1/350 HMS Duke of York 1943 (Tamiya)
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by Jan Varga |
1/350 HMS Duke of York 1943 (Tamiya)
Model depicts HMS Duke of York in configuration of late 1943. This is the first published outcome of KGV class group build started by Czecho-Slovak modellers around the year 2015. At the beginning the detail standard was set very high. Amongst the first steps of group build was a complete design of etched hull plating (with specific port holes for each ship) plus unique design of etched pom-pom set with brilliant geometry requiring a special set of metal barrels produced at that time by Aber in Poland specially for us. Both sets were created by "our '' master designer Milan Kuliffay including manuals and plotter cut foils used as a guide for gluing. Unfortunately after the passing away of Zdenek Krcmar - one of "spiritual leaders" of czecho-slovak ship modelling, progress got stuck for quite some time. So finally I decided to finish the model using Pontos and Eduard PoW sets for superstructure even if I feel that between detail level set by etched hull plating and mostly plastic superstructure there is a disbalance. Surelly at least the forward superstructure would deserve photoetched walls and splinter shields and gun turrets the etched roofs.But unfortunately I miss the skill and time to design such a set. I would be very happy to see more models coming out of this group build. Hopefully this encourages somebody to finish his model so we may see some more KGVs. Model is displayed in full-hull standard - on pedestal. Most of the photos were edited in photoshop to remove the background and my friend photographer Paul could not resist playing a bit with an AI photoshop plugin adding an artificial water environment.
