Oystein

Thanks for all the likes and comments.  And Marc, never hesitate to point out something that I may have missed.  More eyes just means that fewer mistakes will get through to the final product.
 
With the model hull on the port side fully primed, it was time to figure out how to paint the complex and confusing ‘dazzle’ design that the troop ship bore. 

Dazzle camouflage, called ‘razzle-dazzle’ by us Yanks, was developed in England during World War I in response to Germany’s use of unlimited submarine warfare.  Credited to both a marine artist and a zoologist, the idea was not to make a ship invisible, as overall grey tries to do, but to make it difficult to estimate a target's range, speed, and heading.  It was intended primarily to mislead the enemy about a ship's course and so to make him take up a poor firing position.   It generally consisted of complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colors that interrupt and intersect each other.   It has been suggested that it works on the coincidence rangefinders used by submarines by making it hard to align the split images in the eyepiece.  The clashing patterns look abnormal even when not seen through a rangefinder.  Below is an actual photo of the USS West Mahomet.  Try to find the bow.

As seen in this 1922 illustration from the Encyclopedia Brittanica, dazzle can work for single ships, but for a convoy the appearance can be overwhelmingly confusing.  

 Its effectiveness was analyzed after the war.  Although British data is equivocal, among American merchantmen 2,500 tons and over, 78 uncamouflaged ships were sunk, but only 11 camouflaged ships sunk by torpedoes.  No camouflaged US Navy ships were sunk at all.  In the words of a U-Boat captain:
      “It was not until she was within half a mile that I could make out she was one ship [not several] steering a course at right angles, crossing from starboard to port. The dark painted stripes on her after part made her stern appear her bow, and a broad cut of green paint amidships looks like a patch of water. The weather was bright and visibility good; this was the best camouflage I have ever seen.”
     This may have been what he was looking at -

Fortunately I did not have to rely on photographs of the troop ship to get the dazzle design I needed.  The National Archives contains drawings of the dazzle pattern for Leviathan.  Here is the one for the port side.  This and the several photographs of the ship taken during the war were my starting point. 

Obviously, both the pattern and the photos are in black and white, but color was also a central part of dazzle camouflage.  For Leviathan it appears from the different shadings within the various areas of the pattern that several colors were involved.  The Brittanica page has a chart of all the colors used, but which colors went in which area?  Fortunately, the Merchant Marine museum has a large painting of the ship in moderately heavy seas.  It was done by Frederick J. Waugh, a marine artist who had been part of the American Camouflage Section which was responsible for designing the patterns for US Navy ships.

The painting was very helpful in identifying the look of the ship, but for model making it has some problems.  Careful comparison with both the drawn pattern and the photographs reveals some inconsistencies in the size and location of some of the camouflage shapes, so I went back to the photos for the final layout.  As for the colors, I was somewhat hesitant to rely on Waugh’s choice of hue and tone since he has other artistic factors to consider beyond exact reproduction.  Instead, I went back to the color chart on the Brittanica page.  It was clear that the page had yellowed somewhat, so I took the chart and adjusted the contrast, hue, and saturation until the background color of the page and the white color chip looked as close as I could get them, which is the lower set of colors.  After consultation with Professor Smith, we selected 1 Grey, 3 Grey, 1 Blue Green, 2 Blue, and White.

With those decisions made I took the dazzle layout and enlarged it to the size of the model.  Here it is, propped against the model.  I should have put them side by side for comparison, but forgot to take the photo.  So for comparison here is a shot of the port side from an earlier date.  The red things are the backs of our dining room chairs.

To lay out the design I knew that I could not simply cut out the pattern.  The model has too many curves that would distort the shapes, and I found that in any case the pattern did not accurately match the landmarks and dimensions of the model.   I would have to draw the pattern on the model by eye.  I decided to start with the bow, even though it is the most complicated area, because it had a clearly defined edge that could be reliably fixed to a landmark on the ship.  I covered the bow with strips of masking tape, then drew on the diagonal line at the aft edge starting with the point where the superstructure met the side bulwark.  Using the photo, the drawing and the painting, together with a small straightedge and some ships’ curves, I sketched in the outlines of the color areas.      

A word here about the tape.  It is “Frogtape” in the yellow formula for delicate surfaces.  I find that it holds quite well and releases cleanly with no residue.  I messed up drawing the bow pattern several times and had to remove all of the first layer of tape which came up without damaging the surface at all.  No connection to the company, just a happy customer.
          I repeated the process at the stern, which has a much simpler pattern, but has to work around much more acute curves.  You can see how the shapes had to be modified to hit the landmarks on the ship rather than simply taking them from the drawing.   Once the drawing was satisfactory, I cut down through the tape to the hull using a new paper cutting blade. 

The tape was burnished down and a sealer coat of clear acrylic was brushed along the edge to reduce bleeding.  Then the three open areas were sprayed with the 1 Grey color.  When the tape was removed the results were surprisingly satisfactory considering how uneven the surface is.  Only a little cleanup along the edges was needed.

