Carrier Builders Yard, whats on the Slipway

[kidcurrie42]

Thanks for the Birthday wishes guys Happy Birthday also to NukeMM

Welcome back Mark Kearsarge is looking good, i hope we see her progress

Happy Modeling

John

[Mark McKinnis]

That is second half of a fold out page, page #138, line drawing plan of the USS Kearsarge in July of 1954, in her SCB-27a, from the book - "Essex Class Carriers" by Alan Raven, Warship design series., 1988, Naval Institute Press. Can tell by the pink on the left edge, which is the edge of the color cover picture on the book jacket, the sunset horizon line. I have that book.


That is correct. It is the Raven Essex book. A must have if you are looking to scratch build away from the Trumpeter WWII offerings.

[angeleyes]

Hi gents, once again i need your expert advise on modern carriers.
I got a commission to built Trumpeters 1/350 USS Nimitz , and i would like to ask which one to choose to convert it to from the following:

USS George Washington 96
USS Eisenhower 1982
USS Harry S. Truman 2004-05
USS Abraham Lincoln 2000-01
2005 USS Nimitz
USS Theodore Roosevelt 05
CVN-69 USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1980.
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

This is the list of aircraft carriers available from starfighter decals (covers their respective air wing) being that one factor , the other is which is potentially the easiest , with the least amount of modifications, or most available references to help me identify the changes needed quickly.I dont want to spend half a year searching for that photo if you know what i mean.

[kidcurrie42]

CVN-69 USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1980 and 1982 would be the easiest builds with least modifications.

Happy Modeling

John

[sgtryan13]

Kostas, John is correct, by far the easiest/quickest would be the earlyeisenhower. All the rest of your choices will require extensive modifications and scratch building. A short list of the major scratch requirements is:

All of the weapons sponsons need to be made from scratch. the later ships of the class have sponsons for sea sparrows and CIWS addded around the hull, and the sponsons that are there in the kit were changed to more complex and larger shapes.

The island will need modifications if you build a leter ship. the later ships have had extensions put on the back end of the island, as well as various satcomm sponsons on and around them.

Satcomm sponsons popped up all over the hull in different places for different ships.

Long story short, the more modern of a CVN that you make, the more scratch additions will be required, not that any of these would be beyond your considerable modeling skills.

Ryan

[Mark McKinnis]

Starfighter also does the 1970s, early 80s CVW-8 decals which allow you to do Nimitz out of the box if you really want Nimitz. Yankee Modelworks also does decals in 350th scale for CVW-8 Nimitz and CVW-7 Ike.


I am planning on doing Nimitz 1991, the cruise I did, and it is a big task to update these kits as our own "Mr. Ryan" has done. (Insert Sean Connory Scottish/Russian Accent!)

[sgtryan13]

Ha! I like the sound of Mr Ryan in my head as Captain Ramius says it! Now i have the whole damn dialouge of Red October going through my head, thanks a lot Mark!

[sgtryan13]

For any of my fellow CVN builders here, if you did not see it on the main forum, here ya go...

I finally have resin copies of my Sea Sparrow Launchers and all the Satcomm domes that I used on the Bush ready for anyone who wants them. See the pictures here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=113023

$15 for the set of 3 Sea Sparrow launchers
$15 for the set of 27 satcomm domes (there are spares of some saller ones, and different sizes of others, not all will be used on any one CVN)

That price includes shipping in the US.

I learned that I take no joy whatsoever in making molds for my parts, and casting in resin. I had thought of startig a very small aftermarket to address some sorely needed USN accessories, but it really took a lot of fun out of my beloved hobby. I plan to offer these sets till I have depleted my supply of resin or the molds become unuseable, whichever comes first. Point is, these will be a limited run that I will likely not do again any time soon, so if you want a set, be sure to speak up.

Also available for purchase are the templates for all the weapons sponsons and the island upgrades, as well as a set of instructions on the overall build (basically detailed notes calling out additions/omissions/corrections to every step of the Nimitz kit instructions. The templates are specific to the Bush and Reagan, but most of the hull sponsons are suitable for other late ships of the class with minor modifications. (Mark, I'll be PMing you shortly so I can send you a hard copy).

Ryan

[kidcurrie42]

Ryan, Count me in for some

Happy Modeling

John

[Mark McKinnis]

Hi Ryan,

I am in for both as well! They look great!


Thanks,

MM

[Redlion615]

Evening guys,

Happy belated birthdays to all those celebrating recently!

After way too much quality time with the 1:1 scale helos I've finally gotten back to work on the boat. I've started working on the island and airwing - photos to follow in the next few days. I've also started picking off some of the details in the hangar. I'm taking a little artistic liberty with the lockers and fittings - I'm not planning to light the hangar deck so I've got a few extra yellow and red items which seem to stand out well enough.

Take care,
Dan

[Guest]

