February 5, 2008 - Central Deckhouse

The next area I tackled in the construction process was roughing out the rear superstructure.  The first step was to integrate the scratch-built central house onto the forward end of the kit-supplied parts.



This photo shows the 02/03-deck components as supplied in the kit.  Note that all of the splinter shields had to be removed: many of them arrived broken/cracked.  No big deal, really, since they are fairly delicate (one would hope that a kit of this cost would be packed to prevent such things from happening...).  Eventually I replaced them all with 0.010" sheet styrene.


The forward end is on the right side of this photo. Here the central house is shown after being attached to the after superstructure.  The red circle indicates where this work was done.  Note also the boat deck and crane (slightly aft and outboard of the rear stack). The image at right shows the central house now with the addition of four 40mm gun tubs (note the Lion Roar P.E. part sitting in one of them).  The intent here is to incorporate two 20mm galleries between each pair of 40mm tubs.  At this point I've pretty much given up on any hope of keeping the boat deck in this area.  Bummer.



Note the (P.E.) walkway surrounding the forward stack.  A bit tricky to build, but the YMW photoetch content is actually pretty nice. Here's the same area, this time with the Mk51 director tubs and their associated access ladders installed above each of the new 40mm mounts.  Additional splinter shields have been installed, further defining the 20mm galleries.  I've also installed some more of the dreaded White Ensign Models 40mm ammo racks.  Note that these parts are excellent: but they really only fit one size of tub (understandable - the circular design coupled with the required stiffness of the material makes them very difficult to adapt to other sizes, none of which is due to any fault at WEM!). Finally, this shot shows how the completed center house blends with the rest of the superstructure.  At this point I'm feeling pretty good about how this addition fits in. 

But the more I look at the other components of the superstructure...