1/350 USS Carl Vinson Project.

I will be following this project with extreme interest!

Bill Morrison

Looks like quite a project, I am ready to follow along as well. 

Here is the port aft sponson mounted and the starboard forward sponson mounted and roughed in (needs sanding and shaping)

what year are you building? because you are building platforms that where not present till late 90's. if you need a good reference google ray bean his photo Dvd's r fabilous. also use google or bing. as for the aircraft again it depends on what year. tomcats till 2005 also use f-18c they are the most correct in shape. Finally for hangar deck aircraft use tamiaya

armyrn

what year are you building? because you are building platforms that where not present till late 90's. if you need a good reference google ray bean his photo Dvd's r fabilous. also use google or bing. as for the aircraft again it depends on what year. tomcats till 2005 also use f-18c they are the most correct in shape. Finally for hangar deck aircraft use tamiaya

 

I am building as she was in 1983 during her first deployment. I was aboard the her for the world cruise. The platforms are the original platforms when she was built. They were then changed a few years later (and multiple times since) As for references I have a few pictures from the internet and many personal pictures of when I sailed on her.

This week I modified and detailed the fantail. The crane was scratchbuilt. You may have noticed the holes above and below the fantail. These are going to be needed for the fiber optics (working on them now) for the landing lights. The weathering of the hull will be done after all the modifications to the hull are completed.

No problems. You do nice work keep it up. I would also add a case to your list. One vendor is grandpa cabinets he does excellent work. He built one for my USS Lincoln CVN -72 2001-2003.

here is  the link to the build for additonal ideas. A friend of mine built it for me as my retirement gift from 32 years of service between the Navy and Army as gift from wife.

(Note this builder has built almost every ship in the class)

http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=153354&start=40

Fantail Details

Here is the fantail with LED's and fiber optic lighting.

WOW ! ! !  T.B.

Cool job Wolfman, you are really moving on this project.  

Wow, excellent work on those lights

Jorge

Hangar Bay Details.

Port walls

Doorway details

Forward tunnel and GSE area lighted

Aft hangar bay walls

Port hangar walls

Looking aft from hangar bay 1

View from hangar bay 2 doorway

Hangar deck completed (weathered and painted deck)

Nice job on the hanger walls so far!

Bill

OY !

 You are going Gang Busters on her aren't you ? Looking good . Question ! When you get done , are you ever going to build a model again ? I mean , you are putting so much time and effort into this one .  T.B.

I am doing this with so much detail because I served aboard her.

It's going to be the centerpiece in my hobby room.

Once I finish this I have a Perry Class to build on commission then back to 1/48 aircraft.

Spent the morning making a decal set for the Nimitz class hangar bay signs. Have the air, power, AFFF, medical, and fire extinguisher stencils. If anyone wants a high resolution copy to make your own decals, just let me know. I can email them to you. (The Online  photo is at 72 dpi and the original is at 600 dpi) Still working on hangar bay 1 detail. Should have more pictures by Sunday.

Spectactular work you're doing here! A co-worker of mine served on the Carl Vinson from 93-95. I was wondering, other than personal pictures where do you get your documentation from?

I looked through your airplane pictures too. Again very nice work, what do you paint with? I'm amazed at how flat, or lack of gloss they have. Mine seem to come out with a bit of sheen trying different clear coats.

Kyle

Kyle Lord

Spectactular work you're doing here! A co-worker of mine served on the Carl Vinson from 93-95. I was wondering, other than personal pictures where do you get your documentation from?

I looked through your airplane pictures too. Again very nice work, what do you paint with? I'm amazed at how flat, or lack of gloss they have. Mine seem to come out with a bit of sheen trying different clear coats.

Kyle

 

I just searched images on google for USS Carl Vinson. The hard part is trying to figure out which pictures are from what years. Many are of the more recent version due to popularity of the internet and that the Vinson is in the news alot as it is on deployment.

My problem is I was only looking for pictures from the 1983 to 1985 years only. There are very few of them on the internet. Many of my personal ones are of the aircraft so I have to look at the background of pictures and piece together the details and occasionally the background isn't very sharp since the aircraft was the subject. (many photo's I have were taken with a mid 1970's 35mm camera and I was by no means a pro at shooting photo's back then. LOL) I also use recent pictures and see what details are the same or very close to the same as mine and kind of guess the sections are different or missing. One example that ended up being a "guess" was the starboard wall of hangar bay #1 from the doors forward. For some reason there are only distant shots of this section from any Nimitz class carrier. The only ones I have are mostly blocked by the saucer of the E-2C's because on the cruise this is where they parked them on the hangar bay to perform maintenance. All I can find in my pictures is the placement of the conflag station and the raised sponson and a few of the pipes.

For my aircraft I use testors Model Master Lusterless Flat spray can. Typically I paint with flat paints and use Microset to place the decals. Once the decals have set for a few minutes, I coat them with Microsol. and let then sit. Then spray a thin coat of the MM lusterless, let dry for about 30 minutes then another thin coat.

CVN-70 Project. Mounted the fiber optic lights for the GSE area and tunnel. (They will be trimmed flush after painting) Detailed the starboard wall of hangar bay 1 and added more details to the port wall. Need to finish detailing the port wall. Also made the first hangar bay fire doors.

Wow, your work is outstanding at this scale. I love specially the fantail lights.

Jorge

that is some beautiful work !!

CVN-70 Project - I have completed the port side wall of hangar bay 2 and the hangar bay fire doors. The Unrep tower motors have been made and will be rigged to the towers when I do the starboard side. Starting on the bay 3 port side and aft wall now.

CVN-70 Project - Hangar bay walls are all detailed. Now ready for paint, highlighting, and decals. Need to still make the hangar bay external doors. Then paint, decals and weathering of the hangar bay deck.

CVN-70 Project - Added some more decals to the decal sheet. Warning stripes that can be cut to proper widths as needed, the ship and air wing logo's, and the Naval Aviation logo's.
If anyone needs a copy, message me your email address. Also if you want, tell me the ship and airwing and I will replace the Vinson ones with your choice. (These are 1/350 scale)

I just found out that depending on the ship and the year, The AFFF signs can be either blue or green. If you want them in green or both, let me know.

Hey Wolfman,

First off thank you on the tip for model masters flat clear. It is my favorite flat clear, and believe me I've tried about 6. I decanted straight into my airbrush cup, let sit for about an hour then airbrushed.

Secondly, I'd like to issue a formal request :D. I'll get back to you for airwing, I have the yearbook for 2003 I believe.

Also, apologies if you said this already but where do you get the larger 70 that goes on the deck or on the island? I thought I saw gmm was discontinued for those decals but was was wondering if there's another source.

Keep up the killer scratching!

Kyle

I was able to get a GMM set on Ebay. There was one for sale on Ebay and the  seller was actually local to me. I emailed him if he would end auction and sell it to me (for the average price they go for on Ebay) and he said he doesn't want to stop the auction but he had a second set that was missing the CIWS circles. I bought that set from him for a very good price. I wasn't concerned about the CIWS circles. I already made my own decals for them.

GMM has stated they will not re-issue them but Boatswain is suppose to re-issue their set sometime this summer. http://www.boatswainmodel.com/products.html

If you cannot locate your cruise book, This website has them online:

http://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/index.html