It's not to often you have to buy a spool of something of modeling. This is what 600' of fibre optic cable looks like. That's alot of light!

ive managed to pickup a deck lighting layout So this week ill start drilling a couple hundred holes. Seems numbers in the hundreds come up often on this behemoth.
I'm thinking of leaving the deck in 3 pieces so it can be taken off to really show the aircraft and detail in the hangar bay. Debating that vs keeping the wiring intact. Not sure yet so if you have any thoughts on this let me know.

Thanks everyone for the great suggestions. I did indeed win the other kit so whenever that gets here I can redo the superstructure and some other parts and feel better about my progress. I will take the time to see if I can do surgery on the old parts just to see if I might be able to salvage it.

I'm definitely guilty of spending more time in our yard as opposed to the bench. My wife and I love gardening and tending to our yard. It is an enjoyable source of pleasure. It's actually going to the hot side here in Utah so, that gives me a break from weeding duties and more time at the bench.

Now to see if I can get caught up here a little bit with everyone's progress. 

Steve: The 40's look fabulous. Certainly seems to have worth the tedious PE work.

Ben: Love how your motor launches and life boats came out. They are beautifully done and reflect some of your marvelous handiwork.

Mongoose: I am hugely impressed with your paint work. It really turned out incredible looking. The detail and scratchbuilding you're putting out is all amazing.

Scott: The Kansas is becoming a stunning work. Superb work.

Brandon: Fantastic outcome with your painting. It is really sharp and clean and definitely surpasses any decals.

DRUMS01

Steve, I feel your pain regarding the PE, your PE is looking great...

I hope to be showing some major progress soon, but time at the table is just not what it has been lately (spring chores, yard woark, and taking care of my son).

 For sure Ben, weather's nice and its time to get back to work. Have tried to splitsome of it up myself. MC that's how I appease the wife...honey I mowed the lawn and cleaned the carpets downstairs (just outside my model room  )

I did everything with Evergreen and PE pieces I had leftover from the 2 ship builds I've done lately. I'm determined to spend no extra money getting this done. This takes care of the hangar bay! Painting and some small details to add after that, like ladders that would have gotten broken when I tried to spray the "baseboard" color all around those bulkheads lol

I'm with ya Ben. The wife starts to get a little peved when I'm in the hobby room too much and of course the yard and garden needs tending to. And we're bingeing all 23 Advengers movies so that distracts me as well. Good news, we have 5 left. That'll take us through Sat.

Steve, I feel your pain regarding the PE, your PE is looking great...

I hope to be showing some major progress soon, but time at the table is just not what it has been lately (spring chores, yard work, and taking care of my son).

Ben

goldhammer

OMG.......and I can't even get the shears glued up neatly on the 1/72 Gato.  About ready to gift the whole mess to you.

 

No way man, you've gifted me too much already. BTW, I had to do a little repair to Miss America on Saturday. The Daughter is moving and brougt her over for a little tune up. I fixed the gear, sent her (the plane) through the car wash and gently place her back on my daughter's truck dash while she (daughter) was talkng to her mom and watching the grandkids.

Chris, you have no idea, on second thougt, yeah you do. Yes, I'd say about a weekend.

MC those look crazy uniform! Nice attention to detail there for sure. Must have been a whole weekend of work 

OMG.......and I can't even get the shears glued up neatly on the 1/72 Gato.  About ready to gift the whole mess to you.

Thats an impressive array of PE details!

As for me, I've been plugging away at all the small PE parts. I completed the 15 quad 40 Bofors mounts, finished the cranes (no pics yet), one more catapult to do, working on the superstructure mast, Mk37 gun directors x 4, Sk2 Radar dish and Mk8 gun director radars x 2 (done). It's taking me forever 

I ordered some 5"/38 twin gun mounts from Alliance Modelworks because I wasn't happy with the one I made up. The periscopes just didn't look good to me so I when ahead and bit the bullet.

