1/350 USS Yorktown (CV 5) Build/WIP

Nice start. I've only done 1/700 carriers, not done a 350 carrier yet - several in the stash - will be watching this with interest.

EJ

Lookin' good Mike. I think the plating detail will look fine under a coat of paint. There's no doubt that this kit is worth the trouble - and the subject certainly deserves everything the manufacturers and the modeler can do for her.

Mike,

This has always been one of my favorite ships, and I am glad that there is finally a decent kit of her.  It looks like you are doing a terrific job! I will follow this thread with keen interest!

Bill

Mike,

Hope you don't mind me pulling up a seat on your WIP. My family gave me this kit for Christmas and I have been biting at the bit to start it...... I need to finish what I have going first! Looking good so far.

Steve

EJ, John, Bill and Steve,

Thanks for your comments and are all welcome to sit in on the WIP.

Here's another view of the completed model from Merit's web site.  The island "void" is represented by an indentation molded into the one piece island.  I suppose it could/should have at least been painted black or dark gray in their build and not left as they did it.

Since this area aboard the ship was open, I decided to remove the indentation entirely and attaching the island's top piece, I cemented a length of stock tubing inside.

The tube represents the forward uptake and along with the visible interior will be painted dark gray. The tube follows the slant the actual uptake took.  As I discovered on my 1/700th Yorktown-class builds, once the platform and railings are added this void area becomes hard to notice.  Simply painting the original indentation would suffice, although there is no mention in the kit's instructions to do so.  Having built the other Yorktown-class kits though, and knowing what was actually there, it was an easy enough change to make.

Hey-

 Great!  Thanks for taking the time to post your progress.  I have started on mine as well, so I plan to follow along closely.  I have started to sand the hull, though I'm working slowly and not sure how far down I will take it.  

Thanks for the tip on the island, I'm still still researching the ship and it's nice to know about these little mods before I get to that point.  I usually find these bits after it's too late.

Thanks again,

Phil

I'm jumping ahead to do more of the island.  I've added the PE ladders, prifly and the signal flag lockers and opened up the kit's bridge windows.

I thought the bridge windows looked weird as molded, particularly since the other windows on the island are opened as shown from the Midway shot after Yorktown received her first attack.

I'll prime the island and work it in with the hull painting, etc.

Impressive work!

I have the lamented Tamiya 1/700 version of Yorktown, so I'll be following along to see what I can pick up from your build to improve her.

The island is looking very good!

I've started painting the hull and done some detail work.  With the hull painted, it looks like the sanding of the hull plates was about right.

I've had to fudge the boot top somewhat because Yorktown's was very wide.  I've started to work on the weathering and as it goes along I believe everything will balance out.  So often in my weathering of models the object is to blend colors.  This has been something new, weathering while trying to keep a sharp edge on the boot top.

The starboard side was much more weathered than the port side as can be assumed by some historic shots.

Trying to match the weathering is a challenge, and I intend to use an additional color on the underwater hull.  Looking at current color shots of ships in dry dock you can see a fair amount of yellow.  I'm not sure this is an underneath coat of primer used today or not.  I've got reference material to the WWII USN underwater hull painting procedures, so I'm thinking of checking that primer as a possible color.  I'll tone it down regardless.

This port view shows a cleaner boot top but I'm curious about a stain on the bow that you can see in this crop of the above photo.

Since there are so few photos of Yorktown during this period, it does give you some choices.

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Here's a couple of the 5"/.38 guns.  The kit uses 10 parts per gun.

And here's the 1.1 gun mount on the clip shack.

Still being fun you bet!

This is really looking spectacular.

Anyone have a good source to go to for pictures or drawings of the hangar deck on the carries Essex or Franklin?  Can't seem to find visual references to those areas. Thanks

What years?

EJ

Franklin 1944

Essex early war

thanks

dan

I posted Frankl

cavalryguy

Anyone have a good source to go to for pictures or drawings of the hangar deck on the carries Essex or Franklin?

I posted Franklin's post-war Damage report here, Plate 3 has a wee bit of a hint of structure but more so some of the hatches on the hangar deck. The Captain's report had some 8 x 10 photos of plans that I scanned in, but they weren't very large; Main Deck Structural Damage and Main Deck Fire show a little bit of the internal lateral supports that protrude into the deck space from the hangar deck bulkheads. Otherwise, I'd suggest the "Anatomy of the Ship - Intrepid" book as it has some decent drawings and is only about $15 right now.

Returning to the Yorktown-class…

Here's the latest WIP shots.

You can see my work space, set up for 1/700th scale ships up to smaller 1/48th scale aircraft, is being somewhat overwhelmed by this kit.

While the hangar deck is detailed well, I've decided not to bother with the photo etch and whatnot on this deck.  I intend to mount the model in a case. Even with the hanger opened up, looking inside the hangar will be difficult from the case restricted distance.  I've painted the bulkheads white and I'll mount some aircraft in there, but I'll leave it at that.

