Building ISW's 1/350 Short Focsle Corvette as HMCS Shawinigan By Ryan Cameron

Introduction

This is my third build using an Iron Shipwright Corvette kit. This time I used the short focs'le version to build HMCS Shawinigan.

The hull casting was sharp and clean, but some of the small detail parts were poor, so a quick email to ISW and new parts were on the way. As I have said before, ISW customer service is excellent.

The compass deck was warped badly so I rebuilt it using scribed sheet styrene and added a few extra details such as the D/F loop, ladder, chart table, galley stack, new storage boxes and canvas mats around the rails.

I scratchbuilt the the 4inch gun with brass and sheet styrene as well as the mine sweeping gear located aft from spare photoetch parts. I again used scribed sheet styrene to make the dinghy and carley float platforms.

The dinghys were detailed by adding thwarts and oars and the davits were made from fine brass wire. The Carley floats came from Classic Warships.

The kit depth charge throwers were poor so I scratchbuilt them from various diameters of styrene rod as well as adding depth charges to the aft depth charge racks.

I used GMM cable reels to add a little detail to the deck as well as some Dan Bouys made from stretched sprue and white glue.

The Shawinigan was painted in Western Approaches and I used WEM Colourcoats for this and a combination of Humbrol and ModelMaster for detail painting. I again used the Bob Pearson decal sheet to represent the Shawinigan and they went on with no problem.

I rigged the ship with a combination of stretched black sprue and a product called Spider web used in fishing. This stuff stretches out thin, but is like an elastic so it is forgiving if bumped.

Conclusion

I now have three different corvettes in my collection and they look good side by side showing the changes of the Flower Class throughout the war. HMCS Shawinigan was sunk November 25, 1944 while doing an independent anti-submarine patrol out of Sydney, Nova Scotia. She was torpedoed in the Cabot Strait by U-1228 and was lost with all hands. This model is dedicated to all those that lost their lives aboard that fateful day.