The Ship Model Forum

Great looking boy! Congratulations!

Nice work!

Russ

arnobiz wrote:Thanks guys for your kind comments. I am sorry I did not post anything in the past few weeks I was busy with an other project that was completed (Or started, depending how you see it!) on October 27th:
His name is Fran�ois; he is my first son but my second kid

I would like to say a HUGE thank you to Nektarios for his help and his very kind enquiries as he realized I almost disapeared from the forum. I have now ten extra deck tractors thanks to his generosity and his moral support was quite something too.

Your "project" looks great. I noticed your absence and thought that something bad may have happened to you.

Thank God you were absent for a good reason. I m happy to read these good news.

congats, p.s is he going wings or water?

gtb -red wrote:congats, p.s is he going wings or water?

He'll be a ground crawler first! Congrats on your new addition!

Love your masking technique - very clever and well executed!

Congratulations !
It's always good to read such news.
(don't worry your tractors are kept in a safe place !)

Thanks guys!

The masking technique has the advantage of ensuring parallel borders to the lines, but then one is dependent of the thinest masking tape available.

Here is the deck in its current state, not quite finished yet but nearly there...


The GMM decals are a must but lack a few markings, in particular the five helo landing marks. I painted them and found quite difficult to get proper discs! The elevator markings are incredibly better than the thick, false Trumpy markings. It's however a bit of a job to cut and place them.

The airwing is just started. I cleaned all the aircraft main part (i.e. without the fins, the wings and the landing gear) and stuck them on masking tape. I painted the bottom first and now I will reverse them and paint the top surfaces. This may not be the most accurate way to draw the line between top and bottom but it's certainly the fastest!


I discovered a major flaw in the Trumpeter Vikings (ALL of them have it in the set I have):

Some putty and sanding fixed it easily:

Very nice flight deck.
Regarding your aircraft painting method, don't worry, real planes aren't painted the smae pattern exactly. Even on photos of the real things, it's hard to see the tone difference.
Keep cool and keep posting

The two sides will not be painted in the same colour, that would be too easy even if I agree it will be hardly noticeable.

Great work on the flight deck Arno

John

johndon wrote:Great work on the flight deck Arno

John

ditto!

arnobiz wrote:
CVN-71 did a bit of progress, mainly on the supplies side:
PitRoad/Skywave US Carrier Based Aircraft set (Go to Misc.Tools/Aircraft and Dockyard Equipment and Accessories/Pit-Road S-12 Modern Carrier based Aircraft F-14, F-18, A-4, A-7, etc.) and Trumpeter aircraft sets to complete the airwing, so that it has now:
16x F/A 18
16x F-14 D
4x EA6-B
8x S3-B
2x C2
4x E-C2
6x HH-60

GMM Nimitz photoetch
GMM supercarriers decals
Eduard Aircraft Carrier Figures Pre-painted #17504
Starfighter Decals CVW-8 2001. This set is very good but I find it has two big shortcomings: The decals are all printed on the same support, which means all of them have to be cut as close to the pattern as possible, and the instructions are really poor (Just one profile is clearly not enough, there should be at least a top view too). Also the colours are not always very bright, some blue patterns appear black. But other than that it is very accurate and definitely saves a lot of time!

I also ordered a set of TomTom's fantastic deck tractors to add even more diversity on the deck.

Since I last posted I also modified Rouyax' CVN-65 decals to adapt them to CVN-71. I would like to thank him for giving me his work, it really saved me a lot of effort. I will post a picture of the sheet as soon as possible. As it was mainly for the hangar, which is painted in white, printing on clear decal was not a problem.

Congratulations Arnaud, nice son you have there !

I'll write in english and not in french so that everyone understands.

I don't understand why you bought CVW-8 2001 decals for your CVN-71 as CVW-8 was aboard USS Enterprise in 2001.
However it was aboard during Roosevelt in 2005, final Tomcat Cruise. It's newly available for Starfighterdecals in 700th : http://www.starfighter-decals.com/70067 ... 82005.html, and accurate (depicts beggining of cruise) as I got pics from a professional photographer aboard.

