Aircraft Carrier Group Build (July 07 to July 2010)

Just started on my Ronald Regan ship,  boy had to do some heavy sanding and cutting on the bottom hull.  now its all glued but need some filling.  will post up some photo soon. ill be doing the 76 and 65 at same time but need to finish the bottom hull first then will do the CV65.

Boy i didnt realized the CV65 is in japanese language since its from ARII.  but of course it has english in it.  does anyone know what CV65 looks like today? i mean the color of paints on the island/flight deck/hulls   let me know   thanks

okay here is the photos of the hull that i worked on Ronald Regan.

this one, as you can see that i had to cut the front hull to add the "bubble" (this kit is from Italti) also you can see gaps between bottom hull and upper hull. 

Added putty,  will wait til dry then doing some sanding. 

and guess what,  will be doing other carrier too so ill be doing 3 at same time, which is CV-69  just saw it on sale so why not

I did started on sanding the putty on the Reagan.  I did it outside since it was sunny and nice  . 

heres close up

i might not be expert doing with putty to fill up gaps/open holes at least its good experience for me to learn. 

 Just started doing Eisenhower  havent take picture of it yet.  Ill might put my project on hld since ill be working overnight but will do it on my day off and few hours before i go to work,  it should be pently of time til end of nov so im not worry. 

this is the Starfighters decals for my BigE. the A-4 Corsairs is a test mule for the decals,the model just need a clean up.   

nice jet u got raiderhall!

 okay update with my carriers,  the CV-69s hull is almost compete and its ready to be paint/airbrush.  as for CV-76  gotta to do some sanding   will post up the picture soon. 

 however, the CV-65,  i might not do this for this build cuz takes up too much of time since the plastic has alot of mistakes since i have to cut the "leftover" plastic from the pieces.  its from ARII and i realized that i dont really like the ARII.  but i will finish it when time comes but not for this build. (or get other one from revell germany in 720 scale who knows

here is the pix of the hull   i forgot to take the pictures of islands since battery died on me

here is Regean

here is Eisenhower

Eisenhower with Regean

will show u the island soon.

Have a nice Labor weekend!

seems quiet... 

no updates yet since im focus on preparing some of my models for the model show coming up this sunday then after that   will finish the carriers.

Silent Modeler,

I apologize for letting thins slide this last month.  I have been busy at work after taking a new position, and have been preparing for my last big ride of the season (coming up next weekend).  If not too late, I would recommend a hull red color for the bottom of the hull (Model Master makes this in their Acryl ship colors line, and Tamiya also makes one).  Working up, the next color is a black boot stripe between the hull red and haze grey.  The match that I used for haze grey with my modern carriers is Model Master Ocean Grey.  Being on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the shipyard, I used to have a few small paint ships, and this color matched well.  If you look, you may also find someone making a haze grey paint, but I have not run across any in my travels.  For the flight deck, I would recommend a dark grey, just short of black.  The non-skid applied to the flight deck and hangar bay is a coarse substance applied using large rollers (about six feet wide), or at least it was when I was in the shipyard in the late 80's and early 90's.  Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Raider Hall,

Those Starfighter decals look nice!  I purchased a 1/700 scale set for the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower for when I get around to building the Trumpeter release.

All,

The USS Hornet (CV-12) is coming along well.  I will see about getting some photos posted soon.

thats alrighty scotty.  looking forward to see the Hornet CV-12.  I almost did bought one from dragon.

I havent done anything on mine yet since i was so busy and havent start paint the hull yet.  whew  okay ill go for the ocean gray as u recommend.  i guess it goes for the Regean too? (Since i got gull flat gray for Regean) if so meaning all of the modern carriers in Nimitz class have the same type of color? 

update

 I already airbrush the bottom hull  (hull red and black soot)  have to do some touch up since im little rusty doing the black soot but ill make it.  Im almost done with the Eisenhower island and i lost one piece!!!    it flew somewhere in the basement  argh argh.  but i did use the extra part from the Regean which is 720 scale putting it on the 800 scale on the Eisenhower, at least it looks good but might looks little funny.  will post up picture later on. 

if anyone of you know any hint or easy way of doing black soot  on the waterline of ship  let me know so ican use it for future use.  thanks 

Sorry been AWOL for a bit; had the triple whammy of life/work/health issues, kept me away from building (or posting or much of anything) for awhile.  First thank for the nice comments you guys posted, er, all the way in March : )

