by John Leyland
1/720 Seapower (Testors/Scratchbuilt)
Testors USS Nimitz CVN-68
Scratchbuilt USS Platte AO-186
Scratchbuilt USS Ticonderoga CG-47
In 1984 I started a project to represent US naval aviation in the decade of the 1980's. I wanted to present the latest available technology in a large diorama. An UNREP scene was chosen as a plausible reason to depict three ships underway in close proximity. Carl Vinson was the newest CVN, but I wanted to commemorate my favorite admiral (and also to have the "skull and bones" of VF-84 on my Tomcats), so Nimitz was chosen for the carrier. The shift to "low visibility" markings for naval aircraft was in progress, with contemporary photos showing examples of both old and new in the same squadron. The Cimmaron class oilers were the newest in the fleet, but little information was available on any auxilary in those pre-internet days. I wrote to Avondale Shipyards to beg for photos and heard nothing for several weeks. One evening the doorbell rang and a delivery man asked me to sign for a large, heavy box. To my glorious surprise, it contained sheet after sheet of very large scale plans for everything from the keel plating to the trucklight! My letter must have arrived just when they had started discarding extra drawings. There were also several photos, which were needed because the plans did not include the winches and tensioning gear on deck. I chose Platte because she was the only one with photos showing CIWS mounted. These ships were "jumboized" for more oil capacity (as shown in the JAG resin kit) some years later. They are gone now, Platte decommissioning in 1999. The Ticonderoga class was just coming into commission, with the Aegis revolution in air defense.
USS Nimitz- The Testors 1/720 kit set the scale for the project. The molded detail was removed from the hull and a 1/8th in. sheet of plastic added to the bottom to allow wave action to show the hull below the waterline where appropriate. The hull openings were drilled out where necessary. I planned to include a lighted hangar deck, so the basic structure was added and detailed. The kit did not properly show the "double oval" configuration of hangar deck openings, so this was corrected. The armament sponsons were corrected for the Nimitz's 1984 refit. LED lighting was installed -here I got lucky- since no white LEDs were available, I was forced to use yellow, which I felt had an overly red tone. I few years later I was able to partipate in a "Tiger Cruise" aboard Nimitz and found that the actual hangar deck lighting was red, matching the color of the "yellow" LED! The interior of the fantail was scratched. The small "pockets" containing the detail inside the hull openings were prepared and installed after basic hull painting before the flight deck was added. Flight deck- all detail was sanded from the flight deck and the kit galleries cut off. The tie down points were added with a punch and openings for the jet blast deflectors added. The galleries were built and the flight deck placed on the hull. A lot of work was needed to represent the thickness of the gallery deck under the flight deck and the "corrugated" detail seen from below. The ladders leading down from the galleries to the gallery deck were placed and the various antennae hinged to the gallery were built. Island- The kit shape is correct, but the walkways were overly thick and were rebuilt. The mast and the radar tower behind the island were scratched. Loren Perry's initial Gold Medal Models photoetch was newly available for the radars, railings, and flight deck netting. "Yellow gear" was scratched using bits of photoetch fragments for detail and the WWII battleship crane for the "Tilly" boom. Airwing- the aircraft took as much time to build as the ship. I don't recall the source of the F-14's- perhaps a Pitroad set. When parked on the flight deck, the wings are "overswept"- folded beyond that used in flight. This was done, detail added, and the necessary number cast in resin-my first experience with the technique. Some aircraft had cockpits drilled open and canopies heat formed from clear plastic to be shown open. Gear doors were added and missles were placed on the "ready aircraft. The A-7's had wings folded, gear doors added, some cockpits opened and drop tanks and weapons added to select planes. Similar treatment was given the A-6's, but the Prowlers needed to be converted from two A-6's and the final result resincast. The E2C's were from the kit with wings folded and detail added. Sea King helos had doors opened, sponsons added, tails folded, and rotor blades made from paper. I am most proud of the S3 Vikings, which were entirely scratch built. The most challenging and time consuming part of the airwing was the markings. Nothing remotely adequate was available except national markings and the "NAVY" marking from the kit decals. The home decal was far in the future. The airwing "AJ" marking was made by cutting slivers of decal and using six of them on each side of the tail of each airplane. A dab of dullcoat kept the old parts from loosening when a new part was added. Done assembly line fashion it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Odds and ends of decal and hand painting finished the job. Almost all the lo-vis markings are hand painted. The little SIDEWINDERS A7 on the extreme port bow has over 30 pieces of decal on it. Incidentally, the model was built over three years while I was working more than 60 hours a week in the operating room as an anesthesiologist. I found that I slept better if I unwound at the bench for an hour at the end of the day.
USS Platte- The hull was built up "bread and butter" style using Plastruct sheets. This technique allowed easy construction of the open sided main deck level seen amidships. Everything else was built from sheet styrene and evergreen stock. At this time Platte was in full commission with a navy crew, so the black stack top is correct rather than the later MSC blue and yellow. The CH-46 helo was probably taken from the Revell LPH. GMM rails and ladders were used. The railings atop the UNREP rigs are sprue, as is all rigging. The refueling hoses are copper wire bent to shape and anchored to the ships. They support all of the finer rigging associated with them.
USS Ticonderoga- No kit of this class was released until several years later, and I needed 1/720 anyway. I used Edward Wiswesser drawings for the main dimensions, checking everything against all the photos available. The hull is "bread and butter with everything else basic scratchbuilding. The hangar is lighted with LEDs. The base is varnished plywood with Liquitex acrylic gel medium for the "water" surface. It is painted with Testors Model Master enamels mixed from Blue Angels blue, Ford Engine Light Blue, white, and yellow. The white wave and wake effects are Liquitex tube acrylic Titanium white.
