ArnoldAmbrose

Gidday Crisp, you continue to excel yourself. Thanks for the photo of Glorious' island and flying bridge. I knew she had one but was not quite sure why. I would like to build her one day and your photo will be very useful. BTW, The German heavy ships of WW2 had them also, both sides of the bridge but much shorter. These also folded back when at sea. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Robert, good idea. Of course, no-one says you HAVE to drop the model, but if you think you really really must . . . Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Harvin, Welcome on your first post. I'm afraid the links don't work, for me anyway. Should they be underlined or something? Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Beefy, As long as you learn from them. And it's not too late - for the next build. She's looking good, and get a move on! You've only got 10 1/2 months left. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Mike, that's an interesting shot of the kit, but the box art is somewhat wanting. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Pete, it seems to me that the Japanese developed a love affair with float planes. Mogami, the two Tone class and Oyodo all had the rear half (almost) of the ship dedicated to them. Which left less room for guns - Oyodo was bigger than the Sheffield class but had only half the fire power. As for the small cruisers like you are doing, I read that even Adm Mikawa looked down his nose at them a little - until one of them took out a heavy cruiser with her torpedoes. Yes, somewhat overlooked ships. I'm impressed that you're doing one. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday All, here's my next (meagre) update on HMS Montgomery. I've attached the upper deck to the hull. The forward superstructure is dry fitted at present. I replaced the flag deck(?) at the back of it and am currently scratch-building the upper bridge to replace the kit part, as it would have had to be modified to take the type 271 radar lantern. The kit part is in the foreground while my replacement-in-progress is on the block of wood behind the model. The midships deckhouse has the deck dry-fitted, with no.2 funnel poking through it. I'm not sure whether the forward and aft faces of this deckhouse are open or enclosed. The original kit has this deckhouse open but my time-consuming research has not been conclusive, so I will enclose it. If anyone knows better please let me know ASAP. The after deckhouse has the deck fitted and painted. This deckhouse is quite rough, and with hindsight I should have removed it completely and scratchbuilt an entire new one. But I won't do it now. I want to get a move on with this build. I've been making a set of triple torpedo tubes (TT) in a similar manner that I used to do the DC rails. I know the kit has four sets of TTs but they are rather thin and have a bit of flash. I prefer to make my own. It's in the background behind the model too. Well, that's it for now. I hope you all enjoyed your weekend. Regards to all, Jeff.

Gidday NotDaMama, I mentioned/suggested styrene rod because I thought it might be easier. I actually drilled out thick sprue to fit over the existing turret rotating pins because at the time I hadn't discovered the styrene accessories. You'll only need short lengths so this might be a cheaper option. Regards, Jeff.

Er, you forgot:- 8. Go buy fish and chips, due to taste buds activated by smell of vinegar. Seriously (as much as one can be on Britmodeller) I don't know anything about prepping and painting brass so I'll try to remember this. Regards, Jeff.

Err, no! Certainly not in my case. But I do love this model. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday All, here is a photo I took of HMAS Ovens, an Oberon boat now a museum at Fremantle, West Oz. Although the anchor is not in the photo the anchor cable (chain) is. I spent quite a few years in the Naval Reserve here and one of the vessels we used for weekend training was HDL 1325, which looked a lot like this boat (Rob's, not the sub) here (minus weapons - damn), particularly the coach-house forward of the bridge. The anchor was a CQR like the one shown on Rob's boat here, but the entire length of the cable was chain, which we hauled up with a winch, man-handled the anchor onboard and then lashed it down. A very neat build here, Rob, very well done. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Pete, I'm looking forward to this. I very nearly did Fubuki but opted for a Fletcher instead (still to be started). I want to do some IJN ships soon. Thank you for the background info. I think these ships have been somewhat overlooked in favour of their heavier, more modern counterparts, and I'm guilty of that also. I'm very interested in how your build turns out. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday, I usually work in Airfix 1/600 rather than 1/700, and Airfix's small weapons usually are somewhat crude, so I now try to make my own if I can. Not as good as PE parts but better than kit parts, I think. For 20mm, 40mm and 2lb pompom barrels I use stretched sprue. I've got it down to 0.2mm. On another occasion I stretched Evergreen 2mm rod down to about 0.1mm (for a funnel cap) but that could be a bit too thin to use. I hope this helps. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday, I read that too. Their unusual design was in the interests of saving weight, not tactical reasons. The two ships were intended to be 48,000 ton battlecruisers, but under the terms of the Washington Treaty their displacement had to be reduced to 35,000 tons. If this is the Airfix 1/600 scale kit I did this quite a few years ago, almost OOB. You might want to check the depth of the main turrets. From line drawings it appeared to me they were a little shallow, so I added some thin plywood underneath (I hadn't discovered Evergreen styrene products at that stage). If you do this you might have to also extend the rotating pins a little, but styrene tube will do for that. HTH. I've never been game to try PE so I'm looking forward to seeing your build. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Worms, you call that a modeling tool kit? Where's the 9-inch angle grinder, the blow torch, the 6-foot crow bar? At least you've got the chain saw. Sharp, I hope. Looking forward to seeing what you do with these. Regards, Jeff.