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shipmodel

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  1. Keith - Look for figures in the model railroad TT scale which is 1:120. I took a quick look and Preiser has a set of about 50 unpainted railroad personnel for $18. You will have to select and adapt them, but it is a good place to start. Eberhard - Really excellent work. Your deck fittings and fixtures at your scale are wonderful. You might look into making your guy wires and other lines out of polyester fly tying threads that go down to 0.003" diameter and can be tensioned after installation by heating with a just-extinguished match held under the line. As always, best of success to you. I will continue to watch with interest. Dan
  2. Hi Mark - Happy that you are back and even happier that you are healthy. Excellent drawings. They really give a good idea of the interior structure of the ship. Dan
  3. Hi Marc - I finally am getting your updates, and love what you are doing. The gun carriages look fine, and no one the wiser. As for making chain at 1:96, even the old "scratch built" rules allowed for purchased chain. (I have extra chain in really small sizes if you need some). If you are talking about deadeye chainplates, then you are on your own. You might be able to take larger size chain and squeeze the links into thinner, longer shapes. Best of success. Dan
  4. Hi Cisco - Nice work. Your skills and attention to details are well on their way up the learning curve. Looking forward to watching further progress. As for soldering, I have found that for the tiny parts that we work with a torch is just too powerful, as you found out. A mini soldering iron, like those for the electronics industry and hobby market, works well. I also like using a resistance soldering iron that has no flame or heat (it is sometimes marketed as Cold Heat). It is a bit trickier to use, but the lack of open heat more than makes up for it. Best wishes for continued success in your project. Dan
  5. Hi Cisco - Very nice planking. Excellent symmetry. Good choice on the cradle carvings too. Looking forward to seeing how they come out. Happy Holidays to you and yours as well. Dan
  6. Hi again to all, and thanks as always for the likes and compliments. This will be the last segment of the build log, although I plan to edit it down a bit and turn it into an article for the Nautical Research Journal. Although all ships have their own stories, the history of the Mayaguez is more exciting and tragic than most, so I will go into it in a bit more detail than usual for a build log. Some of it was set out in the first segment of the log, leaving off with the capture of the ship. Here, as they say, is the rest of the story. Let’s go back to that fateful day of May 12, 1975. The SS Mayaguez is heading from Hong Kong to Sattahip in Thailand carrying 107 containers of routine commercial items and 77 containers for the US military of non-military supplies such as mail and PX items. Although in a recognized and heavily travelled sea lane, she was only 6 miles from the small island of Koh Tang, claimed by both Cambodia and Vietnam. The communist Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia, which had recently captured power, started enforcing a 12 mile limit off the island and had already seized a number of ships from several countries and had fired on several others. Despite this, the American military command had not issued any warnings to commercial ships to avoid the area. At 2:18 in the afternoon the captain was called to the bridge by the third mate on watch. A gunboat carrying a red flag was approaching fast. A few seconds later there was a burst of machine gun fire over the bow. Captain Miller decided to continue to see what they would do. A sailor on the gunboat raised an RPG to his shoulder and fired over the forecastle. Unable to outrun them the captain stopped the ship and it was boarded by more than a dozen soldiers from two small Cambodian armed boats. Here is a close up photo of one of the boats which was used to detail these elements on the model. The text on the side reads in part: “A Cambodian gunboat nestles alongside the American container ship SS. Mayaguez off Koh Tang Island as its Cambodian Khmer Rouge crew take over the U.S. freighter. This picture was made by one of the crew. The crew was swiftly taken captive and the ship directed to the nearby Koh Tang Island. The Captain and radio operator did an extraordinary job of getting off a series of SOS messages with the ship’s status and position. These were relayed to US military command in the Phillipines and an Orion P-3 reconnaissance aircraft flew over, but was fired on. Despite the danger, overflights were continuous after that, although repeatedly fired on. In Washington an emergency meeting of the National Security Agency was taking place between President Gerald Ford and his team of well-known advisors, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld, Brent Scowcroft, William Colby, James Schlesinger, and the full Joint Chiefs of Staff. With that lineup it is not surprising that the final decision was to make a “strong statement” that would be recognized by the Koreans, the Chinese, and the American public. The reaction of the Khmer Rouge was impossible to calculate and that of the ship’s crew was not important. American naval elements including the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea and the frigate USS Holt were directed to steam to the area and await further orders. Over the next two days American jets from nearby bases sank several Cambodian gunboats but failed to prevent the crew being taken off the ship onto a fishing boat and ferried to Koh Tang Island. The ship itself was not taken into a Cambodian port, but that was mostly because the Captain exaggerated the depth of the hull and said the radar would not work, so the ship would