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gorby
Happy birthday Kesa, that sound like a great present. Is it the power cable you are trying to replace?
If so, I've just had a look and it looks like it might be what is usually called a 'kettle plug cable'. Google it and see if that looks like it'll fit. Kettle cables are readily and cheaply available online, but check at home first because there may be one in a drawer somewhere. I have a few from old computer devices.

nikfrost
That gloss finish still looks really good!

DerMattes
Looks fantastic! I also really like the idea to finish a kit, even if it was started 20 years ago! 👍

Maciej Bellos
Watching!

TV_scalemodels
I hope you like it. I update this when I have something to show.

Alfonso
tuned in

John
Nice paintwork. Colors look good, I wouldn't worry that's an issue. Can always change the tone with a wash anyway. 👍

TV_scalemodels
Thanks! Yes that is very true. I think after the weathering I don't see the original colours too much..

James C
Nice progress 👍

Michael Kohl
Beautiful

Daniel
A true legend! awesome painting, the chipping is just perfectly made for this particular jet, (not an easy task, theres a thin line between realistic used look and repainting the whole thing...)

Shar Dipree
Extremly nice and awesome details (overpainted insignia for example). Excelent. I'm curious how the phantom will look like in the end.
Is there a photo that you use as a reference?

TV_scalemodels
Thanks for the comments!

Weathering was interesting, it is always difficult to balance realistic and nice looking. I'm glad you like it!

I used pics on the Internet and excellent fundecals instruction
for reference. And my books of course too.

Some sites:
piccianiaircraftphot..-4c_phantom_page_one
fundekals.net

Shar Dipree
Thanks for the links.
I think the weathering has become great. The aircrafts were partly very weathered during the war.

James C
Stunning looking F-4! 👍

I keep saying to myself that THIS will be the year that I pull my finger out and build one; but it never eventuates. This build has definitely renewed my desire to finally do it. 😉

Spanjaard
that is a great Phantom. excellent.

Bruce Huxtable
Wall to wall stencils, but your scratch building skills and eye for the painting and weathering are awesome. Wow!

TV_scalemodels
Thanks for your feedback! Here is a build video if you are interested:

Youtube Video

CaptGPF
Weathering, chipping, dirt, grime and heat staining all done to perfection!

CaptGPF
Phenomenal build! The step by step video is instructional and very well made. Only word I can use is inspirational!

TV_scalemodels
Thanks CaptGPF! I'm glad you liked my video inspirational!

T Ber
Very great job done here : additional details, painting… Just awesome.

May I ask you why you also weathered the missiles ? On a real jet, if the machine is used and dirty, the munitions are usually brand news, so…

Gary Victory
Really Really nice build and finish. Love the weathering, looks spot on to me..! Top Job.

Steven Van Dyck
This weekend both Essex and Hancock kits were started. You can compare these two on my garden table, Essex being a short hull version and Hancock one of the later long hull types. Therefore Hancock has the Ticonderoga Pontos set. I threw in a dozen of airplane sets and pillaged the Ion Model figures stock for about 420 seamen to take the stations. While making the requested change to the rear elevator (see shipmodels.info/mws_..pontos+essex#p919517 ) an error was discovered in PE part 605 and this can only be solved by completely scratching it. Also, I'll open up one rear elevator so I have to adapt the deck edge to that. The Hancock kit got some travel damage to the hangar deck, so that will have to be repaired too. But I think this is a good start to the project.

Steven Van Dyck
The hangar doors present a compomise that I can't accept, showing some inside detail but with all gates closed down and an exaggerated thickness. I decided to remove all of them, beginning with the Hancock sprue. You can compare with the original Essex sprue. To replace the partially closed doors, I can choose between Evergreen grated plates (subtler paneling though one-faced) or the same metal foil as used earlier.

Steven Van Dyck
The walls of the Hancock are now built. I found out that there are not enough Pontos PE doors of one design to replace all plastic ones, so Hancock and Essex will be getting a different type. A drawback to the hangar walls is the absence of locator holes. I made some pins myself. The plane cockpits were not in stock and will arrive later.

