Ian_Grant

Hello ddp; thanks for commenting! You're right, as a teen I missed the two 4" gun casements on the forward shelter deck for some reason. They're on my drawings. After looking over the drawings I think I will be building complete new superstructures. According to a 3D rendering in the Naval Encyclopedia the aft shelter deck is supported by posts around its inner edges leaving what is beneath it as an opening. Difficult to pick out in to tell in my drawing but now that I look again I see that it is so. The rendering also shows the aft SL towers added after 1916 but oddly still with smaller twin SL's instead of larger singles as I have seen in other drawings. On the other hand, this same 3D rendering shows four 4" guns on the weather deck level on the forward superstructure and an open shelter deck, as well as the central funnel being round not oval, so how much can I trust it? On yet another hand, it shows another deck between the two forward funnels with some boats stowed on it. My drawings show no such thing but there is a photo in the Naval Encyclopedia entry "Loading Shells Aboard 1917" which does show a boat stowed above the weather deck on some kind of beam but no deck. I'm hoping for clarity when my two book orders arrive. ddp, it seems you may be familiar with this ship; can you comment on any of the above? Yes the model is about 56" long. As a teen I didn't worry too much about u/w details other than getting the hull lines correct. I think bilge keels would be too exposed and fragile for an R/C model which will be handled and carried around. The two props she does have are over-scale but again not visible when in water. Rendering from the Naval Encyclopedia: Loading shells 1917 - note the boat stowed high on beams. It's not stated which ship this is, Lion, Queen Mary, or Princess Royal, which all differed slightly. Coal scuttle - what a job! And no masks! I wondered what these actually looked like; they're exactly like manhole covers and are just small shaded circles on my drawing.

As I mentioned in the Naval History section I have decided to revamp this scratch model I made as a teenager in the 70's. The model was built using Norman A. Ough's drawings, as purchased from David MacGregor Plans in the UK. Drawings consist of a sheet of "Lines" plus some cross-sections showing decks etc, and a second sheet showing overall profile and top view along with layouts of the various decks in the forward superstructure. There are zero details of the various ships' boats save for dotted outlines in the top view showing their stowage locations and their types/lengths. I've been looking on the internet for photos of Lion and her near-sister ships Queen Mary and Princess Royal. They were all modified in the course of the war and it's quite confusing trying to reconcile all the photos. I've even seen one of Lion with that little walkway with a roof going around the stern, which I associate with Victorian warships for some reason. Anyway pulling out the plans I see the teenage me omitted many details such as doorways, hull portholes, vent pipes at the funnels, beams reinforcing the blast screens, the foredeck windlass, the foredeck breakwater (or whatever it's called), all the weather deck hatches and skylights and coal scuttles etc. Plan is to add as much as possible without going too crazy; this is after all for RC not display. In the 70's this ran with rheostatic speed controllers which wasted a LOT of battery power. She had two speed controls for her two 6V Decaperm motors. I think this time I will just use a single 60A brushed ESC to drive both motors. Also, she has movable forward turrets, servo-controlled, but they don't maintain the same angle as they rotate - what was I thinking? This time I want to have all four turrets rotate to the same side of the ship; probably will mean two or even three servos; trying to figure out how to get 180 degrees for the turrets. A rack and pinion system occurred to me but a cheap system for hobby use eludes my search. There are gear sets available for laser cutting; maybe I could cut a rack too? Here are a few shots of a dusty Lion as she is now. Those men on the compass platform are wildly too large, at about 1/72 scale. Following these is a shot of an experimental six-piece 3D-print of a stack. It looks pretty good to me but I fear the vertical seams are exaggerated. They're 1/32" square in this print; not sure how they would print at 1/64" thick but will try it. I will get some micro brass rod and try to make the cages atop the stacks, which supported canvas covers when boilers were drawn.

Hello again. While looking through the Naval Encyclopedia entry on the "Lion" class, I noticed the bibliography list. I've ordered "British Battleships of World War One" by one R.A. Burt, 2nd edition, 2012. This heavy tome covers the dreadnoughts through to battlecruisers and others, and purports to have many photos added compared to the 1st edition. I've found quite a few undated photos of Lion and her sister and near-sister ships, which raise questions as they were all modified from time to time. I did find one of Princess Royal with the searchlight towers added in 1916, and a few deck shots revealing some details. There is even a colour diagram of Lion in dazzle paint, which I did not think was used in WWI. Apparently they experimented with different schemes on different ships but the brass must not have liked the nontraditional look since without exception they were all repainted to grey after a few months. Apparently this book has detail on this, and diagrams of the different dazzle schemes tried. Just closed the pool so without a test tank progress on my other RC models is stalled, so I will start work on Lion soon. Good winter project.

