1:350 Trumpeter USS Essex

[Builder 2010]

Loren Perry at Gold Medal Models has come through again and is sending me replacement PE for the price of postage. I'm replacing all of the Long Range Radio antenna towers and the framing under the exterior elevator. He also said I'm going to get a lot more. I could also use the cage that surrounds the down leads on two of the LRR antennas. Hopefully that will be in this bunch. The under framing on the elevator is just a mess and really needs to be ripped out and replaced. With scratch-building you have the control to remake a poor job, but with commercial parts when you screw up, you've screwed up.

While I'm waiting for the PE to arrive (Left West Coast today), I decided to add some railings that aren't in the kit instructions or GMM's. I've seen evidence of railings around the circular platforms for the elevated 5" twin mounts, along the flight deck outside of this gun area, AND a catwalk that runs parallel to the outside of the island's starboard side. There is no provision for this catwalk either in the kit or GMM's set. This was on a drawing of the Essex on NavSource.

For the guns I formed some railing and wrestled it into place. The first one went very smoothly and lulled me into a slightly euphoric state that was quickly dispelled when I did the second. This one did not go nearly as easily and with persistence got it done.

There is also a railing along the flight deck that runs around the circular platform up to the elevated mount. While this looked daunting, it really wasn't so bad. There's another small snippet of a rail between the elevated mount and the 40mm elevated mount and then you come up to the area of the catwalk. In the below I've put the last Mark 57 director tower in place with a PE access ladder. All today's work needs painting/re-painting. This foredeck area will also get the railing that will go around the circular platform, but it's a bit shorter (i.e. easier).

I cut off a piece of PE fret which is same width as the kit's catwalks (lucky!) and soldered some straight rail onto it. I'm also going to add some brass attachment pins on the bottom so it will be easier and more secure to mount.

The last thing done today was repositioning the companion ladder. It probably needs some rigging on the outboard end that will "support" it. You can see the damage from removal that will be touch-up painted. There's a small added 90 degree rail at the top of the ladder that was needed since it was open to the sea.

With the new PE coming I won't have to settle on some very sub-par work that would have detracted from the overall beauty of a model of this caliber. As the late great Gary Kohs (founder of Fine Art Models) said, "A fine scale model has detail that draws you into it where you discover ever more complex things to see." My Missouri model is like that where you get an overall view of its complexity, but as you look closer you see things like the foot rest under the flag bags, a detail that's almost invisible unless you really drill down with you focus. This ship, I hope, will have the same result.

 

[Crimea_River]

Great work.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Wayne Little]

Nice....!

 

[fubar57]

Agreed

 

[Gnomey]

Looks great so far!

 

[Builder 2010]

Thanks guys!

I finished adding the front railing around the foreward gun mounts. I then soldered (using TIX lo-temp solder) some Phosphor-bronze 0.020" wire pins to secure the fabricated catwalk to securely to the hull. I used the resistance soldering tweezers to solder the pins so they would be held in place while the solder cooled. The lo-temp solder melts before the normal solder holding the railing would so everything was in control. Before putting it on the ship, I painted it with a coat of Tamiya gray primer. I located the three mounting pins on the side of the flight deck edge very close to the top so the mounted catwalk would be level with the flight deck and drilled the three holes with an 0.021" carbide mini-drill. I added thin CA AFTER putting the catwalk in place to make it permanent.

I hand painted all the newly added railings and gun director tower since I didn't want to have to mask the whole flight deck area. I also touched up the marred area on the hull from the ladder removal.

It was time to put the props on...

Hard to tell they're not really brass...

I started adding all the remaining guns and whatever directors were still needed to be added. Two more Twin 40s, and the four single 5" mounts go onto the port side. I had thought that Trumpeter had made a molding mistake in having the loading slides on the 5" guns on the wrong side since every picture I'd seen had them on the other side AND the guns in my grandson's Hornet were on the other side too. But then I found a diagram of the 5s in a twin turret and guess what… they're left and right-handed versions and the loaders face the center of the gun house. So having the loading facing out of the right side of the gun barrel is not technically wrong.

