The Ship Model Forum

This is my recently overhauled Enterprise by Tamiya. It is the 3rd or maybe even 4th time I have overhauled her, but hopefully my last! I wanted to bring her up to my current skill level.

It was a labor of love, and probably would have been easier to buy a new kit, as you can see from the first pics, she was in bad shape. This is the only model in my collection that has any sentimental value to me, my dad got it for me for my 13th birthday, I really wanted it, and it was a heck of a task for a kid with a couple cans of testors spray paint. I am now 28, and I really appreciate the canfidence my dad had in me to build this big ship when I had only done cheap 1/700 kits up till then. So I finished her off as a tributo to my dad, to make her worthy of display alongside my other recent builds.

The airwing is a mix of Tamiya and Trumpeter, eventually will be all trumpeter. I had a few sets of Trumpy planes I got a good deal on that I was going to use on a commission build of a Ninitz class carrier, but the buyer backed out, so I had some Trumpy planes to get me started anyways.

I redid the entire ship with the exception of the flight deck, the deck painting is the original I did when I was 13 with the spray cans and a lot of masking tape, it came out awesome for just a kid who had no clue, so I decided to leave the deck alone for nostalgia. Unfortunately I did not know how to fill and sand seams at that age, so they are still pretty visible, but I can live with it.

Very rewarding, can't wait for dad to see it, and it just goes to show ya that you might just be able to save an old model if you put in the effort.

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Enlisted men are stupid, but very cunning and deceitful and bear considerable watching." - Marine Corps Officers Manual, 1894

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

A few more pre-overhaul

_________________
Enlisted men are stupid, but very cunning and deceitful and bear considerable watching." - Marine Corps Officers Manual, 1894

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

And now fresh out of drydock ready to fight! I wanted a colorful airwing, and I just decided to go with markings that look cool to me, no particular airwing on this one, i hope the purists will forgive me.

_________________
Enlisted men are stupid, but very cunning and deceitful and bear considerable watching." - Marine Corps Officers Manual, 1894

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

more new ones

_________________
Enlisted men are stupid, but very cunning and deceitful and bear considerable watching." - Marine Corps Officers Manual, 1894

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

Some of the new airwing, the C-2 and E-2 have starfighter decals for the tiger cruise and they look awesome!

_________________
Enlisted men are stupid, but very cunning and deceitful and bear considerable watching." - Marine Corps Officers Manual, 1894

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

a few more airwing shots.

_________________
Enlisted men are stupid, but very cunning and deceitful and bear considerable watching." - Marine Corps Officers Manual, 1894

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

Beautiful work! Very well done, great job overhauling her. I see your like me. I never throw a model out. When one is "obsolete" it is either chopped up to undergo a conversion or, failing that, is stripped down and rebuilt. Most of the models on my shelf have been rebuilt!

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"It is best to remain silent and let others assume you are dumb than to speak up and remove all doubt"

http://nssavannah.wordpress.com/

Thanks! Yeah, I agree, it just seems like a waste to throw an old one out if it can be salvaged in some way, at least if it is a good kit. Luckily for me, this was the only real good kit I built as a kid, most of the others were like the 1/350 Lindberg Bismarck and Tirpitz kits, which I really had no desire to attempt to make look decent, since it would be a waste of my time given the kits' quality. Next overhaul is a 1/350 Essex that suffered the wrath of my ex-wife.

_________________
Enlisted men are stupid, but very cunning and deceitful and bear considerable watching." - Marine Corps Officers Manual, 1894

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

Great looking overhaul.

I think my Enterprise needs a little yard time also. It's the forth ship model I built and has been hanging from the rafters in the basement for six or seven years now.

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Gordon


"Then there was one patched-up carrier...."
Vice Admiral Thomas A. Kinkaid