Најважније вести

Jan Janssen
NICE! and thank you. Learned some thing new as it made wonder "Swedish",.. some how managed to miss the fact the Swedish Army has these ex East German BMP's in servers

Michael Kohl
Well done model. interesting background

Guy Rump
Very nice work. 👍

Rando
Been cooking up this idea since I got the 1/72 RF-8. My original plan was to build the plane in the cover of the Osprey RF-8 book, flown by Lt Andre Coltrin over Vietnam. With a little help from a 1/72 version of the Furball MiG Master sheet, I will rearrange the nose and tail numbers to make BuNo 146871 as it flew in Vietnam during its 1966 cruise off the USS Oriskany.

I also found an Academy F-8E, which has decals for a VF-111 jet that flew on the same cruise, so decided I will build it as the RF-8's escort, which they often had during their photo runs. I also figured, why not build them together? They will be displayed in flight.

Oleg Bogolei
Nice idea and intersiting projeact. Also have two of them in a stash)

Freak
Great idea for a double build. Following!

Rando
Good to have you gents, looking to start this one soon! I like researching and adding reference photos, so I just added some in the meantime.

Urban Gardini
Now this seems like a build that I've to follow!

Rando
Welcome Urban, happy to have you! "It's only a model!"

Sergej I
Following 🙂 👍

Rando
Hi Sergej! I'm very very excited to get started on this one

Casey Beckett
Following - got 3 of those nice new Sword RF's in the stash.

Jos Jansen
Normally I don't follow 1:72 scale models...for this one I'll make an exception...😅😉, grab myself a seat here! Love those Crusaders...

Patrick Hagelstein
Got intrigued by Rando's comment on Jos' build, so I popped over here. Looks like a very interesting build as well!

Rando
Happy to have you gents here, I'll be getting to this one just as soon as my elaborate P-51 build is done...

Rando
Here we go, double Crusader build. Gonna be comparing the short-run Sword RF-8 with Academy's F-8, which has been the go-to in 1/72. I have extra Academy kits so I'm swapping out the RF-8 kit's nice resin seat, I'll use it for a future open canopy build. The pilots will be obscuring seat detail in a closed canopy anyway.

David Fuller
Following

Rando
Welcome David!

I assembled the PJ pilots and started nipping off parts to assemble the fuselage. Getting the pilots to fit in their seats is tricky so far. Fit on the Academy kit parts is pretty nice. Sword kit is not as easy since there's no locator pins but they align well

Rando
Pilots are fully painted now. The F-8E pilot is based on Dick Schaffert, who was a pilot on this 1966 cruise. While I don't know of any specific plane he flew, F-8 pilots often flew jets that were assigned to others, so he's flying 149180 on this escort mission. In order to accommodate them, I had to remove the rudder pedals and front of the cockpit tub on the F-8E. It won't really be visible when the cockpit is buttoned up anyway.

Rando
I didn't like how the Sundowner helmet turned out so I stripped the paint and airbrushed it this time with tiny wedges of tape, then shaped and touched up everything. Just need to add a black stripe for the visor groove.

J35J
Great attention to details Rando! Following👍🏻

Rando
Thanks and glad to have you J35J! Pilots, seats, ejection handles, and joysticks are all in place. Time soon to start putting the jets together.

Rando
All the interior parts are in, soon time to put the fuselages together 👍

Guy Rump
Looking good, following. 👍

Rando
Hello Guy, welcome 😊

Fuselages are together. Now getting all the panels and gear bay doors to sit flush.

Calvin Gifford
Very nice! How is the Sword kit so far??

Rando
Thanks Calvin! It's quite nice if you remember it's a short run kit and you prep and test fit parts a lot before gluing anything. Has been a far from perfect first effort by me but I like how it goes together. It's shape is pretty accurate too. The Academy kit is very plug-n-play in comparison

Calvin Gifford
👍

S M
Double build! Following!

Rando
Welcome S M! I have been painstakingly installing the gear doors closed. Stuffing blutack in the wheel wells helps with frustration. Both F-8s have tiny aft gear doors on the main bays that took a lot of time to line up. The RF-8's nose doors were also very tricky. Happy to say I'm done getting the gear doors on.

