shipmodel

Hi all - 
 
Thanks for joining me.  I'll try to keep it interesting.
 
Keith - it will be more than one post, but not a full, extensively detailed, build log.
I was working to a bit of a deadline and did not stop to take photos of every day's progress.
I will show the construction process for many of the more unusual details, but the general construction follows my usual methods shown in other build logs.
 
Druxey - I use plaster of Paris because I am familiar with it.  It mixes easily, spreads thinly, and dries to a stiff, hard surface that can still be easily sanded to smooth surfaces with sharp corners and edges.  With a final coating of Minwax Wood Hardener it takes on a great deal of strength that stands up to the occasional clumsy ding without a major dent.  I am not familiar with gesso, and don't know its properties.  It may well be as good or better, but this is the Devil I know.
 
Thanks for your interest.
 
Dan

Standing rigging for jib and flying jib boom - Bâton de foc et bâton de clinfoc
To complete the standing rigging (fore topmast stay and fore topgallant stay) for my French corvette, it finally became necessary to attach the jib and outer jib boom. Since these are very delicate and therefore very sensitive parts of the model, I delayed their assembly as long as possible. One or the other ship modeler might have already made the painful experience that a small carelessness leads to the breakage of these booms.
Before the realization, extensive research was done on the required detail elements. The information in the monograph on La Créole by J. Boudriot is not sufficient for this. In addition, some points concerning the guidance of the rigging (mooring in the forecastle), the dolphin striker (angular position) and the flying jib boom (length and attachment) had to be clarified.
I tried to record the compiled results in my new sketchbook (the old one is already full), as can be seen below:


After more intensive occupation with this topic, I have only realized what a wealth of detail it contains. However, a few open questions still remain, such as whether foot ropes were also attached to the flying jib boom and whether they were single or double.
On the next picture you can already see some rigging elements with jib and flying jib boom. Besides the spacer and the triple block, the travelers are also shown. The so-called jib inhaulers are later guided over the single blocks attached to them. It should be mentioned that these are the smallest blocks of the model I have made so far, with a length of 2.8 mm.


After making the necessary ropes, I will soon be able to start rigging the jib boom step by step, but more about that soon.
To be continued ...
 

SS Mayaguez (c. 1975), scale 1:192 by Dan Pariser
 
 
Hi to everyone who followed me from the build log of the restoration of the bone and ivory POW model to this one, and hello to any modeler who might be interested in a completely different subject using completely different materials.  I hope that I can make this build log as informative as the last one.
 
The subject here is the SS Mayaguez, an American container ship that was involved in a famous incident of piracy at sea.  On May 12, 1975, about a week after the fall of Saigon, and a month after the fall of Cambodia (renamed Kampuchea) to the communist Khmer Rouge, Mayaguez was en route from Hong Kong on what was to be a routine voyage.  Travelling through a disputed area, the ship was accosted by a gunboat flying a red flag which fired machine guns and a rocket over the bow.  The ship stopped and was taken over by Kampuchean sailors.  The crew were captured and removed from the ship.  Upon learning of this, American planes were scrambled from nearby bases and photographs of the ship and gunboats were taken as hurried plans were made to recapture the ship and free the crew.
 

 
SS Mayaguez was launched in April 1944 as SS White Falcon, a Maritime Commission C2-S-AJ1 freighter built in North Carolina.  Type C2 ships were all-purpose cargo ships with five holds, but were remarkable for their versatility, speed and fuel economy. U.S. shipyards built 328 of them from 1939 to 1945 similar to this one shown in wartime camouflage. 
 

 
After her service in World War II the ship was sold to Grace Line and carried coffee from South America.  In 1960 she was converted into one of the first all-container ships, with a capacity of 382 boxes below deck plus 96 on deck.
 

 
To do this she was lengthened from 459 feet to 504 by adding a midships section and widened from 63 feet to 74 by adding oddly shaped and angled sponsons on each side.
 

 
  
To support and level the containers on deck above the curved sheer of the hull, structures similar to railroad trestles were built.  Because few ports at the time had equipment built to handle containers the ship was also fitted with two rolling cranes, one forward of the superstructure and one aft, riding on rails mounted on those levelling trestles. 
 

 
The cranes had wings that could hinge up to shuttle the containers out and over the docks and onto or off of waiting trucks or trains.  In this photo the wings are up and extended, while they are down in the prior one.  Notice that these are extended even though they are over the water side.  I suppose that this was done to help balance the ship during loading operations.
 

 
In 1964 the ship was sold to the container line Sea-Land Service and renamed SS Mayaguez after the city in Puerto Rico.  In 1967 she began regular container service in support of US combat forces in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.  After the US withdrawal in 1973 the Mayaguez began sailing a commercial route between Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore.  It was on one of those runs that she was captured.
 
I was recently asked to build a waterline model on an ocean base commemorating the event for the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy museum in their preferred scale of 1/16” = 1’, or 1:192.  As usual, I scoured the internet for plans and images of the ship so my model could be as accurate as possible.  Unfortunately, I could not find any plans of the ship available from after its conversion to work from.  I even contacted Sea-Land, without success, so the project became mostly an exercise in photo interpretation.
 
I found many images, most of which were of only moderate resolution, but all of which gave me some information or viewpoint that let me develop the details.  I did locate a plan of a generic C2 cargo ship which gave me the general outline of the original ship.
 

 
I then located two photos taken by the US Air Force during and just after the incident that were of high resolution and taken from almost exactly overhead on the centerline.  These gave me the outline of the expanded deck which could be combined with the C2 plan and photos of the sponsons to give me a good idea of the final shape of the hull.
 