Here's the fantail. I like the support pieces being separate pieces and that you can add the photo etch bits before mounting the flight deck. While much of the part  fit is good, as with any WW II carrier kit, all of this stuff must line up well to keep the flight deck level.  I've held off on some of the railings, etc. for the time being.

Here's the interior.

You can see there's no provision for that shutter door to be there.  I left this one as is, but cut the second one apart so you can see into the deck.

I've toyed around trying to figure how to represent the hull repair the ship received after Coral Sea.  The exterior below the waterline damage from a bomb near hit ruptured some welds.  It was easy to locate where the damage would have been, but the only photo I can find is in Chessman's  "That Gallant Ship."  While there must have been some misshaping to the hull as indicated in the ship's damage report, it doesn't show in that photo.

So, I just put a piece of strip the length of the frame damage and painted some unweathered hull red over it.  I'm not really satisfied with it, but unless there's some better info out there to find, I suppose it will have to do.

She's looking good Mike!!  Can't wait to see more!

Steve

A little more work.

I goofed on the bow gallery deck walkways because I'd installed two bulkhead pieces (parts G2 and G3 for Phil and Steve and anyone else building the kit) in reverse.  This would cause the walkways to extend too far beyond the flight deck.  Lucky I caught it while test fitting.

I've added the large gallery deck section between the bulkheads on the hanger deck.  I didn't paint it but it helps pull everything to pull together and will supports the flight deck.  I've decided not to add the hanger deck overhead structures for the same reason I mentioned in the last post.  Nobody will ever see them with my model in a case.  Besides if you install them per kit instructions, they block the amidships flight deck elevator.

The tripod mast went on without much difficulty.  Getting that lined up correctly is vital.  It isn't any easier installing the long ladder in 350th scale than it is in 700th scale.

I've started outfitting the island too since I'm doing mostly PE stuff now.

The deck blue paint will all be touched up after the railings are installed.  I won't install the platform and railing above the stacks, nor the masts and radar until after the island is mated to the deck.

Lookin' good, Mike. I admit I had my reservations about that weathered underwater hull, but it looks great now.

You're right: when all the island parts come together The Gap is almost invisible. But not quite. The addition of the funnel trunk was, I think, a good idea.

I'm really impressed with what I can see of the detail in the kit. This is going to be a mighty impressive model.

Looks really good!

Quick paint question.  What paint did you use for the Hangar deck floor?  it's was painted in standard Navy deck gray?

Thanks,

Phil

Phil,

I used Gunship Gray, a close substitute.

I did some digging and found some photo evidence that the extensions on the hanger deck to weather decks were painted in 20-B Deck Blue. There was a definitive demarkation line between the two so I masked just inside the hangar bay openings and painted Deck Blue outboard.

I don't know if CV 5 was painted that way, but it makes sense that she could have been.  The camouflage measure calls for all weather decks to be painted 20-B.

Navy orders would be for all metal decks outside of the roller doors to be in exterior camouflage (20-B). Yes, they would have taken the time to do this, for anyone wondering. :)

Mike, Tracy-

 Thanks for the quick replies.  I'm getting to the painting point on my CV5, so appreciate the help.

Phil

Phil,

How did the sanding go?

Awesome build keep the posts coming!  Since you said you built a few carriers how would you compare this one to the trumpeter offerings?

Irish,

I've haven't built a Trumpeter kit so I can't compare.

My carriers have been Tamiya, Italeri, Hasegawa or Revell.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, any kit of a WW II carrier will have the same basic challenge.  All the parts between the hangar deck and the flight deck must fit as well as possible or the flight deck will not sit level.  And that can really kill a project.

Mike-

  Sanding went pretty well, although as you know, it's a pretty tedious process.  I think I sanded down a bit farther than you did, hopefully what's left won't disappear under the paint.  It looks OK to me under a layer of primer.  I can post some pics, but don't want to hijack your thread.   Thanks for taking the time to post this.  It's been very helpful.

Phil

Mike,

The island looks great. It looks like i will have to sand the oversized plating details after seeing how your's came out.

Steve

Steve,

I believe sanding the plating down just has to be done, but it is of course at the whim of the individual model builder.

As Phil said above,  the sanding is a tedious process and it isn't what many modelers want to do first thing after opening the kit box.

I broke up the sanding time up by doing work on the island, doing assembly on the cranes, guns and started on some aircraft. It helped.

Having the sub assemblies done is paying off now.

Enjoy your build.

Mike,

I know what you mean about tedious, I've stropped enough blocks and built enough cannons to know.  I agree that you need to break up the chore with other sub assemblies. I am a firm believer that ship models especially need to be built in sub assemblies and that if you treat each as a small model in itself and do the best you can then the overall model will come out that much better.

Where did you find the reference material on the uptakes showing? I've been searching for it in my research on my Yorktown but have not found it yet?

Also, how do you like or dislike the PE included in the kit? I have used some of the included Trumpeter PE on my Dreadnought and it is not the easiest  to work with. You so much as look at it wrong and it goes to pieces.

Steve