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PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2022 8:06 pm 
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DavidP wrote:
what time period in 1942 does the kit represent?


Hello:

I believe that the consensus is that the kit represents the Big E at the time of the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands in October 1942. However, the ship didn't get to a ship yard until May of 1943. So I think it's unlikely that the appearance of the ship changed much from the time she left Pearl Harbor in Oct '42 until she got back to Pearl Harbor in May '43.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2022 10:25 pm 
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Very nice work. Here is some inspiration for you. I just visited the National Naval Aviation Museum and saw this work of art. Keep it going.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2foPCPHjwfs

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 21, 2022 7:53 am 
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mconnelley wrote:
DavidP wrote:
what time period in 1942 does the kit represent?


Hello:

I believe that the consensus is that the kit represents the Big E at the time of the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands in October 1942. However, the ship didn't get to a ship yard until May of 1943. So I think it's unlikely that the appearance of the ship changed much from the time she left Pearl Harbor in Oct '42 until she got back to Pearl Harbor in May '43.

Cheers
Mike

Yes, she's in her Santa Cruz fit, but missing the radar (off hand I don't remember the name) mounted on the starboard side of the island.

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PostPosted: Mon Aug 15, 2022 2:06 am 
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Hello:

Just a brief update for today. I've moved to the underside of the aft flight deck. I deviated from the Pontos instructions a wee bit. They have you put down the cross-wise parts first, then the length-wise parts. I've had issues with getting some of the inter-locking parts to go together when I put one set down first. So, this time I inter-locked the cross-wise and length-wise parts, held them together with some tape, then glued them down. I think this approach worked very well. Now I'm glueing down all of the little length-wise ribs (for a lack of a better term). There's something like 40 of them...I'm maybe half way done.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:28 pm 
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Very nice tedious work! I've been enjoying watching your build.

Kelley

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2022 1:39 am 
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....and speaking of tedious work, I decided to spend some time on the airwing. I remembered that I had about 10 more F4Fs to put together. I had forgotten that there were 10 SBDs that hadn't had any elevators attached. After putting the elevators on, the next step was putty-ing in the panel lines for both sets of planes. Each one takes a few minutes, but a few minutes x 20 becomes two hours. With ~60 planes in the airwing, each small step adds a lot of time.

Next is sanding, then putting the wheel on. After that, would be the photo-etch details on the planes, and the props too. But I might turn back to the ship by then.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2022 1:39 am 
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Hello:

At this point, all of the planes in the airwing have been assembled, puttied, sanded, and now have their landing gear attached. This means I can play 'airboss' with them and arrange them on the flight deck in various ways. I'm not sure that the arrangement shown will be the final one. I think I have a total of 57 planes on deck: 25 F4Fs, 20 SBDs, and 12 TBFs. At the time depicted by the kit, the actual airwing only had 12 TBFs, so that's why I made 12 of them.

Next for the airwing is a lot of detailing. I need to get the landing ear doors on the planes, and make the propellers. On a previous carrier project, I combined the kit and the photo etch props. I cut off the plastic prop blades, then cut the remaining plastic prop 'shaft' in half vertically in the plane of the prop blades. I glued the PE prop onto the plastic shaft, then glued the prop dome back on. This resulted in a more realistic look than a flat PE prop stuck onto the front of the plane.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 5:27 am 
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Hello:

The prop production line has gotten under way. I noticed that the Pontos set has the prop hub/shaft pass through the prop itself, which will save me a fair amount of work when it comes to the SBDs and F4Fs. However, the Pontos set has enough parts to detail 15 of each, and I've built up 25 F4Fs and 20 SBDs, so I'll need to figure that one out somehow...

So I started with the TBMs. This picture illustrates the process. I start with the kit prop (left), and cut off the blades to just have the shaft (left-middle). Then I cut the shaft in half where the blades were (right-middle), and then glue the two halves to either side of the PE prop to finish the process (right). Repeat that 12 times (without any parts going PING out of the tweezers) and you're done.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:30 pm 
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Nice job on that air group so far! Next CV I do, I need to do the Air Group first like this instead of after I finish the ship, always suffer burnout by that time around.

Keep up the great work

Matt

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2022 1:17 pm 
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Yes, nice job on the air group! I'll agree with Matt that next time I will do the aircraft first.

I'm also going to try out your technique on the propellers/props. I like how they look.

Keep up the great work!

Kelley

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 21, 2022 8:38 pm 
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Nice work!