I'm working on the same 1:535 scale Revell USS Saratoga CV-60 kit and also need a decal sheet. I've been working on this kit for over 12 years now, slowly adding detail and re-working as I find better source material and get become more skilled.
I am modeling the Super Sara as she appeared circa 1993 on her final cruise. As of now she has a full hangar deck with LED lighting, reworked starboard rear sponsons with the 5" gun mount platforms added, the aircraft crane has been moved to the correct position, the island has been heavily reworked to reflect all the SLEP changes and Saratoga-specific details, added the port side deck extension, corrected the port rear CIWS sponson to sit parallel to the centerline, added the stern platform, added pipe detail to both sides of the bow, added the port edge radar and Fresnel platforms, deleted the kit starboard bow sponson and added the correct arrangement, removed the extraneous arrestor cables, removed all the molded railing in favor of getting the GMM Essex/Midway/Forrestal photoetch kit, and scratchbuilt new Mk 91 Sea Sparrow directors, a new Tilly deck crane, tow tractors, and have an air wing consisting of 14 F-14A Tomcats, 14 F/A-18C Hornets, 8 A-6E Intruders, 8 EA-6B Prowlers, 8 S-3 Vikings, 8 SH-3 Sea Kings, and 3 scratchbuilt E-2C Hawkeyes, 1 C-2 Greyhound, and 1 Tomcat with wings extended, with most of the aircraft folded for storage (save the Tomcats, if someone can figure out a way to convincingly modify the kit F-14s to "oversweep" please let me know). I'm still fairly novice at modeling, but I'm stubborn enough to keep re-working this kit until it satisfies me. Revell was nice enough some years back to mail me a complete extra set of the kit aircraft, plus I have purchased an extra Saratoga and Forrestal to scavenge for parts back when Toys R Us still carried them for cheap. Unfortunately, my first hull was destroyed in a move along with the decals I had used on it, and the second Saratoga set was lost. All I currently have is the Forrestal decal sheet, along with my spare hull (destined to be CV-59 circa mid-80's eventually). I'll post pics of my current progress soon, can anyone help with decals tho? Also, I need confirmation of the island paint scheme on her final cruise. I know the starboard side is light grey, but I can't find decent pics of the port side to tell if she has just the dark grey stripe, or if the entire port side is dark grey along with the forward and rear, as she appeared in the mid-80's. Pics of her in mothball have the entire island in light grey, but this may have been done for her ready reserve storage. Any ideas?

[Cliffy B]

Starfighter Decals has what you need. I and plenty of us here have dealt with Mark and have nothing but kind words for the guy. Order with confidence. One thing to note however, most of his decals are printed on ALPS printers and can be a bit challenging to use and require very careful trimming off the sheet. Test an extra piece on some scrap to get the feel for them first.

CV-60 1962-84:
http://www.starfighter-decals.com/54033 ... 6284-.html

Root site:
http://www.starfighter-decals.com/1540-de.html

You'll need air wing decals too but he only has sheets for CV-59 in 1975 and 1990-91 but take a look at them anyway as some of the markings may still be of use.

Look forward to seeing photos of your Sara

[rx79gez8gundam]

I'm hand painting the aircraft instead of decaling. More of a pain, and WAY tedious, but easier than dealing with tiny decals that don't exist in the correct markings anyway. I found side views of each of the squadrons for the 1993 cruise, including the various CAG markings, so I'm good there. The hard part has been finding decent pics of the carrier itself from the port side. Almost all the pics I've found of sufficient quality to see any detail have been from the starboard side or bow. I've found one pic that shows the port side of the island, but it's an overhead shot and really hard to tell if it's actually dark gray or just shadowing.
I saw where Starfighter had extra decal sheets, was hoping he was still around and offering them. I'm going to have to hand paint the bow hull number since the Revell decal is incorrect for the time period.
Anyway, here's my progress so far;







Sorry for the general lack of focus, I'm using a Canon Powershot A650 digital that doesn't like to take close up pictures of small items. The hull painting is half done, and the flight deck needs to be darker. I have yet to add detail to the elevators, which is why they don't match the flight deck. Ignore the markings on the aircraft, the only "finished" ones are those with gold canopies. The others were painted for the Forrestal originally and are slowly being re-done. None of them are glued down, and most are on the hangar deck in the pics. I still have a lot of cleanup to do all over, and the GMM set is still planned. The pics don't show the hangar deck well, but it uses a strip LED mounted to the overhead to illuminate the length. The flight deck is still unattached so I can work on the hangar deck. I want to add detail like Redlion above, just not sure if my skills are quite that far along to do so.

[angeleyes]

Hello again.
I have a rather stupid question again:
I have decided to go for the USS Nimitz as is in the box and i want to order the Starfighter decals for the planes but i am not sure if among the types of the airwing are the Vigilantes and the S-3s at the same time as the F-4 and A-7s or they got replaced by the F-4 and A-7 at some point.I am asking this because the 1/700 version for the complete airwing for Nimitz doesnt include any markings for these types of planes(Vigilante and S-3) so i am assuming they got replaced by that time (around 1977).Starfigher doesnt do a complete set for the Nimitz airwing in 1/350 before 1980 as far as i can tell from their website , so i want to know which decals i am going to need and how many for a complete airwing (how many squadrons etc)

[simon b]

Check the link below, should answer most of your questions.

http://www.gonavy.jp/CVf.html

Incidently, you could build a late 70's Eisenhower with only a few small adjustments to the kit. Bridle catches basically. Starfighter do a marking set for this airwing.

[Cliffy B]

rx79gez8gundam, if you haven't already go to these three sites:

CV-60 General Booklet of Plans from 1993:
http://www.hnsa.org/doc/plans/cv60.pdf

CV-60 Damage Control Charts 1993:
http://www.hnsa.org/doc/plans/cv60color.pdf


Go here and search for "CV-60" and then click sort by oldest or newest and it will sort by date of the photos. There are plenty of shots of her and they are all high-resolution. Click the photo and then the little box shaped button under the photo that says "download"; enjoy.
http://www.defenseimagery.mil/index.html

[boomstick68]

Hey rx79gez8gundam,

Is your CV60 the Revell kit?

[rx79gez8gundam]

Yes it is, the 1996 re-release. Been tinkering with it since before I went in the Navy in 98, never can quite get it to my liking enough to finally glue down the flight deck and finalize her. It's kinda like a project car at this point, never quite done.

[rx79gez8gundam]

Thanks Cliffy, found some useful pics on that site! Answered the question about the dark grey on the island for me, too.

And yes, it is the 1996 re-release of the Forrestal/Saratoga Revell kits.