1/700 USS Belleau Wood CVL-24

[MartinJQuinn]

Fantastic work all the way around. The planes are beautiful. I can't believe this is 700 scale!

[hypno7]

Thank you Chris and Martin! The airplanes surely took me a lot of time, but now I can concentrate on the ship itself.

I have been on the island, trying to make it clean as the fit of this kit is not the best. Updates coming soon!

[marijn van gils]

Aha, I was waiting for this update!

Great planes Erick! Very nice antennae, and I like the light wash on the dark colors. The canopies look amazingly thin, the ones of the Avengers are just fantastic!
I guess you used PE from Flyhawk?

All of these in just one month? You are fast!

Cheers,

Marijn

[hypno7]

Thanks Marijn!

Yes, they are from Flyhawk, they are as nice (if not better) than the ones for F4F/SBD/TBD. Too bad this version of the CVL doesn't have Helldivers, the PE for those is insane!

Thanks to your posts on your Lexington, I got the motivation to try more on the building and painting of the airplanes. The ones with open canopy have a hollowed out cockpit, and the antennae are there.

There are some parts that I am not that happy with, specially after seeing closeup photos. I would have liked to spend a little more time thinning the control surfaces and the wing edges, but oh well...

I saw you took your wonderful Lexington/Morris diorama to Heiden! It must have caused a furor there!

[hypno7]

Hello everyone,

progress has been slow. After trying to make the kit parts for the island look good, I decided it will be better to scratch build it. It was again a confirmation that sometimes it is easier to scratchbuild a part than trying to fix it. Not only many things were way overscale, but also not perfectly square. This kit is really testing my patience. As reference I used the CLV-26 PDFs and all the pictures of the Belleau Wood I could find in the Internet.

adding some detail that will not be seen

Right now I am considering what I am going to do with the funnels, as they are not that good.

Comments and critique welcomed!

[Angeliccypher]

Damn that looks good.

[Devin]

Nicely done island.

[zs180]

Most impressive work here.
Very sharp details with really subtle weathering.
Congrats!

[marijn van gils]

That's some very fine and sharp scratchbuilding Erick!

I'm looking forward to seeing attached to the hull.

Cheers,

Marijn

[hypno7]

Thank you gentlemen . Getting kind comments from such distinguished modelers really means a lot to me and motivates me on continuing this less than ideal kit.


I am doing some experimenting to tackle the funnels, as they are very simplified in the kit. Updates soon!

[Dan K]

Wow, even I am finding hard to believe this is 1/700. A magnificent build, and those aircraft are something else.

[LE BOSCO]

HI Erick

very nice job you did well to completely redo this part
cheers
Nicolas

[ModelMonkey]

Love it!

[hypno7]

Thank you Dan, Nicolas, and Steve!

So another small update. The funnels on the kit, as mentioned before, are very simple and the funnel tops do not fit nicely to the parts. They should be flush (according to my references) and I decided to build them from scratch. While planning the construction, I realized that it will be very difficult to make four that look exactly the same. I took the opportunity to try out this resin casting sorcery (thanks Nicolas for your tips!). Since it is a simple shape, it was not complicated at all.

Now I have four identical funnel "tops"!

Comments and critique always welcomed!

[LE BOSCO]

HI Erick

very nice work the magic of witchcraft have functioned
cheers
Nicolas

[hypno7]

Thanks Nicolas! witchcraft indeed.

More small details update. The AA has been constructed and ready to paint. The 40mm are from Ocean Spirit, very nice resin and PE, but extremely fragile. The 20mm are from Lionroar with the plastic pedestal. I think I am trying all 20mm there are on the market, so far, the best ones in my opinion are the ones from Flyhawk.

Comments and critique welcomed!

[LE BOSCO]

HI Erick

it is not a small details update in general rule, the assembly of these small pi�ces are dreadful for nerves
comgrat's
cheers
nicolas

[marijn van gils]

Those funnels look great Erick!
Excellent job on the tops of them, and the piping looks very good also.

The guns look really good also.
I have only used the five star models 20mm set and liked it very much, but the Flyhawk set looks very good too. Only be careful not to attach the barrel and breech parts too far back on the pedestal. The shield cannot be mounted further back as it has to stay to the front of the pedestal, and the barrel can look a bit short sometimes because of that. I made this (tiny) mistake too, that's probably the only reason why I notice...
And if you want to spice it up a bit, you can always vary the inclination of the barrels a lot more, but that's of course only personal taste.

Cheers,

Marijn

[hypno7]

Thanks Nicolas! I really appreciate it.

Thanks Marijn! Now that you mention it, my 20mm do look odd. I will correct them by the next update.

Right now I am masking and painting. Also, I am still working on the island, some measurements were a bit off.

More updates to come soon!