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On the Double Build Road Again ...

283439569_10227766852623977_914291353603323384_nThis time it's a 1944 and 1969 USS Hornet (CV/CVS-12).  The former is pretty much an out of the box Dragon Essex (CV-9), which approximates Hornet's wartime appearance better than their Hornet does, actually. 

The latter is a heavily kitbashed Trumpeter Ticonderoga (CV-14).  At this point we've got the major hull and stern alterations done and new flight deck installed, and about half the gallery deck.  It's looking much more serious with the brand-new Model Monkey island.

I can already tell I messed up by adding the waterline plate - it doubles the problem of a kit that already had the ship a good six scale feet too far out of the water.  But it might be able to sand it down - and a thick boot topping stripe never killed anybody.  It also has me thinking about a water based - for a waterline model.  That might be fun ...

May 26, 2022 in Models, Space Exploration, World War II | Permalink | Comments (0)

2021 Modeling Review - Four Essexes, Nine Aircraft and a 88mm


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https://imodeler.com/2022/01/2021-modeling-review-four-essexes-nine-aircraft-and-a-88mm/

January 01, 2022 in History - Naval, Models, World War II | Permalink | Comments (0)

1/700 USS Randolph (CV-15) – August 1945

1https://imodeler.com/2022/01/1-700-uss-randolph-cv-15-august-1945/

January 01, 2022 in History - Naval, Models, World War II | Permalink | Comments (0)

Leppla/Liska "Sail 12" SBD Dauntless – Battle of the Coral Sea

2021-12-31 17.46.43

https://imodeler.com/2022/01/leppla-liska-sail-12-sbd-dauntless-battle-of-the-coral-sea/

January 01, 2022 in History - Naval, Models, World War II | Permalink | Comments (0)

SBD Upgrade

03979EBB-776D-433D-A39A-2308110693B4From when I started collecting kits almost 30 years ago my 1/72 SBD experience has been limited to the old Airfix/MPC kit.  While I have a couple of the Hawk/Testors kits, even I could tell they were too crude to be worth building.  I also bought every decal sheet I saw, so I probably now have enough decals to build well over a dozen aircraft, although at least half the decals are woefully inaccurate - usually the wrong size.

At present I have two of the Airfix/MPC kits built as Dick Best’s B1 at Midway and Leppla/Liska’s “Sail 12” at Coral Sea.  But in addition to being bad kits (and poorly built), both are now the wrong colors.  Best’s SBD-3 has a upper color I stopped using years ago in favor of FS 35189 for M-485, and the underside is FS 36440 which, although recommended by many sources, is not the FS 36357 of M-495.  The Leppla/Liska aircraft has the right color for the upper surfaces, but for some reason I used a different light gray for the underside.  

I had planned on simply repainting and upgrading, but recently I was able to get my hands of three of the Hasegawa kits - one SBD-5 and two SBD-2/3s (which have all the parts for -5s).  As the -2/3s kits come with markings for the Leppla/Lisko aircraft (many of which I’m not using for reasons I’ll explain in that build) that will be the first build.  After studying all the decals in my stash, I think the second will be a similar February/March 1942 Enterprise CAG aircraft with the oversized markings.  The third will be the SBD-5 box-art aircraft - a summer 1943 SBD-5 on the new Lexington with the red-outlined national markings.  

The Hasegawa kits I have been searching for for so long are no longer state of the art, even with aftermarket resin and PE - there’s a new Flyhawk kit out.  But it may be a while before I have that, so I am saving it for the Best replacement aircraft.  And with some aftermarket, it’s a tolerable build, and there are numerous SBDs I want on the shelves, so I’m still happy to have all three.

You can never have too many SBDs.

November 27, 2021 in History - Naval, Models, World War II | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nine Weeks of OOB

0C0D12DE-FAAE-4506-B697-BBA3AA0FD21BBack in mid-August I decided to take a little time off a nearly-complete 1/700 carrier model - yet another Essex-class ship - to try something a little different.  I wanted to build one of the 1/72 aviation subjects I had been adding to my stash for years.  I have been avoiding them because my airbrushing was poor, and a plane would show it much more easily than a 1/700 carrier, which has few large exposed surfaces that aren’t broken up by detailing and weathering.

Plus, I was tired from several years of ship (and Apollo launch tower) scratchbuilding where almost every piece had to be hand cut based on study of old photos and plans.  I was ready for some OOB (that’s “out of the box” for non-modelers) building for a while.  Let somebody else drive for a while.