As for me, I've been plugging away at all the small PE parts. I completed the 15 quad 40 Bofors mounts, finished the cranes (no pics yet), one more catapult to do, working on the superstructure mast, Mk37 gun directors x 4, Sk2 Radar dish and Mk8 gun director radars x 2 (done). It's taking me forever 

I ordered some 5"/38 twin gun mounts from Alance Modelworks because I wasn't happy with the ones I made up. The perascopes just didn't look good to me so I when ahead and bit the bullet.

Joe I hope you get it. I see it on eBay (I won't bid on it).

scottrc

When building ship superstructures, the old saying measure twice, cut once goes in hand with measure and test fit twice, glue once.

Absolutly, once it goes askew it compounds as you go up. Now I always look at all sides for levelness, tack glue it, look again, glue both sides, look again, then glue the rest. I can't imagine trying to get the pagota mast of the Fuso level.

Chris, looks good. Now after you and Ben I'll have to be more conscientious of what's seen behind doors and windows.

Joe for a little humor you could make up one of Modelcrazy's rough seas dios and roll her to starboard 30 degrees. Bet no one would notice that lean then!

Joe,

I had this happen to me on the 1/700 Trumpeter HMS Warspite.  I did manage to break everything apart by scribing the weld seams with a sharp exacto blade and rebuilt it.  

I also had this happen to me on the first Japanese battleship I built many years ago.  It had a lopsided pagoda because it started to settle as teh glue dried and I never noticed it until I was done.  I havn't built a Japanese battleship since.  

When building ship superstructures, the old saying measure twice, cut once goes in hand with measure and test fit twice, glue once.  

Scott

Ben & Mongoose: Ohhhhhhh, those are so cool guys!!! 

Joe: Can you get a razor saw in there and carefully cut the parts apart? 

I was going to suggest filing the railing/ shields level; but the whole thing including the verticals is pretty ascew.

I'd bust it up and start over. Nothing to loose.

Everyone has been doing some amazing stuff lately. I'll try to catch up later as there is quite a bit that has been going on.

For now though, I have had the wind taken out of my sails on my build. The other day I was filling and sanding on the forward superstructure when I happend to take a close look at it from a forward view. That is when I noticed that the upper deck was completely tilted to one side. How I missed this earlier is totally beyond me. Yup, a full on "You've got to be kidding me!!!" moment. It appears to be a kit fit issue and not a product of my efforts. 

This is not something that I could fix as it all welded together. I was completely bummed as I cannot accept this and just keep going. That would simply bug me forever. So, I gave myself a moment to gather myself and then proceeded to ebay to see if I might luck out and find another kit. Fortunately, there was one and I am currently the winning bidder. It will finish that way tomorrow morning by gum. I'm kind of alright with this as it gives me the opportunity to address a couple of other issues that have come along while assembling this kit. One of them being the uneven drilling of the bridge windows you see in the pics.

I am determined to finish this to a better expectation than what I was getting so far. In the meantime while waiting for the new kit to arrive, I'll not only work on what I can but, I've also got a 1/700 USS Laffey DD and 1/700 USS Baltimore I might start on. These are much better molded and engineered kits that might result in less stress and more enjoyment. 

Thanks for hangin' with me. I will overcome!

As to wiring, if you are doing a pedestal base mount you can run the wiring up through a hollow pedestal.

Thanks Steve! 
looks like we all must have gotten outside this weekend and steered clear of the bench lol

Here is today's project. This is the bulkhead, starboard side, amidship, on the hangar deck. The fire doors close into the pocket just left of center.

This should add something to catch people's eye when they look into the bay.

That's outstanding Chris

My latest progress is all around the hangar bay. Took a couple days to lay everything out, fill the seam on the floor, cut out all the kit hangar bay openings and make 1 new one. The kit comes with 3 bays where you have the choice, open or closed. The 4th one is closed so I had to open it up. Rather than make 4 of these I found a way to cut the 3 from the kit so I could still use the alignment pins to put them in place. 

I really like the rough texture of the sandable primer. It almost seems to be to scale so I started with that. It comes out really black.

When I was working on the seems though I learned that when you sand it the color changes to a dark gray. To keep a little texture I flat coated it before sanding. Jury's still out on whether the texture can be seen. Once I experiment some more I'll take a close up.

