by Paul Helfrich
1/700 USS Delaware BB-28 (Scratchbuild)
The Delaware and her sister, North Dakota BB-29, were the second class of "dreadnought" battleships built for the United States Navy. They had a main armament of ten 12" guns in five double turrets. The Delaware served in WWI and throughout the 1920s, then was scrapped under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.
A while back I built a pretty crude 1/2400 representation of this ship. That got me interested in doing more with WWI era ships of the US Navy. There aren't many options for kits of these ships, so scratchbuilding seems to be the way to go. I got a set of plans for the Delaware, reduced them to 1/700 scale, and then cut out the main structures to use as paper templates for the actual model pieces, which were cut from sheet styrene. The boats, cranes, and secondary armament came from my junk box - everything else is scratchbuilt.
The cage masts are from an old kitchen strainer. I'm still working on getting the flared shape right - these are a little too cylindrical. My next try will be better. In the meantime, it's nice to have a ship from this era joining my 1/700 collection.
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