Some answers - yes, it is the Monogram kit... I really do not recommend it, the details are non-existent. But you can make it a quick weekend build with your kid or family member. The landing and safety lines were covered nicely by Scott. I used a permanent calligraphy pen to ink the white lines; good idea, wrong pen. Ended up breaking the tip after doing many coats. I think a sharpie-type of marker will work better/faster than masking. I know you can also get decals... eventually I will try all methods and see what works for me. I get the pens (and most of my hobby supplies) at Michaels's art shop; gotta love those 50% off coupons!

raider-hall- Great work as usual.. I am still amazed what you can do with paper... those a/c look great too.

silentmodeler -  you ever got an answer to your color questions? Once I get to my home computer, I have some links to sites with loads of info on colors, etc. Steelnavy is a good place to look. When you take into consideration scale effect at 1:700, a specific paint shade may or may not be a close match, all depends. At my stage of modeling (hobby returnee) I do not worry too much about exact shade of grey and just make sure I don't overspray when I use the AB : ) I built some ARII 1:700 scale subs last year; not very impressed at all with their quality... if I ever buy more modern subs, will go for the Hobby Boss offerings and skip ARII.  Black soot? I know I have used black graphite (from  a lead pencil) to simulate soot on armor grills... not sure how it would work in a ship but the price is right! ;)

I had some fun with my build, took it Hollywood... Nimitz was the carrier featured in the cheesy old classic movie "Final Countdown", in which the carrier is "time-warped" to just before Pearl Harbor.

Here are the results:

I took an original poster for the movie The Final Countdown, and placed my Nimitz on the same place as the poster, which had the "big" Nimitz under the caption, and a smaller one further down the poster; that is where I placed mine:

My goofy addition: a tomcat chasing a zero!

I think I will get a call from Lucas Arts for the next Star Wars movie, their special effects division:

Now the Nimitz is back in modern times at the dry dock, getting some paint touch up, will post pics later this week. I also need to paint couple F14s (skip the zeros), paint couple radars and see if the decals still work.

Gentlemen,

I have once again been remiss in my duty of keeping up with my own Group Build, but do not feel special, as I neglected any and all Group Builds due to several recent events that have kept me far busier than I like.  Anyway, here are the photos of my now completed USS Hornet (CV-12) in 1945 camouflage.  The Dragon kit includes a couple of tugboats as a nice extra touch, and a total of eighteen aircraft (six each consisting of Helldivers, Avengers, and Hellcats).  This was a 500 plus piece build, and the planes alone were five parts each plus eight decals each. 
With no further adu, I give you the USS Hornet...

raider-hall,

I will look forward to seeing your progress.  I believe that my father-in-law served on the Hancock at one point during his career, so I can not wait to see it.

Nice Hornet u got scotty.  how did u do the paint job on the upper hull with island? 

i might not finish the two carrier on time but when its done ill post it up okay?  so far the regean carrier is almost done,  i had to do paint/airbrush the flight deck lines  (landing areas) since the decals was shorter but it looks great!  the yellow color might be too bright since i never knew the real color on the flight deck of todays carrier  overall its look good.  I have to fix some mistakes on the Eisenhowers flight deck since i can see spots of paint so have to fix that up.

like i said ill post it up when im done with it  maybe sometimes in dec or who knows before the end of nov.

heya

just let ya know i might finish the Regean soon and the Esienhower will be later.  Didnt realize how hard it can be when doing two ships at same time.  

so far the flight deck of Regean is almost complete.  I didnt notice i might made a mistake on the flight deck (will post it u soon)  since there was two different darkness of the same color (gunship gray)  since I was fixing the mistake i make when doing the lines (light gray) on landing area since i could see some light grays dots on the gunship gray which i forgot to add more tapes so i end up airbrush gunship gray again but you can see two different gunship gray  argh  at least im learning my mistakes. it looks good when looking at it but when close up u might see the difference.  still looking good so far.

Happy Thanksgiving

okay here is it.  the flight deck is completed  its long and hard work to do.

heres other one  

i did the lines on the landing area my airbrush and rest of the lines was decals   too difficult for me to do.  at least its fine looking ship.   will post more up soon

Silentmodeler,

Thanks for the comments.  I am not sure what part of the paint job your question is regarding.  Basically, what I did was to use a copier to enlarge the paint scheme in the instructions to images that were the size of the model.  I then used frisket film and Tamiya tape to lay out the patterns.  I applied the lightest gray first then went to the darker colors.  The island was painted by hand after the light gray was airbrushed, where the rest of the ship was airbrushed only, other than some touch-up in tight areas.

Your carrier deck is coming along just fine, and I am looking forward to seeing the finished product.

