1/350 USS Absecon AVP-23 (Iron Shipwright conversion)
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by Carl Musselman |
Here is my fourth build of a USS Barnegat AVP-10 class of small seaplane tenders using the Iron Shipwright 1/350 USS Mackinac AVP-13 resin kit.
The USS Absecon AVP-23 was a one-of-a-kind variant of the Barnegat class. She had a heavy cruiser catapult and light cruiser cranes for launching and retrieving float planes for the training of float plane pilots prior to their assignments to battleships and cruisers in actual theatres of war during WWII. The USS Absecon operated around the peninsula of Florida in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico which sounds like pretty good duty, to me, actually.
Besides training the pilots in launches and retrievals of float planes, the USS Absecon also acted as a target for torpedo plane training operations.
The USS Absecon was loaned to the U.S. Coast Guard in 1949 and permanently transferred in 1966. In 1972 she was transferred to the South Vietnamese Navy and then later ended up in the North Vietnamese Navy.
My build of the USS Absecon began with cutting the hull to the waterline and clearing of most the detail from the O1 deck aft of the stack as well as the fantail and the bulwark and sponsons around the bridge. The O1 deck and main deck superstructure were extended aft to accommodate the crane foundations.
The O2 and O3 decks were extended aft, a little, and the correct number of bridge windows were filled and re-drilled. The USS Absecon only had five portholes, besides the bridge windows, and I found this to be rather odd. I relocated these portholes and most of the water tight doors to their proper positions, per plans from the NARA, and replaced them all with photo-etched doors from GMM. I displayed some of them in their open positions using some doors from Tom's Modelworks.
The catapult is from L'Arsenal and the Light Cruiser cranes are from Tom's Modelworks. The 5" gun turrets are from Corsair Armada with L'Arsenal resin barrels. The whale boat, floater nets and baskets, 20mm guns, safety net railings, gas bottles, sky lookouts, figures and 36" search light are from L'Arsenal. (The search light being depicted as being covered with canvas, which is kind of a shame, really.) The search light tower is a PE mast section from the ISW USS Courtney DE-1021 kit (Thanks Jon! And thanks, Richard Sliwka, for discovering this piece was just right when he built his model of the USS Absecon.)
The mast is scratch built using brass rod, along with the whistle and sirens and their platform. The life rafts are from Voyage Models. The Kingfishers are from Trumpeter with GMM decals and WEM PE. Bitts, chocks, 20mm ammo lockers and davits are from DRAGON Benson/Gleaves kits, along with the anchors, signal flag bags, and winches. The capstans were replaced with 1/700 ones from Battlefleet Models. They seem to be just the right size. The ship's bell is from Battlefleet Models, too. The anchor chain is by The Resin Shipyard, as are the Foxtrot flags. I soften my flags by using a drop of Solvaset on just one side of the flag and repeat this about three times after each drop dries.
I used Model Master Acrylic Navy Blue #5N for the vertical surfaces and Gunship Gray with pastel chalk weathering; black and rust. The hull and vertical surfaces were weathered with a little black chalk, as well. The canvas rails are painted with Model Master Acrylic Navy Gloss Gray.
I'd like to thank Richard Sliwka for his model of the USS Absecon which
has been a reference, for me, in all of my AVP builds. Thanks to
Russell Moody for his extensive online research assistance with so, many
aspects of this build and for the seaplanes and seaplane tenders, in general.
I owe Bruce Ross a load of gratitude for casting some of my scratch built
pieces in resin, for me. And as well as Bruce Ross, Roland Meehan,
Joseph Park, and Russell Moody chipped in on the expenses in obtaining
NARA micro film reel copies of drawings for many of the ships of the Barnegat
class. These drawings are most valuable in builds, like this.
And finally, I always feel a huge need to thank Iron Shipwrights for creating
a model of this class of small auxiliary ships.
