USS Gambier Bay by jep1210 - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 1/16" = 1' scale

[jep1210]

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

[ccoyle]

I had a distant cousin on board the Samuel B Roberts at Samar.

[lmagna]

Nice work jep. Hope you stay rekindled and make some progress on what is already a very good start. (At least in my opinion). It will be an unusual build the no one else is likely to duplicate.

[schooner]

Jep, glad you were able to get this one going again.

If you need some references for what kind of stuff was on the catwalks you may want to go to the New Steelnavy site (steelnavy.com), look under "model gallery", select "aircraft carriers".  About 2/3 of the way down the list there is the USS Kallin Bay - a very large model at Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola and then down almost at the bottom of the list is an album of a 1/72 scale scratch build of the Gambier Bay.

[jep1210]

12 hours ago, schooner said:

Jep, glad you were able to get this one going again.

If you need some references for what kind of stuff was on the catwalks you may want to go to the New Steelnavy site (steelnavy.com), look under "model gallery", select "aircraft carriers".  About 2/3 of the way down the list there is the USS Kallin Bay - a very large model at Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola and then down almost at the bottom of the list is an album of a 1/72 scale scratch build of the Gambier Bay.

Thank you Schooner. Yeah, I saw those models on some other sites. They are incredible works of art. 

[jep1210]

16 hours ago, lmagna said:

Nice work jep. Hope you stay rekindled and make some progress on what is already a very good start. (At least in my opinion). It will be an unusual build the no one else is likely to duplicate.

Thanks Lou, I noticed there wasn't too many flattop builds on this site. I was able to find one post of Hasegawa's 1/350 Gambier Bay build by Alex Parker on this site. That's going to be a huge help to me with the little details that are vague in the BJ plans.

[Harvey Golden]

Looks great.  Original was built just up the road from me. Git 'er finished by Nov. 22, and you can have an anniversary launching!

 

[mikegr]

Everything can be worked up to a good point. This is how my 1:700 Yamashiro looks after restoration. A project built 24 years ago with brush only ofcourse.

 

[jep1210]

19 hours ago, Harvey Golden said:

Looks great.  Original was built just up the road from me. Git 'er finished by Nov. 22, and you can have an anniversary launching!

 

LOL, That's awesome, but it may have to be it's 90th or 100th at the pace I'm going on this project.

[jep1210]

12 hours ago, mikegr said:

Everything can be worked up to a good point. This is how my 1:700 Yamashiro looks after restoration. A project built 24 years ago with brush only ofcourse.

 

 

WOW, that looks great.

[lmagna]

That is impressive!

[jep1210]

I took a few more pictures but sorry, none of them are any further progress shots, just kit contents. 

 

Still not sure if I want to try get the photo etch elevator outlines to sit more flush...not even really sure how I'd achieve that having already glued them down. 

 

The wood block is what will become the island, not in place obviously. I included a fine line Sharpie for an idea of scale. I'm toying with the idea making the island out of sheet styrene. 

 

The "Island" in the approximate final location, it'll be lower and more on the side of the flight deck. 

 

I peeled back some of the tape, gives you a look at the decking and one of the many  plates where the arrestor wires come out. These were easy to get to sit flush unlike the elevator outlines....can you tell those elevators are a source of frustration? 😄

 

Fittings....

 

...fittings....

 

...and more fittings + planes. The kit only gives you 6 planes, 3 Wildcats and 3 Avengers but I bought 3 more of each when they were available. I would have gotten more but I remember them being fairly pricey.

 

Here you can see some of the different styles of doors that come in the Tom's Modelworks set. I tried to keep as many of the same types together so it wasn't as noticeable. The little blocks of wood between the doors are supports for decks that are yet to be installed. On the Casablanca CVEs, there was two levels of decks that ran along the side of the flight deck with stairs that ran down to the doors, if that makes sense. At this location between the two blocks is where the port aft 40mm gun tubs will be, there is no middle deck where the 40mm gun tubs were obviously. 

