The Ship Model Forum

Hey fellas,
Well, figured I'd start a thread for my 1:350 USS Nimitz build as I hope to gain some knowledge, tips and tricks, and any help from everyone here.

This is my first 1:350 ship build. While a teenager in the early 90's, I built both the 1/700 Enterprise and Forrestal. After many years of wanting to build a large ship, I bit the bullet and bought the Trumpy Nimitz since I have a lot of time on my hands now.

As of today, I'm on step five in the build with some minimal PE attached. But...I started on an A-6 as a test-bed for the carrier wing.

After construction, she was painted with Model Master Flat Gull Gray and hand-painted in Acrylic white. What I learned from modeling Armor was the use of water color filters that were used on my 1/16 Tiger I build. Using a pea-size drop of water color, mixed with a drop of dish soap and some water, mixed in shot glass, the mixture was applied across the model. After drying, I dipped my small flat brush into water and wiped off the excess and began to wipe away the areas outside of the panel lines. Although the photos show the uncomplete filter wiping, the effect is beautiful, giving depth to the model and that nice-dirty-carrier-ops-plane-look

I ordered the WEM CVN-68 aircraft wing PE set today, so CVW-8 will get the full compliment of PE goodies. After finishing up this A-6, which includes gloss coat, Starfighter decals, PE set, she'll sit in the hangar deck. I learned a lot with just this one model and am going to try some other techniques with the rest of the aircraft.

Man, my eyeballs are going to explode....

Thanks for looking guys,

V/R
Blake

Looking nice thus far

Looking good so far

Looking great so far! Keep it up! Look forward to your updates!

Thanks fellas!

Finished the decals last night over a gloss coat, then sealed with dullcoat. Will apply the WEM PE aircraft set tonight. Picked up some plastic rod to build the droptanks and looking into resin casting (something of which I've never done).

A little bit of work done to the fantail last night; fill, sand, rinse, repeat.

Pictures to follow shortly.

- Blake

Blake,

Befoer you get too far invested in the airwing, check your painting references. I am almost 100% sure that for the timeframe you are modeling the Nimitz, all of te aircraft had the top surfaces of te tail wings painted white. The trumpeter kit does not display this correctly, they show the tail wings grey. Like I said I am almost completely certain about this detail, so check it out. The intruder and weathering look good though man! I just stated a build of te Harry S Truman out of this kit this weekend, she should have her own in progress thread soon!

Ryan,
Got your email by the way and many thanks.

You're right about the stabs being white. Trumpy has one color, Starfighter has it flat gull gray, as does many other VA-35 resources. Easy fix though and luckily it's just one plane instead of 12

About 75% done, stabilizers corrected, minus filtering, droptanks and PE. Canopy not attached and hard to tell in this light, but the canopy got the Future-treatment also.

[EDIT] quick shot of the Intruder squadron drop tank master and fantail construction.

PE and drop tanks attached. Working on the Corsairs and Greyhounds currently.

C-2 Greyhound with scratchbuilt flaps and gear doors from sheet and rod. Will decal her tonight and attach the aerial antenna and wire.

The planes are awesome...

Do you intend to build the whole air group before starting the ship?

Thanks Nick.

No, these aircraft are just some test-beds for certain techniques. The exception being the Greyhound since I've always loved the plane. As of now, most of the outer hull is done and I'm about to begin work on the hangar deck.

What sort of references do you use for the hangar deck?

Rusty

Rusty,
Good ole googlin' for images and I'm about to purchase the Ray Bean CD. Also received some a couple of images from a buddy who works on carrier retrofits. Unfortunately photography being prohibited from the deck doesn't help.

But I did get the hangar deck floor painted last night and about to begin framing the walls.

Absolutely incredible!

Those Aircraft look absolutely amazing!!!! Great work!

Started work on the hangar deck this evening and will fill in with putty the adjoining pieces later. Just slow-going at this point. Majority of hull build-up is done and I'll leave some of the PE off until it's painted later this week.

the details on your planes are amazing...

great start !

looks like your off to a nice glean start on the hangar, good job!

Thanks Ryan and Yuth!

I actually just ordered the battery-operated LED lights about an hour ago. They're the tiny bulbs that are smaller than your standard LED. The entire circumference of the hangar is framed and I'll start in on the elevator bulkheads with the Dremel tonight. Deck seam is filled, sanded and repainted.

[EDIT] pictures taken with my cellphone