ground. Meanwhile, Marines and other personnel from several bases were assembled nearby by helicopter and also told to stand by. Tragically, during the moves a helicopter crashed, taking the lives of these 23 USAF Security Police and the flight crewmen pictured here. This helicopter crash would not be the last. Back on the model the ship was complete and had to be set into its seascape. I will not go into detail here as to my method for sculpting and painting a sea. I have set it down in my build logs of the USS/SS Leviathan and the whaleboat James B Colgate. In fact, I did not photograph this part of the build of this model. Here, though, is a photo from the Leviathan build of the Plaster of Paris sea with waves and swells molded in with a damp sponge. The same method was used, but since photos show a calm sea and the ship was to be pictured at anchor after being captured, the surface was only lightly textured and only very small patches of foam were shown around the hull. One thing that I have found that increases the realistic look of a model far beyond its small size is the waste water discharge towards the stern of the ship. I made this by bending a small length of styrene rod over a candle flame. After trimming to length it was inserted into small holes in the hull and the plaster sea. The rod was textured with gel cyano dabbed on with a toothpick, heavier at the lower end where the stream would have broken up a bit. Then it was colored with flat white acrylic paint along with the small disturbance on the ocean’s surface. With some additional research it was discovered that the Cambodian gunboats were US made “Patrol Craft Fast” PCFs. Nicknamed “Swift Boats” they had been used in the rivers and coastal areas of Vietnam and also given to the Cambodians when they were our allies during that fight. An Internet search turned up a low resolution plan of the boats so I was started planning to carve and detail two of them for the diorama. This would not have been easy with a scale length just over two inches each. I then turned to Shapeways, Inc. to see if their designers had something that could be used as a starting point. To my happy surprise there was a set of two Fast Boats already in the right scale. They were molded in fairly smooth frosted plastic with the topsides molded separately from the lower hull. After cutting away the sprue framework the sections were separated and the interior was found to be filled with unhardened resin powder. This was removed and the topsides glued down to the hull. The propellers and rudders were removed as were the stern railings which were too thick. After sanding the boats were painted light grey before detailing. The guns on the stern deck and on top of the wheelhouse were painted, as were their mounts. Life rings were added from my spares box along with hull numbers. The stern railings were replaced with PE trimmed to size and the boats were finished with small paper flags painted with the flag of communist Kampuchea, a yellow temple on a red field. Hollows were cut into the plaster sea and the boats set in with a bit of plaster to fill any gaps. Paint and gloss finish melded them into the diorama. After a few touch-ups of paint the model was complete and ready for delivery to the museum at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY. So here is a side-by-side comparison of the finished model with the photograph that started it all. I think that I achieved a “compelling evocation of the actual ship.” Others must think the same, because the model was honored with the Jim Roberts’ Craftsmanship Award at the 2022 Northeast Joint Clubs Show. My gratitude goes out to all of the judges. To finish, we return to the tragic and poignant Mayaguez Incident. By the evening of May 14 the ship had been seized and the crew had been taken off to Koh Tang Island. President Johnson authorized military action and several Kampuchean gunboats have been sunk. Naval ships and Marine units were being hurried to the area so a “strong statement” could be made. By the early morning hours of May 15 the pieces were in place and the order was given to seize back the ship and rescue the crew on Koh Tang Island. Approaching cautiously, the USS Holt came alongside the Mayaguez. At 06:13 in the morning, after a bombardment with tear gas, armed Marines in gas masks stormed the ship, only to find that it had been deserted. With no opposition, the American flag was once again raised above the bridge. At about the same time a communique from the Kampuchean government was broadcast which blamed the US for the incident and described the Mayaguez as a “CIA spy ship”, but which announced that both the ship and the crew were being released. This was received in Washington an hour later, but was initially disbelieved. Nonetheless, it was true and the crew was put on a captured fishing trawler and released. However, confirmation of this was not established until several hours later. Without this confirmation the assault on Koh Tang Island went ahead. Unfortunately, there were two major pieces of information that President Johnson and the Marines did not have. The first was that during the previous day the crew had all been moved from Koh Tang Island to nearby Koh Rong Sanloem Island. This was observed by American planes, but it was still believed that some of the crew were on Koh Tang. The second was that the Khmer Rouge had a much larger and more heavily armed force on Koh Tang which was meant to defend against the Vietnamese who also claimed the island. In the early morning hours of May 15 eight large helicopters, mostly CH-53 Sea Stallions, with 175 Marines began arriving at Koh Tang. Of these, three were shot down and two became disabled from mechanical problems. Nonetheless they landed 109 troops on three landing zones. This aerial photo shows two of the downed helicopters on East Beach. A running gun battle across the island continued