1/600 HMS BLAKE Helicopter Carrier

[Chewbacca]

I'm very aware that I have been absent without leave from these pages for about a year, firstly completing the Atlantic Models HMS BRAVE over in the Salty Sea Dog GB, then the Airfix 1/48 Lynx (converted to my HAS 3 SGM when I was Flight Commander of BRAVE), a scratch built/3D printed HMA No 1 (Mayfly), both in the Here Comes the Fleet Air Arm GB, and then most recently an Italieri 1/48 Wessex HAS 1 for the Baby Boomers GB.  So it's good to be back in maritime.

 

I'd known from a very early age that I was going to join the Navy when I left school and I was fortunate that in the town where I lived, there was a Royal Navy Careers Office (this was back in the day when the Navy had a presence on most major high streets).  I was a frequent visitor to them and the team in there got to know me very well.  They always used to have those wonderful John Glossop shipbuilder's models in the window which changed every few months or so, and one of the rotations was HMS BLAKE as she was in the mid to late 70s after her conversion to helicopter carrier.

 

Now I fully acknowledge that a lot of people consider that conversion ugly and that it ruined the stylish lines of TIGER and BLAKE as built as Minotaur class 6 inch cruisers, but I always thought it was a beautiful and functional design.  As a result, I have always wanted to convert the TIGER kit to represent the later design.

 

 

The April 1970 edition of Airfix Magazine carried an article written by Peter Hodges who explained how to do it, but he opted to create the flight deck and hanger areas using balsa wood carved to shape.  I know my limitations and carving balsa is not one of them.  So I have two choices:

 

1.  Shape it using sheet styrene frames and plate with more very thin sheet styrene (to accommodate the flare towards the transom thin).  I have concerns about this because as far as I can tell, the whole quarterdeck was open and therefore there will be little in the way of framing that I can use to get the structural shape.

2.  Draw in CAD and 3D print.

 

I have yet to decide which route to go down but I think I might start with the 3D print version.

 

Here's the obligatory box art:

 

 

As you can see it is the dual boxing that Airfix sold with DARING that according to Scalemates was released in 2002 although the original moulds date back to 1960 so we have to accept that the quality will not be great.  I got two of these in 2005.  I'd recently been seriously injured in a car accident and was unable to drive to get to work and the nature of what I was doing meant that I couldn't work from home, so to use the naval terminology, I was "sick on shore" at home for about 8 months.  In order to stop me going brain dead from the garbage that is called daytime TV, I took up modelling again after an extensive lay off.  This was about the second or third that I did and was was my first foray into the world of photo-etch.  I made TIGER first, then DARING before taking the second DARING and converted her to DUNKIRK.  I still think the Battle class was the most graceful of all the Royal Navy destroyer classes.

 

 

So when I reopened the box, this was what I found:

 

 

A right old mish mash that contains the old sprues from the DARING kit, a sprue from, I think, the Airfix 1/48 Seafire III and decals from the Tamiya Sd.Kfz. 7!  Also in there are some 1/600 WEM 1/600 Seacat launchers and some very yellow WEM decals.  They're now sitting in a sunny window hoping that the UV can return them to white, otherwise they'll be replaced.

 

Here's a clearer photo after removing the unrelated/unneeded parts:

 

 

I thought I had bought some resin Sea Kings as well although I see to recall that at the time, they were only available in 1/700 scale so they would have been under scale.  With the meteoric rise in 3D printing in recent years, Fleabay tells me that there are at least 3 suppliers who are offering them in 1/600 so I may have to invest in some of those.  Or draw it myself - after all I drew and printed a Wasp in 1/350 so it shouldn't be that much more difficult.  I may even be able to find an .stl file that I can download and scale to fit.

 

As my main reference I will be using the Neil McCart "TIGER, LION & BLAKE 1942-1986" and Norman Friedman "British Cruisers: Two World Wars and After"

 

Let battle commence!

