For 4 months I had the pleasure to get back into building a one-off model kit … the aircraft carrier the USS Shangri-La CVA 38. The whole build was a rather challenge and emotional one too for a number of reasons.

Firstly I hate building kit vessels, in fact this is actually just my third vessel build, so I was veering into the unknown. Then again the kit was an old Revell model and the extra plastic and seams present was horrendous – ended up spending longer time cleaning the parts then actually fixing them in place.

I hate building vessel kits (esp carriers) since apart form being produced in a relatively small scale, for very obvious reasons, they lack detail. However in this build I decided to take the plunge and build the entire hanger deck to be in a position to place a couple of aircraft inside as if they were undergoing servicing. Overall very happy with the way it all turned out.

An emotional build because the only time I was involved in building a carrier was some 45 odd years ago – building the USS Enterprise with my father. So building this kit brought back those memories. Thank you Dad you introducing me to this hobby… see still pretty good at it.

But the special thing about this build was that the final kit was to be handed over as a present to an important person, hence the secrecy with the whole build. The completed kit of the USS Shangri-La was in fact presented to none other than Ray (Iz- Zazu) Farrugia, Malta’s National Football Coach, making all the time & effort spent well worth it. I know he loved it and am glad that it is now in good hands. The build was commissioned by my boss, Andrew Grech, so a big Thank You goes out to him as well for trusting me with this project.

These are some the photos of the build and final product. Hope you like it