The Ship Model Forum

Wow! This build looks great. I especially love the fact that you will depict her as she was for Op Eagle Claw!

BTW, I will be moving to Lacey, WA this summer and I'll be bringing a 1/350 Enterprise with me. Are there many local places that sell AM stuff for carriers, like aircraft, PE etc?

Cheers,

Denis

Denis,
Nothing really local unless you go north to Lynnwood and Seattle. The hobby shop in Lacey has REALLY downsized. I buy paint and supplies there and that's about it. Since I work at Camp Murray, I'll hit Fantasy World Hobbies in Tacoma as they have a good amount of building supplies, great customer service and a military discount, and close for a lunch break errand run.

GMM is up north so shipping is fast, but all of my aircraft have been bought through spruebrothers.

Hope this helps and thanks

The new shaded numbers look so much better and snuggled down nicely with Microsol. Also replaced the bow ladders port and starboard before the new PE goes on.

-Blake

_________________
~Blake
Completed:
1:350 Trumpeter CVN-68 Nimitz, "Eagle Claw"

Planned: Nimitz fixes and sprucing up

Well,
I just realized as Kelly Quirk once put it, "Building the airwing can be maddening". As the weather gets nicer, I find myself slowing down on the build. Which I'm fine with.

This Corsair II was a test bed to make sure everything looked okay (minus the drop tanks & spine aerial). She's the only one with a full cockpit. I found that I had to double-up the Starfighter decals to get the orange dark enough on the back and the invasion stripes.

One down, 42 to go.

P.S. Did I mention I hate the macro lens

_________________
~Blake
Completed:
1:350 Trumpeter CVN-68 Nimitz, "Eagle Claw"

Planned: Nimitz fixes and sprucing up

Slowly getting there.

Ran out of PE parts for the other three Corsair II's. So it's on to the Intruders for the moment.

_________________
~Blake
Completed:
1:350 Trumpeter CVN-68 Nimitz, "Eagle Claw"

Planned: Nimitz fixes and sprucing up

Nice work on the Corsairs. I have 24 on my Nimitz. The Phantoms are not fun either.

_________________
_________________
James

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/users/James-Guard/user-index.html

Those airplanes are awesome!
For a first ship this is outstanding!
When is she going to be launched?
Cheers: Laci

What are you using for decal sheets? What I have is to thick.

_________________
God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless.
~ Chester W. Nimitz ~
My Builds ~ http://ussnorthcaroilna.shutterfly.com/

Laci and James,
Thanks! I don't mind having not finished them all up, as it has kept me from burning out. Laci, hopefully sometime in the late summer/early fall.

Mark,
I'm using the Starfighter decals for the 79-80 cruise. The Hawkeye decals are the most impressive in my opinion. I like them a lot, but some of the colors are way too translucent, like the orange and yellow colors.

Ran to the hobbyshop today to pick up the right color for the Intruder's nose, radome tan. I didn't get the nose color right on the aircraft in the hangar deck.

Intruder Assembly Line

_________________
~Blake
Completed:
1:350 Trumpeter CVN-68 Nimitz, "Eagle Claw"

Planned: Nimitz fixes and sprucing up

very nice "skewer" of Corsair II ,the effect of presentation on the deck is crying out for truth,especially having left of open cockpits nice effect
cheers

Nicolas

_________________
https://ladiagonaledubosco.blogspot.fr/

Nice looking Airwing Blake. Takes a lot of tenacity and patience to build all those tiny aircraft. They look even better when added to your Nimitz! Awesome work man.

_________________
Doug

Currently building:
Tamiya 1/350 CVN-65 USS Enterprise 2001
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=120496

http://modelshipgallery.com/gallery/use ... index.html

Thanks for the comeback.
Now for my next question, were the wings cut or did you have to cut them. If you did cut them what did you use?
I feel like I've been bugging the heck out of you, but this is one of those show stoppers that just make you stand there and ask, "How did he do that?"

_________________
God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless.
~ Chester W. Nimitz ~
My Builds ~ http://ussnorthcaroilna.shutterfly.com/

Thanks fellas!

