Warbird Information Exchange

This isn't your usual scale model, but I recently built this 10ft long battleship USS Texas out of the rear half of a Lockheed Jetstar fuel tank that I had. The rear half looked like a ships hull in my twisted mind, so I made the front 1/3 of the Uss Texas BB35. http://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/l523/cjasonbarnett/CIMG1137.jpg

Here are more pictures of my highly inaccurate model made out of a fuel tank. The hull is all aluminum, but everything else is steel. I designed it to be displayed on the stand you see it on, or it could be hung off of the side of a building. I wheeled the model out to the real USS Texas at the San Jacinto Battlefield in Deer Park, TX. I used a bit of "trick" photography to make it look as big as the real deal. Let me know what you think. I thrive on feedback- positive or negative. [url][URL=http://s1122.photobucket.com/albums/l523/cjasonbarnett/?action=view&current=CIMG1143.jpg][/url]












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That's using your noodle! Looking @ something eveyone sees as a 'six pack in the rough' and making something imaginative and clever out of it. Good use of modelling skills so sadly dumbed down by kit manufacturers these days to the point of 'squirt glue in here and shake box for 45 seconds'
What sort of comments have you gotten so far? Big thumbs up from here-

I wish I had a little of your talent, superb. Do the turrets turn and elevate?
john

Most people that have seen it seem to like it. The main turrets rotate, but the guns don't elevate. The 14" main guns should be tapered, and I'm thinking about redoing them. The anti aircraft gun barrels are made from aircraft fuel lines. The 5" guns that stick out of the side of the hull are made out of large bolts that I ground down to give them the appearance of a tapered barrel. The rest of he superstructure is made out of scrap 18 gauge sheet metal that I had laying around.

At the time the original post was made, my book wasn't out but it is now. I have a 1/96 fiberglass hull that I made for "Old Hoodoo" The Battleship Texas, America's First Battleship (1895-1911) but I have no skills on how to make the upper works. Have plenty of plans. In 1/96th scale it is about 36" long (the original ship was 300 ft with a 65' beam, had 2 12 inch guns, 6 six inch, a real powerhouse but it was indeed a deservedly famous ship in the SpanAmWar.

Very nice work! It takes a lot of patience to pull something like this off from scratch. Congratulations!

~J~

There was this one joke I had awhile back of building an aircraft carrier model to 1/32 scale so that I could put all my airplane models on it.

Thanks for all of the compliments!