1/350 Tamiya USS Enterprise CVN-65

[Themongoose]

This is the last model on my shelf of doom. Has been there for 4 years now. I�m on here a bunch to find information to help me make it look good so I�ve decided to post my progress having seen someone else starting it to I�m sure we can benefit from each other�s experience.

My intent is for this to be on a shelf here at the house so no contests or anythcing like that. The most it will see is the local club meeting. These babies can take 10 years, and I�ve seen evidence of that here With that in mind I plan to add elements that will make for an interesting display. A hangar bay is a must! Having picked up Tom Pope�s plans I think I can revive this one. Will add elements that make it visually appealing and work hard on a paint job that will impress. As it sits The hull is assembled plus the elevators. I started to make a floor for the hanger bay and that's where it all went to Davey Jones' Locker!



Heres what I'm starting with-


plus I have the FlagshipModels CD on how to rig lighting on this carrier. Plus this bohemian set of prints and instructions from Tom Pope on how to create the hangar bay. Now where are those decal files i bought for the wall hangings and mural, hmmm?


So 1st up let's redo the hangar bay floor. 4 years ago I didn't know you scored and snapped styrene sheet. Tried to cut out the basic shape and learned that wasn't possible without melting it lmao. Queue today and I have a set of plans and knowledge.


will probably jump around a bit as I need soMe styrene sheet and have to order it. May just read about lighting it before i get too far on the hangar bay. anchors away

[silvershadow]

Looking forward to see your build grow Remember to add enough substructure under the hangar bay, this kit will warp over time. Also, look at your base, how you want to fix this to a stand, and how power will be added to the structure if you are lighting it before glueing down the inner deck. Just a thought) =) Good luck man, I'm sure you will enjoy this!

[Themongoose]

Let me catch you up on where this build sits. Have been at it for 2 weeks now so this post will fill the void...
Last week�s big accomplishment was wet sanding the hull. Took me about 30 minutes to do this without sanding through in any areas...other than maybe a corner or two but nothing that won't get covered easily when I do the pre-shading. There's a hint of things to come...



That's just a water spot on the bow and around the stiffener plate. I taped up the dark horizontal surfaces. hopefully I don't have to redo them to do the next step as that was a couple hours work on it's own.

This weekend I decided to practice doing oil caning and try an approach that may better represent what the carrier hull looks like with all that heavy plating that probably is weld line oxidation rather than oil caning. Practice and some opinions over on the Finescale group build Brought me to this point, 8-10psi, used the 040 dia needle and a base color thinned 20% with white. Using koppalakki�s approach to taping everything up and creating the oil caning affect I went at the stern figuring it was a small well defined area that could be easily stripped if it didn�t go better than my practice pieces. I had some success with his technique on a much smaller area when doing my Frigate last year so this is an expansion for sure
Trying for this



horizontal lines only over the primer



vertical lines next


now 2 top coats of light ghost grey


and finally 3 coats in the middle and 4-5 as you go toward the edges. just to let you know, The very bottom will be the boot stripe so I stopped short there.

[Themongoose]

Looking forward to see your build grow Remember to add enough substructure under the hangar bay, this kit will warp over time. Also, look at your base, how you want to fix this to a stand, and how power will be added to the structure if you are lighting it before glueing down the inner deck. Just a thought) =) Good luck man, I'm sure you will enjoy this!

Thanks Jacques! I read your whole build log as I was getting ready to start this again. Wonderful work. Definitely timely advice, I started looking at how to mount it yesterday so i couldhide wires and install a switch.

[Themongoose]

Decided to do the boot stripe befoe anything else. My logic was that it would separate the 2 different paint schemes so i could focus on one thing at a time and reduce the amount of taping i needed to do. Apparently I didn't take a pic of it on it'sown though.

Heres where I'm at. Time for a dinner break. This patchw will make your eyes buggy!



Not sure if I'll do the hull red tonight or not. Probably depends on whether the wife wakes up or not...

