ArnoldAmbrose

Gidday All, here's my conversion of the Devonshire kit into HMS Glamorgan as she was at the Falkland Islands in 1982. HMS Glamorgan was one of the second batch of County class destroyers and has the distinction of being the first ship to survive a hit by an Exocet missile fired in anger, though sadly not without casualties. The Devonshire kit has been criticized a bit, it certainly isn't one of Airfix's best kits (plus mine was damaged into the bargain) but with a bit of work it can be considerably improved. I did this model in 2022, forty years after the Falklands War, but I'll show my conversion in a number of stages. Here goes. The County class destroyers were quite large ships, much larger than a contemporary destroyer of WW2. Here is the hull joined and reinforced with bits of white styrene. The holes are where I'll screw the model to a block of wood during construction. Compare the size of the hull to another conversion of mine, the WW2 destroyer HMS Onslow. GLM20 The angle of the cutaway from the flightdeck to the quarterdeck needed to be altered, resulting in a longer quarterdeck. The pencil numbers are the distance in mm from the extreme stern, and I cut along the edge of the masking tape. GLM50 And the cuts complete. In the background is the quarterdeck itself, now a bit too short, but it won't be difficult to lengthen it. After the photo was taken I removed all molded detail from it and plugged the hole. GLM70 I then turned my attention to the forward superstructure, and got a bit of a shock. The front, sides and back of it are simply two sides with half the front and back molded to each. Or should be. But not with this kit. The two kit parts (no 6 & 7) are damaged, with the two front sections melted and decidedly missing. I didn't think I could rescue the parts so I decided to scratch build the entire forward superstructure. This could have been a blessing in disguise. The kit superstructure is too wide, sited too far aft, and the wrong shape at the rear. This last was not necessarily an error, Devonshire was a batch 1 ship while Glamorgan was a batch 2 vessel. Before I removed the internal guides molded to the deck I used them as guides for my own work. As luck would have it the guides were the correct EXTERNAL width of the superstructure, so by fitting my own guides inside them I got the correct width for my internal levels. That small pencil mark shows where the front of the superstructure should be. GLM80 The hull deck is dry-fitted for this photo. My levels of the superstructure now have 'height spacers' glued to them, ready to be glued together before the sides, front and back are added to them. The lowest level has been slid forward to it's correct location and also some holes drilled through it into the deck below to add locating pins later. The flight deck is now too long but instead of cutting and reshaping the aft end of it I chose to cut out a strip further forward. That's the shaded bit and if my measurements are correct it should mostly be hidden by the platforms for the Seacat directors later. I've also plugged all the locating holes for the boat davits. They're now in the wrong position too, and waaay too large. Easier to plug and sand them now. GLM90 The hull decks are now fitted and the main body of the forward superstructure assembled. GLM100 The final mod to the hull before painting was the shafts. I replaced the kit parts with my own. One shaft was too short and the struts were almost unusable. Plus I needed to relocate the struts, fill the existing holes plus add further filler to the poor hull join at the stern. GLM120 And here's the hull, painted and ready for the upperworks. I've added the rudders, added scratchbuilt anchors and removed the two turret barbettes. The anchors were quite nice in fact, but the wrong style. I've saved them as spares. GLM130 I think this a good place to end this post. I'll continue later. Thank you for your interest. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday KiwiKev, you've done a beautiful model of HMAS Brisbane. You may have been "pretty loose with historical accuracy" but she looks very good to me. I'm Australian and in the mid/late 1970s I wanted to do some RAN ships. I bought the Airfix HMS Daring (long since lost) and did her OOB as a representative of our Darings, and than an Airfix HMS Leander again OOB as HMAS Swan/Torrens. I still have that model, minus the entire superstructure. I plan to rebuild her one day. Then I bought the Airfix Rommel model as a representative of one of our own DDGs. I got as far as adding the fore funnel then gave it up due to the funnel's differences. Conversions and modifications were decades in the future for me, so back into the box it went. For nigh on three decades. A bit over twenty-five years ago I got back into ship modeling and after I'd got some done I wondered if I could do anything with this kit. So out it came with the intention of doing HMAS Perth II. I'd spent two weeks on her as a reservist in mid 1981. I was aware of some of the alterations I had to make, mainly the Ikara system and the funnel tops. This was waaay before I'd discovered styrene sheets, strips etc so I made the Ikara deck from balsa and very thin plywood. The funnel tops were altered too, again using balsa. I added that dome thingy (from rounded sprue) on the flag deck but other alterations/additions there I didn't know about. But I didn't know how to make the Ikara launchers so she stayed 'almost done' in the display cabinet for another ten years. Then in March/April 2018 I managed to make some Ikaras and so finally, after forty years in the making, I was able to declare her "Done". To my level of mediocre standards and accuracy anyway. The number on the bow was hand painted, as I think you guessed. HMAS Perth II 1981 jm6 HMAS Perth II 1981 jm8 My workmanship was rather rough and the model nowhere near meets the standard of KiwiKev's model above. But I was happy to have her finally complete and was quite pleased with my scratch built Ikaras. Each one consisted of eleven parts. Thank you for your interest. Regards, Jeff.

