HMS Wallflower by Mike McCabe, L'Arsenal 1:400 scale
The model shows the Flower Class Corvette Wallflower in her role as a
minesweeper for which extra gear was carried. As a basis I used the
L'Arsenal Late Flower Class kit with some additions and refinements,
although the basic kit is a good one and out of the box would be a very nice
generic Flower. All Flower class corvettes seem to be different from every
other, so research is needed when modelling a particular ship, in this case I
chose to build Wallflower as I have a painting of the ship on my wall at home.
To show the ship in her minesweeping guise I needed to scratchbuild the winch
which was placed on the quarterdeck, I did this with the help of some internet
research which also helped with placement of the floats and 'otters', boards
used to keep the floats from sinking too far whilst being towed. Flower
Class corvettes were very cluttered ships with equipment crammed into every
corner or hanging off convenient places, even more so in the case of
minesweeping ships. I added much of this clutter including bouys, depth
charges and carriers, splinter matting, hoses, hatches, numerous vents, cable
reels etc from etched parts or scratchbuilding with plastic rod and modelling
clay for the mats and bouys.
I used the Master Barrel oerlikons, fiddly and a bit over scale but I like the
look of them, crew are also L'Arsenal but a little large again as they are 1/350
but by bulking them out with white glue to represent duffle coats and shortening
the legs they look ok.
Finally the seabase was made of plaster smoothed to shape and finished with
acrylic gel.
This was my first attempt at anything larger than 1:700 and an interesting
experience, I have to say on the whole I found it much easier to work in this
scale and as I have quite a few more to do this year, it won't be the last.
