BB-62 USS New Jersey ca. 1984
Details and highlights painted. Also fading and streaking with white, black and blue oil colors
Progress on turret No.2
WIP on the aft. smoke stack
wip on the Harpoon launchers
wip on the armored box launchers
Armored Box Launcher from Infini. 83 PE parts, 5 turned brass parts and 6 hours of work.
Armored Box Launchers from the Pontos set.
Complete set of Harpoon and Tomahawk Launchers. Painted and weathered.
SH-2 from Orange Hobby. All markings are painted by hand as OH does not supply any decals and I could only find low viz decals in my stash. From normal viewing distance you cant tell the difference.
Tamiya and Pontos both provide Sea Hawks. As my New Jersey will be in a 1984 timeframe that is not an option. I'd love to have a Sea King on board, but the only available option don't look to great.
The Phalanxes from Pontos have a stunning level of detail. A wash with black oil paint followed by some careful dry brushing was all that was needed
Oil colors (black and some beige) were used to weather the deck and generate some shadows around the lockers and the CIWS
Some steel beams behind the Harpoon launchers were added from styrene stripes
Necessary corrections on the 5 inch turrets
There is a series of pictures showing New Jersey with SH-2 parked besides the aft turret and a SH-3 Sea King on the landing pad.
I used the old Tamiya kit as starting point and added some details. Markings are mostly hand painted and represent the exact Sea King on board of New Jersey in 1983.
Superstructure below the forward range finder. Besides Pontos PE I added: portholes with covers, 3D printed loudspeaker, some kind of antennas below where the SLQ-32 will be placed, and some doors that are not represented in the Tamiya kit.
Changes to forward superstructure levels 06 to 08.
Changes made to the main mast and radar platform
Changes made to the main mast and radar platform
main mast and radar before painting
superstructure with main mast painted and weathered
superstructure with main mast painted and weathered
Turret No3 done
superstructure with main mast painted and weathered
Turret No3 under construction. As with the other turrets, some modifications were needed.
N.J. stern undergoing some surgery to add the Nixie systems doors.
3D printed Nixie system added to New Jerseys stern.
Some Details added to the aft gun tubs. More Details will be added after painting. There will be a reel with the fueling hose, some oil barrels and other small parts.
Where there have been the forward 40mm guns the deck is covered with circular steel plates. So I cut out the Pontos wood deck and fitted two circles from styrene sheet.
Improvements made to the bow.
The pedestals the ship will be displayed on are designed in Fusion 360 and printed on my elegoo Mars 4 9k
Removing the detail on the foredeck to then fit the PE part from the Pontos set. Anchor chains will be designed in Blender an 3D printed.
I added hull plating detail from thin styrene sheet and also a lot of water outlets according to reference pictures
I added tubing and other small details all over the superstructure
Wooden deck masked off and everything ready for primer and paint
Wooden deck masked off and everything ready for primer and paint
After primer I applied preshading on the lower hull with stencils. In the end this turned out to be much tu subtle and I added a lot of effects on top of that.
Colors I used for painting and shading the lower hull
Trying to apply the Pontos decals to the flight deck. They are dry transfer, so you have to rub then on.
I sprayed the flight deck in white...
I should have uses my metal primer on the metal flight deck! The mechanical rubbing also loosened the paint. Only good that I played it safe and scanned the decal sheet before applying it. This way I at least have a reference to work from.
From the scan of the decal sheet I made a line drawing in Inkscape. My cheap Cricut plotter was not good enough to make the tiny parts. As my masking tape is translucent, I just stuck this over the sketch and carefully cut out the shapes with a sharp hobby knife. A bit tedious, but it worket better than expected.
... and applied the masks, then sprayed dark sea gray over the masks
...and with the masks removed. Some minor touchups required. But overall I'm very pleased with the result.
The red and white line was not inclded in the Pontos set, so it was also masked and airbrushed.
