Hey, David!
Sorry for the delay - still facing several challenges here.

I'm converting the ancient RevellOgram Buckley kit into a present for a 93yr-old vet of that ship who lives closeby down here - 'fact, I'm just about to head out and visit with him again right now! I already had a boneyard example of that Lindberg kit which is, at least nominally a Rudderow - but didn't know what I have since learned even from this build so far:

A) the Rudderow- and Buckley classes were quite similar in most if not all important aspects; and

2) the APD conversion is deceptively far more extensive - the whole new center section wiping out 90% of the differences between the Rudderows and Buckleys - than ever expected to begin with!

The only "beef" I would still have with the Lindberg kit - as always - is that the hull is just lousy. The venerable Revell Buckley's is far better. Likewise, there is also a Buckely-class mold by Trumpeter - ironically, known for their "Trumpy Lousy" hulls - but which in this case is actually very good: their USS England - also, in 1:350 closer to the scale of that Lindberg (USS Riley, USS DeLong etc.).

I also have long in-progress (i.e.: stalled on the Shelf of Doom ) another project: to mass-produce a decent DE hull to replace Lindberg's little 530-ish scale version of that same mold. Then, as an APD it could go right alongside a Revell Missouri and not too far from the Renwal North Carolina and (backdated/converted) Pasadena - or also the Revell North Carolina and even Aurora Saint Paul - hitting the beach...

David, if you can wait a bit for them to be posted then you could at your leisure send me pics of your Rudderow conversion and I'd be happy to make a new thread to include them, buddy! Just eMail 'em* to me.

Cheers,

- Matty
*Don't forget: please keep each eMail down to 5mb max!