Brian the extraordinaire

Man flu aside, I managed to get the main mast finished. I added tiny turnbuckles to allow the stays.
 
Then just a matter of rigging it up and adding the coaling derricks which I rigged up as well. . I also added a small ladder up to the wireless telegraph yard.
 
Then dry fit on the deck. I don't need to glue it down yet but it fits perfectly.
 
 

Más

A small addition, the base of the foremast. Does not seem like much, but I have read on other builds people say this is fiddley, and it certainly is. The Pontos upgrade provides three brass rods which just do not like each other. My plan was to do the entire mast assembly off kit, but it is impossible as the angles of a tripod do not allow the think to go in past the boat deck. As such it has to be done on the ship itself, which means to get the correct measurements for all the other bits that will be attached have to be done on the model, increasing the risk.
 
There are support struts, 2 engine room telegraphs, numerous belaying points, ladders, two boat booms and 2 semaphore brackets to be added yet.
 
Strangely the Zvezda hit includes the support struts but not pontos, the boat booms are also missing and the 2 semaphores are also not mentioned which were all in place in 1907, no great task to build them, but Pontos has some amazing details and just forgets really obvious ones.

Just a quick update of what i will be tacling next when I can get past all this house painting,  well I will be working on the boat deck, I had al;ready thined down the profile of the boat stands,  and next will be some detail work on the fittings on the deck area where the boats sit - First off will be to construct roofs for the larger engine room vents-two of these, next will be two smaller vent roofs and details that will be made with some plastic/wood sheet, next I will move the two amo cuboards as they should be more shared between the thwo Pom poms on both sides, the small ladders will also be filed off, along with some extensions to the armour around the most forward Pom pom stations, including the ends being turned in 90deg.
 
Here is a pic showing the un altered deck with shaded areas to show what i will be doing(the original boat stands on the pic do not show what I have done).
 
OC.

Love all the extra detail, beautiful work. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Now, the bridge. I know the photos show some paint missing but I intend to fix it up afterwards. The ships open bridge, I used bits of both Pontos and Flyhawk, plus North Star for the fittings as the resin binnacle and compass directors are second to none. It all went on fairly easily.
 
The Compass platform just plonked on ad the Flyhawk stuff was a much better fit.
 
A final addition was the Sephamores. No one has added these but it is referenced everywhere and a little bit of scratch building.  
 
And finally for scale, you cannot drink coffee when doing this.

Hi again folks,
 
Well it's time to provide an update.  These photos show progress as of today, and will remain in this state for 5 weeks while I am travelling.  I have temporarily stored her on her display stand inside the display case to try and keep some dust off.
 
I have now completed most of the yards but I need more line for the remaining running rigging (especially braces etc) which I will sort on my return.  Starting to show her final configuration.  
 
The display stand has a copy of Cook's actual chart of the east coast of Australia which is mostly hidden unfortunately.  The plan is to mount the name/build plates in a 30 degrees off vertical position with one plate showing either side using a block of the same wood from which the base is made.  this will be positioned ahead of the ship on the centre line and i will put the two remaining boats, one under sail, and the other on the yardarm tackles (main and for) just to display them differently.  I am going to use an idea that Druxey used for his hospital barge (I hope you don't mind Druxet?) and mount the boat under sail on tall  thin acrylic posts so that her  waterline aligns with the ship's water line.  the starboard anchor will also be rigged as if just hoisted to the cathead.
 
cheers
 
Pat
 
    
 
 
 

Hi Chris, the tabs are making the build so much easier.  The Bismarck had thick formers but no tabs and I had a few alignment issues trying to keep square to the lines.
 
Hi Marv, I say give it a go.  I find card modelling very rewarding when you cut, fold, bend, role and glue a bit of paper into a recognisable shape.  Although saying that sometimes you ask if they really want you to form a tiny piece of paper into something!
 
More pictures coming up Joe.
 
 
Okay spent a fair amount of time today making a mess LOL.  The picture shows the off cut scraps of around 4 and half sheets worth of laser cut forms.  Couple of notes about this; firstly I save any largish scraps and throw them in my scrap card box in case I need to laminate any paper parts for the kit.  ( I periodically check the kitchen for suitable packaging and save any that’s suitable.  There is soup container packaging which is exactly 0.5mm which I have a lifetimes supply of LOL)
 
Secondly I go through the scrap pile as I am binning it to make sure I am not throwing out any parts which I have missed on the ‘Scrap’.
 

 
 
This is the ‘bridging’ structure which goes across the width of the hull and is being trial fitted hence the little strips of Tamiya tape holding it together.  I will need to check before permanently fitting to the hull as I think it may need to be skinned/plated with the finished paper parts before final fitting.
 