As far as the other folks are concerned, please feel free to update the group as you finish your projects.  We have run a little long on the original date anyway, so I am fine with you continuing to update.  As winter is arriving in my area, I will try to start getting back on line a bit more often.

hey gangs

here is my compete USS Ronald Reagan but havent start on my planes/helios/cranes.  will post up when its compete.

here is the island

heres back of the ship

feel free with comment or feedback.

silentmodeler,

Your Reagan is looking good!  Does your kit include decals for the airwing?  Just be patient if it does, as they can be a little frustrating being so small.

sorry guys,had a lot going on lately . Scotty I will have photos of work I've done on BigE Monday.

raider-hall,

Sounds good to me.  I enjoy seeing your new projects.

All,

I have finally started my Japanese I-400 submarine in ernest.  I will post some pictures as I get things assembled and painted.  The 1/350 scale planes are much easier to work with than the 1/700 scale I typically deal with for aircraft carriers.

Also, I went ahead and extended the due date.  I plan on this being the final extension.  If folks are interested at the end of this, I would be willing to consider starting another group build at that time.

really nice work.. I am enbarrased to show mine, but here it is:

Been awhile… I did “finish” this one couple months ago. The build started as a nostalgia build of an old kit… but this kit is a PITA and ended up being a bed for trying out techniques. Here is the finished product; not sure if I earned the badge but here it is. For sure, this is a six footer (you need to look at it from VERY far away lol)

One of the techniques I tried was using a black sharpie to “paint” the waterline. It works, as long as you leave enough time for it to dry. I put a Future coat all over (to practice weathering in the future, no pun intended), and some of the sharpie ink bleed down.:

Yellow deck lines..some I masked and painted (enamel, brush), some I free-hand brush painted. Little difference, amount same amount of time, same mediocre result. I had no guide, so I had to guess how large/long the lines are..ended up way over-scale. Worth to invest in a good yellow marker instead of spending hours masking.

Tried to dry-brush the catapult lines, results speak for themselves:

One of the (many many) problems with this kit is the massive amount of raised details, especially on deck.

The decals, of course, disintegrated upon contact with water… I tried stencil and free hand (the two ID numbers):

At this scale, I rather paint the numbers or have good quality decals that really settle down.

The base “nameplate” decal also disintegrated. I did not even try the superstructure numbers:

So… I will call her DONE and leave it up to you if I earned the badge : )

Cheers

been sick for awhile,but back on the job. I'll make the deadline this time. this is John Leyland's 1/720 BigE

 my hope is that my build will look like this.         This a photo of BigE when she was first born.              photos of the build as of now.

JMart,

Don't beat yourself up too badly.  If nothing else, you finished the build! I would have suggested a dull coat of some type over the marker ink to seal it, but I am surprised that the Future would cause it to run as it did.  For deck lines in the past, I have used dry transfer stripes to good effect.  I have found them in the past in the Railroad section, and they are made in red, white, and yellow as needed on flight decks.  I will lay down either the white or yellow lines, and then I have either used a ruler and a red drafting pen (.5 mm) or a paintbrush (if the line markings are molded into the deck).  My Saratoga was the first time that I have used decals, and they turned out OK, on the Hornet I thought that they were a little offset even though I measured twice before laying each section.

In conclusion, the badge is yours, and thanks for taking part in the build!

raider-hall,

Fantastic work once again!   My Father-in-Law served aboard Big E shortly after commissioning as part of the airwing. 

That water display is very impressive.  What kind of dimensions does it have, and can you let the group know how you constructed it?

Hi Scotty, she is the same size as the Tamiya BigE. I build her as a step by step process. sort of like they build real carriers now. gonna add whip att and other things today some p.e was added yesterday.              Happy Modeling.                                                                                                                                                                     

Raider- hall – Your work is always topnotch; always follows your WIPs. Great pics from the E; look forward to the rest.

Scott -  At least it was a learning experience : )  Over at ModelShipWrights we have a WWII Flattops GB, and I will try and build the Dragon 1:700 Essex and not screw up as much lol

I have used sharpie in the past for details, windows, rigging… first time it “runs” with Future. My guess is that I did not wait long enough for it to “dry” before Future application. Great tip on the dry transfers… funny, my (not so local) LHS has basically transformed into a train/RC shop. Maybe I should give them a visit to look for the transfers.

Again, thanks for the patience and hosting the GB; FSM is in sore need of more ship GBs!

cheers

PS - Since this GB runs until July, I may post some WIP pics of the Essex once I start it, if that is ok.