The Tamiya propellers are very basic. So I set out on the endeavor to model my own 3D printed parts in Blender. It took me many tries till I got to a point where I was satisfied. Only afterwards did I find out, that there is a online tool to generate basic propeller shapes: wageningen-b-series-propeller.com/
Very fine and thin blades are possible with my Elegoo Mars 4 9K
Painted up and weathered
Next I set out to design an anchor chain in Blender. Here you see one of the early test prints. The chain can be made fully movable. But I noticed, that it is very hard to get it straight on the model. So I planned to have it rigid for the straight parts an only leave it flexible where it needs to conform to the surface.
First test fit to figure out the correct length.
The complete anchor chain with tie downs and capstans
detail of the tie downs
detail of the capstan
And the printed chains in place and painted.
Assembling the base for the forward antenna is not for the faint of heart!
Added details to the flight control station and more masking in preparation for spraying the haze gray.
After a lot more of masking the haze gray is finaly on. Doing a pin wash around all the details. I using AMIG Panel Line Wash Blue Black.
Neither is the antenna itself! But the Pontos parts already have tiny holes to pull your stretchable rigging wire through. So its mainly a question of patience. The antenna should have a horizontal wire, connecting all the vertical wires, but I was not able to get that on without messing up all the previous work, so I passed on this detail.
assembling the Pontos breakwater with all its tiny PE parts.
All together in place on the bow
And in place with some weathering. from reference pictures I added 3D printed fire hoses to the breakwater.
Weathering and streaking on the hull
Weathering and streaking on the hull
refinements on the ships boats
Looking at reference fotos I added fire hoses (3D printed) and what seems to be some kind of lances to generate water fog for fire fighting (from lead wire). Also added lifebuoys (3D printed)
refinements on the ships boats
I could not resist and had to add tiny steering wheel (3D printed) to the boats.
All the boats and davits ready for paint.
UNREP mast with Pontos details
Looking at my references I noticed I had overlooked a few support columns. They were quickly added from styrene rod.
landing alignment lights on the stern. Scratch build from styrene sheet and rod.
landing alignment lights on the stern. Scratch build from styrene sheet and rod.
The helicopters found their place on the landing deck.
When I started rigging, I noticed I was missing two additional 'yard arms' on the main mast for flag lines. This was quickly remedied with two pieces of brass tubing.
aft flag lines on the main mast
antennas and forward flag lines on main mast. Rigging was done with 'Rig That Thing' standard size from Uschi.
Propellers and shafts in place. Here you can also see some of the more intense weathering I added to the lower hull. I was not happy with the look the preshading leftme with. So I held my breath and used a sponge to apply various red, pink, orange and brown colors. I also masked off the boot stripe and applied some 'chipping' effects with a sponge and haze gray there.
Propellers and shafts in place. Here you can also see some of the more intense weathering I added to the lower hull. I was not happy with the look the preshading leftme with. So I held my breath and used a sponge to apply various red, pink, orange and brown colors. I also masked off the boot stripe and applied some 'chipping' effects with a sponge and haze gray there.
Opmerkingen
48 30 April 2020, 19:37
Ingmar StöhrYou're welcome! I hope you brought enough beer and chips as this might take a while 😉
An please make sure you keep a safe distance of at least 1.5m.
1 May 2020, 15:16
AckiBin auch gerne dabei, aber den Mindestabstand kannst Du vergessen. Da erkenne ich nichts mehr. 👍
1 May 2020, 15:55
Ingmar StöhrSlow progress in the last days because of beautiful weather. Finally managed to finish No.2 turret
23 May 2020, 14:31
Ingmar StöhrA few days off and bad weather lead to some progress on this project. Pontos set misses some details and the resin parts are generally excellent. A few show more flash and other minor defects. But still a vast improvement over the kit parts.
17 June 2020, 07:42
Ingmar StöhrI managed to complete all the Armored Box Launchers and the Harpoon Launchers. I even put all my courage together and started the opened launcher from the Infini set. 83 PE parts, 5 turned brass parts, some plastic sheet an 6 hours was all it took to build an amazing tiny detail for New Jersey.
@Joerg: Herzlich Willkommen
19 June 2020, 19:21
TreehuggerThe smokestack work in photo 10 looks really nice I think. Fun to see others drilling out the holes in pipes and stuff. 🙂
12 July 2020, 17:21
Ingmar StöhrHow can you not drill out all the pipes. That would be really insane 😉
12 July 2020, 17:25
Ingmar StöhrToday it was time to finish the four Phalanx CIWS. The detail on the Pontos parts is absolutely breathtaking. A was with black oil and afterwards a careful dry brush with light grey and white is all that was needed.