 
Armed with this information I could lay out the lifts that I would need to build the hull.  I first used Photoshop to resize both the C2 plans and the overhead photos to match the overall dimensions of the model (504 feet x 12 / 192 = 31.5 inches).  On the C2 plans I marked out ½” lifts from below the waterline to the beginning of the upward curve of the sheer of the ship.  A 5/8” tapered wedge at the bow and a similar 3/8” wedge at the stern gave me the basic curve of the deck.
 

 
½” basswood sheets were cut for the lower lifts according to the plans, then attached with wood glue colored black with acrylic paint.  This gave me indelible horizontal guides to guide the shaping process, especially the waterline.  Here the bow has been assembled and the 5/8” sheer wedge has been planed to shape and attached.  The wedge was sanded to a smooth shallow curve and the 1/8” deck piece was cut a bit oversize to allow for adjustment, then secured.
 

 
At the stern the same process was used, just with a flatter wedge.  The raised fore and stern castles were cut to shape from the photo and attached, fairing them to the lower hull.
 
The hardest part of the hull construction was to fashion the sponsons, which had to match the overhang of the deck piece, fit snugly against the curves of the original C2 hull, and match the shapes seen in the photos of the sides of the hull.  They were built up in several pieces, being pinned to the hull temporarily with wooden dowels during shaping.  Several attempts had to be made to get everything to fit, and even here in this photo of my third stern sponson there were problems (notice how the bottom edge of the aft piece is curved and not straight) and the piece was discarded.
 

 
Eventually I learned from my mistakes and the sponsons took on the shapes that I wanted.  Once that was done the entire hull got a thin coating of plaster of paris to seal the wood and fill the larger joints. 
 

 
This layer was mostly sanded off to give me a smooth surface for the first of half a dozen primer coats.  These were individually sanded as well until any small defects were filled and smooth.  The hull then got a color coat of rust resistant red paint below the waterline and a navy blue coat above, as seen in the few color photos.  The deck was also filled and sanded, but left with just the primer coat.
 

 
While this was going on I was also fiddling with the layout and construction of the superstructure.  That will be the subject of the next installment.
 
Until then, be well.
 
Dan

In consideration of Thomas’s request, I’ve been photographing the headrails as I carve the horse ornament.  The starting place was to carve the fanned relief in the inner scroll:

From there, carving the horse is mostly about establishing levels within the carving.  Here, I’ve determined that where the mane meets the horse’s back will be the lowest-depth cut of the carving, my baseline:

After undercutting the mane a bit, which helps give dimension, later during the modeling of the mane, I decided to proceed from the tail to snout, as this Roman skirt was an easy thing to understand and model:

It all proceeds smoothly enough, until the head, which presents some challenges.  For the record, I have not done any involved study of horse anatomy.  I am merely attempting to hint at the major muscle groups that animate the animal’s jaw and face.
 
I wanted to experiment with my idea to add the bordering of the headrails.  It was easy enough to induce a curl into this square styrene strip (.020) with my finger nail.  I anchor the starting point with thin CA, and then I work my way around the scroll, 1/4” by 1/4”, with liquid styrene cement.  It turned out about as well as I could have hoped.


Today, I finished up with the modeling of the head and mane.

I still need to add a few applied “buttons” to the two bands that wrap around the horse’s body, but this is a simple thing.  It is not an anatomically perfect study, but there is shape and movement that will catch the light and create shadows when painted.
 
In other news, I have installed the pass-through archways.  Because boxwood carvings will sit upon these, I wanted to ensure that they were very securely affixed.  After much fitting and strategic scraping of paint, I fit two pins (from a paper clip) into each bracket:


The plan was to glue these in using CA in the sections where the pins are, and liquid styrene cement in-between and at the foot.
 
I got the correct rake and alignment for the port side, on the first try.  There were, however, a pair of gaps that needed filling for a secure welded bond:

I added styrene pads to the foot and below the lower pin and then faired these to fit seamlessly.
 
With these brackets in place, my conception of the way Berain’s stern relates to these quarter galleries can be clearly understood:


As a side note: it was really challenging to get the foot of each bracket to align with the pilaster of the gallery bulwark beneath it.  The starboard side is acceptable, but the port side (showing the merely acceptable side) came out perfectly:

I also wanted the brackets to follow the round-up of the stern, so their in-board surfaces had to be beveled, accordingly:



In natural light, this is a very accurate reflection of my colors.  Presently, I continue to do all of the necessary touchups, distress washing (not applied to brackets yet, in these pictures), and blackening of the upper main wales and channels, on the starboard side.
 
My least favorite aspect of this build is attempting to cut super-clean lines directly onto the model.  The plywood base is a tremendous asset for these circumstances, but it is always awkward and difficult.  Here, my line began to waver, after I had been at it for a few hours:

The back and forth process of revision is on-going.  The Heller kit has many flaws, but I do think it is fair to say that they get the aft sheer, pretty close to the mark:

More to follow!
 

I took measurements off of the model, and transferred them to my drawing, which I had sprayed with hairspray to fix the graphite before proceeding with the pixie figure.  I expected to be erasing a lot, and I was correct!
 
Unfortunately, the hairspray altered the “tooth” of the paper, and I just could not draw clean lines, so I taped an overlay for the pixie.  This was helpful, in revising my earlier attempt because I could re-plot elements I wanted to maintain, while making spatial assessments of what needed to be changed.
 
