HMS Duke of York by CDW - FINISHED - Tamiya - 1:350 - PLASTIC

[CDW]

This old 1:350 Tamiya 1:350 King George V kit has been in my possession a long time. Maybe 20 years or more, I forget. A short while back I took it out of storage from my attic and decided I would build it. Discovering that Pontos made a conversion set to build this model as the HMS Duke of York gained my interest because I had already finished the Scharnhorst and it's in my display cabinet. As you probably know, these two ships have significant combat history against each other. In December of 1943, the HMS Duke of York along with other British ships sank the Scharnhorst off the coast of Norway. In one salvo, the DoY destroyed the front main gun turrets of the Scharnhorst and everything went downhill from there for the ill-fated German Battleship.

 

Here's my starting shot of what I'm working with. Even as old as this kit is, it's a testament to how well Tamiya kits are engineered for good fit. I am hoping it's going to turn out to be a nice model in the end. 

The Pontos set comes with five nice photo etch sheets, a heavy bag of turned brass gun barrels and ship's masts, and a large number of resin parts. In addition, it brings a wooden deck and a small sheet of dry transfers.

[FrozenRabbit471]

That looks like a fun model. A little more detail required than mine. Maybe I'll do a war boat someday.

[RGL]

Excellent, I'm in! 

[WackoWolf]

I got my chair all set, whenever your ready.

[CDW]

Got started tonight. Not too much done yet, though. 

When I have multi-piece decks, I like to glue a styrene strip to the bottom of the deck pieces at the joints so that the pieces have something to glue to each other and not allow the deck to flex at the joints.

Then, there is a ton of raised deck details that must be cut off and sanded smooth as the wood deck covers it, then replacement resin pieces are provided in the Pontos set to take their place. I started cutting off the raised details and sanding the deck smooth.

Also, sanded smooth the raised mold line along the bottom of the hull to prepare it for painting.

 

 

[Jörgen]

Ofc I am also in Love these 1:350 kits. Have self started on the Revell Bismarck but it is little on hold while I build other things... 

[FrozenRabbit471]

looks fun!

[Captain Slog]

Hi Craig, great stuff, I'll be following also.

 

its good to see more and more of these type of ships appearing on the site.

 

looking forward to more.

 

cheers

Slog

[CDW]

It doesn't look like much, but spent several hours cutting away unwanted raised detail, sanding and smoothing out the deck pieces in preparation for the wood deck.

 

Finding color call outs or pictures of the 1943 configured HMS Duke of York is turning up rather empty. Best I can tell, the colors are pretty basic...a white-gray on the hull, turrets, and superstructures, a dark gray on top of the turrets, and a black-gray on the hull armor belt.

Does anyone have any information that either agrees or disagrees with this? The ship went through several or more paint schemes, but the December 1943 scheme is what I'm after.

 

 

[Morgan]

Craig,

 

 Count me in to watch this one .

 

 The book King George  V  Class Battleships by Roger Chesneau is a must have is a must have for the DoY. At page 55  he describes the March 1943 refit colour scheme  as being dark grey hull and horizontal surfaces and light grey superstructure, the colours are uncertain but were probably AP507A and 507C,  and it appears that the dark grey paint was also applied to the weather decks, although the wooden plank in forward of the foremost breakwater seems to have been left in natural wood.

 

I also have DoY on the stocks and this is one of the best books by far describing her details.

 

Gary

 

 

[Canute]

That series from Steve Wiper is a good one for references.  Craig, I'm in on this one, too.

[Ponto]

I am in  awe of the details achieved with these naval kits......and look forward to checking in for the updated progress. The last few  plastic logs I've witnessed with all the photo etch details may have started in irresistible itch that I cannot resist.... damn!!!!

[Old Collingwood]

16 hours ago, Captain Slog said:

Hi Craig, great stuff, I'll be following also.

 

its good to see more and more of these type of ships appearing on the site.

 

looking forward to more.

 

cheers

Slog

Yep - I will be back on mine when I can

 

OC.

[Old Collingwood]

Great to see another plastic build on here and a mighty british one at that, I will be following with great interest

 

 

OC.

[Old Collingwood]

I fould this on the net supposed to be from Dec 1943.

 

 

OC.

[CDW]

3 hours ago, Morgan said:

Craig,

 

 Count me in to watch this one .

 

 The book King George  V  Class Battleships by Roger Chesneau is a must have is a must have for the DoY. At page 55  he describes the March 1943 refit colour scheme  as being dark grey hull and horizontal surfaces and light grey superstructure, the colours are uncertain but were probably AP507A and 507C,  and it appears that the dark grey paint was also applied to the weather decks, although the wooden plank in forward of the foremost breakwater seems to have been left in natural wood.

 

I also have DoY on the stocks and this is one of the best books by far describing her details.

 

Gary

 

 

I had these pictures that were labeled as the 1943 color scheme, but I doubted them. After reading your description from the Roger Chesnau book, maybe they are correct after all? What do you think?