Thanks Ratch. Below are some photos of HMS Ulysses being built. The first photo shows the hull (compare the colour of the plastic with that of HMS York above, they were the same two kit hulls), a line drawing and plan of HMS Black Prince which I used for the ship structure, and at the top a diagram of Maclean's Ulysses that I used along with his narrative for the weapons and camo scheme. UL20 The next photo shows the hull painted, and the hull decks and much of the superstructures being made. UL90 And a close-up of the structures. The rings are the gun tubs for the quad 2lb pompoms. UL100 I also scratchbuilt my own quad pompoms and 20mm Oerlikons, rather crudely. Below is a photo of the Oerlikon outfit. She had single and twin pedestal mounts plus twin powered mounts. UL340 And a quad 2lb pompom, of which there were three. UL310 While a large portion of the models of York and Ulysses were scratch built I still used the Airfix kit hulls and as much of the kits that I could. So I hope they're still classified as conversions. If not then they compliment Airfix ship models. Thank you for your interest.

Gidday, here's the completed model of my whiff HMS Culloden. HMS Culloden WW1 jm8 The turrets can rotate but can only be removed if trained to a particular bearing, 90* on the starboard beam in this case. Then they just lift straight out. I find that it's convenient to be able have them off the model while it is being built. HMS Culloden WW1 jm6 HMS Culloden WW1 jm7 After the hull lengthening it was basically a standard build with a few small modifications. I juggled the turrets due to the range-finders, trimmed the bell-mouths from the main guns, replaced the 6-inch casemate guns and the two 3-inch AA guns with scratchbuilt, replaced the barrels of the light surface guns, lowered the overall height of the bridge superstructure and replaced the tripod bracing legs because of it, rearranged some of the boats a bit, omitted the aftmost 6-inch casemate guns (in reality it was found that they were too close to the water and were useless in any sort of seaway), plus of course adding the extra turret and barbette. I found it necessary to plug and redrill most of the locating holes for the small parts as many were way too large a diameter. All in all I enjoyed the build. And while the model is a whiff I believe that she would have been quite plausible. Thank you for your interest. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Ratch, yes that's a fail-safe way to do it but unfortunately I can't do it on this laptop. I had planned to post a few WIP photos of HMS Ulysses too. But have I hammered this thread too much already? Regards, Jeff.

Gidday All, I've nearly completed my next conversion of this kit, a six-turret twelve-gun whiff I've named HMS Culloden. To get six turrets fitted I needed to lengthen the hull, which I did by 26mm. My preferred method is to use two hulls but in this case I only had one. So I cut it across the middle, pinned each hull half to a block of wood with the desired gap between them and then began to bridge the gap with heavy sprue. I knew I'd kept them for a reason. CULL50 For hull strength I glued in as many as I could fit. Once that was done I began to sheath the gap with thin sheets of styrene. I thought a few narrow strips would be easier than a full-width strip, for the first layer anyway. CULL90 Because the hull thickness isn't consistent I did this in several thin layers instead of one thick layer. CULL160 The hull finally done, with keels added. Then it was a case of doing similar with the deck. To rejoin the two deck halves I used ship bases. CULL180 I glued two to the front deck section, dry-fitted it into the hull, then glued the aft deck section down on top of it, dry-fitting it also. This gave me a one-piece assembly that would fit the hull. You can also see all the sprue I've used to join the hull. I had them so I might as well use them. CULL200 Then fill in the deck gap with whatever is suitable. In this case I used decking from the Airfix Bismarck kit, which I've cannibalized for parts. Here you can also see my method of attaching turrets to models. I glue 4mm or 4.8mm tubing over the turret rotating pin and glue a key down the front of it, with a gap at the top of the key. I then drill the barbette to suit and file a keyway to one side. This way the turrets can stay off the model until completion, but can be inserted, locked in but still removable at the end of the build. After this it was mainly a standard kit build. I'll show the completed build soon. Thanks for your interest. Regards, Jeff.

