The history, of the kit not the ship!
I accquired it as a half-built kit off ebay a couple years back. What I really was after was the bonus Toms CVE PE set plus it also comes with a USN CV set. The previous owner already made a start using the CVE set, with a slightly untidy radar tower mounted on the island. The deck was also glued on already, with a rather heavy coat of primer which I suspect was either of the automotive variety or the airbrush was seriously clogged up. The result is a corrugated metal texture..
So after pulling apart the deck and some sanding to rid of the more glaring textures, things progressed quickly in the past 5 days if some of the sub-assemblies are somewhat more 'advanced' than I'd like.
I don't think the navy blue 5-n is that accurate..I'm lazy so I used the same colour on the planes and didn't bother with remixing the hull colour
The airwing are the kit supplied planes, wings cut to simulate wing folds. Nicely molded and with good recessed lines. If only Dragon/Trumpeter's clear aircrafts can have similar injection technology (their sets should come with a tube of putty!)
PS: David, my deck decal fitted reasonably well (to me at least). I used Gunze's Mr. Mark Softer, a 'hotter' decal setting solution in the market that I'm aware of - It even worked with Academy decals, SOMETIMES. Didn't even cut the strip that goes over the catapault, applied straight and ended up Okay I reckon.
