by Sgt. Ryan Labieniec, USMC
1/350 USS Tun Tavern, a What If Supercarrier (Scratchbuilt)
This has been something I have wanted to build for some time now, just a fun build, and a break from having to follow instructions and historic accuracy. I named it the USS Tun Tavern as a tribute to my Marine corps background, and yes, I know that #52 was the USS North Carolina, but I decided to give myself a pat on the back and give her my old football jersey #.
The hull is made of sheet insulation, the pink styrofoam sheets you get at home improvement stores to insulate basements. I used the waterline plate from a Trumpeter Nimitz to get the general shape, and then I tweaked it top my preferences. Once I had the shape of the hull, I glued Evergreen sheet styrene to the vertical sides.
The flight deck is made from Evergreen styrene that is scribed and sold as HO scale boxcar siding, thank you very much to JimRussell from this site for letting me know about this product and saving me the Time that I would have spent scribing this whole thing.
The fittings and superstructure on this build came from all sorts of spares that were never going to get used, and given the number of sources the spares came from, I probably should have named her the USS Frankenstein! The kits that supplied parts for this build are as follows:
The photo etch used were spares left over from Gold Medal Models, Eduard, and Tom's sets for various kits listed above.
The aircraft are mostly on temporary loan from my Essex, as she is in dry dock awaiting an overhaul. The B-25's are on loan from my Hornet, and will be replaced with Trumpeter B-25's that I am going to convert into PBJ's and paint in blue scheme. The 2 bombers on the stern deck were the ones included in the Prince of Wales kit and are Japanese, but since they weren't being used, I figured why not, the ship never existed anyways!
I left the ship waterlined because I plan to make a diorama out of her, with one of the motor launches and a PBY Catalina tied up at the stern.
I'm not really sure weather the catapult on the stern is feasable, but I figured it would be helpful if the ship were in rough seas and had recovered a float plane from another ship and needed to assist in launching it on it's way.
Paint was all either Model Master Acrylics, or Polly Scale Acrylics.
This was my first major scratchbuild, and I am pretty happy with the outcome, any comments are always welcome!