This is the THIRD time I've tried to do this post. The first time was my error, I pushed the wrong arrow and lost an hour's typing. The second time I managed to complete the post, I was proof-reading it and the page became unresponsive and timed out. Again I lost the lot. Not happy. I'll try again but I'll do it in two stages. Anyway, thanks Ratch, hopefully I won't have to edit things for a while yet. And PMM, thanks for your interest. I'll show a few photos here to demonstrate my methods. I work off plans and diagrams if I can get them. Due to the size of the models they don't have to be too large or detailed. One of the reasons I chose to do HMS York over HMS Exeter was that I had plans of the hull decks and superstructure levels for York. Other reasons were her rather striking camo scheme and the unique look of her bridge structure. Exeter was a single grey colour and her bridge was very similar to that of the first three models above. In fact I believe it was the prototype used for them and I like to have a bit of variety in the display cabinet. Below is a photo of the hull, hull decks and first levels of the superstructures. You can probably see the two colours of the hull plastic, from two different kits. The brown blobs are epoxy glue that I used to fill holes in the hull, I hadn't discovered model filler at that time. To rejoin the hull halves I screw them to a block of wood the get them straight and firm, hence the holes. The hull decks and superstructures are inverted to show how I reinforce them and how I attach bulkheads (walls) to their decks above. YK130 YK160 Constructing the levels of the bridge. I like to use jigs I've made from blocks of wood as they make the job easier to get things square and vertical. YK240 To the left are some of the aft superstructure. To the right are some of the bridge superstructure levels. Each of these levels has the corresponding bulkheads attached to them underneath. I do it this way to make painting easier later. I think I'll finish this here, proof read it BEFORE I add the photos (I slot them in after typing the text) and post this off. Wish me luck. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday PMM, a catapult - yeah that's a possibility, and probably would have fitted. Or mounted on X turret. I didn't think of that. Some of the 'R' class of battleships might have had a catapult on the turret, but then I don't think they had the space amidships. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Ratch, simply my photo numbering system on my computer, jm means "Jeff's model". I've downloaded photos of other models in the past for my reference only, but these are my photos of my models. I've noticed here that posts older than a few years no longer show photos so I decided to identify which of my photos I've posted here in case I have to replace them. Which brings me to a question - is it possible to edit posts here? Replace the photos if they disappear? I have one more conversion to post here, that of my model of the cruiser of Alistair Maclean's book "HMS Ulysses". This model is a whiff in fact, based on the Bellona class of light cruiser. Being a whiff it allowed me a bit of leeway. Again I needed a shortened hull, in fact I used the short halves of the same kits I used for HMS York above. As luck would have it the dimensions all worked out. I used the turrets and HACS from a KGV kit, various fittings from other Airfix kits and scratch built the rest, including decks and superstructures, light weapons, funnels and masts. This particular model and HMS York above could be bordering on scratch built models but as I've used Airfix Ajax hulls (the biggest part of any ship model) I'm still classifying them as conversions. HMS Ulysses 1943 jm2 HMS Ulysses 1943 jm5 HMS Ulysses 1943 jm6 HMS Ulysses 1943 jm7 This completes my conversions of this kit to date. I have two more in the stash and have plans for one of them, but that's a way down the build queue at present. I've heard recently that this kit is to be re-released so if anyone has any aspirations of doing conversions of the kit go right ahead, and feel free to add them here. Thank you for your interest. Stay safe, and regards, Jeff.

