jep1210

Oh man, I just found this build today and it extremely helpful. Just yesterday I posted pictures of my recently resurrected Bluejacket Gambier Bay that I've had for decades. Your pictures will be a tremendous help in the little details the the Bluejacket kit are vague on, especially the vents or drains (or whatever they are) on the side of the hull. The Bluejacket plans show them as just dark squares with no mention of what they are or what they looked like. Not sure I'm going to attempt to do the Measure 32/12A the CVE 73 carried, Just too much involved to try and tackle. I was going to go with the simple Measure 11 which was overall sea blue, but I recently discovered Measure 32/4a which was carried by CVE-60 USS Guadalcanal. Seems a little more manageable to achieve even though CVE-73 probably didn't wear it. Your Gambier Bay is coming out great, Hope fully we get to see it finished. One thing you could try to lighten some of the colors you feel are too dark it mix a little white or light grey into some clear, either gloss or flat, I've used that method fade paint on aircraft I've built for weathering purposes.

I got this kit 25 years ago or so and it sat for a long time. I caught some motivation and started working on it around 2005/06 but really wasn't happy with my workmanship and put it back in the box not really sure what to do with it. My level of finesse just wasn't up to what I wanted it to be. Fast forward to today, I dug it out and am a little surprised by the fact that it's not as bad as I thought back then. There are a few rough spots but I may have just rekindled the drive to finish this. There is a lot of stuff in that box and I didn't even include the photoetch frets, fittings or the second full sized plan in this picture. I have the flight deck masked to paint lines to represent the tie downs. I should have probably painted the deck in its base coat first. The elevators outlines are provided in photo etch and not having the confidence in being able to cut the the deck to fit them flush I just glued them on top which causes a slight lip, this was one of the issues, in my skills not the kit, that stalled the project all those years ago. Not sure how to fix this at this stage The catapult track is made from strip styrene, THIS I was able to get to sit flush, since it's just a strait line. Also, you can see the doors I added from Tom's Modelworks if I remember correctly. Unfortunately the set doesn't give you enough of the correct kinds of doors so I had to use different styles to cover all I needed. The Underside of the flightdeck the sits over the fore deck. The bracing is made from strip styrene. The kit also provides photo etching for some of the larger girders that's what the gaps in the bracings are for. The deckhouses and island (not shown here) are made from blocks of wood. I'm not 100% sure I got the shape of the bow right, another thing I struggled with that stalled the progress. This is the area called the galley deck I think, right where the gun tubs sits just below and on the side of the flight deck. It's upside down in this picture. I really want to get this area detailed and give that busy look but I only have a few pictures that show what went there. How do you get information to know what to put there? I'll need to some serious clean up on this area. Well thanks for looking. Not really sure how active this build is going to be but any advice/encouragement/offers to purchase(kidding on that last one...mostly 😄 ) will be more than welcome. John

Well I finally finished got caught up on your build, the finished product came out fantastic. All the rigging looks great.

Really looking great.

I got here from your Alfred build....saw it in your list of past builds...this is another BJ kit I've always liked.

Oooh, this is going to interesting, I've always thought the Alfred was one of Bluejacket's more attractive kits.

I was on the real Charles W. Morgan a couple of years ago, this is a build I'll follow with interest. I may have some photos of some details if you need. Most of the pics I took were from below deck and in the cabin.

This is all kinds of fantastic!!!!!!

I have this ship by a different company in my stash. I'm trying to figure out if I want to start it or not pass it along. It's been in my stash for the better part of 25 years so. I'll go through your build log and determine if I have the skills for this kind of kit....I build mostly plastic kits.