Sunday 12 December 2010

Big Bad Benton....Part 4


The picture above shows the latest addition to the scratch built ACW naval collection and what a beast she is! I pictured her alongside the three Cairo class vessels so you could get an idea of her overall dimensions. The USS Benton started life as a catamaran snagging boat used for removing floating obstacles from the rivers. She was converted into the fearsome vessel you see above by the simple expedient of decking over the central gap, adding a false bow and then applying tons of armour plate and ordnance. She was quite slow but, as drily observed by her designer, 'Plenty fast enough to fight with!'


I should point out the differences between my model and the real thing - the front face of the casemate should be in two sections forming a slight 'V' shape whereas mine is flat (and therefore much easier to make!). The broadside gun ports run too far along the hull although the number present is correct. The angles of the casemate are wrong - all my angled casemate models are at a standard 45 degree angle as that is easier to work with than more acute examples. My models are certainly all over the place in terms of scale but the relative differences will be apparent. The models are certainly taller than they should be but, at the risk of being cliched, they are purely representational. The only construction difficulty I experienced with her (and the Cairo class) was the curved wheel housing on the top deck. This was solved however by the fortuitous acquisition of a pack of assorted sized tube squeezers - the thing you use for rolling up tooth paste of paint tubes. Basically the section that you place the end of your tube in is curved and is also made from hard plastic (at least the ones I have are - they came from the local pound shop in a pack of ten) and so can be easily cut to the right size.

I am very happy with the way the squadron has taken shape and am looking forward to painting and basing them as well as the Confederate vessels I completed first of all. I intend building perhaps a further three ironclads (not including monitors) but the next priority will be the side wheeled rams and gunboats. As for naming these models I must confess that I have had a slight change of heart. Originally I was going to invent names for all of them - the Confederate vessels were all to named from places and characters from Gone With the Wind - but have now decided that I shall go down the historical route and use actual names as closely as possible.

4 comments:

El Grego said...

Very nice work - now for a lick of paint and some dice...

David Crook said...

Hi EG,

Good to hear from you again - I hope you are well. Thanks for the comments - all encouragement is gratefully received as fuel to the project machine!

I hope to start the painting process in the next day or so but in the meantime I will be getting the next batch of models underway.

All the best,

DC

El Grego said...

Sorry for being scarce, but with work, moving to a new place, and a general 'bleh' feeling hobby-wise I have been very unmotivated to even post much!

I am very interested in seeing how you paint these fine vessels up, as I am working on some scratch-builds myself (not ACW-related however) and I am finding that sheet styrene is much more difficult to work with than I had originally hoped.

David Crook said...

Hi EG,

I hope the 'bleh' does not last too long as I want to see all your stuff moving along again!

Its funny re the sheet styrene - I find it better to use for smaller stuff and the balsa wood for things like hulls etc. The models I have made thus far (and trust me, I have plans for a whole more!!)are a combination of materials and certainly for hulls balsa wood is difficult to beat IMHO.

For me though, the fun is using stuff that ordinarily would be discarded and so 'scratching' (or even junk modelling)is a very 'eco' line to take.

The paint job starts this weekend and I have got to know what you are building!

All the best,

DC