Hubac's Historian

Hello all - 
 
Just a quick photo for those who could not make it to the Joint Clubs Conference in New London last Saturday.  
 
Bob Marvin brought me the funnel cages from Shapeways.  They were perfect.  Here they are, temporarily set on the rough cut superstructures.  They need no sanding, just priming and painting. In the fullness of time I will fill them with the multiple tubes and struts of the funnel pipes.
 
 As you can see, there has been some more progress on the hull, but I have not had time to write up the log.
 
More soon.
 
Dan
 
 

Hi all –
 
I hope everyone has had a nice Easter, Passover, or other spring holiday of your choosing.  Thanks, as always, for the comments and the likes.  It is so nice to get feedback from our modeling family – both the in-laws and the outlaws.  You can decide which you are.
 
The last segment concluded with me working on the bow to get the shapes right and the surface smooth, as well as cutting and installing the flared bulwark pieces.
 
 While I continued to refine, smooth, and fair the bow, I turned to the challenges of the stern.  As seen in the photo, it has a smooth, rounded, but flared shape with two decks that are each pierced with large openings for viewing.  The lower ones are not as tall compared with the upper ones, or rather, the bulwarks are higher, as can be seen from the postures of the people looking out.  In the upper openings the bulwarks are lower, but a single open railing is mounted on top for safety.  This same solid bulwark and upper railing system is an almost universal design feature of the ship, and can be seen as well above the topmost bulwark at the stern.  The lower deck also has a number of round and elongated hawse holes for mooring lines, so the bulwarks have to be pierced for them as well.   

All of this meant that the model’s stern would have to be some sort of pierced shell, like a lacework Easter egg.  To get that shell I first tried to drape-mold styrene in one sheet.  I had already built up a solid stern block which I hoped to use as the form.  I screwed it down onto the hull block and made sure all the edges met.
 
I then put a sheet of 0.020” styrene in a bath of simmering water.  While it softened I heated the stern of the hull with a hair dryer.  When I thought everything had reached a workable temperature I pulled the plastic out of its bath and pulled it down on the hull form.  It did not behave.  Pleats and wrinkles formed which could not be flattened.  I tried several more times, making the plastic sheet hotter in an oven, moving around the points where I pulled on the plastic, etc.  Ultimately I only ended up with half a dozen sheets of unusable plastic which had to be discarded.  I will not embarrass myself by posting photos of the trash.
 
I decided that I would have to build up and pierce each deck separately, and then work on the seam between them.  This would be slower, but used techniques that I was already familiar with.  I first had to establish the shape of the stern with just the deckhouses and decks stacked together to get a feel for the internal structures.  They were cut according to the deck plans, but a little oversize, and were temporarily screwed to each other and the hull.
 
These pieces were faired to each other with a sanding block, checking frequently to see that they created the flared shape desired.  When I was satisfied, the upper wooden pieces were taken off, leaving only the lowest deck house and deck.  A piece of cardstock was used to make a pattern for a curved piece of plastic sheet, much like the one that was created for the bow bulwark.   
         
The plastic was cut oversize and then refined by trial and trimming until it fit well.  As at the bow, a rabbet was cut into the solid hull to bed the edge of the plastic into.  The piece was secured with gap filling cyano.  When the glue was solid the gaps at the edges were filled with Squadron white putty in several layers to build up the filler to compensate for shrinkage as it dried.  Then the surface was sanded flush with the hull, with special care being taken at the edges.  You can see where my smoothing process went through the layers of white primer and into the grey primer below.  The color change proved to be a good warning that I should not go deeper in that spot.  Then the locations of the window openings were drawn on the plastic in pencil, and the centers were ground out with a small burr, staying well away from the lines.  A sharp #11 knife was used to carefully whittle away the remaining plastic until the openings were the proper sizes and shapes. The hawse holes were done in a similar fashion.
 
