Continuing with CVN-80
Work on the 1/350 Trumpeter USS Ford kit (which I am using to make CVN-80, the new Enterprise), is progressing very slowly for an odd reason: decals.
With this kit, the modeler is required to scratchbuild the hangar deck, assuming the intent is to open the hangar doors and make things visible. My objective is to open all three hangar deck doors and install overhead lighting. Obviously, the deck should be busy with aircraft, equipment, and personnel. But the walls of the deck have many warning and information placards. No one produces decals of these placards at sufficient quality, so I decided to make them myself. I researched the subject in detail, examining placement of placards and, when possible, the text content of each placard. In the end, about 95% of the placards were identified. I produced the decal sheet in Adobe Illustrator and have commissioned two companies to print them. Of the two, I picked Fusion Graphics, which did a great job printing my cruddy file. Ideally, I would prefer the decals to be made by a company like Italy-based Cartograf, which produces screen-printed decals.
The sheet is shown here, with many duplicates just in case I mess up. If you want the PNG file with transparent background, let me know. Printing is on you, but I’m happy to pass along the printer’s information once I make a decision on which of the two did the better job.
I feel like building a 1/350 scale aircraft carrier takes about as long as the full size one…
