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1/350 HMS Exeter (1939) - York class cruiser


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Looking good Jamie, 

 

Glad to see your build back on track, looking forward to seeing it finished, started mine with the Infini set I got from yourself last week, detail sets good and as you say the brass is just the right thickness, the Trumpeter kit on the other hand has more issues everytime I look at it!

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Gary

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I have finished assembling that mast. It's a nice snug fit on the model although it wants to lean to port by a few degrees. It's shown unglued here - obviously I will spray it 507C separately before gluing it in!

 

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I have realised I've missed a cleat from the very top of the mast head.

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Hi,

Your build looks great. 

Pat

 

PS.  The looks of the EXETER have really grown on me over the years.  It has such a clean and purposeful look, where you can kind of easily see why things are located where they are and what they do.  As opposed to some of foreign cruisers with their Layer Cake like appearance with multiple layers of superstructure stacked one atop the other. 😛

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Somewhat awkwardly, I have lost the box with remaining bits inside. Since I couldn't find shoes in a shoebox I've had to ask my wife to find it. Tomorrow I'm off to Glasgow on the scumshuttle for work and won't be home until 9 at night, and on Friday I'm going to see the Ferrari vs Ford movie (Le Mans 66 maybe?) with a friend at the cinema, so service is paused again until the weekend... Oops!

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Turns out the box wasn't lost at all. I just had too much other stuff on top of it and I couldn't see it. It was right behind my work area. I'm too messy.

 

I got most of the plastic finished today. I'm experimenting with tarpaulin covers for the ship's boats. Most people have something they just don't care about; for some it's whether the colours are right or whatever. For me it's the boats. I don't know why - I just couldn't care less whether they're there or not, or whether they're right or wrong. They are to me just an irritation that slows down finishing the model. I am trying hard to make a better effort than usual but they may end up just being stuck on and forgotten about.

 

I still need to make up the mainmast and some aftermarket (probably Tetra Model Works) 0.5in quad Vickers MGs, plus it needs the YX Model anchor chain painted and added. It also of course needs to be rigged, and the funnels need some soot staining.

 

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I suspect the EX markings on the turret were black rather than red like the decals are, but I tried cutting a mask (usually I'm good at that) but failed and gave up after the first attempt in favour of the decals after all. 

 

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I realise the last two posts have only shown the port side. There isn't a big thumb print on the starboard or anything like that - it's just that the lighting is poor because it's Scotland at the end of November and therefore dark. I'll try to get a better set once there's actually something worth looking at.

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Looking great so far, Jamie!B)

 

I know what you mean about the lack of light up here. I have an Eduard 1/72 MiG-21 on the bench just now which has taken me a week to decal because of the poor light conditions. I should get a new lamp but I live in a housing estate and I don't fancy people gawking at me through the window as I work!<_<

 

Mike.

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Looking great, especially love the those low angle shots.

5 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Scotland at the end of November and therefore dark

 

5 hours ago, MikeR said:

people gawking at me through the window

They do have electricity, bulbs and blinds in Scotland you know :rofl:

 

Stuart

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Trust me - there isn't enough electric light in the whole of Aberdeenshire to replace a day with good sunlight for model photographs :D

 

I forgot to mention - I added the final two steam pipes which I think hold a couple of sirens/horns to the forward funnel from lead wire purchased and delivered to my house by @Stew Dapple so they've had their first outing! They are the ones which attach to those brackets high up on the funnels an they are missing from the kit (and I haven't checked whether the aftermarket sets such as Infini Model's full set) provides them as they have bends in various directions. I had been dreading them but the pipes themselves turned out alright. I may add the sirens from a slip of brass tube over the tops.

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At this point I'm wondering if any of our ex-RN members ( @Ex-FAAWAFU??) know signals flags well enough to help me signal "ENEMY IN SIGHT"? I have the nice colour guide for idiots, but expect there would be subtleties I don't understand and I'd hope not to commit an abomination by botching it up!

 

I realise that I may need to speed her up a little from her pedestrian pace through the water currently, but I can do that easily enough as white water is additive with the method used.

 

On that note, what are peoples' preferred sources for Battle Ensigns and from where would they be flown? Finishing this model may, ironically, give me the impetus needed to finish Graf Spee.

 

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4 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

At this point I'm wondering if any of our ex-RN members ( @Ex-FAAWAFU??) know signals flags well enough to help me signal "ENEMY IN SIGHT"? I have the nice colour guide for idiots, but expect there would be subtleties I don't understand and I'd hope not to commit an abomination by botching it up!

