Been looking for a model of the Coral Seas or other Midway Class to make for my nieghbor who served aboard her. Have come up empty. Anyone know of a source prefferablt plactic.
Arii makes a good late-career version of the Midway in 1/800 scale that should be available from most hobby shops. Revell used to make an axial deck version that left a lot to be desired in terms of quality, but can often be found on ebay. I have also seen several resin 1/700 scale kits at different times in her long career, but they run about $200.00 or more.
Good luck! She was a beautiful ship!
Bill Morrison
Bill
Thanks. I’ll give ARII an try.
It may be cheaper to look for the Revell CV-41 Midway aircraft carrier kit (#h-441-380). I saw this old kit popped up now and then on Ebay. If your friend served on it later after the modernation, you want the CVA-41 model.
If cost is no objection, you can contact Motion Models to ask about their special order for the CVA-43 Coral Sea. They can make a CVA-41 Midway for a few hunderd dollars and up.
The cheapest option is a 10" Motormax diecast model. I saw it at the San Diego USS Midway aircraft carrier museum gift shop for only $20.
The ARII kit typically sells for about $23.00. I have rarely seen the Revell kits go for less than about $85.00 on ebay.
Bill Morrison
Bill, I misread your first post and thought $200. I stand corrected.
I did not see Arii ship kits at my LHS and am not familiar with them.
Can your LHS order ARII? They are very common kits. They are in 1/800 scale and build into reasonably nice models from the box. The $200.00 kits of the Midway class carriers are resin kits available from most online shops; Pacific Front Hobbies carries them.
Bill Morrison
I presume they can. But I doubt that I will in the near future.
My ships are 1:350 and 1:200, all destroyers. I have few ship kits compared to the number of aircrafts. I have my eyes on the Dragon Gearing class destroyer as the potential next ship project. I really want an 1:350 or larger scale British WW2 M or L class destroyer injection model, but the only thing I can find are the resin kits by WEM.
The ARII kit leaves a lot to be desired. The planes for it suck, they are amorphous blobs of plastic in rough airplane shape. The whip loke structures that are at the sides of the deck are so out of proportion it looks like there are telephone poles ringing the deck. I really hated this kit. You can get them through the USS Midway museum shop if you can’t find them anywhere else, but I can’t imagine building this thing.
We all have our opinions about every kit. They all have flaws. But, the ARII kits do have reasonable detail, go together well, and they do look good. The ARII USS Midway is certainly a far superior kit to the Revell kit and there is no other plastic kit available of this ship. Granted, the airplanes are horrible (as in most carriers model kits) and the whip antennaes are overscale (again, as in most carrier kits). I solve the problems by leaving the airplanes off because I am modeling the ship, and by using stretched sprue for the antennaes.
Bill Morrison
jayvee99 , hello there, I served on the MIDWAY and the BON HOMME RICHARD and,I figured I just about had to scratch build them in 1/350 . That for me is the best option . I,ll keep my eyes open and if I run across anything I,ll let you know right here in forum … tankerbuilder
There are a lot of companies that sell military ship models, but many are just wholesalers that simply resell models. My friend Lincoln Uson is a Master Modeler. You can Google his name. He has built more than 50,000 models from scratch.