Beginings - DDE USS England

My first model in a few years. Life has been way too busy or conversely Ive been procrastinating. ;) Now which would you believe!!

This will be my first real Ship Model in many years and to tell the truth I have never finished a ship or been happy with my results, hence never finishing. So lets see what happens this time.

Its going to be of a world war II Destroyer Escort USS England. The model will be mainly in Pictures and some words and will hopefully be done by October 2011 I have chosen to build the USS England as there is a very inexpensive but well detailed 1/350 model of this ship easily available from Trumpeter. I will also be using Photo-Etch from White Ensign Models. So now onto the build.
Here is what is in the box
Lots of small parts and photo etch for me to wreak havoc on... I do mean havoc!
In the past when I have attempted to build ships I have never been very satisfied with my finishing, and painting. The results looking more toy-like than I was willing to accept. Well that was more than 20 years ago, lets see if I can improve on past results and sigh get it finished.

Day 1 - cleaned up the flash on the hull and glued the two piece hull and one piece deck in place. The Deck needed a tiny amount of Sanding to fit and the lower portion of the hull will need sanding and filling to get rid of the gaps. No real effort more like 10 -20 mins of work. I opened up the Hawser holes and erased the molded on anchor chain. I'll be replacing that later with PE. I'm debating scribing the hull to look more like its plated. Although in scale I doubt they should be seen, when a model is weathered its often along the lines where the hull plates join the the weathering and pain discoloration happen.

Here is the end of day image. Yep I'm a slow procrastinator!