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This is the old Revell kit of a Wickes/Clemson class destroyer released as the USS Buchanan and HMS Campbelltown. For a kit of it's age, it's actually pretty good. The 4" guns are pretty nondescript as are the torpedo tubes, but the single greatest flaw is that the decks have simulated wood planking and these ships did not have wooden decks. Due to its age there is a lot of parts clean up/seam and injection pin marks filling involved, especially the searchlight tower. It comes with molded on stanchions to make railings out of thread, but this is difficult to get right and looks too out of scale. Work that I did: deepened all the port holes, drilled out and busied up the guns and torpedo tubes, removed all the molded on stanchions and replaced with PE railing, sanded/filed/scraped all the molded in wood deck planking off. In the end it builds up into a nice display model. There were many Wickes/Clemson class built and they all had minor differences here and there but were basically similar in outline and armament. I marked mine as the USS Reuben James, a Clemson class ship that was the first US ship sunk in the European Theater in WWII and is the subject of the song "The Sinking of the Reuben James" by Woodie Guthrie.

I'm thinking of starting the old Revell 1/240 USS Buchanan four piper destroyer. The decks all have a simulated wood planking. However, every photo I can find of their decks on the real ships (not models ) looks like they are not wood. No other destroyers of the modern era that I know of have wooden decks, so it would figure that they wouldn't either, but does anyone have any insight on this matter?

I'm thinking of starting the old Revell 1/240 USS Buchanan four piper destroyer. The decks all have a simulated wood planking. However, every photo I can find of their decks on the real ships (not models ) looks like they are not wood. No other destroyers of the modern era that I know of have wooden decks, so it would figure that they wouldn't either, but does anyone have any insight on this matter?

This is one of the later (1957) entries into the Aurora 1/48 biplane series and is actually a pretty nice kit. This is a later release that supposedly has some "new parts" which I suspect are the cabane and interplane struts in the common "U" configuration as the box top says there is "new easier wing assembly" so maybe the original had individual struts which are fiddly to get in place in correct alignment. If you were a super-detailer it is a pretty good starting point. The kit freaked me out while I was building/painting it as nothing went wrong and everything fit. The guy in the pilot seat is an enigma. He's not really in flying gear as he has no helmet nor googles and I have no idea what he's waving at. Like all these kits, there was almost no interior so I "imagineered" some stuff just to fill the space. No windscreen is provided oddly, so I made one out of my spares box. Also, the real aircraft had thos long exhaust extensions and they are not provided in the kit, so I made them out of plastic tubing. Even the decals went on like a treat. However, after dull coating I noticed there was was some silvering which was not there beforehand. But, it's only bound for my shelf so that's ok. Normally these kits came with a little base and one or two figures as a sort of ground crew, but not in this case but I wanted something to set it off a bit so I scratched up a little cart with some mail bags and a satchel in it However, so some reason, even though it's not all that complicated, the rigging on this stressed me out a bit. But, it's done now and I'm moving on.

This is the ultimate in the development of the "rhomboid" heavy tank in WW I. Developed for what was intended to be the final offensive in 1919, the war ended before it could see any service. It was produced in very limited numbers in both the US and Great Britain. In Britain only 31 were built, 5 of which went to Bovington for training/testing purposes and the rest went directly to the scrap yard. The kit is very nice with only 16 parts, 7 of which are the MGs, of which you get two types. Fit was good overall, but there were some problems getting the hull sides to fit snuggly agains the center section that took a bit of trimming and the sponson gun shields were too large so they had to be filed down to fit. When complete it makes an impressive model however. I've included a photo of it next to an earlier MkIV to give you a sense of the size of this beast. It's available from Vargas also in 1/35 scale.

This is half of the Revell Tactical Missile set, the Dart anti-tank missile. You can see the other half, the Little John Tactical Missile over in Space/Sci-Fi, where despite it being a guided missile, I was chastised for putting it because it didn't go into outer space. In the early 1950's a replacement was sought for the aging WW II era Bazooka. The French had developed the SS 10 wire guided missile and, of course, since it was not invented in the US (NIH, "Not Invented Here" in military parlance), we had to spend lots of money to try to reinvent the wheel so to speak. Enter the SSM-A-23 Dart. It had a troubled development and as can be seen in the photos and was not exactly easy to deploy due to its bulk. After much wrangling, adjustments and expenditure, the Army cancelled the project and adopted the French SS-10 and 11 missiles, which were smaller, easier to deploy, more accurate and more dependable. The Revell kit gives you four missiles, probably because they are so small in this scale, three on maintenance racks and one on a static launcher. There are three Frankensteinian figures provided (and poorly painted I might add by me), one seated at what is probably a part of the guidance system. Two of the figures have smooth bases as does the launcher, indicating they were on a paved surface while the guidance guy's base simulated undulating ground for some reason. Since the missile was never operational, it appeared in a whole host of color schemes depending on which round of testing it was being used for. I selected several from photos on the internet just to make it more interesting. It's a primitive kit with lots of flash, mold seams and iffy fit, but then it does date from 1958. Any decals used were from my spares as the kit ones were long gone.

