¹⁄350

USS Lexington (CV2) 1927-1942

Stage 2: boat pockets

Kit parts: 5
Scratch parts: 26
PE parts: 15
Time: 8 hours

Overall impression: Where moulded-on catwalks are provided against the inside bulkheads these are positioned too low down and are also too narrow. There is also some irrelevant moulded-in rectangular window detail and complete absence of scuttles at two levels.

There are sufficient additional railings and ladders in the GMM photo-etch set, beyond what is required to replace the kit parts, to fit out the boat pockets. But only just. You need to retain the following from the set to replace the kit parts:

F12: 2
F13: 4
F14: 4
F15: 4
F16: 2

This will leave you with the following to fit out the boat pockets:

F14: 2
F15: 2
F16: 2

This will leave you two less than you need, but in practice, because the ladders need to be reduced in length, you will have off-cuts left over you can join together (tricky but possible) to complete the job.

All boat pockets were fitted out before installing them in the hull.

Below I have numbered these from forward to aft with the prefix P for port and S for starboard. Therefore P1 is the first boat pocket on the port side. There is of course only one boat pocket on the starboard side.



Above: Boat pocket P1 after installation in hull.

•P1: Removed inboard bulkhead and replaced with 0.2mm styrene sheet. Removed light AA platform locating tabs from deck. Drilled scuttles. Added walkway and 1mm wide vertical central stanchion, GMM 3-bar railing type 3 with central bar removed and GMM vertical ladder with hand rails removed and cut to length.



Above: Boat pocket P2 after installation in hull.

•P2: As P1 with addition of 1mm deep catwalk vertical edge. Moulded-in inclined ladder removed and moulded-in locating rib for catwalk on forward bulkhead to external inclined ladder to flight deck cut back beneath longitudinal catwalk. Residual boat crane mounting hubs removed from deck head. These crane arms actually pivoted horizontally about vertical mountings close to the deck head outboard edge.



Above: Boat pocket P3 after installation in hull.

•P3: As P2 except aft vertical ladder up to catwalk is at right angles to it rather than 45 degrees. There is an additional, inclined, ladder running from a right-angled extension to the catwalk at the forward end down to the boat pocket deck.



Above: Boat pocket P4 after installation in hull.

•P4: As P3 except two additional vertical stanchions between catwalk and deck head only.





Above: Boat pocket S5 after installation in hull.

•S5: Identical mirror-image of P4 except for additional scuttles at lower level.

The outward bowing of the thin plastic above the boat pockets was easily corrected by clamping them to the boat pocket structures when these were cemented in place. The liquid poly adhesive was strong enough to hold the distortion in compression.



Above: Clamping boat pocket to hull.



Above: Boat pockets installed.