It took a while to get the proportions of her limbs where I wanted them.  You can see, in comparison with the drawing I made at the start of this project, how scaled-down the horse and pixie now are:

I am satisfied with all of this, so tonight I will paste a photocopy to a blank of 1/16” styrene sheet, and I will begin making the port headrails.
 
The horse figure will be integral to the headrails, while the pixie will be a separate part.  I expect each headrail side to take a couple of weeks to make, but this is an enjoyable and portable side-project.
 
As always, thank you for the likes and for looking-in.  More to follow!

The design process continues.  After checking against the model, I realized after all, that I would have to shift the front three pilasters aft by about 1/16”.  Now the gammoning will pass cleanly between the ‘thwartship supporting timbers.
 
I took this opportunity to mark the cardboard template for the height of the aft rosette.  In doing so, it dawned on me that I could do exactly as Druxey suggested, and make additional room space beneath the headrails. His annoying😜 voice kept rattling around my brain, as I kept thinking to myself “you know he’s right!”.  In the end, it was a simple matter of lifting the aft rosette until I was satisfied with the spacing.
 
Now that I had determined to copy the Berain design more closely, I did a little more refining of the rail widths, and then set about drawing the aft, scrolled rosette;  it is simple-seeming enough, but I spent hours trying to draw this volute.  My pointillist-mapping technique for drawing irregular curves looks like this, just before I trace over the dotted line:

I thought this looked pretty good until the next day, when I realized that the volute should be as closely centered on the middle rail as possible.  More hours were spent drawing and erasing:
 
This was much better, however, the scroll within the scroll needed a little re-balancing, especially in consideration of the way in which the horse’s snout nestles into this open area:

Okay, now I could start penciling in only the necessary mouldings to help me determine the size of the bellflower garland:

I am making small alterations to Berain’s design, as I see sensible and/or necessary; in the original drawing the garland runs all in one direction, aftwards.  I have decided to make a transition between the second and third pilasters, so that half the garland runs forward toward the reins of the figurehead.
 
Here is where the drawing stands, as of now:

At this stage, I can photocopy this drawing and paste a copy to my cardboard template, so that I can take precise measurements of where my pixie figure will fit-in without the whole thing looking un-balanced.
 
Drawing all of this, is one matter.  Figuring out how exactly to apply my layered approach to part-making so that there is the appropriate sense of relief and overlay will take some thought.  If that weren’t enough, the headrails bow out, around the beakhead grating, and then reverse inward to tuck-in behind the figurehead.  I don’t think heat-bending is the way to go, here.  I will, instead, induce these curves over a form, over a period of a few days.
 
I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday weekend!
 
More to follow…

Hi to all my friends who are following my logs.
 
I am starting another one - scratch building an ocean diorama of the 1975 incident when the SS Mayaguez was siezed by armed gunboats from the communist Khymer Rouge government of Cambodia (which they named Kampuchea).
 
The model was honored with the Jim Roberts' Craftsmanship Award at the Northeast Joint Clubs conference last April.
 
To follow along, just click on the underlined text in my profile for my 'Current Build'.
I will try to make it, hopefully, as entertaining and informative as this one.
 
 Be well
 
Dan

Hi to all my friends who are following my logs.
 
I am starting another one - scratch building an ocean diorama of the 1975 incident when the SS Mayaguez was siezed by armed gunboats from the communist Khymer Rouge government of Cambodia (which they named Kampuchea).
 
The model was honored with the Jim Roberts' Craftsmanship Award at the Northeast Joint Clubs conference last April.
 
To follow along, just click on the underlined text in my profile for my 'Current Build'.
I will try to make it, hopefully, as entertaining and informative as this one.
 
 Be well
 
Dan

SS Mayaguez (c. 1975), scale 1:192 by Dan Pariser
 
 
Hi to everyone who followed me from the build log of the restoration of the bone and ivory POW model to this one, and hello to any modeler who might be interested in a completely different subject using completely different materials.  I hope that I can make this build log as informative as the last one.
 
The subject here is the SS Mayaguez, an American container ship that was involved in a famous incident of piracy at sea.  On May 12, 1975, about a week after the fall of Saigon, and a month after the fall of Cambodia (renamed Kampuchea) to the communist Khmer Rouge, Mayaguez was en route from Hong Kong on what was to be a routine voyage.  Travelling through a disputed area, the ship was accosted by a gunboat flying a red flag which fired machine guns and a rocket over the bow.  The ship stopped and was taken over by Kampuchean sailors.  The crew were captured and removed from the ship.  Upon learning of this, American planes were scrambled from nearby bases and photographs of the ship and gunboats were taken as hurried plans were made to recapture the ship and free the crew.
 

 
SS Mayaguez was launched in April 1944 as SS White Falcon, a Maritime Commission C2-S-AJ1 freighter built in North Carolina.  Type C2 ships were all-purpose cargo ships with five holds, but were remarkable for their versatility, speed and fuel economy. U.S. shipyards built 328 of them from 1939 to 1945 similar to this one shown in wartime camouflage. 
 

 
After her service in World War II the ship was sold to Grace Line and carried coffee from South America.  In 1960 she was converted into one of the first all-container ships, with a capacity of 382 boxes below deck plus 96 on deck.
 

 
To do this she was lengthened from 459 feet to 504 by adding a midships section and widened from 63 feet to 74 by adding oddly shaped and angled sponsons on each side.
 

 
  
To support and level the containers on deck above the curved sheer of the hull, structures similar to railroad trestles were built.  Because few ports at the time had equipment built to handle containers the ship was also fitted with two rolling cranes, one forward of the superstructure and one aft, riding on rails mounted on those levelling trestles. 
 

