Below is my rendition of the Airfix Iron Duke in 600 scale. This was not an easy build - it is old and showed every day of its age. But, on the plus side, the deck and hull fit very well - no small thing. And the kit represents a British WWI Dreadnaught and unless you want resin this is it. Kit makers have an odd view of naval history in my humble. If a vessel suffered a catastrophic mishap or was engaged in some utter folly or just stupendously big it will get its name in lights. If a ship made history, the model builder has to roll the dice. Hence lots of Bismarcks, Titanics, Hoods, Arizonas and Missouris. Good grief, there’s even a 350 scale Mutsu which blew up at anchor. And no Enterprise (CV-6 of course). Or 350 scale Washington, or KG5 or Rodney. Lots of U-boats but few corvettes. Maybe there’s a prejudice in favor of sinkees as against sinkers.
There’s been a lot written about Jutland. I even have a book about German Konig class battleships (a 350 scale is available of Konig) and it waxes eloquent on the superiority of German design. Maybe. But it was Scheer running for his life when Jellicoe’s main force “crossed the T” and was pouring fire into the High Seas Fleet. Iron Duke was flagship - it was firing effectively and like rest of the main body came through very nicely. Cheers to the RN says I.
This is my fourth ship but included a number of “firsts” for yours truly. The Airfix mast was not a serious effort, so I built one out of brass. Did surgery on the superstructure because the bridge was much too high. Sanded and bored main guns because originals looked like they had bells attached. Never rigged - used stretched sprue here. The halyards and crane cables are much thicker than rest of the rigging (much of which you can’t see in the photos) and no doubt out of scale. Also first major use of PE - set from White Ensign supplied the railings, funnel cap cages and a number of things I can’t see. Wasn’t sure what to do with aerial. Maybe I should have left it off, but decided instead to expand my entire PE stash to rig a couple sets of 600 scale railings: four in 350 would have been better, but it was that or nothing.
You did a beautiful job on one of my favorite ships. However, in your write-up, you mention that there is no 1/350 scale KGV. Don’t forget that Tamiya makes a beautiful KGV in 1/350 scale.
Shiver me timbers, but you are so right. No idea how I missed it. It’s cheap so it must be old. I’ve got the Revell version, but that’s even older I’d guess. Wonder what the part count is. It’s very tempting to dump the Revell and get the Tamiya - could even save time. One thing that the Airfix build reminded me - few bad parts does not make for a quick build. I’ve never built a 350, so just in case I’ve bought Dragon’s Laffey, Hasegawa’s Mikasa, Tamiya’s Fletcher and Yukikase and ICM Konig. And just tracked down a 220 Oregon from someone called Glencoe - probably made in the 50s.
Actually KGV is pretty well represented. Nice to have a Duke of York though. Wonder if a conversion would be possible of the Revell kit.
If you can get that kind of result from the Airfix kit, a conversion of the Revell Duke of York should be child’s play. However, the Revell kit is not very good; the Tamiya kit is much better!
Congrats on your Iron Duke build, especially the rigging. The footropes on the yards are particularly well done, and a lovely archaic feature of drednought battleships! I’m very happy the Iron Duke has been re-released recently. In absence of Drednought herself, she is a very welcome model in plastic.
Didn’t take any photos of work in progress (I’d probably lose the camera). However, you can get some idea of what I did to the kit by looking at the attached photo of a nicely built version OOB. I was guided by the plans that came with White Ensign’s PE and also by an incredible Photo Build of a 96 scale Iron Duke over on Ship Model. Oddly it’s not in the gallery: looking for the “In Progress” subthread of “Scratch Building” and it’s right at the top. Amazing model building - the builder used the very expensive and detailed plans that White Ensign employed.
To the extent that this was possible. The Model Ship board and White Ensign’s nice PE instructions commented that Airfix had brewed a kind of odd mix of eras: part 1916, part early 20s. I fixed the guns, lowered the bridge (although not as far as I probably should have), drilled the port holes and used White Ensign’s WWI rigging on a brass mast along with a scratch-built early wireless antenna. I did not deal with the lame boats - simply baffled on that one other than positioning them on deck instead of davits. The purists on Model Ship did seem to find the dimensions of the hull pretty good. At least it’s clearly a WWI RN vessel as opposed to a something like Warspite. There are a lot of them in resin, but this is it in the world of styrene. Two German BBs but zero from the RN. Must help to lose the war.
Really nice to see this Ship, I didn’t even realize someone had made a kit of this Ship. I had a desire to build Iron Duke or Lion after reading Castles of Steel about 5 years back.