 

 

 

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

32 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

Now I fully acknowledge that a lot of people consider that conversion ugly and that it ruined the stylish lines of TIGER and BLAKE as built as Minotaur class 6 inch cruisers,

You got that right. 😁   But I must confess that in the photo of the ship above she almost looks symmetrical, fore and aft of the second funnel.  And as they say, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Or was that "  .   .   .  beer holder"? 🙂 

 

       G'day Chewy, I think I'm going to find this interesting all the same, even if it's from a technique point of view. I used to work in balsa, decades ago but I much prefer polystyrene now. And I know nothing about 3D printing although it's obviously going to have/is having a big future in model making.

       I was also interested in the third photo of the post, of the three ships in line abreast. I also bought two of these double kits many years ago. One Tiger was done almost OOB (I added two more shafts). I did one Daring as HMAS Vampire II (me being Orstraylian) and intend to build/convert the other to a Battle class also, HMAS Anzac or Tobruk. Great minds thinking alike? 🙂 You'll have a 6-inch and two 3-inch turrets left over? If you can track down another two Tiger kits you'll have enough turrets for the HMS Minotaur design of 1947. I'm planning ahead for you.

       I'm sorry to hear of your car accident and resulting injury, but if it got you back into model making I guess that was a silver lining of sorts. And you do some beautiful models. I'm looking forward to seeing you do this conversion. 🙂       Regards, Jeff.

[olavhome@online,no]

2 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

I'm very aware that I have been absent without leave from these pages for about a year, firstly completing the Atlantic Models HMS BRAVE over in the Salty Sea Dog GB, then the Airfix 1/48 Lynx (converted to my HAS 3 SGM when I was Flight Commander of BRAVE), a scratch built/3D printed HMA No 1 (Mayfly), both in the Here Comes the Fleet Air Arm GB, and then most recently an Italieri 1/48 Wessex HAS 1 for the Baby Boomers GB.  So it's good to be back in maritime.

 

I'd known from a very early age that I was going to join the Navy when I left school and I was fortunate that in the town where I lived, there was a Royal Navy Careers Office (this was back in the day when the Navy had a presence on most major high streets).  I was a frequent visitor to them and the team in there got to know me very well.  They always used to have those wonderful John Glossop shipbuilder's models in the window which changed every few months or so, and one of the rotations was HMS BLAKE as she was in the mid to late 70s after her conversion to helicopter carrier.

 

Now I fully acknowledge that a lot of people consider that conversion ugly and that it ruined the stylish lines of TIGER and BLAKE as built as Minotaur class 6 inch cruisers, but I always thought it was a beautiful and functional design.  As a result, I have always wanted to convert the TIGER kit to represent the later design.

 

 

The April 1970 edition of Airfix Magazine carried an article written by Peter Hodges who explained how to do it, but he opted to create the flight deck and hanger areas using balsa wood carved to shape.  I know my limitations and carving balsa is not one of them.  So I have two choices:

 

1.  Shape it using sheet styrene frames and plate with more very thin sheet styrene (to accommodate the flare towards the transom thin).  I have concerns about this because as far as I can tell, the whole quarterdeck was open and therefore there will be little in the way of framing that I can use to get the structural shape.

2.  Draw in CAD and 3D print.

 

I have yet to decide which route to go down but I think I might start with the 3D print version.

 

Here's the obligatory box art:

 

 

As you can see it is the dual boxing that Airfix sold with DARING that according to Scalemates was released in 2002 although the original moulds date back to 1960 so we have to accept that the quality will not be great.  I got two of these in 2005.  I'd recently been seriously injured in a car accident and was unable to drive to get to work and the nature of what I was doing meant that I couldn't work from home, so to use the naval terminology, I was "sick on shore" at home for about 8 months.  In order to stop me going brain dead from the garbage that is called daytime TV, I took up modelling again after an extensive lay off.  This was about the second or third that I did and was was my first foray into the world of photo-etch.  I made TIGER first, then DARING before taking the second DARING and converted her to DUNKIRK.  I still think the Battle class was the most graceful of all the Royal Navy destroyer classes.

 

 

So when I reopened the box, this was what I found:

 

 

A right old mish mash that contains the old sprues from the DARING kit, a sprue from, I think, the Airfix 1/48 Seafire III and decals from the Tamiya Sd.Kfz. 7!  Also in there are some 1/600 WEM 1/600 Seacat launchers and some very yellow WEM decals.  They're now sitting in a sunny window hoping that the UV can return them to white, otherwise they'll be replaced.

