Carrier Builders Yard, whats on the Slipway

[Pieter]

Hey bunker,
i don't know what you are trying to do exactly and I am certainly no expert on Kriegsmarine 'might-have-beens' but I am certain that even hypothetical ships would be subject to the same laws of physics.
That means you would never see weathering on the scale seen here on a ship and that a model of ship seen at a distance of 300 ish meters (which is the scale distance of your camera) would not have hard contrasting colors like that. Even my heavily used HMS Glory will look relatively clean once she is finished. Note that I lightened Mike Bartels' painting suggestions for exactly that reason. Try repainting your color scheme with some white added to the colors and never use black but use a dark grey.

[Pieter]

Some progress on HMS Glory.
I have toned down the difference between the deck panels somewhat by drybrushing a lightened version of the base color over it and I have hand painted the typical diagonal stripes on the forward lift. Glory seems to have been the only ship in the class with two of those stripes rather than one. Also note that I have sanded away one of the arresting cables. It will return later in the build. I also added the free take off numbers to the flight deck. On my HMS Victorious I painstakingsly assembled these numbers from a decal set (which took hours) only to find out they were hardly visible after weathering the deck so this time they are simply drybrushed on in white paint. After sealing the deck in vallejo matt varnish I have attached the pre-painted sponsons to the hull. The parts fit is really nice, I did not have to use any glue on them.

[Mike@IHP]

Good progress!

Mike Bartel

[gtbred]

Just got my 1/350 Kitty Hawk to convert into the CVA-62. This will be on hold until the 3 others are done. Happy Modeling everybody.

[MartinJQuinn]

Enterprise (CV-6) is done and in her display case at the Rivervale Library

[Cadman]

Enterprise (CV-6) is done and in her display case at the Rivervale Library

Awesome!

[taskforce48]

That�s fantastic Martin!

Matt

[gtbred]

Great job.

[Dan K]

The accolades are well deserved.

[Pieter]

Very nice Enterprise, the librarians must be really happy.
Back to HMS Glory.
The advantage of getting hold of a high resolution picture is that you can use the information to keep adding more detail so it becomes a nicer model.
The disadvantage of getting hold of a high resolution picture is that you can use the information to keep adding more detail so the project takes ages to get right.
Anyway, I have spent most of a month adding more detail, extra platforms etc etc .
I have now 'frozen' the island and glued it to the deck . I have used most of L'Arsenals' PE for the kit and the bridge now has some parts from a Flyhawk cruiser kit.

The hull is on its base now. I have also decided to respectfully disagree with IHP regarding the AA weapons. The 4 barrel pompoms are nice though a bit clunky . I have resin replacements on order as L'Arsenals' pompom mountings are overscale. The 40mm singles in the kit are probably wrong for my build. They are a nice representation of the 40mm mark 3 used on late war fleet carriers. All pictures of the light fleets I have seen have mk V 'boffin' guns in these positions. I used the mountings from the L Arsenal kit. The sponsons where IHP lets you put 20mm twins were mostly used for local fire control of the pompoms during WW2 and shortly after. Pictures of the light fleets in Korea have the 20mm sponsons in use for storing various objects and the pictures also indicate the addition of extra walkways between various sponsons. These were added in sheet styrene.

I have added an LSO platform and boats. The position of the LSO platform varied a lot between ships, it seems that Glory was the only one with a platform this far aft.

LSOplatform.JPG (31.33 KiB) Viewed 3154 times

As I am on the homestretch now it is time to decide how the airgroup will be placed. The light fleets had a reputation in Korea for their very fast landing cycles (the record was 22 seconds between aircraft) so I will be placing a Seafury taxiing near the barriers while the wire is being retracted so the next one can land on.

And I could not resist doing a picture with a modified Majestic.

[Mike@IHP]

Overall, very nice job with my kit. I was thinking about a Korean war fit version but if there is that much little variation, I'll just do the planned late-war and postwar fits and let folks do as you're doing and model each ship on their own. That's what makes it difficult to do this class: you can't possibly do it all in kit form.

I stand by the quality of my AA weapons since I worked from photos and drawings of the mounts in question, but if there are any placement discrepancies, let me know. They might be correctable.

That modified Majestic, though.....

Mike Bartel

[Pieter]

Hey Mike,
I still think you can do a Korean war version (not HMS Ocean) with the new bridge and the new radars you have already mentioned.
For purists like me the change to 'boffins' from your Mk3 can simply be done by adding the layers' cabs in styrene strips. And as your kit has separate sponsons your kit is a much better basis for modernized Colossusses and Majestics than the resin kits. No blocks of resin to sand off and no uneven (HP) flight deck to worry about.

[kidcurrie42]

Great to see so much great work taking place

Happy Modeling

John

[Pieter]

Thanks John.
Some progress on HMS Glory. I have finally managed to add all the radars to the island and attached the funnel grills.

The crash crane and the forward antenna mast are glued in place now. This mast was in the 'up' position on all pictures I have seen of landing operations.

And the liferafts are on board. L'Arsenal gives you the correct double layered rafts and PE racks. I hope there will be PE racks in the new PE set by Tom's.

And I have been playing around with the airgroup. Nothing glued in place yet but this is roughly what I am aiming for.

[gtbred]

Glad to see YOU back John!

[Mark McKinnis]

Hope everyone is doing well.

Been away from ships for a while. Finally got back to my 1/350 scale SCB-27A CVA-33 Kearsarge 1953 project. Here is the Island so far. The camera always brings out the flaws!

[Pieter]

Which flaws? Looks really good to me.

[Mark McKinnis]

Well,

I tried to use bits and pieces of PE to do the cross bars on the upper mast and they don't quite reach the mast. I will have to fix that...somehow.

I am also going to try a new trick by spraying a clear decal sheet with gunship gray and cutting out the non skid walkways on the decks of the island and see if i can create the haze gray borders on the deck. I have been working on this ship, more off than on, for 4 years now. Time to get her done. I need to finish Kearsarge to get the 1957 SCB-125 Intrepid done. Both air wings are completed so that is a good start.

[gtbred]

The island looks great Mark. Yes I agree that photos show flaws. But it helps out alot. I'm not looking for the perfect build just close to it. Happy Modeling Everyone!

[gtbred]

My last Supercarrier to be built. Ranger 1991 Greg from Shapeways is doing a lot of work on the 1/720 version of Ranger. Waiting for the upgrades to 1/350. Happy Modeling Everyone!