shipmodel

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

I'm with Druxey on this.
In fact, when carving a figure, either human or animal, I start with the eyes.
Nothing sets the tone and realism like them.
If I get the eyes wrong, I always discard the piece.
 
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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time to begin planking in earnest. To this point I have added the sheer strake and the garboard planks. The plan from here is to fully plank the sheer and to add one more strake of planking next to the garboard. This will then leave twenty plank widths between them, which can be easily subdivided into four belts. I am using Castello for the planking, from some nice billets I purchased from Gilmer Woods in the Pacific Northwest. I cut this bigger billet into smaller billets from which I can slice off individual pieces and either directly cut a plank, or spile a plank if needed.
 

 
These are my first attempts at shaping the planks along the deadwood.
 

 
They have been temporarily fitted with double sided tape.
 

 
Problem is, in trying to create a nice curve to the edge of these two planks, I have created a hump at the joint between these two drop planks and the next segment of garboard planking. So did I learn the benefits of having spiled one long sheer strake in the previous post. I did not glue these two planks in place, but went back to work creating two new planks with relatively straight contours.
 

 
The replacement planks have been installed. I don’t have a good “after” picture to show it, but the hump evident previously is no longer present.
 

 
In this photo, which I showed in my previous post, the garboard planking has been fully applied. The only trick to this was the question of where the garboard plank should end. I had no good guidance on this matter from the planking diagram, so I had to simply use artistic license. A guiding principle was that I did want the garboard to end adjacent to one of the frames, as I am sure it does on the real ship. The forward end was nibbed at frame number 4, and I am satisfied with how that looks.
 

 
From here, this post is more pictorial essay than anything else, showing the progression of the wale planking. The strings that remain applied to the hull were laid down according to the widths of the planking at each station as determined by my planking diagram, but I was coming to realize that they wouldn’t be that accurate or useful for subsequent planking. Besides, they didn’t look all that fair or pleasant.
 

 

 

 
It was especially tricky to fit the planks at the bow, making sure that the joint at the rabbet was correct while also making sure that the plank was the correct overall length to lie down next to its neighbor further aft. So the solution going forward is to not leave the bow (or stern) plank in a row to last, but put them in place first and lay down the more centrally located planks after that. It is much easier to adjust those planks for length than the ones that meet the rabbet or the sternpost.
 

 
This was a big moment! After laying down three rows of wale planking as well as the garboard strake, I for the first time pulled the whole assembly off of the building board! It was very solid. I paraded it around the house, showing it to anyone who might be impressed. I think the dogs were the most impressed of all. (Wife: “That’s nice, dear.”)
 

 
From here it was a matter of adding one more row of garboard planking, so that the remaining planking would be a band of 20 planks. Here I am crafting the hood plank that covers the forward most tip of the garboard planking. Once again I had to learn the lesson of putting this plank in place first before continuing planking toward the stern.
 

 
This plank, and the others near the bow, did have to be spiled, or they would not sit fairly next to the adjacent plank.
 

 
Three rows of sheer planking and two rows of garboard planking are fully applied here. I have pulled one of the 3 strings off of the remainder of the hull. This also meant I had to sand off the remnants of glue that attached the thread to the hull.
 

 
All of the strings have been removed.
 

 
So now the build log is pretty much current. One last parting picture to show that I am beginning to line off the hull to accept the subsequent planking. I am finding that the widths of planks indicated on the planking diagram have to go out the window, because they don’t appear to correspond to the widths needed on the model. But I will continue to use the planking diagram to lay down the butt joints to match the ship. And I will use the layout for the starboard side on the real ship as the layout for both the port and starboard sides on the model, as the planking layout on the real ship is different for each side.
Hopefully things will accelerate from here!
 

In getting prepared for assembling the frames to the keel, I realized I had some cleanup of the keel to do. Very slight imperfections in the thickness of the various keel parts meant that squeeze-out of glue from certain joints was apparent. And sanding wasn’t addressing these issues. So I used a razor blade to scrape the surface of each side of the keel, which appeared to bring things more into a flat surface and eliminated much of the squeeze-out you can see here.
 

 
That’s better.
 

 
So, once again, here is how things look, with most of the bulkheads on the building board. I have seven forward frames pulled out from the bow area to show that four of them have their bulwark stanchions carved into them, while the other 3 don’t have them yet.
 

 
The point of building the model with all of these bulkheads (rather than just 11 bulkheads, one at each station) is so that I can leave part of the hull unplanked and show the internal structure of the boat. But I figured out very quickly that to make each frame to its proper, scaled molded dimension would result in a bunch of frames that are extremely fragile, even when glued to the keel and supported by the baseboard.
 

