The Ship Model Forum

by **StevenVD** » Sun Jul 12, 2026 7:50 am

The Starfighter instruction sheet was used as an overlay for my attempt at designing decals on 1/400. I measuerd the length of the airframe as 46mm and changed the image dimension. Then I drew over the jpeg artifacts and created coloful and sharp decals for the tail and the Garuda striping. I then mirrored and copied until I had enough for all. Because of the bright yellow stripe with black edge I used white decal film, so cutting out the curved stripe was a pain. For the Valkyries text and numbers were printed on transparent decal film. This will also be done for the Garudas.

Using the transparent decals in conjunction with the bright colors on the white film decals.

NAVY-markings for the Corsairs are turning out better than the color work.

The Garuda tail was an easy application. Also the red-white striped ailerons.

https://skywarriors-gallery.com/vaq-134sub.htm

Along the side stripes some white film will have to be removed. Starfighter had some black walkway but ultimately I didn't use this as it doens't show on the Enterprise pictures. Maybe a later addition.

by **StevenVD** » Thu Jul 09, 2026 5:08 pm

Thanks, Joelle.

First results of the homemade decals, copied on white decal film.

These decals have to be cut along the ink lines to remove the blue background areas, whereas in a transparent decal you can offset the cut a bit. this also makes fine text impossible to decal. I'll make a transparant film decal copy for that. I tried to include a bit of the blue background on the Corsair nose decals, so I could include the squadron number.

My copies can't match the original decals because some aliasing happened and the blue migrated to the white during liquid decal film covering. I tried to repair damage on these frail decals with some blue paint.

VF-2 Bounty Hunters made for a nice copy as compared with the original. I had to sketch the NK stencils with a fineliner, but these could later be finetuned with a scalpel because there was a gloss coat under it.

With some VF1 copies I managed to decal all F14's, Corsairs and most Intruders with white insignia. Vigilantes all have roundels but no tailplane decals.

Then there are left the Prowlers "Garudas", knowing that there is a Starfighter 1/350 edition of their Nimitz transfer a few years later. But for me in Europe this would prove hard to get to and also insufficient in number (8 out of 11 needed). Also 10 Vikings from squadron "Dragon Fires" are needed, that are not existing in decal sets. I'll have to get creative in a moment.

by **Joelle** » Mon Jul 06, 2026 2:09 am

Wow, those little planes are great.

by **StevenVD** » Sun Jul 05, 2026 6:19 pm

While painting the airwing, I used some kind of wrong radome yellow mix.

For the L'Arsénal bomb carts, simple yellow did the trick.

The same was used for the rest of the vehicles, and these were modulated with brown.

The tyres were painted with a toothpick.

Some details on the crane and fire trucks were added, like rigging and numbering.

Removal of the bomb carts was no sinecure. Especially the handle is prone to breaking.

These wheels are even smaller to paint.

These are now compacted in a small tight box. I actually lack some deck tractors, the small vehicle types only consist of 8 APU carts. About the Prowlers I discovered a design fault where L'Arsénal seems to have copied the Intruder nose cone on them. I won't be sanding down 10+ of these cones, this would probably show.

The Vikings have their white tail planes, still sporting the wrong hue of yellow.

Hawkeye props and Seaking rotors are painted NATO black. Because I got one resin prop set short, I use the PE set of the ancient cast resin L'Arsénal Hawkeyes they still sell, really the only useful part of that kit.

The Viking radomes were painted linght sand and look a lot better now. I also painted the cockpit in gloss black.

But the canopy was painted in Greenstuff colorshift pink. On the black this creates the right shine. I used it also on the Hawkeye side windows to create the golden shine these should have. The Otaki Hawkeye is being treated identically, but it will be hidden in the hangar and therefore had its wings cut.

What's left of the L'Arsénal PE are the maintenance ladders and towbars (brake pads are not needed cause this I got in resin). These ladders are a pain to construct, the PE is too thin and should be plied along the length. I got 5 out of 8 finished.

