aircraft carrier deck 1:144

[solowing666]

Wow wow wow...

Knowing you've been working on it for years, I feel bad to just 'copy' those 'blueprints' from you.

I've been looking for the the measurements on the web (particularly the tie-downs 'isosceles' pattern and deck plates) but still can't get a satisfying answer, maybe my search keywords were no good (I'm not native English speaker btw, and normally don't use imperial units).

My project so far havs only proceeded to an inaccurate 3D CAD model, with rather poor references. For the tie-downs I've already purchased 3 sets of 1/72 PE tie-downs (when I hadn't seen this), hopefully enough for the flight deck and the hangar deck below it (50 x 50 cm max size, roughly 20 x 20")

I'll send you a PM soon regarding that matter. Thank you very much for your generosity.

Hi solowing666,

it took me a few hundred photo's from the internet over the last years to figure out most dimensions. What really helps is that the tie-down pattern in the deck is spaced very regularly. Knowing that they are spaced 8ft length wise and 10 ft across the deck, you can figure out where many features are. Btw the deck plates are also 10ft wide, so that will make it helpful to interpret photo's like these:

so from many pictures I figured out the layout, starting with a large grid of circles in CAD and counting my way in all directions. The area around cat 3 and 4 is easiest because this is best visible from the island of the ship. Reconstructing the features and lines I made 2 drawings. please send me a PM and I will send the PDF to you by mail.

So good luck with your own project and you can contact me for specifics on photos and of course on those 3D printed tie-down points for your diorama!

[hugogo]

hi solowing 666,

I understand your reaction but the truth is that i speak Dutch most of my time and use mm's too.

this will make your life a bit easier:

found this doc on the net, page 2.32 shows you many line dimensions of the carrier deck:

http://navybmr.com/study%20material/14353a/14353A_ch2.pdf

then there is this picture with some useful layout of the tie downs wrt the lines:

then another picture with dimensions of other features:

and then some very useful photo's on carrierbuilders.net, in the walk around section on Harry S. Truman:

http://www.carrierbuilders.net/articles/20060216_CVN-75_WA_Pt_2/120.jpg:

this should get you going!

[Dazzio]

hugogo,

Looking very good, there has certainly been a lot of hard work put into this. I can also see and agree with solowing666's sentiments (love the name, big fan of Pixy are you? Your English is good btw ), I would feel the same. However the plans would come in handy tho, excellent share there, thank you I think Brengun have just released some tie down handles in photo-etch as well.

Think I will have to go with shapeways for something I need for a build but can not find it at all.

Kind Regards,

Dazz

[lascar]

Incredible job you do with all the accesory ( figures,deck .......) !!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you think about selling that ?

[hugogo]

Incredible job you do with all the accesory ( figures,deck .......) !!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you think about selling that ?

Hi Iascar,

I have no ambition to spend time on producing these and commercializing them, it would only distract me from the model aircraft hobby itself. Making 3D designs is already doing this quite a lot!

However I have published my models on the shapeways site, where I also order my own 3D prints. This is where you can also order 3D prints for yourself that will be manufactured and sent to you by Shapeways. There is a small fee that I add on the fabrication cost to make up for my effort on the creation of the model but that is it. The carrier deck crew I even made from a licensed model so the cost there is purely production and postage.

you can find my models on:

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/klekotech

I am planning to make more designs: a tow bar, carrier fire truck, open access panels with electronics boxes for super hornet and prowler, bomb trolley, wing folds and many more deck crew are on my planning for this diorama and will become available in due time. Did I mention this was going to be a multi month project?

Hugo

Edited December 18, 2015 by hugogo

[Dazzio]

I am planning to make more designs: a tow bar, carrier fire truck, open access panels with electronics boxes for super hornet and prowler, bomb trolley, wing folds and many more deck crew are on my planning for this diorama and will become available in due time. Did I mention this was going to be a multi month project?

Hugo

You really have my interest now, Hugo. Don't you get any "commission" from shapeways??

Kind Regards,

Dazz

[hugogo]

hey Dazz,

yes my commission that is the small fee that I was talking about. But I guess depending on your goal you can choose to try to make maximum profit or simply share a hobby. I chose for the second.

