I’m planning a build for a friend who served on the USS Coral sea 1951-1956. His house was destroyed in a flood and he lost everything. Volunteers have begun building him a new home and he will likely be able to move in this spring. So we’re going to give him CV-43 as a surprise house warming gift.
Can anyone suggest a good kit for this project? It can even be a modified 50s era USS Midway CV-41 kit. I’d prefer a fairly large scale ship.
Cheers to all, William
I’m reasonably certain that the only plastic *Midway-*class carrier kit is the ancient Revell one, originally released with the name Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1954. According to Dr. Thomas Graham’s fine book, Remembering Revell Model Kits, it’s on 1/547 scale. (In those days model manufacturers made their kits fit standard-sized boxes.) It was re-released quite a few times in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, sometimes under the names of the other two ships in the class, the Midway and Coral Sea. (So far as I know, there are no differences between the kits other than the decals.) It’s not currently on the market, but I have the impression that examples are fairly common among old kit dealers and on e-bay.
Come to think of it, twenty years ago or thereabouts the Japanese manufacturer Otaki released a small series of U.S. carriers on 1/800 scale. I think one of them may have been a *Midway-*class ship. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of those kits out of the box, but they got rather good reviews. The scale, however, was quite small - and, if my senile memory is right and the *Midway-*class kit existed at all, I’m pretty sure it represented the ship in her much-modified configuration, with an angled deck. [Later edit: This is the Arii kit referred to by Kustommodeller in his post below. I’m not sure what the relationship between Otaki and Arii is/was; my recollection is that they sold many of the same kits.]
I believe there have been one or two resin *Midway-*class kits; maybe one on 1/350 scale. A big resin kit like that would be quite expensive, though. I suspect one of this Forum’s resin kit experts will clarify this.
Good luck.
jtilley is right, for a kit of the ship “as built”, the old Revell kit is the way to go. I had 3 of them and I haven’t stopped kicking myself in the rear for letting them go to this day. I found 2 on e-bay right now. The FDR kit jtilley mentioned, it’s in Australia, and a '70s release of the Midway. Going for about the average of $50 to $60 US dollars average, but worth it if you have it to spend. They were nice kits for the mold technology of the time.
Let me re-phrase- they are STILL nice kits. especially above the water line, nicely detailed and when finished, just over 22". The ships are represented as completed, and includes the enlarged and enclosed bridge structure on the island, added several months after the ships were completed. They were originally built with open bridges.
To search e-bay easily for them, just type the words Revell carrier in the search bar and several will pop up. You can also type Revell Midway , Revell Franklin D Roosevelt—well you get the idea.[:)]
For a final appearance version of the Midway kit, after her SCB 101.66 modernisation in 1970, MegaHobby.com currently has the re-issued Arii 1/800 scale Midway kit in stock. The Coral Sea’s angled deck modernisation was much more austere than Midway’s however, and appearance was noteably different at the end of thier service lives. Coral Sea was scheduled to undergo the same refit as Midway, but a combination of inflation and dockyard mis-management made what was to be a $70 million dollar project take almost 2 years and eat up $202 million!! So, Coral Sea’s same refit was cancelled.
Thanks for leting me bore you. Have a great day!! If you find one and build it, please show us pics!!
Darrin
Kustommodeler’s point about the underwater hull of the Revell kit is well taken. Several of the first- and second-generation Revell ship kits had strange-looking hulls; they were flat on the bottom, usually cut off well below the standard waterline. And they came with trestle-shaped display stands. That configuration didn’t seem to bother anybody at the time, but by modern standards such kits as the S.S. United States, Hawaiian Pilot, J.L. Hannah, Montrose, and FDR, sitting on their stands with their flat bottoms, look pretty ridiculous. (They don’t have screws, and several of them have upper halves of rudders - sliced off to line up with the bottoms of the hulls.)
Part of the reason for this strange situation probably is that, at least in the case of the warships (and the United States, which was built with a big government subsidy on the understanding that her owners would make her available as a high-speed troop transport in wartime), the underwater lines were still classified when the kits were issued. Probably for similar reasons, Revell’s near-fossilized *Iowa-*class battleship kit (which Revell Germany recently had the incredible gall to issue as a “new” product) has a hull that’s just about deep enough, but utterly incorrect in shape. (Another likely reason for that: in one of its earliest incarnations, the hull had to accommodate an electric motor and batteries.)
At just about that same time, Lindberg released a competitor: an *Essex-*class carrier in WWII configuration. (I think it initially appeared wit the name Wasp. I’m not sure whether it or the Revell FDR can claim the title of first plastic carrier kit.) The Lindberg one was, in some respects, a little more sophisticated. It had individual 20mm guns and a pre-cut piece of cardboard to represent the hangar deck. (That feature got left out of most reissued versions - which were continuing to show up just a few years ago.) It also contained dozens of little Hellcats - and instructions on how to fold their wings. (I.e., chop them off and glue them back in the folded position.) And it had a full hull of (more or less) the proper depth, though the underwater lines, again, were speculative. A dead giveaway to the fact that the designers didn’t have access to real plans: the kit had two rudders. (Every actual Essex-class ship had one.)
Please pardon the senile trip down memory lane. Slice off the lower portion of the Revell Midway-class carrier’s hull and you’ll have a reasonable basis for a serious scale model.
I really didn’t anticipate such a vaccuum of midway class carriers. WOW [BH]!!!
I remember having the USS Midway in the late 60s, early 70s and, as a goofy kid built it oob without paint yada yada yada. I believe she was finally religated to becoming a target ship at the swimming hole fire-cracker proving grounds! [banghead] What is it they say about hind sight?
