by Douglas Conrady
1/1200 USS Wichita CA-45 (Superior)
Here are some pictures of my second commission build. Both ships are of the heavy cruiser, USS Wichita (CA-45). They were made for a lady whose husband served on the Wichita for several years, both pre-war and early war. She had me make them for her two sons as Christmas presents.
Both models are Superior models. This is the same company that produced the recognition models in WW2. I thought the castings were great considering the scale. I almost went blind a few times trying to figure out the details. The only parts I had to put on were the turrets, catapults, and the crane. There was a small amount of seams to get rid of, but it wasn't a big deal, grabbed my file and away I went. Because they are shelf sitters, I did shorten the mast on the rear, just so it wouldn't interfere with anything. I also didn't worry about radars and the fiddly-bits because of where they were going.
The white one is painted in its pre-war paint. It includes the symbols on the top of its turrets to identify it as a cruiser. The cruiser spent most of its pre-war time based in the Gulf of Mexico. A few times it was sent to South America as a show of force and to help ward off the Germans.
The darker one is wearing its war paint. This dazzle scheme was worn while the Wichita served in the North Atlantic Ocean with the British and had one task in the Mediterranean Ocean. In the North Atlantic, it escorted convoys and patrolled the North Sea as well. While there, she served as a flagship several times. Most of the time, she was based out of Iceland. While on task in the Mediterranean, it escorted the convoy that would deliver Operation "Torch". During that whole time, the Wichita sailed with the carrier Wasp, at least one other cruiser, and several destroyers. The other cruiser and the destroyers were different every time.
After the Mediterranean task was complete, she was sent home and then onto the pacific. This is where I stop, because the man who served was transferred to another ship.
The bases are picture frames laying down. This is a display idea I learned by looking at some of the beautiful models on this site. I had to take all the hanging hardware off the back, which was no big deal. Next I went out and found some light, translucent blue wavy stained glass. This was, of course, cut to fit the hole. I enlisted the help of my in-laws and their stained glass ability's to get it all to fit right, without cutting my fingers off. To get the color right, I used some of my wife's scrap-booking paper, she's got tons of different colors. After looking and comparing for quite a while, I used a semi-dark blue. This gave the color of depth I was after, without it looking like the shallow Bahamas or black water. After all that, I hot glued everything together, so it wouldn't fall apart. To attach the ships to the glass, I went out and got some two part liquid epoxy. I just spread a little on the ships, and placed them. I went out to a local trophy manufacturing store and had them make the plaques with the ships name, hull number, and year of the paint.
All in all, it was a great project. Small and fast enough to keep me going in between larger projects, yet challenging enough to keep me on my toes.
