Heller DUQUESNE, 1/400th

[Viking]

After some thinking, it will the 400th scale heller model of the french frigate / destroyer Duquesne.

Ship History (taken from Wikipedia)

The Duquesne is a Suffren class frigate of the French Navy, designed to protect a fleet against air threats, surface ships, submarines, and, to a lesser extent, provide firepower against land objectives. She is the sister-ship of the Suffren. She is the eighth French vessel named after the 17th century admiral Abraham Duquesne. Her weapon systems bear names of battles to which Duquesne took part: Messine (turret n°1), Palerme (turret n°2), Alicuri (Malafon launcher), Agosta (Masurca launcher) and Stromboli (MM38 launcher).

The French Navy does not use the term "destroyer" for its ships; hence some large ships, referred to as "frigates", are registered as destroyers. Duquesne was decommissioned in 2008, but has been retained for use as a training ship

Vital Statistics (again, from Wikipedia)

Builder: Lorient arsenal
Laid down: November 1964
Launched: 12 February 1966
Commissioned: 1 April 1970
Out of service: 2008
Homeport: Toulon
Status: In active service as training ship
Displacement: 5335 tonnes
6780 full load
Length: 158 m
Beam: 15,50 m
Draught: 7,25 m
Propulsion: 4 steam boilers and 4 turbines for 2 propellers; 72500 hp
3440 kW, 2 turbo-alternators and 3 diesel-alternators
Speed: 34 knots
Complement: 23 officers
337 petty officers and sailors
Sensors and processing systems: DRBI23 tridimentional sentry radar
DRBV15 surface or low-altitude sentry radar
DRBC33 multi-system targeting radar
DRBN34
DRBR51
Electronic warfare
and decoys: 2 "Sagaie" decoy launchers
SLQ-25 Nixie
ARBR33 jammer
ARBR17 detector
Armament: 1 twin launcher of surface-air Masurca missiles (DRBR51-guided) (48 missiles)
4 launchers of MM38 Exocet missiles (4 missiles)
1 launcher of Malafon anti-submarine rocket torpedoes
4 launchers of L5 anti-submarine torpedoes (10 torpedoes)
2 100 mm turrets ("Messine" and "Palerme")
4 x 20 mm cannons
4 x 12,7 mm machine guns

The kit

A typical Heller ship kit in the rather odd heller scale of 1/400. All nicely moulded with some very chunky detail and the typical overscale Heller railings (kudos to Heller for trying to supply railings but they are huge). I have some generic 400th scale brass railings so will use them. Heller instructions are a bit vague in terms of colour call outs using Heller's own numbering system with no cross referencing given so will do a bit of digging. Looks like the whip arials will be a bit overscale as well so may replace them with streched sprue.

[PaulBradley]

Cool! Are you going to waterline it, or stick with full hull?

[JohnRatzenberger]

Great choice ! I didn't know their turrets had historical names, that's a neat factoid.

[Viking]

Cool! Are you going to waterline it, or stick with full hull?

This one will be full hull; i dont want to have to make a sea base for it at the moment.

Alan

[fenman]

I have yet to make a decent sea base. I get by but they tend to be a tad flat. I really admire those that show the bow dipping into rough seas. Trouble with waterline kits, you cannot have the bow rising up out of the waves unless you build a mock bow.

[Viking]

like many folk, i build ships in a modular format so its easier to get sharp demarcation lines around the superstructures without hediously complex masking. So; horizontal surfaces sprayed dark grey (actually using White Ensign enamel modern royal navy) and vertical surfaces light grey (again WE enamel)



this allows some of the bigger modules to be put together but not the hull and deck. i will finishe the hull painting before i add the deck that way there is no chance of overspray



but, i cannt resist putting it together; just dry fitted but it looks like most of the joints are clean and will fit well

[fenman]

coming on at a fair pace. Modular, or as I call it 'building in layers' really is the only way with ships. Looking good.

[omi]

flicking through the builds and got here and nearly freaked, i thought you had finished already. good looking ship that.

[smethwick]

Fast progress...very sleek craft.....

I like the way the build has gone...this ship build is fascinating

[bromo]

Nice start and as Smethwick said im finding all these ship builds fascinating, one thing i dont have in the stash and i cant remember building one as a kid, toying with getting a Titanic though.

[Viking]

thanks for the comments guys.

as this seems to be turning into a "how to" group build, i will add my tuppence worth; how to do boot topping

i spray the hull bottom with iron oxide red, allow to dry then mask to the lower edge of the boot topping, then spray the grey and allow to dry; it covers the boot topping line but thats ok.



mask then to the top of the boot topping



spray the required colour, in this case black, allow to dry and remove the masking



and a lovely thin straight clean line

base will be varnished wood as its a full hull model, so i start with some mini Jenga blocks which i bought from a charity shop. superglue 5 together which is just about right for a 400th scale frigate / destroyer and allow to dry.



nothing looks more like wood than wood, so, a quick coat of tamiya clear orange and allow to dry



oh, and a few other bits have been painted and ready for assembly:



that's the majority of the painting done so next is to assemble the decks and superstructure. Its going together fast, this one.

[fenman]

Only done one Boot Top line and I messed it up. I tried spraying the black, put a narrow strip of masking tape on it and sprayed the red. I then tried to mask to the bottom of the boot line and sprayed the grey. All I ended up with was a line that starts OK, ends OK but is thiner in the middle. Your way makes much more sense and looks very neat to.

[Molly-new]

Yet another awesome looking build. This is my first ship build since I was a nipper, so really appreciate all the tips. Your "how to do boot topping" demo has certainly got my out of a pickle. Many thanks.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Only done one Boot Top line and I messed it up. I tried spraying the black, put a narrow strip of masking tape on it and sprayed the red. I then tried to mask to the bottom of the boot line and sprayed the grey. All I ended up with was a line that starts OK, ends OK but is thiner in the middle. Your way makes much more sense and looks very neat to.

It is easier to mask the bigger areas (bottom or upper hull) -- you can get the tape straighter, control it better, etc. The thinner boot stripe is easier to lay out against/along one or other of the bigger areas.

[Viking]

as most of the painting has been done, the next part is to put the major superstructures together on the deck. fit is generally good and, although there is some touching up needed to a few little bits of paint, i'm happy.



the bridge windows are not supplied so these are actually just black transfers. they are a little too large, the real ship has a few more windows but its the effect i am looking for (just noticed the centre one is broken, will need to fix that)



pennant number decals added to the hull and bridge roof and p/e railings added around the guns



and a good bit of the p/e railings added, and the areas which are missing them yet.