BLUF: Is there an easy way to convert the Trumpeter 1/700 USS Intrepid to a full-hull model?
Background:
Please excuse if someone has discussed this -- I couldn't find any posts... See http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/t/138031.aspx
I wanted to have an example of an SCB-125 Essex and I prefer full-hull. Like many of you, I'm annoyed, followed-by highly disappointed, in Trumpeter, first for not keeping an optional lower hull in their kits and second for not acknowledging it on the kit materials, for example on the box-art "Waterline" a la Tamiya and Hasegawa. Has anyone drafted a lower hull for Shapeways to print out?
There is the Dragon USS Antietam, but the deck isn't the same angle, and I'm unsure if the SCB-27x modifications were made: armor, hull blisters, hurricane bow, sponsons, elevators, etc. This is why I don't think I'm up to the challenge of using another short-hull kit's lower hull.
The David Doyle "Legends of Warfare - Naval - USS Lexington (CV/CVA-16)" and "...USS Intrepid.." are great!
My other main reason for asking is that I'm in the process of visiting all the carrier museums, and I like to have a model of the centerpieces of them. (USS Yorktown, USS Midway, USS Intrepid in NYC...)
(warning) RANT: So the idiots in the War Dept gave the populace only 6 months to come up with the funds to save the Big E (CV-6) after having her laid up in mothballs for how many years??? Then sold her for scrap for a pittance compared to what they were asking? Then did something similar with JFK, so now there is no Forrestal(-plus)-class museum, and never will be another carrier museum because the reactors can't be sufficiently prevented from radiating visitors even with all that steel in the lower decks and bulkheads?? So the new Big E (CVN-65) will instead cost $1.5B to scrap -- and more likely $4.5B given the AC (after-covid) pricing increases???... You can't make this stuff up...
My eyes are bigger than I can build my stash...
Too many models, too little time...
Looking for USS Pennsylvania, Dragon 1/700
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