USS Arizona by DocRob - FINISHED - Eduard - 1/350 - PLASTIC

[DocRob]

A belated happy new year to you all and I finally decided about the build I will contribute to the 'Let's get wet-GB' over on LargeScaleModeler. My year started a bit rough with house issues AND modelling issues to solve. Some were connected and affecting my initial choice to build the Fore Schnellboot S-38 in 1/72.
One reason, I choose the Schnellboot was, that during a heavy rain in December water entered my cave and soaked the box of the S-38 to pulp. I took the manual, decals and PE away from the sprues to a safe and dry place and when I started the build the PE and decals were gone. I know, where I stored them, know that I took them to check some reference and then the tracks went blurry.
 

So now to something completely different. I chose the Eduard limited edition boxing from USS Arizona as a substitute, after I cooled off my hot temper about the loss. This will be my first plastic ship build, since I was maybe 12, building an Admiral Hipper, possibly a Revell boxing.
 

First, let's have a look into the box and onto the AM goodies, I plan to use.
 

Dramatic box art:

 

The two piece hull with the decks loosely fitted on:

 

 

Not that much plastic on the sprues and a lot of what is there will be substituted by PE and printed parts:

 

 

3D printed parts and Master barrels:

 

 

Lots of PE, and I forgot to take photos of another sheet:

 

 

 

 

 

The goodies, I bought on top of what's in the box, an Artwox wooden deck and Ion Models US Navy figure set:

 

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Inspecting the plastic, I have to say, I'm very disappointed with what's supplied. The sprues are sourced from Hobby Boss, which date back to a Banner Models kit from 2001.
I never heard about Banner and don't know about their reputation, but this kit is partly very badly designed.

The hull is a two part affair which is parted at or close to the waterline and on first sight, here the fit seemed to be good. There is a battery compartment casted into , but that doesn't matter.

All plastic parts have all kind of irritations, bad casting, strange design, irregular shapes, burr and flash. Many details are casted on, but there is some light there too. The deck planking isn't too shabby, but will be covered with a wooden deck on my build.
 

One example for head scratching design. The halved sidewalls will luckily be substituted by PE later.

 

Another example are the portholes, where I don't want to comment what is there .

 

 

I drilled out all of the 200-300 portholes with a 0,8mm drill bit and removed burr and other imperfections as a first step. I will not correct all the shortcomings of the kit, but will do my best to build a decent model in the end.

The manual suggests continuing with the gun turrets, which I did. First steps were to remove the casted ladders and the other casting oddities with chisels and round bladed scalpels. I think, these tools along everything which cuts and sands in my arsenal will be used heavily through this build.

 

 

Next, I prepared the main artillery barrels. I cut the plastic barrels from their foundation, drilled a guiding hole and glued the barrels in with CA and got them aligned properly, hopefully.

 

 

Then it was cutting, chiseling and sanding again, removing winches, anchor chain and pollards from the fore deck which is halfway done on the picture. It looks now perfectly clean, but I wanted to show the casted detail to these of you, who were curious.

 

 

Cheers Rob

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  I'll watch with interest.  I built the Revell Arizona as a teen, but my 'fleet' of ships got disposed somehow (as happened to a lot of youthful stuff) when parents 'cleaned house' during college and while I was trying to get established in a career and marriage post graduation.  Not long ago I did a build of the Metal-Earth tiny Arizona (cute but basic) - which is in the MSW library of completed builds.

[ccoyle]

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Arizona because I was born there (the state, that is) and because I built the ancient Revell box-scale kit as a kid. Good luck on your project!

[yvesvidal]

11 hours ago, DocRob said:

I hate when they do that kind of molding. It reminds me of the old Revell kit from the late 60's-70's where everything was injected in one single part.

 

Yves

Edited January 15, 2023 by yvesvidal

[DocRob]

19 hours ago, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

I'll watch with interest.  I built the Revell Arizona as a teen, but my 'fleet' of ships got disposed somehow (as happened to a lot of youthful stuff) when parents 'cleaned house' during college and while I was trying to get established in a career and marriage post graduation.  Not long ago I did a build of the Metal-Earth tiny Arizona (cute but basic) - which is in the MSW library of completed builds.

I will search for your Arizona gallery Johnny and take a look. I built only one plastic warship in my modelling career and it was the Admiral Hipper, when I was a teen. I was proud about the result, which would cause some laughs today, I guess.
The USS Arizona build is a challenge for myself, as I like to test myself constantly modelling wise. I get easily bored with repetitions, so the best for my wandering mind is to push myself out of my comfort zone into the cold water.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

18 hours ago, ccoyle said:

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Arizona because I was born there (the state, that is) and because I built the ancient Revell box-scale kit as a kid. Good luck on your project!