 

Here's a clearer photo after removing the unrelated/unneeded parts:

 

 

I thought I had bought some resin Sea Kings as well although

 

 

 

 

 

Hms Daring was my first Airfix kit, back in the last part 1960.

Memory lane :-)

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

40 minutes ago, olavhome@online,no said:

Hms Daring was my first Airfix kit, back in the last part 1960.

Memory lane 🙂

G'day, I think it was my brother's first model ship, and I did one myself OOB about 45 years ago. She's long gone.

 

Oh, and I forgot to say earlier:-

2 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

I have been absent without leave from these pages for about a year,

Next time bring a note from home. 😁

Regards, Jeff.

[JohnWS]

3 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

... the original moulds date back to 1960 ...  I made TIGER first ...

That brings back memories.  I built the HMS Tiger Airfix kit in the '60's.  

 

Looking forward to following along.

 

John

[Gondor44]

This is something that I have thought about and left for doing later so I shall follow your build to see what any pitfalls there are.

 

Gondor

[robgizlu]

Good to have you back Chewbacca - this looks really interesting

Rob

 

[mick b]

Blimey Chewy this takes me back…my Dad did the balsa conversion back in the day for my elder brother and hand painted the flight deck lines and letters…he had a very steady hand!
 

Personally I’d dig out the matchbox kit and Peter Hall PE for an easier life! 😁

 

Good luck!

 

Mike

[TallBlondJohn]

Daring was my first kit too! My dad built a seascape with Devonshire, Leander, Daring and Fearless. Never built Tiger, though I believe the hull can be used as a basis for various WW2 cruisers.

[Chewbacca]

7 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

You'll have a 6-inch and two 3-inch turrets left over? If you can track down another two Tiger kits you'll have enough turrets for the HMS Minotaur design of 1947. I'm planning ahead for you.

I do have one more TIGER kit in the stash together with several BELFASTs, so the TIGER hull is reserved for conversion to a Colony class, most likely HMS TRINDAD.  If I were to ever do a what-if conversion to a TIGER class, though it isn't really my thing, it would be to the proposed missile cruiser.  I did consider it for the project Cancelled GB, but I only have two TIGER hulls in the stash (including this one) and the last time I saw one for sale at a model show it was £100+ and I'm not spending that much money for two hull halves and the deck.

 

 

7 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

I added two more shafts

Never quite understood how Airfix could make such a basic mistake!  Fortunately all of my models are waterline so won't be a problem.

 

5 hours ago, Gondor44 said:

This is something that I have thought about and left for doing later so I shall follow your build to see what any pitfalls there are.

 

Gondor

I have every expectation there will be plenty of pitfalls!  And I can almost certainly guarantee that I will find them after I have made a decision about how to portray a particular part, only to discover that it is wrong.  As ever, one of the first tasks is to sort out the timeline of my various reference photos as both TIGER and BLAKE changed after they were converted.  For example, when they were first fitted with a flight deck and hangar, it was for a Wessex 3s.  It was only later on that she changed to Sea King.  I'm keen to do the latter purely because a former XO that I served under and who was instrumental in getting me into Flying Training early, was the Flight Commander on a Sea King Flight in one of these ships.  He was a great officer who sadly decided to pursue a career outside of the Navy before he realised his true potential.  the other change that I think occurred around the same time was the liferafts, swapping from the old lozenge shaped liferafts to the later round inflatable canisters.  I'm aiming to portray her probably as she was around the time of the Silver Jubilee review in 1977 though no, I'm not doing the dress ship thing again.  That was bad enough in 1/350, I'm not sure I can cope with doing that in this scale!

 

 

1 hour ago, robgizlu said:

Good to have you back Chewbacca - this looks really interesting

Thanks Rob, it's good to be back

 

32 minutes ago, mick b said:

Personally I’d dig out the matchbox kit and Peter Hall PE for an easier life! 😁

 

Good luck!