 
The cranes had wings that could hinge up to shuttle the containers out and over the docks and onto or off of waiting trucks or trains.  In this photo the wings are up and extended, while they are down in the prior one.  Notice that these are extended even though they are over the water side.  I suppose that this was done to help balance the ship during loading operations.
 

 
In 1964 the ship was sold to the container line Sea-Land Service and renamed SS Mayaguez after the city in Puerto Rico.  In 1967 she began regular container service in support of US combat forces in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.  After the US withdrawal in 1973 the Mayaguez began sailing a commercial route between Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore.  It was on one of those runs that she was captured.
 
I was recently asked to build a waterline model on an ocean base commemorating the event for the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy museum in their preferred scale of 1/16” = 1’, or 1:192.  As usual, I scoured the internet for plans and images of the ship so my model could be as accurate as possible.  Unfortunately, I could not find any plans of the ship available from after its conversion to work from.  I even contacted Sea-Land, without success, so the project became mostly an exercise in photo interpretation.
 
I found many images, most of which were of only moderate resolution, but all of which gave me some information or viewpoint that let me develop the details.  I did locate a plan of a generic C2 cargo ship which gave me the general outline of the original ship.
 

 
I then located two photos taken by the US Air Force during and just after the incident that were of high resolution and taken from almost exactly overhead on the centerline.  These gave me the outline of the expanded deck which could be combined with the C2 plan and photos of the sponsons to give me a good idea of the final shape of the hull.
 

 
Armed with this information I could lay out the lifts that I would need to build the hull.  I first used Photoshop to resize both the C2 plans and the overhead photos to match the overall dimensions of the model (504 feet x 12 / 192 = 31.5 inches).  On the C2 plans I marked out ½” lifts from below the waterline to the beginning of the upward curve of the sheer of the ship.  A 5/8” tapered wedge at the bow and a similar 3/8” wedge at the stern gave me the basic curve of the deck.
 

 
½” basswood sheets were cut for the lower lifts according to the plans, then attached with wood glue colored black with acrylic paint.  This gave me indelible horizontal guides to guide the shaping process, especially the waterline.  Here the bow has been assembled and the 5/8” sheer wedge has been planed to shape and attached.  The wedge was sanded to a smooth shallow curve and the 1/8” deck piece was cut a bit oversize to allow for adjustment, then secured.
 

 
At the stern the same process was used, just with a flatter wedge.  The raised fore and stern castles were cut to shape from the photo and attached, fairing them to the lower hull.
 
The hardest part of the hull construction was to fashion the sponsons, which had to match the overhang of the deck piece, fit snugly against the curves of the original C2 hull, and match the shapes seen in the photos of the sides of the hull.  They were built up in several pieces, being pinned to the hull temporarily with wooden dowels during shaping.  Several attempts had to be made to get everything to fit, and even here in this photo of my third stern sponson there were problems (notice how the bottom edge of the aft piece is curved and not straight) and the piece was discarded.
 

 
Eventually I learned from my mistakes and the sponsons took on the shapes that I wanted.  Once that was done the entire hull got a thin coating of plaster of paris to seal the wood and fill the larger joints. 
 

 
This layer was mostly sanded off to give me a smooth surface for the first of half a dozen primer coats.  These were individually sanded as well until any small defects were filled and smooth.  The hull then got a color coat of rust resistant red paint below the waterline and a navy blue coat above, as seen in the few color photos.  The deck was also filled and sanded, but left with just the primer coat.
 

 
While this was going on I was also fiddling with the layout and construction of the superstructure.  That will be the subject of the next installment.
 
Until then, be well.
 
Dan

Hi to all my friends who are following my logs.
 
I am starting another one - scratch building an ocean diorama of the 1975 incident when the SS Mayaguez was siezed by armed gunboats from the communist Khymer Rouge government of Cambodia (which they named Kampuchea).
 
The model was honored with the Jim Roberts' Craftsmanship Award at the Northeast Joint Clubs conference last April.
 
To follow along, just click on the underlined text in my profile for my 'Current Build'.
I will try to make it, hopefully, as entertaining and informative as this one.
 
 Be well
 
Dan

Hi to all my friends who are following my logs.
 
I am starting another one - scratch building an ocean diorama of the 1975 incident when the SS Mayaguez was siezed by armed gunboats from the communist Khymer Rouge government of Cambodia (which they named Kampuchea).
 
The model was honored with the Jim Roberts' Craftsmanship Award at the Northeast Joint Clubs conference last April.
 
To follow along, just click on the underlined text in my profile for my 'Current Build'.
I will try to make it, hopefully, as entertaining and informative as this one.
 
 Be well
 
Dan

Hi to all my friends who are following my logs.
 
I am starting another one - scratch building an ocean diorama of the 1975 incident when the SS Mayaguez was siezed by armed gunboats from the communist Khymer Rouge government of Cambodia (which they named Kampuchea).
 
The model was honored with the Jim Roberts' Craftsmanship Award at the Northeast Joint Clubs conference last April.
 
To follow along, just click on the underlined text in my profile for my 'Current Build'.
I will try to make it, hopefully, as entertaining and informative as this one.
 
 Be well
 
Dan

Hi to all my friends who are following my logs.
 
I am starting another one - scratch building an ocean diorama of the 1975 incident when the SS Mayaguez was siezed by armed gunboats from the communist Khymer Rouge government of Cambodia (which they named Kampuchea).
 
The model was honored with the Jim Roberts' Craftsmanship Award at the Northeast Joint Clubs conference last April.
 
