1/530 USS Yorktown (CVS-10) (1968) - no, not the Revell kit

[jpeeler]

Starfighter Decals has resin aircraft in the 1/540 range (including SH-3s):
Also, "1/540 GAGA" aircraft from China on e***. I haven't ordered these so I cannot vouch for their quality or accuracy.

Thanks for the tips! I've thought about the SH-3s, which appear to be based on the revised Sea Kings from the SLEP Forrestal, and may yet. They look pretty nice. I wasn't aware of the Gaga aircraft on the certain site, and am intrigued, though the Westland radome would need to be trimmed off. May be worth a try, though. Thanks!

Jodie Peeler

[jpeeler]

The model kind of didn't look like a ship just yet. The boot topping was missing. But what about all those complex curves, Jodie?
(But Ironhead, what's with this thingy?)



Long ago I bought a box of Lego building blocks for making mold boxes. They're useful for a lot of other purposes, too. Including making little stands for odd jobs. A pencil will rest nicely in the middle of one of those long blocks. Regular blocks mostly set the height and the thinner pieces let you make finer adjustments. That yellow brick at the top pretty much captures how I often feel.



You'll need a nice flat surface to make this work. Ideally, one that's a little slick. A big frame with a glass front will do nicely. In my case, a framed poster a friend gave me years ago got hauled down for a few minutes' TDY. Flip the model upside down and then gently slide the pencil along the model. You just need enough of a pencil mark to know where to set the tape.



Now set your tape down and burnish it real nice, then paint. I just used Tamiya Flat Black applied with a brush.



And, like that, your ship has an identifiable waterline. Still some touching up to do on the hull. I'll fix that, and get back to more serious construction, soon. This just ain't been my week. I'll leave it at that.

Jodie Peeler

[jpeeler]

One of the things I've been dreading in this project is the elaborate framework beneath each of the deck-edge elevators. The Gold Medal Models photoetched set gives you something for the starboard elevator, but you're on your own for the port side elevator. Since what you'll see will be limited once the ship's on the base, I didn't feel the need to go whole-hog. I did, however, want to have just enough to look "rite."



This is what I ended up doing. This is some Evergreen strip cut into sections and glued onto a piece of plastic...



...that fits into a recess I built beneath the port elevator. Building the framework on a separate piece gives you many more angles to get things assembled in some kind of alignment. Not to mention, it's also a lot easier to paint.



And there we are, glued into place. Just for fun, let's look at it from a low angle:



I think that'll do. The elevator rails and braces are also a tiny bit simplified, but like the framework they're more than enough to keep the eye busy. Certainly after all the work that went into building them, I'd prefer not to revisit them. (Yeah, there's a gap or two I have to fix. It'll get done.) Just a few more things to do on the port side and I can call it done.

Jodie Peeler

[DrPR]

Very nice.
It's always a question of where to stop. At 1:530 a lot of the actual detail is smaller than anything you can find to make it. But what matters is if it looks good - to you.
Phil

[jpeeler]

Very nice.
It's always a question of where to stop. At 1:530 a lot of the actual detail is smaller than anything you can find to make it. But what matters is if it looks good - to you.
Phil

Thank you, Phil. I really struggle with this sometimes because nobody can be a harsher critic of my own work than me, and I can point out every place where I didn't meet my own expectations. I often have to remind myself that the point of any hobby is that it's not supposed to feel like a job. There's enough pressure on me in so many other areas of my life, and the time I give myself at the workbench should provide some relief from that.

My husband (who's currently finishing up a beautiful Tamiya New Jersey circa 1983 with a combination of the Pontos set and the Eduard set) once wrote a little essay about the amount of time you spend correcting some flaw in a kit or on a model versus the amount of time you'll spend during that model's lifespan actually looking at it. That philosophy has helped me. If I were building this for a museum or as some kind of historical document for public consumption, it would be one thing. But as a little project for my own enjoyment, I need to not let the desire for accuracy go from a fun challenge into something that takes away the fun.

Thank you for looking in on this, Phil. I admire your work and it's a privilege to have you following along.

Jodie Peeler

[ModelMonkey]

Sublime.

[MartinJQuinn]

Great job on the elevator!

[GrahamW78]

jpeeler building the framework on a seperate plate and dropping it in is definately the way to go mate, it's not rocket science but alot of folk still try to build everything in situ and end up swearing at it, same as me with the MGB where i'll knock up a bracket on the bench rather than lie under the car on axle stands holding three things at once, cos you get proper access to every angle and painting it is a doddle, anyway just my two pennies worth