Coyote_6

Thank you immensely for all the great ideas. I tried every one and they all worked well. A report of sorts: 1. Sanding sawdust into the various recommended adhesives is something I did very successfully prior to danish oil/poly coloring with good result. Definitely better than the poorly matched wood filler I tried in some places. I chose not to use that technique (sanding sawdust) here to ensure more uniform finishing. But I know this works well and probably would have worked fine. 2. UV curing resin - my daughter had some for jewelry making and I used it on a test piece. Very fast and easy to sand. I only chose not to use it due to it being a "new" material and not part of my current system. Longevity/interaction concerns. 3. Super glue - again filled a test piece crack with CA and sanded. It is very hard when cured so requires more effort/time to smooth, but it definitely worked well. I didn't want to work that hard. 4. I didn't actually try the shellac although as a new material to me it was very interesting. The drawback was this - only sold in 1 quart cans (946 mL). As I learned, I only used about 4 mL "fixing" my mess and had read shellac has a short shelf life when opened, thus I would have to discard 942 mL eventually. I will try shellac on a future project because it sounds awesome. 5. PVA glue by itself was also successful on the test piece. 6. An argument could be made for leaving her alone - not sure the juice was worth the squeeze here. Ultimately what I did do was careen the ship on her side, fill a syringe with Watco Satin wipe-on poly and then lay a bead of poly in the cracks. After cure there was shrinkage so the process was repeated. Sanding was easy-ish and finish was re-applied over the whole lower hull. The results were pretty good. And the final result. Needs a final coat of satin to tone down the shine but turned out ok. Benefits include: The filler matching the overall finish for expansion/contraction (thermal and humidity). The applicator needle matched the gap size and would follow the gap when applying. Easy-ish to sand. Follow on poly coats bonded to the fills pretty seamlessly. Anyway, VERY appreciative of all the great options. They all clearly have their merits and I have added them to my "toolbox" going forward. Detail of my "sample piece". White glue on left joint, CA (superglue) center, and UV resin on right. All three would have accomplished this task.

Very nice work and a beautiful fit Chris! Wow.

Here she is in the sun in standoff distance for reference. Probably the worst offender/viewing angle.

Before I move on to lines and rigging, I finished the ship with Watco Danish Oil (3 coats) and Watco Wipe-on Satin Polyeurethane (3 coats). In general she looks ok. But if you look closely at the hull there are some void areas between planks after finishing. Probably 10 or 11 places throughout, some as long as two inches. My question - is there an easy way to fill these with a clear material (white glue, polyeurathane) to get a nice smoothly faired surface? Or should I live with it and move on to rigging? Obviously I will have to do better fitting on my next build. Anybody have any thought or ideas on this? Thanks in advance.

Great presentation today Bruce! The model is beautiful. Following going forward. Steve

Well done Phil and interesting questions posed. Are these current photos? If so, she has been well preserved. Nicely done - especially the ship's boat.

More clear satin poly? Yes please. Two coats down, one more to go. Then the entire ship herself will be done. (Spars and yards will come later.)

Yay! Back at it Chris - she is looking great. She has nice lines with the wales in place.

This makes complete sense. There are times I wish I was working with "thinner wood", so there we go! She looks great Phil! Steve

@Chuck Seiler I think we can safely assume that she will not be ready by summer. Most folks would say we're half done when the cannon, anchors and deck fittings are all rigged. I hope to move aloft in the next couple months, I hope to build three ship's boats, and I haven't made any decisions on sails at this point. So still a long way to go I'm afraid. But she should be impressive to work on in the booth by summer! Steve

Whew! The holidays. Am I right? So here we are 4 months later with remarkably little to show for the time. But to @Chuck Seiler I can attest I have indeed got the rudder and tiller squared away. (At least mostly anyway!) Starting the new year correctly at the shipyard with a safety brief, the assembled staff paid keen attention. Here is the rudder installation completed. The devil being in the details, we have: The pinned "Wood lock" is installed with a removable pin. The Wood Lock prevents the rudder from unshipping (falling off). And of course if it did unship, the Rudder Pendants (brass chains) keep the rudder close to the to ship to facilitate repairs. And of course the tiller yoke. If you remove the pin, the tiller yoke can slide out of the rudder head. From the external bumpers up and the whole deck/bulkheads/rails have 3 coats of wipe on satin polyurethane clear coat. When cured, we will be ready to start some rudimentary rigging (tiller rigging and guns to start). Thanks for looking in, and wishing everyone great new year! Steve

That looks very nice.

Wow Phil! Not on topic but I had not seen your Hannah before. She is a beautiful ship. Your card-fu is impressive Phil.

@ddp. Crazy. Yeah, my buddy had already assembled and painted following Tamiya's incorrect instructions - he was up against a time crunch so I wasn't going to mention it and put more pressure. But then it did come up and so I showed him some references - he just hasn't fixed her yet. His Enterprise is still a "work in progress" but good enough to show today. Yeah so many different aspects to show with the Yorktown class. I will do the 1/700 Hornet (Tamiya) with the B-25s (Trumpeter) and that will likely be it. (Unless I decide I need my own Midway Enterprise!!)

And displayed in the office for Pearl Harbor Day (actually tomorrow, a Saturday so displaying December 6th this year) with my friend's Enterprise. Glad we did them. Enterprise preparing to launch... Yorktown... Enterprise with Yorktown in background... Hornet is on order with some 1/700 B-25s! Thanks for looking in.

Jason - Beautiful work. Thank you for the detailed photos. Very informative. She looks great!

Not sure how accurate, but I am pleased with Tamiya XF-50 as the Deck Blue, and the Tamiya AS-8 rattle can for 5-N. (These are 1/700 scale)

Boeing774 - these are the products I use. I have never used the Kicker on wood but it seems to evaporate from plastic pretty well. Recommend some test pieces first as always before using on your models. I should add it looks like you're getting great results with what you're using now.

Those look the part Phil - super convincing. Just amazing results. Can't wait to see them painted.

Aaaaand - she is done! Tamiya WW2 destroyer kits seem to only include 50 star flags?? (No flag with the Yorktown kit.) So I put on a 50 star temporarily. Pretty straightforward build, out of the box except adding the hangar deck which you can't see much of anyway. So here she is, USS Yorktown, CV 5: And the standard "1/700 ship with a quarter for scale" photo... Fun build. Thanks for checking her out.

And finally the Wildcats arrive - just in the nick of time! Airwing assembled!! All I really have left is to run a line up to the boom on the aft mast to attach the flag. Looks like we'll make that December 6th deadline.

And then the SBDs arrived!

TBD squadron has arrived!

Island painted and installed... Air Wing in work...

Island work.