carrier decking

[Neil]

So I had an inspired brainwave the other day - mainly inspired by one of the damn thing falling on me - I have 2 (I'm sure there was a reason at the time) baseboards for kitchen units in my garage - about 9 foot long and not being used at all now or in the future. These will make rather decent display boards when cut to the right size I'm thinking.

So first up, I am making my Hellcat for the GB which was on the USS Essex - for runway I could use some grit paper, anyone got any preferred ways for carrier decks? It was one of the unarmoured decks so made of steel plating?

Neil

[yak face]

I think the Essex had a planked flight deck Neil (I stand to be corrected if anyone knows for sure) , these were sometimes painted a medium blue colour that soon faded / wore with use . The planks were quite thin and laid across the width of the deck at 90 degrees to the line of flight . If you search google images 'WW2 US carrier deck ' theres loads of good colour reference pics , theres also quite a few ready made bases you can buy , which might also give good reference for your scratchbuilt base , cheers tony

[eddiesolo]

I thought that all WW2 U.S carriers had the wooden planked deck as opposed to the steel deck of the British, one of the benefits was a quicker repair and containment of damage on British carriers.

Si

[dave]

I'm with Eddie and yak face on this, US Carriers to my knowledge had unarmoured wooden decks until the Midway class which was after the Essex class. I believe they started to change to armoured decks towards the end of the war due to the amount of damage they received from dive bombers and Kamikaze attacks.

[Neil]

Sorry, I think I confused the issue with mention of steel deck. According to wikipedia and some other sources, it was of course the Essex class so last of the unarmoured decks and it was of the blue variety. I found a site that has pdf's you can print on thick card which may be worth a shot especially as all I would need is to glue that to the board I already have. Thanks for the ideas, but as it is plain white board I could also just leave it at that.

Neil.