Trumpeter 1:350 USS Essex Late WW2 Trim

[Builder 2010]

Essex: Side Catwalk and more

The ship paint is Life Color. Other paints are generally Tamiya with the Sea Blue being Vallejo. Tamiya is the best! The others do clog, especially if you thin with Isopropyl Alcohol (I must be German…capitalizing nouns…). As to air pressure… I wish I could adjust it. I have a 37 year-old Badger diaphragm compressor with no regulation.

I am on deck to replace it with one of those Chinese twin piston units with reservoir and then I'll have both pressure regulation and no pulsation. I also got a tacit go-ahead from the CiC that I could get a spray booth as long as I can vent it out the cellar window… no holes in the walls. We had our land line shut off and put our security system on Cell by ADT. They also gave us a new box and control pad, and reduced out monthly rate by 50%. It was a really good deal! We discussed moving the security bars on the cellar windows lower and outward so the window could be opened further without tripping the alarm to provide more space for the booth vent hose. When I explained this to the Commander, she was no longer negative to the idea. Those are really the only two ship things on my wish list… new compressor and spray booth. With the spray booth I'll be freed up to spray solvent-based paints and Tamiya rattle can paints indoors. That would be a big improvement.

I have some Tom's frets where the etching was so overdone that some of the part is dissolved away and therefore completely unusable. I'm not too happy with Alliance either. They all have their drawbacks, but so far, both Eduard and GMM have sent me replacement parts when I needed them. It seems that all their sets should simply have doubles of everything since one set (at least to me) never does the job. One set is for dress rehearsal and the other for the big show.

The source about the catapult said the slot was there, but the mechanism to operate it was not.

I found the picture to which you referred. Sure shows that catwalk…



And now…looking at that picture, I see that the companion ladder is stowed lying flat against the hull. So now I spent time wrecking the ship yesterday to pop it off and reset it in a ladder position only to find that it's stowed flat. Now I have to rig it with some tackle to support it in the ladder position. I just happen to find this image too late.

[Builder 2010]

Essex: Side Catwalk Installed and more...

I finished adding the front railing around the foreward gun mounts. I then soldered (using TIX lo-temp solder) some Phosphor-bronze 0.020" wire pins to secure the fabricated catwalk to securely to the hull. I used the resistance soldering tweezers to solder the pins so they would be held in place while the solder cooled. The lo-temp solder melts before the normal solder holding the railing would so everything was in control. Before putting it on the ship, I painted it with a coat of Tamiya gray primer. I located the three mounting pins on the side of the flight deck edge very close to the top so the mounted catwalk would be level with the flight deck and drilled the three holes with an 0.021" carbide mini-drill. I added thin CA AFTER putting the catwalk in place to make it permanent.

I hand painted all the newly added railings and gun director tower since I didn't want to have to mask the whole flight deck area. I also touched up the marred area on the hull from the ladder removal.



It was time to put the props on...



Hard to tell they're not really brass...

I started adding all the remaining guns and whatever directors were still needed to be added. Two more Twin 40s, and the four single 5" mounts go onto the port side. I had thought that Trumpeter had made a molding mistake in having the loading slides on the 5" guns on the wrong side since every picture I'd seen had them on the other side AND the guns in my grandson's Hornet were on the other side too. But then I found a diagram of the 5s in a twin turret and guess what… they're left and right-handed versions and the loaders face the center of the gun house. So having the loading facing out of the right side of the gun barrel is not technically wrong.



Lastly, I started adding the remaining 40, 20mm gun mounts. I don't have enough of these (DOH!) and ordered one more set of 24 from Freetime Hobbies. These Blue Ridge 3D produced tiny models are exceptionally fine and look very, very good. Plus you don't have glue microscopic PE shields, shoulder supports or handwheels onto very small plastic things.

Before gluing them in place I needed to paint them. On the island I painted everything with an air brush, but now all the gun tubs are already painted. So I air brushed the entire rack of guns before removing them from their mounting block. This included picking out the barrels with Tamiya gunmental.



I got five guns in place before quitting for the day. They look really spiffy! (IMHO). I'm learning how to cut these guns off their blocks without breaking anything. I'm using my fine-pointed Xuron PE trimming scissors.



Tomorrow, I add as many guns as I have and then start working on island rigging. Getting close folks. I'm expecting the plexiglass to be ready any day now and I have to put that together. I also need to have a brass plaque engraved (like I did for the Missouri) to tell something about the model with as much of a quality look as the base, case and model demand.

