by Matt Enochs
1/350 USS Buchanan DD-484 1942 (Dragon)
Here is my build of the USS Buchanan by Dragon in 1/350. First of all I would like to comment on how nice this kit is, there was one minor fit issue with this kit and that was the fit of the center deckhouse to the hull, beyond that she literally fell to together. This kit was truly designed with the modeler in mind, many of the subassemblies were well designed to allow for painting and ease of assembly. I used pretty much everything out of the box with exception of some B&D barrels for the main guns which after I installed really could not tell the difference between the brass ones and the plastic ones. I used some WEM PE for the 1.1 and the Cyber-Hobbies set for the ship itself, I will use the GMM set in the future as the Cyber-Hobbies didn't fit very well and required much work to get it to fit. I also used Lion Roar 20mm shields as I felt they had more detail than the ones that came with the kit. I used Testors Model Master Acrylic paints to represent the MS12(mod) paint scheme which was a very challenging paint scheme and repeatedly had to fight the urge to just paint her in MS21 overall 5-N. Making the water base was a real Frankenstein, it was made up of several different methods in an attempt to display the ship at a brisk speed on a fairly calm sea. The base is a piece of plastic lighting cover known a "Cracked Ice" which was then layered with various shades of paint and the glossed over with Modge Podge art sealer. I then used artist oils to color the wake and then sealed it in with a mix of Elmer's white glue and clear Gel glue to produce a translucent effect of water lapping up against the hull. Not quite what I hoped for as a finished product but I felt it acceptable and will try a modification on my next ship to give some more "life" to the water, the ship Itself I feel was a bit of a triumph as it was the first ship that I really went hog wild on PE, rigging, crew figures and water. While not as good as most of the ships I see on this site I still feel she was a pretty good attempt and I think it only improved my skill and I can already see where I am doing better on my other ships I am working on right now. You can see some pics of the ship in progress on the message board under my username Taskforce48.
