The Ship Model Forum

Amazing work!

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ICBM Address: 44:78N 063:63W

Ex RCN, HMC Ships Gatineau, Athabaskan, Charlottetown, St. John's, Montreal, Charlottetown, Summerside, Montreal.

Wow, it looks like you're determined to get them ready for the SMC show!
Or you're very very fast, or you're putting in a lot of hours! That's passion...

Thanks for the replies! And Marijn, I'm currently on track to get them there but then there can't be any setbacks. For example the showcase maker was overbooked last time I inquired for the glass. And the Modelmonkey safety netting is only just ordered. It's not even sure if it fits in the PE baskets.

Let's talk now about the rigging.



The long distance radio antennas are a complicated subject to build. Not all short hull Essexes have the five pylons like CV09. Others have them to be replaced by the 4 pylon outfit like it's on the long hulls. This makes for a difficult reference quest. The outriggers on pylons 2 and 5 have many attachment points, but there seem to be no pictures showing cables attached to them. Pontos seems to have omitted the attachments lower on the pylons. I used small PE nuts form a generic set for that, and made insulators out of copper wire.



The 5 pylon outfit is only described by Glenn Arnold in the backfold CV09 plan. Trojca seems to go out of the way of this, they jump straight to Intrepid CV11 that had the 4 pylon plan from the start. They show CAD images of ships with the wrong outfit, it's never 5 pylons.



Arnold was already useful for the complete deck edge scheme it contains.



All antenna wires can be recognized on the plan at the back.







This allowed me to build the antennas on both models.









Only the weights on the cables should be added now. For the island rigging I can refer to the Trojca 3D drawings.





The flag pulleys are represented as single lines, of course I need to add scratch pulleys like in the Columbia and Callaway models.



They should have gone like this, but I went too far to the centerline.



The PE ring set was ideal and easily provided the 24 pulleys needed. Attachments were made in copper.



A second bend in the copper made attaching easier.



After assembly to the mainstay these were first painted.



Then the rigging is quite easy. The only problem is attaching the thread to the flag box and back again.



Hancock is almost done, now Essex should be rigged.

Rigging is now done and even the airwing is now fixed to the deck. You'll see the result at the end of this update. Floater nets are ordered at Modelmonkey, but it might be difficult to arrange these before SMC Veldhoven. In that case they will go there anyway, I guess no one would miss the floaters.





I thought most of the rigging would sit in the island, but oh was I wrong.



The landing brake cables and barriers take double of the length of the rigging.



The rounded part of the PE is used to clamp the thread. In Essex, a cutout for one of these appeared to be missing in the deck, so I had to add one more.



This picture of CV15 Randolph shows a Helldiver crashing in the barrier. This was a fire hazard because of the fuel lines in the nose that were ruptured. The strings from the poles to the cables will not be reproduced, they are too fine to see in scale.



Hancock is an easy start, it has only brakes at the rear.



For the barriers the loose ends are draped with CA glue. The tended part is put in the PE recess and fixed with a small drop of glue. Now the Essex got its rigging, I had to make some additions to the mainstay.









Essex had the same provisions as the Yorktowns to have planes land over the bow. That means almost double the work of Hancock.



The last bit of rigging is needed to fix the boat.

The last set of pictures shows the added airwing. With that many planes I had no space for landings or catapult starts.

Beautiful work!

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-Abram
ModelWarships Gallery Page
Joslin Models Facebook Page

Speechless!

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http://www.3xblackcats.wordpress.com

Thanks for the replies. Somebody gave me a suggestion to put a plane on the Hancock deck edge elevator. I had left it empty to not obscure the two Hellcats at the gate behind it, but I got an idea for something that was still missing from the picture.



Some Navchat pictures show the extended arm of a crash crane, Trojca refers to CV6 Enterprise pictures:



The total length is hard to distinguish, I used a wheel diameter of 4mm and this gave an estimation of the wheelbase.



I was out of Clarktor wheels, but soon made some plastic ones.



The body of the crane is a brass H-profile.



Changing a piece of catwalk, the radiator and the hood are reproduced.



Like in the Columbia project, staples are straightened and put together to make girders.



I lengthened the front axle to fit the crane arm.







I try to build it being rolled out of the hangar, I should still check if it would fit the gate. Then I dropped the poor thing and had to reassemble most of the staples.



Now it is primered and ready to paint and rig it. Both ships are inscribed for the Scale Model Challenge in a few weeks. The showcases are almost at the store and the Modelmonkey floater nets are also on the move.

The crane still had to be finished.



A comparison with a period picture of the Tournacrane on Essex. Strangely I did not see it earlier though it is captioned with the ship's name. I also found out that Black Cat sells this kit, but I decided to avoid buying directly from them as they have triple the shipping costs L'Arsénal currently uses - and that has moved overseas now! Compare the crane arm to the antenna wire height, due to perspective it seems to pass over the crane. I probably made the trailer overscale and only the tractor part seems to match closely.



On the model of Essex the heigth can't be far off.



