by Louis Carabott
1/350 USS Enterprise CVN-65 (Tamiya)
I started the model in June 2006 and finished it today 20th Feb 2008 with a total of 1,096 hours invested in this build.
Gold Metal and white Ensign Photoetch used to detail both the ship and the air wing. However, there was a lot of scratch building
The hangar was entirely scratchbuilt from back to front as seen in previous pictures opening entrance from elevator one. The fire door mural was a scaled down digital image of the original. The hull was sanded clean of all raised detail and piping and trunking was all scratch built using different gauges of telephone wire and plastic strips. Sponsons for sparrow launchers finely detailed as well as afterbow and quarterdecks and support structure with odd bits from a computer motherboard. Mountings for phalanx cannons in the stern and starboard midships were scratchbuilt discarding the kit parts which were not accurate. Sparrow launchers and Phalanx cannons detailed. Elevators detailed adding further girder fretwork. The structure shown in elevator 3 was reshaped and restructured accurately. Catwalks and walkways detailed. Weather antennas and electronic warfare scratchbuilt discarding kit parts and again using odd bits from the old computer motherboard. RBOC launchers scratchbuilt. Life raft canisters detailed accordingly. The island was also sanded clean and detailed with scratchbuilt piping, scratchbuilt viewing gallery port side facing the flight deck. Accurate superstructure detail on the starboard side was added altering the whole face available in the kit.
Available yellow gear equipment in the kit was detailed adding more scratchbuilt equipment mainly twin agent fire fighting units…more trucks, gpu’s, asu’s,tow bars, trolleys, heavy forklift and even a sweeper. L’arsenal figs were used…don’t know how many but many were altered and converted . All the aircraft were detailed with fuel tanks fashioned out of simple toothpicks. All ordnance was scratchbuilt which include sparrow, phoenix, maverick missiles and side winders mainly consisting of 10 different parts. They can be seen on the port side as well as behind the island near the armament elevator.
Alterations were also added to the maindeck which include an LSO platform new JBD’s on cats 1 and 2. the AN/SPN-41 automatic landing control radar in stern starboard was scratch built.
Photos of the construction can be seen here.
