HMS Huron by king derelict - Trumpeter - 1/700 - PLASTIC

[king derelict]

I had planned to build something else on my return to this corner of the forum but it turns out I am short of PE bits and now I think I want to try and find some resin parts too. So this is hopefully a relatively quick build for the interregnum.

Trumpeter calls her HMS Huron but my initial reading suggests she should really be a HMCS ship being part of the Canadian Navy. And so she is referenced in my books.

The camouflage scheme on the box art drew me to this one, curiously the painting guide has something different 

Ive also seen a Sovereign Hobbies illustration showing a four grey shade scheme.  My book British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage offers another variation based mostly on Western Approaches green. This one is quite unusual and might be the final pick.

 The box is misleadingly large, inside the hull is not exactly filling the box.

This is not going to use up a lot of shelf space.

I’m going to try to build this up and paint in pieces to avoid some horrendous masking, we’ll see how that goes.

Thanks for looking in.

alan

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Looks like a great subject Alan - love the camo scheme!  Looking forward to following along!

[ccoyle]

My maternal grandmother was raised in Huron, South Dakota. I'm told that the local pronunciation rhymes with "urine." 🤔

[Canute]

Should be an interesting build. I'm in.

[king derelict]

18 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Looks like a great subject Alan - love the camo scheme!  Looking forward to following along!

Thanks Mike. This is the final choice of camouflage. It seems to be a verifiable scheme - and I like it.

Alan 

[king derelict]

16 hours ago, ccoyle said:

My maternal grandmother was raised in Huron, South Dakota. I'm told that the local pronunciation rhymes with "urine." 🤔

That adds charm to the name. Possibly it should be twinned with the village of Little Piddle on Dorset (I believe)

Alan

[king derelict]

6 hours ago, Canute said:

Should be an interesting build. I'm in.

Thanks Ken. So far the Trumpeter parts look quite nice and seem to fit.

alan

[mikegr]

Trumpeter has good detailed and reasonably priced kits. Great Value for money. The selection of kits also is getting better every year

[Old Collingwood]

Im In Alan,   "Little Piddle" there is also a "Greater Piddle"  I believe.

 

OC.

[king derelict]

On 7/5/2025 at 8:26 PM, Old Collingwood said:

Im In Alan,   "Little Piddle" there is also a "Greater Piddle"  I believe.

 

OC.

Hi OC, I think you are right.

alan

[king derelict]

Not abandoned yet but a case of two steps forward and one step back.

After deciding on the paint scheme I needed to sort out the paint. I have the AK Royal Navy set which includes Western Approaches Blue and Western Approaches Green. I was not totally happy with this set when I used it before but I thought I would try it again. I tested the WA blue and green.

Although it looks a bit bright the green does resemble the color seen in a WW2 photo of HMS Comet wearing a similar scheme. The blue is another story, it’s almost white. I’m going to use Tamiya Light Blue which looks better.

After painting everything except the decks with flat white I masked up the hull ready for the green part.

I remembered the AK acrylics and water based and using.Tamiya or Vallejo thinner causes the paint to curdle. I have some AK acrylic thinner and that worked quite well. The green was sprayed on and the masks removed.

I think the color is where I wanted and the masking worked well. Unfortunately the port side was not so nice. The green paint appears to have run down the white leaving the green areas mostly white with green streaks. Maybe I thinned the paint too much or used too heavy a coat. I did notice that the paint took a long time to dry even in my 85F garage. The coverage looked good at first but seemed to run during drying. 
I sanded the green back and then painted the hull all white again, a second coat was needed today and tomorrow should see us masked and trying the green again.

At least the masking will go a bit quicker next time.

Thanks for looking in, the likes and comments.

alan

 

 

[king derelict]

I sprayed the am Western Approaches Green and it seemed to be better behaved today. I used less thinner this time. My working theory is that the longer drying time allows the paint to flow down surfaces and can cause streaks. It also means the paint is very prone to penetrating the masking. This time I got a good result in terms of color and masking.

I’ll let the paint harden overnight and hopefully mask and spray the WA Blue tomorrow. The masking is going to be a bit intricate but the paint is Tamiya acrylic light blue so should be less of a problem.

Thanks for looking in and for the likes and comments.

alan

 

[king derelict]

Another day, another masking session, for the blue this time. Fiddly thankfully there are only two blue sections per side. 

 The masking remained watertight and the Tamiya paint dried quickly so the result was quite clean.

The WW2 color photo of HMS Comet has similar colours so I think we’ll call that good.

The deck has had a coat of dark grey. The superstructure is white with a little blue so I think I can start sticking bits together and thinking about the PE. Tribals seem to be a bit like Flower corvettes, they all a bit different so some of the PE is not going to be used but at least there are railings and ladders.

Thanks for looking in and the likes and comments.

alan

 

[Old Collingwood]

That is coming along so well  mate -  masking can so often lead to problems - always did with me.

 

OC.

[king derelict]

On 7/11/2025 at 3:02 PM, Old Collingwood said:

That is coming along so well  mate -  masking can so often lead to problems - always did with me.

 

OC.

Thanks OC, I struggle with deciding the order of painting and then remembering that the masks have to cover the bits you want left in the earlier colors. 😊

alan

[king derelict]

I’m spending a lot of time working through the various configurations of Huron through the war years. Trumpeter say that the kit reflects the ship in 1944 but the box art and the kit bits show a tripod mast ( early war years) whereas the WE PE provides a lattice mast which is the later configuration. Luckily I found this photo.

This shows my chosen camouflage pattern and also a tripod mast in (I think) 1943.