[Builder 2010]

Essex: Island Rigging Begins

I put the remaining 20mms that I had in their various tubs and need 16 more which have been ordered from Free-Time Hobbies. I then finally bit the bullet and started rigging the island. When I did the island mods, the inner width got a bit narrower and was not slipping over the boss on the flight deck. I really couldn't force it for obvious easons, so I carefully scraped a chamfer on the inner edge to make it a bit wider and able to fit better when it will be glued. That will happen after rigging.
I cleared the workbench for action and held the island in a hemostat which in turn is held in a drill press vise. I started on the port side for no reason other than it was the one that was facing me. The first lines (E-Z Line fine-gauge black) are three radio antennas that belay onto the side of the fore island. I did the same thing here as in the Missouri; inserting some piano wire pins into drilled holes to wrap the E-Z Line around. When I say pins I mean pieces of high-E guitar string which is 0.010" in diameter. The drill is ridiculously small and fragile. I constantly break them just by laying down on the workbench improperly. This image is hugely enlarged since those pins look like big steel rods. Actually the pieces are so small that they almost invisible on the workbench. BTW: Don't cut this stuff with normal Xuron cutters. What you end up with is a half-moon shaped groove on the cutting edge and the pliers are effectively ruined. The piano wire is harder than the cutter's steel. You need to buy Xuron hard-wire cutters or use a nice pair of ChannelLock cutters which seem a harder cutting edges.



I don't think I'm belaying these lines correctly, but I'm not going to fret it. Because of the dark paint, you can barely make them out let alone determine if they're correctly located.



Then it was time to rig the signal halyards. Unlike the Missouri which had many long-range radio antennas strung between the fore mast and main mast and then belayed to a series of tall, insulated standoffs in the bowels of the mid-ships space, the Essex has most of the main radio antennas strung between the five lattice towers that aren't yet installed and are being remade with the new GMM parts. (phew! That was a long sentence). So there's not as much actual rigging needed on the island.

GMM is nice enough to etch some very, very small simulated pulleys on the PE yardarm lamination. I soldered this piece to the scratch-built solid brass replacement. The holes are just fractionally larger than the E-Z Line, and when conceptualizing this build I really wasn't planning on attempting to use them. But today, I thought about at least trying. It was where my "persistence" really came to fore. E-Z Line is wonderful for this use, but it is very floppy, having almost no innate stiffness and this made threading the free end through this tiny eye very challenging. Add to that my innate shaky hands AND not being able to really rest my hands on the island or I'd break something else. So I braced my tweezers hand with the other hand that was supported by the vise under the island.

To help me focus on these little details, I put a large sheet of white paper behind the model so I had a clear vision field behind that didn't clutter my vision. This enabled me to just focus on that tiny hole. It was still trying… but hey… it's my hobby.

What kept happening is the weight of the string would pull the line out of the eye as soon as I released the tweezers to reach around the other side to pull it through. After about 10 tries I got the first line through. After that, I started controlling the back end of the line better so it's weight wouldn't be a factor, and I got better at letting go of the line without bumping anything since that little vibration was also causing the line to fall back out of the eye. Eventually, I got all the lines done on the Port side. Tomorrow I'll do the starboard side.



This view really shows just how small those eyes are. I could have just wrapped the line around the eye, but I'm glad I tried the hard way.



I finished up this side, by adding a blob of Bondic adhesive to the tops of the antenna wires to simulate insulators, and painted the pulleys white and the manrope hanging below the yard some Tamiya deck tan. Pardon the poor focus on this one.



When the starboard side is done, the island's going onto the ship. So what's left... 16-20mm guns, and a whole passel of floater baskets. I need to get a brass plaque made with some ship particulars and credits, and then build the case. Oh... and I almost forgot. I do have to rebuild the external elevator and build and rig the radio towers. This time will be successful.

[Albany Rifles]

Gunny,

A couple of thoughts from watching those videos

1. I'd forgotten how sharp an angle the WW 2 aircraft took to land. Having grown used to the long glide paths of today's jets it was almost alarming.

b. The Pacific could get damn cold! Once the Fleet started fighting off Iwo, Oki & Japan it was nasty weather at times.

III. The snatch block and line was very interesting. At first I was wondering why not use the deck crane then realized they needed to clear the deck quickly because other aircraft were waiting to land.


Great videos.

And Builder I echo the Gunny's comments as well.

