Operational and Building Data
Laid down by Consolidated Steel, Orange TX 14 June 1943, Launched 24 August 1943
Commissioned 30 November 1943, Decomissioned 4 October 1946
Reclassified and converted to DER-327, 21 October 1955
Recommissioned 2 July 1956, Decommissioned (?) Stricken 23 September 1968
Fate: Sources Differ
(3 sources state) Sold for scrap 15 December 1971, broken up in Taiwan
(1 source states) Transfered to South Vietnam, 1971, captured and not returned to service.
Right after I had finished my escort carrier model I wanted to start my next ship model project and of course in the same scale 1:72. The only question at this time was. Which ship will it be this time?
Since quite a few years I was thinking about the idea of a heavy seaplane tender like the Curtiss or Currituck class. The reason for this was, once again the fact, that I would like to build something unusual or less well known. So it’s no wonder that during the research for this project I encountered the same problem as with my escort carrier model, that there are not much information’s available. The biggest problem was the fact that I was not able to find any useful plans for these ships so at the end I had to accept the fact that I would not be able to start such a project. So I started to take a look at various other ship types which could be interesting for me and such a project. Due to the fact that I wanted to build this new model in the same scale, the size of the model is something you always have to keep in mind. Sure a battleship or a cruiser would be great but that is the problem if you like to build models in a rather large scale like I do, they are simply to big. And unless I get lucky and win in the lottery to buy myself a really large house such a model will always remain a dream.
Somewhere during this time I got in contact with a friend of mine and we discussed about some ideas which model to build next. He came up with the idea of recreating a famous picture as a diorama. The picture he was talking about shows the U-505 being captured by the crew of a US Navy Destroyer Escort the USS Pillsbury DE-133. The idea was that my friend (Hi Othmar) would build the German submarine and the DE would by my responsibility. Sure enough Floating Drydock had the plans available so I ordered them together with something even more helpful an e-book about Edsall class DE’s. This CD covers almost any detail you need to know on these ships if you are planning to build one of those.
A few weeks later I had most of the things I was looking for, including the plans and some books and I would have been finally able to start the project. But before I really started to work on this model my friend Othmar, who’s job it was do build that U-Boat, encountered some problems. He did not get the plans for his model and it finally became clear that would be a bigger problem than we both anticipated. Additional during my research I stumbled across a picture which got my attention. It was an Edsall class DE in one of those pretty good looking dazzle paint schemes which I like so much. Compared to that the Pillsbury in here “ordinary” navy grey camouflage looked rather boring and I started to get in temptation……. A few weeks later it became clear that those plans for the U-Boat would be a real problem and the very next moment I took the bait and decided for the USS Brister and against the Pillsbury!
Once again I wanted to build a waterline “lifelike” model, that is including a crew and a water base. Another feature that I always wanted to add in one of my models is the so called “dishing” on the hull sides. Whenever you see a picture of a ship with an un-armoured hull you will notice that the hull looks bent and battered between the frames, The hull plating is simply not as smooth and even as one might expect and that was something which I really wanted to show, the only problem at this time was how on earth should I do that? I made a few attempts with small samples but pretty soon the perhaps most simple way turned out to be the best way to simulate this effect. The hull framework was made of small wooden beams which were glued onto the frames which were cut and sanded from plywood. Onto this I added a first layer of stiff cardboard. As soon as this construction was finished I simply glued several small square wooden sticks of 1mm across in a certain pattern on the outer hull. The next thing I did was that I bought myself some expendable aluminium dishes at a hardware store for a few cents. I took them home, cut out the bottom and flattened them with a large and heavy wooden log. After that I simply had to cut the hull sides from this material and glued it to the small wooden sticks. As soon as this construction had dried for some hours I only had to use my fingertips to “bent” the hull sides in the wished manner, simple and very effective!
So far I had spend only 25 hrs. on the entire model, maybe I should have spend a few minutes more, cause as soon as I started to add the upper deck, I discovered that something was wrong, very wrong! I had drawn the entire superstructure on a piece of paper, to be transferred to the upper deck of the model but as soon as I started to take some measurements, somehow this drawing seemed to be much to small! A thoroughly examination turned up the fact that I had mistakenkly added one frame two times and due to this my entire hull had become 40mm to long. What a disaster! The result for this were some nasty headaches for the next 2 – 3 hours during which I developed some quite interesting and ambitious ways how to solve this problem or should I say how to fling that damn hull into orbit! At the end I decided to do it the hard way and put the entire hull right on my circular saw bench. At least this way it would be over in an instant! But to my greatest surprise, it worked! I cut a piece 40mm wide, right out of the middle of the hull and glued the ends together again, only two hours later the glue had dried and the hull not only looked like brand-new, most of all it had the exact length!