All planes are now gloss-coated to apply the Cartograf decals.

I should have ordered these decals twice to complete some of my airplane sets like the Corsairs and Tomcats, but this I'll ultimately try to resolve by scanning and copying what I'm lacking on the original sheet. On my copy I forgot to edit out the decal blue paper and I got some creasing of the liquid decal film, but these small decals can still partly be used. Each should be cut, so I can't use the text insignia.

But first I decided to try the Cartograf decals. On 6 of the Corsair II's, a gorgeous livery is applied.

It could have been the perfect decal set, but it isn't that sophisticated to also include the airframe numbers like for example Pontos did in my Essex project. All are now showing the "300" numbers on the nose, wingtip and tailplane. The same happened to the other plane type airframe decals. If I had lots of generic small number decals I might have been able to resolve this, but I won't scratch this freehand painting. On this level I would probably botch that. So it's like that now, which also seems acceptable.

There are VF1 and VF2 F-14 liveries in the set. They couldn't have matched better on these resin planes. I don't know what airwing Revell had provided in their own Enterprise kit, probably not the Otaki originals.

Only 2 Vigilante sets are included, so I made 3 copies. NTS: still paint these tyres.

The resin Hawkeyes got an original decalset, the Otaki one will get a copy.

For my 5 printed resin Intruders and one Otaki one I got original decals. But Revell apparently omitted any Prowlers or Vikings in the kit. I'll only be able to copy from the Intruder set for both of these types so I might go scrounging on the web.

The two most flight-ready Seakings get an original decalset. Here the fit of the largest decal is not that well.

So at the moment this is the airwing with the original Cartograf decals:

by **StevenVD** » Tue Jun 30, 2026 11:48 am

I painted the hangar ceiling after masking the LEDs..

This is easier using a rattle can. It covers the PE and the resin in one go.

I prefer using Tamiya XF19 Sky Grey for the airplane camo.

As this looks quite boring, I'm modulating it with dark grey.

Lots of these ordnance parts are being painted too. The problem is that none of these are identified, I only know with what plane model they came. I guess some are anachronistic as I see bunker busters among them.

The 11 F-14's are getting the scheme for VF-1 and VF-2. Later I will add radome yellow to different types.

by **StevenVD** » Fri Jun 26, 2026 2:05 pm

The airwing is now getting the first paint session. In that period all types were painted very light grey on the underside and gull grey on top. I decided to use just a layer of white in stead, you can't see a difference if there are not 20 layers. I changed the Otaki planes so they fit in the hangar and still added some detail to the landing gear, that was quite square.

by **StevenVD** » Wed Jun 17, 2026 7:17 pm

After building all 17 racks for fuel tanks, it appears that you only need 13 or either 12 depending from the instruction page you prefer.

Because I rearranged the ceiling to fit into the hull, these racks are crammed into a smaller length.

I had 2 mk.25 Sea Sparrow launchers from Revell, in stead of the Terriers from the kit. According to NavSource in 1967 Sea Sparrows were provided. They even come with quite some detail in the 5 complicated parts per launcher.

The newer type 29 takes up the bulk of all reference.

But the type 25 was completely different, even with some kind of mechanical elevation device.

The obvious flaw of the Revell launcher is the omission of interior paneling. The outline is correct but you can look inside the missile canisters. I had just discarded a pile of L'Arsénal fret parts that were almost exactly fitting. 8 of these are used as paneling.

In PE, almost fitting is of course a recipe for disaster, but I managed after a while to make something out of it.

Also, why is the launcher sitting so crammed into the catwalk corner? This won't function as desired. Looking for some reference of CVN65.

8 Greenstuff LEDs are staggered into the ceiling.

They were chosen as warm white so there's a yellow shine. I might route some into the island, but then some revision is needed on that.

by **StevenVD** » Fri Jun 12, 2026 1:11 pm

Let's go on with the updates today.

The angled deck catapult ramp needed a different angle, here it's reapplied.

At the bow these ramps have a PE track, so I removed some material for it.