[Builder 2010]

Essex: Island Installed! (Part A)

Thanks! I also found it interesting of the sharp left turn they make just before the approach. It seems that they're barely out of the turn's bank and they're attempting to level out and land. They really do a controlled crash and Grumman made strong airplanes. It was also why it's so silly to attempt to make a plane that works for all three branches. They did it with Phantom, tried with the F-111, and now are doing it with the F-35. When you look at those skinny landing gear on the Air Force planes and the tree trunks that you need for a Navy Jet and then you contemplate how the air frame itself needs to be beefed up to handle said landing gear and what you're getting is almost a different airplane. It's why the Navy version still isn't available for the fleet.

Today was a milestone day, and like building a real aircraft carrier, the island is the last chunk to be installed. Today was that day, and there's 10 pics so it's a two-parter.

Today was one of those milestone days... the island is now part of the ship and it really looks like an American aircraft carrier. Before placing it I finished the starboard side rigging and as predicted, it took 1/2 the time that the first side took and came out better. Wish I had another side to do. Unfortunately, I can't redo the port side because I CA'd the pulleys and would destroy that delicate yardarm if I tried to remove it. Again, only I know the difference. To the uninitiated, they won't see anything but lots of complexity.

To make a more secure surface to adhere the signal halyards I CA'd a couple of pieces of thin PE brass to the backs of the flag bags. This gave me a vertical (non-prototypical) surface to adhere the E-Z Line. If I was a better planner, I would have prepared those flag bags for receiving the halyards BEFORE that part was glued to the island. So if I ever build this again...



On the Missouri, the flag bags were arranged athwartships so it was easier to drill some holes to insert the halyards and give them a better finished look.

There are two missing 20s on the island. They had broken barrels and with the new shipment coming, I'm going to replace them with good ones.

I further prepared the inside chamfer to ensure that the island would indeed attach properly to flight deck. It did, so it was time to glue it down. I used tube cement to give some more working time while I applied the glue on the insides of the island's lower lip and the placed it down and worked it so it was flush, all the while making sure that I was not applying undo pressure OR pressing on anything that will get destroyed in the process. The results were, needless to say, very gratifying.





I needed to build and apply the LSO's platform that sits at the port aft of the flight deck. I had some parts from the last replacement set that GMM sent me and used those. It's made up of four parts and went together very well.



It still needs paint...

Just about this time, the mail came and GMM's replacement fret was waiting for me. Oh joy, oh rapture! to quote the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. Here's what arrived.



As you can see it's almost a complete fret minus that part that's cut out. It's terrific. It has more ladders, more flight deck ladders (and I need those since a couple have come off), all the radar suite and, of course, the elevator framing and the radio towers.

[Builder 2010]

Essex: Island Installed! (Part B)

So I immediately set about building the new elevator. What destroyed the last one was when I attempted to fit the elevator into a space that was marginally smaller than the elevator (with its attached brass) and the side pressure deformed all of the brass, popped CA joints and broke some solder joints. The more I tried to straighten it, the worse it got.

This time I pre-fit the elevator without brass to the narrower elevator guide frame. Most likely when I glued on the frame I moved towards each other a bit more than I should have, not knowing what the absolute spacing was. With the elevator relieved to make it a slip fit, I soldered the frame together and gave the same relief on the inside corners, so the frame wouldn't be stressed when assembled.

As I did before (only even better), I pre-tinned all the mating points of the bottom frame and the trusses using the Weller iron. I then used the RSU to heat and attach individual points on the frames starting in the middle and working outwards. Even with utmost care it was still touch and go. This is caused by the RSU heating the brass so fast that it takes it above annealing temperature and the brass becomes really soft and gets out of shape even easier.



You can use CA all you want, but on assemblies like this solder is so much stronger. To attach the frame to the plastic elevator I used CA. I primed the assembly with Tamiya primer, and it was ready to trial fit again.



And it fit very nicely without deforming anything. It's really a benefit to have a second shot at this. Every set of PE should include doubles of everything. I'd pay a few $$$ more if they would standardize on that. Unless you're really good, you're gonna screw up some PE, especially on a job as complex as this one. It still has to be airbrushed Navy Blue before I glue it in place permanently.



