1:48 Nimitz Deck Section

[Darius at Home]

I'm in the process of building the Skunk Models Workshop 1:48 Nimitz Deck section at the moment. The deck parts fit together reasonably well but to prevent large gaps you would need to "contain" them within a perimeter "frame" if not gluing the parts together. I cemented mine to a piece of hardboard cut to shape and then filled and rough sanded the more obvious joints. I was not aware of the availability of PE tie downs shown in Mike's review and have been individually "painting" the moulded on ones with a cocktail stick - oh well, I've started so I will finish!!!

Slight diversion now in that I am carving up an old built Fujimi 1:48 F-14A to drop the wing flaps and slats. I have also lowered the nosegear and dropped the tiebar that attached to the catapult shuttle. A dig around the spares box found some suitable occupants for the cockpit and the front seat occupant is now modified so as to be giving the salute to the catapult guy - I am sure that someone on BM will remind me of his proper job title .

I have assembled and pre-painted the deflector but it is not yet permanently attached.

A word of warning, however. The box/wells for the actuating gear for the JBD are deeper than the deck section they fit to and need to be sanded down at the top by about 1mm to ensure that when fitted the JBD deck section sits flush with its neighbours. I did not find this out until the glue had set and so had to grind and sand down the bases of these box/wells, which almost removed them entirely. Just about got away with it.

The kit decals fit nicely but none are provided for the yellow lines around the JBD well. The kit instructions tell you these should be painted on, however, I used yellow decal strip having first sprayed and masked the area white - the yellow shows up better on a white background than a black one.

The deck will need to be weathered to bring out the tie downs and tone down the solid black colour. The JBD surface really needs some weathering to simulate the blasting and trafficking that it gets. Fortunately there are plenty of images on the web for this.

More later.

Darius

Edited October 19, 2011 by Darius at Home

[coneheadff]

Glad somebody tackled the set before I bought one

Looking good

[jimbuna]

First time I've come across this...watching with interest.

[Moofles]

That looks really good, will be ace when the model is on it.

[KingCobra]

Is it possible that this kit is a reboxing as I have a carrier deck from ammo by mig looking almost identical? Anyway. I used Vallejo Environment 73.821 rust texture to recreate the texture of the deck. Just don't forget to mask the tie-downs.