Thanks for your wishes Chris, I will need them and hopefully some expertise through the members here. I also have lots of fond memories about Arizona, which I visited multiple times and still have friends there. Until your post, I never thought about a connection between the ship and the state. Thanks for this trip down memory lane.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

8 hours ago, yvesvidal said:

I hate when they do that kind of molding. It reminds me of the old Revell kit from the late 60's-70's where everything was injected in one single part.

I feel with you Yves, the plastic of this kit is a joke. It doesn't look like that kit was designed in 2001. I built very obscure kits in the past, like a Fokker D.VIII from MikroMir, where the plastic was also bad, but this was different. It was like a challenge to get the most out of it, where the Arizona kit only leads to head shaking. I would have immidietely stopped the build, if there would have been only the base kit. It would have been a waste of time and effort, but with all the goodies, let's see.

 

Cheers Rob

[Canute]

Rob, I'll follow your build with interest. Like many I built the old Revell box-scale kit way back when. This almost looks like an up-scale of the old Revell kit. With your skills and a box full of aftermarket bits, I think it will turn out OK. Model on!

[RGL]

It will be fine, the issue with Battleships is you get fixated on the micro not the Macro and the end product suddenly turns up and you go “wow, that looks OK’.  There are so many tiny details only you notice. 

[DocRob]

22 hours ago, Canute said:

Rob, I'll follow your build with interest. Like many I built the old Revell box-scale kit way back when. This almost looks like an up-scale of the old Revell kit. With your skills and a box full of aftermarket bits, I think it will turn out OK. Model on!

Thank you for your confidence Ken. I hope to turn that build into a decent result and at least learn a lot through the construction, I could have chosen a better base kit though.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

15 hours ago, RGL said:

It will be fine, the issue with Battleships is you get fixated on the micro not the Macro and the end product suddenly turns up and you go “wow, that looks OK’.  There are so many tiny details only you notice. 

You are absolutely right Greg, on many builds, only the builder himself complains about the bits and pieces, where the onlookers only say wow, but aren't we all perfectionists more or less?
There are so many details build, rarely visible after completion, like engine wiring with spark plugs or cockpit detailing with planes, but to me it feels good to be able to reproduce it, to apply knowledge, technique and skills as a self satisfactory aspect. This is my motor in modeling and I like to challenge myself with every build.

 

Cheers Rob  

[DocRob]

Progress is slow, even slower due to different issues. First, I discovered, there are only nine bollards included instead of sixteen. I mailed to the Eduard helpdesk and they reacted promptly and said they sent the rest, so i hope they will show up soon.

I started with the turrets, where the manual is a it irritating, because there are three different types of turret assemblies out of four. There is some very delicate PE to add. For cutting PE, I use a sharp blade normally on a hard plastic tile, but with the superfine borders of the gun openings, I cut on a glass pane, because there is less deformation, but obviously it's not good for the service life of the blades.

 

 

The second issue I ran in, were the plastic parts, which hold the barrels in the turret. They didn't fit well with the openings in the front shields and in one case adjustment wasn't enough and I had to make a new bed from drilled brass tube.

 

 

The basic equipment on the turrets is finished, except some very delicate railings, which I will add later, along with PE ladders. I started to build up the catapult for turret #3, but it is only fitted loosely for the picture.

 

 

The front turrets:

 

 

Cheers Rob

[king derelict]

Lovely neat PE work

Alan

[Toolmaker]

Hi Doc,

This is looking very neat and tidy. Lots of etch and add on’s to keep you busy.

I did the 1/200 version with full etch in the past and still have lots of historical photo’s should you need any.

I shall keep looking in.

Thank you

Paul

[DocRob]

14 hours ago, king derelict said:

Lovely neat PE work

Thank you Alan, there is a lot more to follow, five huge sheets of PE, phew...

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

14 hours ago, Toolmaker said:

This is looking very neat and tidy. Lots of etch and add on’s to keep you busy.

I did the 1/200 version with full etch in the past and still have lots of historical photo’s should you need any.

I shall keep looking in.

Thank you for your generous offer, Paul. If I need photos, I will come back to you. I hope to use not so much reference, as I don't want to dig too deep into history and have a relatively fast build. The USS Arizona should look right, but I'm not a rivet counter. I rather build for an overall convincing looking result. Of course, I see problems arising with such a well researched subject and so many experts around here .