Mark,
No worries brotha
99% of the aircraft have their wings clipped by Trumpeter already. The only exception are the Hawkeye and C-2. With both of those aircraft, I just used a razor saw and final drive home with an xacto. I cut slots into the wings to remove the flaps and just repositioned. The Tomcat on CAT 3 has its flaps cut out for launch configuration. I had toyed around with the idea of cutting all of the flaps on all of the birds since they like to droop with the hydraulics are off, but the return investment/time needed to do this didn't appeal to me. Same with the cockpits. After cutting out one entire cockpit on a Corsair I was like "Oh hell no". So styrene strip was used to create the upper portion of the ejection seat. I'll do this with the Intruders and glue the PE face curtain handles from the WEM detail set, onto the tops of the seats.

When I do add the drop tanks to the Corsair, I have some very small strip styrene to build the boarding ladders, just didn't want to glue them on right now with the possibility of snapping them off when attaching the tanks.

_________________
~Blake
Completed:
1:350 Trumpeter CVN-68 Nimitz, "Eagle Claw"

Planned: Nimitz fixes and sprucing up

Blake
Thanks for the info.

_________________
God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless.
~ Chester W. Nimitz ~
My Builds ~ http://ussnorthcaroilna.shutterfly.com/

Took my boys today up to Bremerton to see carrier row. Pleasantly surprised to see the Stennis docked there. Never realized how "pink" the carriers get before getting a coat of paint.

_________________
~Blake
Completed:
1:350 Trumpeter CVN-68 Nimitz, "Eagle Claw"

Planned: Nimitz fixes and sprucing up

I served on the Ranger. Sad to see her without a crew.

_________________
God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless.
~ Chester W. Nimitz ~
My Builds ~ http://ussnorthcaroilna.shutterfly.com/

It's sad to see all of them, Ranger/Sh**ty Kitty/Independence, all silent and rotting away

_________________
~Blake
Completed:
1:350 Trumpeter CVN-68 Nimitz, "Eagle Claw"

Planned: Nimitz fixes and sprucing up

I know the feeling, two of the carriers I served on are now just rotting away, the KITTY HAWK & JOHN F. KENNEDY, the other one is still haze gray and underway the ROOSEVELT. Seems to many of these great ships are left to rot away instead of being used as floating memorials to those who served during the lifetime. Yes, I know it takes money to set them up as museums and to maintain them, but the government could / should use them at the least in this copasity and modernize them periodically for further service. What will it take for this make sence to the NAVY and the government another PEARL HARBOR or 911?

Sorry guys don't meant to preach but seeing the ships with there power just left to rot away is SO frustraiting to me, a real carrier sailor who served proudly on these GREAT ships.

_________________
Jim Varnell
ABH2 USN/RET.
89-00
Eastern NC Modelworks

Up coming projects:
1/700 scale rebuild of diorama project 960 square feet.
(Table 1 underway)Feb.2017
1/350 USS ALASKA CB-1(started Aug. 2017) 70% completed

Alrightly,
Got three sets of Trumpy Hornets in the mail yesterday so I can rob them of their droptanks for the Corsairs and Intruders.
There was no way I was going to make 30 droptanks from scratch.

So, been waiting on those to come in and have to wait on my WEM PE order for the remainder of the A-6/7's before work can progress, but here's a shot of one of the topside Intruders. Future really does a number on these small canopies.

_________________
~Blake
Completed:
1:350 Trumpeter CVN-68 Nimitz, "Eagle Claw"

Planned: Nimitz fixes and sprucing up

_________________
Jim Varnell
ABH2 USN/RET.
89-00
Eastern NC Modelworks

Up coming projects:
1/700 scale rebuild of diorama project 960 square feet.
(Table 1 underway)Feb.2017
1/350 USS ALASKA CB-1(started Aug. 2017) 70% completed

Thanks Jim
It's tough to see in this photo, but this particular A-6 has all the PE bits to include nose & main gears, gear doors, scratchbuilt nose gear door, ejection seats with face curtain handles, wing hard points, tail hook. She'll get the drop tanks tonight with the VA-35 markings and the rudder aerial.

_________________
~Blake
Completed:
1:350 Trumpeter CVN-68 Nimitz, "Eagle Claw"

Planned: Nimitz fixes and sprucing up