USS Essex CV-9 by CDW (Craig) - Trumpeter - 1:350 - PLASTIC

[CDW]

Many years ago, a good friend in Maryland gave me this 1:350 Trumpeter USS Essex along with a ton of photo etch and a reference book. I intended to build the model long before now but life has its way of changing our plans. Well, now seems to be the time, so I will give this baby a start and see what I can do. 

I have added a Pontos detail set to augment the photo etch I already have and have the Anatomy of a Ship, The Aircraft Carrier Intrepid, on its way from Amazon.

Here are some photos of what I'm starting with.

 

[RGL]

Well, I'm in

[CDW]

I was thinking of you, Greg, when I began looking through the Pontos detail set. With the "instructions" being no more than some photo illustrations, I am wondering how modelers such as yourself get all these pieces sorted out. It looks a bit intimidating to say the least. Keeping in mind what you said about eating an elephant, I will just tackle one thing at a time and see where things lead.

I guess one of the first things I need to do is to decide whether I want to open up any of the hangar decks and add some detail and maybe some lighting to see it. Will do some research first then decide. Right now, just am not sure whether I should or shouldn't. At 1:350 scale, it may be too small to see much of it once its all done, I don't know.

[WackoWolf]

I was on that ship when I was a young kid, back in the day. It was dock at Quonset Navy Base in Rhode Island, I was in the Mid-Shipment, didn't want to be a boy scout lol. Always remember that.

[mtdoramike]

Ooooooo, this is going to be interesting, popcorn check, soda pop check, chasie lounge chair check, enthusiasm check

 

 

mike

[RGL]

I reckon if you've spent the $ on the upgrades you should. Not a biggie, and run an LED through the baseboard up through the supports (use some hollow brass rod) into the hull. There is a lot of imagination you could use there, even if you make the flight deck removable.

[Old Collingwood]

HELLO!    This is going to be good :)

 

OC.

[Old Collingwood]

I was thinking of you, Greg, when I began looking through the Pontos detail set. With the "instructions" being no more than some photo illustrations, I am wondering how modelers such as yourself get all these pieces sorted out. It looks a bit intimidating to say the least. Keeping in mind what you said about eating an elephant, I will just tackle one thing at a time and see where things lead.

I guess one of the first things I need to do is to decide whether I want to open up any of the hangar decks and add some detail and maybe some lighting to see it. Will do some research first then decide. Right now, just am not sure whether I should or shouldn't. At 1:350 scale, it may be too small to see much of it once its all done, I don't know.

Just do like i do - spend the next 1-2 years building it - guarantee you learn a lot about your skills that way

 

OC.

[CDW]

Tonight I ordered some (6ea.) 1.3mm diameter LED lights that will run off a 9 volt battery. That should be enough lighting if strategically placed. Believe it or not, even with all the photo etch I have, none is for the hangar deck. There doesn't seem to be any aftermarket items for the hangar deck that I can find. So, scratch build it will have to be and maybe some equipment from other kits.

[RGL]

I reckon there will be a lot of other builds around. Generally where I get my inspiration from, Russia & Poland seem to have a huge community, use google translate for the words, cut and paste in a search engine and go to images. Probably telling you how to suck eggs tho!

[Canute]

Think I'll slide in here and follow along, too. My father-in-law served on the Shangri La after WW II and into Korea. I have a Hancock that I can use as a base for the Shangri La, but I think it'll be OOB, with appropriate PE and wood detailing.

[CDW]

The hull and hangar decks are fairly simple arrangements. The hull consists of lower and upper halves, while the hangar decks are divided into three parts.

 

 

Where it starts to get a little dicey is after the upper and lower hulls are joined. Here, we are left with a fairly significant step where the halves join.

The good news is, my research shows there is an armor belt that extends over most of the entire length of the hull, so I can cover up that step for the most part and be left with a much smaller area to fill and sand.

Also note the hull is devoid of detail and has no plating panel lines whatsoever, so I will need to either add some raised weld seams or scribe in some lines to provide a proper visual effect.

 

 

On the net, I have been able to locate some pretty good photos of the Essex hangar deck and details. Also, found that White Ensign made some hangar deck equipment/air wing photo etch. Will likely order a set of that photo etch.

[CDW]

So, I hope this experiment will turn out satisfactory. 

I have added an armor belt along the water line then began to fashion what will become raised detail to simulate welds on the hull. Of course, at the moment, nothing is sanded down nor shaped in a way that will give the effect of welds. But you can probably get the idea of what I'm trying to achieve.

 

I used .020 Plastruct styrene rod. Would have preferred to have use .010 instead, but my local hobby shop had none in stock. Hopefully once I get her sanded down, the effect will look subtle and not too gaudy. Nothing a little sandpaper and elbow grease can't cure, but I don't like to waste time. 

 

Still quite a bit to do, just took some photos along the way for posterity.

 

[CDW]

Those faux panel lines didn't work to my satisfaction at all. Just too pronounced, even after sanding them down quite a bit. Ended up sanding them completely off. Next, will use pre shaded panel markings underneath my paint job to simulate the panels instead. I could engrave them, but I am afraid I won't like that either.

 

I got my 1.3 mm diameter LED lights, and a 9 volt battery connection with a micro on-off switch, in the mail today. Really quick turn around from a train-hobby shop here in the USA. Never used them before, just took a chance and they were great. Low prices and very reasonable/fast postage.

 

[Jörgen]

When I do raised seams I use stretched plastic. You know, take a bit from the moulding frame, heat it with a lighter and stretch it. I make them very thin and then glue them on with tamiya thin cement (that one you have). When doing this on tanks so can you push on the half melted seam with a hobbyknife and get a nice welding effect. Ofc this is not the option in 1:350

[CDW]

Thanks Jorgen. I have used that technique in the past to fill seams as well as create them and sometimes the old tried and true techniques are the best.

