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My other build is a kit thats been in the stash for quite a while, picked up for $8 at a local show. USS England, a Buckley class Destroyer Escort, was quite successful serving in the Pacific. Between May 19th and May 31st in 1944, she sank 6 Japanese submarines.

Yes I know I am starting another but this should be quick. Well I attended the Scottish National model show at the weekend another great show and picked up some bargains while there I got myself three of these kits WW2 Multi-purpose boats Tiny things. So in the lull of that quiet time on the Saturday afternoon I built one for a bit of fun I timed myself building it 28 minutes and 40 seconds nice little easy kit. But when I got it back home I noticed some differences with the box art to what you actually build a little soft on some details so I raided the spares box of PE and plastic rod and have ended up with this so far Stay safe beefy

For several years I searched for the kit of the HMS Västergötland and finally found one. But I needed two to be able to convert one to the extended submarine as well. Considering how difficult it was to find a kit, I had no great hope of finding a second one so I tried to make a silicone mold of the bow and aft and trying to scratch build the rest. A plastic tube was mounted between the polyester castings and Magic Sculp was used to build up the hull. One year later I was lucky enough to get a second kit so the project started was scrapped and the new kit was cut into two parts instead. This is how far I can go before I found the kit. Having thoughts about scratchbuiling a couple of earlier submarines I have come to the conclusion that I can use parts of my discontinued project for an HMS Sjöormen. I removed the bow and will use the stern with the plastic tube. It will be a minor reshaping of the part but it will probably work even if the polyester part is very hard. Sadly the plastic tube was a little too short for this boat so a piece had to be added giving an extra joint to hide. A new nose in Magic Sculp has been started. It is a bit sad that there is a kit of this subarine but it is in 1/700 scale and that is not what I build.

Hi there, I want to share with you guys the photos of my model of HMS Abercrombie monitor depicted as she looked like in the summer of 1943 during the Sicily landings. I used the plastic from Trumpeter kit, photoetched parts from Microdesign (ramps, ladders, hand winches), figures from Eduard, and Oerlikons from Alliance. I had neither ability nor desire to use a lot of additional parts, so I modified the provided 4'' AA guns mounts, pom-poms, lifeboats, and life rafts by my own hands for so much as my limited talents made it possible. Also I made by myself the figures of gunners for the twin Oerlikons and watch officers on the bridge, at rangefinders and in directors (it would be very hard to make the figurines from Eduard to sit or to stand in dynamic postures). In the end of the day, the process of building this model gave me a lot of fun during the quarantine this spring and left me with a thought about modeling a more elegant ship next time. I'll be happy if you guys provides any kind of feedback (even the most non-constructive critique), but can't pledge to be always polite in my answers

Hi, First post, recently I got into modelling (1 SMS Viribus Unitis so far). I decided to build Trumpeters 1/350 HMS Roberts - an Abercrombie type monitor with 1 2x15 inch gun turret. I've pre-painted the base of the hull (if this is the right phrase?) in black, then overlaid a red for the main hull. Now I've assembled the super structure to paint as one in camouflage then to add in the detail parts/ final PE parts that are probably too fragile to be handled frequently. It is a beautiful kit with the brass parts built in to the design so no having to scrape things off. only extra PE is brass barrels from a Hood upgrade set (I wanted elevated here)

At a loose end at the mo' so I thought I'd kick off with the box art and all the little bits and bobs, that will go to make this nice little ship. I thought it might make a change to a 'Flower'. That's about it, except I couldn't resist this close up, Bens 3D printing is superb. I'll start in January, meanwhile I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and an even better New Year. See you all in '23 Jon

This was a fun little painting project as a diversion from Cruiser modelling. The quality of the 3D printed models are just excellent and it was a chance to try out some North Star figures. Paints are Sovereign Colourcoats and Vallejo. The funnel stays were a trial and that was the thinnest stretched sprue I could manage. The B6 (light blue) boat has no rudder as this will be planted in the Berwick dio Thanks for looking Rob

Here is my representation of HMS Courageous, a Churchill Class submarine of the Royal Navy using the recently released Mikro Mir kit of HMS Conqueror in 1/350. Built half OOB as I like the waterline look of my maritime. The only extra work done was adding the side vents and correcting the white draught marks to red, oh and adding an extra set of draught marks to the forward edge of the rudder. Depicting the boat as 'crossing the line' in 1981(ish). Short build log here: Stuart

