The Ship Model Forum

Steve:

What do you consider the bigger challenge? Is it identifying the details (or, in my case, just seeing them) you want to add or actually the physical modeling?

I am really amazed at how you (and others) are able to pick out details that I don't notice in photos and drawings and add them to your model. To me that seems to be an under-appreciated talent that I am amazed by.

Great job, and thanks for sharing your work.

- Chris

Holy smoke, Steve.....

Do you have little desks & chairs in the air group offices as well????

Amazing work!

Bob

I've been doing a little work on a 1/350 Essex that I'd like to build as the 2nd Hornet (CV-12). Every time I see one of Steve's posts, I put the model back in the box!! I'm blown away by the amount of detail on your model, Steve. Incredible work!!!

Man Steve, does this mean that I have to do the underside of my Ranger? Great work ,Great work.

Wow, Steve.

That is several levels higher than anything I'm aiming to achieve with my 1/700 models.
Thanks for posting these pictures, they gave us an idea of what can be achieved and an idea of what's really there.

Cheers, Stefan.

Gentlemen, thank you for all your kind comments!

FlyingLow, very nice work!

Starboard bow, Flight Deck underside.

ChrisH wrote:Steve:

What do you consider the bigger challenge? Is it identifying the details (or, in my case, just seeing them) you want to add or actually the physical modeling?

Identifying the details. Research is tough. Some subjects are extremely well documented but most are not. For super-detailing a model, accurate plans and AOTS drawings help immensely in getting the size and placement of features right but drawings can be interpreted differently according to the eye of the beholder so photos help in understanding what the actual feature really looked like. Even with something as well documented as the Essex class ships, I rely upon the skill and generosity of others like Tracy White (photos) and Keith Bender (hull plating plans) to get the details right. Having said all that a modeler can build a great Trumpy Essex right out of the box. This site is full of superbly built and painted models built OOB.

The physical modeling is actually relaxing for me.

ChrisH wrote:I am really amazed at how you (and others) are able to pick out details that I don't notice in photos and drawings and add them to your model. To me that seems to be an under-appreciated talent that I am amazed by. Great job, and thanks for sharing your work. - Chris

Thanks so much for your compliment!

Steve,

Anything new to show us?

Hi Martin!

I'll post some pics shortly. I am just finishing weathering the flight deck. The hangar deck overhead is 100% complete and the undersides of the flight deck overhang are just about done. I think you will like how the catwalks suspended from overhang turned out. Timm Smith did a great job on this area - not easy to do.

Hubert Ortinger's build is really great. You can see pictures of his build on the HyperScale "Plastic Pix" section for March 27th. If you haven't seen it, head over for a real jaw-dropping build.

That's a real mind-blogging experience Steve!
usually hangar decks means nothing to me when I build carriers.

Nick

Thank you, Nick!

Weathering the Flight Deck

As stated earlier, the model is meant to show Yorktown as she appeared in April 1945,
about six months after a major refit. On the real ship, the wooden flight deck planks were stained blue but would certainly appeared quite worn and faded after six months at sea. In contrast to the wood, the steel tie down strips were painted, not stained, deck blue so the blue color of the steel tie-down strips held up better than the wood (see NARA photo 80-G-K-5339 below).

Here is one modeling technique you might try to replicate that look.

Using an airbrush, the kit's flight deck was first painted a light coat of Deck Blue 20-B. It was then painted with a wood color. After the wood color was allowed to dry thoroughly the deck was painted blue again completely covering the wood color. After the blue dried, the white deck markings were masked and airbrushed. On the real ship, these markings were painted on the wood planks between the steel tie-down strips and are therefore not evenly spaced or uniform in length. Trumpy did a great job on the flight deck parts and got the irregular spacing of the tie-down strips right. Perhaps this compliment is deserved by Tom at Tom's Modelworks. His resin Essex kit was the prototype for Trumpy's plastic kit.

The tie-down strips were masked and the wood planks between them were lightly sanded bringing out the wooden color. Since I had painted the deck parts blue before the wood color, any sanding through the wooden color simply revealed more blue. Aerial photos taken of Yorktown during her October 1944 post-refit cruise in Puget Sound show that the white deck edge dashes appear freshly painted while the centerline dashes appear worn away. Therefore I deliberately sanded through the centerline dashes but preserved the deck edge dashes. Perhaps the deck edge dashes were more important and were better maintained on Yorktown. It appears that the centerline deck markings on USS Randolph CV-15 were allowed to wear away as well (see Randolph photo below).

In two areas on the flight deck, one about a third of the way from the bow and the second
about two-thirds of the way, there are double tie-down rows. This marks the location of
the two flight deck expansion joints on the real ship. This is where Trumpy chose to join
the three flight deck kit parts. It indicates that Trumpy did their homework and chose a
logical location for their kit's flight deck part joints. Kudos!

Yorktown's distinctive numeral "10"s on the flight deck will be lightly airbrushed on later
and the lowered elevators will be weathered later too.

Great looking flight deck Steve. I like the way you painted the deck blue, brown and then blue again. I'm going to try that on my up-coming Intrepid build. My earlier builds were Primer gray, brown and then blue. I sometimes removed to much paint and ended up at the gray primer.
More pictures please.

Now that is stunning!

always like following your work steve.

gtb -red wrote:always like following your work steve.

Agreed.

This is going to be an awesome build.

Lookin great Steve!

Gordon, Nick, gtb-red, JPH and Kenny, thanks so much for your kind comments!

Here are a few more pics with the flight deck and island dry-fit in place.

Aerial photos taken of Yorktown during her October 1944 post-refit cruise in Puget Sound in Warship's Data 5: USS Yorktown (CV-10) by Robert F. Sumrall (ISBN 0-929521-45-5) show that the white deck edge dashes appear freshly painted while the centerline dashes appear worn away. I tried to replicate that look.

The next big effort will be completing the gallery deck.

Capt652 wrote:Which color blue did you choose for the flight deck color? And would all flight decks of that time period get the same color?

According to noted naval historian Alan Raven the correct color for mid-1944 through 1945 is #21 Flight Deck stain (revised). He states, "About mid 1944 there was the introduction of #21 Flight Deck stain (revised). This revised stain was (when newly applied) identical to 20B deck Blue (revised) and was a near match in service with the introduction in March 1944 of glossy Sea Blue, a new camouflage color for use on carrier aircraft." You can read more of this discussion on ShipCamouflage.com

WEM has this color in its colourcoats line of enamels and I highly recommend it as accurate. Since I airbrush indoors and we have lots of small kids, I choose to use acrylics instead of enamels. So as a substitute for WEM's #21 in acrylics, I chose Polly Scale "Weather Deck Blue 20-B" which, IMHO, is an acrylic that closely matches #21 Flight Deck stain (revised).

Despite reports that ModelMaster Marine colors and PolyScale marine colors have been discontinued, they are all available directly from Testors Corporation

For those modeling an Essex class ship in 1943 or 1944, go with the earlier Flight Deck Stain #21 (Late 1941). In acrylics, it is also available from Testors Corporation.

Two views of the overall flight deck:

Well, I can see it won't be any use brining a 1/350 carrier to Virgina Beach for this summer's IPMS Nationals!

truly amasing piece of work.....exelent.....