need multiple mold pieces to keep the detail good and consistant, but each of these pieces is going to need to fit together almost perfectly every time for thousands of runs. These are tolerance levels higher than what they needed to achieve the figures. Not only that, but if your upper and lower hulls don't fit *perfectly* the modeler is going to DESTROY that fine detail trying to sand and snooth out any gaps or steps. My hull pieces don't fit perfectly; they'll be easy to join and sand down but it would be a NIGHTMARE for me to do that on a hull that had surface detail and I'm probably have to sand it smooth anyway.

I acknowledge that you can see it SOMETIMES on ships but I personally don't want it. 

jtilley wrote:

I agree with Mr. Smith about "oil-canning."  It would be extremely difficult for a manufacturer to reproduce at this scale, and in my opinion is the sort of thing that's better left to the individual modeler.  (It might be said to fall in the same category as "weathering.")  I remember seeing, quite a few years ago, some photos in Model Shipwright of the work of a modeler who'd figured out a way to show oil-canning very effectively on his scratchbuilt warships, and they looked great.  But those models were on a considerably larger scale than 1/350.

Well, now you have me curious!  Mr. Smith argued against 'oilcanning' using the simple argument that 'most people' want a dockyard model, and made no mention of real difficulty in doing so.  A reasonable commercial argument!  As such things as plate lines, tiny seats, individual sailors with shirt pockets and all sorts of other tiny details at 1/350 scale can be apparently molded without difficulty, it seems to me that an 'oilcanning' effect might not be too difficult to mold if it was wanted (no more difficult than a cambered wood deck, I would imagine).  Certainly, I have seen all sorts of surface details molded at very tiny scales (the diamond tread pattern, for one, 'eyebrows' over portlight scuttles for another), and an 'oilcanning' effect would certainly be very much larger than any of these.  Can anyone tell me what the technical difficulties for producing such an effect might be?

Thank you all for such interesting and useful information. I have bookmarked this for reference for my Buchanan build (at some point in the future).

I also know that Dragon will be getting my "350 ship" money rather than Hasegawa.

Here is (apparently) their follow up : (USS Buchanan, Tokyo Bay, Sept. 2nd, 1945)

http://www.modelshipwrights.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=4035&mode=&order=0

http://www.dxpo.com/dx/08/exclusives-cyber.asp

 

Any comments on this kit really need to start with an acknowledgment that what we're doing is picking nits.  I appreciate Mr. Smith's having taken the trouble to respond.  Though he seems to have gotten a little emotional about the comments that have been made in this thread, he hasn't actually said much that contradicts my original post.  That said, since, Mr. Smith seems to have characterized my comments as "semi-accurate," I'll respond. 

Several photos taken when the Buchanan was wearing the multi-colored camouflage scheme (which she apparently didn't for very long) establish quite firmly that the scuttles were not there at that time.  In my earlier post I noted - as Mr. Smith quotes - that plugging the holes wouldn't be much of a challenge.  Maybe it's true that it's "better to have them there and not need them than to try and accurately locate them on a smooth hull."  It seems to me, though, that it would make more sense to treat such openings the way the manufacturers treat such things as the mounting holes for parts that vary from ship to ship:  mold them as countersunk depressions on the inside of the part, so the modeler can drill them out if and when appropriate.  In any case, as I noted the first time around, this point belongs under the heading of "no big deal."  We're not talking about an error of the magnitude that's got purchasers of the Hasegawa battleships incensed; we're talking about a small error in accuracy that's easily fixed.

I agree that the sonar dome should not have been cast integrally with the hull.  But why couldn't it have been cast as a separate part?  I also agree that a number of other external features of the hull would have been worth showing.  (One of the better-detailed underwater hulls I've ever encountered on a model was, oddly enough, that of the ancient Revell 1/720 Hipper-class cruiser.  By modern standards, unfortunately, that kit has virtually nothing else to recommend it.) 

We all know there are limitations to the molding process, and that everything that's added to a kit costs the manufacturer money.  But if we accept the legitimacy of the argument that it's ok to leave something off because putting it on would "not be cost-effective," where do we stop?  I suspect virtually every inaccuracy ever inflicted on a ship model kit could be justified that way.  (Revell's reissue of its Type VII U-boat as a Type IX undoubtedly was considered cost effective.)  Was the inclusion of those two little preformed pieces of brass for the shields around the sky lookout positions cost-effective?  I doubt it.  And I still think it would be practicable to represent hull plating on this scale - albeit probably not on a two-piece hull split at the waterline.  