My next two conversions required an alteration of the hull length. The first was a small light cruiser of the Arethusa class, HMS Penelope. This ship spent a lot of her war service in the Mediterranean, part of Force K operating out of Malta and received the nickname HMS Pepper-pot due to the shrapnel damage she received there. When the holes were temporarily plugged she became known as HMS Porcupine. She was torpedoed and sunk in February1944 off Naples enroute to Anzio. For this model I chopped about 20mm out of the midships section of the hull. As with HMAS Perth above, the 6-inch gun barrels, 4-inch guns and funnels came from Belfast kits, along with other items such as the HACS and Carley floats. HMS Penelope 1944 jm9 HMS Penelope 1944 jm10 HMS Penelope 1944 jm3 The next conversion was the heavy cruiser HMS York. To do her I had to lengthen the hull so I used two hulls. One was cut to give a long forward 'half', the other to give a long aft half. I then rejoined the two long halves, giving a longer hull with only a single join. The turrets and funnels came from a Suffolk kit. The hull decks and most of the superstructures were scratch built using Evergreen polystyrene sheets and strips. HMS York 1941 jm23 HMS York 1941 jm24 HMS York 1941 jm28 HMS York 1941 jm29 Again, thank you for your interest. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday All, one of my early builds after taking up modeling again about 25 years ago was the Airfix kit of HMS Ajax. This is a rather simple kit, one could almost say it is bland, but it lends itself to conversion to other ships quite nicely. To date I have done this kit five times, with another two in the stash. I'll only show my first two in this initial post. The first build of this kit was done about 20-odd years ago and done OOB. My modeling skills were very basic, I didn't even try to paint a boot topping on the hull. The kit's main gun barrels weren't round in cross-section and I didn't realize that the main turrets were a bit shallow. HMS Ajax 1930s jm5 HMS Ajax 1930s jm7 My next build of the kit was a conversion to the similar Australian cruiser HMAS Perth. She and HMS Ajax operated together in the Mediterranean and were known as "The Trigger-happy Twins". My model depicts her as she was when she was sunk in the Java Sea on 1st March 1942. At the time she had different camo schemes on either side of the ship. I used the 6-inch gun barrels, 4-inch guns and 20mm Oerlikons from a Belfast kit. I deepened the main turrets with thin plywood and made the 4-inch gun crew shelters from balsa as I hadn't discovered Evergreen polystyrene sheets, strips etc at that time. The foremast is from the Airfix Bismarck kit. HMAS Perth I 1942 jm15 HMAS Perth I 1942 jm17 HMAS Perth I 1942 jm24 I'll show more conversions on subsequent posts. If anyone else has models or conversions of this kit please feel free to add them here if you wish. Thank you for your interest. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday All, here's my discussion on the Airfix HMS Iron Duke kit and conversions. If anyone else has done this model please feel free to add to this. I did the first build of this kit in 2017 and rather than do it OOB I modified the model to how I think she appeared at the Battle of Jutland in mid 1916, when she served as Adm Jellicoe's flagship. I had to make quite a few alterations and while it probably isn't 100% accurate I think I came close. The overall height of the forward superstructure had to be lowered, which I did at three levels. This affected the tripod mast so except for the starfish at the top of the tripod I scratch built the entire assembly. I replaced the secondary casemate 6-inch guns with scratch built and omitted the guns abreast Y turret. These were found to be too close to the water and were useless in any sort of seaway. I altered the searchlight platforms on the second funnel, re-arranged the boats and booms, scratch built replacement 3-inch AA guns and omitted all the light guns that the RN declined to fit in early WW1. I also removed the chin plate at the fore-foot. HMS Iron Duke 1916 jm6 HMS Iron Duke 1916 jm7 HMS Iron Duke 1916 jm14 My next build of the kit was done four years ago and is a whiff. What if a sister-ship HMS Benbow wasn't scrapped in 1931 but was retained as a training vessel, then re-activated mid/late 1930's as a convoy escort to ward off enemy surface raiders? To make this model I omitted the midships Q turret and added a deck house in that location. I omitted all 6-inch casemate guns and fitted her with a secondary battery of six twin 4-inch guns plus octuple 2lb pompoms and quad .50cal machine guns. HMS Benbow 1940 jm3 HMS Benbow 1940 jm4 HMS Benbow 1940 jm10 I have another conversion almost complete and I'll add her here when she's done. If anyone else wishes to add their models of the ship here please feel free to do so. Thank you for your interest. Stay safe, and regards, Jeff.

Gidday John, thanks for the feedback re HMS Iron Duke. You're correct about the superstructure height. I've almost finished my third rendition of the kit, but I don't think I'll discuss it further here - it is after all a HMS Repulse thread. I should finish by the end of the week and then I'll start a thread/discussion then. Unless of course I can't wait and I start it sooner. Apologies KiwiKev if I've caused a thread drift. Regards to all, Jeff.

