Aircraft Carrier Group Build 2009

[Hippy Ed]

Mark,ever thought of doing a 1/350 Supercarrier?

Blasphemy!!!

[gtb -red]

Ed shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!Go to

[Hippy Ed]

Ed shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!Go to

[Mark McKinnis]

Mark,ever thought of doing a 1/350 Supercarrier?

A valid question. 4 or 5 years ago I got back into model building to do just that. Re-build my 1/350 Enterprise. I had seen the work of Kelley Quirk online and was amazed at how far modeling had come since I was a kid. So I started putting together the airwing and working with PE and decided that I should paractice on a couple of 1/700 kits to get the hang of it since it was cheeper, or so I thought.

I started doing a couple of kits and learned how to do decals on my computer so I got into it. I had a dream as a youngster to have a model fleet of all of the US Navy since before WWII. Now that monster has been born!

I actually have almost all of the 1/350 scale Trumpeter Carriers, Nimitz, Essex, Hornet, and Lexington. I have almost all of the Airwings purchased for them as well. Now space has become a problem so 1/350 was put on hold until we move to a bigger place. I am doing Enterprise in 1996 with CVW-17 but I have not worked on it in awhile. Scratch building all of the Sat Domes has been a show stopper. I am also doing the aircraft with PE and that sucks too but the results are worth it.

So there you have it. 1/350 will come along. But it will be a while.

In the mean time. Ed tells me that you could help with an Oriskany I am building. I am doing the 70's era with F-8's and A-7's. I need to know when she lost her 5" mounts? Also, a few pics of her mast would be great as well. I am thinking that her top rigging did not change much from the late 60's which is the focus of most of Ray Beans Post WWII Essex Class Photo's.

[gtb -red]

I'll e-mail you tomorrow night Mark. Have something you might be interested in. Go to Ed. You have a long drive to Reno.

[Hippy Ed]

I'll e-mail you tomorrow night Mark. Have something you might be interested in. Go to Ed. You have a long drive to Reno.

It's 4 in the morning and I'm eager for that long drive...
Glad you could help Mark out I figgered as much

[Mark McKinnis]

Thanks Red. I will be looking forward to hearing from you.

MM

[Hippy Ed]

I got back from Reno about 9:30pm last night. Broke as usual... didn't have a room up there this time so, came back home.

[Gordon Bjorklund]

Hornet is progressing slowly but a little progress is better than none at all. It's just been to hot here to spend a lot of time on modeling. There's no hurry on this one since I have until next April to finish her.

edited 8-2-09

Now it's time to check the fit of the flight deck to the hull. The flight deck is warped and has a twist to it. The hull appears to have a cure in it. I removed the locating lines to see if that would help with the hull and flight deck fit.
You can see that with the hull and flight deck taped together from the stern to the side elevator that it is still off by a 1/4 inch. It will have to be forced over into place and glued and taped. So much for an easy build. The flight deck does lay down flat when taped down.

Two of the four Dragon Essex class carriers I have got have had warp problems.

Bon Homme Richard: twisted hull and warpped hangar deck Dragon replaced both. Replacement hangar deck worse
than original- Dragon replaced the replacement hangar deck.

Hornet: twisted and warped flight deck.

Randolph : perfect in evey detail.

Lexington: perfect in every detail.

locating lines removed from underneath
the flight deck

see warped flightdeck--it also has a twist to it

ski jump

see how far it's off

different view

[Mark McKinnis]

Wow! That is a lot of problem kits. I have around 10 of the Dragon Essex Class Carriers and they do not have any of those problems. Did you get them at a hobby shop or online?

Looks like you are getting along on them though.

Keep up the good work.

Mark

[Gordon Bjorklund]

Mark,

I went back and read the notes on those kits in my Intreped build. There have been only two kits with problems.

Bon Homme Richard: bought on line - bad hull and hangar deck.

Hornet: bought at LHS - bad flight deck.

Lexington: bought at LHS - perfect

Randolph: bought on line - perfect

I e-mailed Dragon about the flight deck, they gave me a tracking ticket # and then they wanted a copy (picture) of the receipt from the LHS. They asked for the LHS name and address as complete as possible. I sent that to them last night and I'm now waiting for their reply. The last time I just had to send them pictures of the bad parts.

The Hornet build is on hold for now awaiting Dragons response.

It's a good thing I have Dragon's Buchanan and 1945 Buchanan to work on in the mean time.

[gtb -red]

found this foolin around. http://www.kartonwork.pl/forum/viewtopi ... sc&start=o

[Mark McKinnis]

Mark,

I went back and read the notes on those kits in my Intreped build. There have been only two kits with problems.

Bon Homme Richard: bought on line - bad hull and hangar deck.

Hornet: bought at LHS - bad flight deck.

Lexington: bought at LHS - perfect

Randolph: bought on line - perfect

I e-mailed Dragon about the flight deck, they gave me a tracking ticket # and then they wanted a copy (picture) of the receipt from the LHS. They asked for the LHS name and address as complete as possible. I sent that to them last night and I'm now waiting for their reply. The last time I just had to send them pictures of the bad parts.

The Hornet build is on hold for now awaiting Dragons response.

It's a good thing I have Dragon's Buchanan and 1945 Buchanan to work on in the mean time.

I have had good luck with Dragon Care on the DML kits. You can call them and order replacement parts if you need them. They replaced a bunch of the Cybor-Hobby Aircraft kits that were defective. I have also gotten some extra bridge pieces to build some post war carriers with some extra Hancock kits I ended up with.

[Gordon Bjorklund]

Dragon Care has informed me that they have finally found a replacement flight deck. They now have my address and are supposed to be sending it to me. Yea!

[Hippy Ed]

Dragon Care has informed me that they have finally found a replacement flight deck. They now have my address and are supposed to be sending it to me. Yea!

That's good to hear!!

[Mark McKinnis]

Dragon Care has informed me that they have finally found a replacement flight deck. They now have my address and are supposed to be sending it to me. Yea!

That is great news.

[Gordon Bjorklund]

While waiting for the flight deck to show up from Dragon Care, I got a little work done on the Hornet's hangar deck.

[Dave Rowe]

Looks good Gordon.

[kidcurrie42]

Looking Good Gordon

Happy Modeling

John

[Gordon Bjorklund]

Dragon Care's package has arrived.

Now it's time to play the Guessing Game "Which flight deck is the replacement and which one is the original".

I'm going to use the original for this build. I'm going to build an early USS Yorktown with this kit instead of a Dazzle camo USS Hornet. I think it will be easier to paint ship in one color.