Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length.

[deadbeat]

I was asked by my sister-in-law to make the Airfix kit of HMS Devonshire as it was a ship her late husband served on in the early 70s. Her husband had bought the kit back then, he never made it and it became lost until recently. Although advising her that one on-line antiquities store was selling this very kit for £135, she still wanted it made.

I wanted to do more than just make the model as sold, so I bought the White Ensign Models upgrade kit of etched brass fittings. This gave me a decent 965 radar aerial, WT doors, ladders, yardarms on both masts, other aerials on the main mast, netting for the flight deck, helicopter rotors and undercarriage, and a superb Seaslug launcher which comprises 25 separate parts at 1/600 scale that was a difficult assembly.

I decided to make a waterline model sitting on a base with a sea; I had never done this before. The library provided a very good book, Ship Models from Kits by David Griffiths, full of useful advice. I made the base from MDF and hardwood moulding, nameplate is brass.

Lengthy research provided the correct colour for the helicopter and flight deck markings that represented a very early Devonshire.

I won’t go into the trials and tribulations of building the model, but with an Airfix kit of that age the saying involving a sow’s ear and silk purse comes to mind. Still I am pleased with the results, there’s a lot of improvement I can make and with practice the results will get better.

A set of photos are attached.

[mikearace]

Beautifully made and great to see.  My father was a CMEM on Devonshire from build at Birkenhead through to her first commission.  I used to visit him in Birkenhead with my sister as she was being built and go on board her during fitting out and was present at the commissioning ceremony. I still have an old 8mm cine movie from her maiden voyage from Birkenhead to Pompey and docking in Pompey with Levathian in the background up fareham creek. Hard to believe it was almost 50 years ago as they still look quite modern as well as graceful.  But like a lot of RN ships before and since, totally over engineered and over elaborated in design with no longevity built in so they became obsolete fairly soon. 

[DickyD]

Very nice, small but very nice.

I cant do kits like that anymore, hands are too shaky.

[Wetwater]

   Brilliant.    Like the sea too.  It looks - - - - - Wet.

[Kangaroo1]

Deadbeat, I feel a little guilty for saying this, but I was present when the Devonshire was "sunk" back in 1984.

The ship was used as a target for testing the new Sea Eagle "Air Launched Cruise Missile" (loaded onto a Sea Harrier). To be fair, I believe that everyone thought that the missile would see her off in one go, but she didn't go down without a fight. She was hit with a lot of heavy calibre fire, before eventually being sunk by the submarine HMS Splendid, 2 days later (17 July), with a Mark 24-Mod-2 Tigerfish torpedo.

Perhaps some consolation in knowing that she actually served a purpose at the end rather than simply got broken up for scrap.

[deadbeat]

I've seen the photos of her resisting the sinking, always sad to see.