Thanks, Mark!I hear you, a 1/700 island will be offered, too.
Got a lot more done on it today, mainly correcting some dimensions and adding detail. Here's a teaser of the 1960s version at 50% complete (some features will change, most noticeably the funnel cap and the aft radar platform):
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Model Monkey teaser rednering 1-720 Saratoga CV-60 Island 1960s.a.jpg [ 38.45 KiB | Viewed 2295 times ]
And here's the starboard side of the 1990s version at about 60% complete:
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Model Monkey USS Saratoga Island CV-60 at 60% complete.a (2).jpg [ 151.93 KiB | Viewed 2295 times ]
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Model Monkey USS Saratoga Island CV-60 at 50% complete.b.jpg [ 137.21 KiB | Viewed 2291 times ]
Regarding the sponsons, Mark and I and a couple others talked about them privately. For anyone else interested, the sponsons are problematic. Generally, no product sells enough in any one scale to pay for the research and design time. A single 3D design has to be able to produce products in more than one scale (preferable 3 or more scales). That means that the design for a set of sponsons must be easily adaptable to be made available in several scales.
Making a 3D design adaptable for printing in more than one scale is normally not too difficult if the design has a flat surface where the 3D-printed product meets the plastic kit's parts, like the
Saratoga island's bottom.
But curved mating surfaces are a different animal. For Forrestal sponsons, the mating surface where each sponson meets the hull is a complex curve, and the curve on the hull of each Forrestal class kit in the various scales they are available is not the same. Heller's hull shape is different than Revell's is different than Italeri's, etc. So to achieve a good fit to the hull, I would have to design the four portions of each kit's unique hull first, then design a unique set of sponsons to match each kit made by each manufacturer in each scale. So to produce sets for four different kits in four different scales, for example, requires 16 designs. That is an extraordinary amount of design work.
Additionally, it would be prohibitively costly to obtain a kit from each manufacturer in each scale from which to measure and design the 4 hull sections for each kit. Sales data indicates that there is unlikely to be enough demand for a set for any one kit in any one scale to pay for the donor kit, research and design time, let alone sets for more than one kit.
It has been suggested that a suitable solution might be to design a generic set of sponsons, with a relatively flat mating surface, and ask the modeler to gently sand or shape the surface to fit their kit's hull. But the sponsons will be big, therefore very expensive as a 3D-printed product. Probably expensive enough to kill any sales.
So, the short answer is no, sponsons are just not practical or economical to design.
Mark, glad you like the island! For the 1990s version, the starboard side will be loaded with features, including a CIWS platform. For those that like the clean looks of the 1960s appearance of the ships, I'll include Mk.56 directors on the island where appropriate.