Gidday All. Like many here I enjoy modifying/converting Airfix 1/600 scale ships into others, both actual ships and whiffs (what-ifs). One of the kits that I've done this with is the HMS Hotspur kit, of which I've done four to date. All where purchased as part of the 'Naval Destroyers of WW2' set. The first was simply done OOB and I named her HMS Greyhound, to keep the Hotspur name free. I was going to name her HMS Glowworm but that ship had quintuple (pentad) torpedo tubes. My model building was very crude and basic back then. HMS Greyhound jm7 The next was HMS Hotspur herself but modified for convoy escort work. This involved the second set of tubes replaced by a 4-inch AA gun, X gun removed for more depth charges and some 20mm Oerlikons fitted. HMS Hotspur jm10. My scratch building was very basic back then too, but I enjoyed doing her. My next conversion started as an attempt to build HMS Hardy, the extra gun coming from my Hotspur build. But some of the modifications required I learned too late to do them so I cut my losses and looked for a fourth kit. I removed the spare gun as I would need it later and fitted a scratch built quad 2lb pompom in it's place. I decided to do the same with X gun. As this was now a whiff I named her HMS Igraine. HMS Igraine jm9. I didn't realize at the time that the 'I' class introduced the wedge-shaped bridge front so iconic to mid- and late-war RN destroyers. But as every sailor knows, it's bad luck to rename a ship so the name stayed. I also added four 20mm Oerlikons from another (1/700) kit. And my final (to date) conversion, HMS Hardy, incorporating all the modifications I had to do, such as lengthening the hull, lengthening the foc'sle deck, modifying the forward superstructure, scratchbuilding a larger aft superstructure and midships deckhouse with bandstand. HMS Hardy jm3. This ship earned undying fame as the flagship of Capt (D) Warburton-Lee in the first Battle of Narvik on 10th April 1940. That concludes my conversions of this kit to date. I have one more that my son tracked down recently and I plan to convert her to the type II Hunt class destroyer HMS Ledbury, which is similar to Ratch's HMS Dulverton. And a final photo of all four together. G,H and I class destroyer 1. From top to bottom, HMS Igraine, HMS Hotspur, HMS Greyhound and HMS Hardy. The black wood mounting blocks are a bit of an eyesore in the photos but are surprisingly discrete in my display cabinet. Thank you for your interest. Stay safe and regards to all, Jeff.

Gidday, then let me add another two thousand words. Here are some close-ups of the midships sections of the models. And close-ups I often find show a model warts-and-all. Firstly the original model OOB as I think she was in c1932. HMS Hood 1932 jm5. I made an error with the label, it's 1932, not 1920. And my subsequent model that I modified to her May 1941 appearance. Most of the info for this conversion came from the 'Anatomy of the Ship - the Battlecruiser HMS Hood'. HMS Hood 1941 jm1 (13). I did a lot of scratchbuilding of parts for this - screws shafts and struts, HACS, octuple pompoms, gun tubs, deck fittings etc. The 4-inch guns are from the Ajax kit and were modified a bit. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday again, since you mentioned your interest in converting one of these into an Australian vessel may I add some photos of my version of it. If this isn't the procedure here then feel free to ask the moderators to remove this post, I won't be offended. But I'm still feeling my way around here. If you do visit HMAS Vampire in Sydney bear in mind that she spent her last few years as a training ship. One of the alterations for such was the removal of the Limbo A/S launcher and the aft superstructure extended further aft into that vacated area. Here is my take on HMAS Vampire II as I think she appeared after her mid-life reconstruction. There are a few discrepancies I've found (platforms halfway up the fwd funnel I didn't notice) and the antennae on the masts are my approximation. I don't do PE or AM stuff although it looks superb on your model. Some of the alterations I did, besides the obvious superstructures etc include the reshaping of the bow, two rudders instead of one and I scratch built the screws. Anyway, here she is. HMAS Vampire II jm7 HMAS Vampire II jm6 Many thanks. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday All, like many here I much prefer the 1/600 scale in model warships. When I restarted modeling about 25 years ago I recommenced where I'd left off as a kid - with Airfix 1/600 scale ships and I've pretty much stayed with them ever since. But I'm running out of subject kits so I modify them now, to actual ships and also 'what-ifs', which I enjoy doing. When I do these I try to make them as plausible as I can. Most fans of RN WW2 ships will know of HMS Belfast. What some may not know is that the reason for her larger size over the other Town/Southampton subgroups is that it was intended that she and HMS Edinburgh be armed with sixteen 6-inch guns in four quad turrets. But a suitable turret couldn't be built AFAIK so they were ultimately fitted with improved triple turrets instead. But what if a suitable quad turret was developed after all? She may have looked something like I've made here. My model depicts HMS Belfast armed with sixteen 6-inch guns (4x4), eight 4-inch AA guns (4x2), four 40mm Bofors (4x1), sixteen 2lb pompoms (4x4) and twenty 20mm Oerlikons (4x2, 12x1). She also carried six 21-inch torpedo tubes and a chute of depth charges. To make the quad turrets I used two triples to make one quad. This made them rather large though, and required a lot of reshuffling of other structures. And to compare this model with the original OOB, Thank you for your interest. Regards to all, Jeff.