Several of Mr. Smith's comments seem to be based on the assumption that the hull had to be produced that way.  I don't understand why.  Other companies have shown hull plating reasonably effectively in kits (though I admit I can't offhand think of one in 1/350) with their hulls cast in port and starboard halves - which would make the casting of the hull plating lines simpler.   

Just before it got out of the warship business, Airfix figured out a good, simple solution to the "full-vs.-waterline hull" problem:  mold the full hull in port and starboard halves, with an incised groove at the waterline on the inside.  The modeler who wants a full-hull model does nothing; the one who wants a waterline model "waterlines" the kit in a few minutes by running an X-acto knife along the groove.  I wonder why other companies haven't gone that route.

I did take another look at the various deck components.  (If I'm reading Mr. Smith's post correctly, this is the only point on which he says I'm actually mistaken.)  If there's a "diamond" tread pattern I sure can't see it, even under magnification.  (I didn't use the word "random" to describe it, by the way.  There's nothing random about it.)   I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Smith that it would have been better to leave the pattern off.  On the other hand, the texture is so fine that anything other than the thinnest layer of paint will obscure it.  It can hardly be said to have messed up the appearance of the model.  I think this one falls in the category of "it doesn't make any difference one way or the other."  (But was the application of that texture cost-effective?)

My intention, like I said, is to make a replacement foremast out of brass.  But I still don't see why the plastic one had to be made in two parts - or why the bell (or the antenna trunks, for that matter) got left off.

Apparently the absence of the photo-etched parts I mentioned was, as I assumed, due to economic considerations.  I confess I have trouble understanding why Dragon thought the seats for the 1.1-inch guns and the binoculars in the sky lookout positions needed to be represented and the structure and rails for the searchlight platform didn't - to say nothing of the radar screen.  I don't - and never did - blame Mr. Smith or any of the other designers for any of that.

Mr. Smith makes some interesting and helpful comments about the color scheme - but never gets around to explaining why the instructions (except the overall camouflage diagram) don't tell the modeler what color goes where.  I repeat:  it looks like an editing error.  It's hard to believe that Dragon, having included that long list of colors in the introductory section, deliberately omitted any indication of which color should go on which part.  It looks more like they intended to put together the instruction diagrams the way virtually all the company's others are, and somebody simply made a human error somewhere in the process.

I agree with Mr. Smith about "oil-canning."  It would be extremely difficult for a manufacturer to reproduce at this scale, and in my opinion is the sort of thing that's better left to the individual modeler.  (It might be said to fall in the same category as "weathering.")  I remember seeing, quite a few years ago, some photos in Model Shipwright of the work of a modeler who'd figured out a way to show oil-canning very effectively on his scratchbuilt warships, and they looked great.  But those models were on a considerably larger scale than 1/350. 

Mr. Smith ends his first paragraph with the assertion that the kit "isn't perfect...but...darned close."  I'll go further than that.  It comes closer than any other ship kit I've ever encountered.  If the standards of plastic twentieth-century warship kits never get any higher than this, I won't complain.

Having just opened mine, I have to agree with searat12 . . . it is one of the finest ship models produced in this scale. I am very happy with this kit.  Now that a standard has been set with corporate communications with its customer base, where are the "boys from Hasegawa"?

Bill Morrison

Well, at last a spirited defense for a kit has been made by someone associated with its manufacture!  I wish I could hear some sort of explanation from the Hasegawa boys about the 'Nagato!'  That said, and as I have stated in several other threads, I think the Dragon USS Buchanan is one of the finest 1/350 scale ships around, and agree fully that any 'improvements' that could be made would be either 'gilding the lilly,' or add enormously to the costs.  In other words, I am very happy with it, and look forward to more like this from Dragon in the future (though I still would love to see an 'oilcanning' version one day, since one of the primary things most modellers do is apply great efforts to 'weather' a subject, be it ship, plane, or armor!).

Wow..........lots of semi-accurate stuff in this thread. My comments in blue. I'll start by stating a few facts, 1) I did a fair amount of the research for the kit at the request of Tim Dike, 2) from the initial CAD through the final test shot I provided critiques and suggestions for improvements, 3) it isn't perfect but the realities are injection has limitations and no kit will ever be 100% perfect.....but this is darned close.

