1/350 USS New York LPD-21 (MonoChrome/Trumpeter + Pontos) - *Finished!*

[Alan P]

Hi All,

 

It's about time I built another ship! This will be the first non-groupbuild ship model I've made in ages.

The box! This is a well-presented kit, the in-box review I've found is HERE if you want to have a look.

I'm including the very ambitious Pontos Detail Up set, which includes lots of PE, dry transfer markings, loads of brass parts and even some Veteran Models resin parts. Excellent!

As if that's not enough, There are also some Gallery accessory parts for the aircraft and vehicles. From the aircraft, I only need the Ospreys, but I want to use most of the vehicles. Whatever's left will be useful for a forthcoming USS Iwo Jima LHD-7.

The design is pretty boxy and conventional, but I plan to put it in a sea diorama involved in a landing exercise. Wish me luck!

 

All the best,

Alan

[Alan P]

Here's a quick preview of the ship's hull:

The San Antonio class were designed with low-RCS features, so there's logically one long join line at the knuckle of the ship. It's not a seamless fit, however.

First step for me was to add some of the missing detail in the well deck. I am toying with adding lighting to this if I have the skills to pull it off, so it's worth going the extra mile.

There's some prominent pipework on the ceiling and the sidewalls which isn't included in the kit. The first Pontos parts are fitted and add some decent detail.

This is a great additional part with a textured and perforated ramp down to the loading deck.

These are the helicopter hangar parts dry-fitted. These parts fit very well.

I added two Evergeen girder parts (right side of the picture) back to back to create a rail for lifting tackle, as seen on the real thing.

 

It's started well, and so far giving me good vibes!

 

Alan

 

 

 

 

 

[Alan P]

On with the detailing...

In the hangar now, added railings, ladder and the entire floor is a Pontos replacement nickel part with very fine tie-down detail.

 

Meanwhile, down in the well deck:

Extra railings, ladders and end detail.

On the deck itself, there are more railings. I intend to detail this area quite well in anticipation of interior lighting.

This area fits together very well.

 

To finish, I added the reinforcements to the main hull:

So far, so good!

 

Alan

[Alan P]

Just to catch you up to where I am today:

Well deck base colours applied. Decks are Deck Gray, rubber (wood?) buffers are rubber black, Haze Gray sides, and the uppers, interiors and ceilings are Insignia White.

If this was a display model, that would probably be enough, but this is supposed to be an action diorama, so...

Quite a tedious job to paint all the little anchor points, but they are visibly prominent so at least that's done!

The railings had some yellow highlights on them, and there was an NY graphic at some point in the mid 2010s, so that has ended up on the model!

I also added this Pontos part - a TV monitor on the aft ceiling of the well deck.

I'm not sure what it should be showing, so I just made it display an embarkation list as one of the pages

I refined the NY to look more like the original, and added yellow hazard lines, DANGER placards (from an F-4 Phantom set ) and some marshalling area lines (from an F-16 decal set).

Painted up the hangar, and added some placards. I have a LOT more detail to add here (tow trucks, chocks, pallets, fuel drums etc) so this is just a basis for further details.

 

This is going well!

 

  

[Alan P]

Final catch up for the weekend:

There are some prominent lines on the forward hull, as well as some plating around the hawse pipe, which isn't represented in the kit. Also, the structure of the ship has very evident 'oil-canning' all over the flat sides, so I do need to think about how I'm going to represent that

I also decided to build up the vehicles I'm going to use for the well deck and the two LCAC hovercraft I will incorporate in the diorama. The PE-detailed AAVPs will be swimming, while I will add the other two (not extra detailed) as waiting to debark in the well deck. The 5-ton trucks will be towing the 155mm howitzers, and the other vehicles will be on the LCACs. I wondered about adding tanks, but the USMC don't use them anymore so this will do. The LHD-7 I have planned to build will be 2003-2004 era so I will have plenty of tanks to add

 

Anyway, that's the state of play so far - I'm currently working on the LCACs which have a ton of extra detail from the Pontos set. I'll be back!

Alan

[Tegethoff]

Looking forward to watching this come together. It looks big. Great to see the detailing you have added as well. 