Returning to the bow the long white stripe was cut and unmasked, burnished, sealed and sprayed.   When it was dry the area was re-masked with tape.  The inside of the bulwarks, the tops of the deck houses, and all other side areas were masked with tape and newspaper before the light grey areas were unmasked and painted.  When everything was dry the masks were all removed.  The result was a - - - Disaster!
          Despite the burnishing and sealing there was bleeding at so many spots that I spent more time hand-painting the edges than I had spent on the masking.  Ultimately I was satisfied with the sharpness of the edges and the layout of the pattern, but it took a lot longer than it should have.

With most of the kinks worked out I taped over the long midships section and laid out the pattern.

This time, after removing the masks from the Blue Green areas, I lightly brushed the paint from the edge of the tape inward toward the center of the area.  Using a fairly dry brush gave me no bleeding under the edge so when the tape was removed the edge was cleanly marked by a light layer of paint. 

A second coat was hand painted up to the edge to even out the hue and to make it fully opaque.  This was not difficult with the edges so cleanly marked.  The same was done for the light grey areas.  Here is the forward portion of the ship.

And here the stern.  I will never look at this without seeing a rabbit chasing an octopus.

 I wonder what the U-Boat captain might have thought, seeing this in his periscope.

By way of comparison, here is the boring black and white of the ocean liner.

Travel and family gatherings will fill the rest of the month, so I bid everyone a joyous Happy Holidays and excellent New Year.
 
Dan
 
 

Hello again to all - 
 
And thanks for the likes, compliments, and most especially for the suggestions.  The more the better.  A professor of mine once said that there was never an 'A' student who was smarter than 3 'C' students.  So students like me need all the help we can get.
 
I left the last segment with the bow ready for deck fittings, then I turned my attention to the stern.  With ocean liners, which are built somewhat along the lines of a wedding cake, I find that I retain the most flexibility by building in from the ends before moving up in the middle.  Here at the stern there is a three layer cake consisting of, first, the working deck at E level, its deck house pierced by small portholes and several doors.  The middle layer is the aft end of D deck with a narrow extension reaching to the aft rail where the flagstaff is located.  This deck house is more open, with large rectangular windows.  The upper deck at C level is open to the sky and does not connect to the rest of C deck.  It holds various boats, davits, vents, etc., as well as having a small rounded platform for the mooring lookout.  Its deck house is small and square and has a dark wooden surface, possibly mahogany.

During the war some significant changes were made to these decks.  On D deck a platform was built out and aft to hold the stern 6 inch gun.  To improve its field of fire the ensign flagstaff platform extension was shortened.  To reduce damage from the blast shock the overhanging piece of C deck was cut back.  Then everything, including the decoration below the counter, was painted grey.

Taking the shapes of the decks and deck houses from the plans for both the liner and troop ship configurations, and as confirmed by examining the photographs, these deck units were built up.  You can see the lack of symmetry in this photo, which is the whole point of the model, I guess. 

They were built up in my usual way, with sheathed ½” basswood plank for the house, topped with 3/32” basswood sheet, edged in 1/8” styrene which gives a little lip to the deck edge for the railings to come.  The underside of the deck was painted white on the liner side and grey on the troop ship side.

The portholes are the smaller brass grommets, the doors are printed appliques of sturdy art paper, the handrails are wire.  I thought that the textural contrasts would be enough to set off the details on the troop ship side, but it is clear that they simply disappear into the background.  This may have worked during wartime, but for modelling purposes, I thought that they should stand out much more.

Here on the D deck house I made the large rectangular windows by creating and printing them out in black on white carrier film.

The liner side was masked before I added the details to the troop ship side.  This time I cut the windows from art paper that was a bit thicker, hoping that this would give sufficient contrast.

However, as you can see after stacking the deck units in place, the troop ship side was a visually flat grey.

The solution turned out to be pretty simple, and I should have hit on it sooner.  I just printed the black windows onto clear decal film, then set them in place.  They are probably more visible than is historically accurate, but without magnification and direct lighting they do not jump out too much.  Note here the first use of red to denote a structural change on the area where the ensign platform has been cut back.

The site is telling me that I want to put in too many photos for one posting, so I will break it into two at this point.
 
Dan

The final structural element of the lower hull was the decoration under the stern counter.  Although the filigree decorations at the bow of the SS Vaterland were removed, these at the stern were retained, with some changes.  The name was replaced in the large flat oval section, called a cartouche, in the center, of course, as was the home port.  Then the German national shield was replaced with the American one.  The rest appears to have been kept as is.

A detailed photo shows that the filigree has a bas-relief fringe on top made up of various feathery and leafy shapes above a large gently curved vine stem.  Below the central stem are some smaller stems that lead to flower heads framing the shield and some small waves to fill the remaining space.  At no point does it look to be more than three inches thick.

