STS Leeuwin II by Tallshiptragic - 1/56 - as she appeared in 2015

[Tallshiptragic]

Hi everyone,

 

This is my first post after

a few years. I had been on the original forum though work as usual always got in the way. Anyway signing back up I've decided to post a new build log of what I'm building now. This will be a model of the STS Leeuwin II.

 

The STS (Sail Training Ship) Leeuwin II is a tall ship based in Fremantle, Western Australia.

The Leeuwin is a three-masted barquentine. It was built to a design by local naval architect Len Randell by Australian Shipbuilding Industries Pty Ltd (now BAE Systems Australia) and launched on 2 August 1986. It is currently operated by the Leeuwin Ocean Adventure Foundation, a private not-for-profit organisation that runs youth training voyages along the West Australian coast.

 

The ship's overall length is 55 metres (180 ft) and its beam 9 metres (30 ft). The hull is welded steel with a teak deck. The main mast is 33 metres (108 ft) tall and, when fully rigged, the ship carries over 810 square metres (8,700 sq ft) of sails. A full crew consists of 55 people, consisting of 5 permanent crew, up to 10 volunteers (including four watch leaders, a bosun's mate, cook's mate and purser), and 40 trainees. The watch leaders take control of the four watch groups and lead the trainees through activities and ship duties on voyages of five days and more.

 

The model is based around a fiberglass hull and will be built using various media including fiberglass, plastic, wood and brass.

[Tallshiptragic]

As you can see the basic hull structure is complete and deck templates are in to finalise the shape of the permanent decks.

[Mirabell61]

Welcome back Tallshiptragic,

 

wish you much fun and all the best with your new Project, nice to see another tallship on the slipway.....

 

 

Nils

Edited March 11, 2015 by Mirabell61

[Omega1234]

Hi Tallshiptragic

 

What a great subject for your build log. I will definitely follow along and enjoy your progress.

 

One thing I noticed is that you've already progressed quite far into Leeuwin's construction. It'd be great to see how you built your fibreglass hull, ie did you make the mould, or did you buy it? The only reason I'm asking is because many of us would be interested to see how that process is done. If you can't, then that's ok, also.

 

All the best

 

Patrick

Edited March 11, 2015 by Omega1234

[Tallshiptragic]

Thanks Patrick,

 

Unfortunately I couldn't buy the hull! Haha there aren't any kits or plans available commercially for the Leeuwin on the market. Because of this I've seen a few models of the Leeuwin around with the completely wrong hull - especially the underwater sections. I'm an officer onboard so have access to the official ships plans. I don't have pics from the building of the hull unfortunately but the plug was built using a bread and butter method with pine planks and carved to shape. The molds are in two halves as the way the forepeak is made up, it would have been too hard to pull out of a single mold. A wooden template shaped around the keel profile is placed on the plug to form one half of the mold. Once this is set, the same is done for the other half. Both halves are clamped together to form one complete mold. This is what's used to produce the main model hull, once the fiberglass is set the two mold halves are unclamped and you're left with a one piece hull.

 

Below are photos for a hull mold and plug for the STS Young Endeavour to give you an idea of the process.

[Tallshiptragic]

I've built a few models in this fashion as I come from RC ships and fiberglass for the hulls are more durable for years of running in the water. As Leeuwin is a steel hulled ship I didn't think anyone would mind that I didn't have a wooden hull for the ship

[ccoyle]

The barquentine is one of my favorite rigs.  Good luck with your project!

[Tallshiptragic]

Thanks very much Chris.

 

She's a beautiful ship and sails very well. One of my favourite tall ships I've sailed on also, very different to the others.

 

Just to show what I've done up to now. The templates I've used to make the decks I copied onto plastic sheet to simulate the steel decks. These will have planks as the real ship has 40mm teak planks over the steel decking. It still looks rough as I had to undercut a few mm and filled with plastibond - a heavy duty bog - this will make the hull to deck join super hard and it's also quite easy to sand smooth once set. To support the decks I've used lime stringers. These where attached to the hull plastibond also as I have yet to find an off the shelf glue that will hold wood and fiberglass together sufficiently. This stuff is cheap and does the job brilliantly.

[Tallshiptragic]

Leeuwin high and dry during our refit last year. We have a refit every 12 months but only every second year does she come out of the water.

 

Also a couple close up shots on my hull.

[captainbob]

I like the way you are building.  Will you add RC?

 

Bob

[Tallshiptragic]

Thanks bob,

 

I had originally thought of the idea of RC, both power and sail... Though for the size of the model I should have at least doubled the scale to make it more practical. So this will be purely static. Also this way I don't have to forfeit on any of the scale detail especially the rigging.