I decided to do the same for the jet blast deflectors, but these have a larger surface so I thought I could use the Proxxon mill to remove the surface geometrically. Some areas were unreachable and there was some melting happening, but I managed to create a good base for the PE parts. Some of it was milled and filed manually later on.

After some filling, the metal was applied.

The perforated kit crane is improved with two continuous PE sidewalls, but even these are adapted to the kit shape and have to be reshaped. Part of the massive plastic arm needed to be split open at the base.

The PE parts are applied to reinforce the base that was thinned considerably.

The crane base is changed too by replacing the round axle by a square beam as is visible on photo's of the recently removed crane arm. This was drilled through with a brass pin used for elevation of the arm. The base is replaced by a larger steel roundel. When the crane will be resting on a new platform attached to the hull, some cabling will be added.

Earlier I pointed out the anchor shape problem in the Otaki kit. Last week I ordered a HS Models replacement set whilst looking for some Zerstörer goodies.

The HS anchors can provide replacement for two ships ans are accompanied by some shackles and an end of fully articulated chain.

It's a pity that I don't need the chain right now, I need the ship to be at speed to launch some of its aitwing. Even then I needed to modify the hull.

The position and shape of the hawse pipe seems wrong, so I need to relocate it.

A few kit roundel parts are changed to new hawse pipe reinforcement rings. The anchors are still unstocked.

A comparison with the Otaki anchors, even the scale is improved though this is an 1/350 upgrade set.

The hawse pipes are redone.

The new anchors are in position and the old holes are filled up.

The arrestor cables are now placed on deck. I had thoroughly removed all plastic detail from it so I had to indicate the position of the PE cables. I knew the Otaki deck arrangement was slightly deformed so I wanted to base the position of the cables on an aerial photograph. I noticed that on this photograph the diagonal covers of the shock absorbing wheels seemed shorter than the PE covers. I traced the positions from the photograph.

When comparing to the PE parts, the position was comparable so I followed the Pe set instructions and added the cables to the deck. On all other pictures the covers are identical to the PE set so I didn't adapt this. The covers are held in place by the removable connecting points so they have the correct angle. The crash barrier is provided to be placed erected but I preferred it to be flat on deck so I made the necessary adaptation.

The L'Arsénal PE fuel tank racks are now prepared to be added to the now hangar ceiling. Assembling the parts is straightforward, but closing up these fine PE box structures is challenging.

by **StevenVD** » Tue Jun 09, 2026 2:39 pm

Too late, Pieter, the ceinling is already shaped. you'll see this in the next update. But I think it will work out fine, even with lighting.

I wanted a fast method of releasing a number of doors from the printing blocks. Because these are flat, they can be clamped between two rulers. A line was engraved first to guide the break.

Some taps of a hammer and most of the cuts are straight. The bad ones will be glued as the inner half of the door. Two of them will be even almost invisible and I have to shorten them because I shortened the wall too much.

For a moment I contemplated a replacement ceiling made from styrene plate and strips, but it would be stupid to remain with a large unused ceiling in resin that might just fit with some adaptation. So I started on the hardest section at the back.

I cut out this part along the walls of the smaller 1/400 hangar. I used a knife and traced the edges and then cracked small pieces off with the excellent Greenstuff thin-bladed nipper. Most of the flat parts snapped along the trace, it(s just the honeycomb structure that somtimes causes problems so I took care to cut that too. I made holes where some of the internal structures come, because of the support beams.

A view though the doors. The translucence will disappear when the deck is on top. I can now decide if I want the wiring below the ceiling. I can paint it white. A lot of PE racks will be added anyway.

At the front I noticed I had left the keel line, so I corrected it slightly. You won't see this anyway when you can't stand inside.