Little did I know that nine weeks later I’d have eight completed 1/72 projects, and a very different skill set for modeling going forward.

Equipment Changes

The first subject was a F6F Hellcat with an aftermarket cockpit and decal set with markings for Alex Vraciu’s aircraft.  The painting was terrible, highlighting that I really could not airbrush a dividing line.  The model was saved by the fact that the matt finish was so bad it actually made the model look weathered better than my weathering attempts did.

Next up was the first of several kits I picked up at King Hobby in Austin in late August - an old Airfix Avenger.  I had built a far worse kit as George Bush’s aircraft a couple of years ago, and wanted to start building better versions.  I decided to avoid the whole airbrushing dividing lines issue by building it as Bert Earnest’s TBF at Midway so I could mask the line, and three good things happened.

First, I switched out my airbrush tip from a 5 to a new 3 and the difference was like night and day.  I could airbrush smooth coats and work in smaller areas.  Second, I started using Vallejo Model Air paints and for the first time got the upper and lower colors right on a 1942 aircraft.  While the upper was still Testors, and underside was Vallejo from their USN set, both looked great.  And finally, I was able to disarticulate the canopy and show the aircraft with the pilot’s canopy pushed back.  The final result wasn’t great, but I was making progress, and getting good use out of the aftermarket decals I had to build a historically significant aircraft. And I learned a lot about my subject, which is why I enjoy this in the first place.

Next up was another of the Austin kits - a reissue of a classic Airfix German 88mm with tractor.  I had always wanted to build an 88 on its road wheels and this model was a great subject.  I got to experiment with paints and weathering for an Afrika Korps vehicle, and saw what an 88 was actually made up of. And ended up with a shelf-friendly kit.

Better kits

Next up was a Trumpeter Flying Tigers P-40.  This was the best aircraft kit I’d worked on in a while, and I really enjoyed the research into the subject.  This is where I tipped completely into using Vallejo Model Air paints after I found a set of China/Burma/Pacific paints at the local Hobby Lobby, including the bespoke paints Curtiss used for the RAF aircraft that were hijacked for the AVG in China.  The canopy worked great slid back, and the paint went down almost perfectly - until I tried freehand painting the second camouflage color.  Not so great.

Worse kits

Next up was the third Austin kit - an old (and cheap) Frog Junkers Ju 88 Luftwaffe bomber.  I’d been wanting to build one of the awkward Luftwaffe twin engine bombers, and this looks like a cheap way to do it.  Boy was I wrong.  The research into the aircraft persuaded me that I needed aftermarket decals, so the final price ended up being the same as if I’d bought the newer kit that was also on the shelf.

The kit itself was the most primitive I’d ever built.  I’d heard of Frog kits, but never built one, at least under that name.  It was really more of a scale model toy than an accurate miniature.  Then, although the airbrush was now giving me great results and more flexibility, and I was now masking camouflage panels instead of brush painting them, the 1942 paint scheme of RLM 65, 70 and 71 was giving me two dark greens that were almost indistinguishable - the same problem I’d had with a 1940 Stuka I built a couple of years ago,  I ended up using washes to darken and lighten the panels to increase the contrast, but I was glad to finish this project and go back to a good kit. But a lot of good experience masking and painting.

Great kits

Next up was one of the “new tool” Airfix kits, here a F4F-4 Wildcat with folded wings.  While not perfect, I finally felt I was hitting on all cylinders.  The paint was good, the detailing was good, and I was able to see the improvement over the same subject - Bill Leonard’s F-13 at Midway - over two years ago.  The paint colors were right, the kit was better, and the modeling skills were as well. The old kit was retired to a lower shelf for eventual refinishing as a Guadalcanal F4F.

More tools and better technique

The last of the Austin kits was a DML Arado Ar 234 C “Blitz”, but coincidentally a later trip to King Hobby generated an Ar 234 B, so I had one of both the twin and four engine versions.  I decided to build the twin engine version using all Vallejo Air paints, here RLM 76, 81, and 82.  And taping off the panels was so annoying on the Ju 88 that I ordered a set of masks.

The final result was not bad.  There were fit issues, more my fault than the kit’s, but I learned from my mistakes on the Wildcat, and studied the instructions in advance to make sure I knew the order things needed to be painted and assembled to make final painting easier, and I could reason out what to do when the painting instructions were incomplete.  (This included translating the paint references).  The airbrush was also starting to spend a lot of time airbrushing parts on the sprue based on a complete list of which parts needed which paint.

