On the Workbench: HMS Repulse and Japanese Destroyers

Several 1/3000 scale ships have been completed for the "Defending the Malay Barrier" scenario.

Firstly, HMS Repulse:

This is a refurbished Navwar model. It is one of several in my collection that had been given a very basic paint job many years (in fact decades!) ago. I should have taken a 'before' photo to show the comparison but to give you some idea, this is HMS Malaya in pretty much the same state as Repulse before the make-over:

To remove the old paint I use nail polish remover. Normally one bathe in the stuff with scrubbing by a stiff brush does the job. But on Repulse some paint had collected very thickly in some of the recesses. It required a second bathe and even that did not remove it completely.

I shied away from the 1941 camo scheme and decided on how she would look in 1940. I have found painting camo in this scale a little hit-or-miss. In fact mostly 'miss'. So for the most part I avoid camo schemes adopting the more basic battleship grey.

Continued -

Some of the Navwar models can be pretty basic. I am not familiar with their re-sculpt process but they clearly have been enhancing the quality over the years. There is no information on the Navwar website that I can find indicating which ships have been upgraded although on the paperwork sent out with my lastest order, several models were listed as new. Certainly some of the more recent sculpts have been very crips with sharply defined detail.

The Repulse model I owned was towards the more basic end of quality with some detail missing such as ship's boats. To give the illusion of more detail I have exaggerated the highlights and used black-lining for shade. It looks a little odd closeup but gives the desired appearance a couple of feet away. Such missing detail as the boats were painted on the model where possible. A mast was added aft using thin wire.

Also completed were 3 Japanese Kagero class destroyers:

These were also refurbished and pretty good sculpts. I recently purchased more Kagero class and they contain more detail, particularly the torpedo tubes. It is possible that the above are Davco but they were purchased so long ago I cannot recall now!

Finally a photo of my WW2 Royal Navy collection to date. 3 or 4 are yet to be rebased and repainted:

Almost all are Navwar with the occasional Davco.