ccoyle

Dear friends,

I wish you Merry Christmas and a happy New Year 2015.

Best regards
Doris

BTW, during previous weeks I made a new model - Chebec 1:80/plastic model by Imai, and today I have just finished it. This build was primarily relaxation and enjoyment for me. Here is a thread, you can have a look, if you want:
 
http://modelforum.cz/viewtopic.php?f=177&t=89590&start=45
 

Hello Everybody -- This is just a short and swift update before I lock myself in the kitchen to make high caloric dishes for the holidays.
 
Starting on the second planking (in boxwood), I have laid the first two rows, which will be the main wales.  Part way through laying the row below that, I realized that if I wanted to use planking screws to help glue in the second layer for the wales (and I do), I'd better stop the regular planking and lay down the rest of the wales.  So here you see that I've begun sanding the two rows in preparation for the next layer:
 
                                                                        
 
I have already eaten so much that I've begun feeling unsure about my whereabouts, however, so I might not get much done till Boxing Day at the soonest.
 
Till then, my First and Best Mate, Bounce would like to wish all modellers throughout the known modelling universe a happy holiday season, with hopes that your moustache never gets this dirty:
 
                                                   
 
Cheers to all,
 
Martin & Bounce

Now the first of the staysails, the fore topmast staysail was made. For the dimensions I used the data in Lees. The result was checked on Pegasus and in comparison to the proportions on HMS Pandora according to the book of the ‘Anatomy of the ship’ series. Both showed that the sail was too large. I corrected it according the proportions of Pandora’s sail. Then its size was reduced by about 40% (the sides were reduced by 20%) because the intention was again to show it furled.
 
The sail was bent to the preventer stag and the necessary lines attached.
 
Furling was quite tricky and after several tries the result seems acceptable for me, but I hope neither the bosun nor captain jack will have a closer look at that sail before it will be fully set the next time.
 
 

The sail maker is putting in the last stitches. The four different sizes in the drawing are: First full size according Lees, full size according Pandora’s proportions, reduced first size, reduced smaller size – final version.
 
 

The sail is being bent to the preventer stag
 
 

The sail seems rather small but proved to be still quite large to be stowed...
 
 
 

Stowed sail
 
 
 

This is not a full harbour stow ready for an admirals inspection. The sail is supposed to be ready to be used on short notice.

The boats just resting unsecured on the spars were not longer tolerated by the first officer and they were tied to the spars. I had no idea how to do it and opted for a simple solution. This should be OK, as there is no heavy weather expected - after all the ship is still in harbour.
 

 
 
 
 
 
In the meantime the sprit topsail was made, bent to the yard, furled and the whole thing attached to the jibboom. The jibboom horse presented a small problem first as I initially found a drawing for the frigate Pandora where the horses hang below the sprit topsail yard. This would however present some problems when setting a sail on it. I thought the horses should lie over the yard to allow it to slide below them and also setting a sail without having to unbend the horses.
The yard was positioned just above the cap. The arrangement is somehow mirroring the mizzen mast.
 

 
 
 
 
 
Between the different steps of that undertaking  many small tasks went on: Making and attaching more gun port lids, adding buntlines and braces and generally slowly cleaning up the mess with all that loose ends of running rigging on the forecastle.
 
 
 
 

Deck continued construction:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Matija
 
 

Since there's conversation going on regarding Tamiya tape, I thought a photo showing how well it worked may be worthwhile (waterline stills needs repaired in this area). As you can see, I painted the end boards for one gun port and one sweep port with decent results. I also added brass drain lines below five gunports. I do not believe this was in the plans and probably not historically correct, but the Captain said put them in.
 
A big finger is always good for size reference...

Thick stuff, footwaling, mast step, hooks and aft magazine
 
I decided to plank only the port side to see the inner parts after finishing this ship. As one trial, half of aft magazine platform was planked. To get some contrast, I choose lumber of bright domestic pear wood for the planking board.
 
