I posted a couple of weeks ago that I had finished the "kit" parts of my Trumpeter 1/700 Yorktown (CV-5), and it was time to move on to post-kit detailing. Here's what I've done so far:
Hull numbers
Okay, this is technically part of the kit, but still. The model looks so much better with those tiny hull numbers on the bow and stern.
Aftermarket 5" .38 cal. open mounts
Yorktown carried eight of these, and the kit parts are not bad, but not not great, so I picked up some Fine Molds aftermarket parts, and have started replacing the kit parts. The new parts are shown on the flight deck, with the kit parts still in place.
Foremast
I had already replaced the original kit masts (shown in red to the left) with scratchbuilt masts, shown in their original white plastic and brass photoetch on the right.
Just for comparison, the island on the old Tamiya kit is shown at left - you can see that the masts have no detail there either, and the CXAM radar is way underscale. The principal problem with the Tamiya island - that it's too narrow - is obvious.
The original masts I built were scaled to blueprints of the ship revised to 1940, but the foremast looked too small, and after realizing it was still missing the YE homing beacon on a lengthened foretopmast I decided to start over. I built a new mast scaled slightly larger, and added a topmast to support a photoetched YE radar, and the two vertical pieces shown in photos.
As you can tell from the final picture at right, I've been adding more detailing to the island area since attaching the new foremast, including some black rigging, the ladder to the foretop, yardarm extensions and weather equipment, and a couple of sections of photoetched railing. As well as filling in the bridge windows with black paint, of course.
Next up will be adding more rigging and some flags, as well as adding railings throughout the model.