Lastly, I started adding the remaining 40, 20mm gun mounts. I don't have enough of these (DOH!) and ordered one more set of 24 from Freetime Hobbies. These Blue Ridge 3D produced tiny models are exceptionally fine and look very, very good. Plus you don't have glue microscopic PE shields, shoulder supports or handwheels onto very small plastic things.

Before gluing them in place I needed to paint them. On the island I painted everything with an air brush, but now all the gun tubs are already painted. So I air brushed the entire rack of guns before removing them from their mounting block. This included picking out the barrels with Tamiya gunmental.

I got five guns in place before quitting for the day. They look really spiffy! (IMHO).

Tomorrow, I add as many guns as I have and then start working on island rigging. Getting close folks. I'm expecting the plexiglass to be ready any day now and I have to put that together. I also need to have a brass plaque engraved (like I did for the Missouri) to tell something about the model with as much of a quality look as the base, case and model demand.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Builder 2010]

I put the remaining 20mms that I had in their various tubs and need 16 more which have been ordered from Free-Time Hobbies. I then finally bit the bullet and started rigging the island. When I did the island mods, the inner width got a bit narrower and was not slipping over the boss on the flight deck. I really couldn't force it for obvious easons, so I carefully scraped a chamfer on the inner edge to make it a bit wider and able to fit better when it will be glued. That will happen after rigging.

I cleared the workbench for action and held the island in a hemostat which in turn is held in a drill press vise. I started on the port side for no reason other than it was the one that was facing me. The first lines (E-Z Line fine-gauge black) are three radio antennas that belay onto the side of the fore island. I did the same thing here as in the Missouri; inserting some piano wire pins into drilled holes to wrap the E-Z Line around. When I say pins I mean pieces of high-E guitar string which is 0.010" in diameter. The drill is ridiculously small and fragile. I constantly break them just by laying down on the workbench improperly. This image is hugely enlarged since those pins look like big steel rods. Actually the pieces are so small that they almost invisible on the workbench. BTW: Don't cut this stuff with normal Xuron cutters. What you end up with is a half-moon shaped groove on the cutting edge and the pliers are effectively ruined. The piano wire is harder than the cutter's steel. You need to buy Xuron hard-wire cutters or use a nice pair of ChannelLock cutters which seem a harder cutting edges.

I don't think I'm belaying these lines correctly, but I'm not going to fret it. Because of the dark paint, you can barely make them out let alone determine if they're correctly located.

Then it was time to rig the signal halyards. Unlike the Missouri which had many long-range radio antennas strung between the fore mast and main mast and then belayed to a series of tall, insulated standoffs in the bowels of the mid-ships space, the Essex has most of the main radio antennas strung between the five lattice towers that aren't yet installed and are being remade with the new GMM parts. (phew! That was a long sentence). So there's not as much actual rigging needed on the island.

GMM is nice enough to etch some very, very small simulated pulleys on the PE yardarm lamination. I soldered this piece to the scratch-built solid brass replacement. The holes are just fractionally larger than the E-Z Line, and when conceptualizing this build I really wasn't planning on attempting to use them. But today, I thought about at least trying. It was where my "persistence" really came to fore.

E-Z Line is wonderful for this use, but it is very floppy, having almost no innate stiffness and this made threading the free end through this tiny eye very challenging. Add to that my innate shaky hands AND not being able to really rest my hands on the island or I'd break something else. So I braced my tweezers hand with the other hand that was supported by the vise under the island.

What kept happening is the weight of the string would pull the line out of the eye as soon as I released the tweezers to reach around the other side to pull it through. After about 10 tries I got the first line through. After that, I started controlling the back end of the line better so it's weight wouldn't be a factor, and I got better at letting go of the line without bumping anything since that little vibration was also causing the line to fall back out of the eye. Eventually, I got all the lines done on the Port side. Tomorrow I'll do the starboard side.

This view really shows just how small those eyes are. I could have just wrapped the line around the eye, but I'm glad I tried the hard way.

I finished up this side, by adding a blob of Bondic adhesive to the tops of the antenna wires to simulate insulators, and painted the pulleys white and the manrope hanging below the yard some Tamiya deck tan. Pardon the poor focus on this one.