On the net, I found a beautiful build article with photos of an Essex class carrier. The author meticulously taped off each individual panel and used modeling putty to fashion the panels. Talk about a painful, patience testing exercise, that is one for the books. But it came out beautiful, stunning. I do not think my skills are up to that task right now.

 

One thing I have noted in general... I will use masking tape to control the limits of where modeling putty is being applied so as not to create additional sanding work and possibly lose molded in surface detail. If the tape is not quickly removed after the putty is applied, glue residue from the tape will be left stuck to the model to the extent some type of glue remover (like Goo Gone) will have to be used to deal with it. I guess the volatiles in the putty attack and go through the tape.

[CDW]

The Essex hull with a splash of preshading before any finish paint goes on the model. I ordered photo etch portholes from Northstar and will wait until those arrive and install them before painting the hull. The the meantime, will do some detail work and painting in the hangar deck area as well as begin begin building the photo etch assemblies from Pontos. A ton of those to do.

 

[CDW]

These photo etch pieces from the Pontos detail set are used to detail the side elevator on the Essex model. Just to be clear, there are many such details to be completed for the model to be finished. These took one evening to complete.

 

 

[Old Collingwood]

These photo etch pieces from the Pontos detail set are used to detail the side elevator on the Essex model. Just to be clear, there are many such details to be completed for the model to be finished. These took one evening to complete.

 

 

 

Looking very nice - you cant beat all that PE

 

OC.

[CDW]

These Pontos engineers do their products pretty well. The photo etch fits together very well, much better than some other brands I have used. I do wish their instruction sheets were printed just a little larger. The photos of the finished work are helpful, but very hard to see due to the small size of the printed photos. 

[Old Collingwood]

Have you tried going to the Pontos site looking for the update set for your build - then downloading it?   I tried that with my Warspite and got two Big Large Adobe Reader Files that I can keep zooming in to massive levels to show where stuff goes and what it is numbered to coinside with the PE Frets.

 

Give it a Try

 

OC.

[Old Collingwood]

Try this my friend.

 

http://pontosmodel.com/html/35006f1.html  

 

 

OC.

[CDW]

Try this my friend.

 

http://pontosmodel.com/html/35006f1.html  

 

 

OC.

Wow, that's a great find. Had no idea those were there. Being able to zoom in helps tremendously and is just what I needed.

 

Thanks!

[Old Collingwood]

Wow, that's a great find. Had no idea those were there. Being able to zoom in helps tremendously and is just what I needed.

 

Thanks!

No problem my friend  glad to help

 

 

OC.

[CDW]

So, I've been plucking away on these Pontos detail pieces, spending maybe a couple of hours per day with it. That being said, it's going to take a while to build all the little sub assemblies and this ship has quite a few.

 

Here are just a few pieces for reference, a single mount 5" 38 gun, and the gun tubs for a couple of the twin 5" 38 gun turrets.

 

 

The single 5" gun on the left consists of about 10 total pieces; resin, photo etch, and turned brass gun barrel. The photo etch gun tubs consist of somewhere around 15-20 individual pieces to make up each tub. And let me tell you, if you accidentally drop some of these pieces on the floor they are so small the chances of finding them are slim and none.

 

For size reference, a ball point pen sits beside the 5" gun.

 

[Old Collingwood]

Looking really nice - those guns  WOW  amazing what we attempt at such tiny scales.

 

 

OC.

[CDW]

OC,

 

What amazes me is the level of detail they are able to produce with resin castings these days. I remember when resin detail parts first started coming out I would be lucky if the parts were not broken before I opened the package, or would be broken just trying to assemble the things. And on top of that, they were very crude by today's standards. 

Now, the resin parts are detailed in a way I can't even wrap my head around. Cannot imagine how a mold could be made that small to that level of detail, and then cast the parts and remove them from said mold without breaking the parts. It feels like the resin is maybe a little more "plastic" than it used to be so that it flexes a bit rather than breaks. Amazing stuff really, and Pontos is top notch for sure. No wonder the sets cost as much as they do. One can only imagine what it would take to create an original at this level of detail.

[CDW]

I started to build the Quad 40mm Bofors gun tubs today and found that the kit omitted a lot of the resin parts required to build those guns. I'll find out now how Pontos does customer service for missing parts. Sheesh, I hate that those parts were missing and that Ponto is on the other side of the world from here.

Oh well, there are lots more things to work on while I wait for replacement parts.

[CDW]

Oh dear...my mistake. Looking at the instruction photos, it appeared as though the resin parts I thought were missing were all part of a resin sprue where each of four separate parts were attached. But that was not the case. Even though it was pictured as such, making me think the parts were missing, they were actually each individual part on a single sprue and not as they were pictured.

All's well that ends well, and this ends well. I had my parts all along. Disaster/inconvenience averted.   

[CDW]

Really had to drag myself through the tedious construction of the 40mm brass Bofors barrels on the resin breach pieces. I swear, I have razor stubble after two days without shaving that's longer and thicker than these gun barrels. And then to top it off, each barrel needs a smidge of filing on the aft end so as to shorten the receiver pin just enough so that it will slide inside the pre molded hole that's in each gun breach. Now that I am past this part, the rest of the quad Bofors gun mount/s construction will go smooth as butter. Phewwww........

 

Then, there are the nearly finished 5" 38 cal twin gun turrets, and the single mount 5" 38 cal guns. The guns have a primer coat and will receive a finish coat of paint and some weathering later on.