Casey Beckett
Backup RF-8 inbound Rando ! Shipped Friday!

Rando
You the man Casey! Did some scratchbuilding tonight

Casey Beckett
Me too - Bonanza gear struts. God bless Albion Alloys. Great stuff if you've not used any of their items.

Rando
I have not but am always looking to add new things in this hobby, I'll check them out! I actually have an old Minicraft 1/48 Bonanza that I might do something with one of these days.

Rando
Took a big long tour on the clear parts struggle bus this past week. Got glue smudges on a camera window, the windscreen, and canopy on the RF-8, which all had to be buffed out. Hopefully I get the canopies attached snug without issues tomorrow night. Finding that carefully lining the attachment point with Revell Contacta on a toothpick is less risky than TET.

Calvin Gifford
👍

S M
Clear parts look good 👍

Michael Kohl
Like the planes. Like to see them in flighr. Like the effort you put in.
Feel you when putting pilots properly in and closing wheel well doors.
Anxious for the paint job.

Rando
Thanks all, getting closer to painting. A ton of work has gone into smooth out and scribe the lines around the gear bays on both jets, not to mention persistent seams. Also turned my attention to sanding down and rescribing the fictitious bumps on the folding joints, which the RF-8 has as well. The RF-8 also has wedge-shaped plates on the droops, which were only present much later, so those were sanded down as well. There's still a few things I want to try to perfect before I begin painting. I also have to decide if I want to paint the wings separately, in all likelihood I'm going to glue them on first because I want the fuselage section to be flush.

Rando
Alright, wings are on. I feel like this will make masking more complicated, but better for making sure they conform to the fuselage. I am so ready to paint these jets

Calvin Gifford
Whoot!

Nicolas
I missed this one, following. I love these side by side builds.
Great progress so far. 👍

Rando
Hi friends three months later I'm finally painting the damn things. Here's my current take on preshading, blackbasing, what have you. Gave the white areas a white base that I preshaded with dark gull grey. Then mottled the black with white for some variation with the light gull grey. Elsewhere I built the missiles, launch rails, and painting the horizontal stabs.

Thomas Kolb
Coming along nicely! Your blackbasing tedhnique looks very effective, I am curious how they will turn out!

Rando
I've painted the undersides of the CVW-16 birds. Unfortunately I did something stupid, something I even decided against at first--I tried doing a "pour" into the intakes to get them painted. This was a bad idea for the RF-8 in particular. I thought that since they were glued together I could get away with no leaks, but I saw the paint level draining, and I knew the paint would appear inside the camera windows. Lo and behold I saw paint when I peeked under the masks.

Feels horrible that I did this, even if I have some ways I could fix them. I can pop the side windows out and clean the bottom side windows, but putting them back in will be a pain since the side windows are meant to be attached from the inside. UGH. Any clever ideas to fix this mess are welcome, this is definitely one of those "mojo killers."

Rando
Think I fixed the windows. The bottom windows will still be a little smudgy. But I was able to get the sides back in by gluing a toothpick to the mask and rotating it from the inside, then seating it on the frame.

Calvin Gifford
Glad you figured it out!

Rando
After fussing with the white for what seemed like forever, I finally masked to paint the gull grey. Unfortunately this revealed a ghost seam on the spine, so on the plastic putty goes. Hopefully it goes away.

S M
Those ghost seams are so annoying 🙁

Calvin Gifford
^^Yeah, hate those ghost seams!

Rando
Fortunately I was able to defeat them with putty and paint! It's just crazy they'd show up after working on all the seams and surfaces for the past few months. I also removed the ECM blister from the VF-111 jet's tail, since reference photos and instructions showed they didn't have them at the time.

Rando
Fussing a lot with the color of the nose tip. Also very difficult to mask off. Lots of touching up needed. The tip seems either a tan or greyish hue, but I have no photos to base it on.

Guy Rump
Looking great, following. 👍

Dominik Weitzer
"At the end of the day" it looks really nice and clean! well done!

István Szücs
Great work so far, I love the yellow Mustangs (and so many other cars...). Which AK gloss varnish did you use?