Gidday, further to the above, I'll try to post a photo of my two models. The model at the rear is my original build OOB while that in the foreground is my modification to her configuration as at May 1941. HTH. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Kev, I've done two of these now, one as Repulse and the other as a whiff that I named HMS Reliant. I enjoyed them both, I thought this is a good kit. But there's an error I think with the screw numbering. Have you fitted them yet? If not then I suggest you switch the two outer screws, parts 27 and 35. All screws should be outward turning. I confirmed this from photos when I did my original build. HTH. And regarding John's comment above regarding backdating HMS Iron Duke, I did the model back in 2017, modified to her configuration as at the Battle of Jutland. It wasn't a huge amount of work, most of the time was spent in research. I'll try to post a photo later if you wish. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Richard, sorry for the late reply, I've only just joined here, and I know that your initial post is over 10 months old now. Have you started the model yet, or going to? And do you still have any questions? I have done this model twice now. The first time was well over six years ago (maybe even much longer) and was built OOB. It depicts the ship at about 1932 as far as I can make out. The second time I built her was to convert her to her May 1941 guise and I finished this about July 2021. I can't remember the initial state of the first kit, the second had a very small blemish on the hull plus rather horrible turret faces that I was able to rectify. I don't recall any other major issues with the kit but I can check my build log if needs be. One issue I do have with many Airfix ship kits is the screws. Most ships have 'handed' screws - both left-turning and right-turning screws but most of the ship kits that I've done don't have this. The Repulse and KGV kits are exceptions to this but not Hood, so I had a go at making my own screws. But there's no need to do this if the screws doesn't bother you or you water-line the kit. I don't add PE or AM stuff to my models so I can't advise you there. If I need other stuff I raid other kits or try to make my own, with varying degrees of mediocre success. But I like the 1/600 scale and I'm very interested in what you do or have done with this kit. I think HMS Hood was a ship that will never lose her place in history. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Kev, This is only my second post on this forum, I only managed to join about an hour ago, and I'm very interested in what you've done with this kit. My younger brother had one of these about 50+ years ago and I did one OOB about 45 years ago. And as a coincidence to your comment in your fourth paragraph second post re the Australian version, I've recently done exactly that. Starting November 2022 and finishing in January 2023 I converted a kit into HMAS Vampire as after her mid-life refit. My models are a bit basic, I don't do PE or other AM stuff. If I need something I make it myself, not as good as PE or AM but I enjoy it. As with Mark Downey above I got mine as a Tiger/Daring set. Two in fact, the other Daring kit will become an Australian Battle class one day. And I think I agree with Mark's appraisal of the Tiger kit if done OOB. Mind you, it can make an interesting Whiff. Anyway, I should be talking about your model. I'm very impressed with it. The turrets look very good, and the guard-rails and lattice mast take the model to another level. In fact I think it's superb. I hope to be able to communicate with you about Airfix model ships through posts more often here, because I like the Airfix scale and have done quite a few of their models. Thank you for your time. Regards, Jeff.

Gidday Richard, I've been trying to join for a few days now to comment on your model here. I've seen a bit of your models before and have quite enjoyed them. Like Ratch above I prefer the old Airfix 1/600 scale, started modeling full-on about 25 years ago and started where I'd left off as a kid - with Airfix 1/600 scale ships. Anyway, to your ships. I've noticed that your models when photographed on a white sheet come out rather dark. The same happens to me with my camera. I think it over-compensates from the reflected light from a bright background, and as a result I find it hard to make out a lot of the detail of your work. When it happened to me I switched to a more neutral background such as MDF board (light brown in colour) and I get a much better result. Would you consider taking a couple more photos like that so your work is more visible to us, because I'd really like to see the detail of what you've done. Many thanks. In the past you've come up with some interesting ideas. One I liked was the twelve-gun HMS Hood, like the IJN Hyuga/Ise class. I just happen to be doing the same with the Airfix HMS Iron Duke kit right now and I'll do a thread when I learn how to post photos here. Ratch has given me some tips - thanks Ratch (and I don't know how to change my user name - but no big deal). Anyway, enough of me rattling on - it's been nice meeting you, so-to-speak. Regards, Jeff.