USS Langley: Breakthrough

Hi Don;

       What I did a while back may help you in the category of not filling holes that Need! to stay open. I had some Catapults in 1/350 that had some open mesh catwalks. Yeah, very Fine! So, I mixed the right color paint with the right amount or thinner and then Dry brushed them. Four times to be exact. The first time with Enamel. The rest with super thinned Acrylic in the same color.

       The Enamel acted as the primer. Oh! Before putting these parts on, I pickled them in White Vinegar overnite. Rinsed well and Air dryed. This microscopically etched the brass surface to accept paint of any kind!

Guys, had trouble posting for the last three weeks or so.  Customer service could not fix problems with account, so was forced to create my third account.  I'm the old Don S and rocketman 2000.  I was able to use old icon, however.  Found I had to finish the bridge and rear deck structures, however.  The later are just about done- pictures soon.

I've had my fair share of projects where I performed the old 2 steps forward, 1 step back dance - some of them ended up being my favorites!

I know it's maddening - but makes for good reading!

The wire supports worked well.  The net supports are all done, and I have been doing repairs to the girders I mangled.  I have a coat of paint on it, and am almost ready to get back to work on the hull and put on structures that support flight deck.

Unfortunately the top of the deck was not fastened as well to the plank I had it sitting on and some of the deck supports ended up sitting above the surface of the flight deck.  I am grinding off those ends.  Using my Dremel Stylus 2000 for that- wonderful tool!

Now THAT's clever.

Rather than locking the instrument, you let the rubber band maintain the tension. Different sized rubber bands can provide a lighter or increased tension as needed so you can avoid too much 'crush'. Then, you can either manually open them or, if the tension is light enough, you can simply pull it away.

Luvspinball

Just don't lock them.  Let the rubber band do the work of holding tension.  Trick there is finding the right size rubber band!

I have lots of "donated" hemostats I have collected over the years.  Very handy tools.

Bob

 

Ah, I get it now.

I only have one.  Don't use it a lot, so it lasts fine.

Just don't lock them.  Let the rubber band do the work of holding tension.  Trick there is finding the right size rubber band!

I have lots of "donated" hemostats I have collected over the years.  Very handy tools.

Bob

HooYah Deep Sea

Another little trick is to use hemostats and with the tension applied with a small rubber band rather than the locking tangs. Still holds securely but releases a lot easier; no side twisting. And, they also come in SO MANY different styles.

 

I need a very clean release to not turn the boom.  That is why I had been using regular tweezers.  It took a bit of practice with the cross locks but it usually works now.  How do you get a clean release with the band and hemostat?

HooYah Deep Sea

Another little trick is to use hemostats and with the tension applied with a small rubber band rather than the locking tangs. Still holds securely but releases a lot easier; no side twisting. And, they also come in SO MANY different styles.

 

Bill

Another little trick is to use hemostats and with the tension applied with a small rubber band rather than the locking tangs. Still holds securely but releases a lot easier; no side twisting. And, they also come in SO MANY different styles.

Yep, locking tweezers are ESSENTIAL with both PE and any scale smaller than 1/72.

I have multiples with both the ridged gripping tips and smooth tips so they won't mar a finish.

Glad to hear you finally got it licked!

rocketman2000

I am learning to use a crossed self lock tweezer- that has reduced the number of drops.

My absolute favorite, indispensable modeling tool. I've got several pairs w/ different tip shapes and degrees of grip.

Wow Don,impressive,those are some details that I wouldn't even try,great work.

For almost a month now I have been traumatized trying to attach the safety net brackets to the underside of the flight deck.  The brackets hang down with a boom sticking out.  With the deck still inverted they look like towers with a boom sticking out, like an el resting on the end of the bottom leg so the long side of the L sticks out parallel to the bottom of the deck.

The problem was keeping the CG of the mount over a tiny o.0001 square inch base tab long enouh for the CA glue to set.  Further, this must be done without touching any of the exist already mounted booms which had a cross-section of 6 mil by 8 mil.  The semi hard brass, once bent, is almost impossible to bend back straight.

My new solution is to do away with the PE supports entirely, and replace then with 20 mil brass rod bent into an L-shape.  I made a simple jig to make and trim each piece in less than a minute.  Last go of it I bent four pieces, and then got them mounted in five minutes.

The first four pieces on the right are the kit PE.  All the pieces to the right are the twenty mil Ls.  I drilled holes for the short part of the L. It will stand by itself long enough for the CA gel to set.  Still hard for my eldery hands to hold the tweezers still enough- I usually drop each piece about three times putting it in, but that is still much faster than the PE pieces.  I am learning to use a crossed self lock tweezer- that has reduced the number of drops.

My shop cleanup is just about complete, so the Langley is going back on the bench.  First part that went on bench was the base I had been working on, in order to fit the nameplate.

Here is the closeup of the nameplate, a decal applied over a polished rectangle of sheet brass.