 

My original plan was to go with Gambier Bay's original MS-21 paint scheme, which was Navy Blue 5-N overall, hence why I started painting  some areas with that color. I just felt MS-32/15a, the scheme she wore when sunk, the scheme you see in every image of CVE-73, was WAY more complicated than I wanted to attempt. But I recently discovered Measure 32/4a which was carried by CVE-60 USS Guadalcanal, which has a remarkable story in her own right being the only US Naval ship to capture an enemy vessel on since 1815(according to Wikipedia), German sub U-505. Seems a little more manageable to achieve even though CVE-73 probably didn't wear it. 

 

Well thanks for looking hopefully some of this is interesting to someone. I'm really fired up to get this project going again...I just have to figure out were I left off and where to go from here....oh yeah, and what to do about those damn elevator out lines. 🙂

 

John

Edited February 25, 2021 by jep1210

[Landlubber Mike]

Glad to see you're dusting this one off.  Nice progress!  I recently picked up the Hasegawa kit and am surprised to not see more models of these pretty cool escort carriers around.

[jep1210]

1 hour ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Glad to see you're dusting this one off.  Nice progress!  I recently picked up the Hasegawa kit and am surprised to not see more models of these pretty cool escort carriers around.

Thanks Mike, I'm surprised there aren't more builds too. I found one build of the Hasegawa kit on this site by Alex Parker, but that one hasn't been updated since last October. Can't wait to see your progress. If you happen to get a chance could you take some pics of underside of the Gallery deck...I think that's what they call the area with the 20mm and 40mm guns? I need a reference on what the girder layout is on the underside of that area.

[Landlubber Mike]

I have the Anatomy of the Ship book, and didn't see any pictures of what I think you are asking.  Have you looked here at these reviews of the kit and PE sets?  They have the instructions copied there so they might be of some help?  I unfortunately couldn't locate a similar review for the "Super Detail" set. 

 

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/ships/cv/cve-73/350-hsg/hsg-review.html

 

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/pe/hasegawa/350-cve73basic/hsg-review.html

 

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/misc/hasegawa/350-deckcve/hsg-review.html

 

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/misc/hasegawa/350-usn-ac/hsg-review.html

[Dr PR]

Navsoource has a lot of photos of CVEs, some showing details.

 

https://www.navsource.org/archives/03idx.htm

 

 

[jep1210]

20 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

I have the Anatomy of the Ship book, and didn't see any pictures of what I think you are asking.  Have you looked here at these reviews of the kit and PE sets?  They have the instructions copied there so they might be of some help?  I unfortunately couldn't locate a similar review for the "Super Detail" set. 

 

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/ships/cv/cve-73/350-hsg/hsg-review.html

 

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/pe/hasegawa/350-cve73basic/hsg-review.html

 

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/misc/hasegawa/350-deckcve/hsg-review.html

 

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/misc/hasegawa/350-usn-ac/hsg-review.html

Thank for the links, they don't really show the area I need but do show a lot of other details. I have the Anatomy Of The Ship book too and there's no pictures or plan drawings of the area in question however, I did find an incredible 1/72 scale Gambier Bay build on  Model Warships by a gentleman named Bill Waldorf. In the picture below I circled the area I'm talking about in red. Not sure if Bill took some artistic license or if what he did is accurate...either way, it works for me.

 

Here's the link for anyone who's interested, hopefully it's alright to post a link to another site ModelWarships.com Review

[jep1210]

19 hours ago, Dr PR said:

Navsoource has a lot of photos of CVEs, some showing details.

 

https://www.navsource.org/archives/03idx.htm

 

 

Thanks for the link, there's some great shots there. I'll have to comb through those many many photos to see if they cover any details I'm missing.

