USS Curtis Wilbur (DDG-54) by patrickmil - FINISHED - I Love Kit - 1/200 - PLASTIC

[patrickmil]

58 minutes ago, schooner said:

Great painting and decal work!!

Thank you very much for the compliment! Your builds are nothing short of extraordinary, especially due to the scales involved.

[rcmdrvr]

Very impressed with your work to date.  I have ruined quite a few Trumpeter decals when applying them to aircraft carrier decks.  Never tried cutting them up.  I have this model on my list of to-do's.  Looking forward to following your build.

[patrickmil]

17 hours ago, rcmdrvr said:

Very impressed with your work to date.  I have ruined quite a few Trumpeter decals when applying them to aircraft carrier decks.  Never tried cutting them up.  I have this model on my list of to-do's.  Looking forward to following your build.

Thank you very much! I'm going to start looking, but if I don't find one, I'm going to start one; Trumpeter Decals Survivors Club. I'll let ya know how that pans out. 🤣😆🤣😆

[patrickmil]

I appreciate all of the likes and comments; they really provide encouragement when this project throws its curve balls at me. I worked through steps 4-12 in the instructions. These steps have you have add many tiny little deck details. These comprise 200+ tiny little parts and I decided to conquer all of those steps in one large "MEGA-STEP"  🤪. I prepared them by separating them from their sprues, cleaning them up as best I could, and then sticking them in groups to paint stirring sticks with tape sticky-side up. Once primed and painted, I was able to detail paint anything needing it and then they all got stuck on the hull and deck. While it's very far from perfect, I'm happy with my results and it passes muster with a one foot viewing distance.

 

Ugh! The macro lens is brutal. I couldn't see that seam line on the Harpoon launcher until the below picture. Thankfully, after worrying about it for several hours, I figured that it should not be easily visible if at all since that side will be facing the funnel structure in pretty close quarters.

 

Thanks for looking in!

 

[rcmdrvr]

Those seam liines are pesky.  Pop up where you least expect them.

[rcmdrvr]

Question, do you think you could have cut the hull to make a waterline model?

[patrickmil]

31 minutes ago, rcmdrvr said:

Question, do you think you could have cut the hull to make a waterline model?

The hull is pretty thick, but cutting it for a waterline model is definitely doable with a Dremel or Proxxon, or a lot of manual elbow grease.

 

Edit: to add to the above, this is one 1/200 scale ship where I think waterline would be cool since the hull isn't as large as a bathtub. 

Edited January 22 by patrickmil
Adding add'l text

[rcmdrvr]

Thanks for the info.  I have ordered the kit and will attempt a waterline presentation.

[patrickmil]

8 hours ago, rcmdrvr said:

Thanks for the info.  I have ordered the kit and will attempt a waterline presentation.

I look forward to seeing your build log!!!

[rcmdrvr]

What paint/colors are you using.

[patrickmil]

18 hours ago, rcmdrvr said:

What paint/colors are you using.

I strayed completely off the kit's recommendations. In fact, I feel like I've strayed off of what most recommendations were. For the vertical surfaces and most of the deck details, I have been using XF-12 (J.N. Grey) over a darker grey to help give some depth. For the decks, the non-skid is painted in XF-53 (Neutral Grey) and the slick-deck is painted in XF-24 (Dark Grey). Some of the details are in white and some are in red, as well. I went with these colors after looking for some time at online resources and these colors looked closest for me and how I wished to represent the subject.

[patrickmil]

Hi all,

 

Thanks for the looks and likes. It's been a bit since I've posted on this project. I've been pouring a lot of efforts into the main superstructure on this ship. Something I've learned since last time; this kit is actually geared more for a much more recent time period than I had originally thought. Comparisons between the kit and online pictures make this much more clear to me now. Here are some pictures of my progress. I'm still needing to paint and decal much of this before I permanently stick it down to the deck and hull.

 

 

I hope you all enjoy and thanks for following!

 

 

[patrickmil]

Hi all!

 

Since it's only once every four years, figured I might as well post an update on February 29th. Nothing really needs discussed that the images can't show off themselves.

 

 

Thanks for looking!

[Haliburton]

Nice clean work!

[mikegr]

For future builders there are some nice upgrades coming up

 

 

[patrickmil]

On 2/29/2024 at 2:47 PM, Haliburton said:

Nice clean work!

Thank you!

 

5 hours ago, mikegr said:

For future builders there are some nice upgrades coming up

 

 

Apparently there are quite a few upgrades coming out for this kit now. When it's all said and done, I'm willing to bet the cost of all of the upgrades will far exceed the cost of the kit. That said, the upgrades appear to be very detailed. 

[mikegr]

2 hours ago, patrickmil said:

Thank you!