There was no way that I could generate the required layout of the two-dimensional shape that would fill the 3-dimensional compound curves of the counter.  Using a very low-tech solution I wrapped the counter in a strip of stiff paper, then trimmed it back till I got something that basically fit.  Taping it to the hull I roughly drew in the major elements of the decoration.  Some of the derived shapes were quite surprising.

 Using the drawing as a guide, I started with the flat oval cartouche for the name.  Again, I cut a rough piece of paper and repeatedly trimmed it until I had an oval that fit between the upper and lower moldings of the counter, and which was symmetrical when I folded it along the centerline.  When I was satisfied I used the paper as a pattern for the plastic piece.  It was checked and rechecked, trimmed and sanded a bit, then secured in its place.

The hawse hole at the top center was built up from several sizes of punched and drilled discs.  The large vine pieces were laid out so they ran along the top of the cartouche then curved and tapered into the lower counter molding.  A paper pattern for the shield was cut and test fitted into its space.

The two shields were cut to the pattern out of 0.015” sheet with scallops along the top edge.  The blue field was set on top, made from 0.010” sheet.  The seven red stripes were cut from 0.010” x 0.030” strip and glued in place.  The pieces for the colored shield were pre-painted before installation, while the ones for the troop ship were not.  I made no attempt to put 13 stars into the field that was so small.  I just dotted the field with white using a tool from a nail decorating set purchased at the drug store.

The blank shield was permanently attached, but the colored one only tacked in place.  Using them as landmarks the smaller vine stems were curled to shape and installed.

 I took a page from that wonderful Czech artist, Doris, from this site, and decided to mold the decoration in clay.  I have tried Sculpey, which Doris uses under the name of Fimo, with very mixed success.  I don’t like the process of baking it.  I decided to try an air-dried clay instead.  I was looking for some on the internet when I stumbled on a store in my neighborhood that sells school supplies.  Here I found a number of inexpensive supplies and tools, including a tub of water-based, air-dry clay.  Two pounds for only a few dollars.  Although this is much more than I will ever use, the price was below that of smaller quantities on line.
 
I took a small amount of the stiff compound and softened it with a drop of water.  After some kneading it made a nice, supple, dough.  I rolled it into a long rope, then flattened the rope with a curved spatula to about 1mm thick on a scrap piece of styrene.  Using the edge and corners of the spatula I found that I could approximate the carvings, although I made simplified triangular patterns where the decoration actually has leaves.

I left the test piece to dry overnight.  In the morning it was dry and hard and had not deformed or shrunk.  That was the good news.  The bad news was that it did not adhere to the plastic and it was extremely brittle.  Further experiments followed.  It turned out that the first problem was solved by softening the clay with white glue instead of water.  The pliability was the same, but it held on well to the plastic.  There was some more flexibility when dry, but nowhere near enough to allow me to make the decoration off the model, as Doris does, and then transfer it.
 
I laid a clay rope onto the model above the main vine, flattened and shaped it in place.  The other sections of the decoration were done the same way.  In this shot the decoration is just starting to dry and you can see the upper edge turning white. 

With a small brush I painted the clay with water.  This kept it soft and also smoothed the surfaces.  The edges were defined and any excess clay was cleaned up

The next day the clay was painted with wood hardener which sealed and strengthened it.  Then the liner side was painted gloss black and the troop ship side painted in primer grey.  Liquid gold leaf was carefully hand painted on the liner side decorations before the colored shield was permanently attached.

Tiny letters were sourced on line.  I could have made up decals, like the windows, but I wanted the texture to show through the camouflage grey paint.   The larger letters are 1/8” tall (2 feet) for the name and the smaller ones are 3/32” (18 inches) for the home port.  They were painted off the model before being attached.

So here is the model in its bipolar glory in a shot from low on the starboard stern.  After this I continue building in and up.

Although it may seem that I am building quickly, this is somewhat because I started the build log almost three months after the model construction started.  I am catching up steadily, with these last photos taken at the beginning of October.  When I do, the reports from the shipyard will slow down considerably.  Like me.
 
Until then, Happy Thanksgiving to all, whether this is your holiday or not.
 
Dan
 
 
 

Hello again, and thanks for looking in.
 
Construction continued with the sheer strakes which incorporated the bulwarks of the working decks at the bow and stern.  They are at different levels, with the bow being part of D Deck, while the stern is at the E Deck level.  For the bow I took wider strips of styrene which were 0.015” thick.  I thought I needed the extra thickness for structural strength above the support of the hull block. 
 
The lower edge of the new strip was fitted to the upper edge of the prior plates and parallel with the top line of portholes, then it was taped in place.  Using a compass I marked the inside with a line setting a consistent height of 4 feet (1/4”) for the bulwarks.  The strips were removed and shaped to the line.  I located and drilled three round holes for the hawser leads and two slots for the fairleads, although these were hidden by solid hinged doors such as the one that can be seen just aft of the bow.

