Hi Tracy, hi all guys,
first of all Tracy, I am honored that you felt like letting me know about such a private matter as your brother's problems.
I know how difficult it is to mention such sad and higly personal topics.
Believe me I really, really appreciate your support and friendship.
I sencerely hope he will do well in the future, and if I can be of any help (like acting like a guide if both of you feel like taking a vacation trip in Italy,...well Naples
), just let me know.
Emanuela gets a fair amount of treatment not far from home, it is the only location I can practically reconcile with the rest of my life (I have a job to keep to feed her and her brother, and wife of course) but in a case such as hers a father never feels like he is doing enough.
OK let's get back to our hobby.
I mentioned my friend's child, whom I donated the CV10 OOB build. Since he is a nice, clever little fellow, I had actually made my gift a little more "historic" by adding the Warship perspective book too.
Once you mentioned it, it was a matter of minutes for me to realise that you were talking about the book I had given him as a gift.
Of course after a short phone call, I now have it back with me to keep for as long as I want.
The 2 sketches (pages 28, 29) you mentioned seem accurate enough to allow me doing at least some drilling and cutting of the archways for both my 2 ladies.
Actually the sketches make clear (you mentioned it but my non native english prevented me from getting it all correctly) that some openings were accessed to by first stepping down 3 steps along the catwalk.
Those openings are in fact archways (they are arc shaped at the top).
The same sketches also illustrate the position of many, squared, larger openings, that do not have a "well" in front (i.e. are just above the "normal" catwalk level).
I suppose those were openings trough which ammunition and other stuff were handled, I am not sure if people could get trough as well, in case of need.
Modelling the two levels in P/E I am afraid is beyond my skills.
I'll probably limit myself to emulate by drilling/filing the two types of openings in correct dimensions all along the gallery, and then add the GMM P/E catwalks as they are.
I also made up my mind about buying the wood decks from Nautilus (certainly for CV14, may be for both).
The wrong catapult length for CV14, the difficulty in cutting the CV14 deck to accurate shape, and the added bonus of having the etched arrestor/wires, made me finally give up on my money savings worries.
Can I ask all of you guys some practical advice on how to mount them ?
I tought of accepting the suggestion given here to keep the plastic piece, as a base.
It will make the whole thing a lot more rigid, and it will make it also much easier to glue the various sponsons, catwalks, undersides to the whole thing.
I'll epoxy the wood deck in place after sanding the plastic deck absolutely flat.
By so doing I will also thin down the plastic deck so that the added wood thickness should result in an assebly that is not too far from correct in scale measures (did anyone check this ?).
Since I never used wood, I have some concerns, tough:
1) round downs at stern/bow (probably to be addressed by epoxy putting and sanding just there),
2) need to seal the wood before painting,
3) best procedure to stain the deck (i.e. should I use colourcoats deck blue ? should I just airbrush it ? or should I brush paint it ? what about some washes later or before,..)
4) the CV14 early shot I would like to emulate shows her in what appears to me as a fairly light deck stain, may be she was still wearing the lighter early stain ?
I checked the position of the added 3 stbd side sponsons amidship.
I think Keith got it right, if you look at pictures of ships wearing measure 12 (for one pag 29 on the above mentioned book, CV16) it can be seen that the lowest part of the sponson is dark, hence their lowest edge was somewhat below the hangar deck level.
Following the Trumpeter guide would result in those parts to be just above the said level.
So I unglued the sponsons I had mounted on my CV13 (..by adding some plastic glue, it took some stomach) puttyied/sanded smooth the resulting surface damage, and filed down the openings sponsons are supposed to go in about 2 mm (1/12 of an inch).
Tonight I'll add new sponsons (the ones I won't need from the CV14 box). They should result to be in the correct place.
The catwalk running just on top of them should now be just below the door/passages moulded on the Trumpeter parts.
Thanks for the gallery/directors info, I should have realised the correct position myself (I would had I had the book with me already...).
I am afraid it won't bee that easy to just glue them on the P/E galleries.
One needs to cut the railings in those places (easy), and somehow support the added wheight from beneath (not easy).
The ideal would be to get the occasion to add all the complex shapes below, as in the great shot you posted.
If I can dare to give a suggestion to you I would love if you could cast them as an add on to Trumpeter parts, rather than a full part replacement.
In this way all the people that (like me) have already assembled the box bulkheads without noticing (or that are too impatient to wait..) could just snap the improvement part on top of the OOB part, when it gets available.
I have some questions about the areas below the flight deck at the bow.
Below the 20 mm. galleries there appears to be another area were Trumpeter cut short of complexities, and where an add on resin part could be of great help.
I also wander if the gallery deck extended between the 3 heavy deck transverse supports that are at the bow.
At extreme bow (further forward than the forward most deck support), I think there should be no gallery level deck below the flight deck, just the P/E catwals should do.
But I am not so sure for the areas between the foremost support and the one aft of it, as well as between the said second support and the third (from the bow).
It should not be too complex to add pieces of flat styrene sheet, level with the below edge of the beams (I hope I am getting all this not too wrong in english), if that was the case, but I cannot make it out clearly just by looking at pics.
Last I would share with you all the procedure that I used to deal with the side elevators supports.
The 2 plastic Trumpeter parts are cast in one main piece per side, that have all the horizontal beams, cast within a flat area.
Once you mount them OOB that area will be unacceptably wrong because in real ships those beams joined the hull flush and not a raised area as Trumpeter chose to render it.
To put a remedy at that error, I considered just cutting the unneeded areas before mounting the thing.
I was afraid, tough, of over-weakening the parts.
besides locating pins are in the back of the unneeded flat areas.
What I wound up doing was to mount the parts OOB, than grab a flat rectangular blade (and lots of patience) and scribe away the un-needed raised areas.
With some care I got a decent result (just a few scribes here & there when I lost control of the blade).
Tonight a little gel type CA to reinforce the bars (where they meet the hull) and a little putty+acetone (I wish I could buy Mr. Surfacer easily in Italy) to clean up the surface and it should look OK (or at least better than OOB).
Got to get back to work, now.
Tracy, I really hope you can come up with some resin improvement part soon, may be before your book will be out.
I had not realised before looking hard at pictures how many improvements the Trumpeter kit needs.
Yours
A warm ciao from Naples
Luca
Login
Register
FAQ
.
.
.