 

 

Apparently there are quite a few upgrades coming out for this kit now. When it's all said and done, I'm willing to bet the cost of all of the upgrades will far exceed the cost of the kit. That said, the upgrades appear to be very detailed. 

Some modelers report 300$ on upgrade parts for a 50$ kit.

Though I do not count my spendings, I cannot cope with that

[RGL]

Looking good. Aftermarket is your friend !  I’m off the the Malaysia model show this year and hope to see this in person. You know you’ll have to build another one now !

Edited March 12 by RGL

[patrickmil]

I've been seeing a lot of pictures for this really big set and other smaller sets from HS Models. The detail looks exquisite but some of it also seems a bit egregious. This is only an assumption, but looking at the pictures, the dark blue details would be resin? And if that really is the case, some of the molded on detail on the bulkheads, such as little thin wires and other things, might be a touch too much to sand off and replace in resin. Looks like they would also have you remove the VLS systems fore and aft. At some point, they might just look at issuing an entire kit, LOL. The extra detail will be lovely, but some of this might be a little over the top, IMHO.

[ddp]

also the hull plating on that model is overscaled  & to symmetrical to be used on a ship. i wonder if they did a Nagato model mistake incorporating the Excel graph lines into the cad file?

[patrickmil]

Thankfully that hull plating is not present on the plastic kit hull. I wonder if it's just an artifact from their CAD modeling.

[ddp]

on that model, those raised lines can be scraped/sanded down smooth whereas on the Nagato model, the lines had to be filled in with plastic strips or putty then sanded smooth.

[mikegr]

On 3/12/2024 at 10:15 AM, RGL said:

Looking good. Aftermarket is your friend !  I’m off the the Malaysia model show this year and hope to see this in person. You know you’ll have to build another one now !

It looks like Gundam

[Pete Fleischmann]

Hi Patrick-

looks great! Been watching on YouTube as well!

question: have you found any good references for rigging the Mast? I’m still searching….

 

cheers

Pete

[patrickmil]

Hi Pete!

 

I gotta admit, I follow you on LSP. Your builds are incredible! Just literally finished checking in on your Smurf jet. My best resource has been seaforces.org. https://www.seaforces.org/usnships/ddg/DDG-54-USS-Curtis-Wilbur.htm

 

I have not seen anything definitive on one set way of rigging from one DDG to another, but in the kit there are rails that get mounted just in front of the flag bags (hopefully someone can correct me if this is the wrong term). The lines for the signal flags go from these rails, around the back of the tripod, to the lower yard. There are also two pair of three antenna lines that go from those mountings on the front of the bridge piece to the upper yard. There is one last line for the ensign (I think?) that gets tied off to a mounting spot on the rear of the mast and goes to the same railing as for the signal flags.

 

I have quite a bit to update on the forum with my recent progress on CW. From what I've seen so far, I don't know if the huge aftermarket sets are worth the cost, but that's only my opinion. The kit is fairly well detailed but also kind of a work of fiction as there are some configurations that do not add up to what is present in online pictures.

 

They are also releasing a Flight IIa kit soon, but I'd be willing to bet they use the same hull which would be off by about five scale feet in addition to other shape concerns.

 

All that said, I've really enjoyed working on her and overall it's been a rewarding project so far.

 

Thanks,

Patrick

[Pete Fleischmann]

Thanks Patrick for the thoughtful reply, and the link as well! I’ve learned a lot from watching your YouTube channel- your videos are great and your models are outstanding. Thanks for all the effort you put in to sharing what you know.

 

appreciate the kind words as well! The big SmurfJet is a labor of love for me- thanks for following along 

 

best

Pete

[uncarina]

I’m late to this party but Patrick I have great respect for your build and have been taking notes!

 

Cheers,  Tom 

[uncarina]

On 5/6/2024 at 4:16 PM, Pete Fleischmann said:

Hi Patrick-

looks great! Been watching on YouTube as well!

question: have you found any good references for rigging the Mast? I’m still searching….

 

cheers

Pete

I’m with you Pete in wondering about this. These images show a rigging anchor point that appears to be missing from both the kit and the HS upgrade: 

[schooner]

Just so you know - those are High Frequency(HF) fan antennas, 3 thin wires coming down to a common securing point with an insulator. Since the base is not painted with red as a warning for HF burn hazards they are likely receive antennas vice transmit. Either black thread or silver wire can be used to simulate them.

[Pete Fleischmann]

Hi Tom- @uncarina

Great catch! So I did a little investigating…

Here’s a shot of the HS upgrade. Looks like those HF antenna mounts are photoetch that didn’t show up in the CAD renderings we saw-

cheers

Pete

Edited May 12 by Pete Fleischmann