1st naval model

Modeling Subjects Ships
1

I’ll be trying my hand in this category with the tamiya 1/350 fletcher dd. I’ve also purchased the eduard photo etch set for the kit. Are there any other aftermarket details that I can get Like aa guns and gun barrels? I’ve only seen them for larger scales. I normally build armor, air, and sci fi. Are there any other things I need to watch out for with naval kits? I also have these questions:

  • looking to paint the dazzle camo of the USS Leutze. Are there good aftermarket decals to model this DD?
  • hard to tell colors from reference photos. Is the lighter area white or a light grey? Which colors should I use? what color for the deck on the leutze?
  • rigging. I can’t seem to find a good rigging guide and there’s none in the kit. I don’t know where to attach all the wires. I plan on uzing EZ line for my rigging

thanks in advance

2

Howdy & welcome. Excellent choice starting with the Tamiya Fletcher. The good news is that the Leutze is a round-bridge as is the kit.

  1. References: The Squadron Fletcher Inaction is pretty good. Relatively inexpensive, but out of print. The Squadron Kidd book is also good. There are other hardback print subjects, Anatomy of the Ship - The Sullivans and Raven’s Fletcher Class Destroyer. Web has several good sites. NAVSOURCE.ORG is a database of US Navy ship photos. DESTROYERHISTORY.ORG has good info on all USN destroyers, Fletcher-class included. SHIPCAMOUFLAGE.COM includes a database of camouflage measures applied to USN ships as well as info on camouflage history and the measures themselves. Read Allan Raven’s monograph on the history of naval camouflage.

  2. Pick a date for your subject. The Tamiya kit represents the earliest configuration of the ship class, and then not really the Fletcher at this time period. In this figure on destroyerhistory dot org http://destroyerhistory.org/fletcherclass/armament/ you will see that the Leutze had 10 40mm gun tubes (the bad news). That means 2 twin mounts in tubs ahead of the bridge, 2-twin mounts at the waist abreast of the stack, and a twin in the raised tub between 5-inch gun mounts 3 and 4. Twin 40’s in 1:350 scale are available from multiple sources. You will find them in resin + brass from sellers such as L’Arsenal, Flyhawk, and others. Master & BD Barrels sells just brass barrels to go on resin mounts. Check Freetime Hobbies for these vendors.

  3. Decals for the Measure 31 camouflage. No not really. Check out Gator’s Masks. He sells pre-cut tape masks to paint the pattern. It is a bit fiddley. You apply the whole mask then selectively remove segments, paint, and reapply the segments as you apply more & more colors. Measure 31/16d is called Dark Pattern and it includes 5H Haze Gray, 5O Ocean Gray, and Black on the verticals, and 20B Deck Blue and 5O Ocean Gray on the horizontals. Vallejo/AK has equivalents (though not these names), they used to be available from ModelMaster, and are available in Colourcoats. There is no FED-STD number for these. They went obsolete before the system was established.

You may want to go with the Leutze in 1945, when the camouflage pattern was simplified to Measure 22; 5H Haze Gray over 5N Navy Blue.

  1. Rigging. See the references. Most will give you an idea. Flag halyards to the flag bags, radio leads to the bridge and along between the stacks. Mast stays (fore and aft) are about all there are.

  2. Hull number decals. Plain white and/or black to contrast with the underlying camouflage, not shaded, located bow and stern. No name painted on the stern. Iron Shipwright, Yankee Modelworks among others make them

Ask back with more questions

3

Interesting ship history. Thanks for pointing it out. Is there a personal connection ? (Some day I’ll crack out the Trumpeter Fletcher and build DD 560 USS Morrison, related in name only).

4

As to rigging, it sometimes amazes me that a kit’s box art may show more detail than the drawings on the instruction sheets. However, I always do a Google image search on each model I build, and usually find drawings that show rigging of ships. If no drawings show up on search just by name, I add the word drawing as a search term.

5

Great choice for a kit! Loads of potential and many have been built into masterpieces.

6

There is a seller on Amazon, I think named Scalehobbyist, that still sells Model master in these colors, unless I’ve bought them out. I’ve been stocking up.

I looked at gator masks for you, all kinds of Fletchers but nothing 31/16d, and close won’t count here. A shame as they are a good product. But navsource does have a couple of pretty good aerial shots of her as launched, probably enough to do the camouflage convincingly.

7

Howdy Ag,

excellent choice in USS Leutze. She is, what is known to Fletcher afficianados, as a Round Bridge, Tall Tower (the base under the gun directore), Round Stack Fletcher.

SO, other than having to cobble up the mounts, and buying all the 40mms, a pretty clean conversion.

Nothing near as complicated as the Round bridges converted to weather bridge fletchers.

Probably worth scanning the stuff available at Scaleways to see if they have anything to help.

Use care on the l’Arsenal site–they have some very nice 5" mounts–but not inexpensive, especially not for 5 of them. Their depth changes and tracks are very nice, though.

It’s an easy kit to get carried away with. While being rather a good kit OOB.

Do think about the base and the stands you want to use now, before putting the deck on the hull.

Mark '82

8

Thank for your assistance and tips. I mainly chose the Leutze because I really liked her dazzle cameo pattern and thought itd look good in my model case and the fact that I found a lot of reference photos for her. My first round of research lead me to abbot.us which has a list and pic of all the Fletchers made. It also had a lot of high res photos, showing a lot of detail. I can see how easy it can be to get carried away on the details.