So with the hull camouflage complete I started building up the superstructures and edged into the PE to detail the bridge. I added the bridge windows and the canvas cover, then made up the Type 285 gun control radar which was very fiddly. Some of the WE PE is very small and probably beyond me. The quad pompoms are just too tiny and intricate.

Thanks for looking in, the likes and comments.

alan

[AJohnson]

Really interesting to see the background research and colour pictures Alan. I have future project that has a similar scheme; Western approaches white/blue/green, but I am not sure which was the dominant colour (between the blue or green over the white) for my subject; HMS Knaresborough Castle. 

[king derelict]

On 7/13/2025 at 10:37 AM, AJohnson said:

Really interesting to see the background research and colour pictures Alan. I have future project that has a similar scheme; Western approaches white/blue/green, but I am not sure which was the dominant colour (between the blue or green over the white) for my subject; HMS Knaresborough Castle. 

Hi Andrew. I looked in the book British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage and although it has several Castle Class corvettes, sadly Knaresborough is not among them. The Western Approaches schemes are a nightmare to research and getting paint colours is another issue. I was lucky to find the HMS Comet one but even so the green seems brighter than shown in the reference books. Sovereign Hobbies has this super RN colour chart and the WA green actually matches the WW2 colour photo quite well

https://sovereign-hobbies.myshopify.com/pages/royal-navy-periodic-table-of-paints
I hope it helps

Alan

[Landlubber Mike]

Looks really great Alan!  Nice job on the camo!  

 

Guns at 1/700 in PE are a real pain, especially the twin, triple and quad guns.  Part of the problem too with them is that the barrels are usually flat, rather than round, so you get more of a 2D look if one should happen to look very closely.  I decided to replace the guns at 1/700 scale (and even at 1/350 scale) with pre-made guns that look better than the kit blobs.  Adds to the cost of the kit, but saves a lot of aggravation and improves the look.  You can find some really nice injection molded sets (at least I think they are) from Fine Molds.  And more and more you're seeing 3D printed items from outfits like Bunker Studios, Five Star, and Black Cat.  I recently found my holy grail kit - the 1/700 Loose Cannon USS Langley CV-1 for a good deal on eBay.  I was excited when it arrived, but disappointed at some of the detail pieces so I ended up getting replacement guns, small boats, rafts, etc.  I ended up also getting some of those items for a 1/700 Trumpeter Hornet and 1/700 Tamiya Bogue that I plan to model.  You can find these from places like Squadron Hobbies as well as on eBay (usually from Chinese sellers).

[king derelict]

1 hour ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Guns at 1/700 in PE are a real pain, especially the twin, triple and quad guns.  

Thanks for the useful resources for replacing the secondary guns. I’m with you, the kit guns are usually horrible and the PE looks flat and is fiddle and fragile. I think I need to invest in some resin replacements, I found a fair selection on the Squadron / Black Cat category.

Thanks again

Alan

[king derelict]

Ive made some progress in the last few days but it’s slow going. Next source of confusion was the number of Carley rafts on board. The kit says six but and inspection of the 1942 photo shows twelve. Luckily I found some spare Flyhawk rafts of about the right size and the WE PE has the support structures for all locations. Fairly easy but then I moved onto the secondary guns. I spent an indecent amount of time on Sunday making the quad Pom Pom and the quad 20mm guns which were a real eye stretching exercise. Compared to the kit parts I think they are better even if flatter.

However according to my research Huron had no quad 20 mm guns but just six singles which the kit doesn’t acknowledge.  I may have some Flyhawk singles that are not too bad but then I’m looking at the 1942 photo which seems to show a number of twin Oerlikons.

Maybe the twins were fitted before 1942. Squadron have Black Cat twin mount 20 mm so maybe I’ll go shopping after searching the spares box.

So in amongst all this prevarication I got a bit done, some railings, life raft supports, and fitted a few more bits of the structure.

Thanks for looking in, the likes and comments.

Alan

[mikegr]

Looking great so far

[Old Collingwood]

So much work going on there  - looking realy busy.

 

OC.

[king derelict]

8 hours ago, mikegr said:

Looking great so far

Thanks very much Mike. I’ve got HMS Zulu and Eskimo. I’m tempted to work on them next while I’ve got the parts to hand. All different camouflage schemes.

alan

[king derelict]

4 hours ago, Old Collingwood said:

So much work going on there  - looking realy busy.

 

OC.

Thank you OC. A lot of activity going into something six inches long.

alan

[king derelict]

I sorted through my spares box and found some 1/700 twin Oerlikons with shield and some Flyhawk single 20 mm without. After cutting the stand off the singles and adding them to the shield they looked quite good. So my eventual solution to the 20mm gear was to put two twins in the waist gun deck and the lower positions on the bridge superstructure. I added two singles to the bridge wings. When I was researching the Flower corvettes I read that individual captains would take advantage of any spare armament to enhance their defenses. So this configuration echoes the photo and is close to the initial specification.

Similarly the Carley rafts were often configured by individual captains. I’ve followed the photo again with three raft racks on each side, two carrying a pair of rafts.

Other small details have been added, a depth charge rail at the stern and the second funnel

I didn’t like the kit foremast, it’s a bit bent and it’s wrong too so I made up a tripod mast from brass rod and added the PE yardarms. So far so good.

I think the mainmast is worse so that will be something to tackle tomorrow along with the ships boats. Trumpeter has the stowage wrong, the boats were swung from davits, not stored on chocks. That might be awkward to change but I will try and see how it goes.

 Thanks for looking in, the likes and comments.

alan