The Ship Model Forum

great work on that thing..

I received a request for the waterlines that I used for the hull, so I put them together in a PDF. You are welcome to use them for non-commercial purposes and I would appreciate that, if you do use them, you credit that I drew them.

http://paulbudzik.com/current-projects/Enterprise%20Scratch/USS_Enterprise_350_Waterlines.pdf

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Thank you so much for posting those plans sir!!!!! You've made a lot of people happy

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Drawing Board:
1/700 Whiff USS Leyte and escorts 1984
1/700 Whiff USN Modernized CAs 1984
1/700 Whiff ASW Showdown - FFs vs SSGN 1984

Slipway:
1/700 Whiff USN ASW Hunter Killer Group Dio 1984

Very kind of you Paul, thank you

Amazing work, Paul.

So, as it is now, do you glue the kit hangar deck on top of what you have here, or do you just start gluing on the hangar deck walls?

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

I really want to do as much from scratch as possible. I tried assembling some of Trumpeters superstructure when I was working with the kit and I wasn't impressed.

Right now, I have to first do the rise to the 5" galleries.

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http://paulbudzik.com/current-projects/Neptune/Lockheed_Neptune_Model_Budzik.html
http://paulbudzik.com/tools-techniques/outside_the_box.html

I can see your point. I haven't assembled any of the Hornet kit -- as a matter of fact I just looked in teh box this past weekend and realized most of the parts are still sealed in plastic bags -- but if the fit is anything like the Essex kit, you're just as well off doing it from scratch.

I've always wanted to tackle this hull, but redo it via the frame method. Seeing your results with this bread and butter approach, and having helped someone do a large scale hull like this last year, makes me think I should give this route a go.

Great work. Keep it up!

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

We all should be Thankful for what you did Paul. I'll try to do a waterline version of your plans. again Thanks Paul!

Paul -
Bravo, man! This project shows there is quite a range of skills that one can (must?) acquire to do scale modeling. I have posted my efforts (on the CASF CV-8 thread) over several years to do the same thing you have done. I started with the plastic tanker hull (SS ESSO HORNET) and finally decided to use the BWN resin hull as a plug to carve to the right shape. I have finally gotten it to the right size and shape and will be posting updated pictures in a week or so. For ANYONE reading this thread, make NO mistake that Paul's way of doing the hull is by far the best. I say this from personal experience. If I do another 1/350 YORKTOWN class model, I will do it as Paul has done it, period.

I can also comment that the statement that the Trump kit is 80% wrong is probably not correct - it's more like 90% wrong. Sorry to say this, but if you are going to the trouble of getting the hull right you will want to get the rest right as well. You can see from Paul's picture that the forward 5" gun galleries on Paul's hull are about 1/2" further aft (correct!) than Trump's so the Trump hangar sides are too long for the corrected hull. When you compare them to blueprints, you'll find that the roller doors are not properly positioned or sized in most cases, and other details are not properly placed. The list goes on. My object here is not to discourage the creative process. The strongest thing I can say is that I swore I would never scratchbuild anything because I never thought I had the skill or patience. If I can do it, you can too following Paul's lead. I respect those who will try, I also respect those who decide not to do so extensive a re-build.

Paul: here's a hint for the portholes / airports. I used Flyhawk 350101 USN portholes. They come complete in a couple of sizes and include the 'eyebrow' over the port. I experimented with using superglue to attach them, but with uneven results. Fortunately I used scrap plastic as a test bed first. Talking to a bud at the local IPMS meeting, he suggested using Future to affix the porthole in the appropriate spot as it allows some wiggle before it sets up. Once you have a row of them in place, hit them with some primer and they will stay fixed without any further glue. The results are great.
Another hint - if you are intending to put the shell plating courses on the hull, I used automotive Duplicolor Hi-Build primer. It is basically Mr. Surfacer 500 in a big can for less money. I mask the course of plates to be raised away from the hull (and with the protholes installed if there are any) and spray on a couple of reasonably thick coats. Use a hair dryer to get it to skin over and flow pretty quickly, then pull off the tape in a few minutes. Works great, looks scale, and doesn't clog up or cover over the Flyhawk portholes. When the tape pulls up, the edge will be raised above the rest of the paint. If you sand it with, say, 1200 grit and light pressure, the edge looks like a weld bead. Experiment first, obviously. As I said, I expect to post within a week on the CV-8 thread and will show some completed pictures of this process.