 
 
The anchor shelf (I’ll keep calling it this unless someone knows of another/correct term) gave me lots of grief as I couldn’t find all the parts reference. I searched each laser cut sheet again and again until I realised the other references were to the printed paper part!  Again I think this may need skinning before final fitment.  Dry fit again hence the tape.
 

 
Okay most of the upper hull structure cut out and laid out to form the various levels of deck working upwards.  The big sheet on the right contains doublers with holes in them for the casement guns and didn’t cut them out as I need the hull put together to determine their position.
 

 
 
Okay dry fit of the upper hull.  I started working from the lowest part (as per photo 9 above ) and it became apparent that the upper hull is essentially 2 platforms.  Surprisingly these are located together only at the front and rear tabs.  I am glad I trial fitted the upper hull structure as there were a couple of items which would have caught me out.
 
Firstly there is a horizontal doubler at the rear which I left out and thought at the time it looked strange until I realised it was missing.  Also a number of the vertical bulkheads are doubled up also but it isn’t clear in the plans which goes to the front and the back as usually the shapes are slightly different so care will be needed to verify before glue goes anywhere near it.
 
I trial fitted in the anchor shelf, which was very fiddly but would be easier when glued up and also the bridging structure which dropped in nicely.  All in all the extra time taken dry fitting is time well spent.
 

 
 
The two upper hull halves together and looking pretty good.  I love the shape of these ships.
 

 
Stern shot showing where the balcony? Veranda? will be.
 

 
This is one of my favourite parts of this ship.  The wasted bow for the anchor shelves with the ‘snout’ and the sticking up side structure which is plated flush with the sides.  Such interesting shapes these ships had.
 

 
 
Next up will be to check any notes about assembly to confirm placement and also to check some of the printed parts relationships before the big glue up to complete the hull.
 
 
Cheers
Slog

Now the funnels which will go on the boat deck. The funnels grill is very intricate and in many pieces which I had to make up a little jig and cut off and replace all the vent pipes and fabricate the pipes for and the horns. Also making up a funnel band and eyelets for rigging later. Came up nicely.

The deck has an adhesive backing, so it "should" just stick on. When I placed it on it stuck, then a couple of hours later it popped up in places, which I rubbed down thinking it needed heat, and a few hours after it kept popping up, thus the thin CA as anything else would leave bulges

The wood deck comes with the pontos upgrade kit, and it is just lovely, just not very adhesive.

A bit of a re think and the deck has to go down so as not to catch on stuff. A simple exercise? No, after laying the thing down painstakingly, after a few hours the thing keeps popping up in sections. Using a sliver of PE and thin CA over the last few days I have been making running repairs to get the thing to sit properly. Still looks good and makes me happy with the guesstimate of the paint colour.
 
I have now down up all the boat deck and funnels but will now not paint or attach anything until I have done up the deck hatches.

hello every body
in the mean time I have worked on the rigging, except for the sails all seems to be finished, some weathering will be applied to metal parts, looks too shiny now :-) not appropriate for my model....
 
the hook of the winch looks like a fish hook now but I will hang a bulk of cargo on it, hope that appearance will be changed then :-)
 
Mehmet

As this part of the kit is fairly well covered up by the boat deck, not a great deal of detail was included. I replaced the search lights, added a front grill, cut off and replaced the winches, added fairleads and ladders.
 
Grey is such a boring colour after the other kits.

After the deckclamps I build the 2 main decks
 
 







 
And here is the status per today:
 
I am working on the gunports now.
 




 

How about 1/96 scale?  
 
http://www.deansmarine.co.uk/mpage/Products/dreadnought.html

Moving along! Primer coat done and the armor belts came up OK.  then the bottom of the hull. I want to leave it about 12 hours before I do the black band and upper hull. Over all I'm pretty happy so far. Before I do the grey top I want to add around 100 or eyelets to the side of the hull for the torpedo net boom rigging. They are so small I wont prime them as they will just fill up with paint.

More frames added.

I feel compelled to make a comment from the manufacturer's side. Our CSS Alabama kit took about 1,400 hours to develop. That's a BIG chunk of payroll money. Even a "simple" kit like our Revenue Cutter is hundreds of hours of development.
 
As to deciding which ships to model, I made a survey back in April of 2014 that reached 3,000 people, and I got back 60 or 70 responses. That is BlueJacket's general guide for kit development for the next several years to come.
 
Without being too commercial, we already offer some kits that were suggested in this thread. We also have a toll-free help line for our kits. We take our reputation very seriously.

