by Matt Enochs
1/350 USS Chicago CA-29 (Blue Water Navy)
Here is my build of Blue Water Navy's 1/350 USS Houston as her sister ship the USS Chicago CA-29 circa August 1942. This kit was built for the "Gun Cruiser Group Build" that ended back in March and was a real challenge on many fronts. Some parts of the kit were perfect right out of the box and others had to be tossed and totally scratchbuilt. Solid reference material for the Chicago was very difficult to come by as most photos were taken from too far away to make out small details and her 20mm gun locations. Using the "Calling all Northampton Class" thread on the message board I thought we had it narrowed down, the night after I called the bridge done, I just happened to go over to Navsource and found that Tracy White had posted a couple of new photos taken aboard the morning after her torpedo hit. Sure enough, I guessed wrong on the 20mm locations around the bridge so I had to do some reconfiguring there. All in all a very rewarding build of a subject that you don't often see built that fit nicely in with my Guadalcanal fleet. You can see all my in progress photos on the message board under group builds.
List of what I used:
