CVN-65 original island

I saw a 1/350th Enterprise in the hobbyshop here in town some time ago.  It had the original island and wa selling for about 100.00 dollars.  I believe it was a Chinese company that put it out but it could have been Korean.

Ed helped me out a lot when I was updating the ancient Revell-Germany Enterprise to her current 2006 appearance, working solely from photos on Navsource. And I agree, the Big E has been tinkered with so much in the ensuing four decades that it would be almost impossible to come out with a definitive updating/backdating aftermarket set that would be both 1) Accurate and 2) Affordable.

Thanks Stretch & Jon.   I don't know what I said to spin Grease up.   It doesn't look like he has a dog in this fight - perhaps he just got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.

 

jgrease wrote:

Wow. That was gruff. The guy asked a question - relax.

 

It's not so much being gruff, but rather honest.  Even though it seems simple to "plop" a resin island onto the kit, there were many external changes made to Enterprise in the 1982 refit.  Just to reinforce what Ed has mentioned, Jim Corley of Nautilus Models and I investigated this conversion about three years ago, and came to the conclusion that this conversion is quite an extensive one.  Besides the island, the sponsons were changed during this refit, and each of these are as necessary as the island.  There are slight changes to the flight deck that may or may not be relevant, but there are needed changes to the catwalks.  

 What really made the decision for us is this.  If you have a choice, as a manufacturer, of producing just an island, as opposed to a complete conversion, you're running the risk of  upsetting some for selling an incomplete conversion.  At the same time, if you choose to create a complete conversion, the price (we guestimated a price of $250) could make the conversion too expensive to justify the work necessary, with reference to the demand for one.  Also, you have to decide what refit to model.  Do you choose an as-built configuration, or one of the later fits?  As mundane as this may sound, it does affect the demand for a product such as this.  Jim has experienced this with his CV5/6 conversion for the Trumpeter Hornet kit, and we have experienced the same with our SCB-27A conversion for the Trumpeter Tico kit.  The demand for this sort of conversion is very specific, in reference to the individual modeler, and there's not much information for a manufacturer to make a decision with.

It really isn't a matter of the desire to make a conversion like this, but more of an inability to come to a sucessful economic decision for this situation. 

 

Jon 

jgrease wrote:

Wow. That was gruff. The guy asked a question - relax.

 

 

 

Gruff????? I thought it was a good quick answer. I didn't read anything negative in it. Ed is a fountain of knowledge....usually he does half a page. But he's right...lots of things need to be done to back date. At this point in time, scratchbuilding is the only option, and it looks to be quite an undertaking.

Wow. That was gruff. The guy asked a question - relax.

sgtmac wrote:

I was wondering if there was an original island available for the Tamiya 1/350th Enterprise? I thought maybe somebody had done up a resin piece to depict CVN-65 before the modern island was installed. Has anybody attempted to scratch build the early one? Thanks, Dave

There are no commercial conversion islands to backdate the Tam Enterprise.   Some have tried to stick the 1:400 scale Aurora/Monogram/Revell island on the 1:350 kit - but it looks wrong.  

In addition to the island there are some flightdeck and sponson shape changes, plus armament changes.   Backdating an 'accurate' Enterprise is not just plopping a different island on the deck and calling it done.