 
 From there I repeated the process for the upper deck.  But first, the lower deckhouse and the underside of the lower deck were painted and permanently installed.  At this point I was committed.  It was no longer easy to remove the stern pieces and redo them.  As before, a cardstock pattern was created, plastic sheet was cut and fit, glued into the rabbet and faired to the hull and the lower deck bulwark.  The viewing openings were drawn on, pierced and whittled away as before. 

In the previous photo you can still see some spots where additional refinement and whittling of the lower openings is needed.  This was a continuing process and done very carefully.  A slip here might mean that the entire piece would have to be stripped out and replaced.  Fortunately, it ultimately came out as I wanted.  After a coat of primer it is, I believe, quite difficult to tell that it was pieced together.
 
 So here is the current state of work, with the rough superstructure laid on.  It sure will be great when I can replace the plumbing pipe funnels for the lacework cages that Bob made up.  Can’t wait.
 
But there are many more miles to go before I can reach that point, and many more postings.  Until the next one –
 
Be well
 
Dan
 

Wow.. the funnel cages came out great.   Kudos to Bob for them.   I'm continually in awe at the levels of support everyone gives and gets here at MSW.

Hi Druxey - 
 
Yes, I have.  It works well, but dries harder than the wood, since it is meant to be used on autos with metal or fiberglass surfaces.  This makes it tricky to sand without dishing the wood around it.  It feathers out nicely, but not much better than plaster or other fillers.  Besides, I could only find it in a fairly large tin, and the last one I bought dried out before I could use it all.  Ounce for ounce, of course, it is much less expensive than the Squadron putty.  
 
The other issue, on this model, is that the final paint color will be white.  The red of Bondo is hard to hide without more coats of primer than I wanted to add at this stage of the hull finishing.
 
A good idea, but not for this use this time.
 
Dan
 
 
 

Hi all –
 
Thanks for the conversations and the likes, as always.   And thanks for looking in on my little diversion.  It was an exercise in water sculpture, and reasonably successful, although I have a ways to go to make it that spray truly realistic.  
 
When the last installment ended, the hull had been glued up and shaped.  The wood had been hardened, ready for final finishing.
 
The next step was to bring the hull to a smooth surface, ready for the color coats.  I first filled the pores of the wood with a slurry of plaster of paris.  Here it is shortly after being painted on
.
 
Before it dried and became opaque I laid in a 1/16” wide strip of tape along the waterline as I did here on the Doria model.
 
With the plaster dry it was gently sanded with a medium grit sanding sponge to smooth and fair the planes and surfaces.  Here is how it looked at the bow.  The waterline tape was removed at this point, but it left a very shallow but indelible depression along the length of the hull that will guide my painting later on.
 
What followed were many refinements to those hull planes and surfaces, done with multiple layers of spray primer.  The first several were of grey, sandable primer which filled in the deepest of the sanding scratches.  For preference I use Krylon in the rattle can.  It is fast-drying and builds up a sufficiently thick layer with only a few coats.  But it is getting harder to find.  Even Amazon runs out from time to time.  I have found that the comparable product from Ace Hardware is almost identical.
 
Medium and fine grit sanding sponges smoothed out the grey primer, then coats of white primer were sprayed on.  This is a much different formulation, not just the color.  It goes on thinner and dries to a much harder surface.  Finer and finer grits of sandpaper were used, ending with a rubdown with a plastic scouring pad to burnish the surface.  Much will be done to the hull, and it will get carved, drilled and sections ground out, but it was nice to have a smooth canvas to work on.
 
The first addition to the hull was the bulwark at the bow.  This has to be flared considerably to match the steep angle of the hull at the nose.  To get this shape, I wrapped a wide strip of card stock around the bow and taped it in place, making sure that it lay tight and flat all around the bow.  Where it rose above the deck, I penciled in a line.  Using a flat piece of scrap as a spacer, a second line was drawn at the height of the finished bulwark.  The card was removed and a third line was drawn, freehand, about ¼” below the deck line to account for where it will be attached to the hull.  Several were made and discarded before one was acceptable.  The finished template shape looked like this.
 
