lexington1709 wrote:Anyone know of a 1/500 Essex photoetch set? Best I saw was a 1/540 Essex/Forrestal/Midway PE set. Thanks!
Hi Lexington1709,
I am afraid there's not much love out there for the Renwall Ticonderoga/Shangri La kits.
I�ve been looking around for some upgrades for this kit and the only PE I found for 1/500 scale were a set of rails and ladders form White Ensign Models, a generic 1/500 Naval vessel set from Gold Medal Models and 2 bar and 3 bar rails sets from Toms Model Works.
The Gold Medal Models seems to have mostly WWII radar sets but it does have watertight doors...
The only other things I have found are a couple of weapons sets (5� 38 Cal. Guns and 3" 50cal Mk.33 Gun Mount) from Starfighters Decals as well as several different Islands for different ships of the class form Model Monkey and an AN/SPS-30 Radar Dish from Bacon Fist Models on Shapeways 3d printing site.
I have one on the way. I actually challenged Capherlock to do some Essex Class scb-125 ships for my collection last summer-ish. I will let you know how it looks when I get it. I sent him plans for Intrepid, Yorktown, and Bon Homme Richard along with everything I had from my photo collections.. He is still working on an Island and the detail parts. I am using an Island I got from Model Monkey to do the Intrepid and I am gong to add some 3"50 Cal Tubs on the sponsons to do an Intrepid 1962 with F4D's, F-8C's, A-4C's, AD6, RF-8B, and a couple of Sky Warriors for the fun of it. Scratch building the mast is going to be a challenge.
I got tired of waiting for Trumpeter or some other company to do one. A bit pricey but that is what you have to do to get a 1/700 scale Essex SCB-125 Ship!
I have one on the way. I actually challenged Capherlock to do some Essex Class scb-125 ships for my collection last summer-ish. I will let you know how it looks when I get it. I sent him plans for Intrepid, Yorktown, and Bon Homme Richard along with everything I had from my photo collections.. He is still working on an Island and the detail parts. I am using an Island I got from Model Monkey to do the Intrepid and I am gong to add some 3"50 Cal Tubs on the sponsons to do an Intrepid 1962 with F4D's, F-8C's, A-4C's, AD6, RF-8B, and a couple of Sky Warriors for the fun of it. Scratch building the mast is going to be a challenge.
I got tired of waiting for Trumpeter or some other company to do one. A bit pricey but that is what you have to do to get a 1/700 scale Essex SCB-125 Ship!
Mark
I'm trying to save up the money. Seems like it would give me an excuse to build some Cruisers from the same era too.
I got my Intrepid today. It is really very nice. The only complaint is that the surface of the plastic is a bit too textured on the hull. The photo of the mid section of the hull looks worse here than it appears in the close up photo. I am hoping that I can sand the hull to smooth it out. The flight deck actually looks pretty good that way. Details are very good. The designer still has to finish the detailed parts. With the parts I have I can complete the Air Wing and the Hanger Bay while we wait for the detail parts.
Mark McKinnis wrote:I got my Intrepid today. It is really very nice. The only complaint is that the surface of the plastic is a bit too textured on the hull. The photo of the mid section of the hull looks worse here than it appears in the close up photo. I am hoping that I can sand the hull to smooth it out. The flight deck actually looks pretty good that way. Details are very good. The designer still has to finish the detailed parts. With the parts I have I can complete the Air Wing and the Hanger Bay while we wait for the detail parts.
Mark
That's a bit disappointing. Did you order it in the default finish?
I upgraded to the better one. The best finish is not offered which is what I get when I get 3D printed Aircraft which I think would make a difference. The cost would go up. I am going to play around with some spray sealers and sanding. It is still a really nice looking mode though. Like I said, it looks worse on the photo than it is.
Hi, I am working the the Revel kit of the Shangri La with the angled flight deck. The instructions say the the flight deck was two colors. It looks like the modern flight deck grey on the angled portion and a blue grey on the take off portion of the flight deck.
I have seen some B&W pictures which seem to suggest two colors, but I am not sure if its just the angle of the picture.
I doesnt seem to make sense to have two colors on the flight deck, however, maybe as the first angled flight deck, they wanted to give the pilots a clear demarcation between the sections of the deck.
I have already done a WWII version to give to my dad years ago, he served on the Shangri La at the end of the war as a photographers mate. I had a giant picture of the post war Shangri La going through the Panama Canal on my bedroom wall growing up. A photographer on the ship sent it to my dad in the 60's, which is why I am doing this particular model at this time.
