M o d e l W a r s h i p s . c o m Building the Naval Models 1/350 Hr. Ms. De Ruyter C-801

Building the Naval Models 1/350 Hr. Ms. De Ruyter C-801 by Walter Sonderman

This multimedia kit has been developed by the Dutch webshop Naval Models, which -obviously- is mainly focused at Dutch naval subjects.

I first learnt eight years ago that a kit would be developed, and for a builder of modern, post-war warships this would be a “natural” subject for me.

Naval Models, run by Michiel Woort, is no mainstream-company as Tamiya or Trumpeter, but a representative of what we would call “cottage-industry”.

The kit is a real challenge: it comes in a stout heavy cardboard box, containing a big resin hull and superstructure parts and lots of smaller resin parts. Also included is a nice photo-etch sets for the bilge-keels, radars, masts and smaller items. A separate railing set became available later. The kit has been developed by Seraya Prudon and Maarten Schönfeld, pouring is done by Tillymodels, another Dutch firm which focuses on HO and N-gauge railway subjects.

During the built I kept in close contact with Michiel, Maarten and Seraya, as most probably I would be the first guy to build -and finish- the kit.

Being a representative of “old school” resin kits, the hull had to be separated from its pouring block by careful sawing. The hull in my kit was deformed somewhat (luckily at the bottom) probably because one of the rubber molds had moved. Also, lots of small air bubbles were present on the hull and some of the parts.

Saying that, kits like these call for somewhat more experienced builders, again, this is no “shake and bake”-kit as produced by Dragon, Trumpeter or Hasegawa.

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I was really impressed by quality of the additional photo-etch set for the railing: everything was there to finish the kit. All railing and extra parts were specifically sized, and the quality surpassed even some of the mainstream-producers.

The superstructures could be built and airbrushed separately, including all railing.

At an early stage I decided to replace all the fragile resin barrels for the 152- and 40-mm guns by metal turned ones. There are no barrels present for the 57 mm guns. I acquired metal barrel sets of Master: set SM-350-081 with twenty 40 mm barrels, the 152 mm barrels were provided by set SM-350-079, HMS Belfast Armament Barrels. Also, the 57 mm barrels were sourced from this set: the 57 mm are a water-cooled type which obviously calls for a thicker barrel. The 104mm barrels from the Belfast-set were therefore also very suitable.

I sourced the Mk 57 directors (for the 40mm guns) and the 3 in saluting guns from Shapeways, as they are way more finely detailed that the resin kit items.

Pictures show reinforcements to the sides of the forward superstructure which were added due to vibrations in the aluminum superstructures. During the development of the kit, these were not discovered in time and therefore had to be built from “scratch”. I did that with thin and small pieces of Evergreen plate and some small pieces of photo etching for detail. I also added a little more detail to the forward superstructure, such as pipes, small platforms etc.

The photo-etch forward and main masts were reinforced with steel rod, which protuded at the ends to use them as legs to fit in pre-drilled holes in the superstructures.

I used depth-charge rails from a Gold Medal Models ser for the Gearing-class destroyer, as the kit part did not convince me. The light-rocket launcher was also built from scratch.

After eight months I had a very nice De Ruyter, which drew lots of attention at the 2019 Scale Model World in Telford and the Euro Scale Modelling event in the Netherlands.