Monogram Missouri

[Jim]

Finished my build of the Monogram Missouri model. To recap, I bought this 1946 unbuilt kit on ebay last winter and decided to scratch build it by transferring the plans and print wood to basswood. First pix show the box kit (1/700 scale) plans and parts, and transfer to basswood block and sheets.

[Jim]

Next the build. I decided to convert the vessel to a waterline model, which I like better; showing a ship's bottom, rudders and propellers just looks unnatural to me...

Also chose to replicate the original 1944 camo: Measure 32 - pattern 22D — a variant of the Bureau of Ships's design used on destroyers. Later on in '45 when she moved to the Pacific, Missouri adopted the more prosaic Measure 22 pattern. But I've always wanted to make a ship model featuring the swoopy dazzle-paint design.

I also added a few aftermarket parts purchased online for pieces too small to fabricate myself: plastic anchors, life rafts, quad 40-mm batteries and gun tubs (although I did manage to build a few tubs from drilled-out dowels), brass 16-in. gun barrels instead of wooden toothpicks, and plastic floatplanes, and photo-etch catapults, and fantail crane. I did buy some 20-mm Oerlikon guns, but when they proved too darned small for me to even SEE, much less paint and install, they went right to the scrapyard!

[Jim]

And finally, for good measure, a few close-ups...

[J Luke]

That's a fantastic model! I'm curious how you go about getting the taper in the big gun barrels? Excellent work!

[lastvautour]

Excellent build. I find a 1/700 scale plastic model hard to handle; I can only imagine the workmanship required to produce such a masterpiece. Congratulations.

Louis

[Jim]

Wow, Lou! That is a honey of a greyscale rendering! You are a graphic artist on top of everything else....

And Jordan, I decided to use an aftermarket product for the main battery gun barrels: They're turned brass. But they were designed for use in plastic kit models, and are sized to fit a three-pronged rod that goes inside the turret and swivels up-and-down. Because of that, they were too short. I had to extend them with small pieces of aluminum tubing glued to the butt ends and fitted into holes drilled into the turret shell.

That wasn't particularly tricky. What took a lot more work was the gun "bloomers" — the blast bags that go around the base of the gun tubes and seal them off from the outside. To make them, I cut little bits of mounting putty, rolled and shaped them with a toothpick around the gun bases and painted them black. Voila!

[Jim]

Wow, Lou! That is a honey of a greyscale rendering! You are a graphic artist on top of everything else....

And Jordan, I decided to use an aftermarket product for the main battery gun barrels: They're turned brass. But they were designed for use in plastic kit models, and are sized to fit a three-pronged rod that goes inside the turret and swivels up-and-down. Because of that, they were too short. I had to extend them with small pieces of aluminum tubing glued to the butt ends and fitted into holes drilled into the turret shell.

That wasn't particularly tricky. What took a lot more work was the gun "bloomers" — the blast bags that go around the base of the gun tubes and seal them off from the outside. To make them, I cut little bits of mounting putty, rolled and shaped them with a toothpick around the gun bases and painted them black. Voila!

[Boomerang]

Outstanding result!

Gordon