USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71 Trumpeter 1/700

[orb]

Arnaud,
that deck looks excellent. Just about as realistic as it gets, I'd say.

[simon b]

Arnaud

Hows she going ? , looking good so far, don't tackle much 700 scale myself, but fancy a go sometime.

[arnobiz]

I have been a bit busy lately with the kids but I started working on the airwing. I'm doing the Tomcats at the moment. The Trumpeter planes are far from perfect, they need a lot of putty to fill in some defects. Maybe I have not been lucky with my sets...
I'll post something soon

[Nektarios]

I have been a bit busy lately with the kids but I started working on the airwing. I'm doing the Tomcats at the moment. The Trumpeter planes are far from perfect, they need a lot of putty to fill in some defects. Maybe I have not been lucky with my sets...
I'll post something soon

Arnaud i have noticed your absence. I m happy you find time to post again. Yes the Trumpy aircraft are far from perfect. I ll be waiting for your post with pics of your 1/700 aircraft.

[arnobiz]

Working on the Tomcats. There is a big gap under the belly on both reactors. This comes from a very poor design from Trumpeter, I can not understand why they did not do like PitRoad, where the landing gears come into small holes: Here the gear is part of an element of the reactor. It's a bit complicated to explain but:
1) The design of the model sucks
2) The fit is terrrible, over 1mm gap between the parts
The parts just assembled, the gear themselves are cut out as I will use GMM PE parts for these. The left arrow shows the excessive thickness of the part, the right arrow the misfit.

After putty and sanding:

Now, paint an additional layer of black under the cockpit (I intend to mask these with masking fluid), add the tails and start the actual painting

[simon b]

Yep, i know what you mean with the Tomcats, I got 2 boxes of Fujimi ones to replace them.

[Kelly Quirk]

Arnaud,

That is some of the most impressive deck painting I have seen. It just looks fantastic. One thing about you that really impresses me is the fact that when you have found that you have made a mistake, you are so willing to go back and make it right. I find myself doing the exact opposite, I just get to a point where I have to move on. Keep up the good work!!

[arnobiz]

Thanks Kelly, coming from you that's quite a compliment

I've been stuck on this project for the past two months due to a PhD, a family and a lot of rowing going on but I started working on it again yesterday. I will complete the deck (Just the JBDs to finish now, I messed a bit with the original parts so I had to do them again from scratch) and start the painting of the airwing. I'm planning on having some of them with open canopies, thanks for your nice tutorial on the subject. 1/700 canopies may be a bit tricky but I did a test with an F/A-18 and it should work. Hopefully.

[Nektarios]

Thanks Kelly, coming from you that's quite a compliment

I've been stuck on this project for the past two months due to a PhD, a family and a lot of rowing going on but I started working on it again yesterday. I will complete the deck (Just the JBDs to finish now, I messed a bit with the original parts so I had to do them again from scratch) and start the painting of the airwing. I'm planning on having some of them with open canopies, thanks for your nice tutorial on the subject. 1/700 canopies may be a bit tricky but I did a test with an F/A-18 and it should work. Hopefully.

Welcome back Arnaud. Hope to see some pics soon.

[arnobiz]

Welcome back Arnaud. Hope to see some pics soon.

Here is a tiny update, I finally finished the deck. I still have the catwalks to do but the main paint job is done. Finally.



I think I've been a bit too heavy on the "dirty deck" effects but it's close to some pictures. My next CVN (Yes, there will be a next CVN, Nektarios got me infected ) will be cleaner. But just a bit as I really don't like it when it looks brand new

Now I'll work seriously on the airwing, I decided to do like Sauragnmon and have a deadline, otherwise this model will never be completed. I will keep the deadline to myself though, just in case

[gtb -red]

Looks great to me arnobiz. I too don't like a clean carrierdeck.