Rando
Read a lot about the Essex-class carriers, really interesting history and very interested to see how your ships turn out 🙂

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks, Rando. Today the second ship's hangar was closed off. In the Essex model I didn't need to remove a part of the hangar deck, so now there's a minute difference in the distance of the rear deck to the island structure. The fault should be in the Hancock bow section. I closed down some of Essex hangar doors, but I kept a peeping hole for the elevator shaft that I moved to the right like in Hancock.

Gary Victory
This is some project Steven. These are not exactly small models (i have one myself - CV-13 USS Franklin)....and so much extra detail you are adding. Watching in admiration. Great work so far.

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks, Gary. The first PE parts are bent for the stern and the boat cranes of Hancock, after the hangar wall seams are removed with Tamiya filler. One part of the wall is badly fitting and needs to be shortened.

Steven Van Dyck
Lots of PE particles are now assembled to giant deck support structures. I accidentally used the Essex front deck instead of the Hancock one, so I had to remove the PE plate causing half of the ribs to jump of again and restore this to the Hancock deck. Now I'm about to begin the same again for Essex, that has a slighty larger hollow under the flight deck.

Gary Victory
Nice progress Steven. Shame about the mix up but we all human, im sure at one point we have all used a wrong part or miss assembled.
Keep up the good work....and enjoy your build time.

gorby
Looks like another remarkable project in the making.

Jörg Schäfer
I'll join in then.

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks for the acclaim, now Essex is also loaded with PE parts under the front deck. I also removed the rear lift floor in the hangar deck, because it will be visible through the side doors. The deck edges are getting PE plating with the correct catwalk acces doors and fire station hatches, but I'm still thinking about methods to remove the space behind these PE parts. Drilling is not enough.

Gary Victory
Very impressive work Steven. Loving the progress.

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks Gary. The update today shows the reshaping of the Hancock bow. The angle of the kit bow is too shallow, so I cut out a wedge in the side and plied it back. The bottom part was split and clamped shut tighter, using sprue "rivets" to hold it closed. A lot of sanding followed, even after I had installed the port 40mm hubs on the hull. Another problem were the 18 doors that needed to be removed from the island structure, so I used my Proxxon for that. An extra is the comparison between 5inch/38 mounts from the kit, Flyhawk (yellow) and Pontos (Brown). Pontos is more detailed, Flyhawk has PE details and the kit is built up from different parts.

Pietro De Angelis
Impressive work, congrats!

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks, Pietro. The islands now both have all watertight doors, and Hancock's island is already a bit further down the line sporting ladders, a PE walkway, the pri-fly cabin and a almost fully equipped smoke stack. For a movie about choosing the right watertight door in your model, see Youtube Video . I did find the correct type on some detail pictures in my books.

Steven Van Dyck
A 45 picture update about Hancock's island. I made changes to the building plan where I saw the reference pictures didn't follow them. Loudspeakers were added. A cutout in the bridge deck was removed. The venturis on the different levels were added, but some don't extend far enough. Some of the PE hatches on the director towers needed to be scrounged from the ABSD project remains. All kinds of radar antennas are added, some I didn't find or identify yet, like the "stovepipe" antenna encircled on one reference picture. The SC-2 radar needed to be put on the platform for the side SK radar position. I did make the rear mast for the smokestack position, but removed it again because there is no trace of it in the reference. It might still be used on Essex.

Christian Lehmann
👍

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks Christian. Again a large update with changes to the Essex island. The front structure is made identical to Hancock and some scratched galleries are added. I decided to move Essex to the march 1945 scheme. Pontos has some parts for 1944 Hornet that are useful here, like the bridge walkway. Some areas like the stern will have to be adapted too. The same radar antennas are used, but some of them on different positions. I now added more airplane PE to the inventory, some of these should be finished to be able to close down the hangars.

Steven Van Dyck
The Avengers are now getting their PE cockpits, and the interior of the hangar is painted white.

gorby
Remarkable level of detail!

David Taylor
Nice detail.

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks, the airwing continues with the Helldivers, the Hellcats and the Corsairs, that had the hardest fit, so it's a good thing I had only six of them. I still have the same amount of planes not getting a cockpit.