This shape was cut out of a piece of 0.020” styrene sheet.  I made sure to make the first cuts overlarge, then it was slowly refined by repeatedly offering it up to the desired location and trimming as needed.  A shallow step was cut, carved, and ground into the hull and the piece laid in and secured with gel superglue.  The edges were filled and faired with Squadron white putty.   Here is the bow bulwark piece before final fairing into the hull.   The difference in sheen tells me where the putty still needs more refining.   The bulwark is still a bit oversize at the top edge, which will not be refined until the detailing process begins.
 
This was my first time using Squadron putty.  It is a solvent based gel which comes in a tube like toothpaste and is squeezed out in much the same way.  Because it is solvent based it dries quickly, but the fumes are a bit harsh, so have some good ventilation where you work with it.  The other problem is that it shrinks substantially as it dries.  Some deep depressions had to have several layers applied before it built up enough to sand back to a smooth surface.
 
Next, I work on the stern.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Patrick, Greg - yes, Bob deserves a gold medal.  But all I can do is to give him full credit for such a perfect achievement.
 
Druxey - I have always relied on the kindness of strangers . . .
 
Dan
 

Hi all - 
 
Bob Marvin has come through in fine fashion, as has Shapeways.  Here are photos of the funnel cages made with the 3-D printing process.  I will get them in hand to examine at the New London conference, but they look great.  Now I have to build the internal structures with a quality to match these pieces.
 
Thanks, Bob.
 
Dan

Hi sailor -
 
This does not happen often, probably because it is so dangerous.  It's called an 'emergency blow' or 'emergency surface'. They do train for it, though.  A friend of mine used to call the exercise 'angles and dangles'.  I'm sure you can imagine what they were referring to.   As for leaping out of the water, I'm not sure if it was even possible before the newer classes of sub, but I was intrigued when I saw it in the movie.  There are some cool YouTube videos out there too.
 
Thanks for the compliment.  I had fun doing it.
 
Dan

I must admit, I haven't done that in a submarine before. Surfacing is always a very dangerous time and blasting up from the bottom and practically leaping into the air like that can be a very risky thing to do. Our navy would never allow that. We come up slowly to PD, look around and THEN ease up to the surface. The feeling of going from neutrally buoyant to positive buoyancy is neat though. Suddenly you're floating on as opposed to just suspended in the water. Your interpretation of the photo is very cool though.

Hi all - 
 
Well, we can't all live on ocean liners alone.  In some of the down time, I tried my hand at a little diversion.  I recently watched "The Hunt for Red October" and was once again impressed with how far out of the water a submarine can get.  A little internet research, a 1/350 model of USS Dallas, some experimentation with how to model water, and here we are.  The base is 12" x 7", for a sense of scale. 
 
The caption, of course, is "FLY! big D!"
 
Enjoy.
 
Dan

Really enjoying this build, Dan. I really admire those who can build ships of any era with equal excellence.
 
Great link, Keith! Don't believe I've come across micro brass tubing that small before.

Hi all -
 
When the last segment ended I was doing the initial shaping of the hull.
 
Using the station lines plans I made some templates for the hull profile and worked the wood down to the proper shape.  That lengthy and tedious task was made faster with power sanders, both belt and orbital.  A light touch is needed, but after getting used to the weight of the tools they let me remove wood in a very controlled and delicate way.
 
One thing I learned from the templates relates back to a discussion we had during the Doria build.  There, I did not have the station lines plan until quite late, and even then they were from a commercial model kit, so I did not trust them.  They seemed to show that the hull was narrower amidships just under the promenade deck than it was at the bilges.  But after carefully examining a photograph of the Doria on the launching ways I did not see this at all.  Others, who were more familiar with Italian liners, said that there was a tumblehome, just not much.  It turns out that, for the Michelangelo at least, we are both correct, sort of.
 