1.  The above-waterline hull is a beautiful molding.  The recessed portholes under the forecastle deck are particularly well-cast.  Unfortunately, though, photos confirm that, as one would expect, by the period represented by the kit (1942) the Buchanan's hull scuttles had been plated over.  (I suspect Dragon is going to reuse this piece in another, pre-war version.)  Filling in the scuttles won't be difficult or time-consuming, but I do find it a little surprising that they're there.

Photos also show that by late 1943 many of these ships reopened a few of those portholes, probably for better ventialtion of specific spaces in the Pacific, at least one of the reopened portholes is where the sickbay was located. Better to have them and not need them than to try and accurately locate them on a smooth hull. Simple fix is drill them out to .040" and glue in a chunk of Evergreen and sand smooth, no putty needed if you do it right.....note you should NOT see any sign of them after "plating over" as they do not show up in hi-res photos. 

2.  Except for those scuttles, the hawsehole lips, the aforementioned bilge keels, and the screws and rudders, there's no detail on the exterior of the hull.  The sonar dome, for instance, is conspicuous by its absence.  And in my personal opinion (with which others are, of course, perfectly entitled to disagree), on this scale it would be appropriate for a model to include some representation of the hull plating.  Not, for heaven's sake, the grossly out-of-scale (and wrongly located) countersunk grooves that are on the new Hasegawa battleships.  But even small photos of U.S. WWII destroyers clearly show the lines where the plates are welded together - and, in some cases, overlap each other.

The sonar dome shape and location varied across the class by builder and batch, better to leave it off a common part. The hull was deliberately NOT given plating detail due to tolerance and cost contraints. In scale you're looking at a range of .00107" to .00142" for 3/8" and 1/2" plate thicknesses and that requires a tolerance of five decimal places at least....not cost effective. This would also require a one piece hull as any sanding along the seam of a 2 piece hull would oblierate the plating detail, which be all but impossible for the average modeler to repair. Could it be cut and molded? Yes. Cost effectively? No. Should it be done? No. Details this fine, especially across multiple parts are best left to 1/192 or larger. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.....either you'll jack the cost skyhigh or you'll create something so fine it will not hold up well in bulding and most people will end up sanding it off. Not doing it was a deliberate decision by the design team, all modelers who actually thought it out and argued the plusses and minuses. I will say that features such as docking keels, zincs and seachests would be nice to have, they are large enough to see and far enough away from seams to survive building the kit.

At any rate, it seems to me that the edges of the hull plates should be at least as noticeable as some of the features that the kit does represent - e.g., the openings in the netting on the guardrails, and the pockets on the sailors' shirts.

Not possible in scale, in tolerance, in budget, on a 2 piece hull. 

3.  Dragon says the decks feature the "finest tread pattern ever reproduced."  I guess that's true, but having looked at the surfaces in question under magnification I've concluded that there's no genuine "tread pattern" there; just an extremely fine stippled texture.  That's ok with me; I question whether it would be physically possible to represent the actual pattern accurately on that scale.

Look again, there *is* a diamond tread pattern and it is quite clear, it is NOT random stippling. It is oriented correctly for layout and in scale for FSDD Kearny built units DD 483-490. What it isn't is 100% correct as they molded dimples instead of raised bumps. I argued vociferously against this feature from the beginning, a perfect case of just because you think you can, doesn't mean you should. As dimples it presents problems for washes, the antiskid decals, has one seam that is all but impossible to eliminate without destroying other detail, shows glue marks like they're spotlighted and is not possible for the average modeler to remove without destroying all the details on and around it.

4.  I really don't care for the way the foremast is molded - in two pieces, of less than 1/64" in diameter, connected by a tiny stepped joint.  That joint will get subjected to a lot of stress - especially if the model is rigged (and a beautiful kit like this surely deserves rigging).  Maybe there was some reason for making the mast that way, but I sure can't see what that reason was.  And the ship's bell (which is prominent on the boxtop painting) is missing. 

I'm going to think hard about making a brass wire replacement for the whole mast.

Plastic masts in this scale do not rig well and rarely survive the process in anything resembling a straight line. Most serious builders in the scale that rig replace all masts and yards with brass, at least we now have an accurate plastic mast to work from. The bell is missing, no big deal, what's a bigger deal is no antenna trunks and they were on the CAD designs. 