[Dazzio]

hey Dazz,

yes my commission that is the small fee that I was talking about. But I guess depending on your goal you can choose to try to make maximum profit or simply share a hobby. I chose for the second.

Aahh got'cha... sorry, it's been a long day for me. Working with 2,300 kids all excited about Christmas... shoot me now! I tip my hat to you for that goal. That would be my goal as well, tbh if someone would want to buy something I made, I'd be really happy that someone deemed it worthy enough

Kind Regards,

Dazz

[solowing666]

hugogo,

Looking very good, there has certainly been a lot of hard work put into this. I can also see and agree with solowing666's sentiments (love the name, big fan of Pixy are you? Your English is good btw ), I would feel the same. However the plans would come in handy tho, excellent share there, thank you I think Brengun have just released some tie down handles in photo-etch as well.

Think I will have to go with shapeways for something I need for a build but can not find it at all.

Kind Regards,

Dazz

Yes, mr Dazzio, I played the 2, 3, 4, 5 and Zero. Excellent storyline and planes.

Speaking of my own project, I think I'm too far behind mr hugogo, I've only proceeded to this:

Even with that I'm still not sure if the drawing are exactly 1/72 (blue boxes are 500x500mm),

Previously I'm planning a section with 3rd and 4th arresting wire (the area with tie-down dots),

but after much rethinking, I rotated back the drawing to 5 degrees CCW (the pic above is 10 degs CCW), and switch to the section with 1st and 2nd wire.

I hope the 500mm width can accommodate the full length of the two wires.

Btw I'm sorry, I guess I'm crowding your thread with someone else's picture.

[hugogo]

hi solowing666,

that is no problem since there is not many locations where some in-depth aircraft carrier dimensions, useful for a good diorama, are discussed anyway.

In the last few days I have made some progress with actually building something again. I built in the 'man holes' where the deck hatches will be mounted on later:

Simply glued them in with cyano acrylate, filled the minor gap with putty and sanded smooth.

Then I did some pre shading, in order to give some variety to the grey on the deck. The paint is a mix of 80% dark grey and 20% brown, diluted with 50-50 ratio Revell color mix. Too bad the grey paint was a bit old and bit chunky, which caused me to not have a steady flow thus not such nice lines. But they will blend in in the end, no worries for me:

afterwards I masked off the JBD's and the catapult track and sprayed the first real coat on; used gunship grey and some white (50-50 thinner again) for the deck. I have built up thin layers in order to dose the right amount of grey to filter the dark pre-shading.

I am planning to lighten all colors of the deck and aircraft some 20% due to the small scale. The smaller surfaces tend to not reflect light so much, so that everything appears to be darker.

Next is the seams between the deck plates. These have a little bit different color appearance due to the different orientation of the anti slip coating. I have decided to make the thin lines over the seams a bit lighter than my starting color. To be continued!

Edited December 22, 2015 by hugogo

[perdu]

It's all looking very good hugogo and to be honest quite a lot above my head's ability to understand how you do it

I love the idea of printing your own 'bits' but the technical abilities and design skills beat me, I have to be fiddling with the plastic and tools to get what I need

But back on the deck here I do understand it and I like it very much

[hugogo]

All best wishes to model aircraft builders around!

Between the food and the family I actually got some work done last week.

Managed to mask and paint some textures in the carrier deck:

painted the features in lighter shade of grey than the base color (base color is gunship grey with 20% white , lines are gunship grey with 30% white).

Knowing that 1:144 stuff reflects a lot less light that the larger scales, I am aware to keep my colors light to keep a realistic and to-scale impression.

after painting and removing the tape, I continued to make random squiggles of lightened paint between the tie-donw points, in order to brake up the large surfaces a bit. What I did not take into account was that I pressed the tape to the deck quite firmly, damaging 12 tie down stars in the process. I will try to drill those out and replace them.

Next up is the painting of the JBD and the catapult.

Btw in the mean time I have also been working on the crew for the Hawk eye, this resulted in a few 3D print files of a crew that can also be used for Grumman Trackers and Lockheed Neptunes. Pictures will follow shortly!

