Cybermodeler 1/350 USS Laffey (DD-459)
One of the great Cybermodeler (Dragon) smart kits. An easy build that looks really great when completed - I only wish the instructions were as easy to follow as the kit is to build once the instructions have been puzzled out.
Laffey was truly one of the fightingest ships. Her life was a bit over six months from commissioning to her sinking at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal when she went down slugging it out with a Japanese battleship at point-blank range. When Bob Ballard found her 6,000 feet down at the bottom of Ironbottom Sound, she was upright and her guns were still deployed, which is the way I finished her here.
Tom's photoetch really made the radars look right, also the railings.
Excellent work.
My Cyber-Hobby USS Freedom's instructions weren't that difficult to decipher, but those Dragon machine guns were laughable. Unless you actually had a working knowledge of the weapon, you were pretty much on your own. The "directions" were nothing more than an exploded view of the kit with numbers and arrows pointing in the general area of where they went. No step-by-step directions regarding exactly what it was or when it was to be assembled. Lotsa dry-fitting/testing needed prior to any adhesive, that's for sure. Mistakes were made and had to be corrected on every kit of that series.
Impressive