Skyking

It's Done! Yellow wings everywhere. I love it. They aren't permenently mounted yet as Im playing with different layouts until I get one I like. All that remains is to have the nameplate engraved and she's finished. Thanks for looking. Now to move on to the Devastator and start cutting wood for the Boeing. Cheers Mike

Ed, Holmes and Guy thanks so much for the comments. I appreciate it. Good idea Holmes. I'll have to see what they have. I know the fly-tying guys have some really fine thread, but if I can find it local it'll save some time. Guy the props are resin props that Jon sent me from Ironshipwrights. the kit props are 4 bladed and completely wrong. I wrote to Jon and asked if he had any 3 bladed screws that were close and a few days alter a package arrived with them. First class service. Last night I dropped one of the Corsairs and watched it explode into 5 or 6 bits of plastic and PE. I've managed

Double Dog dare you AND make you pinky-swear. (learned that one from Maggie's 14 year old) Seriously Pete. As first rate as your kit builds are, I think this is THE build that would be your modeling benchmark for a long time to come... or until you scratchbuild a 16th scale Viper. I say Go For It. Cheers Mike

E-fricken-gads that's awesome Chuk. I think to save time and effort I'm just going to box up my projects and send them to you to build for me. Between you, Pete, Pierre and a host of others here I don't know why I even bother to slap plastic bits together. This has got to be one of the nicest builds I've ever seen. Well done. Cheers Mike

Ummm yeah right Pete. I saw this several years ago when you still lived here in Rochester. Your skills were pretty darn good then too. There's nothing "wrong" with that aft section, and it'll look just as good as the schnoz. Go ahead. I dare you to finish it. You know you want to... Cheers Mike

Thanks HG and Ed. I placed a link over there to here, so if anyone wants to check it out they can. Appreciate the comments. The boat itself is done. I just have couple of spots to touch up and then I can add the aircraft, put the dust cover on it and store it away until my mancave is done. I added a few items that were not included in the kit such as the range light on the stack, and an aft stand-off for the dressing line going to the stern. I rigged it as best as I could tell from all the drawings I have. They all contradicted each other, so I took a little of this and a little of that and d

That looks great Andy. I've got about twenty of these in the stash. I've been buying them every chance I get. you certainly did yours justice. I don't know how I missed this GB. I must have been asleep. Cheers Mike

Hey Matt, Nothing purttier than a yellow winged preWW2 Navy airplane, (except for maybe a yellow winged preWW2 Army Aircorp airplane). Looking real good so far. FYI www.smallparts.com has .003 stainless wire in 3 foot lengths. Comes in a handy plastic tube so it's nice and straight. There's no "memory" to fight with that you would get with a coiled wire. Cheers Mike

On the home stretch now. Just about all the fiddley bits are in place. I have to add a few davits for the 40 foot launches on the boat deck, a couple of yard arms on the stack, then rig the maze of stays and lines, and this turkey is done. It's been a fun build. I've never done a ship before, and it's really opened up a whole new world of modeling. I can see more ships on the horizon. The only maddening thing about them is that references seem to contradict each other, and with refitting and overhauls, it's very difficult to portray a ship as 100% accurate. The Saratoga was a much different ap

The last three nights have been spent adding various details to the hull. Most of the railings are on, I've added the arrestor sheaves and cables, and installed the AA Guns, lifeboats, and platform stairs. I removed the molded in boat platforms that were along the top of the deck and replaced them with .040 plastic cut to size. The kits had depressions in them for the plastic stairs, so I figured it would be easier to make new ones than to fill in the depressions. Here's the port aft AA guns, with railings going around. The Gold Medal set also gives details for the AA guns to give them some

Hiya Guy, You know it is kind of addicting. Now that I see it's not as painful as I thought I'll do a bit to the Island and Stack. Not too much though, as the prewar Navy motto was "If it moves Salute it. If it doesn't, polish it". They were generally pretty clean above the flight deck, so I'll concentrate mainly on the lower hull. Nev and FW thanks for the comments. It's a fun build so far and I can see more ships in my future. Well it's out of the blocks and onto the Gangways. I masked off the flight deck and shot the red for the bottom and the Gray #5 for the Hull. Previously I had spr

Having a hulluvagood time now. The deck has been washed with a burnt sienna oil wash to make the individual planks jump out with contrast. I called Pete Fleischman - model washer extrordinare - for some tips and he got me going in the right direction. It wasn't as daunting as I expected, in fact, it was piece of cake. I just am leery to try new techniques, as I seem to have this penchant for mucking things up the first few times I try, and I didn't want this to become a crash test dummy for oil washes. The one dumb thing I did was to wash and flat coat the deck, the realize I left off the deca

No I haven't, and to be honest I doubt if I will. I've perused the site and there are some really fantastic models and builders there. Being this is my first ship my pride won't let me be the onion in the flower patch . Maybe when I get a few more ships under my belt I'll feel thet my attempts are up to the standards there. Thanks for checking in. Cheers Mike

