1/350 USS Enterprise CV-6

[mconnelley]

Hello:

Meanwhile, work on the island has been progressing. This is where things stand now. So far the work has focused on the port side. I made sure the paint the inside of the bridge and pri-fly areas before closing them up, so that you wouldn't see shiny brass when looking in there. The next step are all of the TINY gussets under the long catwalk. I hav 4 on now, just to help the catwalk be straight, and ~10 more to go.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

All of the F4Fs have been painted. Still need to do some details like the wheels and props, but it's good to see them all in blue. Still need to paint the SBDs and TBMs.

Mike

[TF17Greg]

Very Nice built... l�m doing Yorktown CV5 so l can see where u are going

[mconnelley]

Hello:

Here's what the bench looks like. The F4F's and SBD's are all painted...or at least mostly painted...I haven't done the wheels for most of them yet. Although it looks like nothing has happened with the F4F wings, I've filed/sanded the first side and now I've puttied the second side. Most of the work lately has been on the airwing.

Work has progressed on the island. I painted the background of secondary flight control so that I can add the PE part over that area. I've also done a few platforms here and there.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

Speaking of platforms on the island, here is the part that I think is a bridge wing. It goes just to the starboard side of the bridge. It's maybe 1 cm on a side, and I think I'm close to having 20 parts in there so far and I'm not done yet. The Pontos set is very detailed, but sometimes I wish it wasn't as detailed.

Mike

[marijn van gils]

Great detailing!
I always had a weakness for CV-6...

[mconnelley]

Hello:

This is where things stand now with the island. Everything here is glued down. The area between the flag boxes and the 'house' between them is rather tight, so I painted that area prior to assembly. Similarly, I painted the catwalk on the starboard side of the island before assembly since access would be difficult given the overhang from the part above it. Otherwise, I'm more or less following the directions.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

One spot of trouble that I ran into was on the starboard side catwalk. There is a vertical extension of the railing that goes up to the flag box above it. Initially, I installed the part so that the top of that extension was under the flag box. However, that pushed the catwalk down and made it noticeably bent. So I pulled it off and tried again. It seems that the vertical part of the railing is supposed to go on the outside of the flag box to get things to fit. I also have some interference with the 20 mm gun tub above it, so I might need to trim things.

By luck, I later installed the railing for the port side catwalk, and I ran into a similar issue where the vertical railing extension needs to go along the outside of the flag box rather than under it. That part went on with a minimum of fuss.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

Since the last update, a lot of work has gone into the island, though it may not look like it. The main things are the platform on the front of the funnel, the top of the funnel, and the area on the top of the island right above pri-fly.

The area above pri-fly has some things that look like control panels on either side of the direction finder loop. Each panel is on a truss-like stand that you can see under but the truss makes it hard to access under that area after assembly. So the inside of those stands, and the deck below the stands were primed and painted before installation.

Regarding the funnel, there are plates that go into each of the 3 holes, so those were primed and painted black. Also, the inner (plastic kit part) walls of the funnel are visible, so that was also primed/painted before the funnel top was installed. The domed tops of the funnel were really fiddly to assemble, but they somehow went together without any disasters.

I installed the railing around the top of the funnel up-side-down the first time...so keep an eye out for that one. There are little diagonal parts with the railing that are meant to be bent down as a diagonal brace. Glue the railing so that these diagonal parts are towards the top. Otherwise, things are going together slowly but smoothly.

Mike

[Dan K]

Nice work!

[MartinJQuinn]

Nice work on that PE!

[mconnelley]

Hello:

In between all of the PE work on the island, I've been painting the airwing. Here I've painted the blue on the TBFs, and painted the wheels. For some of the wheels I was able to carefully paint around the tire without getting black paint in the middle, but for others that didn't work out so I used a piece of wire to dab a dot of paint in the middle of the wheel. The F4Fs are now at the same state being fully painted, and only the SBDs don't have painted wheels.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

For the fire control platform, one challenge was figuring out how to make it square (perpendicular) to the front leg of the tripod. I really wanted to make sure the parts here are well aligned. Here's how I solved that problem.

- The front leg of the tripod has a 'knuckle' that the fire control platform rests on. I wrapped some tape around the bottom of the leg to be the same diameter as the knuckle, within about 0.05 mm.
- I found a piece of scrap aluminum angle. I pressed the leg into the interior angle such that the top of the knuckle is even with the top of the aluminum.
- I plated the fire control platform onto the leg, and the top of the aluminum angle keeps the fire control platform perpendicular to the leg.
- I put a little superglue into that joint to set it, checked alignment in several directions with a square, then put in more glue to secure the joint.

Mike

[mconnelley]

...and here's what it looks like dry-fitted on the island. The front leg isn't quite plumb, maybe because the rear legs might be a little long. Overall, it's starting to look like the Big E.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

A lot of work has happened, but it might not look like it. One key thing is that I tweaked the lengths of the tripod legs so that the front leg is nice and plumb. I gave it a coat of primer, which sort of makes the photo-etch all just 'disappear'. It's a bit sad to see the shiny brass go away, but it's getting closer to completion.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

...and here's the other side. The reason for the primer is the stairs at the back of the island. There's a deck that goes on top of the stairs/platforms, which supports the aft range finder. I'm not sure that I could paint the stairs/platforms with that deck in place, so I'm going to paint before installing that deck. While I had the primer in the airbrush, I decided to give it a good once over. I also added the doors along the base of the island.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

Taking a break from PE, I've been painting the airwing. I've already painted the blue on the topside of the planes. Recently I've been painting the tires and the wheels, and the dark gray over the engine area. For most of the tires, I was able to paint around the wheel and leave a nice gray circle in the middle. Sometimes I just painted the whole thing, then painted the middle light gray. I dipped a wire into paint cap, then touch it to the wheel to leave a tiny gray dot. So now painting the airwing is done.

Next thing for the airwing are the canopies. One thing I really want to avoid the internal reflection from the bottom or internal surfaces, so I might paint the bottom of the canopies dark gray. I'd also like to make the SBD canopies open, as they were often open, but I don't know if I can pull it off.

Mike

[MartinJQuinn]

Very cool! Smart for you to do the A/C now. I find at the end of a carrier build, I have no more motivation to do the planes!

[mconnelley]

Hello:

Here's the island with a coat of paint. All that PE detail sort of melts away, now that everything is dark blue. It's a little sad to see it go away...I kind of liked the shiny brass here and there.

Mike

[marijn van gils]

All that PE detail sort of melts away, now that everything is dark blue. It's a little sad to see it go away...I kind of liked the shiny brass here and there.

I understand the feeling!
On the other hand, it's also a good thing that the PE isn't too obvious after painting, because that means you constructed it well. And if you like to weather, you can enjoy all those details a second time!