Here are the station lines, with a vertical guide line drawn from the top of the hull down on both the bow and stern views.  Clearly, the lower hull is wider at its greatest breadth than at the sheer line.  The difference is about 30 inches actual or 3/32” on the model.  Not very large, but certainly some tumblehome.
 
But when I lined up the station numbers I found that it only affected the center 20% of the length of the ship.  Both ahead and astern of that area the hull either came straight down or started to curve the other way.  In essence, what the hull has is not really tumblehome, but a pair of bulges amidships and just at the waterline.  Saddlebags, really.  Were these to get some more ballast lower down in the hold?  Were they to artificially lengthen the waterline and increase speed?  I have no idea. 
 
Nonetheless, this was noted and I tried to get the wood to take that shape in the carving process.  Here is the hull taken down very close to final dimensions.
 
At the bow you can see how the lifts had to be cut and pieced to achieve the line of the sheer.  The third one down is that wedge that was mentioned in the last segment.
 
At the stern the upper lifts have been cut short and pieced in.  This block is secured with a screw and is removable.  It holds the place of the deck houses and open decks that will be fitted later.  I had an idea that I could drape form some plastic around this plug for the window units of these stern decks.  Ultimately this did not work.  I will discuss it and my solution in the next segment.
 
The tapered propeller shafts and their webbing are being pinned in place. Having the black glue lines between the lifts was a particular help here near the rudder, where it showed me problems with symmetry as wood was removed.
 
During breaks from sanding and shaping the hull I roughed out the superstructure.  The plans were attached to basswood sheets with the photo spray adhesive as before and rough cut on the band saw.   Deckhouses are cut from ¼” thick basswood, while the decks are 1/8”.  The total from deck to deck is 3/8”, or just under 11 feet.   
 
Stacked on each other where they fit, there is a palpable feeling that a ship is starting to rise from the building board.
 
Next I start the final finishing of the hull, and contrive a solution to the problem of the open decks and windows at the stern.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Build Log 3 – Shaping the hull
 
Hi all –
 
Thanks for the likes and comments, devilishly clever as some of them are. . .
 
And thanks to Druxey, Michael, and especially Bob for helping me with the funnel cages.  It looks like I will be working with Bob to have them printed in 3-D.  I’ll report back on the progress and results. 
 
Leaving aside the issues with the funnel cages, the next step was to shape the hull.   The first problem was that the plans did not have the specifics of the lower deck spaces, just a drawing labeled “steva” or bilge.  It covered much more than the lowest two lifts, so the outline of the hull shape for these lifts was impossible to determine.  I had to go back to my high school class in engineering drawing to plot them.  I took the station lines plan and drew the horizontal lines for the locations of the tops of the first two lifts.
 
Plotting the distances from the centerline for each station gave me the offsets, which were laid out on the bilge plan and joined by smooth curves.  Here they are shown in red for the lower two lifts.
 
The paper lifts were cut out and laid down on basswood planks along a drawn centerline.  They were affixed with spray adhesive for photo mounts, which can be repositioned as needed and then removes easily.  The lifts were cut along the plotted lines with the band saw.  In the lifts plans you can see two black dots along the waterline.  These located holes for the captured “T”-nuts which will be used for the future mounting hardware.  The nut goes into the hole in the lower lift and its flange is then trapped by the upper lift.  The hole in the upper lift allows free movement of the mounting bolt to any depth.
 
At the bow some extra material was left on these lifts to build up the bulb that increases efficiency at high speeds.  Here are the first 4 lifts laid up but before shaping.

 
Above the second lift I made the hollows in the hull.  This was first of all to lighten it a bit, but primarily to give any stresses from wood movement somewhere to go rather than deforming the exterior of the hull.  Here are several lifts in the process.  I first select basswood planks that are half the width of the overall model.  Two of them are clamped side by side and the paper plan glued to them along that line.  A sharp knife is run along the seam and the port and starboard sides are separated.  The lift is sawn along the exterior line, and two large spaces are cut from the middle.  A bar of wood is left amidships for strength.

