Egilman

What I meant by mid-thirties fit was how the ship was fitted out prior to her 1936 refit and upgrading. Behind the battery house at the top of her tripod superstructure/foremast she had a vertical mast with two yard arms.... in her last general refit the lower yardarm behind the foremast battery house was removed in favor of the latticework booms that angle out and back from the base of the battery house.... ie, it didn't have both the yard and booms.... prior to '34 it had masts/yards, after it had booms on the lower foremast.... The Revell represents her in the early to mid thirties..... The Banner Models 1/350th scale USS Arizona represents her as in her '41 onward fitment..... Real close to her December 1941 outfitting. (I have both a partial Booklet of General Plans for her '27 - '28 refit and her 1934 refit with revisions to 6/3/41 that is almost complete) That would place her right up to her November '41 yard availability to repair her collision damage. They are public domain, I got them from the national archives and will be happy to provide them if you would like..... Personally I think it was released to see if there was a market for more 1/350th scale ships than just the limited offerings from Tamiya at that date..... (it sold like hotcakes to starving people in the winter) the rest is history, it was followed by Trumpeter with their release of the USS Hornet in 1.350th scale which was the second most desireable 1/350th scale subject modeler's wanted so much to see available. (and Trumpeters first official release. (they also make the Banner AZ) As you can probably tell by now, I"m a real fan of the ship. But anyway. Thanks for the welcome, I'm slowly dusting off the old skill set and getting back into building....

Thank you for replying..... This was my first model so many decades ago, I've built it 7 times but that was before the PE era in modeling.... I"m sure you know about Loren Perry and GMM, he makes the PE for this kit.... In fact I think it was his first PE set.... It is in 1/426th scale. another thing about this kit, the criticisms about this kit, and it being the only kit out there for the ship (people wanting it in 1/350th) is what set off the current round of large scale manufacturing. Now the model is in a mid thirties fit as I'm sure your aware, the booms were a mid-late thirties add on to the ship and they deleted the masts and yards on both fore and mainmasts, (adding the MG tubs on top of the battery houses) this, completely changed the rigging as well. My favorite ship model of all time..... Don't worry about the desk, you should see mine..... I have the banner Arizona in my stash, and your inspiring me to build her again...... (along with the Hornet my other favorite ship but in 1/350th this time) I'm new here, but was drawn to your build, you don't see many take this kit on anymore opting for the Banner or the even larger Trumpeter 1/200th But hey I'm just getting back into it after a 20 year hiatus... Hopefully, I can sharpen my skills to the point of breaking out my Harold Hahn plans of the Rattlesnake..... (I think it was the rattlesnake... someday) Anyway, I love what your doing and am anticipating your next update.....

I just got thru reading your build article.... (all the way thru) Nice job so far.... Although, i would like to make one observation... Turret #3, the one with the Catapult? was not painted red. The other three were though. Turrets #1 & 2 signified the first battleship division, and turret #4 signified first aircraft division... All the pacific fleet battleships had various colors on the three turret tops in the same manner meaning the same things just their different divisions...... Overall she was painted in camouflage Measure 1, overall 5S sea blue with 5H haze grey tops above the stack line.... Don Pruel's model at the memorial revealed 12/07/2006 based upon extensive national archive research by several people. who found the actual orders for this turret paint scheme right from Admiral Kimmel's hand. The paint was new, as Kimmel had orders that all ships of the fleet repaint as they could upon any yard availability as the the almost black 5D Dark Navy Grey didn't wear so well and eventually turned semi gloss. She had a yard availability in November due to a collision at sea that punched a hole in her hull that needed dry docking to repair. This was when she was repainted in Sea blue... All the survivors didn't remember the actual color used, but to a man they do remember the orders to turn out and paint her. Also, the Revell kit, when first released was the ONLY Uss Arizona kit out there and the profits of selling it went to building the memorial that currently resides there..... It's a part of the memorials history and they used to sell it at the museum. I don't know if they still do... but the Revell kit owns a piece of USS Arizona history in it's own right.....