1/700 HMS Hood 1941 (Trumpeter)
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1/700 HMS Hood 1941 (Trumpeter)
This is my take on Trumpeter’s 1/700 HMS Hood, modeled as sunk in 1941. HMS Hood Association was used primarily as a source, along with few books and models build by other talented artists such as Nick Dogger and Jan Varga.The ship is modelled in full hull, to give the viewer a bit more appreciation for the scale of the ship as the low freeboard becomes more obvious once you see just how much was hidden beneath the waves. The full hull lets me make the models look in a “if it was in dry dock that second, this is what you would see”. That second happens to be the battle action against Bismarck.
*Building it*
The changes made to the ship were extensive – from correcting the ill-fitting lower hull with putty and braces, to scratch building anchor chains, modifying the bridge structure parts and adding the communication cables. The storage of timber was added around the base of the 2nd funnel, some shrapnel shields were srcrath built also. The ship is weighted down by metal and attaches to the base by magnets glued inside it.
Some items were upgraded with 3D printed parts also – the much more accurate 15in turrets, adopted to fit Flyhawk brass barrels and the blast bags are from original kit (my least favourite part of the setup), secondary armament and funnels are also 3D printed. Hull plating on the bow was done using paint build up method and the mainmast crane was modelled in a lower position, made with brass. Finally, the launches were covered in putty to simulate canvas – historical, though I left a couple to display the details inside.
Superstructure upgrades, as well as degaussing cables, anchors, ladders, radars and starfish structures, not to mention railings were all added from brass.
For Photoetch parts I have used Flyhawk set "780020" to detail the ship. It is very extensive, but lacks good instructions so I had to figure things out as I went on – railings are not marked at all for example, luckily hood didn’t have that many.
The White Ensign flag was made using aluminum foil, to which the decal was attached with the use of Microsol. After that a coat of matte varnish sealed the deal and I then bent the flag a bit to give it appearance of waving in the wind.
For rigging I’ve been using a tungsten wire for battleships in 1/700 scale by Modelkasten – 0.06 and 0.15 thickness. I kept the rig slightly reduced compared to original due to the scale.
For painting I’ve used Tamiya paints: XF66 for 507B for the main hull, a mixture of XF7-XF10-XF60 (Red, Brown, Dark yellow) for Royal Navy antifouling red and the deck was painted by hand using Tamiya deck tans and browns diluted with Tamiya retarder.
Weathering: I used AK Interactive enamel washes for weathering. Overall the ship was in good shape above water, repainted before action of Denmark Strait, during which it is depicted. Hence only the lower hull is weathered here a little more than the above water structures.
*Photos: *Taken with a kit lens 18-55, in a mixture of natural and artificial light (the more blue ones are in natural light and give the best representation of the ship as I see it).
Im pretty happy with the result though detailed photos reveal a bunch of smudges, inaccuracies, and bent PE parts. Still, as a package I believe it works and represents a humble tribute to a ship lost on that fateful day.
Build thread is here:
More of my work on IG @pascalemod.
