Saratoga CV-3 Radar?

Well, you've hamstrung yourself a bit by painting it all ahead of time. I'm not familiar with the model itself, but would say that if there's a cross-beam from side to side some good tube glue there would be a good start.

Otherwise I'd make sure the mating surfaces were free of paint and use Tamiya's extra thin liquid cement to glue the pieces together an inch or so on both sides at a time. I suggest the Tamiya glue as it has a very fine brush (you can purchase a separate one and use any other liquid cement, but you'll need to do some discovery if so to make sure it's compatible with the glue), which means that less paint will be damaged. I actually re-glued a cable reel I had to break off last night and the glue flowed out on to the WEM paint and dried without damaging the paint at all, so you might not have any touch up or at the very least, very little.

I suggested doing an inch or so at a time on both sides as it will make it less likely that you slowly distort the hull; a CV-3 I did some years ago suffered from this because I worked down one side at a time, making shure things fit perfectly on that side... thus pushing some of the hull issues over on to the other side and magnifying the problems there.

Hamstrung, yeah, that's it all right.  As a mostly aircraft modeler, I'd never assemble a plane the way I've been doing ships.  The reason was get to all those gun tub innards ahead of time.  I wasn't sure how I'd ever mask them and paint them, once the flight deck was on.

Here's progress so far.

WEM paint used throughout--20-Deck Blue horizontals, and masquerading as 21 Flight Deck stain revised; 5-N Navy Blue verticals, and MM insignia yellow for the all-too heavily and raised flight lines (you can even see these things glaring at you from the sideview!  It's almost spooky).

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Thank you for the advice, Tracy; it is well-heeded.  I'll try a different assembly sequence next time.  I have three other carrier kits in the to-do pile

Your model looks fantastic BTW. My only advice would be that whatever you do glue it together upside down. With the exception of tube glue, just about every thing else suggested runs a serious risk of, well, running down the side. Which will really ruin it.

OK I lied- advice part two- Elmers. It's gunky and will stay up along the edges of the hull where you want it. Unless there's a real issue with warped parts, its plenty strong enough to do the job.

bondoman:  thanks for the compliment.  I've been really pleased with WEM paint.

there's a thought!  Elmers.  I regularly use it in modeling, for filling in hard to reach seams where I don't want to sand away detail.  When I built the Lex, I used it for attaching small parts and all the little guns (indeterminate littls gobs of plastic that they are!)

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Now that I think about it, that gun tub to the far left on the above photo was fixed with white craft glue.  CA failed twice to hold it, so I just practically filled the floor with white glue and stuck it in.

I suppose I just didn't think Elmers was strong enough, and dry fitting hasn't shown up any problems.  For an old kit, it's generally a pretty good fit.  Thanks for the suggestion.

It'll be a few days before I attempt assembly.  I still have to paint the arresting wires and seal the paint.

I've appreciated all the suggestions I've received.  I've done nothing but aircraft for over 35 years, but I am finding ships to be so appealing, I'm falling behind on the planes now.

Seems I need to give this a bump to get it where it can be seen.  Sorry.

Was there a question you had that needed to be bumped?

Tracy,

yes; probably the wrong thing to do to put it in an old thread and just change the title.

The question is in the first post, which I edited.  It concerns the radar array carried by Saratoga after her summer 1944 refit.  Basic question is what did it consist of?

I can identify Mk 37 radar, the rest is difficult to discern from the photos I've found.  If you can please take a look at the first post again, everything is there.

Thanks.

OK, just making sure.

Mk 37 with Mk 12 DP radar and Mk 22 "Orange Peel" AA radar.

SK-1 radar on the foremast lower platform.
SG on the mast upper platform.

SM on the top front of the stack.

SC on the rear top of the stack

Great!  Thanks.  Between the LionRoar Set and the WEM, I have all of those on hand.  I appreciate your help.