Steven Van Dyck
Detailing of the port air outlet, the catwalk and starboard galleries of Essex. For Hancock it's only the outlets that were repeated. At first I was cutting small mesh parts, but it's better to cut them as a whole and add a PE crosshair. In the Trumpeter planes there is a tendency in the wing base to be cast offset (see color image) resulting in a skewed wing position when the fuselage halves are assembled. I'll often have to correct the angle. All plane fuselages have been fixed now and in the Helldivers and Avengers the seams are already filled and sanded.

Steven Van Dyck
The Helldivers are first to be completed with PE parts. The Pontos airbrakes are an improvement over the kit ones, and they can both be used for stretched wings or retracted ones. I drilled open the wheel wells. In the Hellcats, the cowling is incorrectly cast with one lower opening, so I shoved a node in each one and sanded it flat. A new opening is drilled and an oil cooler vent is then cut out under that. Takes quite a while.

Steven Van Dyck
The Hellcats are now all having a revised cowling and they also have a brass tube for the new prop position. The wheel wells are all drilled out and I made 10 scratch pairs because I only have 32 Pontos pairs for 42 Hellcats. For the Corsairs the wheel wells are rectangular which is a real pain to scrape out. The Avengers are still to be detailed, beginning with the tail wheels.

Lode Schildermans
That are quite a lot of planes you're doing.Defintely will complete the build

Steven Van Dyck
I think so, Lode. Don't you fancy a carrier build yourself? You probably have a Yorktown 1/200. Today the painting of the airplanes was started. The wings are painted white but this I might have to redo in grey, they're too coarse. The planes are in grey now. I cut out the propellers and I needed extas for the Hellcats, so I changed the 6 optional 4-bladed Corsair props into 8 3-bladed ones.

Spanjaard
ton of little airplanes will certainly make a great flight deck, picture 359 seems an MC Escher design 😉

Steven Van Dyck
Currently these planes are enveloped with gum to spray the camo on them. This is extremely tedious because the gum is not always adhering well and it must be sculpted exactly the same on each plane. I now painted the hangar floor in Lifecolor Deck Blue 20b (don't mind the overspray) and I also built the side elevators. This is a very nice fit from Pontos, but the netting supports are erroneously numbered 36 and this part is not abounding, nor does it fit the purpose. In stead of it should be used part 10, that was left in just the right numbers. The repair of the 5 inch/38 resin housings was first done with putty but then I wanted the outline to be improved and I made impressions with a knife flat and a drop of CA. Then break off the knife and a straight edge will result.

Steven Van Dyck
The 5 inch guns are now all detailed according to reference pictures of the ships. Essex was different than Hancock, it had no blastbags nor ladders. But in the end I noticed I used the wrong type of ladder, so maybe those will be removed. For the single guns one double gun barrel was wrongly shipped, so I lengthened that one with a 1mm Albion tube. Also some small parts are not provided in the needed quantity, or the option of placing PE steps was not shown in the manual.

Steven Van Dyck
The long range antenna pylons of Essex are according to the Pontos manual, but they copied this for Ticonderoga and that's incorrect. The 3d pylon should be left out for long hulls and so I can drop a 10th pylon for Hancock. One of the ladders for that can be used to complete the double 5 inch housings. Because of much unclarity in the manual I made many wrong folds on the catwalks and had to reassemble lots of parts with stress cracks. Also the deck edge elevator has a chain lift system that is now constructed out of a very fiddly frame that also breaks easily. But the end result is sturdy enough.

Pietro De Angelis
😲

Steven Van Dyck
All planes are now in sea blue and ready for the last camo paint. The prop tips are painted in yellow. Some wings were stripped, others were overpainted in light grey.

Steven Van Dyck
Midnight Blue is almost completely added on all planes, only the Avengers still need the tail completed. Some of the wings had orange peel and were redone.

Gary Victory
One hell of a production line with the Air Wing.....Nice work Steven.

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks Gary! It went on with the elevator shafts, the Avenger tail colors, the propellers that were masked with a metal roundel (after 2 hours I now have painted about half of them black - on two sides!) and then finally the cockpit set arrived and I soon had some new Helldiver and Hellcat cockpits. I wanted the Dragon Avengers to have a PE cockpit too, but this was a very tight fit even afer milling as far as I could in the fuselage interior.

David Taylor
bad enough doing brass on 48.Brilliant.