Adam
Thanks guys, I really appreciate it!

As for the AK varnish... I tried AK Real Colors Super Gloss Finish 1k --> ak-interactive.com/p..-super-brillante-1k/

I was quite impressed by the test done on Barbatos Rex's channel, so I decided to give it a go. --> Youtube Video

István Szücs
Thank you, Adam!

gorby
WOW! The PE really lifts this kit to another level.

Mr D
Nice little job, fiddly to do l built a ship n it was difficult, l had to get a tweezers set.
Good stuff 👌

Łukasz Gliński
Oh wow, how are you going to mask it now for the camo?

Marcin Dudek
Wow! Looks greate. It makes me want to build it too

Ben M
🤯

Robert Podkoński
This is far beyond my skills... I agree with gorby here.

Alec K
Cool, following 👍

Finn
I'm in

Xinnan Zhao
Fantastic PE works bro!

Skyhiker
This thing almost looks steam punk. Crazy it's real.

Robert Podkoński
And here is the real thing 😉
Invitation to Polish Army Museum, Warsaw - part 2 | Album by podkon

Simon Nagorsnik
Wow! Thank you mates for all your interest!
@gorby: oh yes, They really make the difference. The age of the kit is noticeable, so the PE is a nice plus.
@Łukasz Gliński: There will be no camo pattern. The vehicle is small and such an elaborate multi-color camouflage would make all details visually disappear. In the end, it would only look colorful and misshapen, i guess.
@Robert Podkoński: thank you for the pics! A good source, also for later projects 😉 However, the exhibited specimen would have to be a replica, because according to my research, no original vehicle has survived over the time.
Thanks for all your comments and likes!! 🎉

Skyhiker
Brilliant!

Robert Podkoński
Of course, it is a replica, Simon. In fact I was thinking especially about you when uploading these photos. You've done awesome job on this kit - I know the 'quality' of the kit itself 😉 Congrats!

CaptGPF
Holy cow! Everything on this build is phenomenal! The insane OE work and the final painting and detailing at this micro scale is insane!

Tom B.
That is some top-grade PE and detailing work 👍 I guess one can get something out of those RPM lts after replacing like 75% of the details 😉

Mr D
Lends it's self well to armed vehicle the PE construction.👍👍

Robin (WhiteGlint)
👀 I am late to the party.
Very good looking tiny armored car, Simon. 👍 I am curious what nice base you will give it to stand on.

DuperScale
Oh wow, thats Crazy

Neuling
Small and beautiful!

Thomas O'Eh
Fantastic job on such a tiny vehicle!

Guy Rump
Great job! 👍

Villiers de Vos
A beautiful little gem.

Robert Podkoński
Beautiful dio!

Mr D
Brilliant 👌
Well done, brilliant job.👍👍

Łukasz Gliński
Respect to our Master of Washing and Shading 👍

Łukasz Gliński
Another gem to your collection, Our Master of Washing and Shading 👍 😉

Villiers de Vos
Very nice work.

Guy Rump
I agree with Villiers. 👍

Vincent
Very nice clean paint finish!!

LC
this sounds like quite a fun and unique idea

Nathan Dempsey
Thanks LC76. Welcome to the build!

Torsten
LOL, follow ^^

Robert Podkoński
Watching for sure!

Nathan Dempsey
Welcome Torsten & Robert!
I've started the fuselage assembly and clamps were needed.

Dutch
Nathan, I am following along as well. I have friends in eastern Ukraine, so very interested in this one. Kind regards, Dutch

Nathan Dempsey
Welcome Dutch! This build is turning into a slog. Clamps and super-glue "force-holds" galore. Luckily it is a tiny plane so I'm nearly done already, just completing all the seam sanding.

Nathan Dempsey
Working on the cowl. I had to use 2-part epoxy clay to fill a large gap on the bottom of the cowl that was created by making the cowl fit straight & level.

Nathan Dempsey
Working on masking the camo pattern today.

Dutch
Looking good. Keep up the progress. The splinter pattern will be stupendous when done.

Nathan Dempsey
Thanks Dutch! Man I just realized looking at pictures that the wing camo is a mirror image for the other wing. It won't be perfect… 😁

Ben M
Ah, amodel 🙂

Dutch
Ben, I feel you!

