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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.
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 [...]
For the past few weeks I've usually gotten one more swing arm for the LUT up each weekend, with corresponding work to the pad base. But for the past several days the pad and the mobile launcher have taken a back seat to improvements to [...]
I got back to work on the LUT yesterday, intending to complete some piping, continue work on the launch pad support stands, and start figuring out how to model the swing arms.
The first two were straightforward, but the third involved what [...]
I've had this old Matchbox 1/700 Fletcher destroyer model for at least 25 years. I had built it partway down to the detail parts and left it, as shown in the picture to the right (no U.S. flag). Last weekend I decided that I wanted to [...]
Most Saturn V mobile launcher/LUT models use the LUT to show off the crawler/transporter that transported the complete stack from the VAB to Pad 39, as shown above. As handsome as this, I decided to show my LUT on the pad instead for two [...]
The various pipes needed to fuel the Saturn V ran up Side 2 of the LUT, attached to a frame, as shown in the B&W photo of LUT #1 during construction (the foreground is LUT #2).
I started working on adding this frame last week (closeup [...]
After several weeks off I finally got a day in the model workshop yesterday, which extended late into the night and several more hours this afternoon. While I made some progress on the 1/700 Hood and Arizona, the giant leap, to borrow a [...]
I've had this Dragon kit of the Arizona in 1/700 for longer than I can remember. I started it years ago resigned to handpainting it, and it looked so awful after the first coat on the deck and hull that I gave up. With my airbrushing kits [...]
My son Parker and I picked up the outstanding new Minicraft 1/700 Titanic at the grand opening of Marshall's new Hobby Lobby recently, and I'm thoroughly enjoying finally getting to work on a waterline Titanic, especially one in my [...]
