Island and 5in Guns

The island is pretty much a WW2 configuration with a few upgrades. Since I'm building the 1953 configuration the only difference is the upgraded bridge. This didn't fit very well and even after removing material from the bottom of G1, the fit was still not quite right. The extra length of the bridge interferes with the gun director between the 5in gun and the bridge. The PE radar, part # MB1 is great and goes on good with superglue. Same for MB2 but MB3 is not clear at all on the instruction sheet, had to guess at that one. Photos of the Antietam from this period show a yardarm on the tripod mast, but none is included in the kit. I used one from a GMM 1/700 PE fret. I assembled the whole thing on a holder as a sub assembly. The holder makes it easy to position the island at different angles for easier PE attachment. Assembled the 5in. guns and other flight deck items and glued them down with liquid cement. The raised place for the island to glue onto looked pretty shallow and I was concerned the island could get knocked off easily (this has happened on other models). So I cemented a .080x.080 piece of styrene onto it for reinforcement. After cementing the island structure onto the flight deck, I mounted the model onto its faux ocean stand. There is a section under Modeling Tips on how to build a fake ocean.

Deck Edge Elevator

The deck edge elevator is a clear part in this kit. I made the mistake of installing what looked like the correct part but it was too small. Pays to read the instructions sometimes. I painted the top surface of the clear elevator dark grey to match the flight deck. This also makes it easier to work with the photo etched parts on the underside. In order to get the support struts in the right place, I used the large PE part as a guide and marked the underside with a pencil. I use a piece of glass as a cutting board and a no.11 exacto blade to remove the PE parts from the fret. Once freed from the fret, a wad of modeling clay is the best thing I've found for picking them up. Zip Kicker ACC accelerator was brushed onto the elevator bottom then each support was lightly dragged through a drop of thick super glue and set in place with tweezers. After all the stuff dried the supports and elevator bottom were painted. The large support was too big ,even after

folding to shape. So I trimmed off the excess and super glued it in place. The deck edge netting PE did not look right or good, so I used GMM deck edge netting from their 1/700 WW2 carrier fret. I've never had good luck with this particular elevator and this model is no exception. White glue and paint were used to help cover up the sloppy job I made of it.

Flight Deck

The flight deck fits pretty good and I didn't need to do much to get a good clean joint between the bulkheads and the bottom of the deck. I piled up some relatively heavy items onto the hull to make the joint tight. Applied liquid cement and let set overnight. For the angle deck support struts, I numbered each on the deck bottom with pencil since the instruction sheet can be a little confusing. Again, liquid cement was used to attach the struts. After all the cement dried I painted the underside of the flight deck Model Master Dark Ghost Grey to match the rest of the hull.

I painted the flight deck with Tamya Haze Grey Spray. This is a shade or two darker than the hull and closer to the way the ship looks in photos. The angled deck was masked off and sprayed with Tamya IJN Grey. This is slightly darker than the rest of the flight deck but will give me a straight line for decal application. To give the fight deck a used look pastels were rubbed onto the areas with the most heavy usage. The landing area and the elevators were rubbed with black pastel and the area next to the island structure was rubbed with brown pastel with a little black for darkening. After this Testors Glosscoat was sprayed on in preparation for decaling and to seal the pastel. If the pastel isn't sealed it gets on my fingers and subsequently, everywhere! It's important to get the stripes on the angled deck straight. If not this spoils the look of the model. For this reason I decided to forgo the decal stripe down the center of the angled deck and paint it instead. Long solid decals are almost impossible to get straight and keep straight after applying decal set. I lightly drew a straight line down the center and masked it off with Tamya masking tape. Model Master Camouflage Grey was painted on instead of white. White is too bright in these scales to look realistic. Again a little black pastel was rubbed on for that used look. The rest of the decals went on ok and Testors Dullcoat was sprayed on after overnight drying.

More Hull

Model Master Dark Ghost Grey was painted on the hull, this is very close to haze grey. The darkening around raised relief did not work out as nice as I had hoped but looks OK. I dry brushed some Model Master Light Grey to highlight raised areas. Masked off the boot topping with Tamya masking tape and painted Testors Flat Black. I decided to finish all of the hull assembly at this time and install the photo etched railings. It is easier to do this now, before the flight deck is installed, but there is more risk of knocking them off during later stages of assembly. I think it's worth the risk though.