The last thing I did today was place two tiny TBS antennas onto tiny stalks on the yardarm. These pieces had fallen off the original fret, but there was a set on the first set of replacements. I wasn't going to put them on because they had a tiny hole that fit over a tiny pin and I didn't want the aggravation. I also was convinced that due to their frail nature, they would surely be wrecked in handling the island. But with the confidence boost from threading all those tiny eyes with the flag halyards, and with the island being now part of the ship and no longer being handled, I decided to give it a go.

The first one went on very easily so I thought it was a piece of cake. But of course, the second didn't go on and the CA dried making the pin too fat to get into the hole. So I had to carefully pop the cured CA off the pin by using a tweezer and pulling straight up and it came off without deforming the pin. I was then able to get the antenna onto the pin and they were both done. The arrows point out these antennas.



These two also need some paint. Would anyone miss them if they weren't there. Nope! Do they add to the already wonderfully complex appearance of a WW2 capital ship. Definitely yes! There's actually two more antenna that go onto the yardarm which look like little steering wheels. I may or may not put them on. They're really small.

Here's an overhead shot showing the ship with the island in place. Look'n like an aircraft carrier. Next work day... paint and install elevator, build the new radio towers, install the remaining 20s when they come from Free-Time Hobbies, and add a zillion floater net baskets which I even have more of with this nice shipment from GMM.



I still haven't decided how I'm going to fasten the air wing to the flight deck so they won't come loose when they're not supposed to. If I really wanted to be goofy, I could use E-Z Line and actually tie them down to the deck. It would look great and drive me to an institution in the process. I could use some ideas from the gang on this.

[Builder 2010]

Essex: Elevator Installed and Radio Towers 2.0 being finished.

Happy Monday! Unlike most mortals, I like Mondays since it when I can get back in the shpp and build models. As a retiree, I made a deal with my wife that I would not work on models during the weekend, and I keep my deals. So... my fun begins on the weekdays. When working, of course, it was just the opposite.

I added to the newly re-built elevator the safety screens AND the ridiculously finicky horizontal braces. There are miniscule PE pieces that get glued between the upper edge of the elevator to the leading edge of the canted screens. I used Bondic for this since it sets solid in a couple of seconds by UV light and not CA accelerator, meaning... once you have it positioned you don't have to physically get near it to set the cement. It worked pretty well.



It looks pretty ragged in this ultra closeup, but it views better from normal distances. I stuck the upper side to some masking tape and primered and then airbrushed it navy blue. Then I dropped it on the concrete when separating it from the masking. The drop didn't do terminal damage, but it did disturb some of the lattice work and broke loose some of these finicky cross braces. I got it back in shape (mostly) and sprayed the upper side with flight deck blue and weathered it lightly with Vallejo dark gray wash. I put it on the hull with gel CA.





With the elevator finally on the ship, I did some other stuff. I got the anchors mounted. I drilled the hawse holes first so the anchor's shank would nest up inside. The way the anchor glued on without drilling really wouldn't have worked. I will paint and weather (rust) soon.



Finally, I built all five long-range radio towers. This time, I pre-tinned the mating edges to facilitate soldering them together and then also soldered the vertical ladder to the tower. I did not, however, solder the tiny antenna spreaders. In this case I used a combination of gel CA and Bondic UV. I wish I could solder them, but they're just a little to small and difficult to contain to make soldering a useful approach. I don't trust the glue since E-Z Line does exert some tension which could break them loose.

The last thing I did, which I learned in the first, aborted set, was to fill the bottom with Bondic (not epoxy putty) to prepare for the drilling and subsequent mounting on the ship. I just filled the bottom with the Bondic and shot it with the UV light and Poof!, solid plastic bottom. You can barely see it in the pic since it's very transparent. I also folded the protective screens that surround the towers with the radio leads heading downward. These parts were wrecked on the first sprue because they had disconnected before I was ready to use them.

The Bondic is terrific stuff and I'm glad I finally discovered it.



Next session: These antenna towers will get painted and installed and then I'll be ready to rig them. Although there are tiny eyes in the spreader bars, I'm not going to attempt to thread them, but will attach the E-Z Line around them. I think I got glue in some of the and it would be very hard to successfully remove. The extra 20mm guns arrived today so they'll also be installed. That leaves floater net baskets and some minor weathering, and the ship will be done. In this new set of PE from GMM I have another full load of floater net baskets so I'll be able to do the whole enchilada.

[Gun Grape]

Since you are mounting the side elevator down, will you add the safety railing on the flight deck? You can see it in the videos. Whenever the elevator goes down the railing goes up to keep people from stepping into the void. Its an automatic thing and I believe (without looking) that it is only a top rail.

