by Richard Wonderly
1/380 SS Mariposa (Revell Kitbash)
This was my rendition of the old Matson Line ocean liner SS Mariposa. I made this by kitbashing an old Revell kit of the Queen Mary. Left off one stack, plated over theopening, modified the lifeboat arrangement, added scratch built cargo handling masts and booms and worked up a modified rigging arrangment.
I wanted to represent the Mariposa in her heydey just before World War Two and I actually made two of these, one was the prototype that I was experimenting/practicing on and the other was a gift for a family member who was a WW 2 veteran and loved Hawaii. So, I cut off the hull, made the water from sculpted plaster and depicted the Mariposa on one of her many trips across the Pacific, bound for Hononlulu. And I also drilled out the base, soldered up a some wiring and a switch and installed three night light bulbs in the base of the ship.
After drilling out all the portholes (a very tedious job, even with a Dremel tool) and painting the inside black to cut out on light seepage, she made for a very nice nite-lite. I've included one picture of her lit up at nite, but it's not the best quality as my old digital camera just isn't up to the task of taking pictures in low-light situations.
Although the Revell Queen Mary kit was something like 1/596 scale and 20 inches long, the Mariposa was only 622 feet long in real life, which works out to about 1/380 scale with this model, although the boats, doors and windows are all out scale. But hey, this one wasn't about accuracy, it was about depicting a wonderful old ocean liner.