Thanks.  Problem with the Matchbox kit is the scale.  I have always liked 1/600 and my hands/eyesight can still cope with it though these days I definitely prefer 1/350.  1/700 is just way too small!  If only we could persuade Peter at Atlantic Models to do a 1/350 resin HMS BLAKE...

 

11 minutes ago, TallBlondJohn said:

I believe the hull can be used as a basis for various WW2 cruisers.

Yes, 11 Colony Class and 3 original Minotaur class.

 

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

7 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

7 hours ago, TallBlondJohn said:

I believe the hull can be used as a basis for various WW2 cruisers.

Yes, 11 Colony Class and 3 original Minotaur class.

 

7 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

I do have one more TIGER kit in the stash together with several BELFASTs, so the TIGER hull is reserved for conversion to a Colony class, most likely HMS TRINDAD. 

       G'day, yeah I used the hull and Belfast's turrets for HMS Jamaica. I'll be interested in your HMS Trinidad when you do her. (Note I said "when", not "if" 🙂). I've read about her last trip to Russia, the flooding of the TS on the way out, and the fires and ultimate sinking on the return trip. I think Alistair Maclean used those occurrences in his book 'HMS Ulysses'. In fact he mentions HMS Trinidad.

       That's a very nice-looking missile cruiser you've shown above. I've not seen/heard of that before. But I agree, that price is too steep for me too, simply for parts. I used two Suffolk hulls (bought cheaply yonks ago) for Minotaur.

       Anyway, I've rattled on enough. Looking forward to your build when you start.       Regards, Jeff.

[beefy66]

This is looking very interesting and funny enough I have just been reading through the Ship craft book on British Light Cruisers while on holiday so this build will give me more information.  

 

Stay Safe

beefy

[Chewbacca]

Had visitors over the weekend (and my local pub reopened so had to give that a try) so didn't get as much time at the bench as I would like.  However, there were 22 grown men kicking a bit of leather around last night in which I have absolutely no interest so that did give me a few hours to make a start.

 

First up was to work out which scuttles were accurately positioned and which were not, comparing and contrasting various photographs.

 

 

At the same time I also took off the moulded on fairleads.  I did wonder about keeping them in situ and drilling them out, but most are not quite in the right position.  Unfortunately this is old school Airfix and the plastic is very brittle and didn't take too well to my snips.

 

 

As is usual, the model will be waterlined in a sea scape though I haven't decided yet whether to make the cut before I secure the hull laves together or afterwards.

 

Scuttle drilled, old ones filled, boats' booms removed.  A lot of sanding will be needed to tidy this up.

 

 

While waiting for the Vallejo putty to dry, I turned my attention to the deck and in particular removing the after superstructure.  Out with the trusty Dremel and it was gone fairly quickly.  Unfortunately even at its lowest speed, it' still so fast that it melts the plastic.

 

Before

 

After

 

As you can see on the starboard side I was a little over-zealous and will have to refill those deep gouges.  I also need to scrape off the anchor cables and capstans on the cable deck..  Also need to do some more research on the midships deckhouses as I am not convinced that they are right for BLAKE around 1977/78.

 

Thanks for watching

 

 

Edited July 15, 2024 by Chewbacca
Updated image URLs

[Alan P]

Somehow missed the start of this! My dad was in BLAKE through the mid-70s, I'll be definitely interested in your build 👍

[Chewbacca]

Filled the hole in the aft deck where the superstructure was cut away with 40 thou sheet styrene but it wasn't overly pretty and I wasn't happy with the way it was sitting.  Added to that the deep gouges I needed to fill from over-exuberance with the Dremel and I thought the easiest thing to do as to plate over the whole deck with 10 thou styrene sheet.  I've also filled all of the holes in the deck with 40 thou styrene rod and when they were dry, cut them back and faired them in with Vallejo filler.  In the background you can see the hull halves are now also secured.

 

 

While waiting for the Tamiya extra thin to set on the hull halves and the Vallejo putty to dry, I turned my attention to the forward superstructure.  Bizarrely on the port side, the gunwhales are very nicely thin but on the starboard side they could double up as armour plate.  As you can see, it is 1 mm think which equates to 600 mm in real life or almost as thick as the armour plate fitted to IJN Yamato!