[Nektarios]

Here is a tiny update, I finally finished the deck. I still have the catwalks to do but the main paint job is done. Finally.
I think I've been a bit too heavy on the "dirty deck" effects but it's close to some pictures. My next CVN (Yes, there will be a next CVN, Nektarios got me infected ) will be cleaner. But just a bit as I really don't like it when it looks brand new

Now I'll work seriously on the airwing, I decided to do like Sauragnmon and have a deadline, otherwise this model will never be completed. I will keep the deadline to myself though, just in case

I m happy to infect you. Good job on the flight deck

[kidcurrie42]

Great work Arnaud, deck looks superb

Happy Modeling

John

[orb]

Super nice Arnaud! What are the chances of you building me one of those decks when I get around to building a CVN? Seriously though, great work!

[arnobiz]

Anytime Orb but even if I charged �2/hour of work it might turn out to be quite expensive

I started working on the stern, there are a few mistakes in the kit and I did not follow the intructions. They recommend to assemble all of the stren components and then stick it on the hull but I feel it would make the joints difficult to hide. Instead I glued the face on the hull first, it will be easier to putty and sand the joint. I'll add the inside components of the stern later. I know I'm a complete maniac about seams, I just hate it when one can see that the finished model was assembled out of smaller bits.

I also worked on the planes, they are almost ready to be painted. Here is a comparison between Trumpeter (top) and Skywave (bottom). As the Skywave planes are molded in one bit they look much flatter and I really prefer the Trumpeter's. I have never seen any Fujimi F-14 though, they might be even better.

[Nektarios]

I started working on the stern, there are a few mistakes in the kit and I did not follow the intructions. They recommend to assemble all of the stren components and then stick it on the hull but I feel it would make the joints difficult to hide. Instead I glued the face on the hull first, it will be easier to putty and sand the joint. I'll add the inside components of the stern later. I know I'm a complete maniac about seams, I just hate it when one can see that the finished model was assembled out of smaller bits.

I also worked on the planes, they are almost ready to be painted. Here is a comparison between Trumpeter (top) and Skywave (bottom). As the Skywave planes are molded in one bit they look much flatter and I really prefer the Trumpeter's. I have never seen any Fujimi F-14 though, they might be even better.

Fantastic work on the CVN. I assume you ll make some of the aircraft with open canopies???

[arnobiz]

Yes, I will give it a try at least
As you saw I already drilled the cockpit holes in the Skywave F-14, as they have an opaque canopy I had to open their canopies if I wanted to include them. The point is that I have "only" 14 Trumpeter tomcats so if I want to have most of the airwing I must use the two Skywave I have. On the other hand as these are larger than the Trumpys they will be put in the backgound of the hangar.

[J Goodacre]

Truly outstanding, I have been admiring this post while building my CVN 71. I cannot imagine the difficultly doing open canopies. I cannot paint them straight let alone cut them off and clean them up.

Thanks for posting,

John

[orb]

Anytime Orb but even if I charged �2/hour of work it might turn out to be quite expensive

I thought it might Therefore, I'll just sit back and continue to watch your build from here and hope that my deck will look half as good as yours someday. Great job so far!

[arnobiz]

Lol Orb I looked at your website and your models are really good, I can't wait to see your Nimitz diorama!

I worked a bit more on the tomcats. On the picture I posted yesterday the Trumpeter plane is painted with a brush. Bad idea: the hair marks are as big as the plane
Therefore I removed all the paint with oven cleaner and started again with my airbrush. I bought this Aztec airbrush 10 years ago, definitely worth the investment!
1) Mount all the planes on a toothpick with white glue (easy to remove but reasonnably strong).

2)Apply the liquid mask on the canopies. Don't do it before you mount the planes on the toothpicks as you might accidentally remove the mask, it's quite fragile. I put mask on all planes (Except the Skywaves of course) even though half of them will have open canopies. The reason is that there will probably be a few accidents with the mask and that way I will just have to remove the canopy on the "missed" planes to get rid of the problem

3)Spray a few black coats on the planes as a primer and to give a dark background to the clear canopies. Comparing this picture with the one of yesterday one can clearly see the difference in quality between brush and airbrush: