The Ship Model Forum

Inspirational stuff!

Thanks guys! That weathering on the deck was a lot of fun to do.

Well, I got a little more PE work done this weekend. I have been spending a lot of time at the bench and seeing very little progress, but I am trying to push through it. I just have to add the rails on the stairs in a couple areas, and I can finally be done with the PE on the catwalks and get back to scatchbuilding details.

The stern boat dock is in place and will get additional details like bumpers and ladders once I complete the seascape in that one area.

I am finally at the point where I am adding details to the catwalks. The catwalk details, while tiny and not much in themselves, are something that when taken as a whole, I think an really make a carrier model stand out from the pack.

I made a template for the details when I did Reagan, and it makes life so much easier by not having to stop and search for the right picture for every detail. All of the modern Nimitz class are similar enough in their catwalk details that my template is good enough for me to say that they are pretty damn accurate.

Happy New Year , Ryan!


I love your catwalk details man! Very sharp! Keep it up!
You say, newer Nimitz -class: from what year on did they start adding stuff like this? I might follow in your (and James') footsteps, and build ANOTHER CVN, likely post 2000....

Cheers: Laci

Thanks Laci, you too!

I think that the details on the catwalks are pretty generic across the board, but maybe colors have changed over time. The majority of my really good catwalk pictures are of CVN-77, but in order to make my template, I did have to use pictures from other ships to fill in some of the gaps in photo coverage. All of the pictures I used to get the details are from about 2003-present, but I doubt that there was a fleet-wide addition of the details, so I would bet they are pretty standard. I had to make some compromises to accommodate for what I could pull off in scratch=building, so things like some of the valves are over-scale, but I'll give myself a pass on that little inaccuracy.

I'm just wondering how many details you have already made...
it's very impressive

Beats me! I would have to go back and look at my logs from my build of Reagan, but I actually did keep a pretty accurate count of scratchbuilt additions to that thing, and if memory serves, I think it was around 1000 actual additions made from scratch.

Well, I am about to turn a corner on this build, with only the safety nets left to install and then the hull/flight deck is completely done and it will be on to the island, the final part of the ship to build. Lincoln has way more life rafts than Reagan had, Reagan was around 60 racks (120 rafts) while Lincoln has 100 racks so I need to install 200 friggin tiny life raft canisters! Those are being left off until the nets are installed.

I love all the tiny details that can separate one CVN from another, and a cool one in Lincoln's case is the American flag paint job on her port sea sparrow launcher.

Another tiny area of improvement are the platforms for the steps that lead from the catwalks to the flight decks. On past builds, I cut up some hollow square styrene rods to make the simple platforms, but I was being lazy and installed them knowing that they were too short, but I did it anyways. Now when I look over Reagan, those short platforms drive me nuts and I wish that I had not been lazy and done it right. So on Lincoln I cut regular styrene sheet to the proper height and then assembled each platform and filled and sanded the seams. It was a lot more effort, but well worth it (at least for me being detail-obsessed).

Ryan as always exceptional details and really clean work.

Question for you????? When working your flight deck and preparing for the catwalks, you remove all the molded on cat walks, right? I am working on my plans for my ENTERPRISE and I was debating this with myself, I think I'm correct in saying that it is correct to remove them if your adding the perferrated catwalks.

Thanks and again GREAT work!!!!!

Looks great!

You've given me some great detailing ideas for a Tamiya Enterprise I work on from time to time. Thanks for the inspiration!

JimVarnellABH2USN wrote:


Question for you????? When working your flight deck and preparing for the catwalks, you remove all the molded on cat walks, right? I am working on my plans for my ENTERPRISE and I was debating this with myself, I think I'm correct in saying that it is correct to remove them if your adding the perferrated catwalks.

!!!!!

That is correct Jim, I remove the catwalks and all (there is not much) molded on details before I even put the flight deck together or attach it to the ship. Though as far as I know there are not any commercially available PE catwalks for the Enterprise kit are there? Or are you planning on using the ones for the Nimitz and customizing them to what you need?

Hey Ryan,

Yeah that's my plan, I have to try to find some good photos of them to see the style of perforations, if they are grate style or circles. If it is grate style then the Nimitz style will work, if it is the circle patterns then I'll have to make those. Thank God I have a pattern to drill them out of styrene.

Also, in regards to the "uniformity" of your catwalk equipment, your correct in the layout of the standard equipment like the AFFF, and Jp-5 stations, they are all "in line" with the pump stations, like the AFFF stations they fall in line from the 2nd deck lift "pump" stations to the hangar bay then on to the flight deck. Location might vary by just a foot or two but nothing to major to say not standardized. It really depends on the "plumbing" for them. The only major difference that might be found would be in any "new additions" or "removal" of old equipment, which would be depicted by the era or the overhaul time frame.

Thanks for your thoughts and help with the catwalk questions.

HI Ryan

a great perseverance in the smallest details,it's just perfect and sublim
congrat's
Cheers
Nicolas

Man, I am in the home stretch, but have really not been making a lot of progress lately. I fought with the island modifications, trying to mod the kit decks, and was getting mad that I was not happy with the results. Then it dawned on me, that I have scratch-built an entire island for Reagan, so why was I messing with kit deck levels on this thing? So I tossed my work in the trash, and went ahead and scratchbuilt the new decks, and I am back in business. It really just makes a lot more sense to scratch these things rather than try to perfectly marry some styrene up to the plastic to get the correct layout.

Very nice Ryan, your scratch building ability is just mind boggling. I can only hope to get that good one day.

I know what you mean about fighting with the kit parts to make them better. Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to scratch build the whole darned thing! Especially if you're making a more modern version. Great work on improving the island!

~Greg

gjholmes77 wrote: Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to scratch build the whole darned thing! Especially if you're making a more modern version.

~Greg

That's just about what I did when I built the Reagan!

Well, after a lot of fighting and not being happy with my own results, I am FINALLY happy with the main structure of the island! I am actually pretty happy with how this one turned out so far, with the curved platforms and all. Some kit parts were used, all resized, reshaped, or repurposed. Now I can get into the fun part, detailing!

It is pretty much a lock now, I will not be done with this thing in time to compete at the spring shows. This sucks, because I had high hopes for Lincoln this season, as I feel she is better than my Reagan.

Between real life and what turns out to be a pretty bad case of carpal tunnel that the cortisone shots are only marginally helping, I have just not gotten enough done to Lincoln.

There is some more progress on the island, I added most of the platforms and extensions, as well as started decaling. All of the small details are best left off until after the decaling has been done. The platforms are all built from scratch, I am really happy with how the one on the front of the island/port side came out. On this island, I also added/am adding the piping that is along the underside of the decks. In the past I have left this detail out, but since the judges at competitions look at her from all angles, I figured I would add the piping just to make it more interesting I suppose.

Bummer about your wrist, Ryan. Feel better soon. And while the cheap shot opportunities regarding your wrist beckon, but I'll pass....just too easy.

As always, impressive work. You bringing her to MosquitoCon anyway?

Nice!

MartinJQuinn wrote:Bummer about your wrist, Ryan. Feel better soon. And while the cheap shot opportunities regarding your wrist beckon, but I'll pass....just too easy.

As always, impressive work. You bringing her to MosquitoCon anyway?

Ha! You don't want to take a swing at that meatball?!

I am probably not going to risk transporting her to mosquitocon, seeing as she is not yet mounted on her final base, I think the transport is more dangerous to her than it is worth. So if I make it to mosquitocon this year, all I will have is a little USS Ft Worth built OOB. It's a neat little ship with a cool paint job, but it's certainly not going to be any major competitor.