Not really sure where this belongs. It's a missile, but yet essentially a piece of artillery. This is the Little John missile and launcher from the 1958 Revell Tactical Missile set. Also included were four Dart wire guided anti-tank missiles. The Little John launcher depicted must be from a test site as the ones actually deployed had two wheels at the rear and that thing hanging down from the front of the launch ramp also had one. The Little John could carry both conventional and nuclear warheads and was inertially guided. It was deployed to Europe and the last ones were only phased out in the 70's. The kit is very basic and full of mold seams and ejection pin marks, but cleaned up and with careful assembly is a good representation of this weapon. The decals were completely gone, so I cobbled together some markings from my spares.

The original Renwal kit had a mechanism where the range finders/radars turned in synch with the main gun and terrier launcher, but it was deleted from this re-release. The ship is depicted in one of its early refits with the terrier launcher but retained the twin 40mm forward. The kit had planking ribbing on the main and second deck, but these ships did not have wooden decks, so I had to remove all that, which was a messy pain. It also had molded in railings on the main deck and in some places on the second deck. I removed all these. I substituted generic railings on the main deck and in places on the second one but did not do it all as I just didn't want to put in the effort at this point. And after seeing the photos, I realize I didn't replace the molded in anchor chain on the bow, so I'll take care of that now. However, despite her age, she turned out surprising well and makes a nice display model.

The metallic finish was the result of an experiment. I had an old SNJ starter kit that consisted of a bottle of their silver base and a bottle of the polishing powder. If you are not familiar with SNJ it was a "metalizer". You applied their base coat and after it dried you "polished" it with the powder. You could get everything from a dull to a gleaming metal finish. Anyway, my bottle of the base coat dried up and I was left with the powder. I decided to try using a different paint for the base. I had a rattle can of Krylon Dark Aluminum on hand. I've used it before just as a paint and it takes a few days to completely dry. I shot the pieces and waited a day or so. The paint, true to form, was still just a tad tacky. Seemed perfect for the polishing powder to adhere to and you see the end result. I applied the powder with a cotton swab and polished it with an old white cotton sock. (clean, of course.) The finish is uneven, spotty and even worn looking in some places. Just looks like old metal.

The Aurora knight series has been around for over 50 years. There was a Silver, Red, Blue, Black and Gold knight, the last being mounted. The kits were of their day and at that were Aurora kits, so they were made for simplicity. Atlantis has done a good job of cleaning up these molds, but the 50 year old engineering makes the fit of parts very "iffy". I built this once long long ago so wanted to try it again to see if I've learned anything. I was surprised at how well it turned out. Almost makes me want to do another IF Atlantis releases any of the other kits.

This is a 3D printed model from Vargas. They do a variety of American Civil War and between the world wars subjects in both 1/35 and 1/72. The Type 1 was a private venture by Vickers and combined aspects of the British mediums in its rhomboid shaped track run and the French FT-17 in having its armament in a revolving turret instead of sponsons on the side. It had a crew of three and was only armed with machine guns. There was provision for having one more MG in the turret rear pointed up for anti-aircraft work. The final version, the No 2, was only a design and was not built. It's distinction was that it carried a 47MM (3 prd) gun in the turret and was the first tank designed specifically for anti-tank work. The type was abandoned after trials revealed serious transmission problems. The Vargas kit consists of only eight parts and is beautifully printed with no flash not mold seams (as there are no molds used, that is logical). There are some striations on the back and nose of the hull that are evidence of the 3D printing process. Everything fit perfectly and with painting makes an excellent addition to my between the wars collection. I'm no figure painter, as is obvious, but the figure is included to give you a sense of how small this vehicle was in reality.

Case in point. Monogram's USS Columbus of the Albany/Chicago lot. Hard to believe that it was from the same class as the Boston.

This is the oldest surviving Sherman tank, the M4A1 named Michael that was displayed on the Horse Guards Parade, which is paved in tan gravel, in London during WW II. I used the Rubicon M4A1 kit. If you're not familiar with their kits, they usually come with parts to build several different versions of the subject. The M4A1 kit has both the M3 and VVS type suspensions, direct vision and 'large hatch' hulls and high and low bustle turrets with several different guns and mounts and different final drive covers. I used the older style turret, M3 suspension and three piece final drive cover. Modifications past that include the addition of the two MGs in the glacis, cutting down the front fender pieces so they don't go back as far, cutting off the "chins" on the gun mount, shortening the gun barrel and adding the counterweight, changing the gunner's sight to the armored rotor sight and adding lifting eyes to the turret sides. The antennae was also moved and a resister added. The weakest part of my build are the name plates. I did them twice, but am still not satisfied. They may get redone again.

I just realized the original poster was the person I did the kit for, so please excuse my stupidity and the duplication.

