PeterB

As far as I am aware they are the tracks for rolling depth charges over the stern - painted mine in the same grey as everything else on my Jinstsu and all the other 5500 ton cruisers. For whatever reason very little mention is made of depth charges but in the Osprey New Vanguard book on IJN Light Cruisers there is a passing mention to "depth charge racks" and later to rails being fitted, though that may have been a late modification in 1944 or so in which case they probably should not be on either of our ships but what the heck- unlike some of the heavy cruisers, getting info on modifications to light cruisers is not easy! They are either provided as seperate pieces or moulded on the deck of all my kits, but then they also tend to provide the "mattress" type radar aerial for the No 21(2) set which Osprey was not filled until 1943! This business of moulding one early and one late version was not followed through very consistently, particularly with hull/deck mouldings. In fairness, they do usually provide different guns on the destroyers with a main one replaced by an AA one and so on. I also thought painting the black upper masts were to do with smoke, but one source - Osprey again I think, says it was a recognition feature, whatever that means. RN ships often used coloured bands on the funnel for identifying units but not sure what good black on the top of the masts would be from a distance when the rest of it is a darkish grey. Cheers Pete

Jeff, Just dug out my copy of Friedman's US Destroyers. He says that the "anti Kamikaze" programme to replace the forward tubes with AA guns started in April 1945 and The Sullivans was one of the ships where this was completed before the end of the war though no idea exactly when. Pete

These links might be of interest Jeff. https://military.wikia.org/wiki/World_War_II_ship_camouflage_measures_of_the_United_States_Navy https://www.shipcamouflage.com/warship_camouflage.htm Also, Jamie has quite a lot of info on his Sovereign Hobbies "Colourcoats" site. https://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk/collections/colourcoats-sea. Cheers Pete

Hi, I built the original Skywave double set not long after it became available over here. I made 2 "O"'s OOB and there was no etch back in those days - guess that is still the case as you are using WEM generic stuff. They are nice enough kits but I knew nothing of RN paint schemes at the time so mine ended up in a plain lightish grey which is probably all wrong! They should look great in the "correct" camo scheme whatever that might be - should be some info on Jamie's Colourcoats site I expect https://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk/collections/colourcoats-sea. Back then the only other RN destroyer available in 1/700 was the Matchbox "K" Class though they also did the fast minelayer Ariadne. Things have improved a lot in the last few years though RN paint schemes are less well documented than USN it seems to me! Good luck with the build. Pete

As I sit in my study this sunny morning, I can see through the window the plants and shrubs beginning to bloom adding a nice splash of colour. The cats are chasing each other round the garden and up and down trees, and there are Blue Tits nesting in the bird box a couple of weeks earlier than last year I believe. It is almost possible to think it is just a normal Spring day, but sadly that is not the case - I hope you and your loved ones are all well! As I mentioned earlier, the Fury had external ribs on both sides of the rudder, but the kit only has them on the Port side. In his review Tommy said the easiest way to fix this would be to cut out the rudder and replace it, but I have taken the lazy option and just scraped the surface down a bit with a knife, then stuck on some stretched sprue. There are actually four though it is not clear in the above pic - I think the real thing may only have had three. It is a bit crude, but then so is the rest of the kit and I am not aiming for total accuracy. Next up I will sort out the strakes on the rear airbrakes and shorten the stabilisers, and then it is on to the cockpit. I have bought the old Airwaves etched set which I will use some of, and I have a Pavla ejection seat, which is quite nice if it can be made to fit. If not I will revert to the Airwaves detailing parts on the kit seat. The heavy duty antibiotics I am taking for an ulcer in my gum are working though they also leave me a bit "woozy" at times, so progress this week on my various builds has been a bit slow - hopefully that will improve now as the Spitfire/Seafire GB is starting in just over a week! Be safe. Pete

I think that the decs should have "bleached" enough by the weekend though lord knows if they will work given their age. The "star and bar" under the wing is likely to be a pain as it has to fit in between the rocket launcher stubs, speaking of which I might still have the 12 rockets I did not use on the Airfix Skyraider many years ago ( I used 500lb bombs instead). I presume the F7F-3 version did use them as I have pictures of the launchers, but none with rockets fitted - anybody know? Pete

