Technical details - or, how to drive yourself completely crazy

RamblinRover

As some of you may know, I built a 1:350 scale model of the CV3 Saratoga for my Grandma to put on display (her dad's ship), and that was all kind of neat, even though I hadn't painted it yet, etc. etc.
Except it wasn't done.
The 1:350 scale ship models are just big enough that it makes it really, really obvious if you try to sneak through some horrible oversights.

Like how the '20s/'30s Sara doesn't have the anti-torpedo bulge on the port side, the much larger stability & anti-torpedo bulge on the right side, the added radar on the funnel, the deleted lifeboat position, the refit to 5" guns with radar at the turrets, the update from the 12 single-mount guns on the original sponsons to 8 5" singles and 4 Bofors quads, the addition of a string of Bofors quads on the main deck level, as well as some Oerlikon positions....

Then there's the widening of the foredeck and the extension to the rear lip.

"But Ramblin - nobody but you would possibly know or care if it was right"
ME IS ENOUGH

tumblr_pjohq4z6KX1u8kt7do8_r1_640[1].gif
Not sure if I'm going to 3d print all the Bofors and the sponsons, build the sponsons out of sheet, or what.

Vital resource: the May '45 General Plans booklet of the ship. Obviously:
http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/CV3/BOGP/

It's not 100% correct for the ship as it was in January '45 (aft elevator removed, some other minor things) but it's close enough for me to add all the guns, shorten the funnel, update the hull with styrene sheet, etc.

@Skyfire77 for the tag in modeling mental derangement.
@Powered_By_Howard too.

Italia

@RamblinRover where's the pics?

Skyfire77

@RamblinRover Dear lord, a 1/350 carrier? You could practically land aircraft on it!

RamblinRover

@Italia

Here are a couple of pics.

Italia

@RamblinRover was it windy and it flipped the plane?

RamblinRover

@Skyfire77 It's fucking huge. 30+ long.

...which is why I have to add the like 40 missing guns, obviously.
Look in the second pic I posted to Italia - I got some 1:350 scale navy crew, so I've put one on the deck. 3/16" tall.

RamblinRover

@Italia Somebody damaged the Hellcat nightfighter I'd assembled in handling it... it was on the piano, and it may have fallen victim to a two-year old poking at it.

I've got more Hellcats to put on the deck, in time.

RamblinRover

@Italia Here's what it looks like if you put it together perfectly according to the instructions:

Here's how she looked in September of '44:

More guns, EVERYWHERE. Dazzle paint. Altered island and funnel, altered deck... and so on.

Highlander

@RamblinRover This thing is amazing. That's quite an achievement.

LooseonExit

@RamblinRover

DAZZLE PAINT!!

If you put enough guns on it, it doesn't need escorts then...or something. CVBG in one boat. I should inform the Navy of my brilliance...

RamblinRover

@Highlander I figured I'd put it together more or less right before I broke out the Dremel, styrene sheet, and 3d printer.
This thing is yuge. Bigly, even.

What you don't see in those pictures is some handling marking/glue fingerprints from getting the hull to fit together, because apparently making the pieces for that big a model fit right is haaaard. Bottom hull (red) and upper hull did not agree.

I may or may not also try to make the rudder accurate, because it's not quite right.

RamblinRover

@LooseonExit The Lexington didn't last long enough to get festooned with guns to the same insane degree. By the end of the war, Sara Maru was one of a kind.

Highlander

@RamblinRover 30" long? You could float that down a river.

RamblinRover

@Highlander I was working on a tank model Saturday, and my 2-year-old nephew asked me if once I was done working on the treads (239 individual links later, damn my fingers and wrists) whether it could "go in the water". This seemed like an odd question until I realized he was talking about the tow-truck-pulling-stuff-out-of-ditch game I play with him and a toy tow truck.
The question was whether we could include the tank in that. Obviously.

Italia

@RamblinRover dazzle paint is the best, I can't remember what ship my grandfather was on I'll ask next time I call my grandma.

ttyymmnn

@RamblinRover

Looks like a bit of a mishap on the flight deck. Hope everyone is okay.

ttyymmnn

@RamblinRover

Please tell me you are going to dazzle paint it…..

RamblinRover

@ttyymmnn Not to be overly grim or superstitious, but the location and the plane are about right...

RamblinRover

@ttyymmnn absolutely, I'm just hoping to find some references on the color. I think it was still dazzle painted up through January '45, which is when my great-granddad was last serving - off Iwo, before he was injured in the kamikaze attacks. The same one in the picture, actually. My great-grandma had her own copy of that picture.