Not sure if you have seen it before but Studio Blue Ocean on YouTube have built this with the Pontos set and have quite a detailed build/paint process.
 

 

[Alan P]

Thanks for that link @Tegethoff

 

That guy really LOVES his Tamiya tape 😂

[ArnoldAmbrose]

10 hours ago, Alan P said:

I'm not sure what it should be showing,

G'day Alan, re-runs of Gomer Pyle or the Brady Bunch? 😁 Maybe not. 🙂

       You've come a long way in just a short time. The interior detail you've added is particularly good. But yeah, externally she's not the most graceful ship to sail the seas, she's purely functional. Which is what matters, I guess.

       Regards, Jeff.

[S-boat 55]

I will certainly follow along, as much as they are not the prettiest pig in the pen, I find ships of this type really interesting,

[Tegethoff]

6 hours ago, Alan P said:

Thanks for that link @Tegethoff

 

That guy really LOVES his Tamiya tape 😂

I'm not really one for conspiracy theories. *BUT* I think a Tamiya tape cabal is out there solely releasing models in a way that requires vast usage of Tamiya tape, and popularising its usage in YouTube videos. If I don't reply again you know I've been got and taped up somewhere. 

[Jeff.M]

Did you know that a symbolic amount of melted steel from the World Trade Center was used in her construction?  A neat little fact . . . 
 

Best,

 

Jeff

[Alan P]

5 hours ago, Jeff.M said:

Did you know that a symbolic amount of melted steel from the World Trade Center was used in her construction?  A neat little fact . . . 
 

Best,

 

Jeff

Yes indeed! Nearly 8 tons of it in the bow section. Her nickname is 'The Phoenix'.

[Jeff.M]

14 minutes ago, Alan P said:

Yes indeed! Nearly 8 tons of it in the bow section. Her nickname is 'The Phoenix'.

And her motto is: Strength forged through sacrifice. Never forget. 

[Alan P]

Hi again,

 

Had a couple of decent modelling sessions this week, so there is progress on the New York!

The bits I ordered from Shapeways arrived. The designer is called Bacon Fist Models and he does loads of accessories for aircraft carriers and modern US Navy subjects if anyone's interested!

I did a bunch of wash effects and salt-staining and it wasn't worth the effort as usual. But hey.

I still have a bunch of stuff to add in here - fire equipment, mooring bollards and lines, accessories, vehicles and loads of people. It will be busy!

I'm supposed to say, 'It looks better in real life' but actually it doesn't. Most of the floor will be covered in water anyway, so yay.

 

Since I have to do a bunch of vehicles and one LCAC for the well deck, I decided to build all the accessories now. Might as well do the fiddly bits in one hit.

This is where the Pontos set really makes a difference!

Especially with these propulsion fans, I've left one of the kit parts in view for comparison.

As usual with these PE-heavy creations, I almost don't want to paint them

 

Cheers,

Alan

[Alan P]

Moving on...

Here are all the well deck accessories ready for priming. I'm using Mr Surfacer 1200 as a base. What's that, I hear you ask? "How are you going to thin it, Alan, there's a national shortage of Mr Leveling Thinner!?"

As the ant said to the grasshopper, "HAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!" (I think that's how the story ended, not too hot on Aesop's Fables these days )

 

Anyway...

Trying to keep as many bits separate as possible to aid with airbrushing and detail painting.

 

Fast forward to close of business today:

Basic paintjob completed on the vehicles. Still quite a bit to do. 

I'm really pleased how these turned out, I think they'll look great when they're finished.

 

But how will we see them, you wonder...

LED lighting strip connected to a 9V battery and a switch. I was racking my brain where to conceal the switch and then it came to me...

It will sit nicely under the big radar mack roughly amidships. The mack part sits flat on the deck so I can just leave it loose and operate the switch as desired. The battery will be a permanent installation though, but it should last long enough for the very limited use it'll get.

 

So - that's it so far, feels like it's going well, hope you enjoy the update!

