disecting the 1/350 Trumpeter NIMITZ

[marijn van gils]

4000 more to go.....

Varying the colours a bit is a great way indeed to create more variety in the crew figures. It's worth the extra work! And it's not that much extra work, just mixing a bit of a different tone in your paint every once in a while when painting the pants etc.

The island looks fantastic, and I have to agree with everyone that the weathering looks super-realistic, especially on the flight deck
If it is hair you used for the arrestor cables: leave it as it is, it looks great!

The cables on the elevator look too slack indeed. Maybe tightening with an insence stick? Or otherwise replacing with stretched sprue. It is not as fragile as it looks, and how much do you plan to touch them when the model is finished anyway?

Cheers,

Marijn

[JimVarnellABH2USN]

LACI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where are the darn tow bars and wheel chalks for your NIMITZ, Doug has them
for the Big E

Hey just a side note in regards to your elevator cables and arresting gear wires, and very decent product I have used in the past is .003 Spider wire fishing line, it is a lil' bit thicker than a human hair but not by much, it is also known by the test strength of 1 to 5 pound test fishing line, a spool will last you probably forever if you use it for models, it also works great for 1/350 scale rigging. Just a tip for future builds, it can be found at most any sporting goods store and even at Walmart.

[marengtech]

LACI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where are the darn tow bars and wheel chalks for your NIMITZ, Doug has them
for the Big E

Hey just a side note in regards to your elevator cables and arresting gear wires, and very decent product I have used in the past is .003 Spider wire fishing line, it is a lil' bit thicker than a human hair but not by much, it is also known by the test strength of 1 to 5 pound test fishing line, a spool will last you probably forever if you use it for models, it also works great for 1/350 scale rigging. Just a tip for future builds, it can be found at most any sporting goods store and even at Walmart.

If its a lil bit thicker than human hair it should be close to the right thickness for 1/200 scale?

[JimVarnellABH2USN]

Gerry, I actually just checked the thickness of the line and the box said .003 but the calipers say .001 so it is smaller than I thought, I have used it before on a 1/350 scale USS MISSOURI BB-63 for the flag bags rigging and with the line already black it was just the icing on the cake for that process, it ties into nearly invisible knots and can attach with CA glue to each other for runners off the main rigging.

I did check several areas of the line to see if the thickness was consistent and it was, I check nearly 4 to 6 feet and everytime it read .001

[anyahajobuzi]

4000? You planning to line the rails?

Hahaaaa, nooooo. I would pick a shot to the head before doing that.... No I wasn't planning on lining the rail, it just seemed so overwhelming painting even 60 or so guys, I figured it might as well be thousands...I was right though: it did suck to paint them...

LACI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where are the darn tow bars and wheel chalks for your NIMITZ, Doug has them
for the Big E

Hey Jim! I am no competition to that "crazy nut-job" But hey: I got tow-bars! But i cheaped out, hehe, and used the PE ones. But Doug is waaay up in the clouds with the modelling demi-gods. Compared to him I am just O.K. But thanks for the encouragement..... and also thanks for your recommendation for rigging material. I might check it out!


MARIJN- You were right about the slight color mixing/adjusting for the clothing . That's exactly what I did. I mean it still was less fun than drinking gasoline in a burning building, but I am DONE! The little bastards turned out ok!


Well, Happy Easter fellow modelers!!!!!


I have been out of the game quite bit, and I owe a visit to a lot you guys' threads! I haven't been on the forum since January. Ever since my wife and I got back from Hawaii, I went back to working 2 jobs right away, working long days and pulling insane stunts, like working 32 hours on one of the weekends. I painted someone's real airplane, which is lot more stressful than dealing with a model, and therefore a lot less fun. It took me 3 weeks ( I did all the prep-work too), but the owner was insanely happy with the results, so I guess I wasn't sleep deprived for nothing...
After that second job I did drywall on top of my full time job at the dental-lab. But the insanity is over ( bills are paid and new travel plans are in place) and I had time to work on the NIMITZ! Not just work on it..... but let's not get ahead of myself.

I still had work to do on the flightdeck.
And I didn't like the looks of the jet blast deflectors. In reality there are six vertical panels (right?) and each is made up of 6 or 7 "panels", I guess... In some photos the variation of their colors/shades are so wide, they give these JBD-s a checkerboard look. I found this effect very neat and decided to mimic it. In either case , these deflectors are almost never the same shade of grey, and they are certainly never clean! So I got pretty creative with the greys and the masking tape. And when all the paneling was done, I masked off the deck around the deflectors, and "smoked " them over with " jet exhaust".
I like how it turned out, especially compared to what it looked like before.

I also needed to add the safety railing to elevator #2. For this I drilled little holes for extra strength for when the poles are getting glued in. For the poles I used copper wire, and for the rope I used stretched sprue. Now that I looked at my enlarged images of the area, I see that these little poles are not all parallel (vertical) but I just soooo wanted to finish the ship!!! After 6 and a half years!!!!

SO I did just that!!!!!! MY USS NIMITZ IS COMPLETE!!!!!!!!! DONE !!! NO MORE!!!!!!!! ( well, I still have to build that brace that the tilly uses to lift aircraft, but I will just add that later)


I'll come back to say goodbye


Laci

[MartinJQuinn]

Photos of the completed model are here: viewtopic.php?f=60&t=162112

[Vitalik144]

Great work!!! And i want to ask: what kind of literature, drawings, do you use to build the ship? Thank you

[Vitalik144]

Hello Laci. Thanks for your answer!!! I can't send a PM, then i answer here:

Excuse me for my english, I am from Russia.
Now I building Trumpeter Nimitz 1/350 the same period as yours. Your model
is one of the best that I see. I'll try to find materials that you are
advise me.
One more question if you know: what kind of equipment was at the starboard
aft platform at different periods? In your model it's empty.
And what is this on photo: http://hkar.ru/L50n

[silvershadow]

Superb work!! Well done.

[silvershadow]

still my MOST favorite carrier build by far!!