by Kym Knight
1/350 US Dock Diorama (Various)
This project started out as a diorama for just the Liberty ship and USS Alaska and soon snowballed into this finished scene. As with my other ship dioramas, I left the hulls complete for the Pittsburg, Alaska, Liberty ship and sub and cut out their slots in a raised base. But as I had already started on the base with the acrylic gel and then wanting to add the Tribal class destroyer, tugs, Patrol craft and minesweeper, I decided to waterline these for easier inclusion. The buildings, heavy-lift cranes, floating crane, fuel tanks, cargo and docks are scratchbuilt with Evergreen, leftover photo-etch and whatever else I could find. Just as it was time to secure the buildings to the dock, I had another idea, why not light it up. So out came the drill, soldering iron and electrical tape. I only wish I’d had the idea from the beginning as all the cranes and maybe a couple of the ship would have been wired. This whole scene is fabricated, as I can only place the Alaska and Pittsburg on the same US coast around same date and HMAS Arunta never visited a mainland US port during WW2. But hey, there just seemed to be so many US flags………..
Also, thanks to all for the helpful comments by the crew at modelwarships.com while under construction, Ted Paris at ISW for some of the gratis accessories he sent my way and to Greg (passionate Sci-Fi builder) from our model club for the photography.
Everything else was scratchbuilt.
All paints by WEM Colourcoats.