5.  The kit includes two frets of beautiful photo-etched brass parts, and a supplementary set is available from Cyber Hobbies.  The parts in the basic kit include Oerlikon gun shields, sights, and shoulder rests; liferaft rack supports; propeller guards; ladders; anchor chains; rudders and tillers for the whaleboats; seats for the 1.1-inch anti-aircraft gun; a stack platform; and a few other fittings.  A second fret includes an assortment of watertight doors (which can be mounted open or closed), and the pre-shaped shields for the sky lookouts are in a separate little bag.  The Cyber-Hobby upgrade set consists of a full set of guardrails and additional, improved parts for the big gun director.  Frankly I think it would have been appropriate for a kit of this quality and price to include those parts.  I ordered them as part of the "bundle" offer from Dragon USA, though, so they only cost me an extra $2.00 - quite a bargain.  No big complaint there.

What I have trouble understanding is why some other parts aren't on the brass frets - either the basic ones or the upgrade set.  The 36" searchlight is beautifully reproduced, with miniscule clear plastic lenses.  But the tower on which it sits is represented by two solid hunkss of styrene - one for the latticework of the tower itself, one for the dish-shaped railing around the searchlight.  Both of those components could have been beautifully represented with photo-etched metal - but they aren't.  That clunky searchlight tower, with its structure represented by raised lines on an oblong block of plastic and surmounted by a plastic dish with raised lines representing the railing, just doesn't make sense in the context of the exquisite detail all around it.

There are no photo-etched depth charge racks.  Those, of course, can be found on lots of aftermarket sheets; the plastic parts in the kit are, in fact, so nice that many modelers probably won't think adding metal racks is worth the trouble.

We tried but ultimately it was Dragon's decision. 

6.  The most amusing mistake in the kit - and I do think this one qualifies as a mistake - concerns the instruction sheet.  It is, as one would expect, quite a document; the drawings on it are beautiful, but figuring out just where everything goes requires quite a bit of close study.  (I've been using it for bedside reading.)  The painting instructions are arranged in the usual Dragon manner, with one nice variation.  The introductory section includes a list of the ten required colors, with numbers from not only "Aqueous Hobby Color" and "Mr. Color" but also Testor's "Modelmaster" enamels.  That, especially for American purchasers, is a welcome addition.

Unfortunately none of them are actually the right colors. The guide does give the correct names and numbers as 20-B deck blue, 5-H haze grey, 5-O ocean grey and 5-N navy blue. The hull should be Norfolk 65 antifouling red (semi-gloss) and the boot stripe should be semi-gloss not flat. All the correct colors are available in enamel from WEM or acrylic from Model Master Acryl. You also need gunmetal for the 20mm receiver and barrels, stainless steel for the very tip of the 1.1" barrels (as often as not left unpainted but only the tip), bronze for the props and that's it. Everything above the boot stripe was painted in camouflage colors except the anchor chains which were black and the navigation light boxes which were red and green inside. *If* you want to get insanely anal you can paint the chain "railings" a grungy steel color for the sagging horizontal runs. The safety netting, canvas dodgers over the rails and webwork raft bottoms were all painted to match the camouflage.

It looks like an editing error.  The assembly diagrams are extremely complicated; maybe the copy editor took a glance at them and his/her brain simply rejected the possibility that anything could possibly be missing from them.  (That's the sort of thing my brain does fairly frequently.)

Trust me, that's being nitpicked to death behind the scenes as some of us involved in the design and critique process build the kit. We *do* want it better next time. It took over two years to produce what you see and half the battle was language barrier or subject familiarity problems. Tim Dike did the lion's share of the work with a small group of modelers providing plans, photos and comments as the people that will ultimately be building the kit. As a group we pushed Dragon in the right directions and we hope to keep their projects improving with each new release.

Reference Prof Tilley's comments on platelines, another feature often seen on destroyers and other ships is a sort of 'waffle pattern' in the bow area that results when a ship with light plating is driven hard into big seas.  The plates sort of get pushed in a bit around the frames, creating a slight 'dishing' that really shows up after a bit of hard service, but is of course not evident when the ship is newly commissioned.  Now that would be a very cool feature to reproduce!

NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! YOU want it, YOU do it to YOUR model!  The phenomenon is commonly called "oilcanning" or "mare's ribs" and happens all over the hull, not just the bow. It is a combination of hyrodynamic action and thermal expansion/contraction over time. However, it is not appropriate to a kit as most in this and larger scales end up being built dockyard style where it would be totally inappropriate.

The box contains several faint hints of kits to come.  Several of the sprues are labeled "1/350 Benson class," and others (mainly weapons and other standardized equipment) are labeled simply "1/350 USN."

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