HMS Manchester - Type 42 B3: Skytrex 1:1250


I bought this model many years ago, along with several others, from the old Skytrex shop near the canal in Loughborough. It never looked quite right to me - the hull was too low and not symmetrical - and my teenaged assembly and paint job wasn't all I would now have wished.

Inspired by the excellent SeaVee model by Sean Pritchard, I decided to see if I could improve on my early attempt with the benefit of an extra 35 years' experience and patience. I had gone to University in Manchester so my choice of which T42 B3 to represent was an easy one.

I started off trying to modify the hull but eventually just gave up and scratch built a new one out of thin MDF, plasticard and Miliput plus (after my hull warping experience with HMS Derwent) a thick steel rod.


Again one thing led to another and I rebuilt and replaced a lot of details on the model. The SeaDart launcher was particularly distorted by the moulding process so I made a replacement from Plasticard and brass rod. I also re-skinned parts of the model to get better sharpness or add missing features like bridge windows and scratch built other details including the Phalanx CIWS, Corvus launchers, 20mm Oerlikons and a couple of RIBs. In the end, not much of the original model casting was visible.

The hull and upper works of RN ships by this time were (and are) painted Light Weatherworks Grey. I read up as much advise as I could find on how to represent this on a model which left me more confused than before. I also tried grabbing swatches of colour from a variety of photos which showed how light and exposure can change the look of colour enormously so photographs are an unreliable guide to colour.


Eventually I settled on Vallejo Light Grey with added white - with hindsight, I should have added even more white but I think the basic colour is about right. This gives me a dilemma for future models - do I stick with this too dark version or make a further adjustment, leaving HMS Manchester as an odd one-off? The Phalanx CIWS are painted to represent US Ghost Gray - a different visible in many photographs.

Light Weatherworks Grey compared with the earlier Light Admiralty Grey and my versions.
Decks are Vallejo Neutral Grey 70.992 which seems a pretty close match to Dark Admiralty Grey BS381 632. I returned to Skytrex in Loughborough - in their new premises in a smart light industrial unit - to buy some of their waterslide transfers for the flight deck markings and pennant numbers.















Comments

  1. RRRRRRR21 September 2017 at 22:45

    Very nice job,you do your self an injustice calling it a Skytrex, it is largely your own model. I know how rough they were,wore my fingers out trying to get square,symmetrical hulls too!

    Sean

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