sumterIII

Hey James, yes I remember you talking about the math problem, thanks for helping out again. I remembered the 24 sets but forgot the rest. Thanks Dave for the wire size, that's a big help! I found a source on line for the wire if anyone wants to give it a go too. http://www.ngineering.com/other_detail_stuff.htm

Some time ago I had asked about building a cage mast. I was looking for the post and saw that it had been removed or archived. I want to build a 1/350 mast using wire but unsure on the size of wire to use. Can anyone help? Thanks

hum Rustoleum, something to consider thanks edit post: Found a rattle can from Testors that is lacquer at LHS. Will give it a try and see how it looks.

I'm looking for a good bronze paint (prefer non acrylic based). I searched Alclad but they don't have it. I also have Testors bronze but need more than those little bottles it comes in. (a lot of area to cover) Any suggestions?

These are hard enough in 350 scale, 700 is getting harder and harder for me to see. Great job!

Very nice build Noel. Shading is great and the spear is far better than any kit version, congrats!

Love it, I used to watch the show every week, thanks for the memories :D

Sweet Duke, nice builds

This came from Jim Russell on modelwarships web. "The float was made of cork (guess). Size of each float was appx 4" dia x 12" long. They were strung on a line, this assembly was called a float net. The assembly was stowed in a "float net basket". There were two sizes of basket, "shallow" used on DD's and "deep" used on CV's and BB's. A deep basket could stow 15 lines of floats." L'Arsenal makes resin floats, WEM and GMM has baskets for BB's. I have the USS Missouri set from WEM and they are nice. Sorry I don't have numbers for the size of the basket but I did take a picture of one on BB55 http://www.ipmsusa3.org/gallery/v/walkarounds/boatsandships/BB55/

First I would look over the handbook for building rules http://www.ipmsusa.org/competition_handbook/CH_index.html Note anything you build as a team will still follow basic model building information presented there. "In these contest how critical are colors? I.E. exact match’s of shades on the aircraft and accessories. To me OD is OD; grey is grey, but some people talk of various shades." This reminded me of that movie about the kid building models and his GF asked him about all the shades of grey...Yes there are many shades and counting, so try and stay with what it should be if possible. You may want to view the tips and tricks pages for color shading for help. For the rest you just have to jump in and give er a go at it. Mistakes will happen but you will learn from them. I like to use a practice kit if possible, a cheaper version to get paint and some details down before going into the main event so to speak. But that's just me. I'm sure others on here will chim in with advice, lots of good people who are far better than I on building. Good luck

This 1/72 CSS Hunley kit from Cottage Industries was first seen in last year’s Navy build, but I left out some details. This one was modified based upon collaboration between myself and a Hunley researcher. Some of the modifications were speculation based on what was found on the real boat. During model testing it was determined that the spar for the torpedo had an issue of sideward osculation when underwater. The lower mount was far too small to withstand the side to side sway as the boat moved through the water without some support to compensate the lateral movement. Two eyebolts were found under the dive planes along with a crank on the port side forward coning tower. Attaching a rope from the eyebolts to various positions on the spar did not yield satisfactory results on a test model. However after installing a “yardarm” on the spar the test was successful. This model represents the spar rigging using the eyebolts with yardarm and a crank for raising and lowering the torpedo. There was early speculation it had an electrically fired torpedo. This is not out of the realm of possibility because such firing devises were used in Charleston at the time. Placing the firing wire at the rear of the torpedo became problematic due to the spar being made to separate from the torpedo with a slip sleeve. When the spar was found next to the sub the forward wooden part was broken in half. The reason for this was because an order was given to have the spar cranked to a 45 degree up angle for the attack. The Hunley moving forward and the torpedo making contact at an angle would most likely cause it to break off. This being the case could cause the firing wire to break when the spar wooden shaft snapped. By inserting the electric fuse on the side, as was the custom with other such devises, insured greater success. However conventional wisdom says this was a Singer torpedo, percussion fired with a lanyard, not electrical. Certainly this is not the only way it could have been configured, just some basic speculation based on test by a couple of interested enthusiast. For pictures please go to this link. http://s649.photobuc...rIII/HL Hunley/ Now I see how to do this! Thanks Gil

Do you want us to post pictures here or in the Gallery?

Absolutely agree Mike there is a big void in styrene between 1890 and 1940 for 1/350.

you might try Paul Stilwells book Battleship Arizona http://www.amazon.com/Battleship-Arizona-An-Illustrated-History/dp/0870210238

Hey Mike I saw that site before too. I found a good source once but lost it and forgot to email it to myself. I remember it said black bands were painted on the funnel for the squadron it was in. But these came after the switch to a darker grey (maybe mid grey?) about 1911 or so I think. Before that they were light grey (#5 standard). I have pictures after the war (about 1920) that has no bands with #5 grey.

here is the link to the firing of the cram system. note the air burst of exploding shells I talked about before. http://s649.photobuc...=cram_video.mp4 If there was a laser on it I never saw it, and the longer gun range came from PGU ammo. But this was on the units I saw in the field maybe they were testing the idea at White Sands. At any rate out of 240 mortar and rockets we had fired on us, not a single hit was made that I saw. It’s one thing to know when they are firing the mortars (test range) vs. random shots. Maybe that's why it never made it to Afghanistan. BTW the tractor has all four front wheels to steer with, very impressive turn radius.

Tim that's great news, please contact me in a couple weeks after my vacation so we can work on this. Thanks for your support while I was gone.

Tim came after the time of the picture lol, we did not have an expeditor per say back in those days. The weapons truck had a couple benches covering the wheel wells for the four man load crews to sit on. No tools were in the truck just people. Tech data? don't need no stinking tech data...we used check list which stayed in the load box. Other than people and a few aircraft parts like launchers or TERS tossed in not much was in there. Dispatch or MOC would call down to the shops and send us out with a AF249 card (work order), we would pile in and head out to our box in the bunker to load or work on something after the crew dogs opened the panels, yep they did that back then, they got lazy after Tim came in and we had to do our own after that.. lol :Smile_sceptic:

Anyone know what color the early dreadnaught colors were? Years from 1910-1914 if possible???? I think they were 05 Haze Grey with natural wood decks, but this is only a guess based on what i read in USN Camouflage colors 1914-1945.

Hey John I'm leaving very soon, and the Canberra is flying here almost every day. It's nice to see the old gal take off and climb out. The engines are far less noisy and she is a real beauty rolling down the ramp. If I get a chance I’ll try and get a shot or two for you. The guys in the picture are not part of the Canberra detachment.

This one is still flying. :Smile-tongue:

Pre-WW I battleships and cruisers.. CV's are so so boring......

Same as Ralph, also use alcohol (70% or better) to clean my needle between applications. I might add I give it 24 hours drying time as well.

btw the land based units in Iraq were called CRAM, they were maintained by Navy personnel. Firing was limited with short burst in order to save the barrels from warping. At 400 rds per second they get very hot very fast.

we had these in Iraq but mounted on ground trailers. They fired tracer rounds which exploded in the air. I had one next to my room and another by my office. I have some video of the firing if you like I can send it to you. Will be a while untill I return though. We had three go off at one time for a cross fire effect, very cool with three kinds of color tracers all meeting in the same place then exploding in the air. I have not seen any in Afghanistan yet.