IOWA battleship to aircraft carrier conversion.

[zenrat]

Yep, that works.  Good job.

[seadude]

I'll get back to posting in this thread in a day or two, or maybe after New Year's? 
Anyway, progress has been good and the model is 90% done right now except for flight deck markings, 20mm guns, aircraft, and display base. I'm hoping to have this ship completely done in 3 weeks time for my January model club meeting.

[seadude]

New update.   

Earlier this month I began to get the upper hull and island superstructure painted with Testor Acrylic 5-H Haze Grey.

[seadude]

For these next two photos, when my modeling friend originally started this model long ago before he gave it to me, there weren't that many attachment points for radars and sensors. Only 3 as indicated by the red arrows in a picture. Since I was robbing parts from a Trumpeter 1/350 USS Franklin ESSEX kit to use on my model, I had to choose carefully what to have as there were more radar pieces on the sprues than what I needed or was space for on the model. If it doesn't look right on the model in further pics below, then screw it.





Below pics show the inclusion of the 40mm guns which I previously talked about and showed earlier in this thread. Also included is the meager amount of radars I added atop the island superstructure. I do like the 5" gun turrets and was able to make the barrels elevate on those.     The turrets do not rotate however. The flight deck has been painted 20B Deck Blue. I was thinking of leaving the aircraft elevators as is as I feel the white outline makes the elevators more visible against a dark flight deck.













Robbed 20mm guns and shields parts from a TAMIYA 1/350 USS Missouri WWII kit to use for my model. Damn shields are so tiny!     Anyway, my model will have about 45 20mm guns scattered around the ship.

[zenrat]

Looking good 'dude.

[NARSES2]

Looking good 'dude.

'tis indeed 

[seadude]

The Iowa carrier conversion model that I've been building recently is now on hold. I had hoped to finish it before the end of the year. But that ain't going to happen.   Probably won't be finished till mid January 2019 sometime. All I have left is flight deck markings and aircraft. I've been told that dipping decals in warm water makes them slide off the backing paper easier. I could just nuke a bowl of water in the microwave, but it wouldn't be long before it got cold again.  May have to invest in one of those small coffee cup warmers. 
Don't have dark Gloss Sea Blue paint at home to paint my aircraft, so I'll have to wait till I get some money to buy that. I tried the 3-tone blue/gray scheme on some aircraft, but it didn't work out too well due to my eyesight. So I'll switch to a overall gloss sea blue during mid to late 1945 for the aircraft.
I may try some stretched sprue rigging for the radio masts on the starboard side of the carrier. We'll see how that goes. It won't be the 3-4 wires that are usually strung between the masts, but probably only 1 wire only. At least having "something" is better than having "nothing". Don't want the radio masts to look too plain.    Also finished making a simple display stand for the model today.

[Captain Canada]

I love the bow. It's just so cool to see 'battleship' stuck out from under the flat top like that. Not just so cool, very cool !

[seadude]

Since my last post, all 20mm guns have been added to the model now. There's about 45 of them around the ship.

Also..........

Planes are done for my Iowa carrier conversion model. I didn't make that many of them as I only wanted a "sample" of different types on the flight deck. They're not detailed with squadron numbers or other markings since a real Iowa carrier was never built and it would have been unknown what squadrons and such a ship would have had. I tried painting the aircraft weeks ago in the 3 tone blue/gray scheme common to most US Navy carrier aircraft, but it was proving to be a bit too difficult, so I just went with an overall gloss Dark Sea Blue which is what the Navy was changing it's aircraft to later in the war. The Avenger in the upper right corner has a spinning prop and this aircraft will be situated near a catapult on the carrier model.
4x Avengers in the top row.
4x Helldivers in the third row.
4x Hellcats in the second row.
4x Corsairs in the bottom row.



Started the white dashed line flight deck markings earlier in the week. Wish me luck.
Bad thing about these decal markings from the Trumpeter USS Franklin ESSEX kit is that the dashed line decals are about 3 ½ to 4 inches long. There are 20 of these dashed line decals to apply, but I've never been good at laying down very long decals. So.........I have to cut each decal down further into smaller 3/8 inch segments. Not fun.    Then hopefully try and make sure each end matches up correctly to another end of another piece of decal when I lay these down. Probably won't be done with these till end of January. Gonna be a long slow process.



Starboard side dashed white line done. Wasn't easy. Will start the port side this weekend and hope to be finished with that by Sunday. I'm going to skip adding a center white dashed line down the center of the flight deck. Port and starboard lines is enough for me.

[NARSES2]

Nice airgroup

[Old Wombat]

 

[seadude]

I'm temporarily calling this 99% done. Not 100% done. But just 99% for now. Final pics will be posted later in forthcoming days.

Dashed white line flight deck markings are added. Unfortuneately, I don't have any dullcoat to dull those flight line decals, so they'll be "glossy" for awhile. Probably wouldn't make much difference anyway as this model can't be entered for model competition. Just "display only".
I have decided NOT to add any hull number on the flight deck as there is no documentation anywhere that would list what hull number an Iowa carrier would have. Of course, that wouldn't stop me from adding one. I could if I so desired. Some references tend to speculate and give the Iowa carrier conversion the hull number of CVB-44. This is false. CVB-41 to 44, and 56 & 57 were for the Midway class carriers. The Iowa carrier if built would have resembled the Essex class carriers in appearance. Not the Midway class. Therefore, it is speculated that any hull number the Iowa carrier was to have would be between CV-50 to CV-55 as these were also Essex carrier designs/ships.
Planes are just sitting on the flight deck. They are not glued on yet. I'm debating on various "parking configurations" for the aircraft.  I'm also contemplating removing all the crappy floater net baskets which I originally used from a TAMIYA USS Missouri kit and replace them with better detailed floater net baskets from Model Monkey on Shapeways. Also contemplating buying some WWII carrier moto-tug tractors from Shapeways to put on the flight deck.

[TheChronicOne]

MOST glorious!!!!!

[NARSES2]

MOST glorious!!!!!

It is indeed 

[Old Wombat]

For 99% done she's looking 100% awesome, mate!