Nathan Dempsey
Welcome to the show Ben! I've applied the first color today. Now off to cut masks for the next color. I've been spoiled by those pre-cut masks…

Dutch
Nathan, quick question. Why not just spray the first color overall, then mask only the subsequent colors? Saves at least one step, I should think. Carry on. I am enjoying the show.

Nathan Dempsey
In this case I just got a little too happy masking. I even decided against my usual preshade since this plane's paint looks really new in all the pictures.

Dutch
Yeah, I can understand the excitement factor!

Dutch
Nathan, are you going to put kill markings on it?
google.com/url?sa=t&..e2eYFcXbT_ewibuKmesM

Nathan Dempsey
Well my printer is dead, but my dad has a similar one so I'm going to try… Wish me luck.

Nathan Dempsey
The second color has been applied. Slow going here as my workbench time has been lacking.

Dutch
Okay! Coming along nicely!

Nathan Dempsey
Thanks Dutch! Today I masked off the areas for the gloss black. The tan colored areas are quite small, but they're everywhere. Tamiya tape stock is going up!!

Nathan Dempsey
Well my gloss black was solidified, so flat black will have to do. Hopefully it will all even out when the clear is applied

Jennifer Franklin
Impressive detail work!

Villiers de Vos
Very nice work so far on the camouflage scheme.

Nathan Dempsey
Thanks Jennifer and Villiers!

Work continues on masking these tiny sections.

Nathan Dempsey
Well that was a whole bunch of masking for some very tiny pixels… I also added a coat of Future to help with the panel lining effort to come.

Nathan Dempsey
Today has seen the underside color selected and applied (Tamiya X-14 Sky Blue) along with masking/painting the cowl colors using Steel & Red.

Ben M
What are you using to do the panel lines?

Nathan Dempsey
I'm using both AK & Mig panel wash. For the bottom I used Grey-Blue and for the top I haven't decided whether I'll use a dark brown or black wash. Of course for the black areas I'll use the Stone Grey wash which I think is Mig.

LC
It's looking very good, keep it up!

Guy Rump
Looking good, following. 👍

Mirko Römer
Very cool chopper!

Guy Rump
Looking good, following. 👍

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.

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks, Gorby, that's all done now. On the new pictures you see about 500 crew for the two ships. Most of them are Ion Models figures from 6 and a half sets of carrier personnel + pilots and navy figures on leisure. I also corrected errors in the build. The 5 inch platforms closest to the bridge of both ships had to be reversed, which went quite smothly because of the paint layer between the CA glue and the PE. I then added the railings but when I arrived at the Essex port sponson, I found out that it had been revised in 1944. It was made identical to what is seen on Hancock. So I yanked it off and scratched something even better, with some Pontos PE parts meant for the bridge in it. And then I thought of the number of elevators I had built in lowered state, all of those need a total of 70cm safety railing of which I had none. So I'm now clipping some ordinary PE railing so it becomes 1 bar railing. Only two elevators to go and then some painting again!

Guy Rump
Looking good, following. 👍

Desert Marlin
The REEDOAK 3D Printed Pilots are awesome!

Desert Marlin
This project will have both pilots on the intercom and watching the engine startup process. That is why the same type figure is used in both cockpits. They both monitor the engine to ensure that the EGT and RPM is increasing appropriately. Each has their hand on the control stick to be able to open their MIC as they confirm everything is normal at start. The plan is to have the aircraft loaded with a Nuke (Apache Cruise Missile?). Seems appropriate to me for the days we live in now...

Desert Marlin
Have to pause this one until I get the BIG ED kit #33216...

Treehugger
Maybe go for resin seats as well?
Seems like kit plastic never can compete with resin seats. 🙂

Though, I no longer crave for resin interior for the cockpit because of the work, but seats are ok.

Desert Marlin
I'll paint these up and see if I can tolerate them. If they are too bland, I have time to change my mind! Thanks for the idea!

Desert Marlin
Great video of the weapon that goes with this version of the Mirage 2000N

Youtube Video

Desert Marlin
Time to return to the 2000N... Let's Nuke something!