Repeating

The Hurricane was another “new tool” Airfix kit, so I knew I’d have a fun time with it, but wasn’t prepared for how quickly it would come together.  I spent one evening painting most of the parts on the sprue, and after determining I could not find the aftermarket decals I needed for a Battle of France version, the model only took one day to assemble and paint, including masks, with a second day needed for decaling.

The painting was simply a joy.  The Vallejo Model Air I would put in a few drops and hit a couple of parts or sections, flush it out, and the whole cycle would be less than a minute.  The thin coats dried way faster than brush painting.  The Testors I used a dropper and even with flushing that and adding a few drops of thinner, painting was crazy fast - and good. Mistakes with overspray could be corrected quickly.

The biggest problem continues to be the gloss/matt finish.  The gloss finish is going on pebbled and doesn’t provide a good finish in many cases for the decals, and the final matt finish isn’t fixing the problem with a flat topcoat.  I think I need to look for an airbrush-ready gloss coat - the Vallejo matt finish seems to be working okay, but the gloss is not.

But if the goal is to build skills for models that are more important and more complex - the Airfix B-25, the Tamiya F4U, and the Hasegawa SBDs and Airfix TBD that needs to take a step up from the old kit it’s starting as - I think I’m there.  

 

October 24, 2021 in History - General, Models, World War II | Permalink | Comments (0)

USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) 1/700 – Finishing a 1994 Build in 2021

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https://imodeler.com/2021/07/uss-ticonderoga-cv-14-1-700-finishing-a-1994-build-in-2021/

July 18, 2021 in History - Naval, Models, World War II | Permalink | Comments (0)

USS Bon Homme Richard (CV/CVA-31) 1/700 Double Build

CV-31Since Typepad requires pictures to be uploaded and situated separately, I've started posting about completed builds in iModeler, and sharing the link to that post.

https://imodeler.com/2021/03/uss-bon-homme-richard-cv-cva-31-1-700-double-build/

July 18, 2021 in History - Naval, Models, World War II | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next Ship Model Project - USS Randolph (CV-15) - 1/700

2021-04-09 22.40.38My latest project is one that I have had in mind for a long time.

When I was about 10 years old, and just starting to get interested in World War II and aircraft carriers, one of the first books I got was Barrett Gallagher’s 1959 “Flattop”.  I remember it coming from the old stationary store at 115A East Austin – the one that my office is one door down from now – but I can’t recall the specifics of it, other than a vague recollection that it came from one of the dark rooms toward the back of the second floor.  I am guessing it was one of the books Pop had for sale in the store that Daddy found and thought I would be interested in.

The book details Gallagher’s experience photographing American aircraft carriers, beginning with the Essex class Randolph in 1945 and continuing to a photo of the new Enterprise under construction.  It is where I got my initial list of prewar carriers, and its opening photo of the stately Essex steaming behind a destroyer was one that has never left my mind.  In fact I recall getting in trouble during religion class in high school when Deacon Roden caught me sketching it out in the margin of my book!  It eventually became the model for the cover of my own book on Essex class carriers in 1996.

After completing four intensive builds of Essex class carriers ranging from 1945 to 1968 in the past year, all of which involved extensive kitbashing and scratch building, I wanted to undertake a simpler build this time around. 

The Subject

I decided to do the Randolph as it appeared in this photo Gallagher shot from the rear seat of a SB2C Helldiver on its way to strike targets in Japan on 10 August, 1945.  In addition to being a favorite subject, it would also give me the chance to model a couple of things that I had not before.

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The Kit

I chose the Dragon 1/700 Randolph kit as my starting point.  The kit depicts CV – 15 as completed in the fall of 1944, in dazzling camouflage, and without the enhanced complement of 40 mm quad Bofors that had become common on carriers in the Pacific. 

The changes needed to the kit would be basically twofold.  First, the kit would have to be updated to reflect the ship’s appearance in August 1945, and second, various inaccuracies and deficiencies in the Dragon kit would need to be addressed.

References

I do not have access to a set of plans for the ship as of late 1945, but I do have a set of profile and plan views of the ship’s exterior as completed in 1944 in Raven’s Essex Class Carriers, as well as several photographs documenting the modifications made to the ship during its refit at Hunters Point on the West Coast in January 1945.

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40mm quads

At Hunters Point, Randolph received the by-then standard three 40mm quads under the island and two aft on the starboard side, as well as two slung below the gallery deck on the port side aft.  The photos document the locations clearly, including the new lower location on the port side compared to mounts installed earlier in the war.