 

 

Fortunately, judicial use of a micro-chisel coupled with a scalpel blade and sanding stick and it was down to something vaguely more in scale.

 

 

While on the bridge superstructure, I also removed the HF/DF mounting.  It is too flat and too high up and in reality has two very prominent holes either side which I was never going to be able to drill.  So I've removed that and am half way through scratch building a replacement from scrap 10 thou sheet styrene.

 

 

And finally, when all was dry, I have mated the upperdeck with the two hull sides..  I thought I would join them together then cut them down as I felt the rigidity offered by the deck would outweigh the ease of cutting one at a time.

 

 

Thanks for watching

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

4 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

Bizarrely on the port side, the gunwhales are very nicely thin but on the starboard side they could double up as armour plate. 

Yeah, the same with the kits I had, too. You did a good job of rectifying it. Regards, Jeff.

[Chewbacca]

BLAKE is now waterlined

 

Before:

 

After 

 

And cleaned up.  Just need to add a plasticard base which I've since done but haven't photographed.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

G'day @Chewbacca, I gave you a 'sad' icon because I do love a shapely well-rounded bottom.    IN SHIPS! 😁

Regards, Jeff.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Somehow I had missed this.  The very first Pusser’s War Canoe on which I set foot was TIGER, alongside in Bridgetown Barbados in c.1976 (my brother lived there for a while).  Like you I already had my heart set on the FAA even then.  I don’t remember much about the ship, but I definitely remember how huge the Sea Kings seemed… little did I realise that 10 years later one of the young pilots who showed me round would be my Sea King Beefer (instructor, for those who don’t speak Navy).

 

Definitely got my attention for this vast undertaking!

[Bonhoff]

On 7/7/2024 at 9:28 AM, Chewbacca said:

I made TIGER first, then DARING before taking the second DARING and converted her to DUNKIRK.  I still think the Battle class was the most graceful of all the Royal Navy destroyer classes.

 

I'm going to have to send this picture to my dad - He served on the Dunkirk (along with my future uncle) during the 59-61 Commission under the command of Captain Leach, so he may have memories of this.

 

Assuming it didn't happen when they dropped him off on Malta with suspected Appendicitis, with orders to catch up later - IIRC, Appendicitis was eventually ruled out so, bored with just hanging around, he went down to the dockyard to see if there was anything he could do while waiting to return. Sent off with a flea in his ear because he was officially ill, so he went to an RAF base (Assume Luqa or Ta'kali) to see if they wanted a hand, drove a fire tender for a week at the airfield, then started making arrangements to get back to the ship.

 

Initial enquiries with the RAF indicated that they regularly flew back to Blighty courtesy of "White Knuckle Airways" which was a Shackleton squadron based on Malta - But (And I can't confirm the veracity of this bit ATM, or he's just jazzed up the story) he'd have to sign up to the RAF temporarily.

 

As soon as the navy got wind of this, they sorted a ticket to get him back via a civilian Viscount flight.

 

Dad's often talked about Captain Leach and the Dunkirk, we were sat watching a documentary about battleships 20 or so years ago, and a "Vox Pop" segment with an old RN officer had just come on between the usual stock film footage - At this point, Dad exclaims "It's Captain Leach! I wonder if he ever made Admiral?"

 

At the bottom of the screen appears the title.... "Henry Conyers Leach - Former First Sea Lord"

 

"So that would be a yes then dad!"

 

Back to the present - I've built both the Airfix and Matchbox Tigers before, so looking forward to this one.

 

IanJ

[Chewbacca]

Sorry for the lack of updates recently - have been away from the bench for a few weeks on another project which is nearly finished.

 

Thanks everyone for your kind words.  Jeff - I understand where you're coming from with the ship's bottoms and I do have plans at some point to portray one of my models full hull, but she will be in a dry dock as that's the only time I've ever seen a ship's bottom.

 

On 25/07/2024 at 13:00, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Definitely got my attention for this vast undertaking!

