The problem this build tackles is scale: how does a first-timer get a 1/350 carrier across the finish line? The maker had never built a ship, or anything near this size, yet ModelChili Scale Models started a Tamiya plastic kit of the USS Enterprise in August 2015 and saw it through. The whole project ran about five months, with a couple of tanks built during breaks from the ship.
The project leans hard on aftermarket support. The air wing comes from Trumpeter sets covering the EA-6 Prowler, both Hornet variants, the Seahawk and the E-2 Hawkeye, with Tomcats, Intruders and Vikings parked on deck too. Boatswain decals supply markings such as BIG E on the island. The Phalanx guns are resin, the crew figures are Eduard photoetch fixed with cyanoacrylate, and the aircraft are held by PVA glue, which the maker notes allows repositioning. Some deck equipment was even scratch-built from spare sprue.
Dozens of tiny aircraft line the deck edges and cluster near the island, whose superstructure carries lattice masts, radar arrays and antennas. Catwalks, weapon sponsons, radio antennas and elevators run along the hull sides, and fuel hoses are wrapped around spools on the deck. The gray and red hull carries weathering, and there is one small joke: a figure on the port catwalk appears to be walking the plank.
The maker wanted the project wrapped up more than perfection, saying a few spots could have come out better, which seems a fair note to close on after five months. The finished ship sits screwed to a display stand, and a custom display box is still to come. With limited space at home, that box looks like a smart next step in my view, and a future carrier, possibly British or Russian, waits behind some smaller kits.
Project by ModelChili Scale Models. Watch it on their YouTube channel: