USS Langley: Breakthrough

She really is coming along nicely.

You must be well past the halfway mark now.

I did it!  I got the cranes installed.  Turned out they were too wide by a slight amount, so I had to cut a small piece out of the crosswise crane and glued them back together.  Rails are no longer parallel.  But you won't be able to see them except from direct from the side, so I think it will be okay.

Trying to decide whether to put safety nets on before installing deck, or afterwards.  I am leaning towards doing it afterwards.  In either case it will be a bear of a job installing the deck.  The bottoms of the girders do not line up exactly with the mounting areas.  I taped those areas with masking tape so there is a good gluing surface.  I made a little tool that just fits inside the girders so I can bend them slightly without damaging them (I hope!).

Don, Looks outstanding. Despite the errant PE it looks fine. Besides if someone makes a big deal about it, tell them “OK YOU fix it". 

You are doing great.Looks fantastic.

that looks great don , looking forward to more .

Thought I was ready to mount the flight deck, but while looking at the box art, realized I needed figures on lower decks as well as flight decks.  Also, I will have to repaint some of them, as my set has no officers!

missileman2000

  Also, I will have to repaint some of them, as my set has no officers!

Oh? That mean the ship will finally run smoothly? (us old EM's never give up tweeking the brass)   

I've started installing the deck.  This will take a bit more work.  The girders come down through some of the upper decks and the rectangular openings for the girders are a very close fit!  On several I have had to widen the rectangle.  I have the rear part of the deck within a quarter inch of fitting, and the bow probably will fit if I could get the rear down.  Problem is now, I have a girder stuck in one of those areas- I can't get it back up to work on the opening.  I am using a scalpel to go in the joint and slowly cut away the deck plastic.

Here is hopefully the last hangup.

I have bent the girder rearward as far as it will go, so I have to increase the space to the front : (

that look's like a fun exercise don , I feel for you mate , half a millimeter here and there makes a huge difference , but I'm sure you'll beat it .

Well, I got it.  Deck is all the way down, and glued.  One big thing I found is that some of the boats are longer than the platform.  I had them misplaced by a few mils, and had to take them off, to reinstall later.

I will be putting on the wood deck soon.  This deck is from the Trumpeter add-on kit.  I have only installed one wood deck so far on a plastic kit.  It was from Pontos, and the adhesive was pretty good.  Has anyone here installed a deck from Trumpeter?  If so, how good was the adhesive?  I did notice that the yellow markings around the elevator are not printed on the deck.  I hope there is a decal for that.

Amazing workmanship!

You pulled attaching the deck off with way less drama than I feared, well done and it looks great. After all that PE work you decided to add a wood deck too?! You really are ticking off all my least favorite things to do on a model ship build - Add a boat load of rigging after the deck for the hat trick :)

Any plan for any aircraft yet? A group of bi-planes will top her off nicely, though plenty off folk leave them out.

I feel your pain on the deck, Don, but in my case it was the awful Revell kit of the USS Enterprise. Everything fit great during dry fitting and I thought I was home free ... then I applied the glue, and everything went sideways, simultaneously, in half a dozen spots.

Suffice it to say, there was a lot of Evergreen strip used to camouflage the many gaps.

Got the deck on.  Wasn't too bad a task, and it really sticks.

There are little rectangles cut out of the deck that I suppose represent some sort of structure support.  However, that looks like it leaves holes the thickness of the wood in depth.  I don't believe they would leave holes that big for the planes to land over.  The deck is fifteen mil, so I am painting strips of syrene ship color and will be cutting  them to size to put in these holes.

I just applied the Trumpeter supplied wooden deck on their USS Des Moines kit and it went down rock solid. In some places the fit was perfect but in others it was slightly off and required some slight trimming but I'm more than happy with the outcome. 

I've been enjoying your post on the Langley and think I'll order one soon. Great job.

Well!

  I have to say, ya Kicked Butt on this !! I have been sceptical ot wood model decks. Maybe I will try one on my Partially Built(by someone else!) "Tirpitz" to cover the glue flaws. She's a mild "Glue Bomb",  But examining her, this is her second go at restoration I Believe. Used ship ? You Betchya!

I got all the boats and other stuff back on, that I knocked off putting the flight deck on.

Also began putting down nets.  That is going well once I figured out the placement.  The drawing on the instruction is not very clear.  Once you start from the bow, you just repeat pieces "1" you are close to stern, and hope the pieces for that match up with the strings of 1s

Back to work on the Langley.  Too much PE- had to take a month to do easier things.  Today I finally took a deep breath and got to work on the yellow markings on the flight deck.  Decals don't work on the rough wood.  I figured best bet was to mask off and drybrush.  But it was a one-shop thing- if they didn't look right there was little chance of correcting it.  It worked!

Remaing work is to build the aircraft and place them on the deck, and add figures around planes, and in the safety nets.

Each airplane is a biplane with lots of PE rigging.  These will not go fast- a dozen to do!

WOW Don great job.  The stripes look just right.

That looks amazing Don. You are doing a great job. Keep up the fantastic work.

Started the planes with the F4B.  It is tiny!  I stopped that and decided to come up the learning curve with the Torpedo bomber, the largest of the planes.  It has a wierd origami style LG, two pieces, with hard to understand diagonal folding.  Have lost two PE pieces (one aircraft worth).  Oh well, the missing bomber will have already been launched

I started to put the star decals on the wings of a couple of the bombers I am building, and discovered something about the decal sheet folks building this kit should be aware of.  The decal film covers the whole decal sheet, like homemade decals.  Didn't notice that until I had cut a strip of two stars and had it in the water.  I was able to take them out and trim them, but it was a lot of work.  Cutting around those tiny decals to trim them is no easy task either.  Good news is that the film is thin and very transparent.

really nice work don 

This is an impressive thread Don (like all of your normally). 

It's aldo a fun and informative read. Looking forward to your next update.

Ben / DRUMS01

steve5

really nice work don 

 

I gave up on the TBs, and moved on to the TM2 regular bombers.  I want the torpedo planes with engines running and am having trouble with my turning prop decals.  I hope to have good decals by the time I get the level bombers done and will then do the torpedo planes.  I am saving the fighters for last- they are TINY, TINY TINY!

missileman2000

I am saving the fighters for last- they are TINY, TINY TINY!  

yeah mate and the older we get the smaller they are .

missileman2000

...I want the torpedo planes with engines running and am having trouble with my turning prop decals... 

How would punched-out discs of thin clear plastic work, Don?  I'm thinking of something like grocery packaging, or the plastic packaging used with dress shirts.  Sanded with a fine grid, they could give the look of spinning propellers.  Or would the material be too thick to look right in that scale? 

Aha!

     I used to do that on the old REVELL carriers I built. I used a small art paper punch(smaller than normal Holes)and.005 plastic sheet from a notebook cover!

the Baron

 

 

missileman2000

...I want the torpedo planes with engines running and am having trouble with my turning prop decals... 

 

 

 

How would punched-out discs of thin clear plastic work, Don?  I'm thinking of something like grocery packaging, or the plastic packaging used with dress shirts.  Sanded with a fine grid, they could give the look of spinning propellers.  Or would the material be too thick to look right in that scale? 

 

Well, that is the base of it, but I then put a decal on.  I scan the kit props, than use a function called rotational blur, which blurs the edges of the blades.  Problem is that the needed diameter (3/8 in) is one I do not have a punch for, so I am having to cut them by hand with scissors, without scraping the decal.  I am now trying to cut the disks first, and then see if I can apply the decals properly centered.

Don

Not sure how close you are to one of their stores but Harbor Freight  has a 9 piece punch set:

  PITTSBURGH  Hollow Punch Set, 9 Pc.Punch holes with precision ground flutes and cutting edges ^$9⁹⁹

and a more pricie

LIFETIME CARBIDE Punch And Die Set, 9 Pc. $3499

 both sets include a 3/8 punch

Just a thought to help ease the process a bit.