[Themongoose]

Hey Guys, here it is for you to check out. From the boot stripe down all the painting is complete, plus a little weathering on the boot stripe. I'll do the rest of the weathering once all the hull painting is done. Hull red is my own combination. I did 3 different color shades with MCW paints - Insignia red with 20% brown (definitely came out brown), Insignia Red with 5% black, and Sealing Wax Red with 5% black and 5% brown. I used Rustoleum sandable black primer (automotive) for the boot stripe. Dries in 10 minutes to a wet-sandable finish. When I wet sanded I went through in a few spots to start some of my weathering and I really like the affect. But what I'm most thrilled with is this is the 1st time I haven't put down so much red that I covered up all the preshading! Let's see what it look like in the sun shall we...

[Themongoose]

Hey I got all the horizontal lines done today. It's nice to be able to do something like this over lunch rather than just ditting in a cafeteria or at Wendys.

These bow shots give a good perspective on how it looks.

[Themongoose]

Well I have to say I've really had trouble getting a picture that shows what this technique really looks like. The iPhone just isn't doing it, even using the app I have to adjust white balance and shutter speed it doesn't pick up the shades of gray well. That said, here is how it has turned out. In person it looks terrific. Not overdone, just shadowed so when you look at it you want to look closer to see what's drawing your eye to it.

Here's the preshading in base color +20% white.



This is probably the best two to show finished look





Then some others.


I think this set is cool. While trying to show highlights of shading I used the 'negative' edit option. This really shows the shading that is done well I think.





And finally this one looks pretty good when you blow it up. In the middle I toned down the preshading because on the real ship the corrosion and staining on the weld lines did not look as pronounced.



As the build continues I'll try to get some better shots. I have all the weathering to do yet so there's another set coming.

[Themongoose]

My latest progress is all around the hangar bay. Took a couple days to lay everything out, fill the seam on the floor, cut out all the kit hangar bay openings and make 1 new one. The kit comes with 3 bays where you have the choice, open or closed. The 4th one is closed so I had to open it up. Rather than make 4 of these I found a way to cut the 3 from the kit so I could still use the alignment pins to put them in place.

I really like the rough texture of the sandable primer. It almost seems to be to scale so I started with that. It comes out really black.



When I was working on the seems though I learned that when you sand it the color changes to a dark gray. To keep a little texture I flat coated it before sanding. Jury's still out on whether the texture can be seen. Once I experiment some more I'll take a close up.



Then I had to figure out how to do the tie-downs. The builds I've read so far the guys used a toothpick to paint every one of these...there are about 800 on here. I'm lazy so I made a pattern up and printed it out on medium tac friskett using the Silhouette.



Then insignia white followed by a random pattern of spraying the lightened ghost grey I used for the preshading,



a flat coat and done!



I need to go figure out how the electrical will come up into the ship and then I can start gluing this down. Off I go...to work on the car for awhile as it's a nice day out and I have to get the thing fixed instead of playing all day [H]

[gtbred]

Like what your doing to your build.

[Themongoose]

Thanks gtbred, glad you�re enjoying it.

Here is today's project. This is the bulkhead, starboard side, amidship, on the hangar deck. The fire doors close into the pocket just left of center.



This should add something to catch people's eye when they look into the bay.

[Themongoose]

I started marking out the flight deck. While waiting for 20 0.5mm drill bits to arrive I've started on the aircraft. Gonna have to be an assembly line for sure


For the 1st go-round I folded the F/A-18 wings. Then an hour later built everything on 1 side of each sprue.


Only 2 of 14 done so far.

And next will start on the viking(?) wing folds.


these are a pain. Have to do them 1 at a time because they break off so easy when folded this far. I think Jazz music might be best for this process. Probably take all day Sat to finish, then primer...did I mention I was out of spray can primer :#( That's a sad face with a mask on lol no stores that are open near me have the citadel primer I want and it's out of stock online. Ordered from a LHS that's not open but is still shipping. Next week will be big as lots of stuff coming in to keep this going.

