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DD-445 (PK-063 / 05127) USS Fletcher


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Avast ye landlubbers and air..airheads? Flyboys? No, er, airpeople? I'm going to have to start this again…

 

Hello all,  

 

Thou hast called upon thine maritime community to build a Matchbox kit and this fake Admiral has answered that call, ahoy hoy? This will be my second completed model after a 20yr hiatus, first wip, and ofc my first group build entry, so this could get interesting. I give onto you the…

 

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...mighty Revell-reboxed-Matchbox Fletcher kit! Ofc, the Matchbox molds are relatively, er, young, of a fine 1978 vintage. So the am…

 

cb62b70b-a3c9-41a1-8805-c0f163917869.jpg

 

...the extensive Five Star Model early type Fletcher set! One slight problem, it's for the Tamiya Fletcher kit... Oh well, I'm sure it'll be fine, I have a hammer if worse comes to worse. Here's some pics of these contents, to which might be added some additional bits and bobs as needed:

 

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....

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Background and Plan

The USS Fletcher was the lead member of its class of 175 ships, which served from WW2 through to the Korean and - to a much lesser extent - Vietnam wars. To put that number into perspective, the Empire of Japan only had 169 destroyers, total, throughout WW2 (excluding ~180 destroyer escorts). I'm sure you can think of tank (e.g. Matilda mk 1) or plane (e.g. Spitfire mk 6) production runs that had lower numbers. Just don't go attacking the US, kids.

 

Fletcher itself garnered 15 battle stars in WW2 and 5 more in Korea. The inimitable Warspite *only* received 15 battle honours across its entire career, and 26 across six so-named vessels from 1596-1944. Admittedly, it has a better name. These weren't just some mass-produced liberty ships, but truly piddle-inducing boats with combat records to prove it, although let's not mention early-war US torps.

 

Enough of my history lesson for the deranged, Fletcher was chosen from all 175 vessels for one reason. It's high-ranking battle record and cool-looking camouflage - 2 reasons then. So, fear, ruthless efficiency, camouflage and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…4 reasons…

 

The eventual plan is to house it with similar high-ranking examples from other major US ship classes. So it'll require a temporary seascape base for now, which may make that a slightly interesting challenge later. That diorama will face off against a similar setup for their Japanese equivalents...

Edited by Adm Lord De Univers
fat fingers
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Research 

For those interested, some links to online research pages and pics:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20040716222424/

http://www.destroyersonline.com/usndd/dd445/dd445pho.htm

http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/445.htm

https://destroyerhistory.org/fletcherclass/ussfletcher/

http://www.ussfletcher.org/photos.html

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/f/fletcher.html/

A Google photo bank

 

BM builds

Bonhoff's

beefy66's

faraway's

diehard's

The Oracle's (Jamies's) reply on painting the thing)

Nimitz's

 

Right, all that remains is to begin. Which will be at the weekend - I have morning-night shifts this week, so sorry for the anti-climax after that unnecessarily long introduction. Until then...


 

David

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Nice to have you on board Adm as we desperately need more Matchbox Maritime kits for this GB. What's on offer with this Fletcher kit OOB looks great and I can only imagine how small those PE parts really are!... I'm glad its you and not me!! 

Cheers, welcome aboard and best of luck.. Dave (self proclaimed Aerophile). 

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3 hours ago, JOCKNEY said:

Delighted to have you aboard David, I can only apologise that your hosts didn't pipe you aboard as you came up the gangplank  !

Best of luck with the build.

Cheers Pat

It's OK, I guess, I mean I forgot the word aerophile and called you airheads...so it's quite understandable.

 

I'm tempted to build OOB, for a kit of such vintage it holds up well, but it would look out of place next to newer kits such as those by Flyhawk, etc.

 

Eyeballing the etch suggests I have my work cut out, both for fit and small size.

 

David

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First few shots, not much to see really and definitely a one step forward, two steps back sort of day. I was going to proceed by a rule of nothing comes off until I am happy with the pe replacement. That went out the window when first cutting/sanding, there would be no way to remove tiny bits without damaging others. Shame, but living dangerously is more fun I guess.

 

As my first 'Matchbox' kit, I was very happy and suprised with the quality of fit, much better than many much newer offerings. I am searching for more now...Graf Spee will be up next and has arrived sans pe, but I have a feeling I might not be able to do both by deadline.