 At the stern the strakes around the compound curves had to be built up one at a time, then faired into a final vertical bulwark.  I made and discarded several sets of paper patterns before getting it to match the photographs.  Here I did my first significant split painting.  I sprayed dark grey primer on both sides of the hull with the inside of the stbd bulwark masked to keep it white.  Then I masked the port side and painted the stbd side black.  I got some underspray but I decanted some of the primer and cleaned it up with a brush. 
 
The deck is also split.  Many of the photos of the troop ship have decks that look a lot like they match the grey of the deck houses and bulwarks, so we decided they should look it on the model.  It also gives a stark contrast between the two representations.  To keep the lines of the deck planks visible I misted the paint from a distance to make a translucent layer.  This deck is a test piece and was ultimately replaced.

My guide for the bulwarks was this photo of the troop ship.  The wood deck ends several feet from the bulwark, leaving a gutter space for the triangular supports for the bulwark.  Also in that space are two four-post fairleads near the bow and two three-post ones further aft near the chain winches.  A fairly wide caprail tops the bulwarks with a small breakwater mounted on top at the bow.

The supports were chopped from a ¼” strip using an inexpensive commercial device I bought a while ago.  It has served faithfully as long as I replace the blade frequently.

The fairleads were built up by taking thick strip ¼” wide, cutting pieces to length and sanding a bevel into the inner edge.  Short posts were cut from solid rod as carefully as I could.  Using the squarest ends they were glued to the bases with white glue which gave me some time for adjustments as it set.  When the glue was dry the posts were all reinforced with CA.  When everything was sturdy I lightly sanded to tops of the posts level and even.  Then they were topped by small discs punched out of a sheet with a leather-working punch.

The fairleads were primed dark grey, as were a number of bollards and winches that started life as Bluejacket castings.  They were set in place to help locate the fairleads exactly.  The fairleads then located the bulwark supports and the spacing between them.  This then determined the locations of the stanchions which support the next deck, and they are marked in black.

Everything was removed and the bulwarks, supports and perimeters were given contrasting colors.  I decided on a dark grey for the port side to match the primer on the fittings.  A better deck was made, a margin plank applied, and the port side misted grey before being glued down.

Another test.  The port side fittings are a light grey, the stbd ones are buff colored, as seen in a few photos.  The buff ones are good, but on the port side I did not like the contrast between the light fittings and dark bulwarks. 

At the bow I made the fairleads and bulwarks the same light grey.  I like the look better, and it is closer to what I see in the photos.  I will probably do some dark washes at the end of the build to bring out a bit of contrast.  Now I could mask the interior of the bulwark and paint the liner side gloss black to a point just past the end of the working deck.  The stbd caprail had been left off until now to keep it pristine white, and now it was attached, making a very clean color separation line.

In the middle of this area is a large deckhouse spanning the full width of the deck.  Side panels sit on top of the caprails and curve into them.  A number of portholes pierce all sides of the house, with two wide corridors running through the house, which could be closed off with double steel watertight doors on the forward face.  The forward mast, several boats and davits, winches and ventilators cover its roof, but those details are for much later.

The deckhouse is built up from a ½” basswood for the body of the house, with a 3/32” roof.  It is sheathed in styrene which extends just a bit above the roof.  This lip will anchor the brass railings that will go on later.  Portholes on the sides were installed as before, but I left the ones on the liner side bright brass.  On the forward face I cut two large doorways with rounded corners and flanked them with doors made from strip.  The portholes on this face are PE from Tom’s Modelworks, Nice, but ultimately I did not like them.  It was a question of visibility.  They just did not stand out well enough. Handrails on the liner side are bright brass wire.  On the liner side, soft iron wire.  This is the basic pattern that all future deckhouses will follow.

From the opposite angle you see that the PE portholes on the troop ship side have disappeared completely.  The portholes on the face of the main deckhouse are much more visible and match those on the hull.

The aft side of the deckhouse has the same corridor openings, but without the watertight doors.  The round pillars are bases for tall, thin horn ventilators.  The roof has been pierced for staircases, cut small to be expanded later.

All along I have been taking test photos to judge my progress.  Here is one to check the symmetry of the hull and the details.  If you have a sharp eye, you will notice that the small triangular roof extension at the forward corner of the deckhouse is smaller for the liner than for the troop ship.  This is just the first of many subtle and not so subtle differences from one to the other.

The same techniques were used to build up the small, but detailed, 4th Class entryway which fits on deck between the deckhouse and the superstructure.  Some more detailing is needed, but it will help locate stairways, cargo cranes, and other fittings.

Here are some of those details for the bow deck, including three hatches and a number of bollards.

And here they are set in approximate place.  Now, as I write this, I can see that the entryway that I spent a good bit of time on is too big.  It crowds the hatches and will get in the way of future fittings, including a gun platform on the troop ship. 

I will have to make up another one.  But not now.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Hello again all.   Here is the next segment, posted quickly since I will be leaving for the NRG conference in Las Vegas tomorrow morning.  Hope to see some of you there.
 