Hi Tim, I have noticed over the years that Hu11 is not as "silver" as I remember it so I have taken to using HU191 Chrome Silver instead - still not brilliant but seems to dry fairly quickly. I also use Xtracolour Dural which usually works well. Not very fond of NMF /silver finishes anyway but treated myself to some AK interactive to try spraying. Pete

That tip about the walkway lines is probably going to be useful with my Lincoln - I have 2 sets of old Frog decs available which I will probably use assuming they still work. Pete

Hi Bob, According to Detail and Scale, the Avenger Mk I (aka Tarpon Mk I) was the TBF/TBM-1 which had a 30 cal mg mounted in the top of the cowling and no wing guns. This was not considered satisfactory so the TBF/TBM-1C switched to wing guns - this apparently was the Avenger Mk II, and the later TBM-3 was the Avenger Mk III, as was the TBM-3E. You say there are 2 cowlings - if one has a groove on top for the gun it will be for the Mk I, or so it seems. Cheers Pete

Agreed Steve, That's what I did with my Scimitar, Swift, Attacker and Vampire builds where appropriate - not perfect but close enough. Pete

When I first started using Acrylics seriously a couple of years ago I popped into my local "Antics" hobby shop with a view to buying, amongst other things, Tamiya Dark Green and Dark Earth. Can't remember if they were out of stock, but one of the staff asked me what I was looking for. When I explained he showed me a pic on his phone of a Lanc he had used he Gunze/Mr Hobby colours on and it looked good so I bought them instead. The are fine, although a little lighter than my old Humbrol/Extracolour enamels. I used them on my BoB batch of 3 Spitfires, 3 Hurricanes and a Defiant and am pleased with them. Cheers Pete

Loking good. As I said in my Jintsu thread there were at least 4 variations of the grey according to Jamie at Sovereign Hobbies - I used the Kure Arsenal version which might be slightly darker, but yours looks fine - probably about the same as the Maizuru Arsenal shade. For the classes of ships with numerous vessels, they tended to produce at least 2 variations - pre/early war and late war. The main differences tended to be that the late war ones had increased AA armament, sometimes at the cost of one or more main guns, modified torpedo arrangements, and radar. I often found it difficult to tell which I was getting from the box illustration, which is why I ended up with the pre war 6" version of the Mogami, not the later 8" wartime one. The give away is usually what colour the floatplane is, though that is of course no help on destroyers as they did not have one. As your boxing seems to show a silver/red Alf I guess yours is an early one, which seems to be borne out by the 4 x 2 torpedo tubes - in 1941 they seem to have mostly been replaced by 2 x 4 mounts. If your instructions are in their sometimes mangled version of English it might give you a date - most of my early kits were in Japanese! The masts and associated platforms etc can be a bit fiddly but they are usually a quick build. In case you did not know, the masts were black above the level of the bottom of black funnel cap for some reason. Cheers Pete

Here is the plastic. At some point I sprayed both white and Light Gull Gray though it has faded a bit so I will have to do it again. Hopefully it is still under the 25% rule? In his review Tommy @Tailspin Turtle mentioned various areas needing work. Firstly both the intake and exhaust provided in the kit have no depth so I ordered a replacement exhaust and have opened up the intake and extended it with thin plastic sheet - I will close it once I have painted it - might need to adjust the length to get some weight in the nose. The other major faults include the extra airbrakes added to this attack version, which need rescribing and an extra strake adding, the rudder which had external framing on both sides but the kit only has it on the Port side, and the stabilisers which seemed to have been copied from North American drawings of a pre-production version which have not been altered to show the slightly shorter production version. I will make some stretched sprue and have a shot ot the brakes and rudder - the stabilisers simply need shortening and re-shaping I guess. I will also have to do some rescribing on the wings it seems and of course the cockpit needs some work, but more of that later. Whilst digging about in my various spares boxes accumulated over 60+ years of modelling I came across some white drop tanks with red noses and the same type of fins on the rear as used on the Fury. I know I made vacform Scorpion, Cutlass and Banshee kits in the 1980's, and I have a vague recollection of a Fury - either Airmodel of Rareplanes though I cannot be absolutely certain - in any case I don't have it now, but I can't remember building anything else that would have that type of tank painted white! More as and when. Pete

