USS Kidd DDG-100

Neuling
Very beautiful work!

Alex
Very nice, love the details! How did you attach the stems to the ship and the wooden platform? And what colours did you use?

I plan to do an Arleigh Burke too. Back in 1996 I visited one when I was in Australia (Fremantle)

James Ward
Hi Alex.
Thank you for the comment. Happy to give you a summary -

On colour: I use Vallejo acrylics for the most part, airbrushed with thinner and acrylic retarder to stop it drying in the tip of the brush. The colour used was 70.990 Light Grey (for the Haze Grey) and the radars were done in 70.989 Sky Grey. The deck is about four colours, and very deliberately not uniform to try and get some variation through it... I'd hesitate to say I used one, but it's sufficient to say at its lightest, it's about one shade darker than the 70.990 on the sides. You can see the variation most clearly around the location of the aft VLS array.

Lastly, the hull antifouling is 71.084 Fire Red.

When I build the hull, I always pre-drill a couple of 1.2mm pilot holes a pre-determined distance apart (in this case I believe it was 100mm), and then do exactly the same on the wooden base, at the same distance. It's then pretty easy to drill through the stems, and push a 1.2mm length of brass rod through them which then slot into the pre-drilled holes on the plinth.

The ship can then simply slot onto those brass rods, which keeps it stable. It's great for transporting them, too. I move a lot of models to and from IPMS shows in Sydney, and I've yet to see a breakage as a result of movement in the car. Wish I could say the same about the fingers of people at the shows, though!

Kesa Tiho
Stunning

Dave
Beautiful finish.