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2022 2:40 am 
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Hello:

The guys in the propeller shop have been busy. All of the propellers have been made. The Pontos set gives you parts for 15 planes, so I made the 15 props for the F4Fs and SBDs and improvised for the rest. For example, 5 of the SBD props are actually the parts for the TBDs, but in 1/350 scale it's hard to notice the difference. The F4F props are a mix of the 15 from the Pontos set and 10 from Tom's model works with the kit plastic hub/shaft glued on. In the picture, the props are (from top to bottom) for the 12 TBFs, 25 F4Fs, and 20 SBDs.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2022 2:44 am 
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Hello:

Since my dad is an aviation ordnanceman, I had to put some ordnance on the SBDs. I looked up the dimensions for 500 and 1000 lbs bombs, and found some plastic rod that's about the right OD for a 500 lbs bomb in 1/350 scale. I cut the rod to length (just over 4 mm), and rounded off the front. I left the back as is since it's really hard to see under the plane. Here's what it looks like on an SBD with the bomb release 'cradle' attached. One down...19 to go.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2022 7:08 am 
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taskforce48 wrote:
I need to do the Air Group first like this instead of after I finish the ship, always suffer burnout by that time around.

Boy, ain't this the truth.

mconnelley wrote:
Hello:

Since my dad is an aviation ordnanceman, I had to put some ordnance on the SBDs. I looked up the dimensions for 500 and 1000 lbs bombs, and found some plastic rod that's about the right OD for a 500 lbs bomb in 1/350 scale. I cut the rod to length (just over 4 mm), and rounded off the front. I left the back as is since it's really hard to see under the plane. Here's what it looks like on an SBD with the bomb release 'cradle' attached. One down...19 to go.

Cheers
Mike

That's cool. Nice touch.

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"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:29 pm 
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Hello:

Here's a short update after a lot of hours of work. The SBDs all had ordnance now. The SBDs and TBFs also all have landing gear doors. I've put the gear doors on 10 out of the 25 F4Fs. Here's what they look like (I tried a low-angle shot with all of them on deck, but it's hard to see what's been added since all of the work is on the underside of the little tiny planes).

After I put the gear doors on the remaining 15 F4Fs, I suppose the next step for the air wing is to visit the paint shop. Before that, I may turn my attention back to the ship though.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 5:45 pm 
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Hello:

It's been a while, so I figured it's time for an update. The air wing has been stowed in the hangar, and the ship is back on the bench. I had been working on the aft under-flight-deck area, so I thought I'd finish that off. Since there are some areas that might be seen through the mesh walkways, but would be inaccessible after assembly, I did a bit of painting. I think it's the first 'official' paint of the project!

Overall, things went ok. I had some trouble with some of the interlocking supports under the 20 mm tubs. For the main deck beams, I was able to 'weave' them together then glue them down, but these are too small for that. The mesh platform on the lower right isn't glued in yet, since I need to paint the top side before installation.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 5:47 pm 
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Hello:

And here's what the top side looks like. I think I got a rather neater result on the top. I did end up with a large gap on between the ramp and the right side 20 mm tubs, which I filled with some sheet styrene. I think I can see that gap even in the Pontos instructions, so it might not just be me.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 6:05 pm 
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Hello:

A major goal I'm working towards is to get the hangar deck painted, because that is required before I can start adding the bulkheads all around the hangar deck. But, there are a lot of details to take care of.

Bottom left: Apparently there are two pairs of bitts on the hangar deck, which I scratch built. The other pair is out of frame to the left.

Lower left: There are 2 kit parts that go inside the walls of the port side of the hangar deck that I won't use...I can't find them in the drawings. So I filled the slots in the hangar deck. There is another pair of slots to the left.

Middle: There are 8 hatches in the hangar deck. I found pictures of similar hatches on the Hornet (CV-12), so I made an attempt at reproducing those here. One pair is off to the left.

Top right: For some reason, I had a really hard time getting that vertical part at the front of the 5" gun 'area' aligned and glued in. Instead of gluing it to the bulkhead as instructed, I glued it to the deck as shown here. Then I added the platform, door, and ladder.

Right: The sides of the hull have a little curve as they go up to the 5" guns. On the kit, the plastic is the same thickness (1.85 mm) as the hull, and would be 2 feet thick if scaled up to real life. That was really bothering me. I ground down the insides of the curve to a thinner appearance.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 24, 2022 11:56 pm 
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Hello:

I tried removing some of the hangar deck hatches, but it seems that I did a really good job of gluing them down. I'll claim 'artistic license' on that one and let them be. Judging from my Yorktown (CV-10) kit, not a lot will be seen inside the hangar deck unless one goes in with a flash light.

So I thought I'd have a go at priming the hangar deck, only to find the airbrush hose had broken off. Not a big deal, I'll snip off the broken bit and push the hose over the fitting on the bottom of the airbrush. That went fine...until the next day when I saw that the hose had split and fallen off again. So a new hose is on its way...

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 27, 2022 2:57 pm 
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Great looking work so far! As for the hatches, they weren't 100% flush and I think you are good to keep them as is. I have a shot of the Big E's hangar somewhere but it shows them same hatch as on the Hornet.
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Like you said, artistic license. When I did my build, I did a whole mini dio in the forward elevator area to represent the Vestal repair crew working to keep her forward elevator flush with the deck so she could continue to operate. Unless you get at just the right angle and have a high power light, you can't really see anything in the hangar at all.

Keep it up!

Matt

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USS Utah AG-16
On Hold
1/350 USS Portland CA-33 1942
1/350 Trumpeter Texas with a twist


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