[jep1210]

Hi 'yall,

 

So I hit a snag right out of the gate reopening. 😁 I cut in recess for the cargo doors that go into the hangar deck last night and while sitting starring at it while having breakfast this morning, I noticed they don't look level. 😡 It wouldn't be so bad to fix but it means the sponsons are also not level with each other. However when I measure them, there's only a 32nd-16th of an inch difference. How can 16th look so off? Not sure what I'm missing. Also, they are both about a 1/4" too high according to the plans I have but I can live with that as long as they're even.

 

My plan is to make a 5/8 by 1/2 inch box out of .250 styrene to "box in" the opening sort of shadow box style.

 

Port side

 

Starboard side

 

It's really evident on this port side shot with the flight deck removed, but when I measure it from the top of the hull, both sponsons measures the same distance or at the very least, with in a 32nd".

 

 

Starboard aft sponson.

 

Starboard Aft sponson...not sure why this one pic is upside down, sorry I can't get it to flip.

 

Port side fore sponson. This one actually "noses down" but I can fix that (i.e. hide) with a skim of putty once the deck has been installed, this sponson is slightly undersized anyway.

 

   

Starboard fore sponson

 

All measurements seem to be fairly even but for some reason it looks off. I really don't want to remove those sponsons as it would mean making new one....these came out really good if I do say so myself...but I'm thinking there isn't any other option other than to remove at least one of them and reposition it. 

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

John

Edited March 13, 2021 by jep1210
Removed extra photos

[jep1210]

Ok, I don't know how to get rid of those last two photos that are showing up after the text.

[ccoyle]

On 2/24/2021 at 9:21 PM, Harvey Golden said:

Original was built just up the road from me.

 

Wow, great photo, Harvey! My grandpa was a pipefitter in the Vancouver yards during the war, and my mom was born there.

[Jim Lad]

Quote

My grandpa was a pipefitter in the Vancouver yards during the war, and my mom was born there.

Your mother was born in a shipyard?  

 

John

[ccoyle]

1 hour ago, Jim Lad said:

Your mother was born in a shipyard?

 

Oh, a statement like that opens up so, so many possibilities for devilish comebacks -- but I won't derail Jep's build log. 🤨

[schooner]

It's really hard to see any difference in the sponson locations based on the photos - especially with the flight deck on. That means it probably won't be obvious to anyone looking at the finished model.  But if it bugs you, you could, as you said, relocate the sponsons but before you do that you might want to verify that the flight deck is parallel to the keel.

 

Be careful - measurements like this are easy to screw up. You would need to make sure the hull is sitting on a flat surface (not a book), that it is level  athwartship (i.e. not listing port or starboard) and then check the height of the flight deck (actually I mean the part of the hull that the flight deck sits on) along it's whole length. Using just a ruler and eyeball will likely give you some pretty unreliable data - you would need some sort of jig to run along the hull. Something like a high school football goal post with the crossbar held in place by clamps so it can be adjusted might do the trick. You could set it so the uprights stradle the hull and the crossbar just touches the forward edge of the deck and then move it aft - you will be able to see if the height is constant.   If you think you have a problem you should come up with another way of checking it and verify there really is a problem before you do any sanding.

 

As I said at the start, just based on your photos I think you are OK now.

[jep1210]

Thanks Schooner, thats good advice. It's much more evident in the recesses for the cargo doors on the starboard side than the sponson itself, and the bottom of the recess is level with the top of the sponson so it stands to reason the sponson is off too. As you suggested, I'll have to verify the area the flight deck sits on, I've been using that to measure from, and make sure the ship sits level on it's keel. We have height gauge at work that I'm going to grab to do some measurements off my glass top table not that book, I would assume it won't sit more level than on a glass table top . 😉

 

John

[gak1965]

BTW, you will see many more defects than anyone else looking at the model. A) you know where they are and b) every builder is the most critical judge of their own work. And 1/32 inch is what, 6 inches at full scale (it’s 1:192 I think)? At the rate they turned those Casablanca class jeeps out, it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a sponson or two off way more than 6 inches...

 

I’ve wondered on more than one occasion if some of our models are more perfect than the original ships.