1/350 scale CVN-90 USS United States Stealth Aircraft Carrier

[seadude]

The first pic below is from an earlier post several pages back in this thread. This was how I was proposing to display my carrier along with a small display of each type of aircraft in front of the carrier. The wood board I planned to use in that pic got canceled and I'll be using a larger LEGO display case that I recently ordered to display my carrier instead.
Anyway, to display each type of aircraft in front of my carrier, I scratch built small display stands for all the aircraft. The black hexagon bases are wargaming miniatures bases I bought long, long ago. I then drilled a hole in each base in the center and inserted a small thin clear acrylic rod to hold up each aircraft. All clear rod pieces for all the display stands are 1 1/2" inches high. One display base is empty. That is for the MQ-25 aircraft which I am waiting for that I ordered.
I've got two options for displaying information about the aircraft on the base. I'm kind of liking Option # 2 more as it doesn't take up as much space. What do you think, folks? I hope to have better pics once the display case gets delivered later this week and I can get everything set up.

[NARSES2]

    

[Steel Penguin]

either option is good, 2 has less chance of movement if glued well, and would be easier to alter if you wanted..
With regarn to the air frames on bases, speaking as a person whos used wargames flying bases, be careful when moving them, they tend to be weak to any shear stresses at the top and  can snap readily,  might be worth having a couple of spares ready to use / replace with   

[seadude]

either option is good, 2 has less chance of movement if glued well, and would be easier to alter if you wanted..
With regarn to the air frames on bases, speaking as a person whos used wargames flying bases, be careful when moving them, they tend to be weak to any shear stresses at the top and  can snap readily,  might be worth having a couple of spares ready to use / replace with   

I do have a few spares in case of breakage or anything else. 
The clear thin acrylic rod is securely glued to each base. And all aircraft are securely glued to the top of each rod.
The aircraft bases and the informational sheet will be either glued or use of double sided sticky tape to affix them to the display base. I haven't decided which yet. Once I get the display case/base and get the carrier positioned on the base, then I can play around with positions of different items and see where I want various things to go. I'm probably not going to use Option # 1 with the acrylic riser as that is a bit too tall and almost blocks out the view of the aircraft if you were to look at them from different angles/heights.

[seadude]

The second picture below shows one sample underway replenishment refueling station on the Gerald Ford class carrier. You can see the black refueling hoses on the right side. This station could be used to take on fuel from a replenishment ship and/or to transfer fuel from the carrier to another ship in the fleet.

[seadude]

The Good News: My LEGO display case arrived today!    No missing parts and no damage either.
The Bad News: The display case "base" is only 1/8" inch (About 3 mm) thick. I was hoping it'd be thicker.
The Ugly News: I can't build this case until I get a thicker wood base for the LEGO case to sit on.    Diagram picture will explain further below.
Note: All dimensions are approximate. I did not measure to the exact 1/16" inch or whatever.

What I got was the Concorde LEGO display case which is the only size capable of covering my carrier model.
https://shop.kingdombricksupply.com/products/10318-concorde-display-case?_pos=1&_sid=47a075989&_ss=r
From the time I ordered the case to the time it was delivered today took about 1 to 1 1/2 weeks. Not too bad. 
And to say the display cases pieces were packed really well would be an understatement. Lots and lots of bubble wrap. 
So after seeing how thin the base for this display case is, I would probably only recommend LEGO display cases for small to medium sized models. If you're going to use a bigger display case for a bigger and/or heavier model, you'll have to put the display case base on top of another thicker wood (or other material) base as shown in the diagram further below.

[seadude]

PRELIMINARY TEST PICTURES

So I said screw it and decided to build the display case because I was curious to see how it'd look.
It's big and it holds my carrier 1/350 scale carrier model perfectly. Nothing inside the case is permanently attached to the base. Everything inside is just for test fitting only. I was able to build this case by myself without too much trouble. But the larger and/or heavier case a person gets, then they may need a second person to help them build it and/or move/transport it.
Before assembling, make sure to CAREFULLY remove the protective wrapping on both sides of all acrylic pieces. It's best if you lay the acrylic pieces flat on the floor on a soft towel when removing the protective wrapping.
I'm sorry about the blurriness of some pics. I tried to take a pic of the plastic clips that get attached to the acrylic panels and also the screws, but my photography skills are not as good as my modeling skills. I did get enough plastic clips and screws as I had 2 extra of each leftover in case I lost any. Thanks to Kingdom Brick Supply for providing extra. The screws do take an allen key to turn. KBS supplied two of those that they sent me.

[Gondor]

That looks as if it was made to fit. 

[NARSES2]

That looks as if it was made to fit. 

Indeed 

[Old Wombat]

That looks as if it was made to fit. 

Indeed 

Certainly better than I expected it to look & suitably BIG! 

[seadude]

That looks as if it was made to fit. 

Indeed 

Certainly better than I expected it to look & suitably BIG! 

Yeah, I think this display case turned out pretty good. Not perfect. But it'll work for my carrier. Maybe next week sometime I'll go to a hardware store and get a thicker wood plank board to put under the display case black base. We'll see.
In other news, I'm still trying to work on putting national insignia roundels on most of my aircraft.

[seadude]

Current status of this HUGE project.

Still need to decal most (or all) aircraft and attach them to the flight deck.
Still need to attach flight deck vehicles/tractors to various spots on the flight deck.
Ordered the Tilly crash crane and the MQ-25 aircraft at the end of July. Still waiting for them.
Sometime soon I'll get a thicker wood board to attach the black display case base to like I showed in a diagram back in Post # 605 further above. May need to use screws to attach the black base to the wood. Not sure yet.
Still need to order a ship name plate to put on the display base.
May order a US Navy patch to put on the display base along with the American flag patch I have.
Then attach the carrier, name plate, display of individual aircraft, patches, etc., etc. to the display base.
Then figure out a way on how I'm going to transport this huge model? I need to come up with a system to safely transport this large display case.

The heat is on and it's down to the wire. I'm hoping to take this model to it's first contest at the MMSI Model Show in Chicago in October.
So I've got "slightly" over two months to get everything finished.

[seadude]

Suggestions needed.

I went out today and bought a thicker wood board to set the display case black base on.
It's Aspen wood. It measures 48" inches long x 20" inches wide x 3/4" inch thick.
The display case black base measures approximately 43 3/4" inches long x 19 3/4" inches wide.
So the black base will fit perfectly on top of the wood board.......and with 2" inches on either side of spare space.
So the main question is: Best way to attach the black acrylic base to the wood board?
Glue it down? Or screw it down by drilling and placing screws at corners and/or a few other points?
The black acrylic base is smooth and shiny. So I'm not sure how well gluing it down on top of the wood board will work.

[Steel Penguin]

belt and braces,  glue and screw, they will support each others weaknesses and hopefully stop and unexpected failures.

[Gondor]

Give the underside of the display case a good rub with some rough sandpaper or equivalent, which will help the glue to key to the surface.