When the starboard side is done, the island's going onto the ship. So what's left... 16-20mm guns, and a whole passel of floater baskets. I need to get a brass plaque made with some ship particulars and credits, and then build the case. Oh... and I almost forgot. I do have to rebuild the external elevator and build and rig the radio towers. This time will be successful.

 

[parsifal]

Great work. Looks terrific

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Great work so far!

 

[Builder 2010]

Today was one of those milestone days... the island is now part of the ship and it really looks like an American aircraft carrier. Before placing it I finished the starboard side rigging and as predicted, it took 1/2 the time that the first side took and came out better. Wish I had another side to do. Unfortunately, I can't redo the port side because I CA'd the pulleys and would destroy that delicate yardarm if I tried to remove it. Again, only I know the difference. To the uninitiated, they won't see anything but lots of complexity.

To make a more secure surface to adhere the signal halyards I CA'd a couple of pieces of thin PE brass to the backs of the flag bags. This gave me a vertical (non-prototypical) surface to adhere the E-Z Line. If I was a better planner, I would have prepared those flag bags for receiving the halyards BEFORE that part was glued to the island. So if I ever build this again...

On the Missouri, the flag bags were arranged athwartships so it was easier to drill some holes to insert the halyards and give them a better finished look.

I further prepared the inside chamfer to ensure that the island would indeed attach properly to flight deck. It did, so it was time to glue it down. I used tube cement to give some more working time while I applied the glue on the insides of the island's lower lip and the placed it down and worked it so it was flush, all the while making sure that I was not applying undo pressure OR pressing on anything that will get destroyed in the process. The results were, needless to say, very gratifying.

I needed to build and apply the LSO's platform that sits at the port aft of the flight deck. I had some parts from the last replacement set that GMM sent me and used those. It's made up of four parts and went together very well.

It still needs paint...

Just about this time, the mail came and GMM's replacement fret was waiting for me. Oh joy, oh rapture! to quote the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. Here's what arrived.

As you can see it's almost a complete fret minus that part that's cut out. It's terrific. It has more ladders, more flight deck ladders (and I need those since a couple have come off), all the radar suite and, of course, the elevator framing and the radio towers.

So I immediately set about building the new elevator. What destroyed the last one was when I attempted to fit the elevator into a space that was marginally smaller than the elevator (with its attached brass) and the side pressure deformed all of the brass, popped CA joints and broke some solder joints. The more I tried to straighten it, the worse it got.

This time I pre-fit the elevator without brass to the narrower elevator guide frame. Most likely when I glued on the frame I moved towards each other a bit more than I should have, not knowing what the absolute spacing was. With the elevator relieved to make it a slip fit, I soldered the frame together and gave the same relief on the inside corners, so the frame wouldn't be stressed when assembled.

As I did before (only even better), I pre-tinned all the mating points of the bottom frame and the trusses using the Weller iron. I then used the RSU to heat and attach individual points on the frames starting in the middle and working outwards. Even with utmost care it was still touch and go. This is caused by the RSU heating the brass so fast that it takes it above annealing temperature and the brass becomes really soft and gets out of shape even easier.

You can use CA all you want, but on assemblies like this solder is so much stronger. To attach the frame to the plastic elevator I used CA. I primed the assembly with Tamiya primer, and it was ready to trial fit again.

And it fit very nicely without deforming anything. It's really a benefit to have a second shot at this. Every set of PE should include doubles of everything. I'd pay a few $$$ more if they would standardize on that. Unless you're really good, you're gonna screw up some PE, especially on a job as complex as this one. It still has to be airbrushed Navy Blue before I glue it in place permanently.

The last thing I did today was place two tiny TBS antennas onto tiny stalks on the yardarm. These pieces had fallen off the original fret, but there was a set on the first set of replacements. I wasn't going to put them on because they had a tiny hole that fit over a tiny pin and I didn't want the aggravation. I also was convinced that due to their frail nature, they would surely be wrecked in handling the island. But with the confidence boost from threading all those tiny eyes with the flag halyards, and with the island being now part of the ship and no longer being handled, I decided to give it a go.

