Master-Models

1/700 Sea Master Series US Navy 8in/55cal Mark 12 Barrels For US Navy heavy cruisers

Stock Number: SM-700-016

Reviewed By  Luke R. Bucci, IPMS# 33549

MSRP: $9.95 Website: www.master-model.pl My thanks to Piotr Czerkasow from Master-Models for the review sample Bottom Line: Perfect scale barrels for US Navy heavy cruiser 8in barrels, but needs some advanced skills depending on the kit used. BRASS BARRELS SET REVIEW: Master-Models from Poland has just released a large line of Sea Master Series 1/700 and 1/350 brass barrel sets for all the major navies from battleship guns to heavy AA guns (4in and above) from WW2 and modern eras. This review will look at their SM-700-016, or USN 8in/55cal (20.3cm) Mark 12 brass gun barrels set, found on United States heavy cruisers in WW2 and afterwards (all the way to Vietnam). Each set comes with 9 barrels - enough to fit out one heavy cruiser. Mark 12 version means that these barrels were found on cruisers from the New Orleans to post-war classes (not earlier Pensacola, Northampton or Portland/Indianapolis classes). Each set comes in a small Ziploc bag with cardboard for rigidity, another plastic pouch with 9 brass barrels, an instruction sheet and a header card stapled to the Ziploc. Full retail price is $9.95. This works out to about $1.10 per barrel or $3.30 per turret. The Set The precision and accuracy of these barrels is magnificent. The muzzles are bored out for a realistic, ready-for-action look. The brass barrels look accurate compared to drawings in Campbell, (page 129 listed in References) and photographs of treaty cruisers. The Build The instruction sheet is in English and lists the exact ship classes that used these barrels (Figure 2). However, the instructions are not very helpful because it is not explained these barrels are meant to be used with blast bags. If your original kit 8in gun barrels have blast bags, you can cut off the original barrels, drill new holes with a 0.3 mm drill, and use cyanoacrylate glue to attach the brass barrels. Then this set is easy enough for modelers with moderate skills who have a #76 drill for a pin vise drill. If not, you need to make some tricky modifications. I had a Trumpeter Pittsburgh kit already built (the subject of several previous IPMSUSA reviews). However, the barrels looked OK, and the blast bags were relatively thin, meaning very tricky drilling would be needed to align the mounting holes properly. One could always cut off the mounting stub on the brass barrels and simply glue them to a flat-sanded blast bag surface, but that would mean filing down brass - make sure you have the right tools. Instead, I chose to use these barrels for an old (1990s-era) resin kit from Loose Cannon of the USS Quincy (CA39). As you can see from the photographs, this early resin casting had considerable flash, non-cylindrical circumferences and no tube steps for the 8in barrels. They sorely needed replacement. I devised a piece of plastic rod into which I carefully drilled three holes to accommodate the Master Model brass barrels (taking care to keep them aligned since this class had all three barrels per turret in the same sleeve). That worked just fine, except for one big problem - without blast bags, the brass barrels were noticeably too short. Back to the drawing board. Since the turrets had a large open space behind the openings for the 8in barrels, I decided to fill the space with enough putty (Tamiya Modeler's Putty) to ooze out of the holes. When hard, I could sand each putty plug into a reasonable-looking blast bag, drill holes and glue the brass barrels. Again, this was not workable - the putty (Tamiya Putty) that was supposed to form the blast bags crumbled when drilled, and where not long enough. They were sanded flush t the turret face. Third time is the charm. To form blast bags, plastic rod was cut, glued and holes for the brass barrels were drilled. Then the plastic rod was sanded to taper the bags. White glue was applied to form the lower part of the blast bags, but it did not have the volume. Again, Tamiya putty was used to form the lower part of blast bags. Barrels were inserted and were mostly straight and on the same plane. Summary The Master-Model 8in brass barrels looked just right on my Quincy. The length was accurate (watch the length of those blast bags!) and the scale look was better than the originals. For New Orleans class heavy cruisers, check references (like Campbell) to see which cruisers had Mark 12 8in guns. Fortunately for me, Qunicy did have Mark 12s. The value ($10 per cruiser) is good and not a deterrent. Some skill in drilling very narrow, very straight holes into thin plastic is required, so be patient. With this set, you can't go back to plastic 8in barrels. Highly recommended, especially for advanced modelers. References: www.master-model.pl Adcock A. US Heavy Cruisers in Action. Part 1. Warships Number 14, Squadron/Signal Publications, Carrollton, TX, 2001/ ISBN0-89747-422-8. Campbell J. Naval Weapons of World War Two. Conway Maritime Press, London, UK, 1985, pp.247-248. 0-85177-329-X Hansen C. USS San Francisco. A Technical History. Chuck Hansen, 1981. Wiper S. New Orleans Class Cruisers. Warship Pictorial #7. Classic Warships Publishing, Tucson, AZ, 2000. ISBN 0-9654829-6-0