scaledecks.com - New Products Coming Soon!

[bgire]

Truly magnificent and promising job. Thanks John.

I' like to suggest deck planking for US carrier, the RIGHT way, i.e. transverse planking.
Available wood decks for Essexes and other carriers use longitudinal wood grain to model transverse planking, which I don't find satisfactory.

One solution would be to design smaller sections of the flight deck, this time aligned with the wood grain in the correct direction.
Each section would be sized to cope with the limited wood sheet width available. About a dozain sections would be needed to cover a 1:350 scale Essex carrier.
With USN carriers, except the Lexingtons and Yorktowns this is but easy as metal expansion joints are regularly spaced and would serve as perfect limits for wood sections.
The builder would just have to glue one section after another to cover the entire deck.
This would apply with Essex class carriers and the brand new an dexcellent Independence from Dragon.

Just an idea...

[johnd13]

To answer two questions...

Are we planning a Lusitania? Actually I am. I am keeping my open for a kit to work from. They come up from time to time on eBay, and I've bid on them each time, but the price races out of my range to invest now when I have so many other projects to do. I will continue to try, and my bid prices will increase as I get closer and closer to reaching the bottom of my "To Do List" (although I must confess that some 1/700 kits are likely to infiltrate that list as a test, and maybe move in and swamp it... I am getting a lot of interest for 1/700, so you guys are wearing me down and winning me over... )

As for the carrier decks, of COURSE we'd run the grain from Port to Starboard... That's a given. I could even get 11x17 sheets with the underlying grain running that way from my supplier if I wanted, although the segment approach should work too. The Independence has moved up on my "buy it when you see one" list, as has any of the Essex Class carriers from Trumpeter. The only concern that I have about those is that I can't print white (there isn't any white ink in a printer - it assumes that you will let the paper show through for white which is good only if you are printing on white paper...) So it would be up to the hobbyist to mask and paint the deck numbers and markings, or apply decals or whatever. I hope that won't present a problem.

I saw that Nautilus was offering decks for carriers, so I figured that my time would be better spent working on other offerings. But I have been hearing several requests to use our approach to tackle these ships, which leads me to believe there is a market there big enough for both of us... So I think you will see scaledecks.com doing aircraft carriers at some point in 2011, but I haven't added them to my formal products list yet since we are still working to perfect our system and get production rolling along.

[PetrOs]

Hey

Sounds cool!
If you wish, I can lend you my Lusitania kit for the job

[mw 1378]

A 1:350 Lusitania....absolutely perfect. Finally I will be able to start this beauty.

Best regards

Marc

[johndon]

Any release date for the New Jersey deck?

John

[navydavesof]

Any release date for the New Jersey deck?

John

I like your question, John.

[johnd13]

We've hit a bit of a snag in that the decks are not lining up to my satisfaction, so I am going back to do a little re-engineering. Fans of the Arizona will be pleased to know that the deck will now be one continuous piece for the stern deck, and split around the casemates for the forward deck - thus leaving an intact foredeck without those ugly transverse seams at the bow and stern.

Right now we're "all hands on the Arizona." I hope that the Iowas will follow shortly afterwards, but until we can figure out what went wrong with the Arizona I won't know for sure. I don't want to give any firm estimate, other than saying that the Tamiya Iowas are at the very top of our list right after the Arizona and Scharnhorst.

I think we will make February with those two Iowas, but until I get a better handle on the Arizona I don't want to make any promises at this point.

I don't know if this helps or not, but the experiments that we are doing with tinting the wood to simulate planking (another project that we have going on the side) is coming along EXCELLENT. I think you are going to love what you see when they are released.

[JCRAY]

Good news John, hope you can release your Arizona decks soon.

[dick wood]

Thanks John:

I prefer the wait for a better product, and there are lots of other work to be done on the Scharnhorst I am building.

Dick Wood

[johndon]

Thanks for the reply John, I'd much rather wait that bit longer for it to be right.

Cheers

John

[johndon]

Another question if I may - do you think it would be practical to add the decks after PE railing has been added?

John

[aptivaboy]

Any chance of a WW2 Iowa or New Jersey? I realize that most people just build the Tamiya /350th kit as the Missouri, but I've got a nice Tom's Modelworks conversion set and that wonderful L'Arsenal foredeck conversion piece just sitting here, making me drool, and I'd love to build a wartime early Iowa-class battleship. Are there any chances of this?

Thanks for your wonderful goodies. I look forward to ordering some.

Robert

[johnd13]

Hey, gang... I've been really busy with some exciting new stuff. We're going to announce SIX new deck kits within the next few days. (No, the Arizona isn't one of them - but it's coming along nicely now.) We're going to be offering our most extensive kit to date, our first "HD" variants for those modelers who go brass-crazy and scrape off all the deck fittings to replace them with PE, and our first decks for hugely "popular" kits. (How many Borodinos are out there, anyway!) Plus we are now generating all decks in four flavors - datural maple, natural teak, photo paper (grain-free!) and tinted wood where we actually simulate individual plank color variations. So lots of really cool stuff just around the corner - plan on early next week.