throughout the day, even after the release of the Mayaquez’ crew was confirmed. By mid-afternoon the order to withdraw was given and the rest of the day was spent in several attempts to extract the landing force, with additional helicopters shot down and more US troops killed and wounded. This continued into the night, with confusion abounding amid the increasing fog of war. Ultimately, the bodies of a number of Marines and four live troops were left behind after all the others were evacuated. The Khmer Rouge, angered at the deaths aboard the gunboats that had been sunk and the 20 or so troops killed on Koh Tang, ultimately executed all four. The final US death toll for the unnecessary assault on Koh Tang was 18 troops killed and 50 wounded. Although the Mayaguez Incident did not occur in Vietnam, it is commonly referred to as the last battle of the Vietnam War. The names of the Marines and other personnel who were killed in combat are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall. This does not include the 23 USAF Security Police and flight crew who were killed in the helicopter crash during the troop movements prior to combat. They were not so honored. What lessons can be taken away from this poignant tragedy? Not many, other than that assaults by slow, loud, fragile helicopters are rarely successful – see, e.g., the Iranian hostage rescue mission, ‘Blackhawk Down’ in Mogadishu, and even the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden. Here’s hoping that it may never be necessary to mount another such military action. Be well Dan
  7. Hi Cisco - Very nice progress on the hull planking. You should end up with a nice, well-faired appearance. One small point - you said you had 'messed up' your butt joint spacing and that you took out some planks already applied. There was no need to do so. As I understand it, the 4 or 5-step planking patterns ONLY apply to deck planking. There were so many hull ribs, and so close together, that butt joints could land almost anywhere. Of course you would not want two butt joints next to each other, but there is not, and cannot be, any strict mathematical stagger to the joints on such a curved surface. For the deck, the beams were much further apart at a consistent distance and the surface was relatively flat, so a regimented pattern was possible. If you have some time, and can find the books, I highly recommend "Building the Wooden Fighting Ship" by Dodds and Moore, which describes the process with many excellent drawings and illustrations. Also, an easy, inexpensive, and enjoyable read is "Wooden Boats" by Michael Ruhlman, which is the story of his time at the Benjamin & Gannon shipyard on Martha's Vineyard where they still build wooden boats the old fashioned way. Best of success. I am looking forward to seeing your work next April in New London. Dan
  8. Hello again to all who are following this build. Sorry to say that it has been almost a year since my last post, but life has a way of interfering with my literary efforts. I’m happy to say that most of my health issues have resolved, leaving me with just the usual arthritic knees and a creaking hip replacement. At 72 this is to be expected, I suppose. As they say, it’s better than the alternative. But back to the model - - The build log left off with the ship completed – hull, superstructure, and 96 containers on deck. The only remaining major structures to build were the two rolling cranes that loaded and unloaded the 35’ long containers. Here is an overall photo of the ship at sea with the cranes set on their rails immediately forward and aft of the superstructure. In close-up you can see how they straddle the blocks of containers. The strong framework extends athwartships to the limits of the deck with a winch assembly on top that rolls side to side to lift and move the containers. From overhead the overall layout of the cranes can be seen. Obviously, they have to have at least 35’ between the vertical “U” shaped ends so the containers can move outboard without hindrance. From the photo it is obvious that there is not much clearance, so my cranes had to be built to reflect these tight tolerances. Once again the lack of plans of any kind was a bit of a problem. The layout and exact shapes of the several components of the cranes had to be deduced from the photographs. To tease these out from the blurry black and white photos was the hardest photo interpretation task of the entire build. Look at only the left side of the two images below. This is as good as it got. After much head scratching and comparing them to each other and to the many other less detailed photos, I was able to draw outlines of the pieces with a reasonable degree of confidence. These were drawn in red on the photos Note that the hinge between the central gallows piece and the movable wing piece must be located below the top of the gallows, otherwise they will not fit together with the tops aligned. I located this where the red dot is, although there is no fitting to be seen on the outside at this point. Also, I concluded that the vertical posts seen in the upper photo must be attached to the wing piece since they rotate to horizontal in the lower photos. I have no direct proof, but I think that they must be some part of a locking mechanism that holds the wing up when extended. With the shapes decided, rightly or not, I cut a piece of thick card stock so the bottoms of the inner vertical edges just cleared the container stacks and rested just outside of the crane guides on the lower trestles. From there the shapes of the gallows was drawn in and then the shapes of the wings. After much erasing and redrawing, I had shapes that fit all of the parameters and tolerances that I needed. This drawing was finalized, then scanned and copied onto blank paper. Since there were four gallows pieces, two for each crane, I needed eight identical pieces cut from plastic