I guess this fits into the general category of “turning lemons into lemonade.”
The Lindberb model of the Virginia / Merrimack is pretty dreadful: a one-piece hull and one piece superstructure with a few add-on pieces (cannon barrels, smokestack, cowl vents), so I decided to experiment a bit and use some parts out of the old spares box to see what I could come up with. I decided to build a “what if” version of the model depicting what the Virginia might have looked like later in the war if she had not been destroyed.
I added shutters for the gun ports, added two larger boats and some derricks to handle them, and painted the casemate gray and weathered it quite a bit (the Virgina’s casemate was originally painted black, but it seems as though later Confederate ironclads were painted gray) . The gun port shutters were typically hinged on a corner, but I modeled them after the vertical shutters on the CSS Atlanta since they seemed a bit more interesting.
If anyone is interested, I’ll post some better pictures later this week.
Now that I’m through fooling around, I can get back to the Firefighter.
Wow! Very good job. I can’t bring the images uo any larger than what you have on the screen, but from what can see, you’ve gone above and beyond the call of modelling on this one.
This ship holds a special interest for me as I work at the Norfolk Navy Yard where she was converted from Merrimac.
HEY, CARMIKE: Nice job my friend.I have always LIKED LINDBERG ships precisely for that reason.You could get a head start in general shape and go from there.I took their MONITOR and redid it with the grating top on the turret and different vents.I have also converted more than one “MINESWEEPER” kit to oceanographic research vessels.I even took the old "WASP "they did and converted it to a T-3-2 type tanker.You should post more pics.You have proved what I,ve said all along even here on these forums.Give LINDBERG a chance,after all how many companies give you the reasonably good shapes you can improve on without spending yourself into the modelers poorhouse.Again,great job!! tankerbuilder
Yes, more pictures, please. Where did you get the details from, parts box? I was given the Lindberg Monitor/Merrimack kit, and would like to do them with some added details, but am not finding much. I look forward to seeing what you’ve done in more detail. Thanks.
A really impressive-looking model. And, given the scarcity of hard information about the actual ship, I don’t think anybody can offer much criticism of it in terms of accuracy.
That old Pyro/Lifelike/Lindberg kit really is a museum piece. The Virginia has at least one major thing going for it: it’s a lot better than the Monitor that comes in the same box. The Monitor must surely be one of the most fundamentally simple shapes in the history of naval architecture. To represent it incorrectly in model form really takes some effort - but the Pyro designers somehow managed to do it: they put the turret in the wrong place.
There’s an interesting article over on Modelwarships.com by a gentleman who built a diorama based on the Pyro/Lifelike/Lindberg Virginia and a resin Monitor kit on the same scale. (The two plastic kits are on different scales. Unfortunately the resin kit turned out to be just an enlargement of the plastic one - complete with the misplaced turret.) Here’s the link: http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/dio/ironclads/ironclads-300-dt/dt-index.html .
great build, very good job! thanks for sharing… i wish some good quality PLASTIC ironclads would be released… i know there are several good resin ones, but oh the price!