Contrary to my last project this hull was a nice and most of all easy piece of work and as soon as the main deck was installed I could start the detail work. I started with the forecastle deck, the anchor winch and the hawse pipes. The forward 3”50 calibre deck gun station and some other small details were build and assembled pretty easy and fast. Most of these parts were made of plastic sheet and wood. I really like to work with wood and so I made all those chocks and bitts of solid wood and after some trial and error this work went pretty fast and those parts looked as good as the one you can buy! All these parts were already fixed to the entire hull and the next step was to start the work on the superstructure itself. For this I used the plans which I had got from Floating Drydock as well as other plans which I was able to find on the Internet. The first level of the superstructure was made entirely of plastic sheet, details like handrails were made of solder wire, doors were casted from a master and various pipes were made of solder wire again. Some self made PE parts were used for vent’s and other detail’s. Little storage rack’s, vegetable locker’s and ladder’s were added and several other details like fire hoses, cable reel’s and hatches were made of plastic sheet and some other material’s.
The aft gun station was made of plastic sheet as well as some PE parts and finally fixed to the deck. After that I turned my attention to some smaller detail’s. First came those arbor’s, I had to make over 50 of them which were later added to their rack’s. These tiny bit’s are made of only 2 part’s but they took a full week to be made. Significantly more pieces were used to make those 2 depth charge roller-rack’s which are mounted at the stern of this ship. Both of them were made of plastic profiles which had to carefully lengthened and glued to look absolutely identical. As soon as I had them finished I made the 2 smoke dispensers from wood and a small plastic basement to which they were mounted. After that I had to build another 8 set’s of the depth charge rack’s which are mounted beside the K-gun’s on both sides. The construction of these little rack’s was once again very time consuming and sometimes nerve shattering, not only because these rack’s contained about 36 part’s each but most of all they all had to look trim and identical! A single K-gun was self made and casted in the appropriate number and finally fixed to the deck. The small depth charges were made of solid wood with some small detail’s made of styrene.
Next came the superstructure again. This time I added the next level and I had some of the aluminium left which I used for the hull plating so I decided that I could use this one to for the bridge structure as well. Once again I tried to add all detail’s to each platform as soon as this was finished. This way to build is quite some fun for me, cause as anyone can see in the pictures this way the ship is really growing with each level and everything which can be seen the finished model, except the colour is already in place. By doing it this way I get some “feeling” about the model and sometimes I get some good ideas for the final touches on such a model.
It is not unusual for me to “jump” from one part of a ship to another totally different part. So after finishing this level of the bridge, I made the prop guard’s and some final arrangement’s to some other details at the stern of the ship. But once again I had to go back to the superstructure so I started the work on the so called Navigational bridge which is 1 level beneath the open bridge on this kind of ship. Actually this is a pretty simple structure and was pretty easy to make. On top of this comes the perhaps most interesting but also most demanding part of the entire ship, the open bridge! I was able to find some good pictures of this part and it soon turned out that this would require a lot of attention to make the open bridge a real eye catcher. I started with the raised platform made of PE parts as well as some plastic sheet. In front of that is the “dash-board” with several instruments, phone boxes and other equipment. This is a separate part which was entirely build with the help of several photos and finally attached and fixed inside the bridge. Even without any colour it looked already pretty interesting. The number of details on this bridge level was simply overwhelming the target designator, a Pelorus, a capstan, 2 deck chair’s with foot rail’s and several other things like the sky-lookout’s on the wings at both sides were added and there were still a few more details to add. Finally the whole thing started to look exactly the way I wanted it!
Then it was time for some colour! For my last project I had used the White Ensign Colour Coats with great success, so I decided to use them again. Colouring the hull was straightforward and no problem at all. The superstructure was quite different because of all the details which I had already added. A lot of Tamiya tape was used to make sure that only the parts I really wanted to colour were coated, in some cases this turned out to be more work then the actual colouring but at the end the entire ship look pretty good to me.
Another thing which I got from WEM were the 3” 50 calibre deck gun’s as well as the 40mm Bofor’s. The Hedgehog came from Sirmar. The 20mm Oerlikon’s came from Sirmar as well, but I finally decided against them, because I thought (and I could) do them somewhat better. The 3” deck gun from WEM is a pretty good resin kit with some PE parts but it is the version which was used on submarines. The DE’s used a version which could be trained by electrical motors and looked somewhat different. So I had to add a few more details and once again it turned out that some of my self made PE parts are simply better than the already pretty good one from WEM so I used them too! The same is for the Bofor gun’s which were enhanced with a few more details and some of my PE parts.
Next came the smoke stack and the gun stations amidships on the deckhouse. The smoke stack was made of a simple skeleton over which I wrapped some lead foil and some small details like the sirens. The gun stations for the Oerlikon’s and Bofor’s were once again made of Plastic sheet and some PE part’s. Several small detail’s like phone boxes, loudspeaker’s and helmet’s were added and finally everything was coloured. On the backside of the bridge the signal bag’s were installed and the main mast was erected. With every additional hour of working on this model the number of such details increased. 3 inch practise loader, fuel oil hoses, vent’s, stanchion’s, davit’s, ladder’s, first aid kit’s, loudspeaker, electrical wiring, ready ammunition locker’s and so on. To be honest, even so I have build all those tiny bits and pieces whenever I take a look at the finished model, I can see a few details which I do not even remember that I have build them!