1:350 Trumpeter USS Essex

[Builder 2010]

Thank you guys. We'll get on the road probably early p.m. and get to our night stop in Frostburg, Maryland just after it gets dark. That leaves about 2.5 hours of driving to our son's house in State College, PA on Friday. We'll go from there on Monday onto Philly to continue the visit. On the return, we stop at the halfway point which is Clarksburg, West Virginia…which is at the 5 hour mark. Then we'll finish up with five more hours through WV and into Kentucky. Louisville is about halfway East and West. It's the easiest part of the drive.

Did get some work in starting at 3:30 and finishing at 4:45. Got the Corsairs ready for paint and started on the last 6 Hellcats. In order to glue those pesky Trumpeter tiny landing gear into the wings I needed something different. At THD I found Loctite "Plastic Bonder". It's CA plus an "activator". The activator smelled suspiciously like CA accelerator, but it works. I believe the landing gear is Delrin or some other tough, flexible plastic, that's hard to glue with solvent cement. Loctite is owned by the company paying my retirement, Henkel of Duesseldorf, Germany, the best company I ever worked for.

There's not much CA in the glue tube. I was mostly air.

You apply the activator, which is a felt-tipped applicator, and then give it about a minute. Then you apply the seems-like medium CA to one part and put them together. It seems to work. The gear are secure and none fell apart. Furthermore, I actually got all three kit gear on every plane without losing or breaking any. Whoopee!

So here are six, gull-winged beauties that will have to wait until we return from our trip.

I then got to work on the last Hellcats. Again, I'm filling all the visible seams except for flight surface joint (flaps, ailerons, elevator and rudder). I smeared the filler on the wing top surfaces, but not the bottom since it won't be seen. All of this will have over a week to dry since that's when it will be sanded off.

I also found a way to remove the props from the frets without a) leaving a nub which is next to impossible to trim, and b) not breaking any. I used a very sharp, new #11 blade to carefully trim them off, instead of using my flush cutters since on parts this small tend to have a little sprue left over.

Just for fun I decided to place all the air wing so far onto the flight deck. I will have a total of 19 aircraft when they're all done.

So until we return, have a nice Spring.

 

[fubar57]

Lots of good work

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Looks good so far!

 

[Builder 2010]

I'm back. Had a very nice trip back East. The first weekend was so cold in State College (Penn State) that we had winter coats, hats and gloves. By the end of the week the temp was in the low 90s in Philly. Ah... Spring. Yesterday and today Louisville weather was absolutely perfect and I got another color coat on the Ford Fairlane model and then got back to work on the Essex.

I ordered the threaded tubes, nuts and bolts from Grand Brass Lamp Parts on the web that will support the model on the plank. While I didn't buy the pedestals from them (bought them from Totalnavy.com), they had the same turned brass parts for less money AND they had many more different turned objects that would make very nice ship pedestals. These are a 28 thread pipe thread that's specific to lamp construction. It's a straight thread unlike pipe threads which are tapered, but you won't find 1/2-28 threaded nuts at big box home centers. You'll need to get them at a lamp supplier. But the tube is designed to fit the pedestal perfectly.

These parts are not particularly expensive.

Then I got back to work on the Hellcats. I sanded off all the excess filler that was not totally cured after sitting for 13 days, and assembled the parts. Got almost finished putting on the landing gear and got drawn away to go with our oldest grandson to get fitted for his Jr. Prom tux. His mom was out of town, so I'll finish the Hellcats tomorrow and paint both them and the Cosairs. By the end of the week the air wing will be complete and I'll be back to work on the ship itself. I should be getting the finished plank any day now and prepare the lower hull for mounting. I think I want to put all the gallery guns and railing AFTER the ship is mounted to the plank since it makes it very stable. That's how I did it with the Missouri and it worked pretty well. Once I get the plank and get the final dimension on the perimeter rabbet cut that will support the clear case, I'll send those measures off to the plastics shop and have them cut to size.

Notice, I did not fill the seams on the horizontal stabilizers. Enough was enough!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far!

 

[parsifal]

Fine work

 

[Builder 2010]

Yesterday, I finished gluing all the Hellcats together. Only lost 2 tail wheels...

And then today I air brushed the Vallejo Dark Sea Blue. Took several light coats. Mixed the paint with about 30% (guesstimate) of Testor's Universal Acrylic Solvent. They look better without those exaggerated seam lines.

Tomorrow I'm tied up and will not get much (if any) shop time, so the next work session I do have I will add the interior green, and flat black detail painting and start decaling. That should take a couple of days and then it's back to the rest of the ship. The plank is on its way and I may have to wait a bit longer to get the lower hull finished. I have other projects to work on during the wait. Can't order the plexiglass until I have the plank to take as-built measurements.

