¹⁄350

USS Lexington (CV2) 1927-1942

Stage 20: painting and tinkering time

Hull: 4.5 hours
Bridge structure: 0.75 hour
Stack structure: 1.5 hours
Stack cowling: 0.5 hours
Elevator wells: 0.25 hours
Decks: 4.75 hours
Flight deck and elevator platforms: 2.75 hours
PE remaining on frets: 0.5 hours
Rubbing down, gap filling, washing down: 4 hours
Grooving flight deck post-painting: 1 hour

Paint: 3 x tins WEM Colourcoat 5-S Sea Blue
1 x tin WEM Colourcoat 5-D Dark Gray
1 x tin WEM Colourcoat #20 Standard Deck Gray
1 x tin WEM Colourcoat US01 #5 Standard Navy Gray
1 x tin WEM US11 Flight Deck Stain 21
1 x tin matt varnish

Scratch parts: 20
PE parts: 30
Time: 4.75 hours

The Lexington was painted in Measure 12 (Sea Blue) during her last refit at Pearl Harbour shortly before the Battle of the Coral Sea. On the model all vertical surfaces were sprayed with two coats of WEM Colourcoat 5-S Sea Blue. To rub down before the final third coat, I tried using a small piece of tracing paper. I knew from my days on the drawing board how surprisingly abrasive this is. However, all it did was polish the rough areas, so I switched to very fine grade (600 grit) wet-and-dry abrasive paper, used dry. This did the job perfectly, producing a smooth finish without removing too much paint. It also created a very weathered effect. The final top coat toned this down nicely, giving a subtle variegated finish looking a lot more realistic and lively than the rather dead and rubbery effect of a solid matt colour.

The inevitable gaps and cracks that the first two coats revealed were filled with medium-thickness superglue or model filler (depending on the situation), smoothed down and repainted.

After painting, I sliced off the neat (but rather clumsy-looking) deck-edge platforms for the ladders down to the 5-inch gun platforms and boat pockets. This was deliberately planned so that the exposed bare wood of the deck edge provided a positioning guide for the small styrene strip replacements. Each one had V-shaped supporting struts beneath it made from stretched sprue.

The interiors of the elevator wells (and open doors) were painted with White Ensign Models Colourcoat US01 #5 Standard Navy Gray. This was rather tricky because it is almost exactly the same colour as the plastic the kit is made from. The apertures left in the flight deck after the elevator platforms were cut out were very rough around the edges. No amount of filling, filing and sanding succeeded in correcting this. The solution was to cement a 2mm wide strip of thin styrene sheet around the inside edges.

The stack cowling was painted inside and out with White Ensign Models Colourcoat 5-D Dark Gray. I always avoid using pure black (or pure white) on any model, but even this dark grey is practically black. I cannot imagine anyone painting a model in any scale in Measure 1 (5-D Dark Gray) without lightening it a lot.

All decks were painted with one coat of WEM Colourcoat #20 Standard Deck Gray, followed by a coat of matt varnish.

The flight deck and elevator platforms were painted with one coat of neat White Ensign Models Colourcoat US11 Flight Deck Stain 21. This was followed by a second coat thinned 50:50 to prevent paint build-up in the etched surface detail. Any excessive paint build-up was dealt with by running a scalpel blade along the etched line, using a steel straight-edge as a guide.

I fooled around with the GMM PE palisade but couldn’t get it to look right on the deck. For one thing it was just too prominent. Eventually I discarded it and simply painted the etched detail in the deck alternately in Sea Blue (representing the rising elements) and Flight Deck Blue Stain (representing the decking in between). This corresponded reasonably with the appearance in photos where it does actually appear as pale flush striping on the deck.

Crash barrier supports (laid flat on the deck) came from the GMM PE set. Strangely there were only sufficient parts for six barriers instead of the required seven.

Not featured in the Nautilus deck, surprisingly, are the three prominent drain channels running the length of the flight deck from well forward to abaft the stack structure. I represented these by drawing them on with an HB-grade pencil. This gave the desired metallic/dark grey effect, and was sealed with matt varnish.

The GMM PE set includes boat cradles. Bases for these were made from strip styrene, with the cradles glued to them, and mounted in the port side boat pockets. The GMM PE set also provided life rails for the boat pockets, aft gallery deck and positions adjacent to the 20mm mounts at the stern quarters. Shields for the light AA platforms in the former boat pocket positions were made from styrene sheet cut into strips.