USS Enterprise CV-6 1/700 Meng

[ESzczesniak]

I present Meng’s 1/700 USS Enterprise, CV-6.  This kit is a “snap kit”, molded in colors and requiring little glue.  I built it as a pallet cleanser.  Ignoring the air wing, the model was done in 11 days.  With the air wing, it was 13 days.  I painted the kit and filled the handful of seams necessary.  Still, it’s a simple build and I have to say, despite it’s simple origins, it can be built in to a nice ship.

 

There are some shortcomings.  All markings are stickers.  I painted the flight deck markings.  It’s been a little while, but to my recollection I found the Big-E did not sport the “6” during the Ms. 21 paint scheme.  All of the kit’s markings are stickers, so what markings there are on the ship are painted on. 

 

The aircraft insignia use the stickers in puddles of future to blend them.  I elected to call the F4F’s earlier models without folding wings.  I folded the wings on the TBD’s, and the SBD’s did not have the folding wings.

 

The kit painting diagram shows a 20B flight deck with 5-H hull.  I am not a ship expert, but I do not believe the Enterprise was ever painted this way.  My reading was that this kit depicted a late war CV-6, so I painted her in Ms. 21.  Tamiya paint was used, leveraging heavily with different mixes of XF-50 and XF-2 for the 20B, 5-N and deck blue stain.  Weathering was almost entirely with oils in various techniques (filter, faded, wash, etc).

 

Here's the end result:

 

 

 

 

 

I appreciate any feedback and/or criticism.  Thank you for looking!

 

Eric

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Eric, I think that's a very good model, particularly the aircraft at such a small size. Very well done. Regards, Jeff.

[PF Naughton]

Hi,

That looks really nice.

Pat

[Bertie McBoatface]

I can't see anything to criticise in this one. She looks fine to me. In fact I'm having to remind myself how tiny 1/700 really is.

[ErikT]

I love the challenges associated with taking a "lame duck" kit and turning it into something to be proud of.  And many of those snap together kits are just that.  I have to applaud your skills on this one.  If you hadn't mentioned its humble origins, I would never have known that this wasn't a high-end kit.  Very nicely done!