Interested primarily in WW II aircraft carriers in 1/700 scale, but branching out lately into some 1/72 aircraft, starting with carrier planes but more recently RAF and Luftwaffe as well. And hoping to get somewhere on my backlog of Star Trek kits. A scratchbuilt launch umbilical tower for my 1/200 AMT Apollo/Saturn V is my white whale.
I’ve always wanted to build a 88mm on its wheels, and was glad to see this in my preferred scale of 1/72 (1/76 is close enough) for $7.99 at an Austin hobby store a couple of weeks ago.
I painted the completed assemblies Panzer Grey to [...]
1979 boxing of 1966 Airfix kit, with decals from the Starfighter USN at Midway and TBDs (yes, TBDs for the 8-T-1 decals) at War sets.
I finished it as Ensign Bert Earnest’s Torpedo 8 TBF, which made it to Pearl Harbor took late to join [...]
Calling it done. Lt. Alex Vraciu’s F6F-3 Hellcat with VF-6 on USS Intrepid (CV-11) in June 1944. Minicraft/Academy 1/72 scale kit with aftermarket resin/photoetch cockpit by Aires and decals by PrintScale. Only at the last minute did I [...]
Back in 1992-1993 I used Larry Gertner's article on accurizing a Hasegawa Essex kit to represent the Lexington (CV-16) in June 1944. After finishing that model in 1993, I wanted to build one that was as different as possible, and bought [...]
This is a "double build" of the same subject - the Essex class aircraft carrier Bon Homme Richard (CV-CVA-31) as it appeared in 1945 off Japan and 23 years later in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam. (Build log is at (link) ).
My [...]
2020 was definitely a themed year. When the year started I had two Essex class carrier projects underway, and at the end of the year - still two underway.
IntrepidCorrected – Revell’s Classic 1/720 Essex Class Carrier (Corrected)
For [...]
The USS Oriskany (CV-34) was the 24th and last Essex-class aircraft carrier to be commissioned. Construction on her was stopped in 1946 and she was completed in the fall of 1950 to a new design, SCB-27A, which better accommodated the [...]
It took three days short of a year, but I am finally calling my resurrection build of a 1980 Revell 1/530 Essex-clas angled deck carrier done. (Build log at (link) )
The model started out as a Bon Homme Richard (CV-31) that I built in [...]
For many modelers of World War II ships, Revell's 1/720 scale model of the USS Intrepid (CV – 11) was an early favorite. It was cheap (two dollars, compared to four dollars for a Tamiya Akagi), easy to build, and gave you a big [...]