Trumpeter Aircraft carrier question

I can't answer any question specifically about that carrier, but I have built several kits from Trumpeter, including the CV-2.  The kits are all regular kits that require glue and paint.  They are made from styrene plastic.  You do need to be pretty good at assembling models.  Trumpeter is notorious for making parts in five pieces when other mfgs might make the part in one piece.  There is a reason for that- they do not need a draft angle, so deckhouses can be made with truly vertical walls instead of being at slight angles.

Trumpeter kits have beautiful detail and accuracy, but you need to be willing to work harder to build the model. If you are really a novice I'd suggest a few simpler kits first before going after a carrier.

Thanks Don. D you know any simple kits?

Trumpeter kits are notorious for being intricate and difficult to build, requiring lots of experience, but  resulting in beautiful models if done right.

For a simpler ship kit, I would look at something from Revell, but even they may not be good for beginners.  Why not try a basic airplane kit first, to get the feel of it?  Again, Revell may offer basic models.

Thanks Chuck. Do you know of any kits that snap together? Is a Revell kit detailed?

I second the Revell suggestion.

I am not aware of any Snap-Tite aircraft carrier models. Maybe a LEGO set?

Are they hard to build or,just time consuming?

 Actually, an aircraft carrier is fairly simple as long as you just build it straight out of the box with no frills as compared to a ship with a complicated superstructure like a destroyer or a battleship. What is hard about an aircraft carrier to me is getting all of the aircraft to look good. Submarines are a snap in comparison to a surface ship of just about any type.

Time consumption is what a hobby is all about, for that matter.

Thanks. Do to know how many parts there are in an aircrfat carrier (Trumpeter Cv-2). I found one with 23 models for $25 so I think it's too good an oppurtunity to pass up.

No, I don't know how many parts there are. Just use the parts you want, it doesn't matter.

Thanks Sub. Are there are any materials I need to put it together like glue or paint, or does it come preprinted.

Thanks Sub. Are there are any materials I need to put it together like glue or paint, or does it come prepainted.

You will need a lot of stuff. The side of the box or the instruction sheet will list the materials needed. But you can count on needing some glue (super glue will probably be the easiest for you), paint, brushes, a sharp knife like an X-acto, scissors, an emory board. and tweezers at least. The model is completely unpainted. Or you can just slap it together without paint and leave it in the raw.

What about the Tamiya kit? Does that come painted or not?

None of them come painted. None! Maybe you can find one somebody started and didn't finish so you won't have to do anything yourself. Check E-Bay. Maybe you can find one that is already built and painted.

Ok, thanks. I'm still going after that Trumpeter kit, then.

adam have a look at this, I make ships as well, you can get aircraft as complicated but usually in larger scales. This is an absolutely huge kit, if you have not actually bought the kit this is a link to a review.

kuznetsov.html

Thanks, that's very informative. How easy would you say it is to build out of 10 (don't count time, just how hard it is to assemble).

If I may, I'd like to take this thread in a slightly different direction - back to basics.  I have the impression that adam340 may have been out of the model building hobby for quite a while, and unfamiliar with what it looks like nowadays.

The modern plastic ship model kit is quite a bit different than the ones you probably remember building as a kid.  Plastic scale modeling has, to all intents and purposes, ceased to be a kids' hobby; the kits that have been produced in the last ten, or even twenty, years have been intended for adult enthusiasts.

The typical modern aircraft carrier kit has several hundred parts, many of them quite small.  To build it typically takes months; some of the simpler (i.e., older) kits can be done in a few weeks, and some modelers have been known to spend over a year on a single model.  The "snap-together" kit is almost a thing of the past; there are a handful of airplanes and cars (which are targeted at kids) in that category, but I don't know of a single warship.  

The typical modern plastic kit is designed to be painted in its entirety.  Serious ship modelers do research on the exact colors (and sometimes get into pretty fierce arguments about them).  There are vast ranges of paints on the market - and modelers also get into arguments about which is best.

I'd have to rate the difficulty of virtually any state-of-the-art aircraft carrier kit on either of the two most common scales, 1/350 and 1/700, at 10 out of 10. 

With a few exceptions, modern kits don't come with paint, cement, or anything else you need to build them.  You'll need quite a few things to do even a basic job on a kit:  at least half a dozen colors of paint, cement, brushes, tweezers, an X-acto knife, and some sort of small files (or emery boards) at the minimum.  Experienced modelers build up tool kits of dozens of tools.  Many of them use airbrushes for painting, but I suggest you don't worry about that in the beginning.

I checked the Trumpeter website; it doesn't list a U.S.S. Enterprise.  In the company's early days, it reissued some simple, rather crude kits that were originally made by other companies; maybe the Enterprise kit on E-bay was one of those.  (I suspect some other participant in this Forum can list all the kits Trumpeter has ever made.)  I wonder if that ad was somehow garbled.  I don't think it's possible to design an aircraft carrier kit with 23 parts; I wonder if that might have been the number of airplanes the kit contained (in addition to the parts making up the ship itself).

If you want to dive back into ship modeling after a long absence, I have to suggest that a carrier is not the best kit to start with.  (The carriers Trumpeter does make have hundreds and hundreds of parts - and cost a good deal of money.) 

Revell does make a 1/720-scale Enterprise that's been on the market for more than thirty years, but is, by most accounts, a pretty good kit.  It has 102 parts.  Here's a link to the relevant page on the Revell website:  http://www.revell.de/index.php?id=210&KGKANR=0&KGKOGP=10&KGSCHL=45&L=1&page=1&sort=0&nc=&searchactive=&q=&SWO=&ARMAS4=&PHPSESSID=67a26fb0bf08da77303c4de354304dae&KZSLPG=&offset=4&cmd=show&ARARTN=05046&sp=1 .  If you really want to start with a carrier, this might be a good choice.  Be aware, though, that 1/720 scale is mighty small.  Some adult modelers find it seriously challenging - especially if they (like me) have arthritis and/or fading eyesight.