[hugogo]

progress on tracker crew, here is one of the figures.

For the Hawkeye crew I will have him seated with a helmet on and with more gear around his vest.

[hugogo]

it has been almost a month since my last post, but quire a few things have happened in the meantime.

First, I completed the grumman tracker crew in 1:72:

Then I adapted these figures to act as 1:144 Grummen E-2C hawkeye crew for my diorama:

in between cam a friendly gentleman that asked if I could to the carrier deck crew in 1:350. And so this happened:

then I completed a set of wheel chocks and tow bars in 1:144 and 1:72. Here is the 1:144 set:

the towing eye is here protected by resin ring that can be snapped off.

The order of these parts is at Shapeways now. More news in 2 weeks!

[phildagreek]

Good grief! Ultimate model making!

[Ian Shumsky]

Looking forward to seeing how these turn out

[James G]

I'm not exaggerating when I say that this is pioneering work!

[Vaison]

Great Job !!

Very nice and sharp details;

Rom.

[hugogo]

last week I put some paint on my figures! Working with Revell aqua for the first time I must say that they don't dissappoint, as long as you add a bit of their thinner to the paint. Giving no smell made me able to sit on the living room table and being excused for spending more time on the hobby

next step is to put some varnish on and add high-and lowlights.

these are the figures in 1:144

and in 1:72

and 1:48

and 1:32

[hugogo]

yippee, yesterday I got a delivery from Shapeways! All the prints turned out quite good. Having the pilots for my Hawkeye now, I can progress with the cockpit and further.

not bad for figures only 12 mm tall!

this is the result of the Grumman Tracker crew that I made in 1:72 for a colleague model builder:

and after clean up with IPA:

then there is the carrier deck crew in 1:350:

and last but not least, the tow bars and wheel chocks in 1:72

and in 1:144

So now it is finally time again for some serious painting!

[Housesparrow]

Woow.

How do you clean up the figures? I got the impression from some other website that one can dip them in some kind of goo to clean them up.

[hugogo]

hi housesparrow,

the cleanup is described on various sites, but in this case there is a bit of wax residu left on the resin figures. The printing process happens in this case by a multi-nozzle printer that sprays hot wax and hot resin vapour. The wax is the support material and comes off after the printing process has finished. After that the print goes into a bath of warm oil to dissolve the wax. This is not enough though to completely get rid of all of it.

That is why you want to clean the print by yourself in warm water with soap, or dip and stir it in some IPA. Very light sanding of the surface takes care of most graininess and you are ready to paint.

I think especially the fact that there is no assembly necessary anymore (tow bars in this scale have multi parts of photo etch) saves a lot of fuss.

Hope that helps!

[xffw45343tg]

Whilst we're asking questions(!), please may I ask what characteristics the 3D model must have to make it suited to this process? I'm used to making up 3D objects out of multiple primitive shapes (in AutoCAD) but it seems to me that these could be difficult or impossible to print - there being voids, convoluted pipes and the like. It seems to me that the printed part needs to be a single 3D block. Do you just combine everything and let the 3d "print driver" sort it all out?

Cheers,

Kirk

[hugogo]

Hi Kirk,

the file must be sent to the printer in .STL (stereo lithography) format. If your CAD program can export it this way, then you can upload this file to Shapeways or any other printing service on the net.

What you need to keep an eye on, is that you do not make cavities in your model, where the resin cannot go out of anymore after printing. The model can be multiple primitives, as long as they touch or slightly overlap. I had a model once where 2 primitives were 5 mu away from each other (my mistake) and the 3D printer printed them separated. Each loose part that you want must be a minimal dimension tall (I think it is a cube of 3mm). There is also a rule of thumb for minimum wall thickness, rod thickness etc, see the Shapeways website for guidance. Of course, connecting them via some material also prevents parts from ending up missing.

Finally, if you upload your model, the model is calculated via FEM to check for printability. This gives you quickly an indication if you need to improve your model or not.

I hope this helps!

[xffw45343tg]

Greatly. Thanks for the info.