hpetiers

Finally I got some work done again last week! Using Revell aqua colors for the first time, I painted all my figures: checkers: shooters:

hey Dr Frankenclumsy, good job on those figures! Indeed the hasegawa and Fujimi figures have somewhat different proportions than the one i got from the net. I have a feeling that, in order to make them suitable for injection molding, the heads and arms of the figures are a little bit exagerated, where the 3D printed guy loos a bit too skinny. My next try for a figure in 3D printing will become a bit more beefy. Also note that the Fujimi firuges have the older style goggles and headset, I don't think they use these on carriers anymore nowadays. Keep up the good work! hugo

holy smokes, Starfighter you are one ambitious model aircraft builder!

it has been a few months since my last post on this forum. A lot of creativity has come out of my hands since then: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234989057-aircraft-carrier-deck-1144/page-4 but simply not as much in 1:32 scale! What did happen in the meantime around christmas, is that I found a friendly gentleman from Belgium who sold this to me: only to read last week that Revell will bring out a Super Hornet in 1:32 scale around november! What has also happened is that I have started to paint the carrier deck crew. There is a shooter in 1:48 and 1:32: They will soon be ready for a layer of varnish and a good oil wash. to be continued!

hi Jim, hope that this might work inspirational: I described how I achieved this effect in: http://ipms.freeforums.org/carrier-deck-diorama-t2547-20.html might this be what you are looking for?

Hi Stusbke, it was nice to meet you at Euro Scale Modelling yesterday, I think you really have a big project converting your intruder into a prowler, Nictures never do the part in real life full justice, I hope that you will bring it to a good end! hugo

Hey Jim, in the mean time I have started to pre-shade my panels too. Not so much to send an update arount for anyway. this is because coming weekend is the big Euro Scale Modelling fair and contect in Holland. So I was working against a deadline to take something with me to show too. I am also planning to take my in progress 1:32 diorama and all my 3D prints with me as there might be more people interested in this stuff. Hopefully more about JBD progress after this weekend! good luck, Hugo

hey Jim, that really starts to look like a wonderfully greasy Jet Blast Deflector! hugo

hey Jim, that´s twice good news! and yes please share photo´s!

While I am waiting for my prints to arrive I have managed to make some progress on the carrier deck± I filled all the gaps around the tie down points (drilled the holes slightly too big) and made lines on the deck where the features and seems are. This youtube video of a cat launch on USS Theodore Roosevelt has been a great help to zoom in on the features expecially on the catapult itself Clumsydude will appreciate the fact here that right behind this catapult there are not tie down points! This might have something to do with the older Nimitz class carriers being equiped with a rail behind the cat that accomodates the hold back cable for aircraft launched with the cradle system like Phantom and Skywarrior. My efforts to duplicate the lines resulted in this, a pattern that turns out to be much more complicated than I had in my first CAD design. It starts to look like an aircraft carrier deck! most of the headaches were caused by the abundance of features around the cat, but the US navy was kind enough to weld the distance of every 2 feet into the deck next to the lign up rails so that helped a lot! So what the next step is, is to scribe the smaller holesfor all the bolts and then to give the whole deck a slight sanding. After this I think I will go for the addition of texture in the deck, let´s see how that turns out.

hi Jim, I think it has turned out quite nicely! btw I grasped at the 3.5 year that you are working on this project. Hope mine won't take that long! At least the result shows it, so please continue on this level unitl completion and you will have a truely unique diorama. good luck! Hugo.

just for everyone who might be interrested in carrier diorama's and who would like to try out the 3D printed parts: Shapeways does not charge shipping cost on orders that are placed just during this weekend. In the meantime I finished my first set of carrier deck crew in 1:32 and 1:48 scale! https://www.shapeways.com/product/MX28M4G66/us-carrier-launch-crew-catapult-2-and-4-scale-1-32?li=shop-inventory&optionId=57962087

this weekend I managed to make a whole line up of deck crew men done: Other than that not much done. ClumsyDude still has me puzzled about how to go forward! Hugo

Hi Jim, last year I think I figured that out: it is 10ft over the width and 8ft over the length of the ship. Why you wonder? Take a picture of a plane on cat #3 or 4 and count the tie-down points that it stands over. If you know the length of the plane then you can figure out the distance of the tie-downs. Now see this wonderful picture of the USS H.S. Truman: http://www.carrierbuilders.net/articles/20060216_CVN-75_WA_Pt_2/122.jpg With a bit of triangulation, and knowing that the angle of the landing deck is 9 degrees, you can only conclude that the distances in both directions are not the same. I have recreated most part of the carrier deck in CAD and with these dimensions, all tie-downs line up exactly with the landing stripe overthe whole length. Not only that is a nice thing, but counting the tie-downs makes a wonderful way to map all the features, lines, hatches, etc on the whole deck! After last year's moment of excitement of getting it right (or so I think), I came to the sad conclusion that all manufacturers of carrier decks that I know of got it wrong! Unless I have fouled up my calculations of course but the photo's seem to back it up... Looking at the deck (usually from the island) from a steep angle makes it simply very hard to figure it out from pictures. And there is not many shots to be found from right above that show the tie-down pattern clearly. To all you readers: if there is any of them, please share them with us! tbw Tango 1, thank you for sharing your enthousiasm. Getting this this right will make a lot of carrier diorama builders happy

