1/350 USS Truman Conversion

[sgtryan13]

Well, much to my delight, my plan to light the interior of the island was successful! The pics don't do it justice, but there are crew mwmbers on each level of the island which are visible through the windows. I should have taken pics of the installation, but I got carried away and glued it all closed before I took pics.

The main structure of the mast is complete, it is a combo of GMM, WEM, kit, and scratch parts. This took the better part of my day saturday making sure everything is lined up correctly and straight, as well as modifying the mast itself to take all the PE sponsons.

I finished the elevators, cutting the safety nets and installing the ordinance jettison ramp in the middle of each elevator.

Some details are still being added to each elevator well, and I altered the catwalk areas on each side of the bow to make them accurate. Once those are painted, .50 cal mounts go on each one, along with a few other details.

[johndon]

Fantastic stuff

John

[gtbred]

you have really raise the bar sir.

[Cliffy B]

you have really raise the bar sir.

You can say that again!

[MartinJQuinn]

Niiiiiiice!

[Mark McKinnis]

Well Done!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pingjockey]

I look at the current state of my builds and hang my head in shame!!!!
Looks awesome!

[sgtryan13]

Much appreciated gentlemen, thank you!

Well, to my horror I realized that I forgot to install the wipers and rails on the bridge before I secured the island to the deck, making it mych harder to install everything and get everything lined up correctly. It came out fine, just took a lot more time and work than it would have if I did it in the proper order.

Looking at photos of the island, not every single window has a wiper and the white box above which i assume is the motor box, so I only installed the wipers and boxes on the correct windows corresponding to my photos.

I aslo did a little more work on the mast.

When I assembled the WEM radar (can't remember the # but the big flat one for the front of the island) I realized that the WEM replacement part for the radar is grossly overscale as you can see in the picture when compared to the kit part. The GMM one is nuch more accurate to size, but was damaged badly during shipping. So, I disassembled the WEM radar and trimmed it down, now it looks fine. I scratchbuilt the base for the radar instead of trying to fill the kit part.

[Dave Wooley]

Wow this level of detailing makes my eyes water .stupendous work and a credit to your skills.
Dave Wooley

[navydavesof]

Whew, you are making some great progress! It is such a pleasure seeing progression pushing along. Keep it up!

[sgtryan13]

Thanks Gentlemen

My goal was to finish the ship itself this weekend (with the exception of a few details for after she is mounted to the base) and I came very close, so just a couple more hours and it should be on to the airwing.

I took a final trip to the craft store, and finally after many attempts found things I am happy with to use as all the satcomm domes. The largest dome is a 1/2" dowel I shaped with a dremel, front of island and stern are halves of a 250 mg medication capsule, the larger portside midsection is a map pin, and the 4 on top of the island are 1/4" wooden balls from the craft store.

There was a small gap on the stbd side of the island - flight deck joint, I tried a few different sulutions and finally settled on a strip of round styrene rod stuffed into the seam, which I think looks fine. It does leave a very tiny lip, but it is convincing as being part of the srtucture.

[Mark McKinnis]

That looks great!

I wish an after market company would do some accesories to convert the 1/350 Nimitz into her later sisters. Sponsons, Sat Domes, ect. I plan to do Nimitz 1991 so at least I will not have to deal with the domes.

Bring on the Airwing!!!

[RDC]

Well, to my horror I realized that I forgot to install the wipers and rails on the bridge before I secured the island to the deck, making it mych harder to install everything and get everything lined up correctly.

Oh man....that HAD to be tough.

Great looking build you have there

Russ

[kidcurrie42]

That looks great!

I wish an after market company would do some accesories to convert the 1/350 Nimitz into her later sisters. Sponsons, Sat Domes, ect. I plan to do Nimitz 1991 so at least I will not have to deal with the domes.

Bring on the Airwing!!!

I intend doing Theodore Roosevelt 1990/91, so i am also lucky having no domes to fabricate, i may at some stage build a modernised member of the class. i have the JAG set of SatCom domes which are a good source for reference. would be nice if the various sponsons were available in resin as we have lots of equipment to place on them, CIWS, SRBOC and AN/SLQ-32 from Veteran are a few. a Mk 29 and RAM launchers would be a good addition too.

Happy Modeling

John

[sgtryan13]

I really can't believe no one has jumped at the aftermarket possibilities either. I actually have a modeler who is going to commission me to build all of the upgrades for his build of the Truman. He wants all the sponsons, domes, sea sparrow launchers, etc... I am thinking of trying my hand at making masters and to start casting my own upgrade set in resin, I have never done casting before, but I think it is worth a shot. If I am successful, maybe I will have my own little corner of the aftermarket market!

I have been considering doing a Roosevelt form that time as well, but after I finish a few other large builds, but with that airwing Roosevelt had for desert storm, it is very tempting, and I really like the idea of the desert camo A-6 on deck to add a little something different!

[sgtryan13]

Well gentlemen, with the exception of a few minor details I am leaving off until I have her mounted on the base, The USS Harry S Truman is FINISHED!!! And if I don't say so myself, this one is a beauty!

As a reminder, triple check your references! As it turns out, I missed the fact that the "+" between the 2 big yardarms on the mast has been removed at some point, and the mast shortened a bit. I installed the "+" from one of the PE sets, and had to go back and do some very careful surgery to remove it from the PE ladden mast, along with a small section of the actual mast, but with patience I was able to do it without damaging any of the PE details. Whew!

I plan to rig her tonight and install the flags, then it is full bore on the airwing!

[sgtryan13]

The island has been rigged and the requested flags attached. It was a little more difficult to rig the yardarms due to how fragile the PE gridwork is, made tightening the caenis thread I used much more difficult. I think on my next build of one of these, I will keep at least the lower yardarm as the plastic piece to give me a much more rigid surface to attach the rigging to, but I am still pleased with the result. I just wish the stbd side lines came down almost straight like they do on the port side, that way the "Don't Tread on me" ensign would be more visible and not fly at the upward angle you see in the pics. If I do one of these for my fleet, I will probably take a little artistic license and fly it like that anyways.

I started decaling the airwing starting with the Tomcats using the Starfighter decals, which as always are great to work with, but very fragile, luckily the set comes with more decals for planes than I am putting on deck, so the few ruined decals I messed up will not be misses. I have to be real careful witht the Hi-Viz ones though, as there is only one of each provided in the set.

[Mark McKinnis]

That is a stunning build!!!!!!!!!!

[gtbred]

great build sgtryan.

[sgtryan13]

Thank you very much gentlemen! I must say, I am very pleased with this build, and am very happy to say I am in the home stretch!

I am plugging away at the airwing, and so far it is coming along very nicely. As always, the starfighter decals are a pleasure to work with, and are super detailed bringing each plane to life.

The F-18's are still a pain to work with as they are molded in the clear plastic. I opted not to cut the canopies on these, as I have no spares to use if I messed any of them up. SO what I did was paint the cockpit and add some styrene details, and once they were assembled, I painted them by hand instead of trying to mask off the canopies. With a few coats of future on the inside as well as the outside of the canopies, they are really clear and the details inside are visible.

I have about half of the airwing decaled, but many of the pics did not come out bright enough, so more will be posted tomorrow.