1/72 scale USS California CGN-36

HvyCgn9 · Post by **HvyCgn9** » Fri Aug 14, 2015 9:22 am

gtbred wrote:WOW!!!!!!!!!

Thanks mate,

I have been working on my mates ANZAC class frigate too, I find that I get more done if I am alternating between a couple of models at once....

Ticonderoga · Post by **Ticonderoga** » Sat Aug 15, 2015 7:02 am

Looking great Bruce!!

HvyCgn9 · Post by **HvyCgn9** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 3:44 am

This morning while waiting to hear from mechanics about my van I finally got round to fitting the 3D printed SPS48E radar on California, first off had to remove my scratchbuilt one and pry off the base..which was a styrene wrapped 10mm dia. geared motor......cleaned up the gearbox of glue and resoldered wires.

Decided I wanted to mount gearbox same as before in base of radar so therefore I need to open up the hole in its base (about 6mm across)then using various drill bit sizes I worked my way up to 11mm(ish)dia. I then used my Ozito/dremel clone with a cylinder shaped grinding wheel to tidy up the hole for better alignment with bottom of antenna. Then cut a section off the antennas rotation shaft to shorten it up (as it comes it extends all the way to bottom of antenna base which is ok if you can drive via shaft from below.) last job was to drill out center shaft hole from 2mm to 3mm to suit gearbox drive shaft. Ended up attaching radar base with CA to a disc of 2mm styrene which is attached to mast via 2 servo mounting screws for maintenance.

couple of pix...

Ps the radar is from Charlie at EelRiverhobbies on Shapeways he does SPS-48E, SPS-49, SPS-10, SPS40 and loads of other goodies in 1/48, 1/72, and 1/96.....and can rescale stuff on request.

Ticonderoga · Post by **Ticonderoga** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 7:30 am

looking good there Bruce.

HvyCgn9 · Post by **HvyCgn9** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 5:59 am

Ticonderoga wrote:looking good there Bruce.

Thx mate

Only running her at 85% full throttle as I only have 15amp ESCs in at present and She pulls about 10Amps/motor even then!! But still plenty quick....

HvyCgn9 · Post by **HvyCgn9** » Thu Oct 15, 2015 6:22 am

Was stuck at home for 2 weeks waiting for my work van to be repaired (long sad tale involving a broken crankshaft....) So I managed to get a bit of work done about the shipyard.

First job was giving California's deck a bit of TLC to fix some boo boo's made during construction (such as the aft missile launcher being located in wrong spot initially)
Once that was done I began working out from my research pix (from Seaphoto set of 35mm prints for CGN37 and Ray Bean's Stillmotion photograhics photo dvd and numerous pix glean from net) the locations of all the bollards and fairleads....turned out I had just enough bollards and was short about 6 fairleads (but 4 of em would be hard to spot behind aft crew ladders and the other 2 can be added later if needed). With them all attached (with 2 fwd and 2 aft pinned for mooring use) I gave the deck a coat of paint to represent the lighter gray non skid surface, then a day later I masked up the deck to do the darker non skid shown in most of the colour overhead shots. I have then given the paint a few days of sun over the weekend to set abit before masking up the Helo deck and fwd vertrep (vertical replenishment point)to do the white lines.....just some touch ups to do on hull before I apply the Hawkgraphics flightdeck decals...

Cheers Bruce

HvyCgn9 · Post by **HvyCgn9** » Thu Oct 15, 2015 6:24 am

some more pix....

Neptune · Post by **Neptune** » Thu Oct 15, 2015 7:23 am

She really starts to come together now. Love the results so far.

Can't help but notice that the ship next to it (Long Beach?) doesn't have any lifeboats yet? Are you planning to make them all in one rush or simply didn't mount them to protect them in the work space?

HvyCgn9 · Post by **HvyCgn9** » Thu Oct 15, 2015 3:47 pm

Neptune wrote:She really starts to come together now. Love the results so far.

Can't help but notice that the ship next to it (Long Beach?) doesn't have any lifeboats yet? Are you planning to make them all in one rush or simply didn't mount them to protect them in the work space?

I have all the ships boats for both cruisers 4x 26' motor boats and 6 of the 40' motor boats a mate made for me in resin but not sure if I will use em yet as they are quite heavy (they may adversely affect CofG).

Cheers Bruce

HvyCgn9 · Post by **HvyCgn9** » Sun Oct 18, 2015 2:45 am

Yesterday gave the hull a coat of Tamiya Medium Sea Gray 2 its not as blue as the Tamiya Haze Gray (which really becomes noticeable in photos), then today applied the Hawkgraphics USN fight deck decals. Hopefully get the hull no's and draft marks on one evening this week....work hours permitting!

Bruce

HvyCgn9 · Post by **HvyCgn9** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 6:34 am

Gave the hull a repaint last week (and left it upside down out in sun for a day to cook the paint) and over last few nights have been doing Hull No's, draft markings, and last night did the Danger area circles for ASROC mount and fwd 5"mk45. They have had a coat of satin clear to seal em on.....

These are all Hawkgraphics decals with the Danger circles being from a custom sheet set that Darren did for me ages ago....

here are some more pics....

Cheers Bruce

Post by **ModelMonkey** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 7:12 am

Lovin' it.

KevinYoung · Post by **KevinYoung** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 9:01 pm

Indeed what a beauty.

HvyCgn9 · Post by **HvyCgn9** » Mon Oct 26, 2015 7:55 am

Took her for a cruise on Sunday with my local crew from TF72 good turnout of models with a mix of warships and merchant ships.

Clearcoat did its job and no decals came off! yipee!!

here are some pics....

HvyCgn9 · Post by **HvyCgn9** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 5:29 am

Been making up fwd HF antenna over last few nights after work.... fiddly little sucker!

The main tube is made up of 3 sizes of evergreen tube (from the scraps box...) the antenna is made up of 1mm square rod pieces cut 25mm long and glued to a 1mm thin piece of the same larger dia. tube that was used for bottom section of upright, then the upright was inserted into it and a 10mm x 1mm dia 'cap' was glued on (not strictly accurate but in the interests of durability I added it...)

Finally a series of 0.5 x1.5mm strips for the fins around base to finish it off.....now just need to paint it!!

Cheers Bruce

HvyCgn9 · Post by **HvyCgn9** » Tue Nov 10, 2015 11:44 pm

Since last update have been busy detailing..... attached some vents on aft superstructure (located just aft of the 26' boat davits) which I made up over last couple of evenings,will have to re photo em due to camera shake...

Once they were attached I decided to make up a TACAN antenna (the UFO like object seen on top of most modern USN ship masts) I had a left over resin disk base for a 30mm gun, which was large enough to turn into the frisbee....first I drilled a 2mm hole into it, then used a fitting from my dremel to tap into it. I fired up the Dremel clone on low rpms and used a block of coarse sand paper to shape the disk down to the correct shape. (SEE Pics....)

After making that I was on a roll and detailed the under side of Aft mast upper platform and added a ladder and some bits (no detailed pics of what the actually look like close up unfortunately). Added a couple brackets to the fwd mast upper platform while I was in the mood....

Then set about detailing fwd and aft upper mast sections...not alot of close up pics about of these and those I do have are generally looking up from below....

HvyCgn9 · Post by **HvyCgn9** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 7:28 am

most of fwd mast platform details done just need some fine wire to run power for SPS-10 radar motor before I can glue it all together. Then need to sort out railings...

Added the two wing platforms for the NTU upgrade bits...the two boxes which do midcourse guidance for the SM-2MR's..still trying to make em' need to guess size of box!