Now that the hull block has been shaped and primed, I had to decide how detailed I wanted to make its surface.  From a distance – even by modeling standards – the liner hull is a fairly undifferentiated black.  The troop ship hull is a riot of colors and shapes.  In both cases I believe that I could have left the surface fairly clean without compromising the educational value of the model to the museum.  However, that is not my way, as anyone who knows my mania will tell you.
 
The hull was built up out of steel plates that appear to be about 8 feet tall and 25 feet long.  The upper strakes overlap the lower ones, so there is a step up with each successive plate from the hull to the sheer.  Judging from the shadows that they cast, the plates appear to be about 1 inch thick.

These plates were attached with rows of rivets along their bottom edges and through the overlapped plates of the strake below.  They were secured to each other along the same strake with narrow vertical connector plates that covered the joints and were riveted to both plates.  I resolved to replicate this look as best I could.

Extra-high resolution photos showed that the plates were also secured with a number of lines of rivets in the middle of the plates.  This was a step too far for me, but perhaps I will attempt it if I do another hull where I have more building time.

I started with 0.005” styrene sheet, which scales out to 1 inch thick.  The sheet was cut to 6 inches wide, which scales out to 100 feet, or 4 full sized plates.  To make the lines of rivets I butted the edge of the sheet against a straight metal rule which had been taped down to a cutting mat.  A second rule was placed on top of the sheet and adjusted so it was parallel with the first, then it was clamped in place.  The shaft of a Dremel circular saw bitt was slipped into a hole in a piece of scrapwood so it could spin, then rolled along against the edge of the top rule.  This left a line of indentations pushed down into the soft cutting mat.  The top rule was moved out and a second line of indentation was made, then a third.  Then the sheet was placed in a wooden cutting jig and a ½” strip parted off with the triple line of rivets along one edge.

To keep the lines of rivets consistently spaced from each other, and from strip to strip, I made up a quick rivet spacer with three steps.

The end result was a plating strip with three parallel rows of bumps that were close enough in scale to approximate the real rivets.

These strips were applied to the hull block from the waterline up, following a series of drawn lines that matched the lines of plating strakes seen in the photographs.

At the bow they ended before the edge of the stem.  In the photos these areas do not have rivets and look to have been welded.  The drawn circle is the future location for the housed anchor.

At the stern the strakes fair upwards and taper slightly to cover the complex curves and to match other photos.

The connector plates were made from ¼” wide self-adhesive copper foil on a paper backing.  This is available from any stained glass supply company in every width up to a full half inch in 1/32 inch increments, so the right one can be found whatever scale you are working in.  A 5 inch length was cut off the roll and 4 lines of rivets impressed from the back through the paper and into the mat.

Short lengths of the riveted foil were cut off and applied to the plating strips.  They covered each joint between strips and then in a staggered pattern to define the individual plates.

Some of the copper plates had to be adjusted forward or aft, but I could set up a pretty regular pattern that never had one joint directly above another.

The developing pattern clearly defines the curved sheer of the ship.  I left the uppermost strake off at this point because the final strake will be thicker and will incorporate the solid bulwark around the open deck.

Here is the starboard side for the liner with all the plates and connectors applied.  The port side was done the same way.  Without counting precisely, I estimate that there are over 200,000 “rivets” on the model.

The port side was sealed with another coat of dark grey primer and the lines of portholes located according to the photos and plans.  These were drawn on the hull and adjusted as needed to make smooth, fair curves that matched the plating strakes.  Then the “porthole plan” from Cutting Plan 1 was cut along the line of one row of portholes and taped to the hull so I could get the location of each porthole.

Here you can see the process in one view, from the bottom up.  1) the lines were drawn; 2) a small nail was used to make dimples at each porthole location; 3) a hole was drilled at each dimple that was deep enough to accept the shaft of a small brass grommet; 4) the holes were painted with white glue and the grommets slipped in; 5) any grommets that were out of line were corrected and they were all tapped down flush.

At the bow you can see how the lines of portholes relate to each other and to the stowed anchor and a pair of auxiliary hawse holes.

In the midships area there are two sizes of portholes, some of which are set in a square pattern of four.

By actual count there are more than 2,500 portholes on the model.  Inserting them individually into their proper holes aggravated a carpal tunnel-like problem that I get, which my doctor calls “porthole thumb”.   It requires a somewhat painful cortisone injection to the base of my right thumb, but it does clear up.   So here is the troop ship port side with all of its portholes set up almost to the sheer. 

After the starboard liner side was done the hull was basically complete, and I turned to some of the detail work on the bow and stern working decks.  I will post that when I get back from Vegas.
 
Till then, be well.
 
Dan

Hello again and welcome to the next segment of the build.  In this one the hull block will be roughed out.
 
First, to determine what wood to order, I laid out the lifts.  Taking the profile view I adjusted it until it was exactly level, then drew in horizontal lines to divide the hull from the waterline up to the level of the working deck at the bow – D deck.

