I was looking over the contruction of your Japanese LST again, and I was wondering how you liked that method of making the super structure? How well did the foam hold up under fire? For my 1/144 Barbiano I'm hoping for a light weight superstructure that needs a minimum of repair between battles.

The foam makes a nice spacer. I have yet to find "THE" sheeting to take the punshiment wreaked during a combat event.
The LST was polyethelene, and got dented. I didn't find any penetrations, but the LST has seen very little use as our club has yet to see the challenge in running a landing campaign. The PETG may be the ticket, I just need to use it on the DD at some point.

People in our club have used plywood, aluminum, nylon and fiberglass laminates rubber, and all sorts of combinations of materials to make the "perfect" superstructure.

My preferance, to date, has been the foam blocking with a thin plywood armor and then covered over with balsa. The PETG didn't hold up well as railings, but "Luigi Yamamoto" used a thin rubber for his railings, and all the rounds hit it and the rail just bends and pops back into place.

I've heard the little gunners saying wonderful things about "termite armor" being sold at www.battlewagons.net. My brother thinks it will be too heavy for a small ship like mine.

I have also heard good things about using thin rubber for railings. I know Ben Lee, famous for his detailed British ships, uses that as well. I'll ask him where he gets his.

Why do you put balsa over the foam and ply? Balsa dents very easily, which is what I'm trying to avoid.... Other than that, the foam sounds like a good idea. I hope I can find a supplier for the 1/2" that I'm gonna need. Do you just epoxy the plywood to the foam?

Thanks for your help!

Dents are easy to fix, split plywood is a big headache.



I just buy the pink/blue foam at home depot, and bandsaw or tablesaw it to the right height.

does anyone use that foam rubber that the anti-fatigue mats are made of? It's not terribly light weight, but any hits on it would be completely absorbed. Even if it was penetrated, it would just close right up behind the round and you never even see where it got hit save for the chip in the paint covering it.

Well, I asked Ben, and he got his rubber railing from a friend and can't find where to buy it. Do you know where Luigi gets his?

Any sheet rubber you would get from the hardware store for cutting your own gaskets will do. Get the thickness that provides the stifness you are looking for in the height rail you have (around 1/32 - 1/16 inches).

For what it's worth; I built my superstructure with walls of 1/16" styrene outer face backed by 3/16" basswood panels for a 1/4" composite wall. I alternated the butt joints to reinforce each other which makes for clean, sharp corners. Does require more pieces to be cut but its ready to take paint with just a little buffing(no wood grain to deal with). I don't know how it stands up to combat; probably will dent but feels pretty tough. I built the various levels to be modular and to fit together like a puzzle, interlocking and reqireing no fasteners at all.

BigSteelCountry

Using .060 vacuum formed lexan, looks good, doesn't dent/crack, very light weight. Also doesn't hold paint in way of the rounds hitting it. For a circumference of maybe 1/2" diameter, the paint disintigrates, repainting is easy since we're using latex - just grab a brush & swipe away. We're filling the house sections with poured foam this year & then cutting the middle out, hoping that this will reduce the vibration that occurs when rounds hit. Have to see if it helps the paint out. Also the hardware store has a primer out for plastic, gonna give it a shot as well.
Regards,
Froggy

I wish I could experiment with vacuum formed lexan...
My Scharnhorst used to have thin lexan plating over 1/8" ply and balsa sections of the superstructure, as does the King George V I'm patching up. The paint gets knocked off easily, but as long as the wood doesn't get knocked out, the lexan covers any dents pretty well.

One person suggested just 1/8" balsa with lexan plating. On a larger ship, the balsa sometimes gets damaged (ussually at point-blank range), and the lexan makes it a pain to repair, but when a smaller ship gets hit, it just rocks to absorb some of the energy.

Another person used 3/8" aircraft ply to replace the SS on his two unarmed transports. He hasn't yet tested it in battle, but I would be very disturbed if anything managed to hole that...

Thanks for the suggestion for finding the rubber. I'll be looking for some this weekend.