Finished Model

Unrep hose and finnishing details

 After viewing many photos of the Yorktown, I notice that the hoses for unreping are usually visible. I attempted to model this by using some plumbers solder which is soft and easily shaped. painted it black and testors steel.
I finally started working on the aircraft. As with the rest of the kit, there is a lot of flash to cleanup. The kit decals look good and applied easily. PE from GMM includes the boom and rigging for the tilly crane along with an assortment of crew figures which add a certain amount of realism to the flight deck.

Radars and other Antennas

 The radars supplied with the PE are very good and pretty comprehensive with one exception, the SPS-30 radar which is installed on the platform on the port side of the island. This is important for any 60's Essex class. Fortunately, it's not too hard to make from plastic sheet. I intended to make the dish from sheet brass cut from the PE fret but when I punched it out it was pretty ragged. So I used some .010" styrene sheet and it worked out ok. Lots of photos online to use for reference, just punch in SPS30 into the search engine. The rest of the whip antennas are from stretched spru, super glued in place. The model is starting to get close to finished now. The next big challenge will be the airplanes and helicopters. And of course, there always seems to be one more detail to finish.

SPS-30 scratch built.

Mast

 The mast supplied with the kit only has one part that can be used and that is the very top. I started out by drilling a hole in the top of the island and inserting a brass rod to anchor the new mast. 3/32styrene tube was used for the new mast. Platforms were cut from .010 sheet styrene and discs were punched from .010 " with a a hole punch. It all glued together nicely with testors liquid cement. The yardarm supplied with the pe looks too short so I cut a length of styrene rod and attached the pe yardarm to it. I used photos and drawings to complete the rest of the mast and added the radars. The whole thing was painted testors flat black. The drawing I used is from a warships data book on the Yorktown. The drawing is in 1/720 scale (1"=60'). So I had to change all my measurements to 1/530 scale. The photo shows some of the notes and figures I scribbled on the drawing.

The Island

 The island really needs a lot of modification. I started by cutting the funnel opening out so I can use a pe grill. Since the inside of the island will be visible through the opening the inside of the island was painted flat black. Molded detail on the fwd side of the island were also cut off. I removed the splinter shields from the walkways since they looked like railings and some detail was just wrong for the period the ship will be modeled in. The bridge and flag bridge were particularly wrong. After cementing the walkways on I cut .005" sheet styrene into strips for the new splinter shields. Antenna mounts were made from sheet styrene and styrene rod. Sections of 1/350 scale pe ladders work well for bridge windows and windows on the pri-fly.The safety nets around the SPS30 antenna platform came from a 1/720 scale pe fret. The stanchion for the lights was made from sheet styrene and rod. The lights themselves are from the 1/540 pe sheet. A bomb nose from a 1/48 scale airplane kit was commandeered for use as a radar dome on the rear of the island. It still looks a little too pointy to me though.The number decal came from a GMM decal sheet. 5 minute epoxy was used to attach the island to the flight deck. I've had islands come un-stuck before and this attachment does not look strong, so epoxy it is.

Painting the Hull and Flight Deck

 After looking over some drawings and photos I discovered that I had omitted the 5" gun mount on the aft starboard side. This is also omitted in the kit. So I used some more styrene sheet and angle to make the gun tub and mount for the gun director. Glad this happened before the paint was on! For paint I used Tamya Dark Ghost Gray from a spray can. Model Master Dark Ghost Gray is a pretty good match of Haze Gray. Not so with Tamya. It dried to a very pretty light blue color. Not acceptable. So I repainted the hull and flight deck MM Light Sea Gray (spray can). On CVS carriers the flight deck appears to be the same color as the hull except for the angle deck. I've looked at photos of CVA carriers and they show a more uniform dark gray color over the entire flight deck. I don't know the reason for this difference. After the paint dried I masked off the angle deck landing area with Tamya tape and painted it MM Euro 1 Gray. Which is a nice dark gray that will also take weathering well. Also brushed on the same dark gray on the cat walks. Masked off the waterline and painted the boot topping Testors Flat Black.

The stripes for the angled section of the flight deck are incorrect for the period I'm modeling so I opted not to use them. Also I prefer to paint long straight lines when I can since decals are really difficult to keep straight. Using the drawing I have I measured the angled deck off and masked the striping with tamya masking tape and painted the lines with MM Light Gray. I use this rather then white because white looks too bright in scale. Painted the catapults the same way with MM Euro 1Gray.  After the paint dried weathering was applied using pastels, mostly black. A little brown was added in some places. The elevators get dirtier then the rest of the deck so I weathered them heavier. Decals were applied after a coat of clear gloss was sprayed on. I had to use numbers from my spares box and a few other non-kit decals. Sprayed the whole thing with clear flat.                                

Elevators and Catwalks

 Instead of removing all the girders and netting from the deck edge elevators I just made 2 from .020 styrene sheet, tracing the kit elevators to get the size correct. The No.2 elevator is not accurate anyway since the rounded leading edge is missing on the kit part. I made one from a piece of 3/32 styrene tube and a piece of .100" styrene angle. Glued them in place along with No.1 elevator and filled and sanded the seams. Cemented the flight deck onto the hull assembly using super glue, lots of super glue! Without the bottom on the hull the hull is really flimsy and unstable. Used the superglue on one section at a time starting from the bow. Catwalks were made from .100" styrene angle from Evergreen. Made the antenna mounts from .060" styrene C channel and the shelves for the life rafts from .020" styrene sheet, all Evergreen. The fuel lines on the hull exterior are .020 styrene rod. I used a lot of photos available online as a guide. Testors Liquid cement was used for all this. It works really good with sheet styrene. I used the GMM photo etched set for the elevator girders and structure on the 2 and 3 elevators. The PE safety nets for the elevators proved a little more problematic. Since I modified the leading edge of No.2 elevator, the nets will not fit correctly as they are on the fret. Using photos of the ship, the nets were cut and attached the best way I could. I cemented a small strip of styrene to the bottom of the elevator leaving a small ledge extending. This provided a place to attach the nets. The nets for No3 elevator were slightly too small so I cemented them with one side slightly higher. There was also a gap between the inboard end of the nets and the flight deck. I cut a couple of pieces from an unused net to fill the gap. I think if the elevator is in the lowered position the gap would not be apparent. The PE railings were attached using white glue. I use this a lot instead of super glue because it allows me to position the railings easily and if they get gluey, water cleans them off. Super glue is very unforgiving. I replaced the molded gun tub sides with .005" styrene cut into strips. Once cut it bends pretty easy like PE. Liquid cement makes a clean joint. After the railings were on the crane was folded and installed. Using the PE instructions, the kit post was cleaned up and used with the crane. The model was now mounted onto the base which looks like water. A detail I want to include is the life rafts on the catwalks. On the ship, these were loosely installed into floater baskets outside of the railings on the catwalks. The rafts themselves resembled a large box wrapped in a black tarp. I cut .080x.080 styrene square stock into sections(eyeball measure), painted them black and superglued them to the shelves glued to the catwalks. I used 1/720 scale railings to simulate the floater baskets. The 5" guns are pretty inaccurate. The barrels were replaced with some styrene rod to look a little more correct. 1/700 scale flight deck nets were also added to the bow and stern. this scale looks more correct then the 1/540 nets on the fret from GMM.