Aircraft Carrier Group Build (July 07 to July 2010)

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...

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.

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 

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? 

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.

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.

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!

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

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.   

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. 

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

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

nice pix u got raider hall

 i have decided to do other carrier.  ill be doing the 1/800 Enterprise (65) and 1/720 Ronald Regan after i finish my other projects.  should be pently of time for me to do til end of nov. 

does anyone know the colors on the those ships from bottom hull to top hull and on flight deck/island  let me know thanks  sometimes i dont trust the painting intruction from the kit, so basically i dont know their true colors since i never see an actually carrier before. 

Gentlemen,

Yes, I have set this November as THE END of this build.  You still have time to complete your entries.  I just received the USS Hornet (CV-12), and will build it next for this group.  Please keep us posted as you progress.

Scotty

deadline is end of nov or? this nov or since it says nov 08.  let me know thanks smiles

Hiya Scotty, well a carrier isn't a carrier without her airwing. I bought a lot of 1/350 Spads and 1/350 Crusaders as well 1/350 Skyhawks. That what take time to do. Also I had to build some hulls for friends that took time away from BigE. The ship is done needs just a good touch up.  I will try do show some photos on Monday.

Knock, knock...

Is there anybody out there?

Just checking in as the build seems to be drying up.  I have plans of starting my I-400 aircraft carrying submarine when I finish up some business travel in a couple of days.  I thought that I would see if anyone is still wrapping up a kit for this before the end arrives in November.

raider hall,

Nice work once again, please keep us posted on your progress.

JMart,

For the rough start, the finished product does not look too bad at all. As far as the e-mail, I do not recall receiving any, my work address is sehollingshead@aep.com, and I check my mail throughout the day there, so please use that for personal messaging.

silentmodeler and JMart,

I have had pretty good success using dry transfer lines for the various carrier deck markings.  The ones I typically use are made by Woodland Scenics (they specialize in railroad decals) who produce white, black, yellow, and red to the best of my recollection.  I typically lay down a solid yellow or white line (the dry transfers come in three widths on the sheet and are perfect for 1/700 scale), then use a red ink drafting pen to fill in the second color.

There are three types of lines used on modern carriers, or at least there were on the two that I served aboard.  The white lines on JMart's ship mark the landing area.  Yellow and red lines were painted around the edges of all elevators (aircraft and weapons), electrical connection boxes (they plug in the aircraft to start them up), and the launch station between catapults 1 and 2.  White and red lines marked safety areas next to the catapults (non-essential personnel stand on the far side of the line when preparing to launch).

I hope that this helps.

JMart

Nice job on ur carrier.  Nimitz class in Monogram kit?  mmm  I dont remember seeing one in monogram  just the battleships.  guess i must be baby when it came out LOL. Im impressive that you can fix her up nicely smiles.  it gave me some ideas to fix the parts up for the future projects. 

on ur flight deck,  the umm lines,  sorry i dont know the name of it,  how do u paint it,  do u mask it up or is there other techquine (sp) to do that?  and ur right  its def a learning experience!

Here is an example of how bad the parts fit:

After fixing up the seams and bad fit:

More fixes:

The hangars have absolutely no detail and are just an empty space:

Construction finished, flight deck painted:

Some fixing of the fit between the bridge and the deck:

Flight lines painted, catapults dry-brushed and some weathering attempted. Not fully accurate, but best I can do at the moment. Many techniques tried, like using a pilot pen to draw the white lines instead of masking/painting. Definitive learning experience; much time spent fixing up errors. Looks "Ok", not good but not bad. Good training for another carrier build : )

I also painted the anti-fouling red hull, have to take some pics.

What is left is some touch-up and to build the planes. The tomcats are molded in stored mode, need to make some surgery to make the tomcat look in flight:

I hope to finish the planes today and finish the "setup". Not a good kit or a good build, but I guess its an Ok first try.

Greetings all - sorry I missed couple evolutions, work/life issues kept me from building, not to mention the monogram Nimitz which is quite a sorry kit (what we remember from our youth is very different! Lol)

Scott - hope you are healing well... you ever get my emails about teaching/adjunct?

Raider-hall - top notch work as usual! Thanks for the updates

Silentmodeler- congrats on your third place!

I will post pics of the monogram Nimitz in a couple days (or later today). A  very VERY basic kit, took me a bit to fix all the seams and gaping holes on the construction. No sense spending time scratchbuilding or fixing her up, so Im making something fun out of it.  All construction is finished, one paint layer done, need to fix couple parts and start painting/detailing the deck.  The 3 tomcats are in folded wing position, so I have to do some surgery to make them airborne.

Cheers