To answer your two most recent questions...

Is it practical to add decks after PE?

Wow, I haven't thought about that. I guess it depends on the PE. If you've added some deck hatches and stuff - possibly - if the hatches aren't larger than the underlying molded features. Dropping between rails? Again, possibly, if the rails are on the outside of where the deck goes. While it's "possible" in some cases, I can't think of why you would ever want to do that. Our decks are really designed to just be like a "layer of paint" on top of the plastic deck. Imagine a full-deck decal. Would you want to lay that down AFTER the PE? That would scare the bejeebers out of me.

Any chance of a WW2 Iowa or New Jersey? I realize that most people just build the Tamiya /350th kit as the Missouri, but I've got a nice Tom's Modelworks conversion set and that wonderful L'Arsenal foredeck conversion piece just sitting here, making me drool, and I'd love to build a wartime early Iowa-class battleship. Are there any chances of this?

Iowas? Did somebody say Iowas? Let me tell you, I have a special attachment to the Iowas. I have been on board the Missouri and New Jersey when they were in mothballs in Bremerton, and on the Iowa herself in Suisun Bay. I am working with the group that is working to land the Iowa in Los Angeles set up as a museum. I love the Iowas.

How much? Right now we are actively working the following:

The Tamiya 1/350 Missouri (WW2)
The Tamiya 1/350 New Jersey (Modern)
The Revell 1/350 Missouri (WW2)
The Revell 1/350 Iowa (Modern)
The Revell 1/350 New Jersey (Modern)

The Tamiya kits are outstanding. The Revell kits lack that level of detail, but they might turn out okay with the proper care. But the molded decks on the Revell are absolute CRAP. All three kits have an approximated "New Jersey Wood Ring" around Turret 3. In the modern refit, the Big Jay had much of the rotted teak on the aft deck taken out, leaving only a ring round Turret 3 and a strip down the middle leading to the helipad. See this photo where you see the grey decking at teh aft superstructure by the refueling boom - the wood is limited to immediately around the turret barbette:

The aft wood deck on the modern New Jersey

Okay for Revell to mold this into the New Jersey kit. But it is ALSO molded into the modern Iowa as well as the WW2 Missouri! That's right, there is NOT bow-to-stern plank line etching on the Revell WW2 Missouri - it has the modern refit "ring" deck as in the modern New Jersey. ICK!

I dropped off all three kits with an engineer today, along with photos of those three Iowas. We are going to do a full planked deck for the WW2 Missouri configuration, do the New Jersey aft deck to match the photo above, and do the Iowa to resemble this configuration:

So that covers the three Revell kits. We'll offer PROPER decks for the WW2 Missouri, and modern Iowa and New Jersey - all with the proper wood planking layouts to cover the improperly molded deck underneath. This should go a long way towards making these kits more workable.

Now, let's talk Tamiya. We are doing a WW2 Missouri deck now, including a "HD" version compatible with the superb LionRoar super detail PE. (To restate, our HD decks do FEWER cuts assuming that you will be scraping bits off the molded kit and replacing them with PE, and knowing you'd want full planking underneath.) The HD deck may be enough to handle an earlier Iowa conversion.

As for the Modern New Jersey, we are planning to do a "Kit Fit" deck, and also offer specifically a "Conversion" deck for other Iowas. The thinking is to do a full planking around the helicopter deck and provide templates so that you can cut it yourself to match any of the other Iowas, or just leave it fully planked perhaps in support of your "what if" model conversion projects. That should take care of the modern Iowa modeler.

Now, let's go back to your specific requirement of the L'Arsenel conversion deck. I just looked that up, and it's listed at WEM as the "Missouri Foredeck" - is that the same item you have, or was an Iowa-Specific item offered at one point in time? I could probably pick up that piece from WEM, and do a version that specifically fits those fittings and blends seamlessly with the remaining Tamiya kit deck to show consistent planking over both components. If I did THAT, would I have at least ONE guaranteed sale for that special deck?

Let me know, and while we're working the Iowas we might be able to squeeze that in if I knew somebody was going to buy it...



-- John D. --

[aptivaboy]

So, I take it then that a WW2 Iowa or New Jersey is at least a possibility??

Seriously, that sounds great. I'm glad that the old Tamiya Iowa-class is finally getting all of the goodies that she deserves.

One question, over on your site you list some decks as being "HIGH DETAIL," and others as not. Is there a difference?

Thanks.

[johnd13]

Sorry - I hit "submit" instead of "upload" on that post up there so it initially posted incomplete. I went back and edited it and it should be fleshed out now.

[navydavesof]

Yaaaaay modern USS Iowa. Fantastic. I will be a customer for sure. Thanks for keeping us so updated and asking our preferences. This is some pretty unparalleled customer support!

[JamesBenton]

johnd13,

I have a WWII Tamiya Missouri in the works and had a question regarding your plank tinting. Would it be possible or are you planning to tint the planks a different overall color, like a slightly faded deck blue for Measure 22? I wasn't planning on having a natural deck, but I am definitely liking the details of your decks, particularly the tinted wood. My concern would be trying to finish or stain it myself later and obscuring or causing the ink to bleed.