[Omega1234]

Thanks for the photos of the fibreglass construction. It's not a method I've ever tried, so it was good to see how it's done.

 

I'll definitely be pulling up a chair to follow along.

 

All the best

 

Patrick

[Tallshiptragic]

Thanks Patrick, happy to help where and if I can. I've added a couple shots of my last model a 1/72 HMAS Brisbane or should I say nuship Brisbane. This is one of the new AWD's being built here in Australia. This model is full RC with working lights, radars rotating guns and firing verticle missile. She's a big one at 2.04 meters in length built with a fiberglass hull and plastic sheet for the superstructure and brass and resin fittings. So even though I'm a tall ship sailor, the Leeuwin is a jump for me in period of ship models. I'm looking forward to something not grey and with sails!

[Jim Lad]

It's always nice to build a model of one of the ships you've served on!

 

John

[Keith_W]

I remember the STS Leeuwin very well. I have been on board her, but unfortunately I have never sailed on her. I look forward to seeing this model progress. Thanks for starting your log and sharing with us. 

[Tallshiptragic]

Thanks Keith. Next time you're in WA and we're not on a voyage you can always come for a days ail or twilight sail.

 

Have added the rubbing strakes on the hull today. The rubbing strake on the ship is a half rounded steel which runs the majority of the length of the hull. The strake also marks the position of where the main deck sits. I've used 2mm plastruct half round strip which becomes 112mm at 1/1 scale. The strake on Leeuwin is 116mm... Close enough for me you will also see a small diameter and smaller length strake on the port side only. This strake was added during our last refit. This was done as our home berth in Fremantle harbour, we have four large steel fenders specially built for us attached to the wharf. During winter - our refit time- we don't have any voyages so apart from when she's up on a slip we can spend up to three months tied up during the worst winds and swell of the year. Even in the harbour we can still get 3+ metre swells behind the breakwater. Long story short one of the fenders caused quite a bit of damage to the ship and ended up coming apart from the wharf itself. 3+metre swell and 55 knot winds thrusting the ship against the wharf was not a fun time. So this extra strake is to keep this fender off the ship- well causing damage to the ship.

[Omega1234]

I remember the STS Leeuwin very well. I have been on board her, but unfortunately I have never sailed on her. I look forward to seeing this model progress. Thanks for starting your log and sharing with us.

 

I agree with Keith about starting the log. It's nice to see a model of such a beautiful ship being built; especially one that's traditional up top, but with a modern underbody.

 

Can I also add that you must, must, must start logs of your warship models such as th AWD Brisbane. There's bound to be a whole bunch of guys ( me included) that'd relish the thought of seeing one of those builds come to life!

 

All the best

 

Patrick

Edited March 12, 2015 by Omega1234

[Tallshiptragic]

Thanks again everyone. It's nice to see the support and interest is very much alive

 

As for my warship builds, I do have a Russian stealth corvette of the steregushchy class planned and possibly the WW2 era Dutch cruiser De Ruyter I want to build. They would both be 1/72 scale so most likely the steregushchy will be the next ship as its only about 1.3m in length. The De Ruyter is a bit over 2m like my AWD build so takes up a lot of space to build which I don't really have at the moment, but we shall see.

 

Playing with more hull detail. The shafts and supports are mocked up out of Ali rod for the shaft and plastic. Also next will be the few intakes and sea chests she has plus the depth sounder. So a few holes and a nobbly bit.

[Piet]

Hi Tallship, a model of Hr. Ms. de Ruyter would be great.  I mentioned under my signature that I plan to build a model of Hr. Ms. Java but will most likely not do it.  My father was killed on that tub and he hated her.  In retrospect I think he'd keelhaul me if I did.

Really like what you are doing with the Leeuwin!

 

Cheers,

[Tallshiptragic]

Thanks for checking in Piet! The Java would make an interesting model, an ugly duckling, no wonder you're father hated it. I assume he was on her during the battle of the Java sea? I'm also a member of Task Force 72. A model warship group based in Australia with bases in all major city's. We build scale RC warships - well mainly warships in 1/72 scale. It does look fantastic to have a fleet of all different ships in the water at the same scale. One of the members is in progress of building HMAS Perth WW2 Leander class cruiser to go with my De Ruyter. His father was also killed like yours but on the Perth during the battle.

[Tallshiptragic]

Added the five intake and discharge ports on Leeuwin today. A lot for a tall ship and nothing really for a powered vessel.

