by Douglas Conrady
1/350 USS Lake Erie CG-70 (DRA)
This is my latest commisioned build. A workmate had me build the USS Lake Erie for her son, who is currently serving on the Lake Erie.
Let me start off with a little history on this ship. The Lake Erie is a test ship for the navy. So, whenever a new thing-a-majig, or the newest do-hickey comes out, they stick it on or in the ship. With that being said, she does not look like your average Ticonderoga class cruiser. This ship also is of great fame. In early 2008, the US needed to shoot down a defunct sattelite. Im guessing, since the Lake Erie had the latest and greatest everything, it was chosen to fire the shot.
This was also the time frame that I was tasked to model the ship, since my workmates son was aboard when the shot was fired. When I started to do the research for my project, I had to pick my pictures carefully. Because the Navy tests lots of whachimacallits, most of the pics I found didn't fit my time frame. Fortunately, the Lake Erie was chosen to give the honors for Pearl Harbor in 2007. And guess what, lots of pics were taken and published on the web. I discoved the "extras" were the same the following February.
I started with the Dragon model of the Bunker Hill. This is about the only 1/350 flight II Ticonderoga out there. After opening the box, what a mess. I don't know if I got a bad boxing or if they all came this way, but about 1/2 of the superstructure parts were warped to some degree. I had to do unspeakable things to make the parts fit the way they should. Some of the pics show the internal bracings and such I installed. Other than that, most everything else went together nicely. At first, I was a little scared because of all the extra hangly-danglys on the ship. But, I found suitable items. All the extra radomes are plastic beads I picked up at a craft store. Most of the extra mounting platform are parts of the kit I wasn't planning on using (ie. the rudders). The rest were made from wire. To make the vertical sides of 2 of the radomes, I cut the cap of an ink pen and glued the bead to it. There was much other hacking and wacking to get the details correct. The brass detailing set and cruiser decals came from Gold Metal Models. One thing that was requested, was the ships motto be decaled over the bell, like the 1:1 ship. What I ended up doing, was ordering some custom decals from Starfighter Decals. After I found suitabel pictures, and sent them to Mark. He produced the motto, ship name for the fantail, and the battle E's that were on the bridge. He did an OUTSTANDING job. I can't say enought about his product! He provided several extras just in case I screwed one or 2 up. Good thing too. Since I had several different types of materials, I primed the ship and then painted it with what else, battleship gray. For the base, the craft store sold precut picture frame sections. I found the right sizes and conviently left off the hanging parts. The water is stained glass I ordered off the internet. That was truely a shot in the dark. I think I lucked out on the color and texture. I used some 2 part epoxy to attached the Lake Erie to the base. I had the plaque made at the local trophy store, where I'm becoming quite a regular customer. The large decal of the motto came from Mark as well.
This model provied me with many firsts. By far, this was my most ambitous scratchbuilding attempt. I learned to become quite the scrounger. My first time to order/use custom decals. Also, and the biggest, was the manner in which I was thanked. The sailor not only took a picture of him (in uniform) with the ship, but he also made a movie and had it emailed to me. Since the sailor is still serving on the ship, I had to make sure I got everything just so. There is no memory fade. It made all the hair pulling and gnashing of teeth worth it when he said I got almot everything correct. There are a few things that I know aren't right, most of those, I found after the Lake Erie was completed, and some are things I couldn't help. But, I'm not about to reveal either. I also know there are a few things I couldn't have gotten right, becuase I wasn't there.