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks, David. Now it's decal time. 196 roundels on the wings, as many on the tails and again for the callsigns on the tailplanes. Essex has a horizontal white line that was trimmed with scissors and Hancock has a horseshoe. Still some more are coming, but for the numbers some research will be necessary. All decals were treated with Daco Sol. Plane interiors ar painted Vallejo Interior Green. Hellcat propellers are also painted.

Rando
#461 is art

gorby
Wow, the number of aircraft you are building is incredible!

Pietro De Angelis
Mamma mia, what an assembly line!

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks for the comments! Today most of the canopies are cut up, ground thinner and applied to the fuselages. I'm left with the Hellcat open canopies, these just don't look the part and I will probably have to remove part of the tail to fit these.

Steven Van Dyck
I found a hack for making the perfect 1/350 Hellcat open canopy. Use 1/700 two-bar railing cut to four stanchions and bend this over the middle. By now I have placed all clearparts on the airwing. I now started t add the number decals on the Helldivers. You shouldn't follow the Pontos Hancock tailfin indications, these appear wrong as the number is always below the omega sign.

gorby
The open canopies look very effective.

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks, Gorby. All crates now are sealed with Pledge and the props are installed. For the Helldivers I needed to scratch prop spinners out of clipped spheric node ends.

Steven Van Dyck
Tamiya grey panelliner wash is used on the top side of the airwing. I will be using a different shade for the bottom.

Steven Van Dyck
A brown wash was done on the grey undersides of the planes. The also got rigged, each of them with a scrap PE antenna mast. The Avengers got guns in the turret and now I will paint all the canopies on the outside.

Steven Van Dyck
All surfaces got a matt cote with Vallejo Polyurethane varnish, for the other side I avoided the gum because it removed some of the decals. Then all the wings could be fixed with a little drop of CA glue. There are no fitting locks for the stowed position of the wings, so all of them had to be manipulated in exactly the same position.

Skyhiker
My God, what a lot of work. Geeze...

Steven Van Dyck
And more still to come. The update shows the closing down of the hull bottom with a waterline plate, that needs to be filled in with a lot of CA to get a smooth fit at the bow. The anchor deck is painted and the anchor chains are added (1 set was sufficient for both). The rear elevator shaft of Essex got a trompe-l'oeuil bottom part because the extreme right side is visible from the outside through the hangar hatches. The bow portholes are deformed because of the modling and are all replaced with Pontos portholes, of wich you get enough to complete the hull.

Steven Van Dyck
The decks are closed down after sanding the bottom. Some of the Pontos PE is interfering with itself, so that's clipped. I have some overview pictures for you, with the island and main guns in dry-fit. Now the catwalks can be added.

gorby
Remarkable work!
I still can't get over that you are building two 1/350 carriers at the same time. Madness I tell you. 😉

Steven Van Dyck
There is reason in it. For example the catwalk supports you see in this update, in stead of stopping at assembling 75 for one ship, you can do another batch for the second one, in stead of finding yourself a few years later in front of that task with the memory of those first 75 ones and having to do that all over again. I even found errors in one Pontos instruction that could be corrected with the other one.

Further in this update: fixing a sag in the deck caused by tensions in the connectors, just saw through the connectors after the deck is fixed to the hull. Also the ladder booms and a lot of Pontos steps that are either not present where expected to not fall off the ship, or that are mentioned in the manual but not used on the pictures. I also fixed the antennas to the catwalks.

Steven Van Dyck
There is enough material to build 25 quadruple 40mm Bofors, so I made them. Nevertheless you only need about 8 per ship. Now I'll start on the 130 single Oerlikon 20mm guns. Here the margin is much less, but the fit of the stands is bad so they have to be clipped a bit.

Steven Van Dyck
It seems that in 1944 Essex' gunshields were modified, so I had to remove a part from them. For the Hancock model this is not necessary. Every step in the 20mm guns is repeated 125 times, so that takes a toll.

gorby
Every time I see this I'm blown away by the effort you are devoting to it. You certainly have a lot more patience than I have.

Steven Van Dyck
With these little guns it's tested daily, Gorby. But now they are all done and painting can almost begin. The Hancock 20mm guns were finished when the handwheels were added, but the Essex guns are like on the reference pic and needed an Evergreen Mk.14 visor and a piece of scratch PE for the air feed pump.

