Have you ever looked at some of the conversions that other collectors have done and thought "I wish I could do that"? Well, here's five (really six) simple ones that anyone can do. No extra factory made parts needed. You can make them yourself with just some Evergreen Plastic, some thin brass rod, tweezers, AC glue, a hobby knife, sandpaper and some paint to match. And for experienced modelers, it is always nice to have something fast and easy to do between more complicated projects. The result? Six different models you can add to your fleet.
1. Trident Alpha 10346 CACHALOT: Although this U.S. Navy submarine model is no longer in production, it can still be found (as of the date of this article, March 2012, Peter Wiedling still has the model in stock). This model can easily be converted to two different models. The photo shows three versions. The model in back is factory version, which depicts the ship as she was in 1944 after her final modifications. The middle model is a conversion of the factory model to pre-war, and shows the ship as she and sister shipCUTTLEFISH were originally built. To do this one, you must remove the deck gun and glue it aft of the conning tower. The small gun mounts on the conning tower must be removed and the cut outs for them filled with pieces of strip plastic and then cut and sanded to shape. The model in front depicts CUTTLEFISH as the ship was in 1943 before its final modifications. Again, the deck gun must be cut off and moved aft. The forward part of the conning tower must be filled in and sanded to shape. Photos of these two ships are readily available in books and on the web. Navsource is a good reference.
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2. Neptun 1340A COLUMBIA: Like many cruisers during the war, the CLEVELAND Class suffered from being top heavy as the result of added anti-aircraft weapons and other equipment. In order to reduce the problem one of the two catapults was removed from some of these ships late in the war. It is an easy conversion to remove the starboard catapult from this model to make it into the MOBILE. I put rafts in its place, but if you don't have any, you can just leave the space blank.
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3. Argonaut AR 219 AVOCET: This model is out of production and not so easy to find, but you could use the Neptun N 1384 AVOCET as an alternative. This conversion modified the minesweeper model to the submarine rescue ship (ASR) WIDGEON. To do that you need only create a diving bell out of plastic (I used plastic tube) and use plastic rod to make the floats that are against the mainmast. Additional booms were added using brass wire, and rigging is made from nylon paint brush bristles.
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4. Neptun N 1243 YUBARI: This simple conversion involves a small addition to the torpedo tube mounts. The factory model comes with the early un-shielded torpedo mounts. This conversion adds shields as was done on the real ship in the early 1930's. This can be done very easily with just a little plastic and some paint.
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5. Neptun N 1550 REGOLO: The model of this Italian light cruiser comes with a pole foremast, correct for REGOLO. But subsequent sister ships had a tripod mast. To make this into SCIPIONE AFRICANO, I removed the pole mast and made a tripod mast from brass rod and plastic. The mainmast was removed, and antenna added to the aft funnel. Rafts were added on top of numbers two and three turrets but that is optional.
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If you have other conversions that you would like to share with readers, please write to me at 1250man@comcast.net.
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