Would anyone be interested in a fiberglass hull for these ships? I received the 'Anatomy of the Ship: HMS Belfast' today and the plans in it are great. I bought the book to adapt the hull cross-sections for the Swedish Tre Kronor, for which I got side and top views in 1/144 from Ralph Coles. If there's interest I could add a Belfast hull to the list of my cruiser mold projects. (Now that I"m back to part-time work and am single again I can produce at least 4 new hull molds per year.) So far the list in sequence is the Java Class, Tre Kronor Class, and either the bulged County Class or convoy ship/Class 1 combatant IJN Nisshin. Depending on preference the Belfast hull can be the original or the bulged version after major repairs and reconstruction in early WWII. The original version could be used for Belfast and Edinburgh.
The bulges on the repaired Belfast were multi-planed and unlike any others I've seen, as well as being very shallow. You can't see it in the photo but there are odd triangular pieces that slant down fore and aft of the central upper part of the bulge (and also slant outward). Under IRCWCC rules there is no way to incorporate stringers that would allow the bulges to be represented accurately. Ralph Coles looked at the plans with me and agreed. So far there's been no interest in a fiberglass hull with the original shape.
One of the first WWII shows I watched as a kid was on the gold recovery. On the return journey, Edinburgh was carrying 4.5 long tons (4,570 kg) of gold bullion back to the UK. The consignment, which had a value of about £1.5 million sterling in 1942 (adjusted for inflation to 2018 pounds, £64,157,579), was a partial payment by the USSR for the supplies of war material and military equipment from the Western Allies. In total the ship had 465 gold ingots in 93 wooden boxes stored in the bomb-room just aft of where the first torpedo - fired from U-456 - struck.
Former NABS member Rob Clarke contacted me yesterday re Edinburgh plans he has; I'll be getting them from him. They're a different set and I hope they have more amidships cross-sections. After looking at the Anatomy of the Ship book more closely I realized most of the frames are clustered in bow and stern with few in between, so I'd have to come up with half a dozen more. Maybe Rob's plans will 'fill in the blanks'.
