I was very lucky to have visited the U.S.S. Midway in October of 2007 located in San Diego California and I purchased a scale model of the ship at there gift shop. I took lot’s of reference photos and plan to do a fair amount of scratch building to make it mroe acurate.
It’s a 1/800 scale made by ARII and I’d like to know if there are photoetched parts available for this kit?
I’d also like to know if anyone else has built this exact same kit and if they have any suggestions before I get started…
There are NO 1:800 scale photoetch detail sets available for this kit. There are no generic photoetch detail items available in this scale that I am aware of.
The use of 1:700 scale details on a 1:800 scale kit is up to you. The scale difference is roughly 13% smaller ((800-700)/800). Rails which you expect to be at waist height are now at mid-thigh. As a matter of personal choice I prefer to not mix scales in excess of 10% as I find it to be too visually jarring.
Ed, I do believe it’s the other way around. A waist-high railing on 1/700 scale would reach the shoulders of a 1/800-scale sailor - right?
It might be worth buying one or two sets of photo-etched parts to see if some of them could be used, with or without modification. (One possibility that comes to mind: maybe 1/700 four-bar railing could be trimmed down to 1/800 three-bar railing. And maybe such things as radar screens and deck-edge safety nets would look acceptable without modification.)
I haven’t bought any of those old Otaki/Arii 1/800 carriers, but as I understand it they’re pretty nice little kits - though hard to find nowadays. If memory serves (as it frequently doesn’t these days), there was an article about a model of the Midway, based on one of those kits in FSM a few years back. My vague recollection is that the model, which had quite a bit of additional work in it beyond the contents of the box, was pretty impressive.
You mention that there was an article in FSM a few years back concerning the construction of an ARII U.S.S. Midway. Does anyone know which year/month it was in?
Here is a good link I found while doing research for this project: http://steelnavy.com/Arii%20Midway%20ML.htm. It uses GMM’s “USN Supercarrier” steel photo-etched fret. This fret supplies items in 1/720 scale but fits well on the 1:800 ARII kit.
I fear my senile memory isn’t up to the task of finding that old FSM article. I believe the magazine offers an index in various forms, but I don’t know whether it goes back that far. It’s also entirely possible that my memory is imagining the article in question. Sorry.
An e-mail to one of the good folks at FSM might answer the question. I’m not so sure, though, that the article in question would offer any more help than that excellent Steel Navy one.
I just exchanged emails with Richard Harden of Tom’s Model Works about PE sets for the 1/800 scale aircraft carriers by Arii/Otaki, Monogram, Hapdong, Kitech, and Academy. He said that he would consider manufacturing them, especially if others showed interest. If you are still interested, please contact him.
I build these kits for my grandsons, hoping to get them interested in modelling. They love them! And, these kits do build into very nice models! I like the hull shapes better than the 1/720 kits; the Forrestal class is much better detailed than the Italeri/Testors models as well (no catapult running into the side elevator!) And, I am using the island from an old Monogram USS America to convert the Arii USS Contstellation into JFK.
I ended up buying GMM’s “USN Supercarrier” steel photo-etched fret, I had to do some modifications but it worked out fairly well. If Tom’s Model Works had available a PE sets for the 1/800 scale aircraft carriers by Arii I would have definetly have purchased it. Too bad the kit is almost done at this point…
The ship is not complete yet but I figure that I will be able to continue working on it by this summer. I have not finished using all of the PE yet but there are several pictures of what has been used so far (netting on the ship main deck and on several aircraft).