disecting the 1/350 Trumpeter NIMITZ

[angeleyes]

Very nice work.I shall be stealing some of your tips for i need to built a 1976 Nimitz too.

However regarding the planes on 1/350 carriers , they always look a bit empty of payloads and fuel tanks dont they?

After some search i found this:Bronco has released some extra armor and plane sets including a 1/350 AV8B Harrier set which includes 4 jests and 2 300 gallon external fuel tanks for each one.
I also found after some research around the net , that these 300 gl tanks were used mostly by the A-7s , S-3s and A-6s so you can make them look really busy if you either buy enough harrier sets or just one and make resin copies of the 300 gal tanks they have.

The other tanks for the F-4s and F-14s am afraid i will have to scratch built along with some AIM-9s and maybe some MK-82/83...

[gtbred]

That is very OUTSTANDING!

[EX_Birdgunner]

That's impressive. I'll be watching closely.

+1. This is giving me lots of scratchbuilding ideas for my upcoming Enterprise Project.

Keep up the great work!

Denis

[JIM BAUMANN]

Mighty impressive!!

faaaaar too modern fro me... but quality modelmaking always shines through!!!!!!

In particular the monile deck craen is an outstanding pice of modelmaking!!

Fully concur about shades of deckcolour on carriers!



JB

[anyahajobuzi]

I again have to say "thank you" to fellow modelbuilders for the kind words regarding this huge project. Especially thanks to Jim Baumann. It's always nice when even the moderators take notice.
As to 'angeleyes' comment: I do believe the Navy has strict rules against aircraft with live payloads being parked on the deck. (unless they're leaving for a mission in a short order.)I do have some photos where for instance A-6s have mk.82-s on MER-s, but without fuses, and there are fighters with missiles on, but in the majority of the cases-as you said : it's just droptanks.(or the Prowler's jamming pods). Which is fine by me, it's less work!!!! But I did buy some weapon-sets from GHQ. They are big in scale (1/285) but with some work they can be used.
Thanks for the tip about Bronco though , I will check into it. Every little bit helps.

well, here is some more progress. As I mentioned in the beginning, everything I posted so far is the result of four winters. After this post the pictures and reports will slow down to a trickle, because now I am caught up. I am working on the ship every day though, so there is going to be progress, I guarantee it.
These are pictures of the crane area, which again, consumed a lot of time both in research and building. But I like the results.

[anyahajobuzi]

Also, if my progress seems even slower than ever , it's because other Navy projects keep stealing my time. Like these darn tractors:

But this is a shipbuilding forum not a tractor or airplane building one.....

[sgtryan13]

Very nice work, 4 years, that takes some serious dedication. Having built this kit 4 times (Nimitz x2, Truman, Bush) and about 75% through the Reagan right now, I can certainly appreciate the effort you have put into this thing. Choosing to correct so many of the countless inaccuracies in this kit is commendable. I found and find myself trying to choose which ones to correct, and which ones will never be seen, as I try to keep my builds of this kit at about 10-12 months.

I am especially impressed with your tilley crane, that is a work of art, and the attention you have given tot he stern. The stern area gets overlooked many times, but you have nailed it. Luckily for me, the Bush and Reagan have a MUCH simpler design inside the stern, saving me a lot of work back there.

I am jealous of your deck coloring, I did the exact same thing on the Reagan, but the weathering blended it all in to the point where you can barely distinguish the lighter/darker patches from the rest of the deck. I guess I did my effects too subtle pre-weathering. Who knows, maybe seeing this will get me to give a shot at throwing a few patches in there one more time...

Interesting results with the drooped nets on the safety netting, they look great , I have planned to do that twice now on Truman and Bush, and chickened out both times for fear of ruining the PE parts, but maybe third time's a charm, as they are not yet installed on Reagan. Any pointers in this area?

[ArizonaBB39]

Also, if my progress seems even slower than ever , it's because other Navy projects keep stealing my time. Like these darn tractors:

But this is a shipbuilding forum not a tractor or airplane building one.....

This is true, but those planes and tractors are what "live" on some of the ships we build, and I for one enjoy seeing them!

Keep up the excellent work on your build. I enjoy reading and looking at it and being inspired by your attention to detail

[Channell]

Also, if my progress seems even slower than ever , it's because other Navy projects keep stealing my time. Like these darn tractors:

But this is a shipbuilding forum not a tractor or airplane building one.....