Sharp eyes will notice that these are not the lifts for the Michelangelo, but reprised from the Doria.  I did not think that I was going to post this portion of the build, since the techniques are the same as on the Doria.  But I decided that to tell a complete story I had to show how the hull was built up.  Unfortunately, I had missed the chance to document the process, so I am using the old illustrations.  
 
As with the Doria, I used black glue to join the lifts.  This is nothing more than a few drops of black acrylic paint mixed into the glue.  It starts out messy, but gives an indelible line between the lifts and, because of the split lifts, along the centerline at the bow and stern.  Here are the first 4 lifts of the Michelangelo glued up.  You can must make out the location of the mounting hole in the aft hollow chamber.
 
Later in the process the hull block is almost complete.  The next lift to be added is cut short at the stern to make the space for the open working deck and fantail deck.  It is also solid, to make a continuous surface that can be sanded to the curve of the sheer.

 
Once the block was fully laid up the shaping process started.  Using powered sanders and grinders the hull was brought to approximate shape.  
 
Where there were concave areas, such as under the stern fairing into the rudder post, or under the flare of the bow, various hand held curved rasps and sanders were used.   Here you can see the benefit of the split lift and black glue.  No matter how much material I removed, the lines always remained.
 
Next time I will cover the final shaping of the hull block and the beginning of planning for the upper decks.
 
As always, be well
 
Dan
 
 

Well, Dan, photo-etching has been around for quite a number of decades now....

I have always said that I am a medium-tech sort of guy.  I tend to cobble something together that does the job, like my ropemaker.  But I am fascinated by all the things that the new technologies promise.  I have seen some really excellent examples of 3-D printing at various meetings and conferences, and the products are getting better all the time.
 
That said, I have yet to see the actual production process master a smooth curved surface without a lot of effort = time = money.  But I am prepared to be convinced that it can handle these cages with their diagonal edges.   I can always fall back on the lo-tech methods if needs be.
 
Bob - would be very grateful for your help in working up the learning curve.  I have all the plans at high resolution, and several other close-up photos to answer questions of detail.  Let's talk.
 
Druxey - am I really that old?  When did photoetching become "lo-tech" ! !
 
Dan 
 

Thanks.  This is just a test run, to see if the method I had in mind for constructing it worked, so it is all changeable.  In looking at the photos, the intermediate ring should also be higher up, as well as straightening out some of the struts.  I'd also like to get a more accurate cross-section for the strut members.  With a higher- resolution elevation drawing and a bit more time studying the drawings, I think it should be fairly straight-forward to tweak it in the right direction.
 

Here's a quick experiment:

Hi Doris - 
 
I found the drawing that I was thinking of.  It turned out to be the Royal Katherine herself as drawn by VdV the Elder in 1673 and reproduced in Frank Fox's book "Great Ships - The Battlefleet of King Charles II".  As he shows, the half gangway goes up only to the entry port, which is much closer to the forward gunport than I would have expected.  This may have been forced on the builder by the forward location of the main channel, which would have been much more difficult to move.  

Please be assured that none of this nit-picking detracts in any way from the beautiful work that you are doing.
 
Be well
 
Dan 

OK, try this. Make a shaped mandrel to the form that you want, but at a much larger scale. Then wrap a paper strip near the bottom of the form and run a pencil around to give you the lower curve. Develop the top curve in a similar manner. Take vertical measurements at known intervals  (say, every 30 degrees) and join them to the top and bottom curves. The top curve will need to be deformed in this process so the verticals meet at the correct heights.  Take a circumference halfway up to see if the ends of the shape need to be curved inward. This will give you a flattened projection of the space you need to construct the lattice on. It will not be like the simple trapezoid shape you posted. Once you've filled in the lattice, the drawing can be reduced to scale size.