 

Cheers Rob 

[Edwardkenway]

I'm watching this, as it will be interesting to see all the PE work, something I've only done a tiny amount of.

It looks very neat and tidy!

[DocRob]

On 1/21/2023 at 11:16 AM, Edwardkenway said:

I'm watching this, as it will be interesting to see all the PE work, something I've only done a tiny amount of.

It looks very neat and tidy!

 

Thank you Edward, I continued with the PE and as far as it works, it has a relaxing component, but I fear, there will be issues later. I hope, I do not blow away half of the detail away with the airbrush later.
 

I finalized the first catapult today, where a ton of parts went in. This is mounted on turret #three and is luckily the more complicated of the two catapults, which sent the Kingfishers skywards.

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers Rob

 

 

[king derelict]

The catapult is a beautiful piece of work. You did a great job

Alan

[DocRob]

On 1/24/2023 at 1:31 AM, king derelict said:

The catapult is a beautiful piece of work. You did a great job

Thank you Alan, this is only the overture to some heavy bending and gluing, possibly soldering as well.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

This peace of junk should transform into the superstructure . What have I done to be tormented with that kind of plastic. My sins must have been infinite, I hope I enjoyed them .

 

 

After hacking and slaying, sawing and grinding, cursing and chiseling, I removed what is only partly shown on the pic. There was more debris than usable plastic left, but it took a while to get there, mainly because I pre bent some of the then to add PE-parts, to cut everything to shape. All red in the manual has to go and it's a lot.

 

 

Cheers Rob

[ccoyle]

Wow, the initial fit is . . . um . . . interesting. 😬

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  As a diversion, I saw a pic of what armor piercing shells are capable of ...  sobering indeed.

 

[DocRob]

22 hours ago, ccoyle said:

Wow, the initial fit is . . . um . . . interesting. 😬

That's what I call understatement .

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

I've done crazier things than this, but this must have been long ago . Today I assembled one platform with PE and printed parts. This is something else than adding some PE parts here and there on a plane kit. I definitely have to burn my macro lens. The tiny stuff looks ok to my blurred eyes.

 

 

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

I ran in some trouble again with the build up of the superstructure, as I realized, al compartments folded from PE have a 'roof'. I hadn't checked it and left a bit of the structure on the underside of the platforms as a guide line for the compartments. This was easy fixed for platforms one to three, but the top one was already finished with fragile PE and printed parts. On the pic you can see the underside before surgery.

 

 

Somehow I managed to get rid of the plastic without destroying the assembled parts, using a bench full of tools. Dabbing the sweat from my forehead, I continued with building up the superstructure, which is only stacked on the above pic.

Platform by platform, I continued, until this was done according to the manual. I hope all 'connections' to other component fit, which is very difficult to check beforehand.
Now this is what I achieved, I'm not entirely satisfied, but I'm still completely out of my comfort zone with this build. Slightly strange angles only depict the state of the art of American engineering scale wise .

 

After:

 

Before: (Find the 1247 differences )

 

 

Cheers Rob

[Old Collingwood]

WOW   -   what a  difference  night and  day   -   shaping up  now.

 

OC.

[mikegr]

On 1/25/2023 at 11:00 PM, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

  As a diversion, I saw a pic of what armor piercing shells are capable of ...  sobering indeed.

 

This is a test performed at almost 0 distance and 0 angle.

In a real situation, say 30k+ yards at an impact of 40+ degrees the result would be far different from the one shown above

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-040.php

 

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

8 hours ago, mikegr said:

This is a test performed at almost 0 distance and 0 angle.

In a real situation, say 30k+ yards at an impact of 40+ degrees the result would be far different from the one shown above

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-040.php

 

  As usual when all the data is examined, a more realistic picture can be envisioned.  Still, hits on lighter armor would likely have some effect.  'Brings to mind a visit I had in the 1970s to the outdoor WWII Tank collection at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.  There was an example of a Jagt Tiger (Hunting Tiger ... or was it a Jagt  Panzer) non-turreted anti-tank vehicle with thick, sloping front armor.  There had been a direct hit from some allied gun on the front, and it looked as if an oversized 'ice-cream scoop' had taken a 'scoop' right out of the armor plate (something like 6" thick) ... but the round did NOT penetrate.  Another round had been deflected by the gun mantle.  It would have taken another hit in exactly the same spot (not likely) to have a chance of defeating the armor in that location.

 

  Some of the tanks had open hatches so a visitor could get inside (which I did).  There was also an indoor museum of all sorts of military items, but I don't know if anything seen decades ago has been maintained or is available for viewing these days.  One would have to check before attempting a visit.