 

I know what you mean.  I was taken to Chatham Navy Days as a 6-year old and from that moment forth I knew what my career was going to be.

 

On 25/07/2024 at 14:05, Bonhoff said:

Dad's often talked about Captain Leach and the Dunkirk, we were sat watching a documentary about battleships 20 or so years ago, and a "Vox Pop" segment with an old RN officer had just come on between the usual stock film footage - At this point, Dad exclaims "It's Captain Leach! I wonder if he ever made Admiral?"

 

At the bottom of the screen appears the title.... "Henry Conyers Leach - Former First Sea Lord"

 

"So that would be a yes then dad!"

 

Henry Leach was one of, if not the greatest, naval officers of the 20th Century; sadly I never had the privilege of meeting him.  Son of Captain John Leach who lost his life in command of HMS PRINCE OF WALES off Singapore in 1941, Henry Leach joined the navy in 1937 and was promoted Commander in 1955 aged just 32 but surprisingly, for someone who had acquitted himself very well up to that point in his career, was not immediately appointed to a sea going command.  That came 4 years later in 1959 when he took command of DUNKIRK as a Commander.  He obviously did well there because he was promoted Captain on the strength of his DUNKIRK report.  Sir Henry was appointed First Sea Lord in 1979 and was about to retire when the Argentinians invaded the Falklands.  According to Margert Thatcher's memoirs, her political advisers, including Secretary of State Sir John Nott, were advising that we neither should, nor could take military action and allegedly it was only Sir Henry's intervention that resulted in the decision being taken to send the Task Force.  I remember his name being revered throughout my time in Service and the current Navy Headquarters on Whale Island in Portsmouth is named the Sir Henry Leach Building in his honour.

 

But back to BLAKE!

 

I know that one might think it a bit early, but I've started work on the base.  I want to portray her at sea, underway and probably at Flying Stations with a Sea King on deck burning and turning.  So I opted for the Plaster of Paris technique, but slightly modified in that I incorporated a polystyrene foam under layer.  With that Plaster of Paris technique, I always find it beneficial to do the base early where the hull is relatively easy to handle - I don't want it painted or with lots of "sticky-outy-and-uppy-things" that will either get damaged by the Plaster of Paris or make it difficult to manipulate the hull.  To mitigate against any damage, I wrapped the hull tightly in clingfilm.

 

 

Then make up the Plaster of Paris - actually I'm using a bag of British Gypsum that my builder left after he did some work for me three or four years ago.  It's not quite as fine as Plaster of Paris but it sets a lot slower and isn't quite so exothermic.  I have known genuine Plaster of Paris generate so much heat as it cures that it can warp a hull.  I covered the polystyrene to a depth of about 3-4 mm and then taking my wife's rolling pin, also wrapped in clingfilm, I created a couple of depressions to represent the swell.  I'm aiming for about Sea State 3-4 with a 1 to 1.5 m swell so a 2 mm depression is about right.

 

Then taking the clingfilmed hull, press it down into the plaster firmly but once only.  I don't want any lateral or longitudinal movement.

 

Once it is in position, I then used a crafting palette knife (actually my wife's cake icing palette knife but don't tell her, I couldn't find mine!) to start forming firstly the bow wave and then the Kelvin wake followed finally by the propeller wake.  I'm aiming for BLAKE to be at about 15-16 knots so there would be a good degree of movement and a lot of water to disperse.

 

 

Incidentally, the observant among you will have noticed a series of almost straight lines coming off the hull stbd side midships.  They shouldn't be there but are a hangover from my poor attempt to flatten out the plaster.  Somehow I didn't spot them when the plaster was wet so they will need to be filled.

 

When the plaster was dry enough to handle, I gently teased the hull out of the opening and then left it to one side to fully set.  I will next need to fill those lines and some air bubbles that have appeared, enhance the bow wave slightly which is a bit weak on the port side and sand it back to smooth out the graininess of the Gypsum plus smooth off the edges so that it is all level with the edges of the polystyrene.

 

 

Thanks for watching

 

 

 

[Chewbacca]

Apologies for being absent without leave for a few months.  That other project I mentioned is now finally complete and with a two week sojourn to visit friends in Cyprus, I can now get back to the bench.