Well been a bit busy with repairs to conservatory new roof and prep work ready for when the daughter returns from London in the summer she has a new job back up in the North East SEN teacher. Plus my farther has been in hospital for three weeks and cannot see him because of Covid on the ward three days after he went in with a water infection so looking after my Mother.. An elderly gent came into the model club the other week and asked who built model ships to which about 8 fingers pointed at me he then asked if I could build a kit for him as he has Parkinson's and would not be able to build it correctly after about an hour's chat I agreed to build it for him. The gent gave me quite a bit of information on his farther full RN service record and some photos of the ship and crew they were tied in with a group of Ghurkha's special operations he told me and he gave me permission to post on BM while I do the build. The photos show her with the US pennant numbers and colour's so not sure if she would have been repainted he gave me the number of BY2168 so I think she was but not sure If she just wore the G45 light grey scheme the photos I am told are of the ship just outside of Malta Harbour the crew were transported there to and from England to Malta for hand over on HMS Sussex The gent's farther is in the centre of last photo with the Ghurkhas Gun layer was the description the old fella gave me. I think this will be an interesting build and I have to finish as soon as I can lucky it is so small looks more like a 700 scale kit. I have some links for further information cheers @robgizlu http://www.wildfire3.com/byms-home-page.html http://www.navsource.org/archives/11/19idx.htm Stay Safe beefy

Well after a bit of gap in builds ( DIY and decorating for the offspring ) going to make a start on this before I restart my York build. HMS Gorleston Banff Class Sloop 1943 I used the hull on this as an explanation on how to add some hull plating for a build of @Faraway A nice small one to get the MOJO kick started. Hull plating added using a build up of primer and masking tape. This was all sanded back and joint lines filled and re-primed and plated after my quick example was a bit rough so hope this will be a quick one. Stay Safe beefy

Those of you who know me have already heard about the ludicrous Crisp medical story of 2021, which meant that Ark Royal and P-38F builds ground to a shattering halt for most of the year. Finally, however, I am in a position to start building again, but I find that my mojo to pick up exactly where I left off is wobbly - ironic, given the fact that the P-38 was itself a build kicked off by medical emergencies. After a few days of desultory re-planning and gentle sanding of Ark boats, I have decided to do something completely different. A few of you possibly spotted where I was going when I asked for reference photos just before Christmas (thanks, Evert-Jan!), but for those who didn’t… At Telford I spent a happy half hour talking to the two lovely Dutch guys from Naval Models, and acquired one of their lovely 1/350 S-Klasse / Kortenaer Class “Standard” frigates. My best Naval friend (I’ve been his Best Man… twice!) is a Dutch officer who did an exchange tour in HMS Broadsword when I was Flight Commander in 1989-1991; he will be 60 in a couple of months, so this his present, and will be built as Hr.Ms. Bloys v. Treslong, the ship he joined when he returned to the Koninklijke Marine (Royal Dutch Navy) after his time with us. The kit is very similar in style and quality to Atlantic Models’ RN kits - resin with PE. I’ll be building her pretty much OOB, though I’d say the kit’s main (only major) weakness is the fact that it lacks railings or flight deck nets… so I’ve added one of Pete’s generic “Modern RN railings” sets. And a Master brass barrel for the OTO-Melara gun, cos brass barrels always look better than resin. I actually started 5 or 6 days ago, but so far (as with all resin kits) it’s been wall-to-wall sanding to remove some pretty chunky casting plugs, so nothing interesting to show you. Anyway… The hull, cast in one piece (I’ve sanded away some of the bow-mounted sonar dome to give a bit of stability - she’ll be in a sea scape): Details of Fo’c’s’le: …and Quarterdeck: …in both cases showing some clean-up still needed but excellent quality casting. The various superstructure sections after several hours of work to remove casting blocks: Plus closer view of bridge: …funnel area without and with turbine downtake section (which was different in different ships of the class, so not cast in one piece); …and the aforementioned OTO-Melara 76mm gun with the Master barrel (plus resin shell case ejector carefully shaved from the resin part): …and finally the Goalkeeper CIWS - half-way through building this I realised that the Airfix Lusty has Goalkeepers which are unused in my Ark 5 build, and their barrels are rather nice, especially with added PE bling: So that’s the story so far. Nice to be back. More soon Crisp

I've not done historical models for a long time, mainly doing fantasy and sci-fi stuff for various RPGs and table-tops over the past 25 years. But recently I've decided to do a naval diorama, you can see my thread on that here : I need a merchant ship for this, but there's not many kits available. So I need to convert the Trumpeter 1/350 liberty ship to the older "Sunderland Steamer" class, this was the design used as the basis for the much more numerous and famous Liberty, Victory and Park classes mass produced during the war. As a pre-war merchant vessel "class" there's no real single design for these. Four holds, central boiler and turbines. Super structures varied but mainly had the bridge forward of the funnel and passenger accommodation. I've decided this will be an unspecified vessel of the Blue Funnel line in late '41, she's seen multiple North Atlantic convoys and is now en-route to the Pacific. She has been DEMS armed but not fully re-painted from her line colours, this seems to have been not un-common for lines that had colours which pretty matched the Admiralty rules for north Atlantic convoys. You can see my research and decisions in the thread above.