Cheers,

Inflatable liferafts
 
Basilone was equipped with 19 25-man inflatable life rafts. The kit provides 9 cast rafts but the size and shape didn’t look right to me so I decided to scratch my own. The rafts were usually stowed in racks that resembled park benches like these:

 
Half of the racks were on top of the hanger and the others were arranged on both sides of the forward superstructure:

 
The rafts were stacked 2 to a rack and covered in rubberized canvas and secured with lines that ran to a hydrostatic release device that could be tripped manually or, if the ship sank, would release them at a relatively shallow depth.
I scratched the rafts from strip wood of the right width, glued up to the right height, and then cut to length. The edges were rounded and the faces roughed up with a saw blade to simulate canvas. The racks are just a loop of soldered wire, bent and side rails added, with plastic slats. Here’s the stuff before painting (one of the cast kit rafts is on the left):

And here is the finished product:

Matija

continue

Continuing with the build. Next will be pictures of the deck structures and paint. That pretty much gets us up to date.
 
I'll post more pictures as I build. I'm sure I'll have questions regarding the rest of the build. Should I post questions here or somewhere else on the forum.
 
Thanks for looking. 
 
Eddie

It is virtually impossible to generalize about the overall quality of one kit manufacturer versus another, due in large part to the fact the kit lines are continuously evolving.  For example, Caldercraft are usually highly recommended, and, generally speaking, their kits are good.  But there is a huge difference in the amount and detail of the instructions included in Caldercraft kits between early designs, like Sherbourne or Convulsion, and later offerings such as Pickle or Badger.  Similar situation at Victory Models, where Chris Watton has gradually been able to get Amati to include more kit-specific fittings and details with each successive design.  As another example, not all of Bluejacket's offerings are in-house designs; some are older kit designs purchased from now-defunct operations (e.g. Laughing Whale).  BJ has made efforts to update some of those kits, but there are still plenty of them out there carrying the BJ label that are essentially Laughing Whale kits.  Other manufacturers (Corel comes to mind) have some kits that are regularly raved about, and other kits that are abominations (ask me about their Flying Fish kit sometime).  So, you really can't single out any manufacturer and generalize by saying their kits are good or bad.  It's usually a case of some of their kits are good, some not so good, and perhaps some are terrible.  Kit quality is almost an issue that has to be taken on a kit-by-kit basis.
 
Cheers!

Update as of 12-04-14:
 
I've been working on the 04/05 Navigation Bridge and with the exception of Pelorus's, other small deck items, and whip antennae, it's complete. As usual, these pix show the superstructure together when in reality they are sitting in place only.
 
I chose the kit bridge over the Pontos PE bridge as it was easier to work with at this point. Had I thought about it, I would have enlarged the window openings slightly in both directions as these are just a tad bit undersized. One of the Volunteers in WISCONSIN (Norfolk) made dimensioned posts regarding this earlier in the year. However, with a family situation finally coming to a close, my thoughts have sometimes been elsewhere...
 
In any event, I have been critiqued by another battleship acquaintance who is associated now with IOWA (LA Ports) and mentioned to me a couple things that need adjustment on the 08 Level - I will handle this when I am back at my shop in early January '15. Thru the 42 years of his work at LBNSYD, he has, at one time or another, worked on all the IOWA class ships in addition to many others that came thru the shipyard. His knowledge is impeccable.
 
I am STILL waiting on my special order Pontos Deck set and replacement PE parts (3 weeks now  - nothing!)
so, until it arrives, I'm unable to go too much further on superstructure work. I may begin basic hull work but that is predicated on one of the other Calif. modelers who is working on a hull replacement module (3D printed in ABS plastic) to replace the mis-sharpened after 1/3 of the kit hull. He's getting close and it's phenomenal what he's done using Solidworks and 3D professional printing.
 
8 bells and time to bug out.
 
Hank
 
 
 

Thanks Elia, I'm glad that you like my work (and to everyone else who likes).
 
