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Due to a family connection...

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I wished to build the I-class destroyer HMS Imperial, pennant number D09, which was built by Hawthorn Leslies in Tyneside in 1936. The I class was a continuation of the Brazilian H making Peter's kit a very good starting point, however there are some differences to be addressed. The easiest problem is that the I-class had 4 of the 4.7in QF Mk.IX single mounts. The Hesperus kit provides 3, lacking Y-turret. Peter kindly supplied my kit with a fourth mount knowing my plans for this kit.

Next up, the H-class funnels were unequal height but both had oval cross sections. On the I-class, the aft funnel was taller, approximately equal in height to the forward funnel. The forward funnel was circular in cross section. Armed with a set of plans (again, thank you Peter!) I set about extending the aft funnel and replacing the forward funnel.

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New 3D printed 4.7in Mk.IX QF guns were sourced from Shapeways but the barrels were as poor as the breach end was brilliant

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The barrels were thus sawn off and replaced with brass

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The torpedo mounts were likewise replaced by Shapeways items. They were extremely expensive for what they are, but they look nice

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The pair of Vickers 0.5in quad machine gun mounts were replaced with Tetra Modelworks items which I had used before on a HMS Hood build as was very happy with them

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I did as best I could in interpreting the scheme from the single wartime photograph I have ever seen. I had to pay around £20 for this from the Australian War Memorial to get a high resolution version to even find out if the photograph showed anything - the low-resolution version online just showed a smudge where the ship claimed to be

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So, after a few months' work, here it is. I never really finish model ships - I just stop. I plan to get some better paravanes and fit them to the deck at the stern, and I will definitely get some crew members to stand on watch when they become available from Northstar. For now though, it's safely in my display cabinet :)

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That's a really cracking build Jamie, and the seascape is brilliant! If I may just offer one slight nitpick I think it might look even better if you painted the sides of your seascape the same as the surface or in another dark colour such as black - it may just be me of course, but I found the grey kept drawing my eyes away from the main subject - that stunning little destroyer!

 

Lovely job! 

 

Keith

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Thank you to all who have taken the time to look in. I agree with @keefr22 and shall paint the edges of the sea base. I never really thought far enough ahead at the beginning (perhaps I expect a failure) but I should have dressed the edges from the start. This isn't light paint but just the raw styrofoam board after dressing the edges with a 180grit sanding board to tidy them up before going on the wooden plynth. They will look better dark so I shall report back when I've done it :)

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I have coated the edges of the foam in Non Specular Sea Blue, but bare foam soaks a lot in!

 

I don't dislike it, but I originally intended to go darker. I am going to leave it like this for a day or two and see if I want to keep it that way or go darker yet.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

The Law of ze Sod has struck me well and truely this time.

 

Would you believe that after so much hunting around for *wartime* images of HMS Imperial and finding only the AWM image, and deciding to just build the model, @dickrd just returned from the National Archives having stumbled across a series of excellent quality images from Malta's drydock straight after it arrived there after the towing seen in the AWM photo I showed a crop of, in a file full of damage reports. Curiously, Imperial had special treatment in the file too as the rest of the reports were light to lacking on photographs.

 

This is excellent. I but wish my grandmother were still around to see these photos.

 

As for the model, there are good and bad points. On the plus side, the drydock photos don't contradict my 507A / 507C colourscheme assumption. Furthermore, whilst none of the photos show the whole ship what they do show is approximately similar camouflage on both port and starboard side. The photos do clearly show the TSDS fit in place rather than depth charge equipment, so I did get that right.

 

On the negative side, I didn't get the stern camouflage right though. It's more like a reverse of the bow, but leaving a rectangular light grey bit on the stern with black pennant number. Perhaps the biggest difference though and the one worrying me the most is that the mainmast has completely gone. Instead there appears to be a stub mast on the searchlight platform.

 

As the first ship I have finished in a while I am having second thoughts about hacking it up already, so am going to think on it for a while. Ultimately though, I think it will need to be fixed.

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I don't know how I missed this back in September; that first picture of the finished model where she seems to be ploughing though the water towards you... *kisses fingertips*

 

Shame about the things that you might choose to change and that's up to you of course; sometimes you just have to step away from the canvas and start something else, sometimes you just cannot leave it alone... 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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Hi Stew, thanks!

 

I think it will need to be addressed one way or another - but I need to consider the best way to do it rather than just attack. I just had an idea whilst writing this as it happens which will preserve most of the rigging effort.

 

The set of 6 aerials need to be shortened. It just occurred to me that I could glue them to a new yardarm at approximately the right new length, then cut the rigging free aft of the new yardarm and then fix that to the new stub mast on the searchlight platform. Then I can somehow carefully remove the mainmast. I think...

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/8/2018 at 5:28 PM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

I have coated the edges of the foam in Non Specular Sea Blue, but bare foam soaks a lot in!

 

I don't dislike it, but I originally intended to go darker. I am going to leave it like this for a day or two and see if I want to keep it that way or go darker yet.

I like the blue edge as it is TBH, it's a nice contrast to the darker sea surface but doesn't take the eye away from the model itself.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I still haven't touched this again since learning about all the errors I made. I will though. Eventually.

 

The only thing I bought for myself at Telford was this:

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...which needs a proper hatchet job to make a Long Range Destroyer Escort - Great Uncle Alec's next posting - HMS Stanley (I73) which was torpedoed and blown in half by Type VII U-boat U-574. Unlike Imperial which was evacuated before being scuttled, Stanley sank fast in combat conditions and my great uncle was one of the fortunate ones which survived. U-574 was then rammed by modified Black Swan class sloop HMS Stork and itself sunk with 16 survivors. This drama is described in Capt. Eric Brown's book "Wings on My Sleeve". He was watching it from the cockpit of a Grumman Martlet.

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