Trumpeter USS Lexington: completed!

Hi

She's BEAUTIFUL! ! !   But not to nit-pick, I noticed the center lift is square, all the pics of Lex?Sara show a T-shaped center lift{also shown in Janes Fighting Ships deck plan}, but that's Trumpeters fault, not yours. I believe the 8" guns were removed before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the 1.1" "Chicago Piano's" were installed in there place. Like I said, she's BEAUTIFUL. By the way, I have a similar deck configuration problem with my Trumpeter "Hornet"{in 1/700}. They used the same flight deck as Enterpise, and Yorktown, the forward end had a different shape on Hornet{and 50' wider to boot}. So now she'll be finnished as Yorktown{after of course painting her hull as Hornet!}, sa la gare I guess!{LOL}

Steve H

The next project is something MUCH simpler - Trumpy's USS England! All I'm adding is the Gold Medal Models PE set. You can see some WIP photos here:

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Well, I know what I like ... and I like what I see!  That's some quality paint work on the aircraft; what impresses me even more, now that I can see it in that last pic you posted, is the rear cockpit detail on the bombers - even on my very best day I'd never have a steady enough hand to manage that!

What's your next project?  I'd love to see WIP pics of it.  I'm afraid you've set yourself a pretty high standard with this build, matey!

Styrene, Thunder1, Mike, Don, PS1SCW & Billy, I appreciate your comments.

Don, to answer your questions: the turrets are resin and I had a lot of trouble mounting them. I was hoping nobody would notice they are slightly off. The biplane canopies (and the planes themselves for that matter) are indeed clear plastic. Trumpeter intended for the modeler to mask them off before painting the planes. However, there are PE wing struts & cabane struts on all the planes, and I was afraid that appying and removing the masks would knock the PE off. So I hand-painted the canopies with lightened Tamiya Sky Blue. This picture shows it a little better:

You have a good eye for detail, my friend!  

She couldn't be any prettier! Bravo Zulu! 

Don't forget to ask for a Hull Tech Punch on your way to stand the mail bouy watch. 

I've got a left-handed monkey wrench, if you're interested.

Paul - just because I notice things doesn't mean I could have done nearly as good a job as you've done - and the job you've done is outstanding!  But...two things I noticed:  A and Y turrets seem to be balanced differently than B and X - they seem to be tilting forward a bit more.  Did you have any trouble with mounting them?  I'm just curious - for all I know (I don't have any closeup photos of the real ship to scrutinize) they're 100% accurate.  But the difference puts me in mind of the many times I've tried to glue a precariously-balanced part only to have it tilting a bit when the glue finally dried.  The other thing was the aircraft canopies - I know the Trumpeter aircraft come in clear plastic - did you add any color to the canopies?  They look to be light blue - which looks perfect in the photos.  The close-ups when we click on the photos give us more detail than we'd get if we were just eyeballing her, and that's where I noticed the light blue.  So it's definitely not overdone - I'm just curious if you did anything to achieve that appearance, or if it is the plain clear plastic doing it.

And thanks for setting such a high benchmark for those of us with aspirations of building the same kit!

Great job Paul.

Thanks for sharing.

Mike

*staggers in under the weight of a solid cast iron, left-handed smoke shifter*

Ye Gods, don't they make these monsters in aluminum???

 In reply to your question(s)...in early 1942 the original 8inch guns were replaced with the more familiar twin 5 inch DP mounts. With these 8 inch guns surplused, the Army's Coast Artillary constructed  Battery Wilridge(4 batteries of two guns each), four miles west of Diamond Head in Hawaii. Despite the fact that the Army had no experience with this type of turreted fortification their engineers had these guns operational in less than a year...while on the subject, the two aft turrets from the Arizona were removed and converted to Army use in much the same way, on the Island of Oahu. Named Battery Arizona and Battery Pennsylvania, they guarded the approaches to Kaneohe Bay. Its a shame the Arizonas guns weren't saved, they were scrapped at war's end along with the carriers 8 inch batteries.

 Blast bags were usually canvas shrouds that covered the gun tub section that entered the gun house to keep out the weather.  

 100 yards of shore line?? When you locate some also procure some relative bearing grease and for the navigator and some left handed adjustable cresents for the snipes. And by the way, have Charlie Noble piped to the galley.

Oh, the carrier is beautiful, a top notch job, pretty fly for a Rhode Island guy.

Semper Paratus!

Thanks Wayne & Steve!

Steve, the aircraft are from Trumpeter also; they're sold separately in boxes of six.

Beauty, Paul! I was set to do this model as well, when a BWN Massachusetts turned up in the mail!

Where did you get the air wing?

Steve

Thanks, guys. Yes, three or four smaller models were completed during the construction of this beast, when I found it necessary to take a quick break from her.

Durr, you're right about the blast bags! I completely missed that. I've built enough battlewagons to know that, too - but obviously I wasn't in battleship mode when I was thinking about those 8" gun turrets.    Thanks for pointing that out.

Beautiful! Two years well spent, I'd say.

Fred

you said you were very slow  but you probably were doing other models in between

shouldn't the blast bags on the big guns be painted?