The Ship Model Forum

Excellent work!

Hi Ryan!

Just checked out your Reagan, and like what I see!

Nice work so far, looks like you are learning a lot and correcting things on this baby! Looking pretty sweet. Only a couple more of these, and you will have the whole class?

Keep up the good work! And thanks for single-handedly keeping modelbuilding companies in business!

The island must have been a challenge, but looks very sharp so far.

Cheers: Laci

thanks guys!

And Laci, yes, I am slowly making my way through the whole Nimitz class. Work will commence soon on a commission build of Lincoln, with another of Vinson possibly down the road.

Well, after about 18 hours of working on her this weekend, the catwalks are just about ready for paint, just need to install the 100s of underside braces.

I have scoured and scoured countless pictures trying to make the catwalk details as accurate as possible, but there is still a little bit of guess work in a few spots. All of the bulkhead details are made of different guages of soldering wire, and the innards of a few old cell phones.

And in a stroke of foresight that I really should have done with the Bush, I finally got smart...

With no end in sight to my builds of Nimitz class CVNs, I decided that I have spent enough time looking over pictures of the catwalk details, so I made myself a full size (1/350 of course ) template. I traced the flight deck, and then addedd the locations of all the catwalk details and color coded everything. I have tons more notes and locations to add, but you get the idea. Now when I get to the catwalk portion of my next builds, i can just lay out my template and it should allow me to speed through this portion of the build and not have to check any references.

Love the idea of noting the flight deck like that.
I'm going to remember this one when I build the Ranger.

template,smart Sarge!

Man oh man, did the time I took to make that template pay off in spades! What would normally be several hours of scouring my 100's of catwalk photos for where to place all the details, instead took me about 20 minutes to install all the detail parts on the catwalks.

The catwalks are very close to being done, only need to add another 50 or so blue wash barrels, and the fire extinguishers (all of which are done, just need to be installed) and the catwalks will be complete. I love finishing off the catwalks on my CVNs as it is sort of a milestone meaning that the model is more or less complete from the flight deck on down.

Awesome update. All us other carrier builders should stand up and take notice. THIS is how it's done. Standing by for more...

Aaaand a few overall shots just to remind myself if nothing more, that there is a larger project going on than just the catwalks!

Thanks James!

And sorry about the quality of the photos, I just realized that they are a little fuzzy, my bad! Sucks, because what you can't reall see is that anywhere on the catwalks where you see a red or green floor plate, there is one or two colored valves coming up from them with PE hand wheels on them for things like fuel shut-off and fire fighting controls. oh well, I'll have to get pics of those tomorrow.

very nice work!

Where did you get all those drums and fire extinguishers?

As always looks great!

Looking dang good Ryan! She's coming along nicely.

Thanks guys, I am really happy with how she is turning out so far.

The drums are l'arsenal 80 gallon fuel drums, not totally accurate for the deck wash drums, but much nicer than just some round styrene. The fire extinguishers are modified l'arsenal parts from their oxygen and aceteline bottle set, they need to be trimmede at the top and the bottom, but again look better than just round styrene. Even trimmed the fire extinguishers are a bit over scale, but I like the look and don't think it will be too noticable as long as I don't put any crew figures right next to them.

And I got a good picture of the valves I was talking about yesterday. I love the effect they add, even if they are a bit over scale. Once all the fire extinguishers are installed I will add a hose nozzle to each of them made from a strand of copper wire.

I said it before...and I stick to it...you flat top people are crazy

Beautiful!

Sweet pics sarge.

Awesome work Ryan

One thing that amazes me about Ryan's builds is how friggin' clean they are. I mean, I can't even see a spec of dust. No seam lines, glue marks or sand marks. Not to mention making deck markings look like decals.

It's enough to make you sick ain't it

Hello sgtryan13

very nice job in your walkways, the "out of scale" does not feel
bravo
Nicolas