 

Anyway, pics: Ruining the Matchbox kit (forgot to take a photo earlier, so half done - shrapnel just above kit, I broke the deck-hull bond in places):

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Deck pretty much cleared now, final tidy up will be done later (deck-hull bond redone and relatively flush again):

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The pe height seems about perfect...

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Oh no isn't (and I need that deck to support weight and tension above it, which I didn't want to place on a pe deck alone):

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Further issue, using pe made for a different kit rears its ugly head in a much more difficult-to-fix way (and this has already been sanded back quite a bit-the circumference of the kit is far too large and out of shape):

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Success (upper levels are just placed on top and not themselves finished either/loosely affixed) but the fit is good - my achievement today is just the banding/walls of this one deck house (look at all that pe behind!):

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Slow going, but as this was part of the kit's main deck and other pieces are separate, so easier to access, I do not expect them to be as difficult or time-consuming to do...

 

The damage caused to the main deck from thinning the walls needs to be undone and can be tied into levelling the deck where needed and fixing any other damage earlier. I may put that to one side and give some of that pe a crack first.

 

David

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3 hours ago, CliffB said:

it will almost be a shame to paint it!

Very true, but rather a bit bling for my liking judging by the pe box.

 

7 hours ago, TimJ said:

Rather you than me with all that PE

I am beginning to rethink my life choices...

 

7 hours ago, JOCKNEY said:

I wouldn't have the patience to do this

I can take no credit on this front. Out of shot above is a bottle of Lagavulin 16yr. My bottle of Ardbeg Uigeadail needs replacing. It's not a cheap hobby, I tell you.

 

Thanks for watching and words of encouragement!

 

David

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Blimey, the ol' eyeballs are hurting. After a torrid affair with the 'easier' rear superstructures (wish I hadn't said anything now), I decided to tackle the 15x oerlikon caissons instead. I won't do as detailed shots of these small builds in future, but I was quite happy with them. First up, fret C with coin for size. There they are top left:

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Cutout prior to filing:

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Filing done and mass-production-bending underway:

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Ready for sealing up and painting (after some additional filing it now seems):

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David

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Thats just incredible modelling for such small size. I could never see myself doing anything like that, mainly because I don’t think I could ever see them! 
A nice and impressive update, well done David. 
Cheers.. Dave

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3 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Thats just incredible modelling for such small size. I could never see myself doing anything like that, mainly because I don’t think I could ever see them

 

I have an optivisor thing which helps, but even then they're far too small. I still need to get to the installation phase without accidentally squishing them, so we'll see.

 

32 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Good grief all thst tiny PE, you must be a masochist😉

Seriously though great start on this  the PE superstructure looks fantastic.   Good luck with all those very tiny parts.

Chris

 

Thank you, I was beginning to think that myself 🤪.  Lots of breaks are needed, but the above was a relaxing treat from 'issues' with the rear structures. I think it would be easier if I used the correct kit-am match, by themselves both are great, together a bit of a slog. I think for the Spee I will ditch most of the kit structure as combining them on the Fletch is nigh on impossible.

 

David

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  • 2 weeks later...

Boy is this turning into an uphill struggle. The photo below details where I've got to on the main build, unfortunately a viral-inflicted brain-fog caused some avoidable issues in progress...

 

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Namely, ensuring the middle superstructure block pe wraparound fitted properly, which the vertical faces appeared to. However, there is now a nasty, although small gap in places around the upper horizontal surface pe that will be a pain to fix. For some reason I had not checked that prior to affixing the vertical sides, although I don't even recall gluing them at all. I have faith it will be quite fixable and hidden by railings and other deck fixtures.

 

The aft superstructure is actually fine, but needs some filler where the raised portion was undersized on the kit (most aft). The bridge structure remains uncompleted and does fit fine, but needs full assembly. The main problem is actually the forefront of the lower part of the front superstructure. I appear to have glued that at an angle (previous photo was unglued)? I'm not sure either, again I don't recall doing it, but unless I can debond it, the rails will need removing and adding in again and a small gap (out of shot) being filled

 

Lesson learnt? Don't try modeling pe in 1/700 with a virus...now where's that hammer got to?

 

David

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That's looking extremely good and almost too delicate. Now it might be 1/700 scale, however this little wonder is well on the way to being a real show stopper. Nice work. 

Cheers.. Dave 

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Gidday David, I've just seen this. It's an awesome build, don't be too quick to reach for the hammer. In that last photo I thought I saw some grey plastic exposed but I could have been mistaken. 🙂

     Regards, Jeff.

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