I started with a ¼” lift at the waterline and just below.  This will later be attached to the building board which will become the base for the ocean.  Four ½ inch lifts follow.  Each lift is labeled to show its thickness and the deck plan that will be used to rough cut each to the outline of the hull.   Above the fifth lift is another ¼” lift and then two upper layers that are tapered to account for the rise of the sheer at the bow.   

At the stern the lifts are similar, although the open working deck here is one level down, at the level of E deck.  There is a similar taper in a lift for the sheer.

The model was going to be just under 5 feet long, but basswood only comes in lengths of 2,3,4, and 6 feet.  I could have ordered 6 foot planks, but they are significantly more expensive and there would be a good deal of waste.  Instead, I pieced the hull together by alternating 2 and 3 foot lengths, staggering the joints from layer to layer.  I also only ordered a few pieces in the full 6 inch breadth of the model.  The rest were 3 inches wide and would be joined together in the construction process.
 
The plans for each lift were cut from the printed sheets and laid out on the wood.  A spray photo mount glue was used so they could be easily removed later.  For each lift the wood pieces were clamped together without glue and the plans were attached.  While still clamped in place the paper was cut along the joints.  Here are the first three lifts laid out in a somewhat confusing composite photo.  Hope you can understand it well enough.

The lifts were cut out along the perimeter of the plans, leaving them a bit oversize for later shaping.  The base waterline lift was left intact, but above that the lifts were hollowed by removing most of the interior wood.  I do this so that wood movement is minimized and the stresses have some where to go other than deforming the exterior shape.  Using the narrow planks meant that I had open access to the middle of the lift, so I could remove the wood with my band saw and did not have to drill, chisel, or rout it out.  Two bridges were left at the 2 and 3 foot positions along the lift for structural strength.  Here is the waterline lift with the next lift above it.

Each lift was glued to the one below with woodworkers’ yellow glue that was colored black with a few drops of acrylic paint.  They were individually clamped and secured, making sure that each was exactly on the centerline.  Here I have built them up to the last fully horizontal lift, which is also the last one that was hollowed.  I glued a penny to the center of the ship for luck.

The tapering lifts were cut to shape and planed to the proper profile.  When all were set a power sander was used to shape the hull.  Here at the bow you can see that tapered lift.  Using the black glue always gives me reference lines, no matter how much wood is removed.

At the stern the shaping was a bit more complex.  I did not have any cross-sections for this area from the plans, just the stern profile.  I used the photographs to refine the shape, setting them up on my laptop so I could look at them as I worked.  Even with all my planning I found that the first thick lift was too narrow in one spot, so a strip of wood was glued in and shaped to fill the gap.

Using the black glue also let me see the symmetry of the hull as it was being shaped, especially at the stern.  There is still a bit more refining to do in this shot, but it is getting close.

The issue at the bow is that Leviathan carried not only the usual two anchors on the sides of the ship, but a third larger anchor which ran out from the nose of the ship.  This meant that the bow flared out in a long diamond shape so there was room for the hawse hole.  This is a detail that cannot be seen on any of the plans, but only on the various photographs.

The location of the hole was carefully drawn on with the oval shape that the angled hawse pipe makes, and then carved into the excess wood that had been left at the bow.  The black glue that secured the narrow lift pieces together established an indelible centerline that I used to guide the shaping of the bow.

When the basic shaping was done I gave the hull a first coat of primer to show me where I needed more fairing and smoothing, some of which you can see.

Where I was satisfied with the shape the wood was given a coat of Minwax wood hardener.  I like this product because it dries quite hard and protects the cut and shaped edges from dings and nicks.  I only use it where I am very close to final shape because it is a bear to try to sand after it has set.  You can see from the darkened areas that I have only used it at this point on the edges of the hull block and the thin area above the rudder.

The hull block was built up in this way up to D deck plus the forward portion of the deckhouse of C deck.   Although I cut out the shapes of the decks and deck houses up to A deck, they were left rough but stacked in place to give me an idea of future work to do.  So here is the model at this point in front of the triple image.

Next time, plating, rivets, and portholes.
 
Be well
 
Dan     
 

Hello to everyone who followed me from the SS Michelangelo build log.  I hope that you will enjoy this one as well. 
 
This is the first of what will be 7 models built over the next 4 years for the museum at the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings’ Point, NY.  It is a gem of a small museum, open to the public, well worth visiting for the history of the US merchant marine during war and peace, as well as dozens of beautiful and informative ship models.
 
This first model is of the most famous ship that I knew nothing about until I started this commission.  The USS/SS Leviathan was, in her day, the largest ship in the world and a major contributor to the allied victory in World War I.  Built in 1913 by Blohm & Voss Shipyards in Germany, she began service in 1914 as the SS Vaterland for the Hamburg-American Line.  Displacing 54, 282 tons she was 100 feet in breadth and 950 feet long, some 67 feet longer than RMS Titanic, yet her engines could push her along at a very respectable 26 knots.