For sticking your planes on deck. How does that Bondic work on painted surfaces?

[Builder 2010]

Essex: Long-Range Radio Towers Installed

Not yet, but getting close…

Got the Radio Towers installed today without mishap. Sometimes it's really good to get a do-over. This was one of those instances. The previous PE got so screwed up that it reached the point that none coulld be effectively used. One got totally lost, 3 were distorted and the Farraday Cages (I think that's what they are) screens were ragged or completely destroyed. This time, I was able to carefully build them, keep the fret from getting damaged, paint and install them so nothing got damaged.

I drilled the hardened Bondic plug with the carbide 0.032" bit, but realized that the 0.032" brass rod that was already glued into the catwalk was not a slip fit. It was pushing the last batch over that pin...forcing I should say... that caused all the distortion. So I went back and re-drilled with a bit that was a few thousandths oversize. I used gel CA which filled the space and gave full support. I pocked some round toothpicks into the holes and painted all these parts, first with primer and then a couple coats of force-dried navy blue.



I was concerned about slipping the Farraday Cages over the towers since they could damage those delicate antenna spreaders, but there was sufficient clearance to carefully maneuver the cage around the installed tower and glue it down. I thought about putting the cages down first, but was concerned about getting the glue onto the pin or damaging the cage.





Here's the front view showing an array of towers. The ship's too long to get full views without losing a lot of detail.



Although many of the Essex Class lost some or most of those towers, the Essex kept all five throughout the War. I thought that I could get away with less since I had lost/ruined so many, but alas, the ship didn't cooperate. With the new supply, I was able to complete it as she should be.

You'll notice in the above pics that all the slots are filled with 20mm guns. I also primed and painted them today and installed all the rest. The ship now has it's full compliment of armament. I painted the anchors and will do some minor weathering tomorrow. I got all the frets of floater net baskets (from now on FSB) painted and will be ready to fold and install them next time also. I have to put small end railings at the ends of all the open catwlaks and I keep forgetting to add a tiny railing leading to the boat deck on the port side.

Then I'll rig the long-range radio antennas and putting on the air wing. Saving that for last because it will be in the way and surely get whacked. And she's done.

[Builder 2010]

Oh… the answer to your question… I am going to try Bondic. I seem to be finding more uses for it every day. It worked great to form the solid plug at the bottom of the antenna towers. It's quite hard and tough and with the UV cures like a dream. I also have teeny, tiny 1:350 aircraft carrier deck crew (Eduard) that need to be somehow fastened to the deck.

And yes… I have the single bar railings, but they've gotten pretty messed up. I may have enough linear feet to do the elevator opening. There's also similar rails erected at the aft flight deck when launching planes or underway. I could fake that railing if I had to either by stringing a scratch-built one or by clipping the crossbars from standard railing.

[Builder 2010]

Essex: Floater Net Baskets Begin

Today, I only had an hour so I started the floater net basket task. I got a full set from one fret cut out and started bending and installing them. Handling the PE chips off the paint so there will be some minor touch up needed when this is done.



I measured the width of the end cap which folds up to close it off, and found it to be 0.070" or thereabouts, and found a piece 1/16th (0.0625") rod to use as a mandrel. I held the rod over the PE putting pressure on it and then bent each edge up and around with a single-edged razor blade. The basket has a high side and low side as can be seen by the end caps not being on the center-line. I made sure I set the rod to account for this and it worked pretty well.



The upfolded ends are secured by a dab of thin CA and then with a tooth pick with accelerator to cure it fast. I use gel CA to adhere the baskets to the railings. It's touch and go since the railings themselves are not particularly robust.



I took the following image before I started putting on the baskets, but I wanted to see about using some big sheets of paper as a backdrop for picture taking. It's impressing even me. Sometimes it nice to step back and admire your work.



I'll continue building and applying baskets tomorrow.

[Gun Grape]

Shes looking really good.

Floater net baskets, they are the one thing that I prefer Toms PE.

I bent them almost opposite of how you are doing it. I secured the rod to the table, centered the PE then bent it with downward pressure with my fingers. Like you've said before. "More than one way to skin a cat!"

The good thing about FNBs is that you can had a lot of "Not quite perfect"railing mistakes with them.

[Builder 2010]

Your way sounds easier. I'm going to try it. Yeah… you can hide a lot of not-so-nice railings with a bunch of not-so-nice FNBs…The only thing about touch up painting them is filling all the nice holes with paint. When I air brushed them, the coating didn't do that.