 

All the best,

Alan

 

 

[Alan P]

Hello again, long time no see! Plenty to update since my last visit 🙂

 

LCAC hovercraft are assembled and painted - just need the ramps, wash, effects and vehicles to add.

I really like these! The kit parts are good enough but the PE is brilliant.

Something for scale!

The decals are all from the kit and went down smoothly with MicroSet/Sol. The yellow lines have to be cut to size, so there was swearing. All good now!

 

Alan

[Alan P]

After washing, dry-brushing and a few extra details, the vehicles and LCAC are complete!

And the other one:

The elves have been hard at work!

Was a headscratcher to figure out what to put on the LCACs, but I settled for this configuration. Everything is glued in now so that's final!

All the vehicle detail is OOB, I only added PE to the swimming AAVPs (not pictured)

I added the radars on top of the cabin as that area looks a bit bland. I chickened out of trying to make windscreen wipers as they're not included in this PE set.

Finally - here are all the accessories completed and ready for attaching to the hangar and well deck. I need to get the ship hull assembled before I can move on to anything else.

I'm also waiting on a delivery from China with several excellent sets from HS Model - a lot of USN detail parts like firefighting equipment, lights, CCTV cameras etc. That all has to go in before I assemble the hull.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[Alan P]

As I'm waiting for parts, I bit the bullet and started looking at the sea diorama base:

I start with a big block of polystyrene! I usually saw off the ship at the waterline, but this needs to be full hull. I used a hot polystyrene cutter to hew out the hull shape.

Needs a nice space out the back for the LCACs, AAVs and probably a helicopter or Osprey in flight behind the ship.

The nice thing about using LCACs is the well deck doesn't need to be totally submerged, which makes the diorama easier!

 

Moving to the top half:

I fixed the battery in place using self-adhesive Velcro. It should be strong enough for the job. Obviously this will have a finite display life as the battery can't be changed after assembly. I'll lose interest in it a couple of weeks after completion anyway, so no biggy

 

Alan

 

[Alan P]

 Next moved on to the crew:

Using Tamiya 1/350 figures. You get 144 of them in each set, of which about half are useable for a non-carrier diorama due to all the hand-waving and saluting. Painted most of them in US Navy working blues, the rest are Marines. I selected a bunch of hand-wavers to receive hi-viz tabards for vehicle marshalling, helicopter wrangling and whatever.

 

Started to populate the hangar as that's almost complete except for the firefighting equipment:

Added the tow truck, forklift and some pallet boxes to look busy!

I plan to have a Cobra being pushed out for the finished flight deck, so we'll see how that goes!

The real thing has a rack for wheel chocks at the right side but that's just too Lilliputian for me to try and fabricate!

The Tamiya figures aren't bad, they're more 3D than the Eduard PE figures, not as fragile as 3D-printed ones, and I can paint them in the correct colours with multi-racial diversity to boot!

 

Well, that's the progress so far, there's some other stuff I did but haven't photographed, you can see that next time!

 

Alan

 

[crobinsonh]

Fantastic work on bringing this model to life.

[theskits62]

I think those hovercraft look superb ! The only thing i'd change is the colour of the windows on the trucks, black looks a bit too dark to my eye but thats probably just me ! 

[Alan P]

2 hours ago, theskits62 said:

I think those hovercraft look superb ! The only thing i'd change is the colour of the windows on the trucks, black looks a bit too dark to my eye but thats probably just me ! 

Thanks very much 😊 I think you're right about the trucks, the black looks ok on the humvees, but gets a bit lost on the trucks.

[beefy66]

This is shaping up to be a great build and Diorama.  

 

Stay Safe

beefy

[Cklasse]

Building the HMS Fearless now and found that ship building is interesting with detailing and PE parts. 
I shall watch your build of this ship. Maybe I will carry one ship back when I go Japan this year.

About the battery and switch in the ship. Wouldn’t it better if these are placed outside the ship since you are building a sea diorama.

[Alan P]

2 hours ago, Cklasse said:

About the battery and switch in the ship. Wouldn’t it better if these are placed outside the ship since you are building a sea diorama.

Yep, but I'm not an electrician 😂 still experimenting, but this is fine for this project.