To follow along, just click on the underlined text in my profile for my 'Current Build'.
I will try to make it, hopefully, as entertaining and informative as this one.
 
 Be well
 
Dan

Hi all - 
 
Thanks for joining me.  I'll try to keep it interesting.
 
Keith - it will be more than one post, but not a full, extensively detailed, build log.
I was working to a bit of a deadline and did not stop to take photos of every day's progress.
I will show the construction process for many of the more unusual details, but the general construction follows my usual methods shown in other build logs.
 
Druxey - I use plaster of Paris because I am familiar with it.  It mixes easily, spreads thinly, and dries to a stiff, hard surface that can still be easily sanded to smooth surfaces with sharp corners and edges.  With a final coating of Minwax Wood Hardener it takes on a great deal of strength that stands up to the occasional clumsy ding without a major dent.  I am not familiar with gesso, and don't know its properties.  It may well be as good or better, but this is the Devil I know.
 
Thanks for your interest.
 
Dan

Hi all - 
 
Thanks for joining me.  I'll try to keep it interesting.
 
Keith - it will be more than one post, but not a full, extensively detailed, build log.
I was working to a bit of a deadline and did not stop to take photos of every day's progress.
I will show the construction process for many of the more unusual details, but the general construction follows my usual methods shown in other build logs.
 
Druxey - I use plaster of Paris because I am familiar with it.  It mixes easily, spreads thinly, and dries to a stiff, hard surface that can still be easily sanded to smooth surfaces with sharp corners and edges.  With a final coating of Minwax Wood Hardener it takes on a great deal of strength that stands up to the occasional clumsy ding without a major dent.  I am not familiar with gesso, and don't know its properties.  It may well be as good or better, but this is the Devil I know.
 
Thanks for your interest.
 
Dan

Hi all - 
 
Thanks for joining me.  I'll try to keep it interesting.
 
Keith - it will be more than one post, but not a full, extensively detailed, build log.
I was working to a bit of a deadline and did not stop to take photos of every day's progress.
I will show the construction process for many of the more unusual details, but the general construction follows my usual methods shown in other build logs.
 
Druxey - I use plaster of Paris because I am familiar with it.  It mixes easily, spreads thinly, and dries to a stiff, hard surface that can still be easily sanded to smooth surfaces with sharp corners and edges.  With a final coating of Minwax Wood Hardener it takes on a great deal of strength that stands up to the occasional clumsy ding without a major dent.  I am not familiar with gesso, and don't know its properties.  It may well be as good or better, but this is the Devil I know.
 
Thanks for your interest.
 
Dan

Hi all - 
 
Thanks for joining me.  I'll try to keep it interesting.
 
Keith - it will be more than one post, but not a full, extensively detailed, build log.
I was working to a bit of a deadline and did not stop to take photos of every day's progress.
I will show the construction process for many of the more unusual details, but the general construction follows my usual methods shown in other build logs.
 
Druxey - I use plaster of Paris because I am familiar with it.  It mixes easily, spreads thinly, and dries to a stiff, hard surface that can still be easily sanded to smooth surfaces with sharp corners and edges.  With a final coating of Minwax Wood Hardener it takes on a great deal of strength that stands up to the occasional clumsy ding without a major dent.  I am not familiar with gesso, and don't know its properties.  It may well be as good or better, but this is the Devil I know.
 
Thanks for your interest.
 
Dan

Hi all - 
 
Thanks for joining me.  I'll try to keep it interesting.
 
Keith - it will be more than one post, but not a full, extensively detailed, build log.
I was working to a bit of a deadline and did not stop to take photos of every day's progress.
I will show the construction process for many of the more unusual details, but the general construction follows my usual methods shown in other build logs.
 
Druxey - I use plaster of Paris because I am familiar with it.  It mixes easily, spreads thinly, and dries to a stiff, hard surface that can still be easily sanded to smooth surfaces with sharp corners and edges.  With a final coating of Minwax Wood Hardener it takes on a great deal of strength that stands up to the occasional clumsy ding without a major dent.  I am not familiar with gesso, and don't know its properties.  It may well be as good or better, but this is the Devil I know.
 
Thanks for your interest.
 
Dan

Hi all - 
 
Thanks for joining me.  I'll try to keep it interesting.
 
Keith - it will be more than one post, but not a full, extensively detailed, build log.
I was working to a bit of a deadline and did not stop to take photos of every day's progress.
I will show the construction process for many of the more unusual details, but the general construction follows my usual methods shown in other build logs.
 
Druxey - I use plaster of Paris because I am familiar with it.  It mixes easily, spreads thinly, and dries to a stiff, hard surface that can still be easily sanded to smooth surfaces with sharp corners and edges.  With a final coating of Minwax Wood Hardener it takes on a great deal of strength that stands up to the occasional clumsy ding without a major dent.  I am not familiar with gesso, and don't know its properties.  It may well be as good or better, but this is the Devil I know.
 
Thanks for your interest.
 
Dan

SS Mayaguez (c. 1975), scale 1:192 by Dan Pariser
 
 
Hi to everyone who followed me from the build log of the restoration of the bone and ivory POW model to this one, and hello to any modeler who might be interested in a completely different subject using completely different materials.  I hope that I can make this build log as informative as the last one.
 
The subject here is the SS Mayaguez, an American container ship that was involved in a famous incident of piracy at sea.  On May 12, 1975, about a week after the fall of Saigon, and a month after the fall of Cambodia (renamed Kampuchea) to the communist Khmer Rouge, Mayaguez was en route from Hong Kong on what was to be a routine voyage.  Travelling through a disputed area, the ship was accosted by a gunboat flying a red flag which fired machine guns and a rocket over the bow.  The ship stopped and was taken over by Kampuchean sailors.  The crew were captured and removed from the ship.  Upon learning of this, American planes were scrambled from nearby bases and photographs of the ship and gunboats were taken as hurried plans were made to recapture the ship and free the crew.
 