Dories were difficult to make, I made them a total of twenty until I got a satisfactory appearance.
Bluenose is currently displayed at the national competition ship modelers in Rijeka / Croatia. It is located in the city center in the window: 
 
 
 
 
Otherwise, waiting for a new owner from Germany come get her. The future owner has prepared a large glass box (approximately L120x W30 xH110 cm).
 
Sails of paper to verify the dimensions:
 

 

 
Finished sails:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Cheers, Matija.
 
next: details of the finished model

Using off-the-shelf fittings is, of course, a cost saving measure for the manufacturer.  I know this has been a particular point of contention between Chris Watton an Amati; Chris usually pushes for as much vessel-specific fidelity as he can for his designs, but Amati hold the purse strings, so there are limits.  Perhaps it was stated earlier, but kit builders are actually living in a Golden Era of kit manufacturing - there's a new crop of designers (Chris, Chuck, et al) with a passion for historically accurate, true-to-scale products, and Internet resources (like this forum) make it relatively easy to weed out bad designs for those interested in avoiding them.
 
Cheers!

Or............
 
..........you could come over to the truly dark side and try the Yamato in card.  Halinski publishes one in 1:200 and offers brass barrels and PE details (five sheets).  Digital Navy publishes one in 1:250.
 
Yeah, I know -- not the advice you were looking for.

And finally ... all the little bits and pieces have found their place and the scenery has been populated. Below some impressions of the completed model. More pictures can be found here: http://www.wefalck.eu/mm/maritime/models/botter/botter.html
 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
This is the end of my Noord-Holland nostalgia project.

The Barbette for the 30.5 cm Gun
The barbette mainly consists of a semi-circular breastwork armour, backed by hardwood and by an open space covered with thin plate. The latter presumably to retain splintering wood in case of an impact. Since no tube of suitable dimensions for the breastwork was to hand, I made a short, laminated one from Bristol board layers glued together with white glue. The edges were soaked in thinned white glue before being trimmed down on the lathe. The tube then was varnished with wood-filler before the edges were sanded. Finally the tube was cut into half on the fret-saw. More wood-filler was applied before final sanding. The other inside wall of the barbette were lined with Pertinax to provide a smooth surface.
 

Trimming the laminated tube on the lathe
 
The fore-deck has been covered in a sheet of thin Bristol board and the camber of the wooden decking built up with an additional piece of board and putty (I am using fast drying bodywork putty from car repair suppliers). The anchor pockets have also been lined with thin Bristol board, but Pertinax would have been better for this.
 

Tube for the barbette armour made from laminated Bristol board
 
All surfaces that would have been iron plating, will be covered in thin sheets of Pertinax. The necessary holes for portholes and other opening will be drilled or cut before the sheets are fixed.
In between, I had also improvised a disc-sander from a PROXXON router. In think in the meantime this manufacturer offers a small disc-sander.
 

Smoothing the hull on the newly constructed disc sander
 
To be continued ...

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 99 – Rails and bulwark continued
 
Most of the work since the Thanksgiving holiday has consisted of fitting the rails and planking around the upper stern.  This has been challenging and there has been some rework along the way.  I will forgo a full tutorial and summarize.
 
The planksheer rail was fitting around the stern in an earlier post.  To fit the members above this and to refine its exact curve better, I decided to start at the top where the heights are easiest to measure as shown in the first picture - and to adjust if necessary.
 

 
The top of the planking around the poop corresponds with the top of the poop decking at the side.  This is also the top of the frames and the underside of the fancy rail that caps the bulwarks around the hull.  These heights are critical.
 
In the next picture the first strake of planking below the main rail has been boiled and clamped to dry.
 

 
The main rail was shaped to fit and is only pinned in place.  It will be painted white and the surrounding hull - and the lower rail -black, so it will not be permanently installed until much later.  The dark, saturated plank being fit is held tightly against it.  These planks not only curve around the stern but twist to fit the slant of the underlying timbers.  Lots of new clamps here made for this awkward work.
 