I tried with the deck on and I don't have to push very hard to close it.

by **Pieter** » Tue Jun 09, 2026 5:36 am

Hey Steven, that is a massive amount of work you have been doing on this kit. The result looks nice though. About the dark ribbon on the hanger walls, most of my color pictures of hanger decks look like they were the same non-slip color as the hangar deck. I think is was a way to hide the soot and grime that comes with maintaining 90-ish jet aircraft. As I want to actually see all this in november I think you should attempt to light the hangar. Just ignore the resin ceiling and put in some LEDs. The ceiling is difficult to see unless you have flashlight and a mirror.

by **StevenVD** » Sat Jun 06, 2026 6:46 am

Most of the large components are in shape now. I didn't get any of the kit planes when I bought it, so I got one of Otaki's spare packs and these might end up in this hangar. The resin airwing might fit on deck. I just ordered 4 1/350 resin CVN anchors. Most of the work from now on will be on the deck and its edges. One thing that still bugs me is wether to install the resin ceiling elements, and how to integrate multiple LEDs in them. These elements are not at all fitting in the angular shape I built and they might prevent a good fit of the deck like it now has.

by **Mark Deakin** » Sat Jun 06, 2026 5:08 am

Hi,

utter madness, love it, at some point my old Tamiya Enterprise will be back dated but no where to the level you are doing....and out of interest how much of the original kit will remain ?,,,,

Regards,
M. D.

by **StevenVD** » Fri Jun 05, 2026 1:44 pm

In this update you see the assembly of the hangar space. To facilitate construction and prevent overspray, I wanted to paint the walls out off the hull. I think the L'Arsénal resin kit is not or incompletely reduced to 1/400 like I requested. Parts of the wall therefore have to be skipped.

I try to remove the most bland sections, but I have to leave space for the sliding doors.

The firewall must be moved to the spot in the floor where I left the sliding rail. A large resin structure was sitting there and had to be shifted.

Some sprues would support the wall in mid-air.

This dry-fit shows the improvement before painting.

Tamiya white is used for the sides.

In the sixties the walls were painted white in one color. The resin kit is made for the later years, probably after the eighties' overhaul. It shows instructions for painting a dark ribbon on the entire lower edge. It would facilitate fixing the wall to the uneven, darker floor.

At the higher level in the back I painted white overspraying the grey floor. This is no problem because it won't be visible from outside.

I only have decals for that later period so I'll use these in a partly anachronistic setting. L'Arsénal has provided two sets of decals. One is in color and the other is identical but in white. I supposed the white ones are a base for the decals coming on the dark areas. These decals are a bit translucent and the yellow is darkened a lot on the grey color. Imposed on the white decal, it shines like it's supposed to.

While fixing the walls I had to clip some of them a bit. The resin breaks unpredictably but the jagged edges will be hidden under the large sliding doors.

The port wall is not entirely aligned with the placement groove in the floor, only the front part can be inserted. I made a jog in it at the firewall location so it won't be conspicuous seen from the doors.

The historical fresco with the predecessors of the ship might also be anachronistic. I should check on that.

Because of a ridge between two uneven floor plates a seam shows under the port hangar wall. This looks ugly from the gate perspective.

An overview of the hangar space.

The front part is still dry-fit to be able to reach below the parapet.

While trying to separate the floor parts, a hole was blown right where the wall was pent upwards. The fragment was put back just a bit lower.

This reduced the seam greatly.

The thin lines on the decal sheet must be cut out meticulously to reduce decal film. These decals are so strong that they don't break, they stretch in stead so you can't slide these lines from the paper. I just peel them off and apply.

by **StevenVD** » Fri May 29, 2026 8:11 pm

There was a site downtime, so this update will be humongous. All the better for you readers.

Another ton of plastic is added to the ship. The elevator supports are made from 1.5mm brass H-profile, not yet ideal for the correct shape but this gave the best results. It renders the front track for the elevators but not the internal track. The port elevator has some extra structural elements with perforated plates. One attempt failed because the drilling tool did melt the plastic. This was avoided using a pinvise.

The perforated plate is joined to the profile and the hull with a wedge.

I built the mirror version to the front of that elevator, though this is different in the ship. But I can't make up how the hull should be skewing and only show the top perforations.

The wall was moved a bit to the inside after all, checking some pictures.