As it was only the second Dragon Essex kit, the Randolph kit does not yet have any of these mounts, as it depicts the ship as built.  Later Dragon kits have them on sprues G and M.  Fortunately, I had both in my spares box from the Princeton CV-37 kit that I modified into the Oriskany (CV-34) last fall, so I simply added parts G-5, -5, and -6 and M-7 and -8.

No hangar deck catapult

Dragon includes the external hangar deck catapult sponson that early ships of the class had, but Randolph never had one, but it is relatively easy to sand this off, as I did for both Oriskany and Bon Homme Richard.

Deck Blue Flight Deck Stain

Every Essex class ship I have built to date had the lighter blue flight deck stain.  However, later in the war the ships began to complete and refit with a significantly darker flight deck stain which was intended to approximate the Deck Blue paint used for walkways.  This color was just released by Mission, and I am using that paint.

White Flight Deck Numbers

Although the Randolph appears to have been completed with the standard black flight deck numbers, the lack of contrast with the dark flight deck stain was apparently enough of an issue that at Hunters Point the Randolph became the first fleet carrier to change from black flight deck numbers to white ones.

The kit comes with black flight deck numbers, and as I discovered to my sorrow on my last build, my almost 30-year-old Gold Medal Models flight deck numbers are in poor shape, so I ordered a new set of numbers.

Reconfigured 20mm gun tubs

To accommodate the new 40mm quads on the port side, the existing gun tubs were relocated while the ship was at Hunters Point.  They seem to be the same 6-mount tubs, so moving them around should be pretty simple, and using the same kit parts. 

Whip antenna

Multiple photos show a whip antenna at the extreme end of the port gallery deck catwalk forward.  The kit doesn’t have this, so I will add it with stretched sprue.

Bow gallery deck tubs

Both gallery decks terminate at the extreme bow with small round enclosures.  I have not been able to figure out yet what they are, but they will need to be added to the kit.

Island 20mm gallery / yardarm

This will be my first Dragon island, and one change I know is already necessary is that the aft starboard side 20 mm gallery is much too long.  It holds six mounts, and photos seem to indicate it should only have three.  I will probably just cut out a portion of the existing part.  The kit also doesn’t have a yardarm so that will be added as well.

Measure 21 Navy Blue (5-N) camouflage - weathered

While at Hunters Point, Randolph repainted from her East Coast dazzle camouflage scheme into overall Navy Blue.  A photo showing her in profile at around the time I am modeling her, approximately seven months later, shows extreme and uneven fading.  So I anticipate doing a lot of work weathering the finish.

Flight deck cutouts

The Dragon kit contains small cutouts for gun directors that were intended to be installed on the port side gallery deck.  None of the ships ever had these installed, and Randolph never had the cutouts at all, so I will be filling these in with some small chips of plastic.

Sand down hull

I may be wrong, but I think that Dragon’s Essex class kits are too tall from the water line to the hangar deck, so while it only contributes a tiny amount, I try to sand the lip of plastic that is intended to help the model fit to its underwater section to reduce the height a little.  I then put the boot topping on the upper hull, and that seems to get the waterline to the right point.

Lower 40 mm mounts

One of the things that changed on the Essex class carriers during the war was that the 40 mm quad mounts located adjacent to the port side 5 inch gun galleries were lowered from their original position so that they became level with the 5 inch galleries.  This was likely because the ships were increasingly overweight as the war went on, and even if weight could not be eliminated, if it could be lowered, it would help the ship’s stability.

As Randolph was the second generation of Essex class ships, it was built with these two mounts in the new lowered position.  But since the Randolph kit was a modification of Dragon’s original Essex, it still uses part C-6, which has the original raised position.  But its later versions, including Princeton, have a new part — M-6 that has correct lower position, so I swapped out C-6 for M-6.  (I missed this new part when building Oriskany, and scratchbuilt a 40mm tub in the correct lower position).  Aft, D-34 can simply be lowered by cutting off the tab and puttying over the hole in the hull.

3D printed 20 mm guns

I gave up completely on the Dragon 20 mm weapons on my last build, and simply put short pieces of wire into the openings to simulate the kit gun barrels that wouldn’t fit.  The Blue Ridge 3D printed weapons came highly recommended, so I have ordered a couple of packages of those.

Gallery deck undersides

Finally, although I am not going to cut off the gallery deck catwalks and replace them with thinner ones as I usually do because I have realized that after the railings are attached you can’t tell how thick the underlying structure is anyway, I will be adding strips of .040 plastic to the underside of the flight deck as needed to simulate the correct thickness of the gallery deck.