for the sides. I first made up the eight blanks with rectangular pieces of 0.040” styrene welded to each other with thin plastic cement. A simple jig made sure that the inner dimensions between the uprights was consistent and correct. Small triangles were added to the inner corners as reinforcements as seen in the photos. Then each gallows drawing was cut from the paper and spray mounted to the plastic blank. Careful cutting with a sharp blade guided by a metal rule gave me the gallows piece in plastic. The paper was easily removed with a drop of Goo Gone, a mild solvent. To make up the thickness of the gallows components four ¼” I-beams were glued to the inner face of one of the gallows pieces. This not only gave me a consistent thickness, but reinforced the joints between the sheet styrene pieces, rather than relying only on the welding action of the plastic glue. In a bit of serendipity, using the I-beam across the top gave me a channel in the top that the rolling winches would be mounted on. Not shown - a second gallows piece was positioned over the I-beams and glued in place. The open sides were closed in with lengths of styrene strip the width of the I-beam between the two gallows sides. The wing pieces were made in a similar fashion. Sixteen wing piece paper outlines were printed out, mounted on sheet styrene, and cut out. An I-beam was fitted to the straight side of one and a second wing piece glued to the beam to match the first. In the upper left the sides of the assembly can be seen after being filled in with styrene strip. Five I-beams of different sizes were all cut to the same length, just a bit longer than the 35’ containers. A central large beam and two smaller ones at the lower corners connected two of the gallows to each other, forming a strong “U” that slid over the containers and rested on the lower trestles. Then four of the wing pieces were attached to the upper corners of the gallows and connected to each other with smaller I-beams. Small pieces of plastic were cut to fit around the lower legs of the gallows representing the control and observation platforms for the cranes. These assemblies were then detailed with the locking arms, ladders, piping for electric lines or water runoff (I never did figure out which), and some punched discs seen in the photographs. After painting them tan some black markings were drawn onto the winch channels, then railings were added to the tops of the gallows and around the control platforms. The winch assembly was put together from some two dozen pieces to build up a moveable platform to match, as best I could figure it out, the less than detailed photographs. I also had to use some additional common engineering sense for what had to be there, even if I couldn’t see it. There is a walkway only on the starboard side and behind the two winch control houses. The windows for the winch houses were cut from black decal film and carefully applied. Here is the crane mounted on the lower trestles. In this view you can see the paper applique doors on the winch control houses which had to be there, though I never saw them. In the enlarged insert, the small black beads that represent the rollers that would allow the winch to run outboard along the channels on top of the gallows. Similar small wheels were mounted under the legs of the crane to allow it to roll along the lower trestle to pick up containers from any location on the ship. So here are the pair of cranes, as fitted to the ship, which is now complete. The final installment of this build log will focus on the ocean setting and the Cambodian gunboats that captured the ship. I hope to get it out soon. Until then, stay safe and well. Dan
  9. Hi Marc - Lovely work on the figures. They should set off the stern quite impressively. As for the sails, read through my build of the Queen Anne's Revenge. I did a lot of experimenting to make the billowed sails, although not to the extreme that you want to take them, given how they look in the drawing. The scale is quite different, so the materials will have to be substituted, but there should be some techniques there you can profitably use. Looking forward to watching her top hamper rise. Enjoy the vacation Dan
  10. Hi Marc - Beautiful work on the gratings. I bet there was a large dram of something fortifying when you finally breathed a sigh of relief at completion. Will there be open seats of ease for the crew or just enclosed ones for the officers? Dan
  11. Hi Cisco - Glad you enjoyed the conference. The New York Shipcraft Guild had a wonderful time bringing it to all our friends and fellow modelers. I hope you took away some inspiration from all the excellent models on display. I'll look forward to seeing you at next year's conference when I will not be the host and will have some time to chat. See you there. Dan
  12. Keith - I'll be following along for the sheer joy of watching you work and following along your thoughts. This will be tremendously entertaining and informative, as always. Thanks for sharing the journey. As for the hailing port - to my eye the name is incised into the transom. If the hailing port is unknown at this point, or can be changed later, it would make more sense to paint it on just before launching. Yes? Dan
  13. Hi Sbaker - 1710, the year that QAR was built, is a little late for a spritsail mast. R.C. Anderson says that they were pretty well phased out by then, especially in smaller ships which did not need the leverage of a forward sail to tack through the eye of the wind. Budriot does not show one in his plans of Le Mercure, so I did not put one on. That said, there was a great deal of variation in the rig of ships in this somewhat transitional period, even among ships of the same size built by the same nation. If you are building your own QAR model, make your best choice and stick with it. Best of success. Dan
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