Paul E

I am on the correct forum aren't I ? All this talk of fondling dead Egyptian queens and modelling goddesses has got me worried.

Ask and ye shall receive.................. The signal deck/boat deck break on the Towed Array ships is further forward than the other ships of the class. When PHOEBE was converted to Towed Array the compartments which contained the equipment for the forward MRS3 director became redundant and were literally deleted to reduce top weight. This meant having to do a major hack of the superstructure aft of the mast then rebuild the screen in the new position. I must confess that I did not notice the need to hack back the superstructure initially because I was using the Jecobin plans, I only noticed it when I consulted the photographs.

Please don't build up your hopes....

This is a fantastic build. I absolutely love the level of detail going into this. I'm really looking forward to the next installment.

Okay, post number 2 - starting work on the superstucture: The Airfix kit comes with a single moulding for the superstructure that is devoid of any detailing. The superstructure was extended at the aft end as can be seen in the second picture. This was because the hangar on the original ships was too small for the Lynx helicopter. Other changes made were the removal of the “garden wall” on the deck behind the bridge and details such as doors, scuttles, ladders and hand grab rails added locations of which were taken from the Jecobin Plans. A new deck house was added to the hangar roof, dimensions for which were taken from the Jecobin plans. A new aft mast also needed to be constructed. The Towed Array Leanders had a smaller aft mast fitted that carried the IFF interrogator radar antenna.

Many thanks for your comments I know, it was seeing your superb model of the Ikara conversion that brought this forum to my attention. Interesting to hear that, the introductory photo is of Phoebe entering Norfolk in 1990. I had left her by then to return to HMS Collingwood. Hmmm, you could say that I have my work cut out. You will see by how much as I go through the build.

This is my build of HMS Phoebe as she was from 1988 to 1989 when I served on her for my apprentice sea time. I started last October and have been posting this as a work in progress on another forum not realising its North American slant. It was through some of those who were kind enough to comment on my efforts that I discovered Britmodeller. As a new member to this forum I thought I should share my attempt at converting the venerable Airfix kit to a Towed Array Leander. A subject matter I think that is more suitable and probably has more appreciation for on this forum. Whilst the build is still very much a work in progress I have taken the opportunity to edit my postings in order to improve their quality (and to remove any references to self-doubts and disasters). For those of you who are following this on the other forum, my apologies for the duplication. For those of you who are seeing this for the first time what follows are the trials and tribulations of my attempt at converting the Airfix Leander kit. An introduction: HMS Phoebe had 3 guises over her life; starting off with a gun followed by Exocet conversion and finally with a Towed Array sonar. The starting point for this project is as I previously mentioned is the Airfix kit of HMS Leander at 1/600 scale. This has been festering in a drawer having been bought many years ago. The trigger to me undertaking this project was seeing a super detailed version of the Pit Road HMS Sheffield at 1:700. I thought that would look good on my desk and I should have a go at doing something like that. So I dug out some not so relevant Jecobin drawings of HMS Penelope that had been scavenged from a long forgotten source and I bought the White Ensign Models PE set. I spent a sum total of 0 hour 0 minutes planning for this exercise, which in hindsight was not a bad thing. Had I considering what I was about to undertake I probably wouldn’t have done it! And now for the pictures: First steps; building the hull, filling the wells and building the Towed array sponson. I have converted the model to waterline as I want to present my model in her element. Also all the deck fittings aft of the fo’c’tsle break were removed and replaced with scratch built items take into account the impact of the Towed Array sponson and the Exocet launchers. I should mention now, this build requires a plentiful supply of Plastistruct and Evergreen building materials as will soon become evident. Next installment to follow very soon

I love this diorama. Each of the models on their own are impressive but when brought together they are truely inspiring. Thank you for sharing it with us.

As a new member to the Forum I thought I should share a sample of my work for review. This is my model of a 61.5 Foot Admiralty Motor Fishing Vessel, scratch built using plastic card. The model is at 1:148 scale to match with my model railway and depicts a vessel in the post war Port Auxiliary Service (PAS). Unfortunately I cannot find much material on post war vessels of this type, so the colour scheme is based on supposition. Inspiration for the model came in form of a paper model kit at 1:250 scale which I downloaded from Coastal Forces in Paper (CFP) http://cfp.muerell.de/ and subsequently scaled up using a photocopier.

Peter Hall at Atlantic Models shows the dedicated Photo Etch set for the Trumpeter Type 23 Frigate on his website http://atlanticmodels.net/photo-etched%20details.html as available for pre-order.

HMS PHOEBE HMS SHEFFIELD (F96 that is) HMS SOMERSET I am sure you can guess the link here. British