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Gidday All, I've just completed my conversion of the Airfix HMS Hood in 1/600 scale. While the kit OOB depicts the ship at about 1932 I've modified the build to depict her in May 1941, at the time of her sinking by Bismarck in the Denmark Strait. I had to source some parts, such as twin 4-inch guns, UP launchers, Carley floats, quad .5cal machineguns and most of the ship's boats. The modifications included said 4-inch and .5cal weapons, the main turrets, most levels of all the superstructures, the shelterdeck, the spotting top and director on it. I also scratch built a lot of fittings such as the three octuple pompom AA guns, the three HACS, rangefinders, all searchlight and weapon pits, shafts screws and anchors, the chin plate at the forefoot, the main topmast and the radar on it, and small assorted stuff such as ammo lockers, winches, hawser reels, funnel grills, paravanes, bonnet covers and capstans, and bridge fittings. The build has taken me five months, and while no doubt I've made some errors and missed some mods I think I've come close enough, particularly for my average skill level. You may have noticed a distinct lack of aftermarket additions. While other modelers do superb models with them I prefer to make my own additions. I'm a bit quirky that way (a polite way of saying 'miserly' 😀). Anyway, here she is, my build of HMS Hood as at the Denmark Strait in May 1941. And an aerial view, with her main guns trained to starboard and her after turrets just beginning to bear on Bismarck. This was the moment, at 0600 hrs on May 24th 1941 that a shell from Bismarck's fifth salvo hit her. And the rest, sadly, is history. Of her crew of 1418 men there were only three survivors. Thank you all for your interest. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday All, a bit over a year ago a member here, @Rob S started a build thread of his conversion of two Airfix Iron Duke kits into a model of the battlecruiser HMS Tiger. To gain the extra length the two hulls were cut to give one long bow section and one long stern, then rejoined. I've used the method myself on occasion. He also did the same with the kits' weather-decks and a photo he posted on 9th November 2022 showed the midships Q turret repeated. This gave me an idea for a whiff, a six-turret twelve-gun version of the ship. Thanks Rob. 👍 For those interested here is a link to his thread. I gained his permission via PM some time ago to mention this. https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235117299-1600-hms-iron-duke-x-2-to-hms-tiger/ The only problem for me making the whiff was that I didn't have a kit and didn't look like getting one, they're no longer in production AFAIK. However, my son managed to track one down second-hand and bought it for me for Father's Day. 🙂 I began the build last Monday for the annual What-if GB over on the ATF (Airfx Tribute Forum) and I'll be posting it here too. I've decided to name the ship HMS Culloden to commemorate the Third Rate 74-gun ship of the late 18th century that had quite a successful career. Here goes:- Firstly the traditional photo of box art and parts. The box is a bit battered but the bag inside was still sealed. I removed the parts though for the photo because the bag reflected the camera flash. Some of the parts were off the sprue, including one main gun and all five turrets but they all seem to be there. That other bag contains left-overs from my previous two builds of the kit, including the extra turret I'll need. And building has commenced. The two hull halves have been joined and the join re-inforced with scrap styrene bits. The two white squares of styrene with the holes are where I'll screw the model to a building block at the appropriate time, the extra styrene there to give the screws more to bite on. The next task will be to cut the hull athwartships (across the hull), pin the halves to a wood block with the required gap (26mm) between them and then rejoin the fore and aft sections. This has to be done carefully and accurately because I won't be able to get another kit if I stuff this up. You might be able to see the pencil line where I'll do the cut. I've also noticed that most of the fairleads have been knocked off. I trimmed off the remainder. I could possibly replace them later during the build. And so the butchering begins - I've begun cutting HMS Culloden's hull. I first drilled a series of holes down the centre-line, then took to the razor saw. Once the hull was cut I cleaned up the edges a bit then pinned both hull halves to a plank of wood, the required gap between them, a pencil line on the wood's surface marking the ship's centre-line to get the lengthened rejoined hull straight. Then it was a case of glueing joining 'girders'. These were simply lengths of heavy duty sprue of various sizes. I knew I'd kept them for a reason. I did one on either side of the centreline (the 'keel') first then one each side near the top of the hull. After that it was simply a case of adding more to get the hull shape ready for sheathing the gap. You can see the two joining girders on either side of the 'keel' already in place, the pegs are holding the girders just under the top edge of the hull. You can also see some of the pins holding the model to the wood plank, three pins for each half hull. The next photo shows all HMS Culloden's joining girders in place. The hull looks quite straight and rigid. I think this is enough for one post. I've done a bit more and will continue the thread soon. So stay safe and keep on modeling. Regards to all, Jeff.

