HMS Illustrious

I'll refrain from more stupid iPhone photos until I get outside Saturday.

Tonight I glued down the front 1/3 of the flight deck. Its designed to set down inside of the hull sides.

Like most every other part of the kit, there are no ledges, locating lugs etc. so it takes a lot of care or else there's going to be Patrick to pay for a big seam and sand job later in plain sight.

I've also ordered Model Master 507 A, B and C online.

The general design of the hull brought back a memory of a kit dad brought back from England; the Airfix 1/600 Victorious.

At the time probably 1966 or so I was banging out Revell Essex class carriers and thought that it was a hard to build and badly detailed kit. But I do remember those Sea Vixens, curious boom tailed beasts.

The 1/600 Ark Royal is also around; both on Amazon for dinner money. Fulmars, Swordfish.

Fred, after I get this beast in final approach, I really am going to tackle that CVE/ Bogue project using the Hawaiian Pilot hull you gave me. This kit yields up six decent little Martlets in 1/400 that would set on her Ruler class deck.

The stumbling block- I ordered Bogue class drawings from Floating Drydock. Irritation- although they are photocopies, they are "blueline" drawings. That makes them faint and almost impossible to reproduce as enlargements for station sections, etc.

But I'll be willing to try again.

Cheers and Rum for all.

Well done and carry on. We all should be used to long eons of wait time for finished projects. I myself am starting to commence to maybe think about my Liberty aircraft transport project.

Fred

GMorrison, try this link if you haven't already to download the pdf drawings of the bogue class. www.hnsa.org/.../cve53-d79.pdf

Great!

GM,

An interesting subject and build, thanks for posting your build and I will be following this.

Steve

I'm very pleased that you all are interested!

The design of the flight deck fit to the hull is a first for me.

I suppose that the same people who designed all of those excellent Heller sailing ships did this one as well. The deck fits down in to the sides of the hull. in a certain way this makes sense as the ship was a flush edged deck, but it really compounds minor alignment and mold flaw problems, as those of us who model mast kits know all too well.

It will also cause a fair amount of filler and sanding before painting.

But I started at one end and have spent a series of evenings gluing down a couple of inches at a time.

Tonight I glued the stern together, leaving about 3 inches to go amid ship.

It's a good example of why having the model on a solid base really helps. I have also run a Sharpie around the seam forward so that the joint in the horizontal surface is apparent.

Have you made any further progress?

Bill

Just lost a whole post.

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh I hate that... my ASUS tablet does that all the time with this site...

I got the deck down inside the hull halves. I am using much more styrene solvent than I usually do as opposed to CA.

Hellers plastic is soft, almost gooey. It's very hard to sand, it balls up. OTOH the Testors clear glue melts it so fast that joints cure in a night.

Then I filled the seam, which is on the flight deck all around the perimeter.

I masked off the hull red and sprayed a 1/2" or so band of black all around.

Put down a 1mm piece of tape on the black all around on the top edge of the red mask. I usually do it differently- black first then below, then above.

But this model is a different kind of ship.

The hull sides are like a building.

All kinds of openings and all kinds of projections. To the point where I seriously considered brush painting the whole thing.

I have really been working on that skill- Stik I did not use an airbrush on my Neptune in your GB.

But it's a big model so I will rely on the Badger.

Anyways, next stage is camouflage on the sides.

I plugged up all of the galleries with tissue.

During all of this all three Model Master RN colors came in.

One thing missing is the resin replacement island- out of stock at WEM.

John?

Last question- paint the deck first and mask it, or paint the sides?

Again it's a very unusual hull for us USN carrier builders.

No overhang, just a sharp edge.

Question- a lot of parts glued all along the edge of the flight deck that are these 1/4 round scoop shapes that are open upwards, beyond the edge of the flight deck.

Vents?

The PE has grilled that go over the horizontal opening.

I believe you can get ahold of a 1/720 scale Ark Royal that comes with a destroyer. I believe it was Revell of Germany I definitely want to build that one again especially with the plethora of 1/700 RN aircraft put out by Trumpeter.

Mike,

That kit came with a Tribal class destroyer. I remember it fondly!

Bill

Me too. I remember buying it shortly after it was released in the USA. It probably was the best of the original Revell 1/720 series - which, as I recall, slightly predated the 1/700 Japanese 1/700 "Waterline Series."

It's worth noting that that kit and the mediocre Aoshima  Illustrious/Victorious are the ONLY British WWII carriers ever in 1/700 (or 1/720) scale in plastic - and both are about thirty years old. There's a big gap waiting to be filled.