Also, if you offered an HD deck specifically for the l'Arsenal foredeck conversion, I'd be interested too. If your regular HD deck is missing the right cutouts though, it should fit the l'Arsenal foredeck conversion anyway. As far as I can tell, it's basically the stock part with the vents and breakwater removed.

Everything looks fantastic so far. Thanks!

[johnd13]

Would it be possible or are you planning to tint the planks a different overall color, like a slightly faded deck blue for Measure 22? I wasn't planning on having a natural deck, but I am definitely liking the details of your decks, particularly the tinted wood. My concern would be trying to finish or stain it myself later and obscuring or causing the ink to bleed.

Okay, now you're hitting a whole different set of my buttons. The short answer is "YES." We are already planning to render the wood deck in both natural wood as well as blue, as the Missouri was at the surrender. The beauty here is that we can show the fine plank lines in black against the blue - something you could never achieve with painting. It's just a different color option, and this would work particularly well on the matte photographic paper where no grain would show through.

Okay, I will let out a secret. One of the BIG releases out in the next few days is the Dragon 1/350 Scharnhorst. We were looking at the deck and asking, "Do we want to print the swastikas on this sucker?" Once again, EASY TO DO - particularly on the photo paper. On the wood, we can't print white since there is no white ink! The printer gurus (for who knows WHAT reason) design their printers to print on white paper, not wood. So I can only do white on photo paper. But Blue? heh. NO PROBLEM.

As for the white, I was thinking also of markings on carrier decks. Or the White/Red stripes on the Regia Marina ships like the Pola or Roma. Swastikas pose a problem in that I believe that I cannot sell a printed swastika in Germany. I'd have to think about what to do there - maybe just the white circle (again, with faint plank lines showing through under the white - how cool would THAT be?)

And, some ships have cool camouglage patterns painted on their decks. I think the Tirpitz had colored splotches at one time. And the Zuiho late in the war had abstract gun turrets painted on her deck. So the possibilities for printing on decks are endless now that we have the technology to do it. All that you guys need to do, really, is to send a request (or a photo for more complex markings) and we should be able to simulate just about anything.

I think this would be incredibly cool. We're already thinking about stuff like this...

What this may do is to change scaledecks.com from a "we have all our products available to ship today" to a "we will custom print and cut your specific order" type of model, but I am not adverse to doing that. Or even a hybrid approach if you folks would tolerate a week to ship out some product. What I would hate to do is to have to stock ten different flavors of each deck with various markings and camouflage markings on them for each ship. Storing a huge variety of print options on a computer, on the other hand, is super-easy.

So, in short, yeah. We're thinking about other tints and markings.

And, here's another cat out of the bag... I HATED painting the linoleum on the Borodino. I could probably whip up a "linoleum deck set" for the Borodino with only a few hours of work. Then I could just toss that into every Borodino deck that I sell (and, per our policy, if I would do something like that I'd send them out for free to all of our previous Borodino deck customers in our database - so DON'T WAIT FOR THE LINOLEUM to buy your Borodino decks NOW please! ) The only problem is that I would rather concentrate on getting the Trumpeter Arizona out more than futzing around with Borodino Linoleum (just a matter of priorities, you know.) But when I sit down to continue work on my own personal Borodino, you can rest assured that I'm going to cut me some simulated linoleum on photo paper and test it out. All part of the "for scale modelers, by scale modelers" approach.

So, I can print and cut simulated linoleum. That means... HELLO JAPANESE HEAVY CRUISERS and MODERN WARSHIPS! Notice that our name is "scaledecks.com" and not "wooddecks.com."

I am trying to stay ahead of you guys in the thought process, but you guys have an amazing ability to think of really cool stuff. If I can accomodate, I will.

-- John D. --

[johndon]

Wow, I haven't thought about that. I guess it depends on the PE. If you've added some deck hatches and stuff - possibly - if the hatches aren't larger than the underlying molded features. Dropping between rails? Again, possibly, if the rails are on the outside of where the deck goes. While it's "possible" in some cases, I can't think of why you would ever want to do that. Our decks are really designed to just be like a "layer of paint" on top of the plastic deck. Imagine a full-deck decal. Would you want to lay that down AFTER the PE? That would scare the bejeebers out of me.

The thought was that I'd be able to add the PE and get everywhere painted then add the decks - that way, there would be no need for masking and the edges of the wood deck would proved sharp, clean, demarcation lines...

So, you see, there is method in my madness

John

[johnd13]

The thought was that I'd be able to add the PE and get everywhere painted then add the decks - that way, there would be no need for masking and the edges of the wood deck would proved sharp, clean, demarcation lines...

So, you see, there is method in my madness

Got it. I'm an old-school paintbrush versus airbrush dude, so I didn't think about airbrushing the PE and having to mask the deck... If you worked "layer by layer" and did the rails around the perimeter, airbrushed them, then dropped the decks into place that could work. You'd just have to think real carefully about the order of assembly.