I did the same kit for a friend of mine who was doing a collection of trainer aircraft. It's a very primitive kit even for a vacuform. I used a T-37 interior and an assortment of other things from the spares box plus a lot of putty as well as some limited expansion foam to fill some huge gaps on the underside. It's far from perfect but I think it turned out passably.

Hull is laminated sheet plastic cut to shape. It's solid.

I didn't get any decals. These are from the spares box.

Also known as the civilian Vimy, this is the Maquette kit of this rather ungainly looking craft. It is actually the Frog Vimy kit with a few parts for the different fuselage. The Vimy kit is VERY old and the molds have obviously seen better days with much flash, mold seams, sink marks and warpage on the parts now. Just getting the lower wings to fit to the fuselage was a task and there were no locator holes in the fuselage for where anything went so there was much guesswork involved. Accordingly, it's no contest winner and I didn't bother to rig the flying wires as that would also have required installing control horns and there was enough rigging as it was. However, it's done and fits in quite nicely with my other queer beasts of the RAF.

This was done a long time ago and was my first attempt at scratch building a ship. I did pirate a number of fittings from my spares box, but most is from sheet and rod styrene. The funnels were aluminum tubing that I slightly flattened to produce to oval shape. The little domes on the tops of the turrets are Fujimi 1/76 8th Army figures helmets. It's pretty basic, but makes a nice display model on my shelf.

Rigging is stretched sprue with the exception of the four lines between the two masts. That's a product called EZLine. It's sort of an elastic threst and is the only way I could get those lines taut. It comes in three thicknesses and this is medium as I had it on hand but it should be their thinner one. It's sort of intended for model RR people for power lines etc.

Recently I've been bingeing on building early injection molded ship kits. I find them enjoyable, not very fiddly as most new ship kits are and look nice enough on display. My most recent was this 1974 (according to Scalemates) HMS Prince of Wales. I think it's actually older than that myself as I seem to recall building it as a kid and that was a long time before 1974. I would guess the original kit, the King George V, came out around 1960 as that is when the movie that made that ship famous in the USA, "Sink the Bismarck", came out and it would figure that Revell might do a "tie in" it of it. Also the molding and level of detail is much more indicative of a 1960's kit than one from the mid 70's. Now, mind you, Aurora also did one released in 1958, so maybe that's what I remember. I have no real proof either way, just my conjecture based on a fuzzy memory. Anyway, as was typical of Revell, it was also released as the King George V and the Anson. It's a basic kit that is generally accurate in outline but none of the releases reflect the differences that existed amongst the class. Fit over all was what you would expect from a Revell ship kit of this era (whenever it was) with only minor problems here and there. This is done OOTB with the exception of drilling out the portholes and main gun barrels and the what I term "representative" rigging. I found the camo scheme on the internet and cannot vouch for it's accuracy nor do I care. It looks vastly different from all the other ships in my fleet so I'm happy.

0n ebay search for: REPRODUCTION DECAL REVELL JUPITER C, THOR/JUPITER IRBM, OR REDSTONE/MERCURY. The seller is a small one man operation but is a good communicator and what's more important, honest. One thing, these decals are NOT pure white. They have a slight yellow tinge to then and the carrier film. It probably wouldn't even show up normally, but all these rockets are bright white so it does. You'll need to trim them very close. They are printed on a white decal sheet, not clear and you will need to cut the decal away from the sheet as they are not separate. Still, they're better than some 50 year old curled, brittle, yellowed sheet.

No. I'm afraid that one is out of my league.

This is the other half of the old Revell Jupiter kit from the Thor/Jupiter History Makers set. It was originally released in 1958 as a separate kit and everything you see here, with the exception of the second missile, comes in the kit. I had previously obtained another Jupiter kit and while incomplete, it did have all the parts for the missile, so I did one in Army test markings provided in the replacement decal set I ordered and then scavenged my spare decals to cobble together markings for an USAF operational bird. This is the missile that both caused and helped end the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The US based some Jupiters in Turkey and this prompted the USSR to try to base some of it's missiles in Cuba. Through some tense moments, we finally offered to remove our missiles from Turkey if the USSR would remove theirs from Cuba and thus the crisis was resolved. The Jupiter was not a particularly good missile having a pretty high failure rate and only mediocre range. It was soon replace in our missile inventory by the Thor. Anyhoo, here 'tis, a 65 year old flash from the past. Oh, and the crane is leaning on the backdrop as I haven't yet figured out how to get it to stand up on its own without tipping over.

This is the old Revell Thor Able kit from the Thor/Jupiter History Makers set. It was originally released in 1958 as a separate kit and can be built in a test missile configuration or as the Thor Able satellite launcher. Everything you see here comes in the kit. The decals, however, were damaged and yellowed so I ordered a replacement set that covered both the Thor and Jupiter. Word to the wise of those of you who make replacement decals. Don't just xerox the old decals and reprint them because your will just wind up with new yellowed decals. Adjust the color before printing. You can see tinges of yellow on the decals in the photos. It's not a simple model as there are many parts to the launch pad and vehicles some of them meant to move. But it looks pretty good when done.