 
SS Mayaguez was launched in April 1944 as SS White Falcon, a Maritime Commission C2-S-AJ1 freighter built in North Carolina.  Type C2 ships were all-purpose cargo ships with five holds, but were remarkable for their versatility, speed and fuel economy. U.S. shipyards built 328 of them from 1939 to 1945 similar to this one shown in wartime camouflage. 
 

 
After her service in World War II the ship was sold to Grace Line and carried coffee from South America.  In 1960 she was converted into one of the first all-container ships, with a capacity of 382 boxes below deck plus 96 on deck.
 

 
To do this she was lengthened from 459 feet to 504 by adding a midships section and widened from 63 feet to 74 by adding oddly shaped and angled sponsons on each side.
 

 
  
To support and level the containers on deck above the curved sheer of the hull, structures similar to railroad trestles were built.  Because few ports at the time had equipment built to handle containers the ship was also fitted with two rolling cranes, one forward of the superstructure and one aft, riding on rails mounted on those levelling trestles. 
 

 
The cranes had wings that could hinge up to shuttle the containers out and over the docks and onto or off of waiting trucks or trains.  In this photo the wings are up and extended, while they are down in the prior one.  Notice that these are extended even though they are over the water side.  I suppose that this was done to help balance the ship during loading operations.
 

 
In 1964 the ship was sold to the container line Sea-Land Service and renamed SS Mayaguez after the city in Puerto Rico.  In 1967 she began regular container service in support of US combat forces in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.  After the US withdrawal in 1973 the Mayaguez began sailing a commercial route between Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore.  It was on one of those runs that she was captured.
 
I was recently asked to build a waterline model on an ocean base commemorating the event for the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy museum in their preferred scale of 1/16” = 1’, or 1:192.  As usual, I scoured the internet for plans and images of the ship so my model could be as accurate as possible.  Unfortunately, I could not find any plans of the ship available from after its conversion to work from.  I even contacted Sea-Land, without success, so the project became mostly an exercise in photo interpretation.
 
I found many images, most of which were of only moderate resolution, but all of which gave me some information or viewpoint that let me develop the details.  I did locate a plan of a generic C2 cargo ship which gave me the general outline of the original ship.
 

 
I then located two photos taken by the US Air Force during and just after the incident that were of high resolution and taken from almost exactly overhead on the centerline.  These gave me the outline of the expanded deck which could be combined with the C2 plan and photos of the sponsons to give me a good idea of the final shape of the hull.
 

 
Armed with this information I could lay out the lifts that I would need to build the hull.  I first used Photoshop to resize both the C2 plans and the overhead photos to match the overall dimensions of the model (504 feet x 12 / 192 = 31.5 inches).  On the C2 plans I marked out ½” lifts from below the waterline to the beginning of the upward curve of the sheer of the ship.  A 5/8” tapered wedge at the bow and a similar 3/8” wedge at the stern gave me the basic curve of the deck.
 

 
½” basswood sheets were cut for the lower lifts according to the plans, then attached with wood glue colored black with acrylic paint.  This gave me indelible horizontal guides to guide the shaping process, especially the waterline.  Here the bow has been assembled and the 5/8” sheer wedge has been planed to shape and attached.  The wedge was sanded to a smooth shallow curve and the 1/8” deck piece was cut a bit oversize to allow for adjustment, then secured.
 

 
At the stern the same process was used, just with a flatter wedge.  The raised fore and stern castles were cut to shape from the photo and attached, fairing them to the lower hull.
 
The hardest part of the hull construction was to fashion the sponsons, which had to match the overhang of the deck piece, fit snugly against the curves of the original C2 hull, and match the shapes seen in the photos of the sides of the hull.  They were built up in several pieces, being pinned to the hull temporarily with wooden dowels during shaping.  Several attempts had to be made to get everything to fit, and even here in this photo of my third stern sponson there were problems (notice how the bottom edge of the aft piece is curved and not straight) and the piece was discarded.
 

 
Eventually I learned from my mistakes and the sponsons took on the shapes that I wanted.  Once that was done the entire hull got a thin coating of plaster of paris to seal the wood and fill the larger joints. 
 

 
This layer was mostly sanded off to give me a smooth surface for the first of half a dozen primer coats.  These were individually sanded as well until any small defects were filled and smooth.  The hull then got a color coat of rust resistant red paint below the waterline and a navy blue coat above, as seen in the few color photos.  The deck was also filled and sanded, but left with just the primer coat.
 

 
While this was going on I was also fiddling with the layout and construction of the superstructure.  That will be the subject of the next installment.
 
Until then, be well.
 
Dan

Hi guys - 
 
Thanks for joining me here.  Yes, this was an interesting subject, if not for the ship herself, but for the historic event.
As for the ladders and stairways, these will be covered in detail in upcoming installments.
 
Dan

Hi guys - 
 
Thanks for joining me here.  Yes, this was an interesting subject, if not for the ship herself, but for the historic event.
As for the ladders and stairways, these will be covered in detail in upcoming installments.
 
Dan

SS Mayaguez (c. 1975), scale 1:192 by Dan Pariser
 
 
Hi to everyone who followed me from the build log of the restoration of the bone and ivory POW model to this one, and hello to any modeler who might be interested in a completely different subject using completely different materials.  I hope that I can make this build log as informative as the last one.
 