Steven Van Dyck
In this update I scratched the fuel lines on the hulls, covered the deck ends with sheet metal, made the directors, added all Carley floats and placed the HF-antennas and some missing stuff on the islands.

Steven Van Dyck
The floater net baskets are made while the Deck Blue parts are masked on both ships. I tried out the excellent Eduard searchlight sets and used this on both, they outshine the Veryfire ones I used on Hancock first. Now back to the tedious masking of Hancock.

bossy122
I never thought I would say this......they're "bulkheads", not "walls". Forgive a former carrier mariner, but some of the lingo they jammed into my brain stuck. I also can't stand movies with officers wearing their lids indoors. : ) Your PE work is inspiring!

Pietro De Angelis
Impressive amount of photoetches and details, my head is spinning, admiration and respect!

Steven Van Dyck
If my work attracts the real carrier operators, I feel as humble as a pollywog. Thanks for the replies, today you can see the finishing of the masking phase and the Gunze primer coating. I used cardboard to close up the hangar hatches, I made it fit well enough to not need any glue. The next coat will be a complete cover of all parts with Lifecolor pale grey.

Steven Van Dyck
The hulls are at last painted black and can be unmasked. Some overspray was inevitable and can be removed with post-shade. The deck is first tainted with Gunze Midnight Blue and then faded with a light sand primer. Transverse girders are marked with an Aqualiner. To Hancock I added a paravane guide to the bow. The deck fit of Essex was perfect, now let's check out the other one. When the island is dry-fitted, it seems to have the right look from the pictures.

gorby
Camo looks amazing!

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks Gorby! Now both decks are applied, some setbacks needed to be resolved. In both ships the deck edge elevator was not fitting between the PE constructions to the outside of the hull. I should have corrected this before painting all. I did succeed in removing and reattaching the PE without all too much paint and PE damage, it might not be visible after the repair job. Hancock got the elevator level with the hangar deck and Essex got it stowed in vertical position. This is only possible with retracted safety netting, so that too was moved. I also made a schematic walkthrough showing how I needed to remove the front internal hangar bulkhead of the Hancock model, that seemed to have some badly fitting extra parts to the Essex original sprues. This didn't sit flush with the front elevator edge, so the wooden floor wouldn't fit below the well. It seemed impossible to resolve without opening up the front deck part, but there was another option. I sawed a large hole in the bottom plate and milled through a support plate and the extended hangar floor to be able to push the bulkhead out of the hangar. I then fixed it flush with the well and puttied the floor taht was left a bit mangled by the milling tool. A large part of this will be covered by the wooden floor.

Steven Van Dyck
The deck PE particles are pre-painted after being primered grey. Even with this primer they scratch easily. The wooden decks of Hancock and in larger measures Essex must be cut out where the PE parts come. Some of these aren't even pre-cut and must be traced form the parts, like the barriers. I know that laser lines must not overlap, so they wanted to avoid drawing the near-vertical lines over the planking. Because of that, it's better to do the barriers first and then the expansion joints. The gutters around the deck are added with Hancock and will now be completed on Essex.

Steven Van Dyck
A bad day at the wharf, the deck markings of Essex were botched because of a bad primer on the PE parts and bleeding of the white paint under the tape. The chipped PE I can handle, but I don't know if the wood can be cleaned up to have the same blue as it was doped in. I'll try to overpaint with the Lifecolor Deck Blue and then again some light sand brown for the weathering. You also see a correction that was needed for the deck edge elevator floor. This is extended too far out in the models if you want the elevator in the down position. I could saw it out in Essex, but in Hancock the hull apparently was not flush with the wood deck safety railing PE part. I just added a new front for the elevator. I also made a new better fitting third elevator edge for Essex, you see the earlier attempt at the top and the badly etched Pontos one on the right. Now I'll go and repaint that deck.

Ben M
Good luck on the fixes!

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks, Ben, it's fixed now and I added foot markings to essex and srubbed off deck numbers to Hancock. The islands got their deck blue surfaces painted on, so they were now fixed to the hull. I started also to clip a new Tori Factory gunnery crew and compared this to Ion Models figures. These are a bit smaller but easier to clip.

gorby
Excellent work with the repairs.