Hi Jim, I am quite sure that on Nimitz class carriers there is tie-downs between the JBD and the catapult as indicated in the clearest picture I could find of the JBD I'm making. By the way this pattern also shows up on your third picture: \ And looking once more at photo's that I have from the USS Independence, you are right that there is none here: and neither are on USS constellation: I think you are spot on with the direction, granularity and pattern of the coating. I will give it some thought over the weekend! thanks Hugo

please do and convince me to signifficantly increase the work I planned!

hi Jim, you have asked a very good question. First I was not planning to add any texture other that what was on the plastic sheet. But now that I have looked at your result more closey I have started to second guess my decision. Your result really looks very good, but I am not sure what stuff I can buy over here that gives me the desired result. On top of that I don't think I have the references that show me which structure direction to apply where. Where did you get your info from if I may ask?

Hi Jim, honestly I was hoping that the matt surface of the transparent plastic sheet would be sufficient, but it seems it isn't. Having glued the tie-downs into the deck, I am affraid that with any addition of a putty layer on the deck I will mess up the tie-downs. Currently my plan is to leave the surface as-is. Oh well, something to improve for future projects. next month there will be the large Euro Scale Modelling event in the Netherlands (believed to be the biggest on the European mainland), I think I will try to score a cheap hornet to put on my deck!

This weekend I found some time to put some Tamya base coat on (the messy look on the transparent glued deck gave me the creeps), and indeed the whole thing starts to look like a carrier deck now: having painted the tie downs too, you can now see how sharp the print is. Too bad that the structure of the plastic is not as rough as I hoped and thus too smooth for this scale. Next step is the closing of the small gap with some Valeyo putty: And the JBD housing looks much more like it is part of the deck:

This morning I sent some drawings and reference material to a hobby colleague that is also going to build a JBD. I thought I might as well put the drawings over here to show you that building it is quite straightforward, with all standard strip from Evergreen!

good morning all, this week I received some new prints from Shapeways and I could get going again on the carrier deck. I managed to mount the last tie down points (btw the new print that I got is even sharper than the earlier prints that I got so far). and decided to glue the plastic deck to my wooden base. used acrylate kit for this: then pressed the parts together using my daughter's dough roller: The nice thing about the transparent plastic is that you can see where you put the glue and how much you still need to press: The result looks quite scarry but the top surface is nice and flat. in the end I completed also the housings for the actuator arms: I think it is time for a first layer of paint soon!

Hi Jim, thanks for the back up but no worries, Dany Boy sent me a PM explaining me how passionate he is about getting the figure right too. A message with just red lines and no text leaves much open to ones own interpretation. I guess making figures is a whole different bal game from modelling aircraft! Hugo

Hi Dany, Starfighter, I see your point, thanks for the tip, a torso or any other geometry is easily scaled back in any direction in CAD and like I said the model still needs some fine tuning anyway, especially around the joints. Btw by no means you can pinpoint differences of a person like you do with the profile of an aircraft: half a second later than when this shot was taken, this guy's clothes wrinkled exactly the way as I have it in the model , and by the way: It was the guy on the photo that has a short back, my model is of his perfectly proportional colleague that worked the night shift . Finally: Even a 3d printed figure can be cut up into pieces and remade to the liking of its creator... More crew members to follow!

I have been working on a new figure again. It needs to be cleaned up a bit, but the general pose is good enough for me:

Hi Jim, honestly, I had the luck to learn drawing in CAD professionally as I worked as a mechanical engineer for 8 years. The 3D package that I used for my hobby I had to learn by myself but there is plenty of on-line tutorials to be found for 123D design (autodesk). On top of that it is for free. I don't do any 3d designing professionally anymore nowadays but I guess the skill hasn't completely gone to waste I guess. By the way if you still need the shooter that I found, pls let me know because by hollowing the figure out a bit it might save quite some cost. For the sake of the cost of a print it would be good to add another 5 figures. Let me know if you would like to have the crew in a specific pose (or send picture in PM) and I will see if I can make it for you. I also saw that you have been working on the same catapult hatch that I just modelled. Coincidence! I believe the yellow box is also a way to launch the catapult, I read in a online doc. I will try to find the link back and send it to you. Good luck with your diorama!