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1/72nd radio-controlled scratchbuilt aircraft carrier - USS Nimitz

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dougie47:
Hello folks,

I have been asked by my AMP colleague Wink to start a build thread for my new project. I'm already a few months into the project so I'll spend the first few posts covering work to date. So here goes...

For this project I wanted time building rather than predominately researching and decided to go big. Choosing the right project was important as I might end up spending the remainder of my natural life trying to get it done. Initially I was keen on a 1/4th scale Mick Reeves Spitfire. I also seriously considered a stupidly large 1/8th scale scratchbuilt wooden model of U 47 before realising I would have to cut down half of the Amazon rainforest to source the amount of wood needed for that. Then I became enticed by a 1/6th scale Avro Lancaster kit with a whopping 17 foot wingspan. I was very very close to opting for the 17 foot Lancaster before I decided on a scratchbuilt radio-controlled aircraft carrier. The reason is that I like planes and ships, and a carrier is a mix of both. They look cool too.

If you go large you may as well go really large. The problem is that for some unfathomable reason nobody offers aircraft carrier injection moulded kits in 72nd scale. That means, with the exception of the aircraft, everything would have to be scratchbuilt. There are limits to the size I can go, namely due to two limitations. First is budget and second is a maximum length of around 16 foot within my garage.

Initially I thought of the 1970s era HMS Ark Royal as it looks great and has Buccaneers and Phantoms in the super duper Fleet Air Arm colour scheme. 48th scale would be a bit too big for my garage so it would then have to be 72nd scale. Unfortunately 72nd scale for an Ark Royal is 11 foot and I wanted a little bigger. Also getting plans for the Ark might prove expensive.

Not to be deterred from the Royal Navy option, I thought of HMS Victorious due to the plans available in a book on Amazon. The good part about the Victorious is that she was only 743 feet long, which is 15.5 feet in 48th scale. This would allow me to go to 48th scale for the aircraft. However, there are only a few aircraft types on the Victorious and therefore a lack of variety.

By contrast, US Navy carriers have multiple aircraft types and squadrons within the embarked air wing. Prior to the mid-80s the US carriers had very colourful insignia. I love the F-14 Tomcat which swayed me towards a US carrier. At first I couldn't find plans for the Nimitz class which has always been my favourite carrier. Instead I found and bought a plan for the USS Forrestal and was very close to choosing this as my build subject.

Then one night I watched the movie The Final Countdown yet again. If you haven't seen it then your televisual entertainment needs to be rectified immediately. It is a brilliant movie about the USS Nimitz going back in a timewarp to the 6th December 1941, with Kirk Douglas as the Captain having to decide whether to intervene and sink the Japanese carriers before they attack Pearl Harbor. The film has lots of footage of F-14s, A-7s, A-6s and S-3s all painted in attractive squadron markings. Having drooled over the movie, my subject would have to be the Nimitz rather than the Forrestal.

Up to that point I had failed dismally to find a plan of the Nimitz class. You need plans of the hull frames in order to scratchbuild a hull. I'm saying this like I know what I am talking about. Actually I don't. I've never scratchbuilt a full model before. Plus I was garbage at woodworking in school. There would, quite obviously, have to be some rapid upskilling with this project.

I decided I might be able to draw my own hull frames if I used calipers on a 350th scale Trumpeter Nimitz model, though this would surely result in errors and be a real pain. I kept searching and finally found a set of Nimitz plans with hull frames for the grand sum of $2 online. It is easily the best value purchase I've ever made as I now had the plans I desperately needed.

Nimitz is 1,092 feet long, which works out as just over 15 feet long. Beam is 3.5 feet in 72nd scale. Somehow I don't think I'll squeeze a 72nd Nimitz into my model display shelves as the hull will stick out by 13 feet or so. I guess it will have to permanently reside in the garage.

For Christmas I got a 350th scale Trumpeter Nimitz (thanks Santa) so I would have a real model to refer to in addition to the plans. Normally this seems a big model but it will be only be around a fifth of the size of the 72nd version.

That's what I did in December 2018, I'll post more in due course.

Cheers,

Dougie

PS Do not fear for my sanity. I have not suddenly gone bonkers by attempting such a big model - I have always been this stupid.

Dougie Martindale
Accurate Model Parts

dougie47:
Hello again,

Following on from my intro post here are some details of the start of my build from January onwards this year.

Firstly I needed a flat surface to work on. I put together a 12 foot by 2 foot table with MDF surface. Here it is looking new and shiny before I ruined it will loads of glue and filler -



Secondly I needed to get plans printed off. The two main plans were printed off in 360th scale, which means I simply need to multiply any distance on those plans by five to get 72nd scale. In addition printing off all drawings in full 72nd scale would prove to be really helpful. This was more of a problem as, you've guessed it, most printers on the high street don't print off 15 foot X 7 foot plans. Instead I got 33 separate plans printed off in A0 paper size (841 x 1189 mm) online from www.planprintinguk.com. I then sellotaped the A0 size plans together to provide all the 1/72nd plans I require. Here is one of the plans on the driveway -



The Nimitz model on top of the plan is in 350th scale (roughly one-fifth of 72nd).