[Builder 2010]

Essex: Floater Net Baskets, Bloody Floater Net Baskets.

Gun… I did convert to using your method of having the rod support in a work holder and folding the FNB over it with my fingers. It worked about as well as it could, but I was really unhappy with FNBs in general, and gluing the floater net baskets (FNBs) directly to the ship's handrails specifically. They were popping off as fast as I could get them on, and it took way too long to what essentially was a simple task. I did wrestle all the FNBs that were shown in my broadside picture of the actual ship, but wanted to find a more secure method.

I woke up this morning thinking about gluing the FNBs to foil and then wrapping the foil over the rail and gluing it to itself making essentially a sandwich with foil as the bread and the rail as the bologna. The foil I was using is wine bottle seal foil which has some body and I use it for all sorts of detail work. I first tried Microscale's foil adhesive, but it didn't have enough strength in such a small surface area. That left me doing it with thick CA.

I measured both the amount of foil needed for the FNB interface and then the depth of foil that would fold over the rail. I cut off a strip and measured the width of one FNB, and folded it in my PE folding tool so the fold was nice and square. I glued the high side of the FNB to the foil and then glued this assembly to the rail. Here is the foil measured to hold four FNBs together. This also made gluing mulitples easier... not a lot easier, but easier all the same.



The idea actually worked, and the connection between the FNB and foil, and the foil to the rail was much, much stronger. I glued up singles, doubles and four-in-a-row and completed the entire port side. I toyed with the idea to remove the starboard side's FNBs and redo them with this method, but decided against it leaving well enough alone. So there is a visual difference between the two sides. I surmised that going back and attempting removal would result in some rails coming loose and I didn't want to deal with that.



On the starboard side I attempted to brush paint Navy Blue to clean up all the mess, but this resulted in some FNBs falling off creating more mess. So I stopped that and decided that I would airbrush all of them when finished. I did some selective masking to keep the spray off the flight deck and did the touch up painting. But, before doing this I did add the two tiny missing railings buried in the port side; one to the boat deck and the other on a ladder platform next to an access manway. You can see this railing in the below.



This reverse angle view shows what you can see of the foil. I think it's a decent solution to an annoying problem and, while not prototypical (I actually don't have a clue how the FNBs were hung from the rails) it does not look too obtrusive and at least the port side's FNBs won't fall off. Can't say the same for the starboard's. I would think that the real ship probably had some form of framing behind the baskets that actually tied them to the ship. I can imagine that they would be quite heavy especially if awash in seawater spray.



The last thing I did today was locate a single bar railing and put it on the FD to guard the elevator opening. This railing was pretty messed up and I fiddled with it until I had a stretch of railing that would cover the distance. Again, it's not really pretty, but it works. The other method would have been to drill the deck, use some guitar string rods for stanchions and string it with E-Z Line, or fine copper wire. My first choice worked. In this image you can also see the small rail on the boat deck on the right side of the picture.



I really not happy with the whole FNB exercise. I don't like how they come out when folded and glued since there's a lot of variation between them. And as careful as I tried to be, they're sitting at all kinds of angles and don't look very shipshape. I thought about leaving them off, by AMS set in and I was compelled to do it.

What's left? Putting on some end-of-catwalk railings which are simulated with a chain top string, and then rigging the long-range radio antennas. Finally, putting the planes on deck. A very fine modeler, David Koeleiski, says he glues his with CA. I suppose that's how I'm going to have to do it too.

The plexiglass should be getitng here soon. General Plastics and Rubber's router broke and the part was supposd to arrive yesterday. My work is on the top of list. Regardless, I have a Ford GTA to finish and a half-built structure for the railroad, so I won't get bored waiting.

[bbvet]

B2010,

Yes, the FNB exercise is exasperating. A bit different on my version of NEW JERSEY since her arrangement changed in the 1950's and that was what we had on board in the late '60s. I had four sheets of PE etched in the UK from my CAD designs, one sheet being the life raft racks that would be folded into the finished unit. Here are photos of the process. There are somewhere around 35-50 of these racks. The raft packs themselves are molded from a 2 step process sold by Micro Mark - you make a soft mold and then fill with the 2 part plastic.





The last photo shows the assembled rack with pack (unpainted). I am getting ready to mount these so I'll soon be in the frustration mode as you have been, for sure!!!


Hank