by Timm Smith
1/350 USS Buchanan DD-484, Tokyo Bay 1945 (DML)
This is my second ship build after completing the USS Shangri-La. The Buchanan is a superb plastic kit and very fun to build. I used the cyber-hobby.com Upgrade package which includes the railings and main fire control director. The main deck railings were cut out to allow the chocks to show through, using a 1/16" punch to remove material. Some of the provided railings did not fit the area intended so I used generic railing in those spots. I really wanted to re-do the spotlight platform but became very frustrated trying to reproduce the flaired railing. I ended up using the kit railing, which looks canvas covered, and added perforated decking and scratch-built the riser including a vertical ladder. I added railings for the Mk. 51directors for the 40mm guns. I was too far along my build when the topic of portholes came up in the CASF thread; I didn't realize that some of these portholes were covered over. The masts were scratch-built using brass tubing and rod. Thanks to Mr. Timothy Dike for answering my questions regarding rigging.
Again, this kit was very fun to build. The quality of the molds is amazing. I thought about this many times as I assembled the very detailed parts, such as building the 20mm guns, with the plastic and PE componets. The center deck house was a tight fit against the forward bulkhead but only required a little sanding to fit. The depth charge racks should hang over the stern a bit more I think. The CASF Benson/Gleaves class was very helpful, especially all the pictures posted to illustrate different areas of these ships. As with my aircraft carrier I used Pollyscale acrylic paints sprayed with a Badger Anthem 155 spraygun, 5N for all vertical surfaces and 20-B for horizontal. The bottom hull is painted with Tamiya anti-fouling red acrylic.
