USS Wasp

USS WASP

The latest project from my client is a model of the ship his father served aboard, the USS WASP. This ship has a unique place in history for its involvement in the Gemini space program.  The kit is a very old Revell release in 1/520 scale. If my research is correct this kit was first produced in 1966.


Like many older models, the plastic is very heavy and a bit soft. The detail on the ship isn't bad, but the aircraft are full of mold flaws and low spots. The ship has a lot of pin dents, low spots and very heavy flash throughout. It will take a lot of extra work to make this one as nice as the others. The decals are very brittle and will likely fall apart if I even try to use them, so I won't. I will be painting the deck markings and numbers on this model.

It does come with plenty of aircraft though, and even a teeny tiny little Gemini capsule you can add. I'll include a picture of it later once it's painted. 

Big sink marks like this are on almost all the aircraft.

I started the kit by assembling the lower hull pieces and sides. This was a bit challenging due to the poor fit of some parts. 

 The fit on a lot of the side pieces of the hull was off, many of them were too tall to fit under the flight deck. I had to file them down flush with the hull to ensure a good fit. 

The deck elevators were also a bit of a challenge. The instructions for this old kit were a little tough to follow in places, and I actually assembled these incorrectly the first time. Fortunately I was able to repair my mistake without damaging any parts. 

 One part that I could not stand using was the support structure for one of the elevators. The framing was extremely heavy and poorly molded. It just didn't look very good at all. 

 
To improve the look of this part, I broke out some photoetched brass mesh I've had lying around. It wasn't a perfect match for the old framing but it looks much more to scale. 

 

I started by carving out the 'x' framing in each square and cleaning up the openings. Once that was done, I trimmed and superglued the mesh in place. This will look great once painted and is a huge improvement over the kit part. 

I also had a lot of areas that needed filling and sanding, as well as some edge cleanup and gap filling with styrene stock. 

Once I was happy with the fit of the hull parts, I glued down the flight deck and set the hull aside to dry while I started on the island. 

The island went together pretty well, the fit on some parts was a little loose but everything came together nicely. 

After a little cosmetic work on the island, mainly just some seam filling and assembling the major parts, I glued it to the flight deck. As before, I will leave most of the small parts off until the main hull is painted. I also had to do some cleanup on the bow and re drill some portholes that were filled in.

After adding a few more parts to the island and doing a final fill and sand session, I basecoated the entire model flat black. This will help bring out the raised detail and make it easier to see when I start painting. It will also help considerably when painting the deck markings, as the kit decals are disintegrated on the sheet and likely not usable. 

 Once the model was dry I spot painted any light areas with more black and set it aside to dry overnight. While the paint was drying, I started working on the aircraft, which need a considerable amount of work.
If the weather is as nice tomorrow as it was today, I should be able to basecoat the ship tomorrow.

A FEW DAYS LATER....

Unfortunately this week has been really humid so painting outside was a no-go. It finally dried up enough to basecoat the Wasp last night. From my photo references it looks a little lighter than the other models I've done, so I decided to go with a basecoat of Camouflage gray instead of Light Sea gray. There isn't a lot of difference between the two but Camouflage gray is a little lighter. 

Once the basecoat was dry, I masked off and painted the runway the next day using Gunship gray. There is a lot of contrast right now, but I think with some weathering and making the deck a little darker it will come out as seen below. If I need to darken it up a bit I will spray a new basecoat using a slightly darker gray.

I set the hull aside again to dry overnight, and continue to work on the aircraft. Most of the work tonight was filling and sanding to eliminate as many of the molding flaws as possible. This involved filling any sink marks or low spots and sanding them smooth and also the removal of flash and seam lines. I still have more aircraft to do, but the ones pictured here needed the most work so I tackled them first.

BEFORE

 

AFTER

The helicopters presented me with another dilemma...the kit rotor blades are very poorly molded, far too thick and just didn't look very good. I decided it would be easier to make new ones rather than trying to fix such a small part. 

I cut the blades off the rotor head, and measured the length of a blade to cut new ones from .060 half round styrene. This is close to the same width as the kit part, but much thinner and with the curved top it will look much more realistic. I put a new one next to the old one for comparison.

Much better! :)

This does make the rotors more delicate, but I will reinforce the glue joint with small wire or thin styrene underneath the blades once the cement is dry. If I'm careful it won't be visible and will help keep the blades in place.

I will also have to replace a few tail rotor blades that either broke off or did not mold well, but they are so small that I can just use .020 round stock and they will look fine. I also added propellers to the aircraft that need them using the same material. It made a huge difference!

 

 After spraying a final coat of Light Sea Gray, I let the model dry and then started on the basic weathering before painting the deck markings. I used chalk pastels to darken the flight deck and runway areas, then coated the model with clear flat to set the pastel in place.

 

 After the clear flat is dry, I will remove the masking tape and weather the landing runways, then the flight deck will be ready for markings.

 Looking pretty good so far, right? Or it would be if I hadn't COMPLETELY screwed it up. The shape of the runway is all wrong, I trusted the mold lines in the model more than my photos and it bit me. I had to repaint and reweather the flight deck.

 This is how the runway is supposed to look - it doesn't taper nearly as much as before. Once it was correct and dry, I started painting and marking the deck again. I used a combination of both paint and white decal sheet cut into stripes for the deck markings. I also scavenged some red and yellow safety striping from another kit of similar scale.

Once I was happy with the markings, I got to weathering. It was all done the usual way, darkening the traffic areas and landing zones with dark gray and black pastels and a little bit of airbrushing. I also highlighted a few lighter areas for contrast. After another coat of clear flat to seal everything up, I applied the last of the decals. I then masked the waterline and painted the lower hull Insignia Red with a black waterline. Then is was time for the numbers.

 I cut these stencils at my office using a computer controlled plotter from files I created based on a scan of the original decal sheet. These will be used to do both the drop shadows and the white numbers on the flight deck and hull.

Once I was happy with the placement, I rubbed the drop shadows in using black pastel. I didn't use paint for fear of it bleeding, plus I wanted a worn look and not bold fresh numbers.

After another coat of clear flat, I used the masks again for the white numbers. The white pastel didn't show up as well as I had hoped so I did end up mixing a dirty white to paint the numbers in by hand over the pastel.

Now that the hard work was done, I began to lay out the aircraft and tractors. I also built two sets of folded rotor blades for the other two helicopters using more .040 half round stock and the kit rotor hubs. Once all the final touchups were dry, I glued everything down.

An itty-bitty Gemini capsule completes the elevator.

More rotor blades!

I also added some stretched sprue rigging in a few places to pretty things up a bit.

The age of this kit and the overall mold quality made this a tough build. It took a lot longer than I thought it would take to finish, but I'm very pleased with the results. I just hope the client likes it as much as I do! Despite the setbacks and mistakes I greatly enjoyed working on this kit.