[Timmy C]

Bold move, putting all the wings and bits on before removing the fuselage from the sprue - I'd be afraid of crushing the wings while holding onto the plane to clean up the detachment points.

[Roberto]

Let me catch you up on where this build sits. Have been at it for 2 weeks now so this post will fill the void..

Trying for this



horizontal lines only over the primer



vertical lines next


now 2 top coats of light ghost grey


and finally 3 coats in the middle and 4-5 as you go toward the edges. just to let you know, The very bottom will be the boot stripe so I stopped short there.

I don't mean to be the party pooper here as the technique seem to be valid, it seems however that the shading effect ought to go with the lighter color at the bottom of the square since it's the portion that is more exposed to the sunlight.
The risk is to achieve an embossed effect.

In any case, your work is fantastic and a reference for me.

[Themongoose]

TimmyC crushing is definitely a concern! Knowing I've crushed them before with a different method I thought, how bad could it be. LOL So far doing the painting on the sprue has been an improvement. Trying out an approach to final painting on the 1st sprue (of 14) right now. Will probably be able to post pics this weekend to get some opinions.

Roberto, that's definitely a consideration. You know I was surprised by how much the over-spray from painting the lines affects the look of the panel. So I've learned to control the appearance even more. You could put the shading where you want it on the panel. In my case I thought the shading on the stern had more to do with the warping of the panels rather than fading due to sunlight so that was the driver in how I did it. When doing the heavy steel armor plating on the sides and bow I wanted the lines to be more distinct as the thought process was the white look was oxidation along the welds lines instead of warping. There is a lot more control with this technique than originally thought so you can really make the panel appear how you want it to for sure.

[Themongoose]

Still doing pieces but since I got the 1st number lit up this afternoon I thought I'd post it while waiting for dinner to cook. There's still some touchups to do on the bare plastic where I marked a set of numbers and then realized if I put them up higher I would avoid a bunch of plastic supports on the backside of the piece...DUH. Should clean up nice though as they just look worse then they are under magnification lol



They're sticking out about 1/2cm so that I can paint around them and then they get trimmed off.

I'm getting obsessed with counting on this model. maybe it comes with the territory? The 4 numbers use 132 fiber optic lines totally 1.75 meters in length.

[Themongoose]

Time to take a break for the night and get some opinions. While i was finishing up the hangar bay walls I hit a sprue of planes with low viz camo. I think the normal colors are too dark for the size of the planes though. I did a set in standard dark ghost gray then a set in dark ghost gray lightened up 20%. Let me know which one you like best please.

DGG



DGG-20



DGG



DGG-20





Option 3 is they are all too dark?

[Guest]

I think the DDG-20 option is quite nice. but how do they compare to the color of your hull? They shouldn't be darker than dark but somewhat lighter in color at the least I think?

[Themongoose]

They are darker than the hull. Will take a pic of it all together before doing more of these. The flight deck is still raw plastic though but it is a dark gray so maybe all together it will give a good view of it all.

[Themongoose]

I'm working on the hull again. After moving along in the instructions I realized that I would be best to put the running gear on since it all protrudes through the hull...and I was going to lose access when I glued in the hangar bay. I tried the salt weathering technique for the 1st time. I think this experience has taught me to go heavier with this technique rather than lighter. Would love some input from those of you who have tried it.

Salty Dog!



I thought it came out pretty good but after adding the acrylic paint for some overall weathering, basically doing the oil dots but with acrylics alot of the salt weathering on the bottom has been lost. Weird. If you look at the side of the hull you can see what it looked like. I think it was just too light, what do you think?







Unfortunately I didn't get a pic on it's own. Dang. never thought it would fade like this though. Regardless it's staying this way Chalk it up to learning so I want to know what to do different next time if that's possible.

While I was waiting on the hull to dry I did some experiments with the flight ddeck using just the elevators for now. I sprayed them with black sandable primer then went over the surface to hit the high spots on the elevator with an ultrafine sanding sponge. I think this has potential as they are generally darker than the deck itself. Any thoughts guys?



Left side is painted. Right side is sanded.