Tamiya CVN65 ENTERPRISE, 1:350

Joined
Jul 9, 2018
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433
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Location
Bonita Springs, Florida
This is a sweet looking aircraft carrier with some neat looking aircraft to go with it. Its three feet 2" long and will make a very impressive addition to your fleet. I started to motorize the kit but then changed my mind and built a hanger deck instead. There are about 85 airplanes that can go on the ship because I bought extras for it. I've done the hull and the hanger deck and now need to paint all these stupid airplanes which is taking me forever to get done. You should be warned before building this ship ,it has a ton of tiny parts and if your eyes aren't good then you'll need some strong glasses. It's no fun getting older. I've taken several pictures of the work as it was done so I'll try and make a build out of them up to this date and then go from there.Enterprise 107.JPGBuild-CVN-65 Enterprise 1 001.JPGCVN-653 Hanger deck construction 001.JPGCVN-65 Hanger deck 002.JPGCVN-65 Hanger deck 004.JPGCVN-65 aircraft 80 001.JPGCVN 65 Enterprise Tam 1350 001.JPGCVN 65 Enterprise Tam 1350 004.JPGCVN #65 Enterprise 001.JPGEnterprise 106.JPGEnterprise 107.JPG
 

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  • CVN 65 Enterprise Tam 1350 003.JPG
    CVN 65 Enterprise Tam 1350 003.JPG
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looking forward to seeing as you progress building her. Will you plan to use any aftermarket additional parts?
I hadn't thought about that Jim. There are so many little tiny parts on this model It will take me all summer to get them done without adding anything to it. I still have to paint all the airplanes and finish the island and there will still be a lot of parts left to go. Is there any aftermarket stuff that would be good to have on this model? Guess I'll have to look that up as I haven't seen anything yet but if you know of anything please let me know. You come from AOC territory?
 
Thanks for the prompt response Norgale. I have some plastic kits builds under my belt on the same scale as your Tamiya Enterprise. One of the reasons, I switch the scale is exactly for parts very small for my eyes, even with magnifying glasses. I am not sure if there are aftermarket parts for this kit, I am guessing it should as this kit is really popular. Thought they make a model really realistic, replacing injection molded parts with brass photoetched, I am sure you are well aware of it.

here are some of it:

http://www.goldmm.com/

https://www.whiteensignmodels.com/c/Photo+Etch/12/1/#.XLPP2uhKhaQ

https://www.eduard.com/

http://www.tomsmodelworks.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=23

http://www.master-model.pl/
 
Wow!There are some addon's there Jim but that stuff is too tiny for me to work with. I can see me now trying to put landing gear doors on these very tiny aircraft. I'll be lucky if I get them all painted without chucking the little buggers out the window. Actually there is a lot of the PE stuff out there and the prices vary a lot. What I don't see in the links is instructions that tell me what parts are where and what to do with them. Pretty interesting stuff Jim and thanks for posting the links. Pete
 
You are very welcome, Norgale. You are 100% true, the parts are so tiny and often time jumps from a tweezer with no possibility to find (for good). But in the same token, they add (mostly time) true scale and much better look. Usually, PE comes as the kit for a particular ship, as such, it will tell you what part\s you will need to replace from the original kit. But also, there are plenty of generic PE parts: doors hatches, ladders, etc. Just look for the era and scale. Enjoy!
 
I looked at a lot of PE stuff from your links and there is a ton of PE for all kinds of kits. I don't think I will order any for the Enterprise but I have several other ship kits that have PE available for them so I'll give this a try in the near future ,maybe this summer if I can get the 'E' finished. My eyes aren't good either but they can be fixed. All I need is the courage to go get it done. I can't do much building until I get this done so it will have to be soon. Gettin' old is not easy. Ha!
 
If you are interested I have hangar bay decals for it. Check out my blog at https://davidsscalemodels.com/decals/modern-carrier-hangar-bay-decals/

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Nice decals David. Looks like every thing is covered. Shouldn't there be an American flag there too? Just curious as I always see a flag on the wall when I look at the lift door openings.
 
Nice decals David. Looks like every thing is covered. Shouldn't there be an American flag there too? Just curious as I always see a flag on the wall when I look at the lift door openings.
The decals cover most typical hangar bays. I know they hang flags when in port. If you want, Just let me know and I can add anything you want to the sheet. I am still working on getting good photo references for murals that are sometimes on the hangar bay fire doors. For Big E I was able to get the two main ones. The one on the Truman I have 2/3's of it still looking to fill the rest of it.
 
When I built the hanger deck on the E I looked everywhere to find out what it looked like in the real E and there was nothing to give me any good stuff to work with. I see you have come up with a hanger deck that looks very good. Any chance I could get some pictures of what you've built? If I could build something like what you have I could use your decals to decorate it.
 
When I built the hanger deck on the E I looked everywhere to find out what it looked like in the real E and there was nothing to give me any good stuff to work with. I see you have come up with a hanger deck that looks very good. Any chance I could get some pictures of what you've built? If I could build something like what you have I could use your decals to decorate it.
I designed the decals when I built my 1/350 USS Carl Vinson using Trumpeters USS Nimitz.
The build is documented in this thread https://shipsofscale.com/sosforums/threads/building-1-350-uss-carl-vinson-circa-1983.1462/

You can see all the photos of my build at https://davidsscalemodels.com/build-log/1-350-uss-carl-vinson/

and all the completed photos at https://davidsscalemodels.com/gallery/uss-carl-vinson-project/

Here are some photos from the build when I did the hangar bays.

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Here is what hangar bay 2 looks like once the aircraft and lighting was placed.

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WOW! Great pictures Dave and super work on the model. Guess it helps a lot that you served on her and thanks for that too. I've got to study this and see how it will apply to my E and I'll order the decals shortly. Thanks very much for making these pics available to us. Pete
 
This is the way I like to paint tiny little parts like all the aircraft that go on this aircraft carrier. Supposed to be gray on top and white on the bottom so if the white doesn't over spray too bad then ok. Otherwise some will be all white and some will be all silver. Some will go in the trash if I mess them up too much. If I don't get past these stupid airplanes I'll never finish this model. No PE either.CVN-65 aircraft 002.JPG
 
This is the way I like to paint tiny little parts like all the aircraft that go on this aircraft carrier. Supposed to be gray on top and white on the bottom so if the white doesn't over spray too bad then ok. Otherwise some will be all white and some will be all silver. Some will go in the trash if I mess them up too much. If I don't get past these stupid airplanes I'll never finish this model. No PE either.View attachment 91688
The over spray was significant as I expected . Turned all the planes over and painted the tops white too. Now it will be touch up on the canopys and wheels and the exhaust pipes. That I can do. Now I need the decals for the airplanes and I think that's Wolfman. You there Wolfman?
 
Well I have mixed results from painting my aircraft. The white turned out ok and with some decals and a small paint brush they should turn out ok. However I was out of silver paint so I had to go to my local hobby shop,Home Depot, to get a can oCVN-65 aircraft 008.JPGCVN-65 aircraft 009.JPGCVN-65 aircraft 010.JPGf silver. Got back to the house and set up the bigger planes for silver and started spraying. I had bought a can of metallic silver instead of regular silver and now I have two squadrons of 'sparkle plenty' (you older people will know who Sparkle Plenty was), silver speckled airplanes. I'm calling it a new plane paint that reflects light and radar to a million different directions and so it is that the 65 has some pretty bright aircraft.
 
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