And good day again, gentlemen! I'd like to share with you my next build of HMS Cairo 1942, during Operation Pedestal. Though there is little information about how did she look like in terms of armament, boats, radars etc., hopefully that will still be enough to make a fine and a historically accurate model. The kit itself is Trumpeter's 1/350 HMS Calcutta 1940, which is relatively close to what is going to look like HMS Cairo. Some BlackCat details are also with me, including 4-barreled pom-pom, boats and whalers, as well as NorthStarModels HACS Mk.IV, oerlikons by Infiny, lots of doors, portholes, ladders etc... And I've also ordered Shipyardworks 102mm guns and Hunter's wooden deck for HMS Calcutta. This is my first process of highlighting a build of a model, so I'm a bit curious to know, what it is like 🙃

A couple of months ago I did a scratchbuild tug. It certainly had some character but ended up looking pretty cartoonish and while I like it it doesn't fit the diorama I'm doing. So I decided to do one from some plans. Built originally in 1907 I'm not building this particular boat but using the plans to get something that looks more accurate than my "by eye" earlier attempt. She will be up alongside the much larger Sunderland Steamer from my other build log - which in turn will up against HMS Prince of Wales. I'm not even sure if a tug this small would have the grunt to move a 10,000 merchant ship but for the sake of artistic license she will emphasise the size of the other two ships in the diorama. In 1/350 she's not very big, just 47mm bow to stern. But here goes. The scaled hull formers from the plans, these are just in thick printer friendly paper. Hull form assembled I stuffed the hull form with foam core to bulk it out, then trimmed down to fit. More so the putty would be thinner and not require as much curing time as anything else. roughly covered in Milliput, finger prints and all. Sanded down and with a deck made of scored card glued in place.

This is to give the interesting news that Trumpeter has commissioned a Box Art for a 1/350 Model Kit of the Planned Conversion of the Launched and almost completed ( Admiral Hipper Class Heavy Cruiser ) for the Seydlitz WW2 Warship Hull to be a German Navy Carrier . Tonight Randall confirmed to me it will be Trumpeter of China who will produce it as a kit using the Hull of their Hipper Class and other parts of the Graf Zeppelin ( planes etc ) .

So this is my third concurrent ship build..but this ones really tiny, a 60' harbour tug. I thought about buying a kit but I'm going to try scratch build this out of whatever I've got lying around. If it's terrible I can always buy one later to go into the final diorama. My only reference. Quick hull form to use as template to cut the foam core that will bulk the hull. four rough pieces of foam core the foam core layered together and covered over with milliput. Smoothed out to close to the hull shape, currently drying on the windowsill. Should be dry enough to sand down and smooth the hull in a few hours. As always, I build messy and tidy up later Plan is to smooth out the hull, use some more putty to build up the hull curve above the waterline. I'll use bits and pieces of PE I dont need from the other kits and raid my bits box for the rest. Hoping I can get this done (excepting painting, too hot to airbrush atm) in two to three days.

To go alongside the Merchant ship conversion I'm doing is HMS Prince of Wales. This is Tamiya kit, so far with Eduard PE. Crew figures are from North Star. I wont repeat the story of what's going on here, that's in my other thread. Short version is this is PoW calling in at Gibraltar after her short stint with Force H in the med in September '41. Not a whole lot to show here so far but I guess every build log has to start somewhere I've done a bit of assembly and some prep work. Roughly how the two will be positioned The kit's fine, a little tidying up of injection mould lines. Not massively detailed but that's fine as I'll be adding in what I can from the PE kits and some scratch build if I need to. I would dearly love to add wooden decking (I know, I really should have made this choice before I assembled and base coated) and some detail parts from Micro Master or Blackcat...but I also like to set a deadline and budget for these things or they drag on forever. Sadly I'm already at £250 of my £350 budget for the whole diorama and I still need to get resin and a perspex case cover. So we'll see ... once I get further down the line I might decide to stretch my budget a bit and get some resin pom-poms and deck detailing sets. I am planning on having a lot of crew figures in this one, maybe around 200, engaged in various activities. Transferring stores from the merchant, off duty crew relaxing forward of the A gun, re-embarking after going ashore at the stern, servicing the Walrus and various other maintenance tasks as the mood takes me. Many of the small boats will also be in the water.

