USS Columbus CA-74
by John Galla

The USS Columbus model I made for my father from the Revell USS Helena 1/481 plastic kit.

Many pieces didn't fit properly with their corresponding parts and others  were bent or warped. Some pieces just looked totally ridiculous, such as the 20mm guns, which looked like arrows molded onto the deck. I had to make alterations, which ultimately made the finished version look better than if I had just used the kit parts. Much to my surprise, even though this is a full hull model, there were no propellers, struts or shafts. Just the rudders. Luckily I had another 1/500 kit of a different ship and I cut and modified the shafts so I could attach  them to the hull of my Columbus model. I added the "74" to the gun mount as well as the photoetched 20mm guns and the brass anchor chains.

Other modifications included: Scraping down the molded anchor chains and replacing them with 3D chains, cutting off the molded railings and replacing them with photoetched ones, cutting out the 20mm guns and replacing them with photoetched ones, drilling out the barrels of the 8 inch guns, adding doors, hatches, stairs, ladders, and life rings to the superstructers, cutting off the MK radars and replacing with photoetched ones, adding a brass hook to the crane, running 23 seperate rigging lines, and adding additional decals that didn't come with the kit.

I used Tamiya's Deck Tan for the wooden portion of the deck. The paint was a bit of a pain to use. The bottom color is Tamiya's Hull Red paint.