 

First task was to tidy up the bridge wings which I did before heading to sunnier climes

 

 

But then I got back and realised that the kit bridge wings look nothing like the originals which extend right out to the ship's side.  So I removed the originals in their entirety and scratch built some new ones from plasticard.  I also took the opportunity to make and fit the mounting for the HFDF aerial which sits just above the bridge and remove the bulwarks to the visual sight operators (at least I think that's what they are.  One is removed on this photo:

 

 

And they are both gone here.  I will add them back in from 10 thou plasticard after painting

 

 

Next up was to start adding detail to the aft screen of the fwd superstructure.  It became readily apparent that the sponsons at the after end of that were too low so I raised them up with some 40 thou plasticard which looked more realistic.

 

 

In that photo above, you can also see the air intakes for the aft boiler room - the quadrant shapes either side of the slot for the funnel.  Unfortunately, although the curvature is right, they are not vertical which these photos below show quite well - there is a much better photo in "Ships of the Cold War Fleet"  by Clive and Sue Taylor, a book that I thoroughly recommend to any modeller of Cold War Royal Navy ships:
 

 

 

 

So more plasticard surgery, firstly to make the inner faces:

 

 

And then to add the upper plating:

 

Those photos above of the real ship shows a rounded tube that appears to surround the intakes.  I have still to add those from probably 30 thou styrene rod once everything else has set.

 

Next task was to make the new deckhouse that sits on the Sea Cat deck which was a simple structure from plasticard with some PE doors added from Peter Hall's most excellent Atlantic Models generic 1/600 RN doors set.  I also took the time to add some more details to the bridge structure including extra lockers, doors and the sponsons for the SCOT satellite radomes.  I took the liberty to dry fit all of the major components to show where I'm at:

 

 

Which then showed that the Sea Cat deck was too short.  There would not be sufficient space between that deckhouse and the mainmast, so I have extended that platform a further 2 mm aft which should open up the space sufficiently.  I realised also that the deck was too narrow and that although there was a very slight lip between the hull and that deck, it was not wide enough to walk along so I filled that walkway with 40 thou plasticard as I extended it aft.  Now waiting for everything to set.

 

 

Thanks for watching

Edited November 30, 2024 by Chewbacca
URL issues

[Chewbacca]

Another lengthy period away from the bench but time has not been totally wasted as I have spent a good few hours at the PC drawing all of the various bits and pieces that I need to 3D print.

 

Flight deck and hangar:

 

 

 

30 ft workboat:

 

Admiral's Barge:

 

Fairey Huntress:

 

After funnel:

 

Fwd funnel:

 

MRS-3 Director:

 

And finally the Sea Cat launcher:

 

I've just done the first print run and unfortunately the main block for the flight deck and hangar failed to print at all so will have to adjust the settings and repeat.  Onwards and upwards.

 

 

[Gondor44]

Oh very nice. You can get the Admerals Barge, Fairly Huntress, MRS-3 Director and Sea Cat launch from Starling models as part of their Devonshire update set. I believe they may also have turrets for this class of ship as well.

 

Gondor

[Chewbacca]

Thanks Gondor.  TBH, there are so few 3D printed parts for this scale I didn't even think to look.  I'm surprised there is an Admiral's Barge in that set.  I always thought that the Counties' standard boat fit was 2 x whalers, 2 x cutters (replaced in the late 70s by a Cheverton) and a Huntress.

 

Adjusted the printer settings and managed to get the main aft superstructure block to print:

 

 

I could never have shaped the complex curves in that using traditional plasticard framing/plating techniques.  Challenge now will be whether it fits or not - that's tomorrow's task.

 

Also some other key 3D printed parts:

 

Funnels

 

And clockwise from the front:

• 27 ft motor whalers
• Flyco
• 30 ft workboat
• 30 ft Admiral's Barge
• MRS3-directors 
• Sea Cat launchers
• Fairey Huntress

 

The boat cradles have also been printed and are cooking off in the UV lamp.  Now to start assembling.  Thanks for watching