"1/2400 WWII Allied Merchants" Topic

Didn't get a lot of naval work done last year. (Changed cities and generally found myself busy away from gaming, sadly.) But I did get a few merchants built up and painted that I never posted: A Blue Funnel liner Sarpendon made from a Panzerschiffe Maru Transport, a French tramp Yolande Bertin from a rather heavily converted GHQ MV Gran, and an Australian freighter Triaster from a C in C Canberra Maru. Not a lot, but at least it's something. On the other hand, that does help explain why the fleet review got missed last year. Hopefully I won't let that happen again.

I did include that in my 2016 Year in Review, but there's really not any more to tell in the wonderful world of waterline modeling. I have resolved that 2017 will be a better modeling year.

Very nice! The masts look fragile…

Are there good sources of information on merchant vessels that allow you to do these conversions? I'd thought about Italian merchant ships, but couldn't find any; perhaps, if I knew where I was going, something else could form the basis of a conversion.

Grelber

SP: Nice Work!

Grelber: I have done a lot of conversions in 1/2400 and this has been my 'go-to' book:

link

It would seem easy but mast locations, etc., can be difficult to understand without a decent reference.

I don't bother to do 'exact copies' but this book will give you a lot of inspiration / ideas.

I'm still learning how to do masts better. When done well, I think they really enhance the model, but good sources can be tricky to find. I have a few books, most notably The World's Merchant Fleets, 1939 and the 1942 edition of E. C. Talbot-Booth. There's also some websites, but rather than list them I'd suggest just doing a google image search. The better ones will pop up more frequently and you'll find them. It can be very difficult to find pictures of specific ships. It's a little easier to work backwards: Find a picture of an appropriate ship and model that. But even then, getting both general appearance and tonnage right can be a problem if you're kitbashing. It all depends how particular you want to be. A lot of my merchant models are more "that feels right" than "it's a scale model." (Kind of a mix, depending on available information.) The three above are more in the former category. I already had all three models in use as their intended freighters (more or less) and these were extras. So I found ships of about the right size and age in lists and did some guesswork. I don't believe I had pictures of any of them, in this case. But if I can find good resources I do like to get it right, and I've been known to go back and repurpose ships if I find something that fits better.

Editor Bill: they're a little fragile, but not really any more so than white metal. They bend a little less and break a little more, maybe, than white metal castings of comparable diameter. Honestly, the masts themselves hold up fine. Even the larger booms are usually okay. The biggest problem I have is that I sometimes lose the smaller higher spars, but on the plus side, they're cheap and easy to replace. (It's just an eighth inch piece of stock. If you lose one, cut another, glue it on, and paint it up. Good as new.)

Anyway . . . thank you all! :)