BTW: I ordered and received Bondic UV-cured adhesive from Amazon. I wanted to see it if would work for the landing gear gluing. I arrived when we were away so I was able to try it out yesterday. It does work, but it needs a roughened surface or it doesn't hold so well. It does cure quickly and stays gel-like until you shine the light on it... which is convenient. I wonder how well it will work in holding on PE railings? Only restriction is the light must be able to get to the gel. In a totally closed joint it will not work.

 

[parsifal]

Looking terrific. Definitely better with the panel lines filled. In my experience you will still see the panel lines after painting, but their effect will be much more restrained.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Jeff Hunt]

Holy Moly!

Jeff

 

[Crimea_River]

Filling those panel gorges is well worth the effort.

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[Builder 2010]

The day started by painting the details on the 12 new airplanes (black tires and engines, plus interior green cockpit area). I then started the decaling process by putting on my custom tail design on the Hellcats and began the stars and bars decaling. I got one plane complete and started one more, and then broke for lunch. The Trumpeter Hellcat and Corsair decal set has the stars and bars as separate decals. I know why they did this, but it wasn't nice. The earlier planes just had stars and then later added bars so having them separate let you choose. BUT... it makes putting on the decals soooooo much more annoying. I found you have to trim the circle very tightly on the the sides and do the same for the bars mating sides so they'll nestle in correctly. I used MicroSol to get everything settled down.

This close up shows the large clear area surrounding the printed area and this makes getting them close impossible. If you put on the star first, let it totally dry and then added the bars so the clear part overlaps the star, it could work, but it would also be a pain. Trimming close works better.

Then, during lunch, the mailman delivered my oak plank from my close friend in Albuquerque. It was packed within an inch of its life and came through unscathed.

I masking-taped the top and bottom areas where the drilling would take place to prevent break out when the drill comes through. I located the center and drew a center line down the back side. My mount holes are to be 7 inches apart and I laid those out also. But they needed to match the ships layout and I couldn't drill them at the same time (safely) so I drilled a 1/16" holes in the hull at the proper locations and used a transfer punch of the same size to locate the two hole locations on the plank's bottom.

The bottom needs to be counter-bored so there's room for the threaded pipe and brass nuts and this is done with a forstner bit. It has a pip in the middle which then serves as the starting point for the brad point bit to make the clearance hole. I put it all together to test the fit and it lined up nicely.

The upper and lower hulls are NOT glued in this pic, nor are the fasteners epoxied inside the lower hull. I was able to take final measurements for the plexiglass and I'll order that tomorrow. The I noticed how close the side elevator is to the rabbet edge that holds the plexiglass. I put a piece of flat stock in that location and found that there was about 1/16" clearance. Whew! Then... while driving my grandson home from his piano lesson and describing this new addtion to him while he looked at the pics, I remembered that there are PE simulated safety nets that go on the elevator's outer perimeter and they will exceed that 1/16".

What to do? The pedestals are wider than the holes with enought material that I probably can elongate the holes in the hull enough to push it slightly off-center and give myself enough clearance to add the elevator nets. When I initially meausred for the plank, I guesstimated where that elevator was going to fall and thought I gave enough addtional clearance. It will work, but not without a little anxiety thrown in.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Very nice.

 

[Gnomey]

Looks good so far!

 

[Builder 2010]

Thank you!
First thing I did today was elongate the holes in the hull to move the hull to starboard with enough clearance so the elevator safety nets will fit under the plexiglass cover. I held the pedestals over the holes and traced the perimeter so I'd know how much stock I could remove without exposing the hole. It gave me a good 3/16" which was all I needed. I then scribed the amount to remove and used a carbide router to clear it out. After again checking the clearance, I epoxied the brass thumb nuts into the hull. Again, I traced their outlines so I could correctly position them while curing. A little got into the threads on one of the nuts, but I got it out before it was fully cured. The nuts have a knurled edge with made it perfect for epoxying and will not spin or break loose. The thing in the middle is the connector for the 5VDC power source for the lighting.

Then it was back to the little airplanes. I got the insignia on all the Hellcats and then did the Corsairs. As noted the stars and bars are separate decals and need to nestle together to look right. I began to cut them en masse so I could work a bit faster. I also was getting hang of handling little decals with a tweezers. I never thought you could handle little decals with tweezers. You can see how close I had to trim the star and one edge of the bars so they'll nest together. BTW: the tail decals on the Corsairs are Trumpeter decals and went on well. Saved me design and printing time! The toothpick gives evidence of scale.

I always was under the impression that you had to "slide the decals off the backing paper onto the model" and with small decals that gets to be a miserable challenge. I saw a video where the guy was manipulating the small decals with tweezers. He'd pluck them off the backing and transfer them to the model. I tried it with these mini-decals and it worked very well indeed.

So I finished all the decals for all the new planes.

All that's left is canopies and props. They're not troubling and will be done tomorrow. The epoxy will be cured and I'm going to paint the lower hull with Tamiya hull red and then solder the lighting leads and attach the lower hull to the upper.

 

[Wurger]