With the declining numbers and obsolescence of America's merchant fleet in the years following WW1 congress passed the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, A ship building program that led to the production of 5,500 cargo vessels of the Liberty and Victory classes

The Liberty Ships were built in large numbers by the United States during World War II. Simple, low-cost construction and mass produced on an unprecedented scale, these ships came to symbolize american manufacturing output during the war. Nicknamed "ugly ducklings", American shipyards built over 2700 of the class during the war (an average of three ships every two days), the largest number of ships ever produced to a single design.

The ship's 5 holds could carry over 9,000 tons of cargo, plus airplanes, tanks, and locomotives lashed to its deck. A Liberty could carry 2,840 jeeps, 440 tanks, or 230 million rounds of rifle ammunition.

Liberty ships were named after prominent (usually deceased) Americans, starting with Patrick Henry and the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Any group which raised $2 million dollars in War Bonds could suggest a name for a Liberty ship.
About 200 Libertys were lost to enemy action during WWII.

The Kit...

The kit I purchased is the Jeremiah O'Brien. I wanted to build something to break up all the haze gray and Oxide Red on the shelve and practice multicolor camo scheems before I start the The Montana in MS32.
Inside the box are 5 spues in gray plus the upper and lower hull halves

The Build...
Just started the build with the hull. The mold line were sanded off and then to the spray booth for a coat of oxide red. This shipe has two waterlines, Empty and fully loaded. The paint scheme I chose extends below the split in the hull I assembled the top and bottom well in advance of what the directions called for and began masking
The base is Ipe, with several coats of polyurethane with pedestals made from brass drawer pulls.
A very dense and heavy wood, Ipe gives the ship great stability and it's not likely to tip over

Painting
Instead of the usual haze gray I decided to take a crack at a multi-color dazzle paint job.
The one I chose was Measure 33 design 9D found on some type EC2-S-C1, standard class cargo ships
Consisting of 5-P Pale Gray, 5-H Haze Gray 5-N Navy Blue and Black with 20-B Deck Blue.

The bottom is painted with Scalecoat II oxide red, as will be the Boot top and the black camo patches.
The scalecoat line is mostly railroad colors in 1 ounce bottles with a 33mm cap (which is the standard badger size). It recommends thinning but for me sprayed right out of the jar. It took overnight for a full dry
I thinned the black before I used it and it dried substantially faster.

For the topside I'm using Scalecolor Acrylics. These are "airbrush-ready (and airbrush only)", "hard-polymer acrylics" in a plastic bottle that can use the badger 51-019 20mm cap and like the scalecoat, need to dry overnight
I'm curious to see if I get along better than I do with other acrylics I've tried. I'm an old dog, and acrylics are a new trick for me

My two cents worth

Items used in construction
Master Models SM-350-050   Oerlikon 20mm USN type
Master Models SM-350-056   USN 3in/50 barrels
Eduard 543017   Liberty Ship Detail Set