Greetings all,
Childhood years on the beach of Port Townsend, WA watching WWII Navy warships heading down Puget Sound to the US Navy shipyard in Bremerton. Built models by Revell at that time. Now there are many other options. Wishing recommendations (brand and where to purchase) for high quality 1/350 US Navy warships in WWII fit. Retired now with lots of patience and appreciation for detail. In advance, thanks all for your assisstance.
Wow, what a question NW.
There are several companies that produce 1/350 ships from Revell, Trumpeter, Flyhawk, Dragon, Hasegawa, Academy and the list goes on.
I usually get me ships from Hobbylink, Sprue Brothers, Scalehobbyist and so forth.
Trumpeter makes a wide range of offerings with decent detail at a fair price. You just need to decide what class of ship you want to build and compare price with what manufacturers and the difficulty desired. The rest most of us can help us with.
You will find at least someone on here that’s built what you’re want to build.
Trumpeter and Tamiya are both a good source of WWII ships, Trumpeter has a bit more variety if memory serves, including Liberty ships, destroyers, heavy and light cruisers, and nearly every battleship from USS Texas up to the treaty battleships.
For Iowa’s, I’d go with either Tamiya, Very Fire or Revell.
WWII carriers, Trumpeter pretty much dominates with Enterprise, Hornet, Lexington/Saratoga (prewar Sara), Langley, and someone brought out a Wasp; not sure if it was T or not.
I would also add Tamiya to the list for a couple of WWII USN warship kits as well. Although I don’t recall seeing any 1/350 USN kits by Hasegawa. Dragon and Trumpeter are going to have the widest offerings of kits in injection molded plastic. I’m not current on 1/350 resin kits, so no helping suggestions there. Aside from the fact that there used to be far more subject matter available in that scale and medium compared to injection plastic.
Thank you all for your speedy replies. Very fire, Tamayia, and Trumpeter brands sound pretty good. What are your thoughts re reputable US retail sources to actually purchase from??
Revell of Germany (the only Revell anymore) makes good models.
Probasbly one of my favorites is the Trumpeter 1/350 New Orleans class cruiser USS San Francisco.
Tamiya’s Fletcher class DD
Stik, Hasegawa did sell the USS Gambier Bay, probably because they sank it.
OOP, expensive and a small kit.
Bill
Brick-n-mortar, it’s hard to beat using coupons from Hobby Lobby–availabiliy may be spotty.
Online, Squadron and the mail order folks in he US are reputable.
On Kit Brands, note that Dragon has this “thing” where if somethign can be made with 1 part, they will use six (unless they can use seven).
Note, too, that all Trumpeter color callouts are wrong. They appear to use a oujia board while intoxicated to randomly select colors off a dartboard. So, you need to do research to find out what paint schemes were actually used.
Oh, and there are legitimate USN WWII paint schemes which will make you batty. Or will make your model invisible–the Measure 22 All over Navy Blue with Blue decks is a bear.
Check for videos and postings for specific ships you’d like to build–this can be very helpful.
Instead of shopping at a hobby shops, surf E-Bay, or amazon for ship kits. Sometimes they offer reasonable discounts rather than the high price offered at hobby shops.
Happy modeling Crackers
Just AVOID (like the plague!) 'Internet Hobbies". They have been known to be less then forthright in their dealings.
Ebay, Amazon, Scale Hobbyist, Sprue Bros, and others are fine.
I’ve had good experiences with Free Time Hobbies out of Georgia, even picked up a kit of the original Ruben James Destroyer that was sunk in 1940 while on escort duty to England.
note that this kit is a resin kit, but the only one made.
NW, so, as you can see, there is lots of help here. More importantly, there is lots of experience here; not only in the building of models, but in the research. Some here are extremely meticulous in their methods, others, not so much. but either way and all the levels in between are all good. Find your niche and enjoy, oh, and welcome to the party.
Let’s not forget submarines.
Bill
Ah yes, forgot about that kit. All the rest of their 1/350 stuff is IJN. Tamiya at least makes German and Allied WWII stuff besides their IJN subjects.
To the injection plastic producers list for 1/350, I’ll add AFV Club for some subs and amphibious types.
Does anybody have any experience with Very Fire ship kits?
I was in the same spot you were in about five months ago. There are so many choices i wasnt sure where to start. I went with the Tamiya USS Missouri which was a nice kit. Decent instructions and most stuff fit well. Working on Trumpeter USS Texas now. Texas i coildnt find local. Had to get her from China off of Ebay. The Missouri I boight from the local guy. Hes more expensive but handy to have around so i try to support him.
If it doesn’t need to be a big gun warship, the Trumpeter Jeromiah OBrian is a nice kit of a navy supply ship.
Just about to start on her sister, John W Brown. Boxed under either name. The only two preserved Liberty ships still operational.
Looks like a nice kit in the box, and several different PE makers do sheets for them. Got the Tom’s Model Works PE for mine, buy not going all the way down that rabbit hole. Just too tiny for my 10 thumbs once you get past railings and bigger stuff.
I found that to be a very difficult kit to build, even with out using the PE.
Nice to be sure, but there’s about three squillion little parts for a little ship.
And as usual, DO NOT follow the Trumpeter painting directions. The ship is one color over all, including the decks. It’s a Maritime Association dockyard gray. A close naval color is 5-O Ocean Gray.
Edit; and no boot topping.
Bill
The tweezers and magnifier will be as important as the glue.
But true for most any ship in that scale except the BB’s and CV’s. Don’t know how the 1/700 builders do it.
Note that they set her up in Normandy fit, so the Meas 22 is generally acurate.
Trumpy fails to note that there’s supposed to be linoleum (which is either painted Deck blue, or in it’s natural russet color) at the searchlight platforms, signal flag area, and the upper lookout positions.
They missed the fact that the Galley (aft of the stack at the main deck) should be open and visible, as it’s filled with huge soup kettles and bakery ovens and the like.
The deck under the 5"51s is wood, and ought be 20B Deck Blue, but the interior walls and overhead are White. Restoration evidence shows that hte he 5" pattery in '44 was apinted a semi-gloss black overall (elevation quadrants and some of the controls were bright Bronze). They were stowed not quite fore-and-aft, just enough for the “far” seat to be accessible for either pointer or trainer, depending on which side of the ship.
At the time of Normandy, the Kingfishers were flown off, and the Aviation Detachment put ashore.
Oh, and the Pontos '44 set of decks & PE is really more appropriate for Iwo, and Meas 21, overall Navy Blue. It’s also uncessarily complex for very little gain.
The Pontos set can be used, though, if a person were modeling a Magic Carpet version of Texas, as they went back to Meas 22 for that–and adding in “bright” hull numbers, and the name of the ship in 72" tall white letters amidship just under the main deck line.
Technically, all of the 20mm mounts ought be under a canvas cover, and many of the quad 40s as well–which could save some sanity ib builing the elbenty-dozen 20mm aboard. Now, they also doubled the number of floater nets in all the baskets as they were carrying a bunch of “passengers” home to the States.