The subject here is the SS Mayaguez, an American container ship that was involved in a famous incident of piracy at sea.  On May 12, 1975, about a week after the fall of Saigon, and a month after the fall of Cambodia (renamed Kampuchea) to the communist Khmer Rouge, Mayaguez was en route from Hong Kong on what was to be a routine voyage.  Travelling through a disputed area, the ship was accosted by a gunboat flying a red flag which fired machine guns and a rocket over the bow.  The ship stopped and was taken over by Kampuchean sailors.  The crew were captured and removed from the ship.  Upon learning of this, American planes were scrambled from nearby bases and photographs of the ship and gunboats were taken as hurried plans were made to recapture the ship and free the crew.
 

 
SS Mayaguez was launched in April 1944 as SS White Falcon, a Maritime Commission C2-S-AJ1 freighter built in North Carolina.  Type C2 ships were all-purpose cargo ships with five holds, but were remarkable for their versatility, speed and fuel economy. U.S. shipyards built 328 of them from 1939 to 1945 similar to this one shown in wartime camouflage. 
 

 
After her service in World War II the ship was sold to Grace Line and carried coffee from South America.  In 1960 she was converted into one of the first all-container ships, with a capacity of 382 boxes below deck plus 96 on deck.
 

 
To do this she was lengthened from 459 feet to 504 by adding a midships section and widened from 63 feet to 74 by adding oddly shaped and angled sponsons on each side.
 

 
  
To support and level the containers on deck above the curved sheer of the hull, structures similar to railroad trestles were built.  Because few ports at the time had equipment built to handle containers the ship was also fitted with two rolling cranes, one forward of the superstructure and one aft, riding on rails mounted on those levelling trestles. 
 

 
The cranes had wings that could hinge up to shuttle the containers out and over the docks and onto or off of waiting trucks or trains.  In this photo the wings are up and extended, while they are down in the prior one.  Notice that these are extended even though they are over the water side.  I suppose that this was done to help balance the ship during loading operations.
 

 
In 1964 the ship was sold to the container line Sea-Land Service and renamed SS Mayaguez after the city in Puerto Rico.  In 1967 she began regular container service in support of US combat forces in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.  After the US withdrawal in 1973 the Mayaguez began sailing a commercial route between Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore.  It was on one of those runs that she was captured.
 
I was recently asked to build a waterline model on an ocean base commemorating the event for the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy museum in their preferred scale of 1/16” = 1’, or 1:192.  As usual, I scoured the internet for plans and images of the ship so my model could be as accurate as possible.  Unfortunately, I could not find any plans of the ship available from after its conversion to work from.  I even contacted Sea-Land, without success, so the project became mostly an exercise in photo interpretation.
 
I found many images, most of which were of only moderate resolution, but all of which gave me some information or viewpoint that let me develop the details.  I did locate a plan of a generic C2 cargo ship which gave me the general outline of the original ship.
 

 
I then located two photos taken by the US Air Force during and just after the incident that were of high resolution and taken from almost exactly overhead on the centerline.  These gave me the outline of the expanded deck which could be combined with the C2 plan and photos of the sponsons to give me a good idea of the final shape of the hull.
 

 
Armed with this information I could lay out the lifts that I would need to build the hull.  I first used Photoshop to resize both the C2 plans and the overhead photos to match the overall dimensions of the model (504 feet x 12 / 192 = 31.5 inches).  On the C2 plans I marked out ½” lifts from below the waterline to the beginning of the upward curve of the sheer of the ship.  A 5/8” tapered wedge at the bow and a similar 3/8” wedge at the stern gave me the basic curve of the deck.
 

 
½” basswood sheets were cut for the lower lifts according to the plans, then attached with wood glue colored black with acrylic paint.  This gave me indelible horizontal guides to guide the shaping process, especially the waterline.  Here the bow has been assembled and the 5/8” sheer wedge has been planed to shape and attached.  The wedge was sanded to a smooth shallow curve and the 1/8” deck piece was cut a bit oversize to allow for adjustment, then secured.
 

 
At the stern the same process was used, just with a flatter wedge.  The raised fore and stern castles were cut to shape from the photo and attached, fairing them to the lower hull.
 
The hardest part of the hull construction was to fashion the sponsons, which had to match the overhang of the deck piece, fit snugly against the curves of the original C2 hull, and match the shapes seen in the photos of the sides of the hull.  They were built up in several pieces, being pinned to the hull temporarily with wooden dowels during shaping.  Several attempts had to be made to get everything to fit, and even here in this photo of my third stern sponson there were problems (notice how the bottom edge of the aft piece is curved and not straight) and the piece was discarded.
 

 
Eventually I learned from my mistakes and the sponsons took on the shapes that I wanted.  Once that was done the entire hull got a thin coating of plaster of paris to seal the wood and fill the larger joints. 
 

 
This layer was mostly sanded off to give me a smooth surface for the first of half a dozen primer coats.  These were individually sanded as well until any small defects were filled and smooth.  The hull then got a color coat of rust resistant red paint below the waterline and a navy blue coat above, as seen in the few color photos.  The deck was also filled and sanded, but left with just the primer coat.
 

 
While this was going on I was also fiddling with the layout and construction of the superstructure.  That will be the subject of the next installment.
 
Until then, be well.
 
Dan

Hi guys - 
 
Thanks for joining me here.  Yes, this was an interesting subject, if not for the ship herself, but for the historic event.
As for the ladders and stairways, these will be covered in detail in upcoming installments.
 
