Photos to post finally-
I know these are alittle late but I finally was able to take some photos and post some of the recent work.
Please keep in mind these parts are unfinished meaning, glue hasn't been sanded or cleaned up, PE maybe slightly banged up cause unfortunately I have clumsy hands when working, and paint is in various stages but no where near the final product at least I hope lol.
First up the three main turrets, these guys weren't to much of a problem, though Revell could have done a better job on the fit of these parts as the upper body of the turret and the deck of it didn't line up flush as all, this required some modification such as trimming filling and sanding, the PE ladders were the hardest part as trying to fold the edges even with a PE tool was pretty tricky thankfully the gauge of the PE metal was tough enough to handle my abuse.
I forgot to prime the brass barrels and as I was taping them to spray the Black paint on the Barrel bloomers aka blast bags the tape pulled the gray paint right off.
Also don't mind my disgusting looking finger nail that crud on it is paint glue and oil paints lol
Next up is the main weather deck, now most of this deck is gonna be covered with wooden lamanent that came in the kit and then quite a lot of PE hatches and parts so realistically there isn't much to see yet but I primed it and laid down a dark grey that I'm considering using for horizontal surfaces that are "Non-skid" the navy actually has a specific color for these surfaces but honestly I don't know what it is possibly deck grey I gotta do a little research.
One hassle I have is there isn't any instructions provided for the Upgrade parts and the deck it self, so I'm finding out what parts need to be cutaway from the original plastic and fitted with PE as I go.. I don't know why Revell forgot about this part of the build but they dropped the ball.
The last thing I did was on the fan tail of the ship which was modernized for Helicopter operations as a flight deck I textured the surface with a Fine sponge and Mr. surfacer 500 grit paint.
USN flight decks are covered with this rough thick epoxy coating known as Non-Skid it actually contains it's coloring and isn't painted, the US Navy usually has it applied or repaired by Contractors that grind of the old stuff off to the metal and apply the new stuff from what I'm told it is a very labor intensive process.
The model kit has a smooth surface on the fan tail and a large decal that is then applied, but I'm not a fan of this decal it just doesn't look natural, so my two options were to texture the deck and then apply the decal with a lot of Mr Mark Softer so that the decal lays into the texture naturally or to make a stencil and paint the flight deck which I think might be the better option how ever idk if I have the skills to do it justice.
Next up is the main super structure of the Ship more specific the O-1 threw I believe 0-4 levels
This is another area were revells part fitting was a problem for me did alot adjusting of the parts to make them fit properly and flush which then made issues with squaring off of certain structures
You can see in this area a rough carved gap were the mangled PE railing is ... That I'll have to carefully straighten out again .. but as for the gap I have to fill it with scrap material and putty and then sand. These gaps occured a lot and I have filled several of them, when I was installing this area it would line up properly and left and even bigger gap that made the rest of the structure of center I wound up trimming some of the part and sanding it flat until I could close the gap better and make the part align straight.
The bridge went together a little better I have some PE to fix but it wasn't to bad, fun fact the original bridge of Iowa Class battle ships was rounded and not squared off like the current version also during sea trials the bridge was not enclosed at all during a refitting after sea trials completion the bridge was enclosed and then later in her life reshaped to the square version. Interestingly the Kit comes with the rounded enclosed bridge version.
The hull- there isn't to much to say on the hull, I tried to add details to the hull such as panel lines abd such but failed pretty miserably, as it was pointed out to me the scale would make these not very pronounced in the first place lines pretty hard to duplicate.
What I did do was follow the lead of another builder and try this layered weathering effect on the Anti-fouling hull red paint. My first attempt came out pretty good but I can do better so I'm planning on doing it over l.
the black transition line aka the boot strap or wind water line was a bit of a challenge, due to scale I didn't want this line to be too wide or two small, and there wasnt much of a reference point built into the hull that I could use to mask a straight line after several attempts I came up with this line and I think I was pretty successful.
The main stack and upper super structure was a bit more of a challenge, due to a lot of fine detail crammed into on space, I have a lot of PE repairs to make cause I kept mashing railings and ladders while working on other areas of the structure, the Air attack radar and range finders not shown in this picture was a a prime example of a ton of detail crammed into a tiny part but they are so fragile I have left them for later on in the build when I can put them in place and leave them be.
Lastly the weapons deck, this part I have to disassemble because I have recently realized it is not square, the part it self wasn't a challenge it just has a wonky fit unfortunately.
This area holds the ships tomahawk cruise missile systems and CWIS both of which unfortunately was not provided to much of an upgrade by Revell and lack a lot of detail, the cruise missile boxs did get so PE upgrades and railings but are kinda lacking.
I have recently ordered after market CWIS systems that look alot better which are coming from China so I have no idea when they will arrive, I'm also planning on purchasing Tomahawk systems and harpoon anti ship missile systems to replace the kit parts I'm just looking for a decently priced kit that isn't gonna take weeks to arrive.
You can see where the part isn't square in this second photo
That's all I got for now Ill post more as I do more please let me know if you have an constructive feedback
