1/700 H.M.S. Prince of Wales
This build took 4 month, spending about 5 hours a week. It became quite a terrifying experience towards the end, because I know if I were to make a mistake or an accident, it would deny months of effort, I’m just glad I made it to the end unscathed.
About this build:
This kit is the 1941 May Prince of Wales deluxe version from flyhawk, I can’t say enough good things about this kit. With only 3 sheets of PE (40% are railings), the moulded details are stunning.
One thing I’m happy with is my DIY ship crest, it took several attempts but it did bring the model to life in my opinion.
One difficult part of this build was trying to find reference for rigging. All historic photos I found was blurry or unclear, I had to combine several sources including looking at how other modeller tackled this issue. In the end, I added a little of my own judgement of what makes sense and improvised, so it’s probably not historically accurate.
Talking about other modellers, I used wepman3 (a Korean blogger)’s 1/350 prince of wales as reference extensively. I could say it’s the best PoW model I ever seen, each detail are made to perfection. So, if anyone is building a PoW or interested you should definitely take a look. Here’s his blog’s link https://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=wepman3&logNo=220714211658&categoryNo=10&parentCategoryNo=&from=thumbnailList
Anyway enough rambling hope you enjoy this post!
12 additional images. Click to enlarge.
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- 1. Many small parts are sacrificed to the carpet in this build...
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- 1. I'm hitting a limit on what my eyes can see with the ship's crest
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- 1. My 1/700 fleet is starting to take shape... My next model: CV-3 Saratoga!
Jeff Bailey said on October 2, 2019
Your Prince of Wales is outstanding! His Royal Highness would be proud.
Bravo!
Alex Kuo said on October 2, 2019
haha cheers!
Mee Wan said on October 2, 2019
very detail !
Alex Kuo said on October 2, 2019
Thx! I’m still learning making water effects, your video definitely helped!
Greg Kittinger said on October 2, 2019
Well – from that headline photo I wouldn’t have thought 700 scale! Fantastic.
Alex Kuo said on October 2, 2019
Thanks! I guess the time spend on those riggings and that crest paid off!
dale travis said on October 2, 2019
Fabulous work Alex!
Alex Kuo said on October 2, 2019
🙂
Tom Cleaver said on October 2, 2019
You guys who can do this level of work in 1/700 definitely have my respect. Just from the photos, I would have thought it was 1/350. Super work, your effort at the end to not scerweth the poocheth really paid off.
Alex Kuo said on October 2, 2019
Thanks! Yeah towards the end i would constantly put the case on and off to avoid disasters, this level of attension is really required if you don’t want bend railings or antennas haha
John Healy said on October 2, 2019
Excellent PoW! Great detail work. What are you using for a base? Is that acrylic sheet?
Alex Kuo said on October 2, 2019
It’s acrylic case for diecast model trains. I found them on a chinese taobao store https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.19.536b7137iJ016I&id=555884604722&ns=1&abbucket=12#detail They happens to be the perfect case for 1/700 waterline ships, sadly i didn’t find anything like it on ebay or amazon.
Michel Verschuere said on October 2, 2019
Alex, incredible work with this PE. Sorry for the lost parts, I’m sure you never had a carpet before with parts of a battleship in it. Quite unique in its own respect… Well done!
Alex Kuo said on October 2, 2019
Thanks for the complement! I had trouble with my tweezer, small rounded parts would just fly off. Thankfully they are so small, scratch build ones didn’t look that much different.
Sebastijan Videc said on October 2, 2019
Beautiful job! Finished Flyhawk’s HMS Aurora earlier this year and despite being aviation modeller, immediately bought their Bismarck deluxe kit.
Alex Kuo said on October 2, 2019
Thanks! I seen your Aurora it’s super well made, believe it or not it was actually after seeing your post i started to research about flyhawk’s kit and chose my kit!
From what i seen the bismarck has way more PE details than the PoW, so good luck and i look forward seeing your work!
Craig Abrahamson said on October 2, 2019
Spectacular piece of modeling right there, sir….top-notch stuff, yessir!
Alex Kuo said on October 2, 2019
thank you sir!
Robert Royes said on October 2, 2019
All of the above, great work !
Alex Kuo said on October 2, 2019
Cheers!
DE4EVER said on October 3, 2019
🙂 … Greetings … 🙂 :
Impressive work Alex, and even more so in this scale, very clean and sharp work.
Alex Kuo said on October 3, 2019
thx!