The Ship Model Forum

I have take a commission to convert the 1/350 Trumpeter Nimitz into the USS Harry S Truman in the 2003-2004 timeframe.

This time I am using the WEM brass sets for the ship as well as the airwing. There are a ton of details in these sets which are needed to update the kit.

The hangar will be lit like it was on the recent Nimitz build I did, and I have been asked to try to light the island nimbers with fiber optics like Kelly Quirk did on his build of the Truman. I have never tried to use fiber optics, so this isthe only area of the build I am a little nervous about, but it seems pretty straight forward, and I think with some patience and trial and error I should be able to get the lighting to work.

So far I have just removed all of the molded on catwalks to be replaced with the PE ones again, adn begun the basic work on the hull.

This is the 3rd Nimitz kit I have built, and for some reason the fit of the upper and lower hull pieces on this particular one is even worse than the other 2! It is just terrible. I actually had to go the my dremel tool to sand and grind the 2 halves to get them close to fitting correctly.

LOTS of filler had to be applied to the seam last night, and I am hoping once I sand that down tonight it will be the end of dealing with that seam finally!

This weekend the modeling gods were on my side, I started to scratchbuild all of the modern weapons sponsons, and I was anticipating a lot of frustration. To my pleasant surprise, this went very smoothly, it still took me about 10 hours of work, but I had very few major fitting problems, and with patience, the majority of the sponsons went together and fit great on the first try!

I made masters of all the difficult pieces which I cut out and labeled on card stock, so if I end up building another modernized ship of the class, I can just use these instead of measuring and fitting everything all over again.

I really must thank Kelly Quirk for all of the pics he posted of his build process, those have been a valuable resource along with lots and lots of pictures from the internet.

And some shots of the foreward starboard sponson

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Nice work, I like your scratch work. I'll be following your build with interest.

mason

Thanks for the comments guys!

The fiber optics arrived the other day, so I will be starting on that some time this week, and I will be sure to take lots of pics and detail how I accomplish this (hopefully I will actually accomplish that part anyways!).

This is the first airwing I have done that is getting the full Photo etch treatment, the others have always been more on the minimal PE side. Holy cow, did this turn each aircraft into a project of it's own! I mean there are a ton of parts to each plane now, luckily this airwing is going to be on the smaller side numbers wise, with only 20 -25 planes total. THe PE is form WEM and it is really good looking stuff, bringing a lot more detail into each plane. I have also begun attempting to make my own canopies whaich are much thinner and clearer, once I perfect that technique I will post pics and explain what I did.

I have begun some of the hangar details, I decided to make the control area hollow, with 1/200 ladders as window frames, I plan to put a few crew members in there and light that up as well, I think it should look pretty cool!

Also below are a couple shots of the Veterans Models seahawk next to a trumpeter one just for comparison. I had never seen tthe two side by side, but the veteran one is way better than the trumpy one now that I can compare. Just figured others may find the comparison helpful!

Nice hangar control deck Ryan! I just noticed it in some of my pictures.

I'm still trying to nail down the rear maintenance doors at the back of the hangar deck and what they look like. A National Guard buddy of mine is a civilian engineer that works with the Nimitz class retrofits. He pointed this out yesterday, I just don't have the dimensions.

Those Seahawks are fantastic looking.

nice work sgtryan. still have a 1/350 Nimitz under the bed. maybe next year CVN-77.

Excellent work Ryan. The scratchbuilding looks really good. I wish I could get my scratchbuilding to look that good. Keep up the good work!

Warty- If you come across good hangar deck pics, please post them! I have found it kind of hard to get a lot of good hangar pics, so a lot of it is still guess work on my part. How is your build coming along?

GTB- CVN-77 huh? That would be a tough but cool looking conversion with the aft mast incorporated into the island, I don't think I have seen anyone do a 1/350 conversion of that one yet.

Arizona- I was pretty intimidated with the scratchbuilding, I think the only way to get it is to just jump in with both feet and give it a shot. Luckily styrene is pretty cheap, so you can afford siome trial and error!

Something I learned last night that may be helpful to anyone wanting to do a modernized Nimitz class- I have often wondered why some modelers say they used both GMM sets and both WEM sets for this type of build, and I figured out my answer... You NEED all 4 sets to really do it right!

The WEM sets have lots of necessary detils for a modern ship of the class like platforms for satcomm domes and things like that. They have more catwalk details like stairs,a nd different hose reels,a nd a ton of goodies to use int he hangar deck like dollies and lifts. Where the WEM set is lacking is in some different platforms, and surprising to me, neither WEM set includes the bridge window wipers, which I think add a ton of detail to the bridge and I feel are a necessity. WEM also only has 8 aircraft towbars, where GMM gives you plenty to work with. WEM has replacement parts for the main mast grilles and walkways / platforms, where GMM does not offer these.

It kinda sucks, because int he end, you have a lot of beautiful brass pieces which are either duplicates or not used at all, but I guess they just go to pad the spares box a little more!

Great work so far Ryan

John

Great job as usual Ryan! I am looking forward to following your build.

I forgot John Sykes beat me to it. maybe or maybe not he will be the first on the Ford.

I appreciate the comments guys!

This build is actually getting me thinking of doing a modernized Nimitz class for my fleet as well, I must be crazy here!

I got the hull painted, have a few areas that need a little touch up, namely the stern, for some reason, I had terrible paint adhesion on the stern, a lot of the paint and primer lifted off for some reason after masking, even though I prepped it the exact same way I did for the rest of the hull.

I got a lot of work done on some hangar details, I found a pretty decent pic of the stennis hanger on google, so I used that for a reference for details. All the hangar details are scratch besides the hatches and windows for the control room. I tore apart an old cell phone for a few of the details, and the rest is styrene or bits from the spares box.

A couple more of the paint job, and I forgot to mention my most trusted tool in the background, my modeling partner if you will, an ice cold budweiser!

I'm not sure if this is the case still; but that "control station" was known as the conflagration station in years and ships past and was to be used as a central C&C point during fires.

Hi, nicely done mate.
I have a question, im trying to modernize the Trumpeter USS Nimitz 1/350 kit, and i do not know anything about scratchbuilding. Can you in anyway help med, give med tips etc?

Smifh-

I am happy to help point you in the right direction, but do you have any specific question or questions to narrow down the field of answers? If you are looking for a how-to gude to scratchbuilding, then I don't really know what to tell ya!

I know it sounds over simplified, but what I have done in this case, is study pictures of the real thing, as well as other models, and just go from there with styrene.

Specifically, I made templates out of paper first and taped them together to make 3-D structures, and once I had what I wanted, I transferedt eh measurements to styrene sheet and assembled them that way. The bulkier structures on top of the platforms are made form different sizes of square styrene rods cut and sanded to shape.

Good work, fun to watch this build. Remember to remove the flat dome between the landing gear on the SH/HH-60s. The carrier versions do not have this. The clear plast HH/SH-60s that Trumpeter makes sets of, the landing gear stand the aircraft way to tall. If you put an SH/HH-60 up on a stick hovering above the deck or next to the carrier, then the landing gear is much more realistic in height. My Trumpeter SH/HH-60s have a different tail landing gear than the ones you pictured there, which set are they from?

Jon, thanks for the tip about the round dome on the chopper, I honestly had no idea!

I am almost certain that my seahawk from trumpeter is the "Knighthawk" varient that they sell. I really was not too concerned which variant I had when I bought them, I just wanted any seahawk version, and the Knighthawk was the cheapest deal I found on ebay.