Gidday All, while I don't like to have more than one project on the go at any one time my current build is almost done, so I think I can safely start this. I nominated for this GB and voted for it so I feel a bit guilty that I haven't started it yet. But to make recompense . . . . . . I've done a few RN cruisers over the years, two of them are derivatives of the Southampton (Town) class, but I haven't done a ship of the original class yet. So I thought I'd do HMS Sheffield, the "Shiny Sheff". She had quite a career. She was one of the first warships to be fitted with radar, one of the first RN ships to fire her guns in anger in WW2, she shadowed the Bismarck and in doing so came under a 'friendly' aerial torpedo attack, was fired upon by Bismarck, was Rear-Adm Burnett's flagship at the Battle of the Barents Sea, was part of Vice-Adm Burnett's (he'd been promoted) cruiser squadron a year later when they fought off the Scharnhorst off North Cape, to name a few highlights. As is usual for me I'll be working in the 1/600 scale, of which there aren't any dedicated kits that I know of, so I'll convert an Airfix HMS Belfast kit. Below is the box art. I've decided not to include the kit parts in the photo. They're just lots and lots of grey bits of styrene. Also as is usual for me I won't be using PE but I'll make any other parts I need. I'll have to make two major modifications to the hull. HMS Sheffield was 22 feet shorter than HMS Belfast so I'll have to shorten the hull by 11mm, in fact I've already done that. I'll also have to remove the bulges fitted to the sides of Belfast, a feature that was unique to her. They were added as part of her reconstruction after running over a mine. I don't know how much styrene I'll have to remove so before I remove the bulges I've decided to pack the insides of them with extra styrene strips to prevent (hopefully) having wafer-thin sides. These strips can also reinforce the join of the hull fwd and aft halves, which is why I did the hull shortening first. Below is the first stage of packing out the hull bulges. After I cut the hull shorter (rather crudely as my home-make mitre jig was of mediocre success) I pinned the two halves to a wood block, glued those two short joining pieces to the bottom and have now glued a strip of styrene 5mm deep from a sheet 0.4mm thick (left over from my Flower class corvette build). When the glue sets I'll do the other side. Then add more as I go. I'd rather have too much hull thickness than not enough when I get out the angle-grinder. Well, that's as far as I've gone. In the background you can see my almost complete Fletcher class destroyer, USS Mullany. So, stay safe and keep on modeling. Regards to all, Jeff.

Gidday All, for the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War GB I commenced a conversion of the 1/600 scale Airfix Devonshire kit into HMS Glamorgan, a batch 2 County-class destroyer. This ship has the distinction of being the first ship to survive a hit by an Exocet missile fired in anger, although sadly not without casualties. The conversion required a lot more work than I originally thought, partly due to the inaccuracies of the kit, poor quality parts of the kit and differences between the two ships. My mojo suffered a bit on occasion but I'm glad I stuck with it. I felt compelled to, really. No doubt there are things I've missed and further detail I could have added but I wanted to get her finished. To those who served on her or have an intimate knowledge of these ships I beg your forgiveness. And I thank you all for your help, advice and encouragement during the build. Here are some more photos of the completed model. The superstructures. With the exception of the forward funnel the entire forward superstructure was scratch built. AFAIK the Exocet hit her just aft of the port Seacat launcher. Due to the heal caused by the ship's rapid turn the missile hit the deck and not the ship's side. I won't go into that any further here, there are others who know much more about this than I. For those that wish to see the build logs, the first stage is here And the second stage is here I think the only parts of the kit that I didn't alter or replace are the rudders and Exocet canisters. Thank you for your interest. Regards, Jeff.