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Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)

Thank you John for all the encouragement and your suggestions. The primer buildup method is something I've used effectively on aircraft models with overlapping panels as in this Scratchbuilt 1/32 Hawker Tempest I did a few years back:



http://paulbudzik.com/models/tempest-page.html

I'm not sure if I'll be doing that on the hull or not. I have a more subtle way of doing "raised panels" but it is less forgiving and over such a long run I'm not sure. A little experimentation will be in order. So much of the detail in this minute scale seems to only be best if kept subtle so as to maintain the massive feeling of these ships.

Completely agree with Future for photoectch. Easy to correct and clean up any excess.

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http://paulbudzik.com/current-projects/Neptune/Lockheed_Neptune_Model_Budzik.html
http://paulbudzik.com/tools-techniques/outside_the_box.html

Paul -
For your consideration I am attaching a photo of my CV-8 in process. Still much to do before posting some photos as I promised, however, I thought I'd show a teaser which shows the hull plating using the method described with the Flyhawk portholes in place. (No, I don't own stock in Flyhawk, but I do like this product for what I needed.) First off, as a scene setter, I have to say that my little camera is no great shakes when it comes to macro photography. Likewise, to reduce the file size to fit here in accordance with the web dictates, a lot of resolution is lost. Hopefully the picture is good enough.
A word about the 'High-Build' Duplicolor and thick coats. In the picture, the row of portholes under the focs'l deck is entrenched in a course of plates that is two thick coats thick. Hopefully you can see from the picture that the outline of the portholes is quite distinct and not all filled in or goobered up. To put this in perspective, the Flyhawk portholes are double-etched into .0035 brass, with the eyebrow attached to the ring with about .002 thick brass along about one third of the eyebrow's length. The paint, when dry, comes up to the .002 level or so, making the eyebrow appear darn-near separate even in Opti-visors. I shoot WEM Colourcoats and am pretty sure the subtle panel effect will survive the application of the Measure 12 Mod.
I chose to do the plates because they show clearly in photos that are taken at least hundreds of feet away. The plates are not just applied 'layer cake' fashion, and are made in various sizes as the hull swells out toward its fullest part at midships, then the reverse is true as it contracts toward the stern. I like the effect - hopefully my pictures later will show it to good effect.




This photo shows the effect I'm trying to get with the plates, and also shows that the portholes / airports are also quire visible.

_________________
Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)

John,

Your hull looks quite good. Where did you find the documentation for the hull plating pattern?

Paul

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http://paulbudzik.com/tools-techniques/outside_the_box.html

Paul -
Thanks - I can't tell you how much time I wasted on methods that didn't work and/or looked crappy after I finished. I bought the BWN kit in 1996 and the Trumpeter kit in 2001 if that tells you anything.

The best plans I have found are the Maryland Silver plan books - I got the HORNET set, but YKTN and ENT are available too as I recall. They are well over 100 large format pages which are copies of shipyard blueprints. The hull plating diagram (actual NNSD@DD blueprints) is covered in six pages. I transcribed them onto the stations I used to true the hull. I did not make a drawing simply because of the compound curves of the hull. The plating diagram is flat, so I suppose it could be taped together and shrunk to 1/350 to make it easier to apply to the correct hull shape such as yours. It was not particularly easy, but with patience it does justice to the drydock photos of HORNET which show the plating prominently. Photos are still necessary because the plates do not always alternate their overlapping. For example, starting at the main (hangar) deck, the first course of plates down from that deck overlaps the next course of plates down which itself overlaps the next (third) course down. The picture above shows what looks like a really wide course of plates which is actually two courses - I had to paint both separately because of the double overlap. There are quite a few shots of HORNET in drydock which show the plating well. I don't recall seeing much of anything like that for ENT or YKTN - at least the underwater part of the hull.