Concerning Mark's instruction for decal placement, you have to understand that when I design new decals, I use 72th template I created which are only side views. I include an above view only if there is a specific drawing on top ! Usually, numbers and stars are ALWAYS placed the same for all type of aircraft : Numbers on interior trailing edge flaps and stars on the left wing. That's why you don't have top views

Moreover, instructions do not include a number for each decal as is usually done for bigger scales as this is a ..... very small scale and reference number would bigger than decals and occupy critical space on the sheet as there are 60+ aircraft decals on those sheets. More space = more COST

Also USNavy newstand website is my prime source for hires pics. You'll find all top view you need there.

If you need pics for placement, just PM me.

Happymodelling et bon courage

It's a shame I did not know this set was about to be available when I ordered mine two weeks ago...
I found plenty of pictures to know where to place the decals, I just feel that a few more views in the instructions would have helped and would probably have been fairly easy to do given the amount of data collected to do the decals!

The same thing happened to me. I bought the CVW-8 2001 and converted it to 2005. Now i wish i knew that this set would be released. It would have saved me lots of time and effort.

Nektarios wrote:The same thing happened to me. I bought the CVW-8 2001 and converted it to 2005. Now i wish i knew that this set would be released. It would have saved me lots of time and effort.

Don't forget that IF you ask for a specific AIRWING and a specific date, it can be done, but only if sufficient reference is available (you can always provide it) and IF you give time to design it (a month per airwing) !!!

I've just finished CVW-8 1991 (Operation Desert Storm), should be available in a month from Mark's site both in 350th and 700th but I doubt nosearts scaled 700th will be visible without a microscope.....

I'm currently working on CVW-15 1986 (tailcode NL, the famous VF-111...), CVW-14 (The Black tails) 1990 (operation desert shield) and CVW-9 2001.

Help with hires pics is always welcomed.

Hiya rouyax,
First of all may i say Well Done on the Decals, i have just recieved the 1/350 Last Intruder set, Superb set.
As for the latest news , my Indy is almost ready for her airwing, CVW-8 is welcome for my 4 carrier group at the completion of Desert Storm. VF-111 is one squadron i have been wanting forever, and it is finished off with a welcome set for John C Stennis, are these all going to be 1/700 and 1/350 ? i am actually tempted to do the a/c without Carriers in the big scale
America, JFK and Saratoga all Desert Storm would be welcome, by me anyways

I better go buy the latest sets

Thanks again

John

kidcurrie42 wrote:Hiya rouyax,
First of all may i say Well Done on the Decals, i have just recieved the 1/350 Last Intruder set, Superb set.
As for the latest news , my Indy is almost ready for her airwing, CVW-8 is welcome for my 4 carrier group at the completion of Desert Storm. VF-111 is one squadron i have been wanting forever, and it is finished off with a welcome set for John C Stennis, are these all going to be 1/700 and 1/350 ? i am actually tempted to do the a/c without Carriers in the big scale
America, JFK and Saratoga all Desert Storm would be welcome, by me anyways

I better go buy the latest sets

Thanks again

John

Thanks John, glad you're happy with CVW-17.
All sets intended for 1/350 and 1/700.
All wings during desert storm? Interesting idea as I've already worked on ODS A-7-E's, I might get on to it when I'll finished all current projects

A-7E's VA-72 1991 JFK : CVW-8 2001 VF-84 :

rouyax, i have seen your A-7 artwork before, again it is Superb, i just need to add the PE to complete my JFK, Indy, Saratoga and Forrestal are close behind with America in the early stages, Kitty and Connie both have the Hangar decks.

John

Rouyax, I would be more than happy to write a review of this new set if you send me a sample! My CVN-71 might be a good presentation for your set as I intend to have most of the airwing on the deck . You could then use its pictures for advertising purposes of course.

Just an idea to get hold of this set without my wife asking "Why did you buy two complete sets for the same purpose?"...

Here is a detail of the helicopter landing points. They are finally made with decals (Painting circles is not for me!), a white circle from PitRoad/Skywave modern ship accessories (Effectively part a a JMSDF marking) and the numbers are the instructions numbers of DML Monterey's decal sheet. They are not the right font but I will live with that

Arno, my spots for the helo landing areas came from the Revell Wasp class, i was lucky enough to get two sheets in the kit.
As for the decal sheet dialema, why not get the Enterprise and modernise her to 2001, then you can show off both sets for Starfighter just a thought

Happy modeling

John