Any thought on the flight deck color scheme would be appreciated.
I used Testors "Air Mobility Gray" on the "wood" parts of the deck, and I think Engine Grey on the rest, when I built the Gallery Intrepid a few years back.
Martin
"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne
In the 60s and 70s the USN applied the thick non skid paste more selectively to their decks. They have a specific non skid for flight decks. The rest of the decks were painted, or covered in a thinner non skid paint. This caused color variations, and there are different colors of non skid. Nowadays the whole deck is covered more iniformly and color variations are more random due to age and wear. This applies to both carriers and other surface ships.
Here's more detailed info,
Darren (Admiral Hawk)
In the not so tropical climate of the Great White North.
math08 wrote:Hi, I am working the the Revel kit of the Shangri La with the angled flight deck. The instructions say the the flight deck was two colors. It looks like the modern flight deck grey on the angled portion and a blue grey on the take off portion of the flight deck.
I have seen some B&W pictures which seem to suggest two colors, but I am not sure if its just the angle of the picture.
I doesnt seem to make sense to have two colors on the flight deck, however, maybe as the first angled flight deck, they wanted to give the pilots a clear demarcation between the sections of the deck.
I have already done a WWII version to give to my dad years ago, he served on the Shangri La at the end of the war as a photographers mate. I had a giant picture of the post war Shangri La going through the Panama Canal on my bedroom wall growing up. A photographer on the ship sent it to my dad in the 60's, which is why I am doing this particular model at this time.
Any thought on the flight deck color scheme would be appreciated.
Mike Mathisen
Just my $0.02 here; I recently did an Atlantis (a.k.a.- Renewal) U.S.S. Lexington as she appeared in 1956 and I did the flight deck in Norfolk 250N Flight Deck Stain and Deck Grey for the landing area (used Vallejo Model Color paints). Lexington had her wood deck covered up by the early-1970's and had the non-skid as mentioned above.
If you're on Facebook, there's an Essex-class modeling site there (https://www.facebook.com/groups/693683584321925) that can help (they have me). A guy named Michael Smith is a wealth of info on the Essex-class and my go-to person when I've a question.
Looking for a photo of the doors for the port elevator opening on Lexington after the elevator was decomissioned; as I understand it the opening was sealed off, though with some sort of smaller opening remaining in the middle. Curious if they just closed the large doors and cut a small opening, or if a new bulkhead was installed.
Gator52 wrote:Looking for a photo of the doors for the port elevator opening on Lexington after the elevator was decomissioned; as I understand it the opening was sealed off, though with some sort of smaller opening remaining in the middle. Curious if they just closed the large doors and cut a small opening, or if a new bulkhead was installed.
DavidP wrote:Dominique, that picture is to far forward of the elevator. you should see a sponson that is located in front of the port elevator that you don't see in your picture. https://www.navsource.org/archives/02/021655.jpg
There seems to be a roller curtain in the center of the former aperture, visible on both pictures, plus a door on the aft side visible on the flickr picture.
Michael Smith wrote:Someone on the FB page (Joey Bonice) located a booklet of general plans for CV-16 in very good condition and posted them. That will help.
I asked Tommaso Balconi at ModelFunShipyard to do designs for the Essex Class SCB-125 ships. I sent him pics and plans for USS Bon Homme Richard CVA-31, USS Intrepid CVS-11, and USS Yorktown, CVS-10. I am happy to report that they came out quite nice and I am quite happy with the results. The texture is a little rough but pretty easy to sand out. The bow for the Yorktown is incorrect( he did the knuckle bow) but I am doing the Kearsarge CVS-33 so it is correct for Kearsarge and Hornet if you want to do one of those ships. If you communicate with him on doing the correct "rounded" bow for Yorktown and her other "Hydraulic Catapult" sisters then he would do that for you. The rounded Bow for Bonny Dick is very well done! Should be pretty easy for him to move that over to the Yorktown design. The masts are a bit thick so I will likely re-work them from scratch but they give you a good pattern to work from should you want to do that. I am also using PE for the Radars vice the 3D Printed Radars. If you want a 1/700 scale SCB-125 ship and can't find a Jim Shirley USS Oriskany (Good Luck with that!), this is it. They are not cheap though. I opted for the better, smoothest fine detail plastic option and that bumps up the cost a lot.
Browse through the 1/700 ships link and the parts to do all three are there. He has also done a 1/700 SCB-27C USS Hancock CVA-19 if you want one of those.