Revell just recently released a model of the U.S.S. Nimitz on 1/1200 scale.  That's really small.  Here's the link to the website:  http://www.revell.de/index.php?id=210&KGKANR=0&KGKOGP=10&KGSCHL=45&L=1&page=5&sort=0&nc=1&searchactive=&q=&SWO=&ARMAS4=&PHPSESSID=67a26fb0bf08da77303c4de354304dae&KZSLPG=&offset=36&cmd=show&ARARTN=05814&sp=1 .  If you click on the right box (the one with the little image of a wrench) you can see the instruction sheet, which will give you an idea of what you're getting into.  I haven't seen the kit, but on the basis of the instruction sheet and the photos it looks quite nice.

I hope the above hasn't insulted adam340's intelligence.  And I certainly hope I haven't discouraged him or anybody else from taking up the hobby; it's a great one.  But I do think newcomers to it need to go in with their eyes open.

Yes, I meant it came with 23 models. The actual kit had 583 parts.

Ah!  So the 23 must refer to the airplanes.

If it's made by Trumpeter and it's a model of the Enterprise, it must be out of production.  That figure of 535 parts suggests that it's a large-scale kit - probably 1/350 scale.  I wonder if the seller on E-bay got mixed up about the manufacturer.  This sure sounds like a description of the Tamiya kit.

I wonder if adam340 is, perhaps, using a translation program, or if English might not be a first language.  "ein Schiffe mitt 23 stüke" could be rendered as "One and 23 models"--or does to my age-addled brain.

A quick eBay search offers up three Trumpeter Enterprise kits, all in 1/350, all of CVN-65 in the "beehive" box island with the 1st generation Aegis installation.  none list the number of aircraft included, though.

A note to adam340--CVN-65 had an airwing of  around 80 aircraft, only about one-third of those being stored below on the hangar deck.  So, to match what might be seen operationally, another 15-20 aircraft might be required.  Luckily, in 1/350 scale, kits exist of groups of  carrier aircraft.  

Some searching of image files of CVN-65 will help identify which aircraft to have aboard.  There will be webpages dedicated to CVN-65 that will list which aircraft, from what squadrons were aboard at different times.   Picking a specific era/time frame with greatly help define which paint jobs the aircraft have.

Note that this kit will be close to a meter (3') long when assembled.  

One approach for working on this size & sort of kit can be to start with the aircraft. since, even at 1/350 scale, they are tiny little kits unto themselves.  If the first few turn out less good, they can be relegated to the hangar deck (or set aside and replaced with the after-market aircraft kits).

Here's a link on eBay to a kit of aircraft generally appropriate to the early years of CVN-65

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tamiya-78009-US-Navy-Aircraft-Set-2-1-350-Scale-Model-Kit-/171002468303?pt=Model_Kit_US&hash=item27d08a97cf

I have a vague recollection that, quite a few years ago when Trumpeter was a new company on the U.S. market, it released several American aircraft carrier kits that were in fact copies of kits made by other companies.  I have an even vaguer recollection that the Japanese company Otaki once made a1/350 Enterprise that represented the ship in her original configuration.  I wonder if the Trumpeter kit on E-bay is a copy of that one.  If so, I have no idea how good it is.

I know there are lots of experts on 1/350 warships on this forum.  Can somebody who's seen a Trumpeter 1/350 Enterprise sort this out for us?

John,

I have the Otaki version, which is a very detailed kit. I haven't taken it beyond the box investigation stage but it does look like it will be a great build.

Bill

Thanks guys. Does the Tamiya models aircraft carrier models come premade or is assembly required.

You are serious, right? These are model kits. Model kits require assembly. And a lot of it. Maybe you should check to see if anyone is selling any pre-built. It'll probably cost you a bit, but maybe you can find someone who is trying to clear out some shelf space.  Maybe you should try a little model rowboat or something like that just to give you an idea what this is all about.

No, I mean the model planes.

Hi adam, I was gonna say have a look at Trumpeters website, it has 11, 1/350 scale aircraft carriers. I have to say basically they will all require a lot of work, I can see my Admiral Kuznetzov easily taking a year, but I like to add detail to my kits. Basically like some of the guys have already said it will require a lot of work even if the parts do fit well, you have to be methodical about literally every step. I would say not to start with any 1/350 aircraft carrier. My Kuznetzov cost me £150,($227) currently which is easily the most expensive kit I have bought. I suggest the older Tamiya Battleships first, the Missouri is a really nice model. I know its not an aircraft carrier, but if you build it out of the box you should have a pretty good idea of what the more complicated trumpeter kits have in store for you also the Tamiya ships, the older ones were about £39.99 so they are a lot cheaper if you make any mistakes. Each aircraft on a trumpeter carrier that I have seen have about 13 parts each, so they are small kits themselves which also have decals not to mention the gigantic decal sheet for the carrier flight deck. The reason I say to get an older Tamiya kit is that they fit really well and it will give you an idea of what a colossal task painting it will be. Personally I cant Imagine painting a surface that large with a brush. I use an airbrush but you can use rattle can paint which is what I used on my Missouri. it too will have to be applied properly, to be honest if I were you I would start with a small aircraft kit as they are simpler than other models, an F-16 would be a good starting point in 1/72 scale, they are cheap, and it will give you a taste of modelling as I am assuming (correct me if I am wrong) that you have never made a model before? Whatever you choose to do, you can always get advice from the forums here as there are many builds online, and group builds you should scroll through some of them as people put builds from the box and take pictures frequently and you will see the kits and assembly it might be worth a look.