The boxart of a different modelling product illustrated the method to get the crane through an elevator, with the swivel arm down the other way.





Some rigging is added, with multiple pulleys present on the hoist.



If I had seen these last images earlier, I would have made the elevator fit on the deck edge elevator. But even now it would be possible to make some curbs and ride it through the hatch.



Now the razor knife is taken to the painted figures.



Most of the 500 are removed without problems.



These are the deck teams.



On the pilots the brown Tamiya wash caused too much of a shine.



These were treated with a second matt coat.





The torpedoes were painted and installed on the WEM carts when I noticed the head is often unpainted. As the primer is very weak I simply scratched it off. The propellers were added according to the turning direction.



The early type was placed on Essex to be installed on the Avengers. The late ones are moved away from the Hancock Avengers as unused ordnance.



The cross-deck pennants at the open elevators are added.



There are no bombs for the carts, this only takes some Evergreen to be sanded. Later PE tails will be added.







I found out the water gets more dynamic if the spray is airbrushed on. But it's hard to stay in the contours of the water paste.

At last the Tori figures are placed at the guns. A choice had to be made, so I put them where installment was easiest. Some of the Oerlikon guns are at such difficult positions a figure would not be able to turn the gun around or get behind it. A problem with the guns of most brands is the large tolerance of barrel extension behind the shield.

Super detailed build A lot of great scratch build stuff.
And of course quite a bit of our guys right out of our 3d training camp

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https://ionmodel.com figures for battleships in 1/350 & 1/700 scales: US Navy, Royal Navy, IJN, Kriegsmarine and more

Thanks for those crane references. I will need some for a late '50s USN carrier project and information on the early 'tilly's is diffcult to find.

@Ion: they're almost finished now, it's great to have so many different poses.
@Pieter: of that crane there is also a manual: https://www.ebay.com/itm/364210542609?_ ... R8z54K7RZA
It has some extra pictures in it.

Something went wrong with the showcase production.



At the left, the measurements that were ordered. 85 x 25 centimeters are the outer limits of the slot in the base and I left 9mm space to the diorama. When the cases arrived at the reptile store at monday, somehow they made them more suitable for covering a model of the eiffel tower, with the smallest side open. The store owner had protested and asked of the producer could adapt the cases before the weekend, but he was unable to retrieve them the same day. He would make new ones later and give a price cut of 60 euros. These cases were then adapted in the store to the best possible result. That meant that both of them were reworked with a side removed and the opening closed. The result is that the length is increased 8 mm. One of the cases got the added sides 3mm extending from the bottom. I will be able to use these at SMC Veldhoven this weekend and I'll recover them for later projects like Richelieu, North Carolina or 1/400 Enterprise (if that fits).



To resolve the 8mm overlength problem, I visited the DIY store close by. The slot had to be filled in.



I bought multiple PVC profiles, eventually I only needed the two slats below. None were 9mm broad, though, so some cutting was needed.



The first one of 3mm thickness was demanding a lot of the small tool I use.



After half an hour this gave two 3x8 mm slats to fill in the slot.



The case can now be imposed on the plastic.



Hancock will use this construction.



But for the Essex model, the case had oversized ends, so if it was posed on the base, only the outer panes held up the entire case. They were also glued to the vertical panes only with the bottom not attached. Therefore the slat was bought with a 5mm thickness. That only existed in 28 mm broadside. That means it will have to be cut twice to get to 5x8 mm.





Most of the sawing was done with a hacksaw and the Tamiya engraving tool, that is also great at cutting. A lot of dust is created.



The thickness is increased by adding parts of another profile.



The second case can now be imposed on this so the large sides are bearing.



This catwalk was not added in both ships. Its location is only barely reachable now.



Hancock has received the catwalk. I also added some figures there.



The booms were still hanging loose at one end. I scratched some PE frames to fix that.



Hancock appeared to need more detail on the stern, like a hole for chocks, some railing and the ladders for the director towers.



The decals for Birmingham had a nice flag for Hancock. This is improved by placing some tinfoil betwen the halves.



Some Daco Sol should make it adhere well to the creases. I also added some bilge pump jets from a clothing label strap, glued with CA. After adding all Ion figures I sprayed a final matt coat. Now both ships should be ready for SMC though the floater net baskets are still empty. The nets are now trucking through the US and will probably arrive a week after SMC, but this won't be noticeable but for the experts... I'll add the rest of the pictures in a new entry.

The weather was unnaturally moderate today, so this made a fotoshoot quite easy.

















Hancock:







































Essex:















































With showcase:











Some spacers will ease the placement on a table.



Some detail pictures under a Daylight lamp.

M A G N I F I C E N T Work, Steven!

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http://www.3xblackcats.wordpress.com

Completely missed this one!

Excellent builds and congrats with the prizes for Columbia!

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The merchant shipyard

Impressive!

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Let me first start by thanking the author for this thread! It is a great source of information to anyone planning on building an Essex class carrier model and USS Essex and USS Hancock in particular.
The two models are excellent, which I can also confirm after having seem then with my on eyes.

Best regards,

Jari