Hello friends,
 
as the S/S Warkworth costs a plenty of mindwork I decided to add a second project less complicated and time consuming.
So I leafed through the plans I've stored and found some very nice old "chances" but mostly the were to complicated and sophisticated as a "sidecar-building". So I figured out the exercisebook sized Modelarstwo Okretowe Special No. 19 of May 2015:
 

 
The prototype is a Sicilan/Southitalian Coasting boat of the 1860th with a length between 15 to 20 meters and a 1/3 Length/Breadth ratio.
 

Here a pencil drawing I found several years ago in teh web - I think on an Italian site.
 

Here well to see the line of scuppers on the underside of the bulkwalk. 
 
 
The Lauretto was used for short sea trades and a fasr as  my Latin knowledge translates some Italian websides I figured out thet the latin-rigged boats made also journeys to the North African coast. So this little ships were used in transport purposes and fast and handy ships to sail. It looks like the were used in transport of general cargo in sacks, barrels and boxes - no bulk cargos seem to be stored under the hatches.
 
I couldnt find out what are the diffrences and relationsship features to the
 
also latin-rigged Schiffazzo - but there were both:
 

similaritys and diffrences. But let stay us with the Lautello in exspecial the "after castle" that is not found on the threemasted 1  Schiffazzo -here scale to 1/50;
 
 

 
As you can see from the MO-issiue's cover the  hatches are closely covered - the plan gives us a grating hatchcover all over here. The plans delievered with the MO are allways very good and they have got a fantasic price. 
 
 
I was able to enlarge the  hull's drawings up to 1/50 and so I can start with the work very fast - hopefully some more knowledgeable of you may help with further and deeper information to this article.
 
Next stop: taking photos of the enlarged plan.
 
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The start, lots of research and trying to get as much done before I even handle the glue. The hull details are not that good, but that's why they invented aftermarket. Pulling out some of the etch that will go and and a bit of dry fitting means that I have shaved off a few things from the hull using a chisel blade sans handle,
 
I have drilled out all the portholes, and drilled out 5 of the side hatches so they can be open on the model.
 
The torpedo net booms will hopefully come up a treat, and the pontos stuff is very nice.
 
And the brackets that hold them
 
I now have to drill out some tiny holes on the gunnels that will hold the boom slings.
 
There is no details on the hull at all for the armour plate, which I think will be best served by masking sections and multiple layers of primer.
 
As you can see from the first photo there is a heap of things that will need shaving off the deck which will all be done prior to gluing the hull. I will not attach any of the etch until the primer and main coat is done as the etch is soo fine it will lose all detail. It is better painting them off kit.

My apologies to the purists, but I'm doing plastic again. This time it's the Zvezda Dreadnought.
 
I won't bore you with the history, as it's been flogged to death on the internet anyway.
 
Over the last 6 months I've been storing up the kit and the aftermarket bits and pieces to build what I hope will be a decent rendition that is no where as hard as the previous two kits to bash.
 
Years ago I started building up the full collection of the AOTS books and this was the first book I purchased over the internet about 15 years ago.
 
I'm going to go for the 1907 build to keep in line with the age group of it's sisters in the bookcase.

I would like to echo the choice/suggestions made by a few members for models of ships dating to the "transition" period (steam/sail).  Any model would need to meet the interests of many rather than the few to be commercially viable, so I will stick to a selection where there are ample NMM plans, some contemporary reference books, and included multiple ships in the vessel Class to allow some personalisation/customisation by the builder.  
 
My selection meets these criteria while still offering interest to builders from several nations as these vessels were resold or built for more than the RN.
 
- Gun Despatch vessels of the Arrow, Vigilance or perhaps the Albatross Class (Crimean War plus period).
- Good wood quality, resin and PE rather than mixed metal, and brass or resin cannon (with appropriate detail) etc.
- Perhaps two versions of each kit (one for beginners, POB, with lower quality materials etc and another for more experienced builders, POF, with better quality wood, options for higher quality materials and fittings etc.
- Scale 1:60 or 1:64?  (1:48 would be nice but rather large to display for many)
- Good plans and instructions essential - especially for rigging as practices throughout this period varied and evolved.
- Laser cut or CNC milled parts (not die stamped etc); consider planking templates (spilling method).
 
If this path were taken, an author may also be inspired to produce some sorely needed reference material using builds of these kits for pictures etc, and collate the contemporary materials such as Peake, Paasche etc. This period sadly lacks modern reference books in the vein of the "Construction and Fitting of ..." etc books.  Sorry if I have strayed into another area here.
 
cheers
 
Pat

In Den Helder (netherlands) there is a nice example of such a transition-ship
SS Bonaire, steam/sail, nicely shaped hull, etc.
Would make a nice kit.
 
Jan

I would love post WW2 Australian Warships in wood and metal at a scale of about 1:200. Especially my beloved HMAS Torrens.
 
chris