Hi Ray, As you say cutting small parts off the sprue can be a real pain, particularly if they are round and fly out of your tweezers. I use a strip of Tamiya masking tape - bend the ends over so they stick on my cutting board and end up with DIY double sided sticky tape - that can with care keep the pieces from flying off and feeding the carpet monster when you try to cut them off the sprue and trim them, I have also read that putting a small peice of Blutac on the jaws of the tweezers helps but I imagine the trick then is to get them to release the piece once it is in position. I seem to remember that in another recent build somebody had some fancy tweezers designed to pick up small parts but I have no idea if and how they work - "Pixnor" I believe. I don't use PE much but I found that putting it on an old bathroom tile made it a lot easier to cut as it stops it bending as the blade sinks into my wooden board when I use that. Speaking of which, could you cut strips of etch from the "frame" to make your boat rack? Alternative very thin plastic card like the see-through stuff I use to box in wheel wells sometimes. Cheers Pete

Hi Bob, Certainly has the right framing for the Attacker F1/FB1 which had a clear rear bubble with no extra frames- the FB2 was completely different. There is an FB1 on the plans I think - how does it match up size wise? If it is from the Falcon canopy set it is designed for the Frog kit but the instructions say you have to build up the rear of the fuselage and do a bit of filling. Pete

Hi, The plans I am working to show the rear section still angled down, but probably not as much as on the Lanc. On mine this has resulted in the horizontal tail being at a very slight angle to the airflow, but the plans do not show what angle it should be at as the endplates get in the way. The new resin endplates have enough "slack" in them to be glued vertical so I should be OK. Cheers Pete

The pic Chris posted yesterday seems to show them angled slightly down. Pete

Not bad at all Orso, Does the kit come with "proper" legs? Pete

Hi Ash, Your patience seems to have paid off - nice looking kit. Pete

Hi Jeff, The only Fletcher I have is the old Matchbox offering. As I mentioned in my build of Jintsu, the Japanese kit "consortium" for the 1/700 Waterline series did not do any "small" ships other than IJN in those days, so when Matchbox released their 1/700 range it was very welcome even if they were a bit crude. USN Fletcher, Indianapolis and San Diego, German Graf Spee and a "Narvik" class destroyer, and RN Exeter, Ariadne and a "K" class destroyer were built as soon as they were released, followed a few years later by Skywave's "O" class destoyers (2 to a box). Since I gave up there has been an "explosion" of 1/700 ship kits from the likes of Trumpeter and Pit Road and I could build another 20 or 30, probably more if I should so wish, and that does not include the WWI and post WWII offerings or limited run/resin. Ship modellers in 1/700 now have a lot more choice, which can't be bad, though they cost a lot more than they used to. My Fletcher is is an eariler camo scheme - the box art on yours seems to be late war. Should look good when finished. Cheers Pete

Glad you had not glued the exhausts on in the previous pic as they look upside down to me - could be wrong as I am doped up to the eyeballs at the moment trying to get rid of an abscess in my gums, and have not slept for a while. I guess this version does not have any fuselage windows, unlike the one shown on the illustration with the decs? Should look good when finished. Pete

Looking good Julian, Should be in the Gallery a long time before mine as I am out of action at the moment - got a nasty abscess in my gum and my face is swollen. Eating is difficult and I am banned alcohol whilst taking a course of powerful antibiotics. Better than Corona Virus I suppose. Cheers Pete

Hi Dennis, Coming along nicely. My Fujimi boxing is the F7U-3M so it has early Sparrows instead of the under-belly rocket pack. Otherwise I guess it will be just about identical. Looks like it might not be too bad a build if your kit is anything to go by. Cheers Pete

Hi Bob, The tail looks great but the canopy seems both long and wide! This was miy AZ Model version with a vacform FB2 canopy - the F 1 and FB1 did not have the rear metal fairing. Pete

Hi, I used green Skyflash on mine (well Sparrows actually as the Skyflash on my spare Tornado F3 only had 3 fins front and back) as well - though I suppose that they could have used Amraam. Pete