1/700 USS Belleau Wood CVL-24

[hypno7]

Hello everyone,

After some time off for the holidays, I had the chance to start off a new project. The kit is the Dragon 1/700 USS Belleau Wood CVL-24. For reference, I am using the Booklet of General Plans for the CVL-26 available online for download, the station sections posted on this site for the Cleveland Class Cruiser (Thank you DrPR), and all the builds posted on this site (1/700 & 1/350) as well as pictures of the Dragon 1/350 USS Independence kit, which seems to be very good. Thanks also to the CASF Independence Class guys who have answered my questions.

After reviewing the kit hull, I decided to try to shape it to a more accurate shape. The kit's lower hull is just a square extension of the upper hull, it doesn't include the detail of the blister, has no bilge keels, and the skeg is too wide. After reviewing pictures and drawings, the bottom of the hull is rounded and the stern below the waterline is more square, and finally it has a bulbous bow.

I filled up the lower hull with epoxy and started sanding away. Always checking against the station sections which I cut out (they are really tiny in 1/700). I sanded away the blisters and replaced them with styrene. I also reshaped the stern, since the kit is only an extension of the upper deck (round). It should start round and finish off square below the waterline, with a slight tumblehome.

Also, the bilge keels where added. They are styrene strips sharpened on one side to give the illusion of the triangular cross section.

Also, I am bolting down my models to their bases, had a near catastrophic accident the other day.

I am still sanding it, reducing the blister join with the hull and rounding more the cross section of the stern.

Happy holidays to all!

...and as with my previous builds, comments and criticisms welcomed!

[taskforce48]

criticisms welcomed!

As if! Give me something to Critique and we will talk . Otherwise, that is impressive especially considering it is in 1/700.

Keep up the great work!

Matt

[marijn van gils]

Great job! A lot of work, and very well done! No critique from me...
It gives me courage for my next Project, for which I will have to add part of a lower hull too, so seeing your technique helps.

For references, maybe the Warship Pictorial n40 on CVL22 can be helpful, or did these ships differ so much from one another? These books are very good quality and not very expensive, and the one on Lex helped me a lot.

Cheers,

Marijn

[hypno7]

Thanks Matt! Things to critique will come... I am still checking references and there are things I a not so sure about.

Thanks Marijn! It was not that much work, just sand away with 180 grit progressing to 1200 grit, all while checking the stations. This part is one of the most enjoyable for me in ship model building (specially that nice cruiser hull). What gave me trouble was the blister, but it looks OK for me now.

Thanks for the tip on the Warship Pictorial. About the differences between the sisters, I am still finding out what they were. I got some help on the CASF for this class.

I had some more time off and worked on the shafts and the hawse pipes. The shafts are done with brass tubing adapted to the plastic parts and the hawse pipe is done using milliput (first time using it, and I am impressed...) as the kit didn't include any detail on this part.

[Devin]

Nice work capturing that squared-off Cleaveland/Independence stern. I've always really liked the look of that for some reason. Excellent work so far.

[MartinJQuinn]

Yowza! That's some fine work. I'd have bashed the hull against the workbench by now.

[marijn van gils]

If you're impressed with Milliput, you should try Magic Sculp!



It basically works the same as milliput, but is much smoother flexible (when wet, not after curing), which makes it work much better while sculpting. Also after curing, it doesn't crumble like Milliput o?ften does, and feels much more like very hard resin which is a joy to carve and sand.

I started sculpting 1/35th scale figures with Milliput, but after trying Magic Sculp I never looked back and actually sculpted most of my figures with this material. On the ships, I am now using it a lot for filling gaps, but I would certainly also use it for the kind of job you're doing now.

One possible source in Germany: http://shop.frank-miniatures.com/Zubeho ... Sculp.html
Or at most decent shows, at a stand which caters for materials and figure-modellers.

Cheers,

Marijn

[Dan K]

Looking very good to me.

[hypno7]

Thank you all for the kind words! It keeps me motivated.

I will certainly try that Magic Sculp. This is what I like of this board, you get a lot of tips.

Making the blisters out of sheet styrene ended up being a mess. In the previous pictures it looks OK but they are too thick, so I sanded away to make them thinner, at least were the blister edge meets the hull. It happened that the thinner it got, air bubbles or parts where glue was of different thickness started to bulge out. For this to be good, the glue layer has to be the same thickness on all the surface, and no air bubbles, nearly impossible for me to do. So I removed them, cleaned up the mess, made a mask, and painted them on with primer. Paul Budzik has a very good video about hull plating, and although I didn't scribe it on the hull (I am not there yet), I used the alternative of making it with primer. After some sanding of rough edges, it is now the thickness I want (thinner on the top and thicker on the bottom).

I also redid the bilge keels, they are a thinner and the cross section is more uniform.

The hangar deck is also being worked on. The interior is based on pictures and the CVL-26 booklet of general plans. There are some parts where I (over)simplified things.

I have to say the fit on this kit is not the best, lots of filling and reinforcing.

Comments and criticism always welcomed!

[marijn van gils]

This is looking great!
A lot of difficult and annoying work, but the finished model ail look so much better for it.
Nice detailing on the interior too! Are you going to fill that up with aircraft again?

Cheers,

Marijn

[LE BOSCO]

HI Hypno

well done nice progress ,i like this ships class . good luck for your project
cheers
Nicolas

[hypno7]

Thanks Marijn! Yes, it was some work, but after some finishing, it is getting to the point where it is acceptable to me. I will put some airplanes in the hangar deck, I can't help myself (you can't even see them... )

Thanks Nicolas! This class of ship is very nice for me too, specially since it is a cruiser hull, it does look very good!

More pictures to come soon! I am going to test Model Master paints for this build, lets see how the work out (saving my stash of WEM Colourcoats until supply is sustainable again)

[hypno7]

Hi everyone,

So, after a lot of filling and sanding, I had the chance to put some paint on the hull. Masking the Measure 33/3d was an exercise in patience for me. I don't know how much masking tape I used, but it was certainly a lot. For this build I am using Model Master paints. They are not as fine as WEM Colourcoats in my opinion, but very nice and tough nevertheless.

There are still some parts that need retouching, I will do that in the coming days. After that, I will start working on the flight deck and the airplanes.

As always, comments and criticism always welcome!

[JTninja]

Very well done

[Quincy]

Great paint job!




Bob Pink.

[Cliffy B]

VERY nice paint work man

[MartinJQuinn]

Outstanding! Love the camo!

[PetrolGator]

Killer.

[hypno7]

Thank you all! I appreciate it a lot.

I started work on the flight deck. First, I removed the overscale detail on top of the deck, like the arresting gear and the decal locators, and separated the elevators as I want to show them in the down position in my model. Then I removed the catwalks and walkways that are too thick from the sides. Also the shields from the AA positions were removed, to be replaced with something thinner, and finally, the planks were scribed on the flight deck.

Comments, guidance, and criticism welcomed!

[marijn van gils]

You're making really good progress!
The camo looks excellent, as does the flightdeck planking. That's a lot of work, and very hard to do so fine and tidy!
This is a very clean build, and you're working in a most systematic way. It almost seems as if you know what you are doing.
I'm certainly looking forward to the next steps!

Cheers!

Marijn