by Philip LaVoie
1/350 USS Arkansas CGN-41 (Scratchbuilt)
Since I’ve been living in Little Rock, I’ve often thought of building a 1/350 scale series of ships that have carried the Arkansas name. There are resin kits available for the USS Arkansas Battleship and Monitor, as well as the Cleveland class cruiser if you want to build the USS Little Rock, but nothing exists for the last ship to be named after this state, the nuclear guided missile cruiser CGN-41.
The USS Arkansas was one of four Virginia class cruisers equipped to fulfill multiple tasks in all warfare mission areas. Unfortunately, due to the expense of maintain the nuclear proportion components, all four ships were decommissioned after a couple decades of service, roughly half of their life expectancy. They were, however, unique naval entries during the cold war regime.
JAG has released a nice 1/700 scale resin kit of the Virginia class, but I like building 1/350 models, and the only way to have a 1/350 CGN Arkansas would be to scratch build it. On my dusty un-built shelf lay Dragon’s Spruance and Ticonderoga models. I decided these ships would valiantly sacrifice themselves toward my Arkansas project.
I first cut the hull of the Spruance to waterline, then slightly lengthened it and squared it off at the stern. The Spruance was about 564 feet long, and the Arkansas 586 feet. The deck was then smoothed down and attached.
I found some reviews of the JAG 1/700 resin scale model on-line with some wonderful detailed photos of the kit. They provided me with the guidance of what the superstructure would look like. Those, along with other photos of the Virginia class ships, gave me good construction guidelines on how to construct the Arkansas.
The superstructure is completely scratch built with thin plastic stock and various details cannibalized from the Dragon kits. I even used a little paper stock here and there. Unfortunately, many references differed on some details, so I tried to make a happy medium in accuracy.
I decided to finish the kit in its later refit scheme, with the stern landing pad removed and two tomahawk launchers installed because you can never have too many weapons! They were taken from new Ingersoll model from Trumpeter. I can always build the Ingersoll without them at a later time. Except for the scratch built torpedo tubes, all the other weapons are from the Dragon kits. It’s fortunate that most of these cold war cruisers carried similar weapon systems. I got a set of brass railings and attached then, and then a few Eduard figures were painted and scattered around including a couple stuck on the bow swabbing the deck. The rigging is stretched sprue. The tall antennas are sewing needles that worked well, I just snipped the eyes off and heated one end over a candle, then stuck them to the ship.
I wanted to display a chopper with the model, but since I removed the landing pad I had to figure a way to mount it in flight. I made a net from medical gauze and wrapped it around some little chunks of wood to represent crates. A thin wire was then attached to the helicopter. After studying photos of copters in flight, I tried something new for the main rotor blades. I lightly dusted some thin clear plastic so it would look blurry and cut out a cross pattern. I think it gives the impression of movement better than a solid circular pattern.
My favorite paint to use on these ships is a light gray primer spray paint, with a darker primer gray on the hull. Decals were chopped up from the Ticonderoga kit. The water is my simple but effective method of spray painted aluminum foil coated with Future Floor Wax, and white bathroom caulk. And there it is, my first installment of the ships to carry the Arkansas name.