Hi All, After completing a couple of stalled aircraft builds, it's time to get back to the maritime builds, not the Fushimi Maru as expected but this most recent arrival of a Churchill Class Submarine in 1/350 by Mikro Mir...FANTASTIC! The mandatory stuff... The box art. Hull sprue and base. The other sprue with the upper casing, sail, planes and masts. Also a PE propeller and some decals. Instructions As you can see, like most submarine kits, it has very few parts, so that means it'll be a quick build right... The box art and decal option is for HMS Conqueror, sister to HMS Courageous but seeing that I served on Courageous, it'll be her that I shall be doing, not that there is any difference except the flying of the 'Jolly Roger'. I have to thank @maarten.schonfeld for helping Mikro Mir and @Terry1954 for also helping to bring it to my attention. Stuart

Let the whistle blow on this build - I've been accumulating pieces for some months. There's still not a dedicated etch set though White Ensign Models have heavily hinted. There are however, sets for HMS Cornwall that she shared most characteristics with. This Family of 13 Cruisers were built in the 1920's under the limits of The Washington Naval Treaty 1922, with an upper weight limit of 10,000 tons. HMS Kent was launched in 1926 and spent the pre war years largely on the China Station. She diiffered from others such as HMS Berwick and Cornwall with never having a seaplane hangar built due to weight limitation. A major refi tin 1937/8 saw her fitted with a Walrus capable Catapult and Trumpeter present her largely in this guise with a minor upgrade seeing 6-7 20mm Oerlikons fitted in 1941, being encompassed. 1941/2 saw her operate out of Scapa Flow and largely take part in Arctic convoy duties. She is well represented in photographs from that time period - largely from the Imperial war Musuem Collection, and is portrayed in Camouflage typical of that period. References will include the following - but if anyone can direct me to further - I'd be indebted The kit box features attracive cover art and is suitably voluminous. Aftermarket goodies iclude most of the following with more to come (Sadly Micromaster.co.nz operatiosn are currently suspended due to CV19 Lockdown) Kit instructions are B&W line drawn With an attractive and broadly helpful Colour profile though I'm well aware of Trumpeter's lack of accuracy with suggested colour schemes! There is an excellent on line resource WW2 Cruisers and Battleships with some extremely attractive Colour profiles from Mr Eric Leon. I have permsiion from Mike at the site to share the 1941 profile. Please check the site out for other very interesting schemes including those for HMS Kent before and after 1941. I am very grateful to the site and Mr Leon I'm broadly happy that she is painted in 507c (very light) with MS1 (darkest) mid hull patches that that are themselves surrounded by B5/15 (lightish in some of the original photos). She has unequicovally dark painted decks that I take to be the Sovereign equivalent of NARN 2 The only real issue for me is what colour is portrayed at bow and stern. It's darker than the B15 but lighter than deck or MS1. This leaves MS2, 507A or possibly MS3? Mr Leon opts for MS2 though this has very little contrast with MS1 Any thoughts Jamie or Richard? Here are the original pictures...all gratefully attributed to and with sincere Thanks to the Imperial War Museum Collection And aren't they beautiful pictures! My feeling is that bow and stern is Not MS2 but most likely 507C and possibly MS3 which would give the greatest contrast with the mid hull MS1/B5. So here's what the Hull looks like I applaud the protective wrapping that Trumpeter use And to get an idea of size there's little HMS Anchusa next to it (Still 1/350) The model will be mounted on plinths - and I anticipate no obvious build problems or need to scratch along the way. The Micromaster parts will suitably "pimp" it up. Weathering will be light to moderate. The Hull painting will come first which is why I'm keen to get a paint plan in my mind. As ever thanks for looking Rob

Time for a new project; The 1/350 HMS Hood with some aftermarket add-ons; Artworx wooden deck; Flyhawk PE and Trumpeter after market set (mainly for the barrels; Eduard PE along with Northstar secondary guns mounts, Vickers MGs, searchlights and bridge equipment and White Ensign replacement turrets; It's going to be a long project and it's a bit hard to know where to start really - so started on the hull; Removed the moulded degausing cable and drilled the scuttles to give a bit more depth - some where filled and replaced using various photos as references along with the hawse pipe hull openings; Scrapped away the moulded chain and drilled the deck hawse pipe openings; Fore deck fitted with the bow full of filler - when it's dry I'll try and drill the hawse pipes to connect hull and deck openings. Never tried it before but if it doesn't work the anchors and gratings will cover it, so worth a go; Thanks for looking. Cheers Nick