The first one went on very easily so I thought it was a piece of cake. But of course, the second didn't go on and the CA dried making the pin too fat to get into the hole. So I had to carefully pop the cured CA off the pin by using a tweezer and pulling straight up and it came off without deforming the pin. I was then able to get the antenna onto the pin and they were both done. The arrows point out these antennas.

These two also need some paint. Would anyone miss them if they weren't there. Nope! Do they add to the already wonderfully complex appearance of a WW2 capital ship. Definitely yes! There's actually two more antenna that go onto the yardarm which look like little steering wheels. I may or may not put them on. They're really small.

Here's an overhead shot showing the ship with the island in place. Look'n like an aircraft carrier. Next work day... paint and install elevator, build the new radio towers, install the remaining 20s when they come from Free-Time Hobbies, and add a zillion floater net baskets which I even have more of with this nice shipment from GMM.

I still haven't decided how I'm going to fasten the air wing to the flight deck so they won't come loose when they're not supposed to. If I really wanted to be goofy, I could use E-Z Line and actually tie them down to the deck. It would look great and drive me to an institution in the process. I could use some ideas from the gang on this.

 

[fubar57]

Very impressive

 

[Wurger]

Well done.

 

[Crimea_River]

Coming along beautifully.

 

[Builder 2010]

Thank You!

Happy Monday! Unlike most mortals, I like Mondays since it when I can get back in the shpp and build models. As a retiree, I made a deal with my wife that I would not work on models during the weekend, and I keep my deals. So... my fun begins on the weekdays. When working, of course, it was just the opposite.

I added to the newly re-built elevator the safety screens AND the ridiculously finicky horizontal braces. There are miniscule PE pieces that get glued between the upper edge of the elevator to the leading edge of the canted screens. I used Bondic for this since it sets solid in a couple of seconds by UV light and not CA accelerator, meaning... once you have it positioned you don't have to physically get near it to set the cement. It worked pretty well.

It looks pretty ragged in this ultra closeup, but it views better from normal distances. I stuck the upper side to some masking tape and primered and then airbrushed it navy blue. Then I dropped it on the concrete when separating it from the masking. The drop didn't do terminal damage, but it did disturb some of the lattice work and broke loose some of these finicky cross braces. I got it back in shape (mostly) and sprayed the upper side with flight deck blue and weathered it lightly with Vallejo dark gray wash. I put it on the hull with gel CA.

With the elevator finally on the ship, I did some other stuff. I got the anchors mounted. I drilled the hawse holes first so the anchor's shank would nest up inside. The way the anchor glued on without drilling really wouldn't have worked. I will paint and weather (rust) soon.

Finally, I built all five long-range radio towers. This time, I pre-tinned the mating edges to facilitate soldering them together and then also soldered the vertical ladder to the tower. I did not, however, solder the tiny antenna spreaders. In this case I used a combination of gel CA and Bondic UV. I wish I could solder them, but they're just a little to small and difficult to contain to make soldering a useful approach. I don't trust the glue since E-Z Line does exert some tension which could break them loose.

The last thing I did, which I learned in the first, aborted set, was to fill the bottom with Bondic (not epoxy putty) to prepare for the drilling and subsequent mounting on the ship. I just filled the bottom with the Bondic and shot it with the UV light and Poof!, solid plastic bottom. You can barely see it in the pic since it's very transparent. I also folded the protective screens that surround the towers with the radio leads heading downward. These parts were wrecked on the first sprue because they had disconnected before I was ready to use them.

The Bondic is terrific stuff and I'm glad I finally discovered it.

Next session: These antenna towers will get painted and installed and then I'll be ready to rig them. Although there are tiny eyes in the spreader bars, I'm not going to attempt to thread them, but will attach the E-Z Line around them. I think I got glue in some of the and it would be very hard to successfully remove. The extra 20mm guns arrived today so they'll also be installed. That leaves floater net baskets and some minor weathering, and the ship will be done. In this new set of PE from GMM I have another full load of floater net baskets so I'll be able to do the whole enchilada.

 

[fubar57]

 

[Wurger]

 

[Wayne Little]

That's great work mate....have you gone cross-eyed yet....