Thanks for all your knowledge in this area and, keep your suggestions commin on in and, i’m never bored of anyones posts and always appreciate your advices…
Cheers, William [bow]
Jtilley makes a great point about the waterline
slice it and make a nice wooden base with water etc… a much greater presentation that way
Good luck
keep us posted with pics too where and when possible
Did not Renwal have a kit of a Midway Class carrier back in the late 50’s-early 60’s? For some reason that possibility popped into my head. Renwal did do several ship models back then and I vaguely seem to remember a carrier.
Loose Cannon makes a 1945 Midway in 1:700 scale which can become your point of departure for a Coral Sea …
ed you make it sound like he’s going on a cruise in the love boat [(-D] [(-D]
Ed And Durr
At this point it may be easier to get on a Love Boat cruise than track down a midway class carrier. Oh the unfairness of it all. [BH]
Thanks again for all your input! We’ll gitter done…[:D]
Every man to his gun or rope, sharps the word and fasts the action!!!
William
I’m pretty sure the Renwall kit was an *Essex-*class ship, in late '50s/early '60s configuration (with the hurricane bow and angled deck).
The Renwall ship series wasn’t bad, by the standards of its day. All the kits were on the same scale (1/500), and in terms of detail, while nowhere near today’s state of the art, they were in some respect superior to their Revell and Aurora competition. Renwall kits, for instance, had individual parts to represent the 20mm guns - rather than the integrally-cast blobs found on the Revell kits of the era. The Renwall North Carolina was in some ways a better kit than the Revell one that was released quite a few years later.
There are in-box reviews of both the old Revell Franklin D Roosevelt and the Loose Canon Midway kits on the SteelNavy website. The reviews have detailed photos of all the parts in each kit. Quite a trip down memory lane for those of us who built one of the Revell kits as kids.
Go to this page and scroll dwon to the kit you want to see:
cheers Steve [#toast]
Wow thats a pretty cool kit {multi media} at that!!! I’ll have to seriously consider it. I’ve never done a water line before. Water would be a bit of a learning curve but, i love a challenge.
Thanks for taking the time look.
Regards, William [dinner]
You’re right, it was the Shangri-La.
William…I am doing the same thing for my father in law who was a crewman in 1956. I bought the Loose Cannon Midway and its packed with all sorts of goodies. The only problem, its tiny and my eyesight aint what it used to be. While awaiting my ocular upgrade (glasses) I have set out on a hunt for reference material which I will say is a little lacking. I have a Float Book from the Med deployment in 1956, but it has pictures of most everything else except the ship, and those of the ship are grainy and shadowed from the flight deck down. I have found a couple of websights with photos, but not near the amount, quality, or subject I am looking for. Do you have any good suggestions on research material such as websites, books, manuals, etc? Cheers!
JB
have you checked with http://navsource.org/ ?
Yep…already have them saved to my favs[:D] This one also has lotsa pics http://www.usscoralsea.net/index.htm
I don’t recall ever seeing the kit you describe, but while I was serving on board the Coral Sea in the mid 1980’s I purchased a large scale plastic model of the Coral Sea which I believe was from Revell. It was one of the largest models I’ve ever built at somewhere close to 3 ft long, but it did have all four screws and a full rudder. And being that the Midway classed barriers keels where initialy laid as Iowa Classed battle ships, the shared the same hull design, basicaly the upper structure was changed and hanger decks, flight deck and an Island was added.
I enjoyed my time on the Grand Old Lady of the flat tops but an aircraft carrier with a flat bottom hull like the Iowa class battleships, was not fun during heavy seas. She would pitch and roll so much at times that you would find yourself walking on one corner of the passage way and bulkhead, and the next step you where on the opposite side. It was so bad that when we pulled our world cruise from San Francisco to Portsmouth Virginia via the Sues Canal, while operating in the north pacific we hit some very heavy seas, and when one of our air wings was coming aboard every single one of their F-4 Phantoms suffered catistrophic failures of the landing gear struts in the wings. we lost every single F-4 we had and until a marine air-wing could be brought onboard to give us proper fighter air cover, our A-7 Corsairs where pulling Carrier Air Patrols if you check some of the coral sea tribute sights you’ll see pictures from that cruise showing A-7’s chasing off Russian Bears. Eventualy a Marine air wing reinforced our Fighter squadrons until we got to subic bay in the Phillipines where we offloaded the damaged birds and loaded replacements.
Anyway I suspect that may be why some people think the hull below the waterline as strange, when I saw the Coral sea in dry dock in Virginia, I found that though I knew we had a flat hull, I didn’t realize how flat the hull was.
I built my model and gave it to my grand father because he fell in love with the ship the first time he saw it. When he passed the ship passed down to a cousin who gave it to one of his kids as a toy. Of course it didn’t last long after that. Now I’m searching for a model of the old lady as a momento of my time on board.
Max Parker
Sorry for rambling on like that
there is no large scale kit of he Midway class. a few companys that make 1/350 scale about 33"" long are pricey. builted a 1/350 scratchbuilt FDR for a friend dad a few years ago. as of now a 1990-1991 Midway is 75% done for another friend. in my opinion the bigger they are the better they look.
stedler, that model is not from revell as i have 3 of their midways. those models do not have props & have 2 rudders. the midway class were designed differently from the iowa class battleships. look at an iowa ship towards the front end which is more slender then the midways. there was a design proposal to convert an iowa to a carrier like the independence class cvl was from the cleveland class light cruisers, but was only a proposal.