26 July 2020, 13:44
Ingmar StöhrToday I managed to complete all the 5 inch guns. The detail on the Pontos parts is superb! Only thing I had to change where the gun mantlets (not sure if that is what it's called for naval guns), as the Pontos parts are way to small.
2 August 2020, 11:26
Ingmar StöhrFinally some progress to show. I used the old Tamiya kit to replicate the SH-3 Sea King seen on board New Jersey in 1983. I added struts to the wheel sponsons an the fin on the tail boom. The MAD probe on the starboard sponson was made from styrene rod. The tail rotor is made from thin styrene strips. The main rotor came from my own Elegoo Mars SLA printer. The Tamiya rotors look more like bricks...
Most of the markings are hand painted to match the exact Sea King shown in a series of pictures from 1983.
2 September 2020, 20:01
Ingmar StöhrUpper superstructure with main mast and radars assembled, painted and weathered.
13 September 2020, 09:00
Spanjaardamazing job!!! the radar is fantastic. and i really like the SH-2 and Sea King
13 September 2020, 11:02
Thomas RieckMoin Ingmar. Wie bekommst du auf dem letzten Bild dieses "verwaschene" Grau hin? Lackieren und dann? LG Thomas
23 March 2021, 09:14
Slavo HazuchaJust found this project - fascinating work, so much attention to detail and an absolutely clean results - I really like your painting & weathering weathering too, you strike a great balance between macro & micro and a great scale impression result! 👍
- happy to jump on board mid-project 🙂
23 March 2021, 09:31
Ingmar StöhrThank you Slavo! The project has been on hold for quiet a while now. But hopefully I will get back to it very soon.
23 March 2021, 12:42
Norbert SteffensWhat I've seen looks fantastic. I predict that your USS New Jersey is going to be a excelent model
25 March 2021, 18:57
Stefan FraundorferDas sieht alles unglaublich genial aus Ingmar. Super Bemalung und Alterung. Nur eine Kleinigkeit ist mir aufgefallen. Die untere Stiege im Bild 36 ist verkehrt angeklebt. Oder hat das einen bestimmten Grund?
9 April 2021, 20:53
Michael OsadciwWow. What a lot of detail. How do you like the 3D printer you have? I've been thinking of getting one for creating parts and hopefully full 1/35 scale figs once I get some more Blender sculpting knowledge under my belt.
9 April 2021, 22:02
Ingmar StöhrThank you everyone!
@Stefan: Die Treppe hat es auf dem Fotor "nur" nach hinten umgebogen. Da ist schon alles richtig 😉
@Michael: I'm very happy with my Elegoo Mars. For around 250EUR it delivers very nice detail! I did a lot of modeling and sculpting in Blender the last months. Have a look at those two projects:
St. Mary's Church, Falklands April 1982 | Album by stugiii (1:350)
Lighthouse on Cliff 1/350 scale (3D printed) | Album by stugiii
18 April 2021, 16:41
Ingmar StöhrToday I was able to complete the main armament. Turret No3 also needed some modifications to resemble the prototype in the 1984 time frame.
18 April 2021, 16:44
Ed BatresI'm curious, why are there handrails on the turrets? When would the sailors use them? How do they reach them? I'm primarily an aircraft builder, but appreciate great work. Thanks. Great attention to detail. Pleasure to see the work you do.
18 April 2021, 16:49
Ingmar StöhrHi Ed, I'm not entirely sure, but most likely they would be used to secure a sailor with a rope when doing maintenance or some paint work. You find similar rails around the whole bridge, e.g. for cleaning windows or repairing something from the outside
18 April 2021, 17:07
Matti ThomaesPermission to come on board? I'm planning to do the Revell Platinum version for my next large build, this is very inspirational...
15 November, 21:50
Ingmar StöhrThank you all! I just added a huge update to the album. And no, this is not the progress of one night 😉 I was just way behind with posting updates here. Album with finishes build will follow soon.
16 November, 13:45
