The Kingfisher finished up nicely. Decals tonite. Crude kit. Eastern European and I'm not talkin' Eduard...

The 700th scale USS Enoree came out different. I think my sanding sealer is old. I'm gonna strip it down and try a fresh bottle.

The Pershing came to a screeching halt. Well, as screeching as it could come to... It's all built except for the treads. The treads are individual links with individual link pins and connectors - -YAY! I managed to build 30 of them (146 needed!) then gave up. I'll do a handful each weekend.

USS Nimitz is finished as far as the building goes. The paint is added except for the Starboard boot stripe. Next is decals. The airgroup is assembled and the base coat of Gull Gray is on.

USS Flasher...good God what was I thinking? All my previous Gato builds have not really been Gatos...they've been Balao's with resin sails. This is my first "Gato" gato. Revell gives you decals for Flasher, but I think that was wishful thinking on their part. Flasher's sail - as built - is like night and day to the kit sail. I'm doing mine "as modified [1944] - so that's even more different. What Revell SHOULD have done is flashed over the mounting areas for the sail lockers. This way you could conceivably do any Gato. But no...Revell molded all of the lockers the way their reference boat looked. This is wrong. So what I had to do AFTER cutting the sail down, is rearrange the ten sail lockers and eliminate the two sail chutes. Then the aft torpedo range finder has to be moved. The waterproof locker on Flasher is actually standing upright instead of laying down. So that had to change.

Then I have to navigate adding the drainage holes to the rear of the sail. Just when I thought I was done, the masts screamed out. They are backwards on the kit. So I have to butcher the aft mast holder to be in front and move the front crow's nest gear to the rear. This involves removing the radio gear from the rear mast. That's gonna take some thinking and possibly some scratchbuilt mast building.

Storage...ah...I use old dressers. Stacked up in the garage. One of the guys at the model club gave me a rotary Timex watch display case from a store. It's plexiglass with a locking door. I mount my 700th scale ships in there. Small 72nd scale birds can go in there too.

Cheers,


Don