Next, the flight deck went back on the bench.  When I thought I was all done on the deck and structure PE, I had forgot the support pieces that support the nets and the nets themselves.  I hope I can paint the nets without filling in the fine openings.

Strongeagle

 

 

 

rocketman2000

Or- are they just stored willy-nilly wherever they can find a place? I know not many of you would have served on her, but does anyone know where they stowed those masts?

 

I don't know where they stowed the masts, however I ran across a website (I've attached the link below) that reports the provisions made to convert the Jupiter to the Langley.  Among other requirements were "two removable masts fitted to the flight deck centerline."  Because the masts were an enumerated requirement, I suspect that there was some space actually engineered into the conversion to stow the masts.  Like yourself, I'm guessing it was somewhere in the hangar deck. My experience, in serving on two aircraft carriers, is that everthing gets put somewhere on the hangar deck.  You have a worthy project ahead of you, good luck.

http://home.grandecom.net/~cvproj/cv01.htm

 

Thank you very much.  I downloaded that very informative page.

BTW, shop cleanup is just about done.  Hope to have Langley on bench by Saturday.  Turns out I still have quite a bit of PE to do on the deck than I realized.  I think that time spent on cleanup was a good break to recover from previous PE effort.

rocketman2000

Or- are they just stored willy-nilly wherever they can find a place? I know not many of you would have served on her, but does anyone know where they stowed those masts?

http://home.grandecom.net/~cvproj/cv01.htm

You're a braver man than me Don,  doing that PE.  

Amazing job. 

That's a lot of metal Don,really looks great !!!

Thank, skiphas.  Glad you posted.  I will check this out and see if there is any way I can correct this, since I have finished the girder work.

Have not worked on the Langley for several weeks.  Took some time off for a few weeks to modify my workbench, and clean up the shop, which is a major job.

JoeSMG

Don that looks awesome. It's almost sad but once you turn the deck rightside up and attach it to the hull 70% of you hard work will be extremely difficult to see, imperfections and masterful strokes alike. Are you planing to paint everything up and add all lower deck details before that? Can't imagin doing it afterwards is... doable.

Also attaching all those connecting points to the hull could be a bear! Any plans for that assault? I'm thinking no glue until it sits to your satisfaction and then apply glue in place using capillary action, pins, toothpicks, lots of patience and a little luck.

 

I'll put it on tall support columns

I do realize attaching all those support columns to the main deck will be a tough job, but I still think it will be easier than gluing just the support structure to the deck the way the plans show.  Attaching it to the flight deck as I am doing will hopefully add to stiffness.  I think the PE girderwork will be very floppy, and bend like crazy.

BTW, learned a trick for working with small pieces of PE.  I had a hard time putting on small pieces without getting small amounts of glue on tweezers.  I now rub beeswax on the tips of the pliers periodically.  Wax prevents tweezers sticking to the piece even if glue gets on the tweezers.

Don that looks awesome. It's almost sad but once you turn the deck rightside up and attach it to the hull 70% of you hard work will be extremely difficult to see, imperfections and masterful strokes alike. Are you planing to paint everything up and add all lower deck details before that? Can't imagin doing it afterwards is... doable.

Also attaching all those connecting points to the hull could be a bear! Any plans for that assault? I'm thinking no glue until it sits to your satisfaction and then apply glue in place using capillary action, pins, toothpicks, lots of patience and a little luck.

TheMongoose

Even from a distance you can tell that girder system looks super well done!

 

And only from a distance

lovely work don , I have this kit in my stash , your build will be invaluable to me mate .

Even from a distance you can tell that girder system looks super well done!

I have now finished the main PE girders for the flight deck support structure.  I am discarding the PE web structure between the girder uprights, and replacing them with the kit's styrene webs.  They don't look that bad, and sure are easier to put in place.  They are more rigid and stay in a plane

I have made some homemade tools that are invaluable for folding and gluing the main square girders.  The wood L-shaped piece is sized to the ID of the girders.  After sanding smooth I rubbed beeswax on it so any glue that gets on it will not stick.  The other gadget glued to a board is one of the plastic kit girders with a piece of brass sheet glued to each side.  I bent the tops out a bit to create a slight fishmouth to make inserting the PE girders.  This piece squares up the cross section, and holds it while I glue the hinge seams.

This PE work is very stressing, so I have to take a lot of breaks.  During these breaks I have now began work on superstructure.

jeaton01

Don, I have some success with using a very thick CA, a small amount has holding power because of the hign viscosity, and it won't set until you hit it with accelerator.

 

Yep, I use the gel stuff for most of the joints.  It does not stick those problem panels, however.  I assume the thickness and line widths are to blame.  The beams are 6 x 16 mill!

This seems to be confirmed when I started to remove the old pieces to replace them with the plastic ones.  I had been worried about damaging the sections I wanted to keep, the majority of the PE.  No problem- those mangled pieces  pulled right off with a slight tug!