First Guadalcanal Ships

[djbar]

A few shots of my ships for the first Guadalcanal battle. They are GHQ, 1/2400, on clear bases I ordered from Litko.

[afilter]

Nicely done!

[warchariot]

I like the clear base and the name plate.

[shigure]

The GHQ ships do make fine models when assembled and well painted. I like the Hiei in her at least up to July, 1942 paint configuration. The flags on the turrets are they decals or hand painted?

The Juneau camo is very well done also. Great Job of painting and research.

[TheDreadnought]

Beatufiul.

[djbar]

Thanks for the kind comments. I do try to do some research before painting, but sometimes it's difficult to know exactly when a ship had a particular paint scheme. The flags on the Hiei are painted.
I'm finishing up the Battle of the River Plate ships next.

[fastgit]

Cool! If they're anywhere near as nice as these... I'm looking forward to the pics!

[Bluebear]

Lovely models; and very nicely painted, sir.

Have you considered labeling them on the sides of the base (as opposed to the surface)? Your labels look fairly similar in size to the side edge.


-- Jeff

[djbar]

Thanks Bluebear. I like the labels on top - just personal preference. They would fit on the side though if I just narrowed them a bit.

[meesch56]

Dan, These ships play as good as they look! It was great to see you at Nav-Con 2011. Thanks for a great pick up game. It was nice to get to play a game as a true player.....not the game master. First Guadalcanal is a great forelorn hope scenario.....Thanks for letting me force Heil from the table......If only one of those torp hits had penetrated.......Argh!!! gREAT GAME! I am inspired to get ack to the Java Sea fleets and research.

Thanks,
Mike Bates
La Moille, IL

[ckosacranoid]

ok this was the ohter game in my battle report i talked about along with these ships.

[spener89]

They look great! I like the clear and concise labels too.

[BattleshipOverkill]

Indeed! Awesome job, sir!

[johnl5555]

What are the bases named at the Litko site? I couldn't find them.

Thanks,

John

[djbar]

John,
They are custom. If you click on BaseMaker in the menu across the top of the site, you put in the dimensions and the site will give you a quote on price. I used 3mm clear acrylic. I ordered a few sizes to handle various types of ships - 1" x 4", 1" x 3" and some smaller for DDs.

[ww2navyguy]

Oct 12, 2011 19:16:17 GMT -5 djbar said:

John,
They are custom. If you click on BaseMaker in the menu across the top of the site, you put in the dimensions and the site will give you a quote on price. I used 3mm clear acrylic. I ordered a few sizes to handle various types of ships - 1" x 4", 1" x 3" and some smaller for DDs.

Hi. This is my first post on the SDG forums. I was wondering if you could tell me how you "glued" the GHQ models to the Litko bases? Since the bases are clear, can you see how the model was glued on? Also what type of glue did you use so the clear acrylic didn't fog up?

Just another quick question...did you consider using the opaque dark blue color versus the clear base as an option?

So, when you transport the ships on the clear bases, do they stay pretty secured? The reason I was wondering about the dark blue acrylic bases from Litko (under the custom base sizing) was that you can get the flex-steel or flex magnet strips to match the base sizes and then stick them to the bottom. This would then be able to hold the ships securly for traveling if the box has strip magnets or metal for the bottom.

Thanks!

[djbar]

Hi WW2,
Welcome to the forum! I glue the ships on with CA glue, like ZAP. I am careful to keep the glue from getting on the sides of the hull and careful not to slide the ship around on the base when gluing it on. If you are careful you cannot see the glue. I have a couple where the glue oozed out a little, but it's not to noticable. It doesn't fog up the acrylic because the glue is only under the ship. I haven't had a ship come off the base yet.
I chose the clear bases because I wanted the playing surface color to appear to come right up to the ship - no lighter blue or darker blue due to the base color (of course the nameplate floating off the starboard side ruins the affect a little).
For transporting, I use a large fishing tackle box. It has rectangular compartments that are perfect. I line the bottom of each compartment with a rubbery foam shelf liner to keep the ships from sliding around.
I do like your idea of using the opaque bases with magnets. That would probably be the most secure method to make sure they do not move around.

[afilter]

I do like the clear basis as it would then not matter what gaming surface you play on.

Since I always use the same mat (Marine Vinyl) I decided to go with metal basis and painted them to match the surface. I then line my trays with magnetic sheets whch firmly holds the ships in place.





The only issue I have is that the bases I use currently the longest ones are 3" which is only an issue for the larger Battle cruisers of WWI and not an issue at all for my Pre-Dreads. For the longer ships I just use styrene cut to size with metal bases underneath.

For WWII I use 1/1800 platic models by WotC with no bases, so it is not an issue for me.

[regiamarina]

Hey mate and welcome aboard.

I also use clear bases for all my ships and haven't had any disasters with transport. I prefer the clear because as mentioned above you can play on any blue surface without a colour clash but this is just personal preferance.

With transportation I use a simple keyboard box with a small piece of Blu Tac under each base which stops them from sliding and comes off the base easily when the ship is needed.

I would have thought the metal or magnetic stripping under an opaque base would show through to some extent and ruin the look you were going for?

Martin

[theguy]

I like the flag on the turrets. Its a nice and realistic touch