My wooden deck is more of a natural wood color, not stained dark as pictured here. I don't know a way of restaining a wood deck a darker color like that, so I would leave it as is I think. Comments?

 

 

[CDW]

18 minutes ago, Old Collingwood said:

I fould this on the net supposed to be from Dec 1943.

 

 

OC.

OC

 

The reference I have shows that scheme (your photo) as being from 1941, so maybe there was some period in 1943 she wore that scheme before receiving the newer scheme which she wore in December, 1943. Don't know for sure, but just guessing.

[CDW]

Experimenting on a scrap piece of natural colored wood deck material, I stained it with Vallejo dark gray wash. It seems to have turned out okay, so maybe there is a way to stain that wood deck after all. My concern will be how consistent the stain works over the entire deck and that it will not look splotchy in places. I guess the only way to find out is to just do one up and see. As it turns out I do have an entire extra deck I can experiment with.   

[Old Collingwood]

1 hour ago, CDW said:

Experimenting on a scrap piece of natural colored wood deck material, I stained it with Vallejo dark gray wash. It seems to have turned out okay, so maybe there is a way to stain that wood deck after all. My concern will be how consistent the stain works over the entire deck and that it will not look splotchy in places. I guess the only way to find out is to just do one up and see. As it turns out I do have an entire extra deck I can experiment with.   

Do the whole wood deck in one  strip before cutting in sections, thats what I would do, also try applying with a cloth so you control more evenly.

 

 

OC.

[RGL]

If you are using a stick down deck, the stain will not work (I tried), as they are really waxy for some reason. I suggest either paint it or use the AK wash for wooden decks as it will bring up the planking and will be heavier at the edges. I was going to stain my Yamato deck black using a commercial black stain which worked on real wood but it failed on offcuts. The stick down decks are so thin you can't sand them back. 

[CDW]

What is the AK wash, Greg? Not familiar with it. Painting it would be simple enough.

I don't think there are any pre-stained decks available for this model so I'll have to do it myself or just use the natural wood deck.

[Tallshiptragic]

AK interactive weathering paints are amazing stuff! I use a lot on my modern builds. Originally armour and aircraft but they have special naval and ship weathering paints- rust, salt stain, oils and grime typically found on ships as well as a battle damage range for exposing flaked paints which actually flake paints.

[CDW]

Thanks - I'll look for those AK products in my favorite places. 

[cog]

Luckily a short sprint to catch up. I had to darken the planks on my Dolphyn build, and used stain based on alcohol (no didn't drink it) which is more transparent and shows the structure of the wood. The thin sliver of deck might be better off with that, as paints will most certainly cover the wooden look ...

[RGL]

Sorry, I'm back, been to the netball. You could try diluted acrylic paint. I think as these decks are a bit like pre chewed chicken they really don't have a grain per se, and as they are holystoned anyway, there is no grain to see. I was pretty happy using a pastel powder on my black deck and you could really develop that technique with different shades which should in theory work very well, but leave it to last. 

[CDW]

Painted the hull with hull red and dark gray, painted raised portions of the deck with light gray. After paint dried, attached deck to hull.

Stained the wooden deck stick-on with a dark gray acrylic wash (Vallejo). After 2 coats, I was satisfied with the finish. I sprayed the wash on using my airbrush, then wiped down excess with paper towels.

***One particular thing to take note if you might attempt this conversion yourself...my donor kit, the Tamiya King George V, has in the very center of the deck a raised structure with a deck on top for mounting the ship's boats. To model the Duke of York, the Pontos set provides cranes and railways that accommodate the observation aircraft and hangar, in place of the structure and deck (provided in the Tamiya kit). The ship's boats get mounted elsewhere on the ship.

This is not made clear at all in the Pontos instructions, but you should quickly realize it by looking ahead in the building sequence and comparing it to the Tamiya plans. You will need to measure and cut an appropriate sized styrene sheet to fill in the "hole" that's left by not using the Tamiya ship's boat deck. The wooden stick-on deck covers this area and later on in the construction sequence, the railways are constructed with photo etch and glued to the wooden deck. I do not know for sure exactly how the Tamiya Prince of Wales is configured if you are using that kit as the donor. Either the KJV or the PoW should work fine for the conversion, but there may be differences in how that center section gets handled. Hope this makes sense.

Anyway, I placed the stained wooden deck and fastened her down. 

Next, will begin building the superstructures, painting them, and building/painting the other conversion set details as required.

Stay tuned. 

 

 

[RGL]

That worked, well done. 

[cog]

From plastic look to a hull. Great work Mr Bunny

[CDW]

Going through the Pontos instruction photos, it becomes obvious the same instructions are shared by the King George V update, the Prince of Wales update, and the Duke of York. Certain construction/detail photos are marked for KJV, PoW, and DoY, only. It's quite possible the only difference in the sets will be the wooden decks, which are different for each variation.

That means for my build, will have quite a few rocket launchers left over. So far, I like this set well enough that I am tempted to build both of the other versions after I finish this one. 

[CDW]

Main gun turrets