In the kit some errors to the stern need to be corrected by adding small ABS parts.

The plastic railing is removed and the gallery thinned, while a sparepart of the Hawaiian Pilot from the Columbia project comes in handy as a compartment wall. A door is drilled. I had to avoid to build in eighties' additions to the ship.

The anchors are no good, this has still got to be remedied. I got some CL-56 anchors but these are undersized for a carrier.

The domes under the rocket launchers were simplified greatly in the kit, I had to recreate from pictures the angled plates covering these.

The first part was cut using a picture as reference. The second part was a projection from the sponson. I couldn't avoid a small step with the hull.

The third part merges the first two. All of them are curved.

The situation to starboard is slightly different in height and some cutting was needed there.

Watching all these pictures carefully I noticed a series of shallow reinforcement ribs to the hull. I started cutting some strips from plastic sheet.

But these apparently are all over the ship, so I decided to go for an Evergreen 2.5mm strip set.

As I did with the starboard midships plating, I had to add material to port side as well. The angled deck sponson is narrowing to the bow waterline, causing an ugly sinking line.

So I added again a blister from ABS plating.

Another milling and cutter session polishes the stepped blister. It's causing some smaller aesthetic problems but the sponson is straight again.

The rest of the reinforcement is added to port side mostly and some small parts to starboard.

A mold is designed to reduce the resin hangar gate dimensions. Measurements were taken from the L'Arsénal gates and the kit hull. The test print was made and it fits well. It's still missing a flange but the change will still be worthwile. Printing this is also sparing me some plastic sheet surface.

Part of a wall got stuck to the floor, so I had to hammer it loose. The resin is not very shockproof with the grating printed to one side and it spalled. Setting it is easy but it left a scar on the floor.

I painted the floor in Gunze Black Gray and modulated the tie-downs with NATO black. The floor was then coated dull.

The section between the front elevators had to be scratched.

by **StevenVD** » Thu May 21, 2026 4:32 pm

Thanks, Joelle!

Both small boat bays are now cleaned up, some resculpting was done. It still has a mellow look but this detail will be hidden inside the hull overhang and covered with a PE railing.

This motherboard connector strip is cut to 4 wires.

Each wire is then separated and routed to one side of the hull, to have both polarities over the whole length.

The Tamiya engraving tool is used to cut the starboard platform between the front elevators. It was not aligned to the deck edge but to the hull, contrary to some plan I saw on Ebay (Dave's Drydock). I might have bought the plan if I knew it had some authority, but I don't see any source mentioned.

The five portholes on the bow are added with this nice piece of PE. I drilled them partly.

The sponson below the island is very simplistic and underscale, so I have to add a complete scratchbuilt section to the plastic. This needs to extend in front and to the back and has angles approaching 90, 60 and 30 degrees in stead of one plane in 45. It is also perforated at multiple levels. I had to project the section to determine plate lengths.

I got it out of the sheet in one part.

But it got ripped when it was bent. Maybe for the better, to make it fit under the deck.

The lower part needed to be filled and sanded flush to the hull.

I made a measurement error in the back part, that was sourced from the Navysite.de site pictures, that are really valuable for this build.

Time to fix the L'arsénal floor plates. These had been heat-straightened but I succeeded in leveling them somehow.

Large holes had to be filled in, though. I shaped some thick ABS parts to close up the largest gaps and used modelling and CA glue to connect these to the hull and the floor respectively.

The port sponson after the elevator is now finished.

I want to make the new elevator rails out of brass profile.

by **Joelle** » Sun May 17, 2026 6:28 am

Finest scratch-built construction.

by **StevenVD** » Sat May 16, 2026 6:15 pm

Removal and repositioning of the rear lift gate was performed.

The deck edge of this elevator is taken back a bit, exposing some of the elevator parts that were fused to the deck. These are filled in.

I had conserved the corner that was cut from the elevator PE and used this to add a few rows of mesh.

It still fits well.

The rocket launcher pads at the stern are cleaned up, they had some casting traces.