Hi Michael, Bob - 
 
Thanks for your input.  Yes, it should be possible to lay out the framework mathematically, but it is beyond my capabilities.  It is not as simple as doing a flat expansion.  
 
I can determine the circumferences of the base and top ovals.  The base is 37mm on the long axis and 22mm on the short one.  Using the :  Pi x (square root of 2) x ((1/2 long axis)squared + (1/2 short axis)squared) - this results in a circumference of 96mm, or 6mm between each of the 16 joinder points around the base.   Similarly, the top oval is 31 x 19, giving a circumference of 80mm, or 5mm between points.  I can lay out the grid as a trapezoid with those lengths and a height of 34mm as taken from the plans.  
 
But when I pull the sides around to form a tapered cylinder, much less a tapered ovoid, the top and bottom edges deform and do not remain flat and horizontal.  As you can see, there is a point developed at the lower bow, matched by a dip at the top.  It also makes the funnel lean back aft.
 
If I straighten up the aft edge, as on the ship, the problem is more pronounced.
 
To correct these issues, the top and bottom of the layout have to be curved.  If this were a tapered cylinder, the curve would be smooth and continuous.  But this is an oval, and the curve will be tighter at the ends than in the middle.  Deriving these lines, top and bottom, is what is out of my reach.
 
So, at the moment I am still working on some sort of lattice built up over a form.  I will test Michael’s idea of using flat strips that are rounded by loading them with paint.  I am sure that numerous failures will be required before two acceptable ones are produced.
 
Bob, I would love to work with you on doing it with 3-D printing.  I have no experience with it, but it looks cool.  Let’s talk when I get closer to needing them.
 
Be well
 
Dan

That was a lot of corrective graphic work, Dan!
 
Think of Michael on one shoulder and me on the other, whispering in your ears: good model-maker, wicked model-maker. I'll let you decide which one of us is which!

Hi Michael - glad to have you along.
 
I am thinking along the same channels at the moment, but then what can be done at all of the overlaps, where the staves cross?  If I use brass rod the double thickness will make for a very visible lumpy surface, rather than the smooth surface that photoetching would give me.  And now I am leaning towards Druxey . . . 
 
This sort of thing keeps me up at night - in a good way.  For me, it is one of the best parts of ship modeling.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Hi all –
 
The plans were obtained through the good graces of fellow modeler and good guy, Bill Zebb in Connecticut.  He is an ocean liner enthusiast, and we got to talking at the NRG Conference in Mystic.  He said that he had exactly the plans that I was considering ordering from Italy.  They were in his basement somewhere but he would dig them out for me.  He did, and they were.
 
Published by the Associazione Navimodellisti Bolognesi at the stated scale of 1:200 they came in two very long paper rolls.  Fortunately, this did not phase my blueprint company, who digitized them at 300 px/in.  Unfortunately, this made for one huge file which was too large for my Photoshop Elements program to work with.   I had to get a friend with a more powerful program to cut the file in segments that I could deal with.
 
The first segment was the overall profile and plan.  I wanted them to be printable at the exact size of the model.  This was not as simple as reducing by 200/350 since the plans must have been copied a bit off size along the way from the draftsman to my hands. From the usual sources I found that the LOA of the ship was 276.2 m (906 ft 2 in).  Reduced to 1/350 this is 78.9 cm or 31.06”.  Using the rulers in the program I resized the image until it matched those dimensions.  
 

 
This segment, like all the others, also had some distortion.  For example, you can see the vertical lines where the plans were folded at some point.  The plan visibly nods down to the right of the right crease, making a bend in the waterline stripe.  There are other, smaller defects, all of which were corrected on the final working plans.  But these views were used only as guides, so they only needed to be resized.  This let me take the photograph of the ship in profile and set them alongside each other as a very handy comparison tool.
 