The next picture shows the third and lowest planking strake being fit.
 

 
The height gauge is being used here to check heights at points around the stern.  The lower rail has been removed for this.  The next picture showing the finished work is the acid test.  I’m not sure which was a bigger problem in judging this, my glasses or the camera lens, but this is the final version.
 

 
Both rails have now been replaced with newly formed, clean versions.  The originals suffered from all the fitting, clamping and refitting.  The next picture shows a different angle.  All this work was done in hard maple because it will be painted and it was easier to bend.
 

 
The main rail is still only fitted temporarily.  The planking is now ready for Treenailing.  There will be a carved, gilded America eagle placed between the rails.  I can’t wait to plank below the lower rail around the stern – more twisted planks and more clamping issues.  A job for the new year.
 
With the stern work completed the top members around the rest of the hull will be easy to fit.  In the next picture the mizzen channels are being installed.
 

 
The top channels are set at the height of the main rail and the lower channels just below the planksheer.  Notches for the chains will be cut later in situ.  The channels will be capped with moldings much later.  In the next picture the starboard main channel is being installed.
 

 
There is still much work to be done on the port side.  In the next picture a section of main rail is pinned in place and one of the topside planks held against it.
 

 
There are two of these 6” x 3” planking strakes above the rail.  They must fit tightly down on the rail and the channels.  The channels were most likely bolted to the outside of the planking to keep them outside the main watertight skin, but I am installed them against the frames to improve their strength on the model.  The appearance will be the same.  In the last picture the uppermost planking strake is being held in place to check its height against the tops of the frames.
 

 
A white capping rail – the fancy rail – will fit over this, but much later.  There is no inside planking above the main rail, so the fit on the frames will be visible.
  
Ed

The similarity to Sherbourne is not purely coincidental. Both kits were designed by Chris Watton.

Thanks for the kind words Brian. The finished model may end up bad but at least it will be bad in a detailed way...
 
 
The only good thing about having the Washington Redskins as my local team is that I can work on the model with the game on and not have to worry about missing any good plays, so here we go...
 
Radar Antennas
 
The FRAMs had 2 search radars; the SPS-10 Surface Search Radar and an air search radar. About half of the ships had the SPS-40 Air Search Radar, like Basilone, the rest had the SPS-29, the kit provides PE to build either of the air search radars.
 
Here’s the PE for the SPS-40:

The scorpion-shaped piece (the RF Feedhorn assembly) is folded into a crescent shape. My recommendations for anyone doing it are to 1) study some photos of the radar online so you understand how this will be shaped 2) take your time and carefully fold it first 3) then glue small sections at a time using medium CA with a spray of zip kicker when the pieces are aligned properly. Here’s the finished piece:

The other 2 pieces are the array and the rear support structure (the mounting base is a piece of cast metal). The array is given a gentle cure bend into a parabolic shape and then the support piece is glued to the back. The instructions don’t mention it, but the rear piece should have it’s center section removed (after it is glued in place) so that the back of the array rests against the crescent piece discussed in the previous paragraph. Here are the 2 pieces glued together:


The SPS-10 is similar but much simpler to assemble. Here’s the finished assembly:


Here’s the finished and painted radars:

Good bit of progress today despite being slightly hungover from last nights work Christmas party.
 
Managed to complete and install the foremast gaff. Spent a while shaping walnut dowel to fit one of the gaff jaws and tapering to 2.5mm. Glued the gaff to the jaws piece and pinned in place to add strength. Cut three strips of black paper about 1mm wide and added to the gaff to simulate iron bands. Finally drilled a hole to take an eyepin once it has been stropped to a block.
 

 
Made up the rest of the rigging gradually over the afternoon and fitted to the gaff, including the parral beads at the back to fit to the foremast. Gradually iterated the rigging tension until the gaff was in the correct position and all lines were correctly tensioned. Belayed all four lines to belaying pins and painted with dilute PVA to fix in place.
 
Currently putting some coils together to finish.
 