Dan

SS Mayaguez (c. 1975), scale 1:192 by Dan Pariser
 
 
Hi to everyone who followed me from the build log of the restoration of the bone and ivory POW model to this one, and hello to any modeler who might be interested in a completely different subject using completely different materials.  I hope that I can make this build log as informative as the last one.
 
The subject here is the SS Mayaguez, an American container ship that was involved in a famous incident of piracy at sea.  On May 12, 1975, about a week after the fall of Saigon, and a month after the fall of Cambodia (renamed Kampuchea) to the communist Khmer Rouge, Mayaguez was en route from Hong Kong on what was to be a routine voyage.  Travelling through a disputed area, the ship was accosted by a gunboat flying a red flag which fired machine guns and a rocket over the bow.  The ship stopped and was taken over by Kampuchean sailors.  The crew were captured and removed from the ship.  Upon learning of this, American planes were scrambled from nearby bases and photographs of the ship and gunboats were taken as hurried plans were made to recapture the ship and free the crew.
 

 
SS Mayaguez was launched in April 1944 as SS White Falcon, a Maritime Commission C2-S-AJ1 freighter built in North Carolina.  Type C2 ships were all-purpose cargo ships with five holds, but were remarkable for their versatility, speed and fuel economy. U.S. shipyards built 328 of them from 1939 to 1945 similar to this one shown in wartime camouflage. 
 

 
After her service in World War II the ship was sold to Grace Line and carried coffee from South America.  In 1960 she was converted into one of the first all-container ships, with a capacity of 382 boxes below deck plus 96 on deck.
 

 
To do this she was lengthened from 459 feet to 504 by adding a midships section and widened from 63 feet to 74 by adding oddly shaped and angled sponsons on each side.
 

 
  
To support and level the containers on deck above the curved sheer of the hull, structures similar to railroad trestles were built.  Because few ports at the time had equipment built to handle containers the ship was also fitted with two rolling cranes, one forward of the superstructure and one aft, riding on rails mounted on those levelling trestles. 
 

 
The cranes had wings that could hinge up to shuttle the containers out and over the docks and onto or off of waiting trucks or trains.  In this photo the wings are up and extended, while they are down in the prior one.  Notice that these are extended even though they are over the water side.  I suppose that this was done to help balance the ship during loading operations.
 

 
In 1964 the ship was sold to the container line Sea-Land Service and renamed SS Mayaguez after the city in Puerto Rico.  In 1967 she began regular container service in support of US combat forces in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.  After the US withdrawal in 1973 the Mayaguez began sailing a commercial route between Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore.  It was on one of those runs that she was captured.
 
I was recently asked to build a waterline model on an ocean base commemorating the event for the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy museum in their preferred scale of 1/16” = 1’, or 1:192.  As usual, I scoured the internet for plans and images of the ship so my model could be as accurate as possible.  Unfortunately, I could not find any plans of the ship available from after its conversion to work from.  I even contacted Sea-Land, without success, so the project became mostly an exercise in photo interpretation.
 
I found many images, most of which were of only moderate resolution, but all of which gave me some information or viewpoint that let me develop the details.  I did locate a plan of a generic C2 cargo ship which gave me the general outline of the original ship.
 

 
I then located two photos taken by the US Air Force during and just after the incident that were of high resolution and taken from almost exactly overhead on the centerline.  These gave me the outline of the expanded deck which could be combined with the C2 plan and photos of the sponsons to give me a good idea of the final shape of the hull.
 

 
Armed with this information I could lay out the lifts that I would need to build the hull.  I first used Photoshop to resize both the C2 plans and the overhead photos to match the overall dimensions of the model (504 feet x 12 / 192 = 31.5 inches).  On the C2 plans I marked out ½” lifts from below the waterline to the beginning of the upward curve of the sheer of the ship.  A 5/8” tapered wedge at the bow and a similar 3/8” wedge at the stern gave me the basic curve of the deck.
 

 
½” basswood sheets were cut for the lower lifts according to the plans, then attached with wood glue colored black with acrylic paint.  This gave me indelible horizontal guides to guide the shaping process, especially the waterline.  Here the bow has been assembled and the 5/8” sheer wedge has been planed to shape and attached.  The wedge was sanded to a smooth shallow curve and the 1/8” deck piece was cut a bit oversize to allow for adjustment, then secured.
 

 
At the stern the same process was used, just with a flatter wedge.  The raised fore and stern castles were cut to shape from the photo and attached, fairing them to the lower hull.
 
The hardest part of the hull construction was to fashion the sponsons, which had to match the overhang of the deck piece, fit snugly against the curves of the original C2 hull, and match the shapes seen in the photos of the sides of the hull.  They were built up in several pieces, being pinned to the hull temporarily with wooden dowels during shaping.  Several attempts had to be made to get everything to fit, and even here in this photo of my third stern sponson there were problems (notice how the bottom edge of the aft piece is curved and not straight) and the piece was discarded.
 

 
Eventually I learned from my mistakes and the sponsons took on the shapes that I wanted.  Once that was done the entire hull got a thin coating of plaster of paris to seal the wood and fill the larger joints. 
 

 
This layer was mostly sanded off to give me a smooth surface for the first of half a dozen primer coats.  These were individually sanded as well until any small defects were filled and smooth.  The hull then got a color coat of rust resistant red paint below the waterline and a navy blue coat above, as seen in the few color photos.  The deck was also filled and sanded, but left with just the primer coat.
 

 
While this was going on I was also fiddling with the layout and construction of the superstructure.  That will be the subject of the next installment.
 
Until then, be well.
 
Dan