And to the extent I can ascertain what the bow and stern walkways were, I will be adding those in photo etch as I did with the Bon Homme Richard.

Photoetch railings & radars

Finally, I ordered another Gold Medal Models World War II carrier photoetch set so I would have all the parts to do the necessary railings, radars, and other fittings.

Flotation net baskets

Finally, I have found that adding flotation net baskets to the outside of the gallery deck railings really adds to the appearance of the kit, and will be including a couple of dozen or more of those cut from .040 plastic strip.  They are available in 3D, but I didn’t think the cost was worth it.

While the above may look like a lot of modifications, it is actually pretty minor compared to what I have been doing on similar builds lately, so I don’t anticipate this build taking too terribly long.

April 11, 2021 in History - Naval, Models, World War II | Permalink | Comments (0)

2020 Modeling Review - Six Essexes

DSC_10172020 was definitely a themed year.  When the year started I had two Essex class carrier projects underway, and at the end of the year - still two underway.

IntrepidCorrected – Revell’s Classic 1/720 Essex Class Carrier (Corrected)

DSC_1026

For many modelers of World War II ships, Revell’s 1/720 scale model of the USS Intrepid (CV – 11) was an early favorite. It was cheap (two dollars, compared to four dollars for a Tamiya Akagi), easy to build, and gave you a big rectangular flight deck with a dozen aircraft for living room carpet war games. I built my first in 1973-74, and many more since then.

The kit was originally released in 1967 as the USS Franklin (CV–13), and was re-released as the USS Essex (CV-9) the next year. In 1972 it was rereleased as Intrepid (CV-11). It was the only class of wartime aircraft carrier available in plastic modeling in or near the 1/700 scale until the advent of the water line Japanese manufacturers in the 1970s. While the flight deck is basically accurate, the hull shape is significantly undersized, and the island suffers from numerous inaccuracies. The kit was greatly surpassed in accuracy by the Hasegawa Essex and Hancock kits in1974, and over 20 years later by a far more accurate series of Essex class carriers by Trumpeter and Dragon.

As a result of these later kits, the Revell Intrepid is not a logical candidate for building as anything other than a toy, as one of these later kits could be accurized far more easily. In fact, it would be significantly simpler to build an Essex class carrier in this scale from scratch than it would be to accurize or kitbash this kit into one.

Nonetheless, the kit is a sentimental favorite of mine, and I recently began contemplating building a “corrected”version of the kit which would have the major errors in shape and detail corrected in a way that is visible. I chose to do this by making all the corrections in white plastic and putty, and leaving the model unpainted so that the revisions are clear. Again, the intent was not to detail or accurize the kit – the kit’s armament and other details remain the same – but instead only to correct the kit’s inaccuracies using the same level and type of construction of the original model. In other words, I focused on making changes that could have been included in the original kit when it was released.

Date of Model

I chose to model the Intrepid as it appeared at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October, 1944. I did this for two reasons.

First, the kit lacks a 40 mm quad mount on the front of the island, has multiple 40 mm mounts elsewhere, and the box art and kit painting instructions show a dazzle camouflage pattern. This does not match the Intrepid’s appearance as built in 1943, but does match its appearance after a March-June 1944 refit following its torpedoing off Truk in February 1944. Intrepid returned to service with the fast carriers of Task Force 38 in August 1944, so Leyte Gulf two months later was a logical time. This also meant that I could use the extensive detailed (and scaled) plans of the Intrepid in its June 1944 configuration in John Roberts’ The aircraft carrier Intrepid Anatomy of the Ship book, reduced to 1/720 scale.

Hull

The biggest change to the kit was obviously going to be deepening the hull significantly. I prepared a profile with the accurate dimensions, which gave me precise calculations for how much additional hull material was going to be needed. I used as my starting point the existing kit’s main (hangar) deck, and determined that additional height had to be added in the underwater section of the hull, immediately above the water line, and at the top of the hull just below the flight deck.

Underwater Hull

I decided to replicate the kit’s two-part hull, so that I could separate the underwater portion from the rest of the ship in case I ever wanted to paint it and add it to my collection of 1/700 waterline Essex- class models. This meant that the first piece of construction was going to be a separate underwater hull.