I needed plenty of screengrabs from the movie so I took 370 shots showing all the planes and the ship itself. This was a good excuse to watch the movie again, not that a reason is needed. Have you watched it yet?

When building a wooden model you do, at some stage, have to buy wood. The hull frames are in 6mm thick marine ply whereas the skin will be in 4mm marine ply. Both are purchased in 8 foot by 4 foot sheets. So far I have bought 3 sheets of 6mm and 6 sheets of 4mm marine ply.

I also bought wood for the stringers (stringers go between the frames, with the ply glued to the stringers). The thick ones for the midsection of the hull are 14mm by 28mm so quite strong; I bought 134 feet worth of that and have already run out and have had to buy another 56 feet worth. For the bow and stern I am thinking of using thinner stringers 36mm wide by 6mm deep; so far I have got 65 feet in that size.

Other items on the shopping list were 9mm MDF for the table, 2 big tins of 2-part car body filler, 2 tubs of 2-part wood filler, 4 tubes of wood filler, 7 tubes of bathroom sealant, an electric sander with sandpaper, bandsaw, 100 disposable gloves, 72 20g bottles of Turbo CA glue, 4 large 400ml cans of accelerator, 11 large sheets of plasticard, Colourcoats enamels for the 350th kit, sandpaper, 20mm and 22mm holesaws, 15 steel broom poles, one long steel rule, 6 clamps and 50 sheets of carbon paper. Thankfully I already had a pencil.

The first build task was to draw the hull frames lines onto the 6mm ply. There are 16 frame lines in total, numbering 0 to 15. To draw the hull lines I added carbon paper under the plan and drew the lines with pencil. Here are the sheets on top of 6mm marine ply -



Now here is the plan directly on top -



Then it was a case of carefully cutting out the frame lines using my new bandsaw. Here can be seen my test run on a scrap piece of wood -



So far I have not needed any emergency procedures due to bandsaw or jigsaw mishaps. All eight fingers and both thumbs remain attached to my hands. However this may change. If you hear reports of an idiot modeller trying to glue a finger back on with Turbo CA glue that will be me. 

Hull frame photos to come tomorrow.

Cheers,

Dougie

Johann Vilthomsen:
Awesome!!!  :D

Bravo!!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBXbQSu0UOo   ;)

dougie47:
Hello,

Thanks, Johann, the soundtrack is great too. It is in the tradition of 633 Squadron or the Dam Busters and memorable. I can't think of any modern war movie with a memorable tune.

Here is one of the 15 frames after cutting out by bandsaw -



This shot shows them all stacked together -



This one shows the frames at the bow on top -



I am doing the hull in three main sections:
- firstly the midsection (frames 3 to 10)
- secondly the bow (frames 11 to 14)
- thirdly the stern (frames (0 to 2)

I decided to use metal broom poles for added strength between the frames. These are light, strong and cheap. I am pretty certain nobody has done this before. It is probably unnecessary but as I haven't built a hull before the addition of extra strength can't do any harm (I think). These poles will also help keep the frames in the correct positions while adding the stringers. I needed to get the broom poles in exactly the same location on frames 3 to 10. What I did was clamp the frames together and then drill a 20mm hole where I wanted the pole to go.



The broom poles help me to lift the midsection without any breakages.

Tomorrow I'll post photos of the midsection frames in place. Got to go and paint the first Tomcat now.

Cheers,

Dougie

dougie47:
Hello,

Here are some more photos of the build. This is the midsection with frames 3 to 10 in place -



The grey steel poles are held in place on the frames by car body filler (P40). The two-part body filler is great for using as an adhesive. You just mix it with the hardener then quickly apply. It is hard to make it look nice and you need to work quickly before it hardens. But it does form a strong bond and holds things in place well. I have used P40 loads when making radio-controlled submarines but strangely enough never as a filler on a car body.

Some of the 14mm by 28mm stringers have been added here but I added more in due course. I cut out 14X28mm gaps in each frame so that the stringer fitted neatly into place on the frame. These were stuck using CA glue and activator. The activator is brilliant stuff as it makes the wood stick together without needing clamps. I then added car body filler around the joins here so that every join becomes really solid.

The next photo shows an area of the hull that has a tight curve -



Here I have added a number of stringers together because I wanted this area of the boat to be really strong.

The next photo (below) shows this area after I added wood filler and sanded with the electric sander -



Now it was time to add the 4mm marine ply skin. The first piece at the top is a bit bigger and does not have much of a curve. I then cut strips for the area with the tight curves -



Then I added 2-part wood filler in the gaps. This is the yellow stuff seen here -



That was then sanded into a nice smooth curve with the electric sander.

More to follow in due course.

Cheers,

Dougie

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