After only one and a half trips from Hamburg to New York she found herself here in August when the war broke out.  She was interned by the USA, a neutral country at the time, and spent the next three years in Hoboken, NJ.   When America joined the war she was seized (stolen, the Germans say) and taken into the US Navy as a troop ship, renamed the USS Leviathan. 

As a troop ship she made a major contribution to the allied victory.  In her 14 round trips she carried over 100,000 soldiers to the front, and the same number back, some wounded, some with the Spanish flu, but most just glad to be going home.  On one return trip she carried over 12,000 troops plus another 2,500 officers, sailors and nurses, a total of over 14,500 souls aboard.

During her first transit she stopped off in Liverpool where she took on a coat of ‘dazzle’ camouflage paint.  Dazzle was developed by British marine artist Norman Wilkinson and used complex geometric patterns and contrasting colors to disguise the outline of the ship from German submarines and torpedo boats.  The scheme for the Leviathan was particularly bizarre, but seems to have worked, since she was never attacked.

After the war she was taken into the United States Lines as their flagship.  She was completely renovated by Gibbs & Cox, with little help from Blohm & Voss, who were still smarting at the seizure of their masterpiece.  Restored to her former splendor by 1923 she cruised from New York for the next decade before the newer, sleeker ships, the SS America and the SS United States, took her place.

As I mentioned in the Michelangelo log, my contract is to provide a model that reflects, on the port side, her dazzling appearance during the war, while the starboard side will show her civilian colors. Down the centerline things will get dicey, and there will be many puzzles and challenges along the way.  It should be an interesting trip.
 
Next, research and plans.
 
Be well
 
Dan 

Sorry I had to remove some dust from this topic but I did manage to build a little on the herringlugger. Health is going great and so the search for suitable work is full trottle, and that is consuming lots of (buildingtime) I feel great about it but I am also verry happy to build again.
 

 
After laminating and trimming the excess fibers I started to separate the hull from the plug. That went well and after a few minutes I had a nice looking lugger hull in my hands.

 
Then I sanded the fiberstructure smooth and clean because I will add hull plates later with rivets to give the hull a realistic finish

I will pull up a chair and watch. 

And the show goes on ...
 
The nascent ventilator was then transfered to the micro-mill for further machining. The mill had been set-up with the dividing head carefully aligned with the milling spindle using a round piece of cemented carbide.


 


Aligning the milling spindles


 
It was also fitted with the geared dividing attachment. The first machining step was to mill out the cowl, starting from the pre-drilled hole.


 


Milling out the cowl


 
In the next step the sides were milled flat. Finally, the vertical back of the cowl was milled round using the geared dividing attachment.


 





Round milling the cowl back


 
The top curve was ground on free-hand using a diamond wheel on the micro-sanding machine. The top cover was fashioned from a piece of thin copper foil soldered on. The excess was milled off in the same set-up as previously.


 


Shaping the back of the cowl on the grinder


 


Soldering on the top of the cowl


 
The boiler-room ventilators are sitting on a base that is square and then tapers into the round of the shaft. This part was milled and turned from Plexiglas, so that it can be cemented to the boiler-room skylight.


 




Finished ventilator and base


 
This base will be painted white together with the boiler-room skylight, while the ventilator itself will be painted buff. This separation into two parts will give a clean separation between the colours. By then I will also have to try to find out, whether the inside of the ventilators was red or buff.


 



Boiler-room ventlators on the boiler-room skylight


 
The handles for turning the ventilators are still missing, but I will drill the respective holes on all ventilators in one go, so that I only need to set up the milling machine once for this.

There is a dozen more ventilators to come, all of them significantly smaller than these two.

 

To be continued soon ...

I have been working back and forth between the bow and stern mooring decks working on the various items. Here is a picture of the stern mooring deck.
 

 
Here is a close up of the ladderway on the starboard side formed from one of Tom's PE sheets. Also note some yellow caution paint on some components which I added per photos.
 

 
One of the more challenging items was a raised platform between the anchor winches that has a meshed floor. My wife had some ribbon that came on a flower bouquet that I liberated from her. I sprayed a section with gray paint let it tack off and then pressed it between two steel blocks to set flat.
 

 
Next I cut a pattern of the platform floor and bent a .020" brass rod around the perimeter of the pattern and soldered the joint.
 

 
I then hammered the formed shape flat and then filed it smooth on both sides.
 

 
Next I bent three U shapes for the legs and hammered the center flat for a mating surface with the frame when soldered together. Once all were soldered in place the legs were all cut to the correct length needed. I then glued a formed ladderway to the edge of the frame and allowed the glue to really set hard.
 

 
I then sprayed the platform frame with gray paint and using a medium thick CA glued the frame to the painted ribbon. Once the glue set I carefully cut it out around the perimeter.
 

