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Gidday All, many years ago while in a doctor's waiting room I picked up a copy of a Reader's Digest. In the book section at the rear was a story "The Ship That Out-Sailed Time". The article told the story of USS Mullany, a Fletcher-class destroyer. I read the article, was fascinated by it and never forgot it, it is quite a story. I've wanted to do a Fletcher class for quite some time, in particular this ship, and decided now is the time. Those of you who know me will know of my preference for the 1/600 scale in ships, and as there is no kit I can use that I know of it'll be another scratch build. Wish me luck. I hadn't intended to start the build thread until I was a bit further advanced but then I thought "What the heck, let's do this", so here I am. I'm planning on using the technique I used for my recent Flower class corvette, but with some refinements due to lessons I learnt. The first task, obviously, is to get some plans of the ship. And for this the internet is a marvelous thing. 🙂 The diagrams I found aren't very big, but good enough I think for the scale and hence size of this model. Using these I cut a centre profile piece and the upper deck, both from 0.5mm thick styrene sheet. On the profile piece I removed 1mm from the keel and 0.5mm from the cutaway under the hull. This is to compensate for the thickness of the upper deck and the hull strakes (side and underneath strips), all of which I intend to do in 0.5mm styrene. As you can see I've marked the frame (rib) positions plus glued a 'keel' of 1.0 x 1.5mm styrene, glued on edge to give some rigidity. I'll do this on both sides. I've also marked where I'll drill holes for mounting screws (M), numbers 1 and 5 turrets (G) and also the single rudder (R). I forgot to do this for the rudder when I did the Flower class. The reason I've marked these locations is to make sure I have plenty of styrene in those locations to drill into. I didn't do a very good job of the deck though, the two hull halves aren't equal, the starboard side a little wide and the port side a little narrow. Plus if you look carefully you can see a bit of a hollow, or dent, in the port side edge at about frames 19 and 20 (my numbering). So I spent a bit of time on the starboard side getting it right and then used it as a half-template, to have another go. Plus I cut out the final piece using a sharp new scalpel blade, not scissors. I got a much better result. I've also started gluing what I call the 'vertebrae', the pieces that will sit just under the upper deck and between the frames. These are to join the upper deck to the centre profile piece and are made from 1.5mm square-section styrene. I decided to make these pieces snug between frames, and as the frames will be cut from 0.5mm styrene I used 0.5mm drill bits as spacers. I started at one end and am moving gradually along the hull. I did the starboard side first, starting at the bow. Holding the drills down with a bit of masking tape helps. The advantage of metal drills instead of scrap styrene for the spacers is that I won't accidently glue the spacers to the model. 🙂 Anyway, this is as far as I've got. So stay safe and keep on modeling. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday All, here's my latest completion, a model of a 'Flower' class corvette. Rather than do a specific vessel the model depicts a generic ship of the class, a later vessel with a long foc'sle and the mast stepped abaft the bridge. This model was built for the "Salty Sea Dog" GB, and is my first that I've attempted to scratch build a hull from styrene. While it is very rough it turned out better than I hoped, and could well open quite a few doors for me with model ships in the future. With the exception of the boats and davits, the pompom, anchors and the screw (all of which I've made myself in the past for other models) everything on this model is scratch built. The model is in 1/600 scale and hence is quite small, 104mm long with a beam of 16mm, but I chose this scale to be able to compare her with other warships I've done. This is to show just how small these ships really were. And I think they and their crews did a superb job, fighting not only the U-boats but the appalling weather of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. This is my very small tribute to them. Anyway, here she is, a Flower class corvette, long foc'sle type. For those of you who are interested, the build thread: Thank you all for your interest. Regards to all, Jeff.