by Steve Ayala
1/481 USS St. Paul CA-73 (Revell)
I started building this Revell kit as the USS Helena CA-75 in 2003. I read a Mike Ashley kitbash article on the USS Franklin D Roosevelt and had pretty good luck re-working the hull on that model so I decided to saw off and rebuild the bottom portion of CA-75 as a full hull in order to add the detail missing from this kit. I studied pictures of the USS St Paul and Baltimore Class cruisers and also decided to try and to open up the topside features as well. I put it aside after about 4 months of off and on work and then it sat in the box for 3 more years.
In 2006 I learned that Cruz Quirarte, a very close friend of the family, served onboard the USS St. Paul (CA-73) in the early 50’s patrolling off the coast of Korea so I decided to finish the ship as the St Paul and present it to him. I built the “Snooky Poo” as she might have looked sometime after WWII, still carrying most of her secondary AA armament.
The hull below the waterline was 100% scratch built with the help of some Evergreen plastic materials and various brass pieces. A lot of the details above the second deck levels on both structures were cut away and scratch built with the addition of some fine etched brass radar parts from Tom’s Modelworks. The forward superstructure was completely scratch built above the second deck level. I did keep the splinter shield on the top deck of the forward superstructure and both funnels.
Besides the Evergreen and Tom’s Modelworks products, I worked with materials from a variety of resources for this kit including: Gold Medal Models, Eduard, White Ensign Models resin parts and paints by Humbrol, Floquil and Tamiya.