Then I had to figure out how to do the tie-downs. The builds I've read so far the guys used a toothpick to paint every one of these...there are about 800 on here. I'm lazy so I made a pattern up and printed it out on medium tac friskett using the Silhouette.

Then insignia white followed by a random pattern of spraying the lightened ghost grey I used for the preshading, 

a flat coat and done!

I need to go figure out how the electrical will come up into the ship and then I can start gluing this down. Off I go...to work on the car for awhile as it's a nice day out and I have to get the thing fixed instead of playing all day 

Those wee boats are so cute, I just want to squeez their cheeks

I would think Elemer's (polyvinyl acetate PVA) would work if thinned I would think.
yellow wood glue is like white glue but made for adhering to wood better.
Gorilla glue (polyurethane glue) would work as well but harder to apply thin. It's activated with water so maybe thin it and work quickly.
Gorilla can't be removed where the PVA can, but you might run the risk of it removing itself.
Epoxy's seem like they would be difficult to work with.

I would stay away from CA's and plastic glues for this application. Spray glues, as mentioned by Mongoose, is difficult to apply cleanly.

I've never worked with the deck product and sounds like I would like it. It will be easier to get straight than the typical pre-adhesive decks as the glue time will allow you to move the deck to the perfect location. The downside would be adding weights or clamps for adhesion.

Personally, I would go with the yellow PVA wood glue, thinned with water. But someone else such as GM may have a better recommendation.

DRUMS01

...

QUESTION: Has anyone here used Scaledecks wood decking on a model? It does not have an adheasive back instead it is a felt type. What is the very best adheasive to use?

I do not want wrinkles, warping, or edging to be an issue with this deck, so your input will be really helpful. They recommended epoxy, white glue, or plastic cement, but I heard the plastic cement did not work and epoxy it usually messy and difficult to work with. Does anyone know if Gorilla multi purpose adheasive would work? How about any spray adheasives?

HELP.....

Ben

 

I cannot speak to the deck specifically but I've used several spray glues - 3M and Elmers. My experience there would say they are messier than epoxy. They stink to high heaven so outdoors is the best way to spray them. The spray is hard to control.  in my opinion sprayglues are for broad, general, and not detail oriented work. Seems no matter what I've covered the glue got on it anyway. Just thinking out loud here, To use it i think you'd have to tape up the whole finished side of the deck and not uncover it until after the deck was applied. 

Chris: I'm glad the brass rod worked for you, and you had some available.

BK: I really like the decals (just kidding) the paint work on your carrier. 

Nothing worth posting from me just yet as I'm still working on the little boats for the Arizona. Tomorrow, should all go well, I am going to fling some primer and pre-shading on the Arizona.

QUESTION: Has anyone here used Scaledecks wood decking on a model? It does not have an adheasive back instead it is a felt type. What is the very best adheasive to use?

I do not want wrinkles, warping, or edging to be an issue with this deck, so your input will be really helpful. They recommended epoxy, white glue, or plastic cement, but I heard the plastic cement did not work and epoxy it usually messy and difficult to work with. Does anyone know if Gorilla multi purpose adheasive would work? How about any spray adheasives?

HELP.....

Ben

Great idea Ben and it looks like Chris put it to good use.

The Enterprise color looks really good, the negitave filter threw me off a little at first. I agree with GM though.

BK, that looks superb. Hand painting, or sprayng always looks better than decals.

Mongoose: The tubing looks good to me. Lots easier than trying to sand a plastic part down nice and round. 

Some good ideas there for the shafts. They are really tough to hold without flexing. Surprised given they are almost 2.5mm dia. In this case i got to hit the easy button  on 1 suggestion. Bought a bag of misc brass last year and it had thin wall tubing that fit perfect!

A phenom of photos of ships that have a lot of overhang They usually are taken on sunny or open sky days, and the light reflected from the surface of the sea really affects the color.

You've done unusually nice coloring. Maybe feather out that white on the undersides of the sponsors a little.