The $5 Computer

I use the internet for 95% of my research when working on scale models and I will often walk back and forth between my office and my workshop to examine photos. This was starting to annoy me and one solution I did come up with was printing out the images but it wasn't the same.

After looking through my computer spare parts box I realized that all I was missing to build a PC was a monitor and a case. Since I am on vacation I have the extra time to work on building a computer case out of wood and took a walk to the local flea market where I picked up a very nice flat 17" CRT monitor with a low profile for only $5. After installing Windows 2000 on it (it's a Celeron 500MHz) and a wireless mouse I now have easy access to all of my reference material.

Electroluminescent Strip Lamp

I was looking for a way to illuminate the interior of the hangars for the U.S.S. Midway and my initial plan was to use white LED's. I went out and bought the necessary circuits and tested it out only to be disappointed with the outcome. I did not realize that the white LED's would create a spot light effect as well as being too big and obvious as it stuck out of the ceiling of the hangar.

I did some research and stumbled upon a post on the Fine Scale Modeler forum where it was discussed how to light up a Star Wars Millennium Falcon engine using a electroluminescent strip lamp. after seeing some screen shots I was really intrigued since this product can be bent and cut into the shape you want.

Searching for a site that sells the product I found Miller Engineering web site where the product was available in blue or white. For the Millennium Falcon blue is the perfect color but for me white is what I need. Unfortunetly the price is a bit high and the format of the product (light dimensions) was not ideal. A quick search on eBay found exactly what I needed (10"x3" light strip which is the same dimension as the hangar deck) at about half the price (including shipping).

Below is a screen shot of what the product resembles:

Paving the Hangar

After a lot of hesitation and research I decided to paint the hangar deck Tamiya NATO black (XF-69). Why the hesitation, well as with any aircraft carrier the state of the deck will change overtime from a flat black when refresh/updated to a light gray color during extensive use (just like a highway). Since I am not an expert in weathering I decided to go with the cleaner look of black deck. Flat black was my initial idea until I realized that the island bottom half is also flat black. I wanted to have a slight contrast between the main flight deck and the island so I opted for the NATO black instead.

I first started by painting the walls Tamiya flat white (XF-2) which was the easy part. To airbrush the NATO black I first had to mask the walls because on the real ship the black goes up the wall several feet. it was not easy to mask the walls due to the size (11mm high) but the extra attention to detail was worth the trouble. I then added decals to simulate the red/yellow checkered lines around the interior hangar doors which can been seen from the exterior hangar door.

Reference Material

For anyone interested in building an accurate U.S.S. Midway scale model and needs detailed reference material there is a very good site which I have based most of my research on: called Midway Sailor (www.midwaysailor.com).

Hangar Walls

With the hangar deck glued to the hull I started the laborious task of cutting and gluing together the various walls which make out the hangar deck. This took a few evenings to complete but it definitely looks a lot better then my initial plan of using straight walls (like a box). Using the red outlines which I had made by tracing the scaled plans of the hangar deck I was able to create a fairly realistic depiction of the actual hangar deck.

Elevators

The Midway has two elevators in the hangar deck, creating boxes out of styrene sheets will give the impression of seeing into the depths of the hull. I did some testings and they can be easily seen by any of the three hangar doors so detailing these features is important.

(hangar deck view from underneath)

(elevator located in the stern section of the hangar)

Hull Wiring Guide

I will be painting the hull section soon and need to glue the hangar deck in. My dilemma was that in doing so I would no longer have access to insert wiring needed for the two white led lights to be installed later on. My original plan was to pass the wiring immediately and have two wires sticking out of the bottom of the hull where I had drilled two holes that will be hidden by the pedestals. What bothered me with this idea was that for the rest of the time I would be working on the kit I would have wires dangling in my way.

Today I had the ingenious plan of gluing two small straws cut up where the bottom section is glued to the holes I had drilled and the top section slanted at a 45 degree angle would reach the side of the hull and accessible behind the hangar walls. Now I will be able to work on the ship and when I am ready to wire it and will simply have to insert the wiring from underneath and it will follow the path of the straws up into the hangar for wiring.

Keel Completed

I finally finished scratch building the keel section to make it as accurate as possible to the real thing based on photographs I have found while the ship was in dry dock.

Keel Updates

I have been hard at work updating the keel section of the ship. Below you can see the original keel and the updates made. I have not yet completed the keel section but it is coming along quite well...

ARII Hull Errors!

Since I have completed the initial parts of the hangar deck I have been preparing the hull itself. Before I can glue the hangar deck I need to drill holes for the two pedestals and pass two wires for the LED's to be installed later on.

While working on the hull I started to examine the propeller shafts and rudders where after a bit of research I found the following errors:

• ARII kit comes with four rudders, Midway only had two.
• The four propellers have five blades each, in reality the two exterior propellers have only four blades, not five.
• The two inner propellers center are flat and not round like the exterior ones.
• The hull's keel splits in two towards the stern (back end) where the two inner shafts connect, in the model there is only one keel on the center (this will be a challenge to correct).
  

Correcting the rudders should not be too difficult, modifying the propellers will be a bit of a challenge. I will also try to add the metal lines which I suspect are used to guide water flow which lay between the propellers and the propeller shafts.