Alex K
Nice to see an Iltis here... good job! (For my part, I do hope ACE releases this also in 1:72...)

Bruce Huxtable
I'm liking the setting, to match your reference photo 🙂 Nice work 👍

Pascal Van Acker
@Alex
I hope the manual will be better. It was a tough kit with in my opnion parts of the bodywork and the hood that were far to thick.
The moldings were exceptional with few seams and virtually no flashes.

Kesa Tiho
Silly looking truck 👍

Robert Podkoński
Taking a seat, of course!

Spanjaard
first row available? great, ready for the scratch master class 🙂
and a bit of fun too, of course 😉

gorby
Welcome to the build mates.
Kesa: Sillier the better for me. I go out of my way to find odd things to build. 🙂

David Taylor
Back in.

gorby
👍 🙂

Łukasz Gliński
I love the armoured cars and Gorbs' projects - I have to watch this too 👍

gorby
Welcome Lukasz. I hope the end result won't disappoint. 🙂

CaptGPF
I often winder how you choose your next topic for scratch builds! The subject matter is always something different or interesting - and the builds just phenomenal! Taking a seat to see the next creation!

Greg Baker
Oh, this is cool. I scratch-built an armoured car too - nothing this intense though - so I'm super-keen to see this one shape up.

gorby
Thanks both. 👍
Capt: for this one I went looking for something Norwegian, because that was the subject of the GB for Jens. It had to be something I'd be able to scratch build (as I was too tight to open my wallet to buy something. 😄 ). Normally it's because I just stumble on an interesting picture. 🙂

John Hughes
Another case of Norway nul points?

Alec K
Splendid, I am in 👍

gorby
😄 😄
Glad you could both join in. 🙂

gorby
New photos start from number 13
Build stage is now complete, just need to get the crayons out to colour it in. 😉

Łukasz Gliński
Those rivets look good 👍

Kesa Tiho
Silly angry black truck 👍

gorby
😄 😄 😄
Soon it'll be a silly, moderately angry grey truck. 🙂
Thanks for your comments mates. 👍

Alec K
Nice progress on this dry teabag-proof vehicle 👍😂

gorby
Teabag-proof is a bit of a stretch. I suspect the insurance would have been void if they drove past Tetley's.
I'm currently making a pigs-ear of the weathering. No change there then. 😄
Thanks Alec. 👍

gorby
I'm not one of those people who claim to have a remarkable super-power...the ability to know what colour something is in a black and white photo. I haven't found anywhere which mentions what colour it was, so I'm going grey. Actually most of my hair fell out before I went grey but that's probably down to living with a daughter all those years ago. 😄
Oh yes, grey. I used Tamiya XF-87 as I thought that would be the most actuate shade of grey for something I know nothing about. Or it could equally be that I've got a lot of XF-87. Seems like a good enough reason to me.
I hope to get the completed pics posted at the weekend.

bughunter
Square, pragmatic, great! 👍

Michael Kohl
I am German. So square is my kinda stuff.

gorby
😄 😄 😄
Thanks matiepoos. 🙂

Finn
Really, really cool

gorby
Thanks very much Finn. 👍

Aaaaaannd…..tis done. Completed photos now posted. Hope you like my obscure Norwegian oddity. 🙂

Alex Rakhimgulov
Wow! Such an unusual and interesting piece of tech art! Joy!

Alec K
Very nice, love it 👍

Spanjaard
fantastic job gorby

Greg Baker
Lovely!

Duster_d
Cool armored car! 👍

John Hughes
Didn't the A-Team build that in a shed once? Nice job, gorby!

David Taylor
Another nice build Gorby.

Mick Burdett
Great build love the rivets. How you do that?

Mr D
Amazing the way it's built up from scratch, Nice work 👌👍👍

gorby
Thanks mates for your lovely comments. 🙂
Mick: The description on Photo number 13 explains the rivety skin.

Kesa Tiho
Bloody lovely. The wait was worth it

gorby
Thanks very much Kesa.
This was a very quick scratch-build for me, I think it was a bout three weeks. My Steaplechaser traction engine took about four months to build. Now that was a long wait. 😄