If I had been looking at any other build I would have not wondered for a minute how you accomplished that in 1/350 scale What scale are they?

Still, VERY nice top-class work!

[anyahajobuzi]

Thank you Channel! The tractors and the Tomcat are 1/48. I sure wish I could just shrink them to 1/350 with some magic...The plane isn't finished yet though..actually, the tractors are missing towing hitches too. But now it's: carriertime!

[LE BOSCO]

Hello Laci

I just came across your work, a treat for the eyes,this is just "greatissimo"
congrats ,and good luck for the rest
cheers
Nicolas

[boomstick68]

Nicolas, I'm stealing your word "greatissmo". BTW, we're going to Paris the summer of 2014, we should meet up? Yes this build is educating me beyond words. Awesome stuff.

[anyahajobuzi]

Hello everyone!

Boomstick68 asked for the dimensions of the scrathcbuilt weapon-sponsons, and I saw how DWD shared this kind of info regarding his very impressive Enterprise, so I figured I post these here for everyone to look at. Do not look at the images too closely though, because my mistakes become very obvious.... I got some angles to correct, and some railings to straighten out. Anyway, there were 2 new weapon sponsons installed on the Nimitz (and the Eisenhower) in the early '80-s, both on the port side. Or, to be accurate the one on the bow for the CIWS was newly added, and the one on the stern was redesigned, and it holds Sea Sparrows, and 2 ...hmmm I dunno, range finders?! Maybe someone can tell us what those 2 thingies are on the sponson extensions.. Then in the ninties they redesigned the sponson on the starboard , stern. I didn't need to build that one , so the dimensions for it have to come from someone else.
I hope the photos below are going to be useful, and that I got ALL the measurments.

Cheers

[Bigdaddy Mark]

The actual Nimitz took 7 years to build. Mine is in year 4, and only about 65% complete . Will mine have a functional nuclear reactor inside it too by the end of it? It just might, it just might..hell, it might even rust like the real thing too....

This cracked me up.

[anyahajobuzi]

Allright, allright, let's get down to serious business!:)

I have worked LOTS on the catwalks. ( I think the wife is composing divorce papers.)
These are just the starboard side ones and are just before the paintjob. I didn't use ANY of the Trumpeter pieces here, because they are all garbage. And that is "sugarcoating" it. Unfortunately the different lenghts of the sides are also out of whack (like the section between elevator #2 and #3 is 16 milimeters too short), so there is simply no room for all the details, that are on the actual ship.
There is lots more stuff to be added after painting, and I will keep the pictures coming. I am experimenting with some pre-shadig (thank you Koppalakki) and the next few days are gonna be spent with splashing paint onto this baby. I am growing grey hair over turning this ship upside down for working on details underside, because something came loose inside the hangar, and now the biggest project of my life sounds like a rattle.....

[anyahajobuzi]

This is the area where the angle of the deck was changed...

[anyahajobuzi]

AAAnd the bow section. This is a bit tricky because of the weapon sponson below being in the way..
After consulting some photos, it became apparent that the catwalk supports provided by White Ensigh are the wrong shape, those braces in real life are just a simple steel tube instead of a triangle shaped piece. So I just cut the bottoms of these PE pieces off, and used only those, discarded the rest. White Ensign doesn't give us enough these pieces anyway, so using only a tiny strip of brass instead of the "triangles" makes it easy to make up for the shortage.

Cheers!

[sgtryan13]

Ok, I was thinking that though you are going to the extreme on this thing, that you were at least keeping it mostly within the threshold of sanity (relative term coming from a fellow CVN lunatic) but then I saw that you made the enclosed stairwells under the catwalk hollow, and installed a ladder inside! That tiny little detail is what pushed this build over the line for me, honest!

Great work for sure, but I tip my hat to ya, you are more insane than I am with this thing, without a shadow of a doubt! Keep it up man, this is already a stunner, and only getting better.

Oh, and if she does divorce you, it just gives you more room for modeling and displaying models, trust me, I went through the big "D" a couple years ago, and my modeling benefited greatly!

[DWD]

Lookin SWEEEEEEEET! Nice work!

Doug

[boomstick68]

That's good stuff right there.