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Post by Daniel C on Jan 4, 2012 23:55:39 GMT -5
Since the USS Ingraham is going very well and the ship bug has good hold of me and the quality of this new kit looks so good..... Keel was laid tonight of USS Albany. This is a new kit from Dragon in 1/700 scale. Dragon used the new "slide" mold technology on this kit and I like the way it is enginered, it should build fast and easy. The 3 ships of this class are the most beautiful cruisers we have built in the USN. I enjoyed seing them in San Diego Bay as a kid and remember very well USS Chicago, CG-11 as she escorted the USS Kitty Hawk when I was aboard for a familiy day cruise. The seperate foredeck was glued down tonight and the major superstructure parts were dry fit. Detail is pretty good for a kit of this scale... A view next to the USS Ingraham also under construction. I will probably be starting USS Long Beach alsong with these 2 ships, since it is a new mold from Dragon and looks nearly as easy to assemble as the Albany looks.
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Post by Daniel C on Jan 12, 2012 18:27:46 GMT -5
It doesn't really look like it, but work has gone along on the Albany, the Talos FC radars have been assembled, all superstructure parts have been dry fitted and there are a few seams that will have to be filled. I think I will use the BS ship seam filling method as shown by Mike Ashley in his How to books. The hull was glossed and is now ready for decals and I have been Googleing the heck out of the radars used for the ships. I have also found a gentelman who has some awesome photos of Albany on his photo hosting site. I have been downloading and picking out the pictures that will be used for this build. Once the major seams are filled, this ship should almost fall together. You can see one of the seams in this photo where the 2 superstructure pieces come together. The other major one is here... I did find 2, yes 2, ejection pin marks that had to be filled, they are on the bridge wings... Tall Lady dry fitted with make up.... err, paint applied.
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Post by Daniel C on Feb 6, 2012 15:43:09 GMT -5
I can tell yer all waitin for an update..... I have started on the forward superstructure.... A few doors need to be added, some railing and flight deck netting, plus detailing the four types of radar found on this section... First up is the 4 SPW-2 Talos command radars, 2 to be used on this section. The kit gives a clunky part and after looking at some CAD drawings and pictures of this radar, I had to try and fix it. At first I thought I could just hollow out the front of the radar dish and add the horn inside from a piece of wire... But after looking some more, this wasn't going to work like I wanted. So my next idea is to shave off the "dish" on the kit part, cut the mount to a better shape and use a punch and die to give me a disk to form into a radar dish, then I can add the wire for the horn...... Then I will just need to add the railing that goes around the base of the platform.... That will be fun! Next up will be the AN/SPS-30 radars, they are not bad, I will just smooth out the dish and change the shape of the feed horn a little bit. 2 of these are needed for the ship. One thing I didn't understand is how Dragon molded the AN/SPS-39 radar and tower. They give p/e towers for the other radar towers but for this they molded a solid plastic piece. I found some towers on an old GMM p/e set for the IJN cruiser Aoba that will work. I will cut off the top two sections of lattice work for the -39 tower...... Fold and glue it in place on top of the forward "mack" and a much better looking tower for the SPS-39 is done. The 4, 2 for this section, AN/SPS-49 fire control radars are not to bad for this scale, after looking at drawings, I will just add the safety railings to the back of the radars. Next up will be drilling a few portholes into the superstructure and what appear to be some missile exhuasts below the Tarter missile barbettes. This ship also has a boat boom on the hull just below the forward superstructure that I will need to add, since what the kit has is not as visiable as what was on the real ship.
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Post by Daniel C on Feb 23, 2012 22:18:49 GMT -5
Work continues on Albany..... gettin kind of frustrating! With the help of the hi res photos, I am detailing more than I should?? I have been working on the forward superstructure for awhile, and I still am not satisfied with what I have done and need to do! A little p/e has been added...... portholes in the bridge structure added.... first made a pattern on tape to drill the holes... put the tape on the part, drilled thru with the pin vise and here are the newly added portholes. So, here is where the frustration started! first is with the SPW-2 which is the radar on the very top. It looks nothing like the actual radar, and the kit part looks like crap. Second, the SPG-49 radar has railings all around it for the crew to maintain it..... at first I thought the railings on the front came from a platform on the radar mounts bottom, so a piece of evergreen was cut and added only to find out that it is actually a octogon shaped platform under the whole radar mount. So the white piece here that was added has now come off.... The kit SPW-2 radars are being modified by cutting away a lot of the mount to reshape it closer to the real mount and a dish being formed to glue on the the modified mount.... oh, and the octogon platform molded on the bottom of this piece will also need a railing around it..... I was in the process of trying to fabricate 4 octogon rings to put under the SPG-49 mounts...... but looking again at the picture that is not totally correct either..... so, a little modification is needed to get it correct, and after really studying the picture I discovered that on the lowest SPg-49 location the octogon is split at two levels and the back is railing is actually a splinter shield! and of course, once the octogon base is done, I am finding the railing for the SPW-2 below it dosen't have enough room..... WT? Looking harder it looks like Dragon may have the 02 level a little too far forward. There should be a little more room between the 2 radars. I will have to reposition the 02 level a little bit. I am not sure hi res pictures are worth it!! Work is kind of at a stall, I need a break on this ship..... Working on the MB 326 for a bit of a change.....
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Post by Daniel C on Apr 13, 2012 14:24:59 GMT -5
This ship is on hold while I build a 1/350th scale kit of the Lt cruiser "Nagara" for the SD model expo on June 2nd.....
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