Desert Marlin
I got the ResKit Mirage 2000N Cockpit Set (Detailed Version).

Desert Marlin
As I have begun work on this kit, I am yet again struck by the lack of information in the variations and options provided in the kit. For example, the tail tip is not called out that applies to the 2000N version. While the nose of the 2000D is provided in the kit, it has to be modified to make it correct for the 2000N. Oh bother…

Desert Marlin
Selected "most appropriate" tail tip and mounted the correct nose to fuselage.

Desert Marlin
Okay, now I'm excited to get some paint on this cockpit!!! ResKit, you guys have done some great work with your 3D Resin Printing!

Desert Marlin
I'm back to it!

Treehugger
Oh, did you fiddle with the nose part to make it match the N version, or did you have to buy aftermarket nose for the N version? I have this kit in my stash, but haven't really looked any it yet.

Desert Marlin
I'm using the D nose but converting it to an N version. I'm also closing the "sucker doors" on the inlets to represent an engine that is not yet started... I'm assuming initial hydraulic power is applied from the APU and auxiliary hydraulic pumps have brought the gear door up. I'm going to close the speed breaks for pre-engine start configuration...

Eric Thornton
Looks like BAM has some corrected noses still need the N one. Maybe reach out to him. I could use the corrected nose for this kit also. The Reskit stuff looks amazing.

bam-models.com/produ..2000-corrected-nose/

Desert Marlin
Thanks for the heads up! The BAM nose looks fantastic! Sadly, the 2000N nose has a pitot tube and does not have the RDY antenna lines. It seems that much of the 2000N systems are somewhat earlier than the -5 systems. Everything I can find on the 2000N seems to be somewhat austere compared with the 2000-5. The ResKit cockpit is worth every penny!

Mr D
Like it 😀👍
Nice when the pilot looks like he's actually doing something and engaged with the craft.

Desert Marlin
Thanks. It's really sad to remove detail from the ejection seat, but that is the only way to get the pilot in place...

Ben M
The pilot looks amazing.

Desert Marlin
The pilot is from REEDOAK. They have several different figures in various poses so the realism can be developed based on the aircraft scenario. This model is being build to represent events just prior to engine start.

Desert Marlin
Remaining cockpit items:
1. Glass
2. Decals on seats
3. A little more weathering
4. Fix pilot's France Flag
5. Add WSO's Right shoulder patch
6. Check that I can get the canopy actuators in after everything is assembled...
7. Add HUD glass

Martin
Cool project! I have my Popcorn ready, so I'll follow closely!

Laurent VILLANUEVA- "HELLER ForEver"
great

Mr James
Great detail

Desert Marlin
The glass and HUD went in great! I had to lightly sand the edge of the glass to get it to fit snugly into the ResKit frame between the front and back seats. I used 1000 grit and lightly buffed all the way around the edge. Fits perfectly!

Desert Marlin
Cockpit is done! Looks like the ResKit cockpit tub fits perfectly! Lots of trimming to get the crew in the proper fit. Right now, I think it's ready for final checks before fuselage join. The forward control panel needs some sanding for fit, but it does work. I have left the seats, pilots and control panels loose until final fuselage join just to have "wiggle room" before closing. I was able to adjust the forward control stick to make it match the pilot's hand more closely. Just need to check a few more things and then join the fuselage halves!

CaptGPF
The pilots are only as good as the paint job - which is AWESOME!

Desert Marlin
Thanks Mate!

Guy Rump
Looking great, pilots are outstanding. 👍

Desert Marlin
Thanks! I can't believe this version of the 2000 is so "old"...

Guy Rump
A change in scale Anth? Following with interest. 👍

Guy Rump
Looking good, following. 👍

Jakub Fiala
Vypadá super 👍

Mr James
Fantastic shading and weathering. Very nice build

Neuling
Yes! 👍👍

Lukas Muller
paráda 👍

Alec K
Excellent! Is this scratchbuilt?

Aleš Petříček
Alec K
Garford-Putilov Armoured Car..State Models CSM35014, 1:35)

Alec K
👍

Guy Rump
Great job! 👍