Thanks for the comments guys. I appreciate it. The airplanes have been put on the back burner for a bit while I attack the boat itself. I needed to work on something substantial that I could actually hold in my fingers and see. :D. Ahh Silver you are so correct. The Sara and Lexington both were very nice looking ships. Well proportioned and in the prewar grays and mahogony decks, very colorful compared to the drab war years. Glad you found some inspiration. What subject are you going to do? Darn it Pete. I KNEW something wasn't quite right about them. Thanks for pointing it out. Not t

Thanks for the comments guys. It's appreciated. FW I ended up painting the elevator stripes. It took me the better part of two hours to mask them, but they came out well. The deck is in the midst of being washed with dark brown oils to make the planking "pop". (Thanks for the advise Pete!) When it's done I'll shoot some pictures. Right now the wash is "cooking" and I'll wipe it off in an hour or so. I'm off work for three days this week so I have lots of plastic time. I have most of the funnel finished. I installed the top and it looked toy like, because you could see into the interior and th

I've got the partial airwing posted over in the In-Progress thread, and a couple of guys asked for shots of the boat itself, so I thought I'd toss up a few here. This is my first ship project, and I jumped in with both feet. I probably should have started out with something smaller, with less repetition, and less airplanes. But no, I pick a 31 inch long monster with 25 biplanes and multiple assemblies of the same item up the wazoo. It's been educational, but I gotta admit, it's been fun too... except for today, which I'll cover in the pictures. Here's a shot of the Main Island, with Pilot H

The eyestrain continues :blink: :blink: Five tubby little Grummans, F3F-1's. One as the Commander Airwing aircraft, a second as a squadron hack, and the remaining three Flight Section 1. Believe it or not I lost the sixth airplane. I've lost parts before but this is a first. I've never lost an entire airplane before, but in this scale, the airplanes are smaller than most parts I've made..lol. I may buy another set of F3F's, but then again probably not, as I just want to get these things finished. Left to do yet are the SBC's and Corsairs, then I can get back to the boat itself. I'm real

Hiya Guy, thanks for the comments, as always. You know, Hasegawa made some righteous 32nd scale pre WW2 US Navy bipes that you would have a ball with. I have about 4 of each in the stash. Now with Vector coming out with new engines designed specifically for these kits they could really be made into a work of art. And Holmes thank you for your enthusiastic response, 'tis much appreciated. Yes SWMBO let me have the day to do with pretty much as I pleased, so I spent most of it working on these little buggers. I can't say enough how nice it is to have a wife that not only supports the hobby but

OK I have drawings by both Wylam and Paul Matt. As John stated, I would be more wary of Wylam's and more confident with Matt's, as he tended to research his subjects more than most. Also as John said, there are no "factory" drawings left of the Flyer, so anyone's are best-guess conjecture at best. If you would like reduced scans to compare I can send you some. The Matt drawings are still available in "Paul Matt Scale Airplane Drawings Volume II". You should be able to find a copy on ePray or other source. You can also try here for full sized roll drawings of the ones in the book. HTH Cheers

I can't recall if it was Wylam, Matt or Nye, but one of those gents did a set of drawings for the Flyer. I'll check my references when I get home to see who did them. Unless I'm mistaken I may even have them. Cheers Mike

Five days, Six aircraft. These things are small, and the T4M's are the biggest of the bunch, so the next ones are really going to be testing my eyesight. I'll probably do the F3F-1's next, as I'm going to do 3 in Section colors, one as a squadron hack, and the other as the Admiral's aircraft, just for a little variety. The repitition is mind numbing, but I can also look at it this way... last year it took me a year to finish one model. So far in one week I've done 6, so I guess there's an upside..lol. cheers Mike

to quote Norton... "hamina hamin hamina"... Timmy I agree with Pete. Why do I even bother? The artwork and prepwork is just amazing. This will be a most informative and educational (and humbling) exerience to follow. Cheers Mike

Hey Guy Now?!? :) Umm Guy... it looked like a Viper several pages back..:) The way you and Mr Pete paint and finish your subjects makes me green with envy. Painting has always been my Waterloo, I'll eaither pull it off in decent fasion or it's a disaster from beginning to end, there's never an in-between. I guess that's why I'm somewhat reluctant to try the preshading and weathering and all that stuff, why add more steps to mess up?..lol. Beautiful model. Cheers Mike

Thanks Dan and Jim, appreciate the comments. Jim I'll post some of the boat in the "other stuff" forum a little later. Not much to see on it yet except some of the main island and funnel. I've got one of the T4M's done. I used this one as a crash test dummy to see how the decals would go down, what areas to watch out for, etc. It went fairly easy, except for the fact my thumb is bigger than the model..lol. Rather than sweat the round engine, lack of interior, etc, I opted to paint the areas to represent them being covered with storm canvas, then I'll add tiny tie-downs when it comes time to p

Although the boat itself is O/T, the aircraft are, so I thought I'd show a couple of shots of the aircraft that came with the kit. 6 each of a T4M-1, F3F-1, SBU-1 Corsair and BF2C aircraft. I'm using the Gold Medal PE set for the boat, which gives lovely little PE N Struts and props, rather than the clunky clear plastic kit struts. The kit decals are also lackluster, in that they do not give aircraft section numbers, Fortunately Starfighter Decals does a sheet that gives decals for EVERY aircraft in the wing, or 72 in all. It includes not only the various squadron aircraft, but also the utilit