Hello, guys! I would like to present you with a model of the Heavy Cruiser HMS Berwick as of the end of 1940. This is about the size of the cruiser that took part in the Battle of Cape Spartivento. The model is a conversion of the HMS Cornwall from the " Trumpeter". In addition to parts from the kit, photo etched leers, winchs, ladders, oars and flywheels from Aber, Microdesign and Alliance were used. Using these, as well as homebaked parts, the Cornwell is transformed into the Berwick and the detailing is improved. The figures of the sailors in their jackets are self-carved from a sprue. Details of the build are covered here: The model turned out to be somewhat surrealistic for two reasons: firstly, the lack of plausible prototype drawings and the paucity of legible photos. That's why a lot of details and even the paint scheme were a result of guesswork and deduction. And it turned out that I have chosen perhaps the most poorly documented period of service of this ship. I can recommend to future builders of the HMS Berwick to choose the period of late 1941 - early 1942. At least the painting is more or less clear at this time. But I wanted high masts and a wood-coloured deck... Secondly I understand that in fresh weather the dinghies and small guns have to be covered with awnings and the plane is in a hangar. I might learn such restraint at some point, but I'm a novice ship modeller and I want everything at once - waves and planes. After all, the author does have a truth to some artistic generalisation, doesn't he? Another point of discussion: could the autumn storms in the Mediterranean have so ruined the paint on the boards? But one can assume that the paint which was applied in Alexandria in the summer was not of the best quality. The work on the model lasted 1 year and 1 month and on the whole it was a very pleasing experience, although it was not without some tactical problems. The carpet monster was steadily increasing its collection (I do not have a carpet in my workshop, but the Monster is there). Only in the last week of work two figures of sailors and the antenna of the direction finder were missing. Of the large and important parts I lost 2 deflector funnels grilles in one day. One was found later, the other (on the central funnel) ended up standing homemade. But all in all, again, it was fun and ended happily. I love this game! I would like to thank everyone who followed the construction and left encouraging comments. I am especially grateful to @robgizlu whose work inspired me to start building and to @dickrd who helped me sort out many tricky historical questions. Dick is undoubtedly the most knowledgeable person in Royal Navy history who has condescended to speak to me. I would be grateful for any criticism. Happy builds to all!

Hi guy new member here I want to show you guy my newest project. I know there is a lot of incredible Nagato builds out there so i want my Nagato to be difference. So I took the inspiration from the opening scene from the famous WW2 movie " Tora Tora Tora" and recreated into 1/350 scale. It took me an good amount of time and effort to pull this off. In the end more than 450+ figures were use and I most proud is the stern of the ship were in 1939 Yamamoto became commander in chief of the Combined Fleet. I scratch built the entire Marine Band on that one. Thank you for watching and be safe wherever you are and keep modeling. Cheers from Viet Nam

Happy New Year, guys! Inspired by the work of the esteemed Rob, I began to build my version of the heavy cruiser HMS "Berwick" based on Trumpeter's "Cornwall". Doing Berwick for November 1940, before the battle at Cape Spartivento. I would like to make a stormy sea typical for this time of year. Like my previous projects, I plan to use a mini aftermarket details and everything that I can modify myself (I have nowhere to rush!). I also want to make my own crew figures. I think it will not be as difficult as it seems - firstly, in fresh weather there should not be many sailors on deck. Secondly, the figures in storm jackets are not very difficult to make.) Gentlemen! I would be very grateful if someone shares a photo of Berwick. Photos from 1940 are especially interesting. For my part, I share what I managed to find: https://mega.nz/folder/E5cFXArQ#eznRe1pyYHcTpIfYdcBSwg

Good day everyone! Recently have finished the notorious Trumpeter's Tribal-class destroyer kit with a few addings of Micromaster (4.7 inch., 4 inch. HA, Wickers MG), Black Cat Models (general kit for the class), specially ordered decals and others. Besides that I had to slightly raise the bow part of the ship with plastic sheet. 3D kits are amazing, they helped so much in kit's improvement. It's a great pity that we can't afford Micromaster in Russia because of delivery issues... The model is depicting HMS Tartar during her participation in escorting Northern convoy PQ-18 in September of 1942 as a part of Fighting Destroyer Escort. I'm very glad to add my ship to this forum's fleet

So having seen this: http://www.alide.com.br/Artigo/HMS Spartan/HMS Spartan.htm and this: It inspired me to try this: And this: To create this: And this: I'm in the process of correcting the bow to look more like this: This so far: And that's up to date. Here's to finishing it!