Can I change Trumpeter 1/350 USS Hornet to USS Enterprise?

An early war Enterprise is easier. Nautulis Models does both a resin conversion set for the new island and additional parts, and makes a laser cut wood deck to replace the kit deck. Yorktown and Enterprise had a different forward flight deck shape than Hornet. A late war Enterprise had quite a few more changes.

I've been waiting for somebody to bring up this kit in a context like this - somebody who's about to start on it. I'd feel awkward making the following point to anybody who's already built it. I haven't built it myself, but I've seen lots of pictures of it. It appears to suffer from one rather conspicuous error that I haven't seen noted elsewhere.

Some years ago I was working on a 1/700 Yorktown (converted from the Tamiya Enterprise and Hornet), and I ordered a copy of the Navy "Booklet of General Plans" for that class from The Floating Drydock. Those plans indicate that there's a huge opening (marked "void" on the plans) on the front of the stack. This "gap," which is at least ten feet wide, runs all the way from the stack cap to the island platform that forms the stack's base. It looks like, in modeling terms, the two halves of the stack don't meet in the front.

I think what's going on here is that the designers left a gap in the plating that forms the superstructure surrounding the uptakes. At any rate, careful examination of photos of all three ships shows that the plans are right. Most photos don't show the gap, but if you look carefully at shots taken from just the right angle you can see it all right. In some shots it looks like a big black stripe has been painted on the front of the stack. The gap also shows quite prominently in several of the photos of the Yorktown wreck in Dr. Ballard's Return to Midway.

So far as I know, no commercial kit shows that gap. I think I've seen it some pictures of those two magnificent 1/72 Enterprises (at Pensacola and Oshkosh, if I remember right). But I'm pretty sure the smooth stack front in the Trumpeter kit is wrong - for any of the three ships. Caveat: at the moment I can't lay hands on a photo of the Hornet that nails down the point completely. But the Yorktown and Enterprise definitely had the gap. It stayed on the Enterprise's funnel even after her mid-war refits.

It would be tough to modify a finished kit to incorporate the gap, but it would be easy to reproduce on a kit under construction. Just trim a bit off the front of each stack half, and box in the resulting opening with sheet styrene.

I should emphasize that I'm really a sailing ship modeler who's wandering out of his depth here, but I'm pretty sure about this point. Any comments from modern warship enthusiasts?

John and I went over this a few months ago.

One of the best sources for photos is the Enterprise Association web site. www.cv6.org.

The best photo showing this gap is also printed in the Warship Pictorial #9 Yorktown Class Carriers on page 32.

dr207 is correct that their were other changes when the Enteprise went through the 1943 overhaul. A blister was added to each side of the hull, the island was modernized (looking more like the Hornet's island,) and the guns were changed and more were added.

Doing a conversionlike this is one of my future projects, converting the Tamiya Hornet to the late war Enterprise, skinny island and all.

Good luck.

Mike

Im still working on my 1940 version of the Enterprise using the Hornet as the start. Been scratch building the island, changing the shape of the deck and adding the two ridges on the front of the stack. So yeah it can be done, just takes a little elbow grease and plastic.

Good Luck!

Ric

richter111 - Don't forget that gap in the front of the stack! We've established (in another thread) that the Hornet didn't have it. (The Trumpeter kit is therefore correct - for that ship. My accusation was wrong.) But the Enterprise and Yorktown most definitely did - from the beginning of their careers to the end.

Yep got the stack gap!