The Final, final additions….

The C.S.S. Tennessee - note the shape of the casemate and the integral pilot house.

To paraphrase the eminent archaeologist Dr. Indiana Jones - “Octagons, why’d it have to be octagons….!”

I think it is fair to say that the ACW project has very much been a good example of project creep! I shall be drawing a line under it once the final batch of models have been completed but, inevitably, there has been a minor twist in the tale. The batch of 15 models that I have been working towards completing has now morphed into 17, simply because I have decided to add two copies of the C.S.S. Tennessee to the collection. Why two models? Well, after she was captured at Mobile Bay the Union repaired and recommissioned her so having two models, one under each flag, makes sense (at least to me anyway!). This will take the collection to 72 scratch built models - and there are still holes in the respective fleets!

There is a certain irony in this as when I originally embarked on this project - we are now in the third autumn of its duration - the plan was to build around a dozen models that were designed to be generic and with the option to swap flags as required. So here we now are - building duplicates of models instead of swapping flags to allow for captures and with a collection six times the size of the original plan!

Meanwhile the other four ironclads have been varnished prior to final assembly and flags (and painting funnel bands for the City class) and so will be making their appearance shortly.

Stay tuned, as they say….