1/700 Type 42 Batch 2 & 3 Destroyers - HMS Liverpool & HMS York

[Courageous]

The black has been applied where appropriate; boot top, gun barrel and masts. With the black dry, a couple of gloss coats were applied before decals.

 

Meanwhile the bases have been done. Ignoring the specks of dust, they were first painted black, then misted on a number of layers of midnight blue and when dry, white was applied around the hull line. Once happy, acrylic pouring medium was applied.

Next job will be the fixing of the hulls to their bases and then the task of 'stacking' the structures will begin.

 

Stuart

[Courageous]

What can I say...

 

Gloss applied and decals on. Next a satin coat and fixing to their bases.

 

Stuart

[Courageous]

A little further along...

 

Hulls now attached to their bases.

 

The Batch 2, HMS Liverpool, received her main deck railings and safety nets.

 

And the 'stacking' starts with the main superstructure being fitted in place. 

 

Stuart

[Ngantek]

Looks great Stuart. Particularly impressed by the self control to leave construction of the superstructure till this point. 

 

The bases look great. How did you achieve the initial texture?

 

Andy

[robgizlu]

Really effective bases - very neat

Rob

[Terry1954]

Impressive base work there Stuart, and both hulls coming along fine.

 

Terry

[Jagdtiger1]

Beautiful, neat railings there Stuart. Especially impressed with the fold down flight deck nets, I usually completely mess those up!

 

Really is interesting to see the differences in design as the buildup progresses,

 

James.

[Courageous]

3 hours ago, Ngantek said:

The bases look great. How did you achieve the initial texture?

Cheers Andy, still time for things to go wrong. As to the texture, it's 'watercolour paper - rough' and I draw round the waterline model and cut out the middle bit.

 

1 hour ago, Terry1954 said:

Impressive base work there Stuart, and both hulls coming along fine

Cheers Terry.

 

12 minutes ago, Jagdtiger1 said:

Beautiful, neat railings

Thanks James. Railings/ nets went on okay but it does take time in this scale, eyesight and trembling hands. I believe that the longer Batch 3 was what was requested at the start but financial restraints dictated otherwise. After the Falklands, lessons were learnt and the AA capability was changed together with other stuff to most of the T42's. Then came the Batch 3's with the stretched hull to improve handling but needed the side reinforcements as they creaked old like sailing ships due to stresses.

 

Stuart

[Bertie McBoatface]

This really isn't my period or scale of choice but I must say I'm very impressed with what you are doing. I must take the time to catch up properly.

[Courageous]

On 7/14/2023 at 1:53 PM, Bertie McBoatface said:

I'm very impressed with what you are doing.

Thanks very much Bertie. We all have our interests but it doesn't stop you from appreciating the work of others.

 

The Batch 3, HMS York also has its main deck railings and nets fitted. Main superstructure also fitted.

 

Before every day life stopped play, I had enough time to fit the bridge deck railings, also the tiny Lookout Aiming Sights in the aft wings.

 

Stuart

[Courageous]

A bit more work on the T42's...

 

All structures are now fitted to HMS Liverpool and then received the PE railings...PE done. Next it's the masts, bits and a small amount of rigging.

 

All structures fitted to HMS York, PE railings now being added. The hanger roof railings still need to be fitted but eyes called time.

 

Stuart 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Stuart, HMS York in particular looks very graceful in that photo, with the long foc'sle. Regards, Jeff.

[Bertie McBoatface]

As Jeff said, the longer forecastle make a much more elegant look. (I’m reminded of the relatively pretty Tornado F1 and its dumpy brother the GR1.)

[Jagdtiger1]

Beautiful neat work on those two, Stuart!

 

You're really tempting me to build a batch 3 now, but I think I'll wait until Peter at Atlantic releases his 350th kit hopefully later this year.

 

James.

[Courageous]

And York takes the lead after a little mishap with Liverpool...

 

4.5 gun and Sea Dart launcher fitted to foc'sle. I noted that later T42's also had a radar fitted on the bridge roof, so a scratch was made.

 

Rada

Masts, radars, weapons, sights and various boxes fitted in the appropriate positions. The SCOT's were originally fitted in wings located just forward of the main mast but at some stage the SCOT's were raised onto new platforms, these were scratched and got some PE railing added. Also a jammer office was fitted to the aft funnel deck, again, not supplied in kit so a scratch option was fitted. Not much left to do, most of it is on the helo structure, a couple of aerials need to be fitted on the funnel platforms and the the base needs finishing.

 

Stuart

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Stuart, she's looking neat yet busy at the same time. Regards, Jeff.

[Courageous]

On 7/21/2023 at 8:20 AM, ArnoldAmbrose said:

looking neat yet busy

Cheers Jeff.

 

HMS Liverpool, a Batch 2 T42 is now complete. I had a little bit of trouble with the rigging but all ended well. To finish the base, a boundary layer along the waterline was made from the innards of a makeup pad...not mine but who cares nowadays. This layer and the base had a good coat of Liquitex acrylic pouring medium.

 

RFI here: 

 

 

Stuart

[Ngantek]

Looks fantastic! Can't imagine how you're able to keep all those railings and netting so sharp and neat 

 

Andy

[Courageous]

4 minutes ago, Ngantek said:

sharp and neat

Cheer Andy, it's not perfect I can assure you.

 

Stuart

[robgizlu]

Looks Fab - "sharp and neat " sums it up

Off to RFI to see more

Rob

[Courageous]

Last but not least...

 

HMS York, a Type 42 Batch 3 Destroyer is now complete.

 

RFI here:

 

Thanks for tagging along guys.

Stuart

[Hewy]

Exellent work ,  i can appreciate how difficult 1/700 scale +  photo etch is to do  as well as you've done it stuart,

I'm currently ¾ through a  1/700 type 23 with the tetra etch set atm, and it's  testing to say the least, you're  going to have yourself a superb modern RN frigate and destroyer display, looks smashing so far

 

 

[Chewbacca]

Fantastic work Stuart on both of those.  They loo great and the sea scape really sets them both off.  I must give that watercolour paper technique a try.

 

On 13/07/2023 at 16:12, Courageous said:

Then came the Batch 3's with the stretched hull to improve handling but needed the side reinforcements as they creaked old like sailing ships due to stresses.

 

Trust me, the Batch 1s were just as bad.  On many occasions I would lie awake in my cabin in BIRMINGHAM at night listening to the creaking and the panting and wondering what was about to break.

 

On 20/07/2023 at 21:08, Courageous said:

I noted that later T42's also had a radar fitted on the bridge roof, so a scratch was made.

 

That's Type 1008.  it was fitted to all RN frigates and destroyers from the mid-late 1990s onwards when either the IMO rules changed, or someone in the MOD realised that the RN was not compliant with the existing ruling.  Essentially, it said that vessels above a certain size had to have two navigation radars.  Up until then, we only carried one (Type 1006 or 1007).  Even though we did have other radars (1022 and either 992 or 996 in the case of the T42s), because they were optimised for longer range detection, predominantly in the air domain, they were not suitable for navigation.  1008 was a commercial off the shelf buy painted grey

[Seahawk]

On 6/3/2023 at 8:38 AM, Chewbacca said:

The longer fo'c'sle also made the Batch 3s much more stable weapons platforms in higher sea states

As well as nearly doubling the Sea Dart capacity (24>40).  Probably not so: see exchange with @Our Ned  on next page.

Edited July 29, 2023 by Seahawk
Probably in error.

[Our Ned]

Please could you provide a reference for the increase in Seadart magazine capacity?  Such references as I have seen indicate that the Batch III ships had the same 22-missile capacity as the earlier batches.