I started by drawing up a set of hull sections to be attached to a central “keel” for the underwater section of the ship. This would then be glued to the existing kit’s underwater hull. I quickly realized that this would mean cutting away most of the underwater hull, since the Revell kit is terribly inaccurate in this department. Like its Yorktown class forebears, the Essex class has a streamlined hull fore and aft that is completely unlike the North Carolina class battleships whose underwater hull the Revell kit more closely resembles. In the end, all I ended up keeping of the kit’s underwater hull was the underside, which ended up being the approximate shape and thickness of the ship’s double bottom, as well as the sides of the hull amidships. Once the cut-down hull was attached to the keel with hull sections, the rest of the hull was filled in using strip plastic and white Tamiya putty.

I then cut two waterline plates, one to serve as the top of the underwater hull, and the other to serve as the bottom of the above water hull. After carefully aligning them, I cut holes in both for a series of dowels to align the two parts of the hull when finished. I finished off the underwater hall by scratch building a rudder, propeller shafts (to which the kit propellers were attached) and bilge keels.

Upper Hull

The above-water portion of the hull was built the same way as the underwater hull, with hull sections attached to a longitudinal member glued to the upper water line piece. The approximately quarter-inch section of strip plastic that marked most of the missing depth of the hull above the waterline then served as the guide for how much of the kit’s above-water hull would need to be cut away, which was a significant portion below the hangar deck aft, and the entire forecastle forward. Once the kit’s hull sides were securely in place, I added a full hangar deck.

If the insufficient depth of the hull is the worst flaw in the kit, the shaping of the forecastle is the second. As a result, the hull was completely reframed forward of the #1 elevator, and topped with a new much broader forecastle deck. Again, the hull was filled out with sheet plastic and putty to the correct shape. The kit’s original anchors were cut off the kit’s hull pieces and then sanded down as much as possible before being glued back on.

Even with the substantial addition below the kit hull, the hull was still slightly too short from the hangar to the flight deck, so another section of sheet plastic was installed between the hull sides and the flight deck raising it to the required level. Interestingly, the hangar openings in the hull were almost completely accurate – so while I had to raise the height of the openings, I didn’t have to move them, as I had to do when kitbashing the Hasegawa Essex and Hancock kits. I couldn’t help adding some roller doors in a partially lowered position – which I justified because the way the hull pieces are molded, it would have been easy to include this level of detail.

Hull detailing was deliberately limited, since I did not want to turn this into an accurizing project, but I included the level of detail that was consistent with the molding of the kit’s era, including some hull piping which had been lost in all the sanding, as well as supports for the deck-edge elevator. The stern was completely missing the necessary structures, so I included them, built simply enough that they could have been included as part of the kit parts.

Last, the 5 inch gun platforms forward and aft on the port side in the kit completely lacked the necessary sponsons, so I built those up with sheet plastic and putty.

Flight Deck

The kit’s flight deck has always been a favorite of mine so I decided early on not to modify it, other than rebuilding the deck edge elevator. The elevator on the kit is not correctly shaped, but more importantly is not the right size, so I cut it out and installed a correctly sized elevator at the hangar deck level. After the bow was lengthened by including a correctly shaped forecastle, and the stern was reduced by eliminating the sponson for two 40 mm quad mounts, which the Intrepid didn’t have until later in the war, I had to trim off a portion of the flight deck aft, and add a section forward. The kit’s flight deck is slightly wide for scale, but not enough that it demanded change, so I left it alone.

When I checked the gallery deck antiaircraft gun mounts against plans of the ship for the relevant time period, they were surprisingly close to correct. Because the kit’s 20 mm mounts are oversized, the gun tubs, while generally the correct size, only hold about two thirds the number of weapons they should, but I thought that was close enough to leave as is. The only place where I modified the shape of an existing gun tub was the aft starboard side, where I substantially increased it in order to get to the same two-thirds ratio that the other tub show. I particularly like the Frankenstein’s monster appearance it gives the model!

On the starboard side forward, the Intrepid didn’t have the forward 20 mm mount gun tub that some other ships of the class had, so I snipped that gun tub out and replaced it with strip plastic, and added another section a little further back on the starboard side gallery deck. Intrepid did have three small gun tubs near the stern that aren’t shown on the kit, so I scratchbuilt those and filled them with matching mounts from another kit. The spares box also provided two more lattice masts aft. The last change to the gallery deck mounts was replacing 5 inch 38 caliber guns in two tubs on the port side aft with 40 mm quads – why they didn’t have them in the first place is a mystery.

Island

The general shape of the island was, surprisingly, pretty close, but there was some reshaping necessary. Most notably, the kit’s island has a rounded shape at the front, which is incorrect, so I squared that off using putty and plastic.

