USS America Aircraft Carrier CVA/CV66

[Whiterook]

This is a Micro Ace (ARRI, No. A131) 1/800 scale kit I built for a work mate about eight years ago, whose boyfriend served on the American carrier. It's the USS America Aircraft Carrier, CV-66. It's about 16-1/2" long.



It was the first naval vessel I'd built since the 1970's, and the biggest. I don't know how old the kit was, but it was definitely several years old....I've thrown away the box long ago. She's a beautiful carrier, and I wanted to do it justice by mounting it on brass finials (on a temporary wood base).



It was a challenging one, in that it was an older kit and the large pieces were a tad warped. But still, It was a fun build and nostalgic in many ways.

The decals for the flight deck were lacking in a big way, so I ended up hand-painting the majority of what you see here....

[Whiterook]

I wanted to make the flight deck look wet, so I used FolkArt acrylic paint, hand mixed, which had a gloss included in it. The thought was a wet deck at sea. This was in the beginning days of my recently into model bipuilding, and I’d not yet bought an airbrush, nor experienced any real success with brush painting Tamiya Acrylics; these craft acrylics paints were more along the lines of the medium I used in college art school, with mixing and textures. I liked the results.

[Whiterook]

A few build pics.

Of note was, the main body paint was done with a 'rattlecan' (spray can) or Tamiya grey and red. Brushing acrylics craft paint would have left too many brush marks, and hence making the paint job look unrealistic…



The flight deck was a bitch and a half, as the decals were ooooooooold and brittle, coming apart coming out of the water! Pretty much everything lined was brushed by hand.

I knew I wanted to mount the carrier on a temporary board (hence it being so plain), on agreement with the person I was making it for...her son is a professional architectural millworker and could make something much better than I had time to do. (Of note...this was a gift, done pro-bono).

So, I researched the methods used and the brass fixtures in model company catalogs were rediculously expensive so, I bought some brass lamp finials from Texas Lamp Company. I mounted them by attaching them with nuts inside the hull before attaching the deck....here's a picture with the hull upside-down...



…and right side up...



it was a fun build, done many years ago. I probably would have gone more into detail with the aircraft but, I basically ran out of time to deliver, so they had the minimal done. The kit tested my patience with the tiny bits. Overall though, the biggest thing brought out of the build was the first use of brass finials...bought online from Texas. Highly recommended for any ship model!

Thanks for checking her out!

[josta59]

Cool! I built one like this when I was in junior high. Really fun project.