Hi everyone,
I have been a bit stressful over the past few weeks, so I decided to get over it by buying and build Trumpeter's new 1/700 scale 'HMS Queen Elizabeth 1918' kit. I have always had an interest in this particular class of battleship possibly because the first book I bought when I became involved with model boats was 'HMS Warspite' by Iain Ballentyne. Since then it has become a bit of an obsession buying kits and books on the subject, sometimes paying silly prices just to get a copy
.
Any way, the box is extremely robust and has a fantastic picture of the Queen Elizabeth firing a broadside, really stirs up the imagination!
The instructions are the usual pictorial sequence of construction that you can expect from any plastic model company such as Airfix or Trumpeter. They are very clear and follow a logical pattern to build up the model, the option to build a full hull or a waterline model is left to the end so you can concentrate on the upper hull, deck and superstructure before worrying about how you are going to display it. They include a separate colour diagram for the WW1 colour scheme worn by Queen Elizabeth in 1918, all over grey unfortunately.
What you get in the kit in the way of plastic is as follows:
Complete upper hull
Complete lower hull
Upper deck
Quarter deck
Waterline plate
2x sprues of Ship's boats
2x sprues of Ship's guns (15inch and 6inch)
1x sprue of superstructures and bridge decks
additionally you also get an etched brass sheet with some of the finer detail such as the bridge superstructure and supports, break waters and a nice name plate. Finally you have a small decal sheet for the flags and a base section to display the full hull option.
In this picture I have glued the upper and quarter deck to the upper hull section, not forgetting to position all the 6inch guns first and the rear superstructure sides to the upper hull before clamping everything together. I have constructed the A and B turrets completely and half built the X and Y turrets. It doesn't inform you in the instructions that you can have an extra option of having fitted gun bags on the turrets but I found them on the sprue so I used them as I have no intention of having elevating guns. The funnels are moulded in one piece eliminating any mould seams that can occur and prevents any mis-alignment when you glue them together.
I will continue tomorrow, more pictures to come.
Nick B