They fit quite badly, some corners have to be cut.

Otaki then adds a part that is way too shallow under this part of the flight deck. I have to scratch an alternative part.

More of these underdeveloped areas under the flight deck can be discovered at starboard. Behind the bow a small platform is provided.

Compare to the real ship, that had a heavy sponson and a broad framework of girders. Behind it, braces are built adjacent to the elevators.

This was sketched out on the hull.

Plates could be cut, but for the spheric parts a B-25 spare nose was sacrificed.

At this stage it looked a bit like fragile modern art, but later on it was fortified with more filling parts and milled into shape.

The outboard girder frame was prepared on a fragment that was cut from the deck edge, leaving only the outside of the deck.

It was put back flush under the deck.

The third starboard elevator was assembled with the edges not completely matching. This was corrected without separating the massive glue face.

Otaki made the elevator supports quite overscale. These will be replaced by metal frames for more realism.

Apparently the ship had only on the second elevator a pair of inclined supports.I discovered this looking at some pictures from three quarter view. It made me think that elevator was broken, but it seems this design was necessary to use the standard elevator length on a curved hull shape. To correct this, taking the ship's side away and inclining it, would be so overreaching that I'd better leave this detail out. I would have to add double the amount of styrene sheet already applied to the hull.

What did need to be changed were the hangar door vaults. These were conceived as oval tubes but the vault space is rectangular and only the doors are curved. At this stage only a drill could be used to remove excess tubing.

I never fixed the hangar parts so this was cleaned up easily.

Then reconstructed the vaults. I now notice how the L'Arsénal parts are as overscale as the floor, cutting will be necessary.

All cast-on railing needs to be removed from the kit parts. Some of the railing is inside the recesses of the hull.

Another recess has a 2D crane half-relief, this will be changed to 3D.

by **StevenVD** » Tue May 12, 2026 5:20 am

Thanks, Edoardo! Here you see my Enterprise library:

by **Edoardo81** » Tue May 12, 2026 3:16 am

What amazing work!!!
Your attention to details is oustanding!!!
What book are you using for your reference?
Keep the good work!!

by **StevenVD** » Mon May 11, 2026 3:42 pm

Due to some hosting problem, pictures may load slowly or incomplete. Please reload in that case as that solved the problem for me.

After the creation of the elevator parts, now the sides of the ship had to be adapted to the elevator positions. For the elevators to function, the deck edge should be right above the hangar door edge. That appeared to be a problem in the Otaki kit, with or without corrections made. Some of the hangar doors were shifted a bit to aft, resulting in them not being aligned to the elevator supports. I had to restrain from cutting into the elevator PE gratings, because they would not look integral anymore. I saw that even in the beautiful Revell elevator PE there were inconsistencies with reality. The outward strip of el. 2 and 3 should be shallower and el. 2 should have the inside strip not perforated.

Elevator 3 had a good deck edge connection.

I had to reverse assembly to correct this problem.

The elevator supports are removed.

The side of the ship was a distinct part and is removed.

The side is put back 2mm shifted to the bow and the front end is peeled out a bit. That creates a step of 3mm to be filled in.

The curve of the hull below the elevator. This will have to be adapted to fill in the step.

Section shwoing how the elevator support is not connected to the hull. The purple segment will have to be filled in.

A 3D-sketch showing in orange what has to be added to the green ship side section below the elevator.

A collection of ABS plates of 1 and 0.5 mm thickness has been applied with modeling glue. At the edges, CA glue has been dropped on.

The whole is milled into shape, making a lot of noise. Sanding is also attempted, but it's a large surface to cover.

Parts have been smoothened out, but other areas got a bit roughened and will need repetition.

The port elevator was built with an erroneous slanting deck edge, which had been corrected earlier. But on the ship it is also constructed differently , with the elevator support outrigged and a hangar door extension strip. I will have to add 7 to 9mm material.

Compare to the starboard elevator's smooth transition:

I might have to exaggerate this extension to make the fit.

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1/400 Otaki CVN-65 Enterprise

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