 

I realise that I may need to speed her up a little from her pedestrian pace through the water currently, but I can do that easily enough as white water is additive with the method used.

 

On that note, what are peoples' preferred sources for Battle Ensigns and from where would they be flown? Finishing this model may, ironically, give me the impetus needed to finish Graf Spee.

 

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Jamie - I’ll look in my Dad’s 1930s Manual of Seamanship later, but my guess is that Enemy in Sight would be in a separate tactical (classified) manual.  Which of course means you can’t be demonstrably wrong!  Short signal, though - one or two flags at most

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Although we've sold all the first lot we bought in, I haven't seen anyone use this stuff yet. Here's the YX Model 3D printed studded chain anchor cable. I didn't think I could be so impressed with a model chain 😳

 

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5 minutes ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

I didn't think I could be so impressed with a model chain

 

There would be something intrinsically wrong about that statement... if that chain wasn't so damned impressive :D 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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Thanks lads!

 

Tonight I've done bits and bobs like dry brushing the railings darker between the stanchions, applying a dark wash to the portholes and airbrushing an uneven matt clearcoat on horizontal surfaces but leaving the pre-war enamel-containing Admiralty Pattern 507C a little glossy to try to improve the appearance a bit.

 

I also assembled some of the mainmast. There's a reasonable bit of work in these so when it stops being fun I'll give it a rest of the evening and finish the job later when I'm feeling like it.

 

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23 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Jamie - I’ll look in my Dad’s 1930s Manual of Seamanship later, but my guess is that Enemy in Sight would be in a separate tactical (classified) manual.  Which of course means you can’t be demonstrably wrong!  Short signal, though - one or two flags at most

 

Hi Crispin,

 

I've had a couple of responses on shipmodels.info, but they're not exactly definitive.

 

A new-to-me source (https://snr.org.uk/snr-forum/topic/hms-exeter-at-the-battle-of-the-river-plate/) gives "Enemy in Sight bearing 322" as the signal flown around 0620hrs, and here the sub-quoted sources conflict in claiming that signal in practise to be  E322 or N322. Thanks to Richard ( @dickrd) I now know that the Exeter Cathedral is flying the E flag claiming it to have been flown during the battle, but also his copy of the Fleet Signal Book says it should have been N.

 

I have written one mail to the Admiralty Library to ask if they still hold the Action Report for the battle which may record which it was. I won't chase it up. If they answer, great, if not, I'll leave them alone.

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On 11/24/2019 at 9:23 PM, Courageous said:

They do have electricity, bulbs and blinds in Scotland you know :rofl:

 

Stuart

:P

 

Trust me - blinds and two cats are not a good combination! It hasn't helped that the weather has been "dreich" for the past few days - there's something intrinsically depressing in being under artifificial light the whole day.<_<

 

Moving back to the Exeter; that's coming along very nicely! The chains just add that little bit extra, IMHO.B)

 

Mike.

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As corroboration of the signal hoisted (admittedly in a secondary source), an article entitled The Battle of the River Plate: A Tactical Analysis by Alan D Zimm in Warship 2018 (Conway Maritime Press, 2018) states "0616 Exeter: Signals, ‘I think it is a pocket battleship’, then ‘Enemy in sight bearing 322.’ Action Stations is sounded."  However, it doesn't show the flag hoists concerned.

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Just boats, a pair of quad 0.5" Vickers machine guns and rigging left, although I think some crew members are in order so I'll be looking at Northstar 3D printed figures. I need to get a set of nice Battle Ensigns to have flying, and some signal flags.

 

I've changed my mind from having it cruising along quietly to 0620hrs on 13th December 1939 when Captain Bell of HMS Exeter signalled to Commodore Harwood on HMS Ajax "Enemy in Sight bearing 322" as Exeter quickly closed range on the German Admiral Graf Spee on her own with HMS Ajax and Achilles took the pocket battleship's other flank to split her fire.

 

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10 hours ago, beefy66 said:

Now that is looking rather nice and the chains do look much better

 

beefy

 

Thanks Mr Beef,

 

I have a 1/700 set put aside for my Prince of Wales build but am absentmindedly chewing over whether I could use it for my 1/350 destroyer builds too. I had reasonable success with the photo etched WEM chain on Imperial twisting each link 90deg but this new-fangled 3D printed stuff really does appeal to me.

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