 
The first segment to be properly adjusted was the interior cross section and station lines.  The cross section is labeled for the various decks, which were all straightened out, piece by piece, using the rotate, skew and transform functions of the program.  The plan is also numbered at the keel starting from 0 at the hinge of the rudder.  Why this location was used is a mystery to me.  These station lines run from 300 at the bow to -25 at the stern.
 

 
The station lines plan was taken off and straightened separately.  When I was happy with the result I cut it apart at the centerline, copied and mirrored each section, then merged it to its partner.  Having these views makes it much easier for me to visualize the forward and aft shapes, although the letters and numbers on one side are reversed.
 

 
Each deck plan was treated similarly.  First it was straightened along the centerline.  The starboard side, with the station numbers, was separated, mirrored and joined to its partner.  This ensured that the decks were symmetrical.  Using the station line numbers the size of each was checked and corrected as needed.  Here are the plans for decks A, B, and Main.
 

 
With all the deck plans set, the corrected cross section was divided into horizontal lifts which matched, as much as possible, the deck heights.  They were also selected to match basswood plank thicknesses available from National Balsa Co.  Each was numbered for reference with thicknesses noted. 
 

 
The rising sheer meant that the line of the lifts does not match the line of the decks, especially at the bow.  The first 5 lifts could be flat, but to get the curve of the sheer, lifts 6 and 7 had to be broken up into segments.  In fact, lift 6 had to be broken into 5 segments, with 6A being a wedge that tapers from ¼” at the bow to nothing at station line 265.
 

 
At the stern the problem is similar, but smaller.  I could have added a 1/16” wedge on top of lift 5, but it became easier to start with a thicker piece and taper it.  I could not make the wedge at the level of lift 6 because this deck has open windows and hawse holes where the interior will be visible.
 
 

The rising sheer also meant that even flat lifts did not match the deck plans.  If the plans had been used without modifications the shapes would have been wrong – sometimes too narrow, sometimes too wide.  Each lift was studied to see which deck plan was the best fit for the top of the lift.  From lifts 3 and up I had to use the plan from one deck for the stern and another for the bow.  Here is lift #4, with the stern of deck C and the bow of deck D.
 
 

After all of the lifts were laid out, the superstructure decks were sized, adjusted, and lined up matching their locations above the hull plans.  It was easiest to work with them in this configuration, but when they were all set it became easier to turn them sideways and print them out on a 36” paper roll.  The blueprint company made several copies for very little money, and even redid it free when the first printing proved to be slightly small.
 
 

Next time, the wood starts flying.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Hi all - 
 
Nice to see so many familiar faces in the audience.  Thanks for the interest.
 
This performance will be at a more relaxed tempo than the 4-page Doria sprint.  Michelangelo is at the weekend house which I do not visit much in the winter, so progress is episodic and irregular.  Also, my club, the New York Shipcraft Guild, is hosting the Northeast Joint Clubs Ship Model Conference and Show at the end of April.  Lots to do and organize.
 
Druxey, I only wish that I could figure out how to make them with photoetch techniques.  The first problem is that the cages are not cylinders.  They are ovoid, and the top oval is smaller than the base. These are then divided into 16 segments for the points where the vertical staves meet and are secured.  Flattening this web has to require curves top and bottom which are joined by a very precise pattern of staves.  I don't know that I have the skill or mathematics to make the pattern to be etched.  The second problem is that once it is made, I am pretty certain that I could not roll it into the smooth oval cylinder shape needed without messing it up.
 
My current thinking is along the lines of building an internal framework and hand applying the staves made from styrene strips.  But I am completely open to suggestions.  Fortunately, it will be quite a while before I get to them, so there is plenty of time for experimentation.
 
Dan
 
 

Hi Dan,
now thats a challenge in 1:350 !!
I remember when the "Michelangelo" together with her sister "Raffaello" set the Italian elegance bar for design of fast Atlantic liners, and what a sight in those days !
Congrats to your choise, a very ambitious project you are preparing for, but I know you can do it, and I wish you all the best with this lovely build...
 
Nils