 

 

 

Gun ports cut out.

S.M.S. WESPE (HENK, 1895)
 
History and context
The WESPE-Class armoured gun-boats of the then young Imperial German Navy were born out of a tactical concept that dated well back into the Napoleonic era. The idea was to mount a heavy long-range gun onto a highly mobile small craft that would be able to retire into shallow coastal waters, beyond the range of even the heavy artillery of an attacking fleet. The addition of a steam engine and the increase in calibre followed the development of the time, of course. Adding heavy armour to the front (mainly) was meant to give the gun-boats a certain attacking capability. It also owes something to the floating batteries used in the defence of Copenhagen during the Napoleonic wars and to the armoured floating batteries used by the allied French/British forces during the Crimean War (1854-55). In fact, adding armour plating to a (rowing) gunboat was already proposed as early as the late 18th century in Spain, as documented by a model in the Museo Naval in Madrid, but apparently never put to work in full scale.
 

S.M.S. WESPE, brand-new and still without the 30.5 cm gun (1875)
 
At the time of the conception of the WESPE-class in the early 1870s a former cavalry(!) general was the naval chief-of-staff in Germany. The tactical dogma was ‘proactive defence’: an attacking enemy was to be awaited near home waters and fenced off. The main threat was seen in amphibian operations attacking the German coast. Thus, the landing of troops at strategic points had to be prevented. Long-range strategic and oceanic operations were out of the scope of the German naval planners of the time. There was a certain logic in this, as Germany, unlike Britain, is/was a more or less land-locked country and largely self-sufficient in many respects at that time. Overseas trade then did not have such an importance as in Britain or as in later globalising economies. Therefore, attempts to severe overseas supply chains was not so relevant. There was, indeed, active resistance from trade interest groups, particularly the merchants in the cities of Hamburg and Bremen, to a navy that would engage itself overseas. These merchants relied on their network of friendly contacts and on sailing under a neutral flag.
Hence, the WESPE-Class was designed to be mainly a heavily armoured gun-platform, giving long-range protection to the tidal North Sea harbours that are surrounded by mud-flats and to give mobile protection to the deep fjords of Schleswig-Holstein's Baltic coast. They would be backed-up by heavy artillery (and later fixed torpedo batteries) in coastal forts.
The guns in such boats usually could only be trained by turning the whole boat. This seems more difficult then it probably was, because even in the old days of the rowing gunboats they would attack by rowing in a wide circle and when the intended target passed through the line of aim, one would fire. As the WESPE-Class was designed to let themselves fall dry on mud-flats, a possibility to train the gun itself was needed.
This distinguished the WESPE-class from earlier boats of similar design in Britain, namely the ANT-, GADFLY-, and BOUNCER-class of the 1860s. Man other navies took up the same concept and there were examples in the Danish, Dutch, French, Norwegian, Spanish, and even the Argentinian navy. Some of the were armoured, while other were still constructed from wood or composite.
 

S.M.S. WESPE under construction (HENK, 1895)
 
Technical Description
The WESPE-class comprised ten boats delivered in two batches between 1876 and 1880: WESPE (1876), VIPER, BIENE, MÜCKE, SCORPION, BASILISK, CAMAELEON, CROCODILL, SALAMANDER and NATTER. They were all built by A.G. Weser in Bremen. With a length of 46.4 m and a beam of 10.65 m they had a dead weight of 1157 t, drawing 3.37 m. The dimensions vary somewhat according to source, but this may be due to different reference points, such as length overall compared to length between the perpendicles etc.
Two inclined double-expansion engines on two propellers gave a maximum speed of 11 knots. Their original complement was 3 officers and 73 crew. Steering was from a stand on the hut and an emergency double steering wheel abaft. Very early on they were also retrofitted with an electrical generator.
The WESPE-class were the first German warships (and indeed among the first of any warship) that did completely without auxiliary sails. As the consequence they only had a light mast for signalling. In spite of sporting quite some leading edge technology, they were only of limited seaworthiness and their handling was far from perfect. This resulted in them being given a collection of rather unfavourable nicknames. They were also not very popular with their crews and officers due to the cramped conditions below decks, but then they were not meant for long voyages in the open sea.
 