One of the most prominent errors in the kit’s island is the inclusion of an open tube at the front of the flag bridge. It isn’t intended to be an AA mount, but instead I think is intended to represent the gun director that sits on a stalk just in front of and below the flag bridge. I cut it off and installed it on the necessary stalk. I then modified the island platforms to match the Roberts plans, which included both trimming existing platforms, which remain in their original gray, and installing new platforms, including a completely new flag and navigation bridge.

The “hat brim” stack cap on the Revell Intrepid is one of its most characteristic features – and does bear some resemblance to the famous photo of the Franklin afire, but it is still completely wrong. I replaced part of it with sheet plastic cut and carefully sanded to match the actual stack cap, but topped with the original stack covers from the kit trimmed and thinned. The Mark 37 gun directors were a little tall, so I cut the radars off and shortened their attachments, and spent some time sanding off the mold marks. I also added strips of plastic to the 5 inch 38 caliber twin turrets to improve their appearance.

The kit island’s worst error is that the tripod mast was molded backwards so that instead of the back legs leaning towards the front, the front leg leans towards the back. I could not correct the kit part, so I scratchbuilt a new tripod mast from rod plastic, and put the kit’s mast head platform on top of that. The pole mast on top of the platform is actually the kit mast chopped up. The kit mast is so overscale that I was able to cut it and use the parts for the Intrepid’s configuration in the fall of 1944. The yardarms and new mainmast are stretched sprue, but could have been included with the kit in 1967. The SK and SC radars are sheet plastic, and the SC is mounted on a bracket salvaged from the kit’s stack cap.

Influence of the USS Franklin (CV-13)

As noted above, this kit was originally released as the Franklin, and numerous details in the kit match the Franklin far better than the Intrepid.

First and foremost, the kit mast is actually fairly accurate for the Franklin. After being damaged in Japanese attacks twice in October 1944, Franklin went through a refit that resulted in several changes that match the Revell kit. First of all, the topmast was still a single pole as shown in the kit, not a stepped one as in the Intrepid. There are also indications that the kit designers had access to the bomb damage drawings of the Franklin, as they show a longitudinally aligned topmast that may have been the source for the kit’s – which way the actual ship’s was aligned is not completely clear in photos. The unique dog-eared deck edge elevator in the kit is also a close match for the kit. And unlike the Intrepid, Franklin did have twin 40 mm quad mounts at the stern, thanks to a late 1944 refit.

The Franklin may have contributed one other detail to the Revell kit. In that late 1944 refit, the 40 mm quad mounts on her port side gallery deck were all lowered to the same level as the 5 inch .38 caliber mounts, likely for stability reasons. Previously they had been at a slightly higher level, and many other Essex kits show them this way. Only the Revell kit has all of the portside mounts at the same level – even if it inexplicably has two of them with 5 inch guns instead of 40 mm quads.

The Franklin may be noteworthy for one other reason – many of the images of the burning Franklin taken after the attack on March 19, 1945 show her listing heavily to starboard, presenting a profile that is very similar to the shallow–profile Revell model.

Conclusion

All in all, this is the model that I always wanted the Revell Intrepid to be. The only question is whether it’ll stay gray and white to show the modifications, will get that hand painted tan flight deck and dark gray patches on the hull that I remember so fondly from almost half a century ago, or will get an accurate camouflage scheme. I still haven’t made up my mind about that one.

The build album is at https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=48557&p=albums&album=56282 .

 

USS Essex (CVS-9) – Revell 1/530 Resurrection Build

 
It took three days short of a year for my resurrection build of a 1980 Revell 1/530 Essex-clas angled deck carrier done.

The model started out as a Bon Homme Richard (CV-31) that I built in 1980, the last of nine models of this kit. Five were given to me already built in 1975 or so and the other four I built from 1977 to 1980 (the photo shows four of the original five, plus the first that I built). On the last day of 1981 all nine went into two boxes and spent the next fifteen years in my mother’s attic while I was at college. I retrieved them in 1994, and took them to my first house on South Washington, and ten years later to the model workshop at our current home on Harris Lake Road.

I took BHR out June 30 of 2019 and decided to try to accurize it using the aftermarket parts that are now available – but mostly to correct the starboard side by lining the kit hangar deck up with the hull. That would mean adding four scale feet of hull outboard, but I figured hey, how hard could that be?