Fair warning about the MS plans. The good news is that they are really great plans that show virtually every detail for every part of the ship. The bad news is that they are really great plans that show virtually every detail for every part of the ship. It shows, for example, that the deck on the island in front of the pilot house is not solid steel (as in Evergreen sheet 0.010") but rather perforated metal like all the catwalks. There is a photo of HORNET which confirms this. (Flyhawk makes a sheet of the material, by the way.) Also, did you notice in the picture I posted there is a knuckle in the shell plating right under the aft end of the forward 5" gun gallery - at the focs'l deck level? Yup, it's there on the real ships, though it's hard to spot unless you are looking for it. When I finish polishing the plating on my hull it will it will show up a bit better when that section of the side gets the final color coat.

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Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)

John,

I have the MS book on the Enterprise and I found the pages on plating. Man, if you can figure that out, you're one great detective. I can't even read it, let alone relate any of those lines to the hull. I'd love to decipher them and draw out a general arrangement, but I can see that isn't going to happen.

There are a lot of detailed drawings, but they are so small, I find them for the most part useless because you can't read the text.

Paul

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http://paulbudzik.com/tools-techniques/outside_the_box.html

Paul -
The use of some kind of magnification device on most of the MS plans is a must, but I have done pretty well getting the important info off of them. I kind of know what I'm looking for and am reasonably stubborn in getting it.

The best way I found to decode the plating diagram (notice I didn't say "the first way I found . . .) is to remove the pages from the binder. I fold over the left / right margins as necessary so that I can tape them together using some non-destructive tape (such as Tamiya yellow) to make a panel. I made one panel of the forward three sheets, one of the aft three sheets. I then attached each panel to foam core board to make it easy to work with. Then I took a wide range of colored pencils and traced the weld seams starting at the bow and working my way aft. Each course of plates is lettered A through P and once the welds are highlighted in color it is possible to see how each course carries along the hull. I also penciled in the individual hull stations I used to create the hull along the bottom of the panels. Drawing a vertical line through the diagram at each hull station shows where the plate courses cross each station line. I would then use thin tape to connect the points I had transferred onto the hull into smooth fore-aft lines and lightly pencil them in on the hull. I fully acknowledge it takes quite a bit longer to do than it does to say it here. But I got into a rhythm and it wasn't too bad. In all honesty, when starting out I did get twisted up on more than one occasion and my head did hurt trying to follow the rat through the maze. I really like the result, I must say. The whole reason I started down this road in the first place was that neither kit really looked like what it was supposed to represent - a warship. I have gotten into the whole gig of trying to understand the design by trying to duplicate it as nearly as my limited skills allow. I am an engineer by training. My wife says that explains a lot of this behavior . . . .
Wait until you get to the supports for the flight deck at the bow and stern:

_________________
Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)

John,

I've got it figured out. I scanned in all the pages and photomerged them so now I have a complete bow and stern sheet. I brought them into Corel and am drawing the lines. I should have it done in a few days, When I get it done I'll post it like I did with the waterline drawings.

Your detail work looks great. I'm sure MUCH more complete than I am planning.

Paul

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http://paulbudzik.com/tools-techniques/outside_the_box.html

Paul -
Sweet! Where were you when I was pulling my hair out on the plating? Oh well, it'll help others just as we all pitch in to share info and techniques.

As far as the detail is concerned - it's MUCH more detail than I had ever imagined as well . . .

_________________
Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)

As best I could decipher for the drawing (some are not reproduced very well), I traced over the hull plating lines.

Here is a link to the PDF:
http://paulbudzik.com/current-projects/Enterprise%20Scratch/Hull%20Plating.pdf




Paul

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http://paulbudzik.com/current-projects/Neptune/Lockheed_Neptune_Model_Budzik.html
http://paulbudzik.com/tools-techniques/outside_the_box.html

Paul -
You realize you are a very disturbed individual, don't you? Welcome to the club. It looks right and compares pretty much perfectly to what I came up with. One small nit - the forward 5" sponson top tier is short and shouldn't have the fillet on the back side where it joins the focs'l deck level. Small potatoes and easy to fix.
For my purposes, I just used the courses of the plates as opposed to marking every plate. Still, maybe I . . . . .

_________________
Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)

In working out the details of the shafting, I generated an additional view that better helps in the layout. The top drawing is a portion of the Web drawing while the bottom I redrew using the Maryland Silver drawings as a guide. The dashed line is the centerline of the hull.



A scaled PDF is located here:
http://paulbudzik.com/current-projects/Enterprise%20Scratch/USS_Enterprise_Shafting.pdf

Paul

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