Torp tubes: I was looking through the instructions and saw the eduard set has an option for open or closed tubes but don’t understand what they are supposed to look like

anchor chains: any good recommendations to replace the plastic? I had some small chains from hobby lobby, the smallest I could find, but they’re too big for this ship and the armor I initially purchased them for.

railing: is it better to attach the PE railing and then paint or paint them on the fret and then glue it on? Should the railing include the dazzle camo or just be a sea grey?

thanks again for all the tips. I can’t wait to dive into this kit. I’m just wrapping up the finishing touches on my tiger 131.

9

The quint torpedo tubes each have an extension on the muzzle end called the spoon. The spoon can be flipped back over the tube body to help in loading and attaching/maintaining the warhead.

Each quint bank has a control station where the crew train the bank of tubes for launching. Fire control angles are computed in unit on bridge. Aft tube bank is protected from super firing 5-inch gun mount with a “can”.

On the real thing deck edge railing is vertical stanchions with wire rope “rails”. Generally not painted. Beyond the PE capabilities to produce. On yours paint it gray or with the adjacent camp. It is accepted that way. Upper rails are pipe and permently installed. Generally painted as extension of adjacent/lower camo.

Chains: finest model railroad chains at 45lpi are good for capital ships but may be somewhat large for destroyer sized subjects. There are PE options or a food dry brushing of the kit chains can be effective

Railings. paint on the fret. Resist the urge to do the whole side just because you have a railing piece that long. Work in manageable lengths 2 to 3 inches. Find logical end points, bulkheads, gun tubs, etc. Bend to shape. Fix paint cracks later. Tack the railing in place with white glue pinhead sized drops every half inch or so. clean up the glue with a wet q-tip. When the glue is dry run a bead of CA along the bottom to permentlyattach. A spray of dull coat will kill the shine

10

I was looking to get these:

1/350 Master Models USN 40mm Bofors Twin Mount Ver. 1 with MK-51 Director (6 pcs)

Would these suffice?

11

Just to respond/ add to two previous suggestions.

Chains- Navy anchor chains are flat rectangles/ lozenges, no twist. They also have a bar across the middle. I’ve messed up a few model foredecks with jewelry chain, would have been better off making the chain with the model look as good as possible.

Base- This is a critical step to a good display. For the amount of time and treasure that you plan to invest here, a few simple moves can greatly improve things.

You might be able to find a wood plaque at Michaels, but the ship is a little longish for that. Oak at Home Depot runs about $ 2.00/ ft. for 1’ x 4".

There’s plenty that’s been written on this, the basics are to plan to mount the ship on a couple of short pedestals on your base. Pick where you want them; two will do and keep them in the center third or so of the length of the ship where the keel runs level.

Before you close up the hull by gluing the deck down, locate and drill holes where the pedestals will go. Put something in each location into which you can insert a bolt or a screw from underneath. A nut, glued in. Or a small block of wood with a pilot hole in it.

For pedestals, the sky is the limit. The simplest might be a short piece of tubing, either brass, or painted. It can get complicated from there, largely depending on your access to basic machine tools. I use little lamp part nipples. They’re about 1/2" diameter and come in lengths from 1/2" to an 1" or so. Easy to find at Ace.

Drill two holes in your base, where your screws or bolts will stick up from underneath. Countersink on the underside so the base sits flat.

Put this all together and fiddle it so the ship sits level, side to side.

I like to build on a base, and I have some building bases made out of pine that I don’t mind getting paint, tape and doing math on. Towards the latter parts, I switch to a finished base and keep it clean.

Either Ed, Bill, Tracy or one of the other masters here showed a base for building that I think really works. It is longer and wider than the ship, and has a second piece turned up at one end. That’s not for standing the ship up, but you can lay it on it’s side without busting off stuff.

I hope that helps,

Bill C.

12

this helps a lot. Thanks!

i bought the lamp parts and then epoxied a nut inside of the the hollow threaded nipple(had to shave thedges for it to fit). I have that mounted to my DD hull so I can paint it without getting the brass dirty. Then when it’s done, I can mount the ship to the board with a screw.

13

First things first… Howdy! I finished my first maritime build this year too. Please post pictures when she’s sea worthy! Whoop! [Y]

14

Hi ;

Along with what Ed said here . I would soak the fret of rails in White Vinegar for about five minutes then wash clean with Dawn dishwashing detergent . Rinse thoroughly .This allows the microscopic acid molecules in the vinegar to etch the brass so the paint will stick better .This is what i have done since My first set of the stuff . T.B. By the way My first set was a pair of catapults for the U.S.S. Brooklyn in 1/96

15

Tanker offers sage advice here.

In the olden days (the 1st 350 kit thread has me nostalgic) we would have recommended xylene, acetone, mineral spirits to be sure the release agents were all oof the brass.

Vinegar substantially healthier to be around.

Vinegar and Dawn not a horrible way to treat resin parts, either, come to cases.

16

im slowly progressing with my build. I was wondering what the little crows nest area looking part that is slightly above the dual 40mm aa gun between guns 3 &4 was and its purpos. Looking at the kit, I thought it was a 20mm aa gun but other references it looks like a rectangular box.

Thanks

17

There is a MK51 gun director located in that tub. The MK51 was the primary director for the 40mm BOFORS. In a pinch it could also direct the 5-inch guns. The MK51 looks like a shoebox with a gunsight and a set of bicycle handles mounted on a pedestal

The shoebox is the MK14 lead compter. Later it was mounted directly on the 20mm Oerlikon. Below is a NAVPERS document on the use

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/Ordnance/GS-Mk14/index.html

18

im slowly progressing with my build. I was wondering what the little crows nest area looking part that is slightly above the dual 40mm aa gun between guns 3 &4 was and its purpos. Looking at the kit, I thought it was a 20mm aa gun but other references it looks like a rectangular box.

Thanks