A year later, the answer is – very hard. I worked on the model continuously till November, then didn’t touch it until we started sheltering at home in March of last year. DSC_1023

I was able to get 1996 plans for the lead ship of the class, USS Essex (CV-9) from The Floating Drydock, and decided to model Essex near the end of her career in October 1968 when she recovered the first Apollo mission, Apollo 7. The photoetch is by GMM, the decals and resin hangar are by Starfighter, the island by Model Monkey, and anchors, guns, boats, aircraft and deck equipment by various other vendors on Shapeways. Model Monkey and other vendors were very accommodating resizing their 1/350 scale products to 1/530 for use with the Revell kit. The Apollo capsule is scratchbuilt. DSC_1025

I usually build ship models waterline, but made an exception here since this was a build of a sentimental favorite. But near the end I saw another modeler built a seascape on one side of a full-hull build and decided to try to replicate it using a removable “wrap” for more of a diorama effect. A side benefit was that the uneven gloss finish reflected light back up on the hull, approximating real water.

The build album is at https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=48557&p=albums&album=58702 .

 

USS Oriskany (CV-34) 1950 (1/700)

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The USS Oriskany (CV-34) was the 24th and last Essex-class aircraft carrier to be commissioned. Construction on her was stopped in 1946 and she was completed in the fall of 1950 to a new design, SCB-27A, which better accommodated the newer and heavier jet aircraft that were coming into service. Numerous other carriers of the class were modernized to SCB-27A (and SCB-27C) standards, and all but one of those later received the hurricane bows and angled flight decks of the SCB-125 program.

I wanted to model a SCB-27A ship as part of my research into the program so I could see what the physical changes made to the class were. I chose Oriskany because she was the first, and her “as commissioned” appearance included a suite of sixteen 20mm twin mounts that didn’t last long. By 1952 many of the mounts had been removed, and within a couple of years they were all gone. In addition, the SCB-27A ships originally had a simpler pole mast arrangement without the prominent “X” structure at the top that would become a feature by the mid-1950s.

My model started with Dragon’s 1/700 Princeton (CVS-37), a mid-1950’s unmodernized Essex. The first step was adding the 6′ wide blister to both sides of the hull, as well as an escalator and island from Model Monkey (I also used their 3″ gub tubs, port crane sponson, lift raft baskets and Mk 56 gun directors). The bow was reworked to add the secondary conn, and all the gallery deck catwalks were removed and replaced with thinner sheet plastic after the gallery deck itself was thickened up. All flight deck structures (gun mounts) were removed, and new sponsons for the 3″ twin mounts built from sheet plastic and putty. Although photos sometime described these as the tubs for the earlier 40mm quads, they are actually significantly larger.

I also added the bracket on the hull for the ship’s pole mast. Carriers using the Brooklyn Navy Yard (where Oriskany was built) had a bracket on their hull to hold their masts so they could pass under the East River bridges.

Late in construction I added the removable underwater hull after I added the partial blister to it. Unlike the later conversions, Oriskany’s blister was more of a belt and went only partway down the side of the hull underwater, which I thought was worth modeling.

The aircraft are Dragon’s early jets from the Bon Homme Richard (CV-31) kit, which also donated the twin 20mm mounts. The 3″ twin mounts are from an old Skywave/Pit-Road USN parts parts set, along with the corresponding pieces from two CVL kits.

Build album is at https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=48557&p=albums&album=61373#56

 

USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31/CVA-31) Double Build

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I purchased the Dragon CV-31 kit for the early jets aircraft, and the 20mm twins were a nice surprise. I initially thought that kitbashing the kit into its Vietnamese-era appearance would be a good project, since it was everything the Essex and Oriskany were not - an SCB-27C and not only that, one of the ships (along with Lexington and Shangri-La) that received their SCB-125 modernization at the same time, so it would have a completely different hurricane bow shape.

But the kit was a very good one of the ship in its 1951 appearance off Korea, and it would be a shame to destroy practically everything in it to build it to a different period, so I decided to backdate the Dragon kit to its initial wartime appearance in July of 1945, and bring down the old Hasegawa Essex kit that’s been in my stash 25 years and use that hull for the 1968 version. 

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By the end of the year, the 1945 version was nearly finished, just needing some finish work on the aircraft, island and 20mm mounts.  The 1968 version was similarly almost done, with nearly everything other than the island and the air group finished. 872525-48557-74-1440

872539-48557-16-1440The build album is at https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=48557&p=albums&album=62759 .

 

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January 05, 2021 in History - Naval, Models, World War II | Permalink | Comments (0)

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