 

Leeuwin has two 204hp yanmar marine Diesel engines powering one shaft each. As such there is a salt water intake on either side of the hull bottom for cooling water. These are covered by a convex grate to stop debris and fish from coming into the plumbing. I probably didn't need to drill out the holes for these but I did and then covered them with the grate. I used some small ali grate I have - Model train stuff- and cut it out using a leather hole punch. Because of how the punch works and the pliable grate material, you're left with an almost perfect convex shaped circle there are two discharge ports either side of the hull above the waterline which are simply drilled holes. There are grates though these are further inside and not seen so I just left them as holes. Next to these are the exhaust. These are covered by a half tube with the opening at the lower end forcing any smoke to come out downwards rather than coming straight up towards the deck. Most modern warships have these type of coverings on all hull openings and from a distant look like lunch boxes all over the hull. I just used plastic half round rod to simulate this.

 

The last is the waste water discharge. There is only one on the starboard hull close to the keel and midships. Our grey water is the only water that is discharged after going through a treatment system. Our black water (sewerage) is also treated though stored onboard and pumped out while ashore by truck. As we mainly do inshore (within 200 miles) of the Australian coast, we follow marpol regulations and go beyond to be as green as possible. No garbage is ever thrown over the side even biodegradable food waste. Back to the discharge port, this was drilled out and unlike the engine discharge port a star shaped grate is quite visible just inside the port. I used some PE helo deck tiedowns which I use on my 1/72 warships as it was the perfect size. Let me know what you think.

[Omega1234]

Nice commitment to making your Leeuwin as realistic as possible, as witnessed by the discharge ports, etc.

[Tallshiptragic]

Nice commitment to making your Leeuwin as realistic as possible, as witnessed by the discharge ports, etc.

Thanks omega, I guess for me, because I know it's there. It should be on the model. I usually never bother with these details on my RC ships as the chance of damage is greater but as Leeuwin is a static model, I thought I'd include them.

 

Rudder has been added and stiffening plate and buildup around the hawse openings on the hull. The stiffening plate around the hawse hole was added a few years ago as the original hull plating in this area was becoming quite thin. The round buildup is common in much larger ships. This is in reality a buildup of multiple welds to keep the anchor off the hull itself. This had worked though because of the build up the anchor sat on more of an angle on the hull causing the anchor flukes to point into the ships hull plates. With the motion of the ship in heavy swells, the anchors would rise up and down - potentially causing damage to the hull. To avoid this plates where welded horizontal to the hull, to keep the flukes stationary. While it doesn't look all to pleasing to some, it works and prevents having gouges in the hull plating. I've also given the bottom a coat of red oxide. I use an airbrush and oils. The paints are straight out of our paint stores so the paints are as what are on the ship.

[Tallshiptragic]

Paper templates tacked onto deck to assist in planking and placement of masts, dog houses and other fittings. The templates don't go right to the bulwarks as they mark where the planking terminates. The waterways around the hull are a good 15inches on the actual ship and are wider on the foredeck and the poop deck.

[Tallshiptragic]

Planking started. Using 4mm ramin for the decks.

[Jim Lad]

Very nice progress.  It's good to see all the detail that you're adding.

 

John

[Tallshiptragic]

Thanks Jim. I'm not entirely happy with the planks as they're over scale. Well fine for a late 19th century barquentine, though leeuwins deck are more like daddy's yacht and quite thin. Scale size would be around 2.8mm which to save my sanity I thought I'd make do. Once complete and sanded etc it should look fine.

[Omega1234]

Hi Tallshiptragic

 

Great job so far. You're definitely in an enviable position to not only have access to the builder's plans, but access to the real shop itself! That way, you'll have no problem when it comes to checking out something, or measuring this or that, or confirming the placement of so and so, etc. I'm sure many of us wish we were in the same position as you!

 

Pls keep the updates coming, because I'm definitely following with great interest.

 

All the best

 

Patrick

[Piet]

Fantastic work Tallship.  Love the detail you put in and for a static model should be there, at least as much as possible.

re my father on the Java, yes, he was killed in action during the battle in the Java Sea.  According to an officer of that ship who survived and I spoke with, his battle station was at or below gun #9.  That's the part of the ship that blew up.  

 

I have posted a few pics on one of the pages of my O19 log.

 

Cheers, 

[Tallshiptragic]

Thanks Patrick. Yeah the idea is to have a model of each ship I've sailed on as crew. It does help knowing the ship and being able to walk around at anytime. I also have hundreds of photos from the port praj right around the ship to the starboard peak so I can always go back between the plans, photos and what I remember.

 

Thanks Piet, I'll have to check in on your log.

 

Poop deck base planking is complete. I'll plank the foredeck and then start on the edge planking.