USS Astoria CA-34
by David Griffith

1/700 USS Astoria CA-34 (Combrig)

This is my model of the heavy cruiser USS Astoria. It is the 1/700 resin kit from Combrig. It had been sitting around “maturing” in my stash in a partially cleaned-up state for the best part of four years before I picked it up again and decided to run with it.

Like all Combrig kits, the quality of the moulding is excellent, very crisp and sharp, with plenty of detail. It has a small photo-etched fret, but this is not up to the standard of the resin.

The major issue in construction is the bridge, which is made from several resin parts that must be made to fit on top of each other, with at least one having to be coaxed to go around another part. This was not easy to do with fragile resin.

Extra photo-etch was used from Gold Medal and White Ensign, in particular the aircraft catapults.

Rigging was done by my usual method of Caenis line and individual fibres teased out from nylon cord. The flag hoist is S-J-M-B on one side of the mast. This is for Samuel James Murray Brett, the baby of one of my work colleagues. The C flag is on the opposite yardarm, and I think that is something to do with aircraft operations, but I’m happy to be corrected on that.

If I remember correctly, White Ensign Colourcoats were used for most of the painting. Artist’s oils were used for filters, pin-washes and dry-brushing.

The setting is taken from photos in Steve Wiper’s book, and the Profile Morskie for the Astoria, and represents the recovery of one of the float planes, onto the sled that is being towed alongside the ship.

David Griffith



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