HMAS Australia

It's been a while since I've posted.  Stopped building for a while but got my mojo back.  Next year is the 80th anniversary for many World War 2 things that happened in 1942, including The Battle of the Coral Sea.  I am building the HMAS Australia, a County Class heavy cruiser.  She was the flagship of the Australian navy and a participant in the battle.  My model started life as a Combrig resin kit in 1/700 scale.  I've had it in my stash for many years.  However there was a bend in the resin hull which kept the bow and stern pointing slightly skywards.  I had it sitting in boiling water and eventually had it cooking in a pan on the stove.  The hull would drop but as it cooled it went back to it's old shape.  I resorted to sawing off the bow and stern and then fixing with araldite.  It was at that point that it was consigned to the scrapyard.

I have now gone to my stash and started surgery on my 1/700 Aoshima kit of HMS Kent kit.  The sister ship of HMAS Australia.  It involves some carving, sanding etc.  I'm using the superstructure parts, 4 inch guns, bofors etc from the resin kit and using them on the Aoshima plastic hull.

For reference I am using photographs and a few books.  I can't find photos of this period so there is a fair bit of calculated guessing such as gun tubs, shape of the bridge, the plating over the second starboard anchor, were the torpedo tubes removed at this stage,  etc.  I don't want to go into super detailing, I want to keep it simple.  It's more fun.


 
The photo appears to show a platform which extends from the rear of the bridge and wraps around the first funnel.  A searchlight is mounted there on both sides.  I am using the Combrig resin funnels because the Australia's funnels were taller than the ones for the Kent.  However the molding of the funnels is not good as one side of the funnel is taller than the other.  I will fix them using an apoxy resin.  I will show later.

Looking forward to this one Chris. You certainly have an eye for detail.

The dazzle camo in the photo, stands out a mile in that location but not doubt helped a great deal at sea.

The only HMS ship I remember with this camo scheme was the Warspite..... would that be correct?

im glad your building again

i want to do a floaty boaty thing....got a few in the stash but i change my mind as soon as i open the box lol

will follow this to give me some incentive

Thanks guys. Yes, Paul, Floaty things seem to have heaps of tiny parts. Spent many hours on my knees looking for dropped tiny parts. It's insane.

Al, I don't know about any other ships that were like this one. But it got this scheme when it was in Europe.

Look who's back!

Keep going mate, you make excellent ships.

Lookinggood! And I'm pleased to see the RAN get some attention too.

Thanks Shay, thanks Webby.

I knew a man who served on this ship. He was one of the bosses from a place where I worked when I was a kid. People would ask him for the time and he would stop, look at his watch, say the time then smile and walk off. Everyone would laugh except me. This happened a few times before it was explained to me that he had served on the HMAS Australia in the war. During it's time in the Pacific it was hit by six kamikaze aircraft. On one of these occasions he found an arm lying on the deck. It belonged to the pilot. He souvenired a watch attached to it. He smiled at me and said it was a Seiko and he had it for years. He was a tough boss too, but I liked him.

I had breakfast while watching the women's skateboarding Olympic event.  I think model making could be an Olympic event after watching that.  A sixty two year old man riding a skateboard while trying to assemble a 1/700 Photoetch Oerlikon gun makes as much sense as what I was watching on TV.  Here are some progress pictures.  I penciled in the camouflage lines on the hull and then filled in the dark gray part using a fine paint brush firstly and then a wider brush.  I then made corrections using Tamiya XF19 as a primer before filling in the light gray part using Lifecolor light admiralty gray.  The photos make the model look a bit messy but that is the stage I was at.