 
Next came the rails cut and fitted to the frame and then the painted with the ladderway rails and steps painted yellow.
 

 
Here is the platform in place along with the rest of the fixtures on the bow mooring deck with the various yellow caution highlights.
 
 
 
Now back to adding more details.

Scharnhorst Issue 15

 
Added a few additional layers to the middle deck structure. Not very exciting.
 
What is exciting though (to me, at least) is that two weeks ago I got my hands on an unbuilt partwork kit of HMS Hood (the original UK edition, not the botched German one) at half price. This gives me the unique opportunity to build both cruisers with aspirations of being battleships in sync side by side and have a look at the differences between them and the way they are built up.
 

 
So I quickly went on a building rampage and got the Hood built up to issue 15 too (here in the foreground with Scharnhorst in the back). One can readily see the size difference between both ships. The Hood has the option of being made RC capable, so she features an open design with detachable deck structures, making the build so far more complex (165 parts vs Scharnhorsts 118 at this point).
 
Comparison shots between ships will be made every month. 

Well, I'm also building a 1:95 Gorch Fock, a 1:70 Soleil Royal, a 1:200 HMS Hood, a huge brass StuKa in 1:32 and a plethora of smaller kits at the same time, so it's not like I'm getting bored inbetween.

I will pull up a chair and watch. 

And some more progress on the "creature from the movie The Blob"
 
First some foam had to be cut away from the keel and frames

 

 
And after some sanding it looks a little better allready

 

 
Next step is adding some filler. Fix and finish from Home Depot.

 
The third time adding some filler (after sanding)

 

 
Next time I will sand it untill its very smooth and then I will apply some layers of polyester filler for a very smooth result.

Here's my attempt to answer Srodbro's question.  In my words... "Why is the mast down".
 
The saillugger was a fishingship using the "Vleet" a very long gilnet for fishing herring. The Vleet was a combination of multiple gilnets attached to each other. In one Vleet there were 100 to 150 gilnets. every gilnet was 30 meters long so the length of the Vleet was 300 to 450 meters long. The gilnets were attached to a very long cable called the "Reep". One side of the Reep was at the end of the Vleet and the other end was attached to the ship.
 

 
While setting the nets in the water, the lugger moved backwards driven by the wind.  To prevent the nets from being damaged by by pulling too hard, the sails were hauled down exept for the "bezaan". The forward mast is lowered to minimum the effect of the wind on the ship. The ship has to move backwards but must not pull the nets.
 
The forward mast was so constructed that one could lower him while at sea. 
 

 
You can see that the base of the mast is placed under an angle (2 degrees) so the mast could be lowered without touching the back mast.

 

 

 

 
 
 

Found some funny stuff at the home depot shop today

 
But maybe I exaggerated it a little bit too much

Oof.... Hope I won't dissapoint You later in this log Nils because I am afraid this hull won't be very traditional. Poly Urethan foam is now curing on the hull and later there will be lots of polyesterfiller..... Sorry Nils

Update on the KW140
 

 

 

I will pull up a chair and watch. 

I will pull up a chair and watch. 

I will pull up a chair and watch. 

I wholeheartedly encourage taking on projects one thinks of as way over one's head. It's what I've been doing for years now and it's worked out pretty well so far.

 

Back to your regularly scheduled Scharnhorst update, with issue 8 I have now extended the build to the full length of the hull. Now do be careful, if this thing eventually goes on sale internationally (at least in Europe) and you decide to build one yourself, do yourself the favor of waiting for issue 9 and fit the side beams at the same time.
 

As you can see in the picture above "officially" the entire stern segment is only kept in line through two little tabs on the middle frame. No side beams are present. This a the perfect recipe to make a banana. Wait for issue 9, then fit everything together at the same time. You'll be much happier. I've just left them off in the picture for demonstration purposes.

Build Log. Restoration of Full Rigged Sailing Ship Model
Posting #6
Then some light relief was the restoration of the ship’s boats, deckhouse and rudder.  See photos below.
There are four ship’s boats all of which, if full scale, would be about 17 feet long.  Two are what I’d call lifeboats like a small whaler, that is, with a sharp sterns.  These are stowed upside down on the deckhouse roof.  The other two could be termed as jolly boats, and they are on the tiers beneath the davits.
Julius carved them from blocks of wood and hollowed them as can be seen in the photo.  They are covered with sail cloth which is stretched over a fore and aft ridge pole then painted.
Deckhouse. Again made from a solid block of lightweight wood.
Rudder.  The original didn’t survive the ravages of time!  I made the new one from a piece of our lovely straight-grained NZ Kauri.  This timber (lumber) was highly sought after by the explorer/navigator Captain James Cook on his late 18th Century voyages, for spars in particular.  The tiller is original.

 

Paul, thanks for the kind words. As soon as I am set up in my new shop I will be able to get back to working on the ship restoration. I will be moving it shortly from my present workshop to the new one. I hope to be back working on it by the end of September.
 
Michael