John, noticed (again) your build which I must have forgotten to "follow" at the time. Looking great! Winch is excellent. Those interior photos on upper deck and wheelhouse are very interesting. When I was there only the main deck was open to be wandered through, due to ongoing renovations. Looking forward to seeing more of your build! Ian

Me too!

Back in the 70's I made an RC model of this ship which has been on a shelf for decades. With retirement I have the notion of overhauling her to add detail the teenage me omitted (and modernizing the speed control from rheostatic to ESC). I have two sheets of plans from David MacGregor, "lines" and overall views. Details on hatches etc are hard to make out, plus there are some dotted additions of searchlight platforms that were added in 1916 which are illegible to me. Also I have read she had several Lewis guns and something like 8 or 9 rangefinders (some in the turrets) which are not evident in the drawings. Does anyone know of a book which might have on-board photos of Lion? I see plenty of photos of Lion steaming along but very few on board. Thanks everyone. Ian

Very sleek...nice planking job!

George, your water dioramas are always superb - totally convincing! And Ares is another exceptional model.

Good idea to use a french curve as a bending jig! Must keep that in mind.

Is that the museum which has "Olympias" on display?

Bill, you are as prolific with wood as with plastic now. Congrats!

Quick report on trial: Went to my first RC boat club Wednesday sail at "Brown's Inlet" in Ottawa. They said they'd be there at 4:30 but no one showed up. A little after the 5pm the fitful breeze died completely. As I was dismantling the rig, two ladies walking past asked, "Why don't you sail with those other guys?". Turns out I was at the wrong end of Brown's Inlet and the two ends are cut off by trees etc. Next time I know where to go. Anyway, as soon as I put her in the water I saw she was sitting stern-down with the forefoot barely touching the water. Even in the light breeze her bow kept wanting to veer off the wind. I'll need to rethink the weight distribution. Might even come down to completely tearing her down again and rebuilding much more lightly eg see those beams in first post first photo, and build the cabin with thinner pieces in pine not maple. Also get rid of the metal frame holding the pulley for the winch loop. That's strike two for this summer in my RC revival; first the Roman galley and now this. I'm also now getting enthused about restoring my HMS LION from WW I. Thinking of adding detail, correcting some errors and of course buy a modern brushed ESC for her decaperm motors. Will stay with gel-cell battery as that was most of her ballast, back in the 70's.

Looks great Jim. So the Duchess didn't have Jarvis brace winches?

"........I’ve started on the mechanism to make the captain go below on diving". ??!!!!! Wow that would be something to see. Great model!

Somewhere on this site exists Chuck Passaro's tutorial on edge-bending strip planking. Might help you with your walnut!

Ready for trials! If not detailed yet. Didn't have time today as I was repairing some stuff at a client's house. Tomorrow is the plan, wind permitting. Will be naming her after my wife when I find some adhesive vinyl lettering. I need to make a better-designed stand.

Very interesting! 👍

Keith - My definition of "pretty poor" differs from yours apparently. That prop looks great!

Well, I received my two figures a little ahead of promised delivery date. They were both from Etsy and advertised as 1/24 scale, though from different vendors. Girl from Poland, guy from somewhere else. Here they are: HaHaHa!! I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw the small narrow shipping box for the helmsman figure. As far as I can measure in attempting to estimate their heights if they were standing up straight, she's a little tall and he's quite a bit short. She is much more nicely molded than he is. The Polish vendor at the time asked what pose I would like the helmsman to be in but I had ordered this guy with a view to amputating then reattaching his arms to hold the helm. I have now asked the vendor, Andrii, if he can make me a helmsman the same size as the passenger. In the immortal words of the Polish Spitfire pilot to "Moggy" in "Piece of Cake"......."Is cock-up". 🤣

Bill; as always, consult Longridge. Plate 31 shows the heel of Victory's bowsprit tenoned (though you can't see it) to a rather massive timber upright "attached to deck beams above and below".

Me again. Check out this pic I found; zooming in shows that Occre is correct.

Bill, that certainly looks much better than Occre's butt end just sitting there. From the Occre diagram extract, the bowsprit heel would meet the foremast above deck. I assume you increased the steeve (angle) of the bowsprit for it to plunge through the deck ahead of the foremast. Perhaps Occre got the steeve wrong and someone didn't know what to do..... On the other hand, look at the picture of the replica below. The bowsprit certainly looks like it would meet the foremast above deck....🤔 Did you check other build logs?

Ferrus, you are setting a world record on time for this model. Wow!

Steven, your carved figures are getting very good; I was admiring the hair/beards on Rustico and Buono. Lovely model!

George, I took a look and yes indeed Flying Fish is recorded as having 8250 "yards" of canvas, but as canvas came in I believe 3-foot wide "bolts" to be sewn together into a sail, each "yard" of a yard-wide bolt is in fact one square yard. Vastly larger than Discovery's sail area.