Admiralty illustrative drawing (before 1883)
 
Armament
The main armament was a single 30.5 cm rifled breech-loading gun designed and manufactured by Alfred Krupp AG in Essen. At the time the WESPE-class boats were designed, fast torpedo-boats did not exist yet – the automotive fish-torpedo was just being developed. When in the mid-1880s small torpedo-boats became a tactical reality, some form of self-defence against them was necessary and two bronce(!) 8.7 cm/l24 breech-loading guns in ‘disappearing’ carriage and two 37 mm Hotchkiss revolving guns came on board. In fact, very early on (1883) also two 35 cm underwater torpedo launching tubes were installed to increase the attacking capabilities.
 

Instruction model for the Rk 30.5/l22 on the Danish HELGOLAND in the Orlogsmuseet Copenhagen on a carriage similar to that of the WESPE-Class
 
Scale
The scale chosen for the model is 1/160, which admittedly is somewhat unusual for a ship model. However, the reasoning behind this choice was that a large selection of N-scale railway figures is available that eventually will crew the ship. There are also space and portability consideration, which are important for someone, who has to move from time to time for professional reasons.
The model will be a waterline model. This will allow a scenic presentation of the finished model. Besides, the hull below the waterline is not quite so graceful. Above the waterline the hull is also more or less prismatic, with vertical bulwarks and virtually no sheer. These parameters together call for a bread-and-butter construction.
 

Artist’s impression of a WESPE-Class gunboat (1891)
 
Sources
Owing to the loss of most of the archival material from the former Admiralty Drawing Office during and after the end of WW2, detailed source material is rather scant. Some lithographed drawings that must have been made before the major refit in 1883 have survived and serve as a basis for the reconstruction. The Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv in Freiburg i.B. has some drawings, but unfortunatelly they only pertain to a much later refit of S.M.S. NATTER. However, the WESPE-Class was a bit of a novelty at its time and some Detaildrawings of bothm the ship and the armament, have found their way into textbooks of the time. Relatively recently a very detailed original drawing of the gun became available on the Internet from a private collection (www.dreadnoughtproject.org). Historic photographs from the early days of the ships are quite rare and mostly of not so good quality, but some reasonably good ones from the end of their active life have survived.
Based on the information that was available in the 1980s Wolfgang Bohlayer drew and published a plan of S.M.S. WESPE as she might have looked like after the major refit in 1883 (available from VTH, http://shop.vth.de/wespe-1876.html). Based on the information available today, this plan would need to be revised in some details.
The available information is summarised on the page on the WESPE-class on my Web-site: http://www.wefalck.eu/mm/maritime/models/wespe/wespeclass.html
 
To be continued ...

Hi Again.
Making progress, I had to build some more cowl vent heads.
As you can see in photo of the real ship, there were four more of them in the upper deck.
Having noticed their turning ability, I also accepted the challenge.

 
Determining the diameter of the heads I firstly made a curved form from plastic and a related hole on a wooden plate.
Then, I shape them by the help of a hot air gun (hair drier wasn’t strong enough) and by pushing thin pieces of plastic with the curved form, on the plate's hole.

Eventually I cut the cup shaped pieces and I glued a piece of plastic tube on everyone but only at the half size of the final high.
The rest of the tube's high was made from a smaller in diameter tube so in a final combination, the heads have turning ability.

 

 
Using thin piece of plastic and some putty, I extended two model boats from my spare box and I built the two steam launches of the ship.

 
I have left some details for later...

 
Additional progress on the top of the cage masts, 

 
by painting parts (like 12” gun turrets) 

 
and by making some small parts, that can’t be placed at this time on the model (like flag poles-boat davits).
Hopefully, I think she should be ready by the end of the year.
 

 
Thank you