 
So my plan is to make approximately every fifth frame according to its proper scaled dimensions while leaving the remaining 80% of frames essentially as bulkheads. I will plank up the boat like that, omitting certain planks on one side of the hull during the process. Then, once it is planked, I will invert the boat and remove a lot of bulkhead wood from at least the side that is unplanked, and bring those bulkheads down to the same dimensions as the ones shown in the picture above.
 
Each of the frames shown above is flanked by filler blocks that are just large enough to keep these very thin frames in their proper positions, while not interfering with the process of fairing the overall hull shape.
 

 
The arrows indicate the location of the frames with properly molded dimensions.
 

 
In addition, since the frames are so small and pliable, I have added extra wood shims to make sure that the tops of these frames are properly positioned and cannot move, either fore and aft or athwartships.
 
It’s a risky process, the idea of building up this hull with the plan of carving out a lot of its internal support structure. But I figure that the hull planking will be a very solid structure since the planks are not only glued to the frames, but they are also edge glued to one another. Much like how plywood lapstrake construction of real, full-sized boats makes for a very stable structure that requires much less internal framing.
 

 
I also worked on smoothing out the deadwood to accept the planking in a properly fair manner.
 

 
Now I have to work on creating bulwark stanchions for each and every bulkhead, as these will show on the final model.
 

 
The stanchions have a consistent width of 3/32” on each face. A compass was used to mark out the width on both faces of each bulkhead.
 

 
My wife’s lovely hands modeling the technique for me while I take the pictures!
 

 
The height of each stanchion should be a consistent 7/16”, representing the distance between the bottom surface of the covering board to the undersurface of the caprail, as represented on the builder’s plans.
 

 
This is how things should end up looking.
 

 
So here is a frame in the vise, with the pencil marks evident. This frame is laminated castello, while some of the frames are 3/32” thickness fir plywood. I am impressed by how strong the laminated frames are. Even so, both the plywood and the laminated bulkheads experienced failures that would require re-gluing of the stanchion to the bulkhead.
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

 
I cut as close as possible to the pencil line with a fresh X-acto blade.
 

 
And I used a triangular file to get into the corner.
 
Next I am going to actually start gluing bulkheads to the keel, and working out the garboard and sheer strakes! Gonna finally start getting the hull in shape.

Hi Marc - 
 
I know I'm coming in late to this discussion, and I agree with you all.
But it seems to me from looking at the photos that you could fairly easily raise the steeve of the bowsprit.
 
Cut off the angled support under the bowsprit close to the deck.
Replace or adjust the cutoff piece with one that will give you the steeve that you want. 
Pin it in place with brass if necessary for strength.
Redrill the hole for the heel of the bowsprit.
Fill and paint and the joints should disappear.
 
Or there could be a problem that I am not seeing.
 
Dan 

Fixing the topgallant shrouds
A long time ago I dealt with this topic in more detail, but without any concrete result. However, I can no longer postpone the implementation of this detail. According to my research and a corresponding interpretation of the description in the monograph of La Créole, the topgallant shrouds are now fixed by lashings, which are attached to the fittings of the deadeyes. The respective lashing is made with thimbles. 

On the next picture I show the course of the topgallant shrouds using the main top as an example.

 
So once again thimbles had to be made, 24 of them in total. In relation to the deadeyes, the thimbles should not be too big, of course. That's why I had to introduce another thimble size (ø 0.9 mm / ø 1.2 mm / ø 2.0 / ø 2.5 mm) in addition to the ones used for this model so far. For this purpose I bought brass tubes with a diameter of 1.0 mm, which finally resulted in thimbles with a diameter of about 1.6 mm. 

 
In the meantime I only make the thimbles with a suitable centre punch. With the cone-shaped point I form the tube section into a thimble with lightly dosed hammer strokes, as shown in the following picture.

 
To make the strops for the lower thimbles I use served ropes with ø 0.35 mm. For tying to the fittings of the deadeyes, eyes are formed as shown in the drawing before.
The last picture shows the finished strops, 4 x 3 pieces in total. The shorter strops are for the mizzen mast. 
 
I will report about the fixing of the topgallant shrouds on the model soon.
To be continued ...
 

Ship’s Boats
 
While I was waiting for the wire for the chain-rails to arrive, I turned my attention to the ship’s boats. At that time there were four, two class IV cutters, a gig, and a joll-boat. In 1:160 they are all less than 50 mm long and 10 mm wide. Thanks to some research of various colleagues in Germany, we have reasonably good information on these boats, including lines and their constructional arrangement. In addition, there has been a text-book on boat construction, published since 1878 with updates every few years until 1929, which gives quite a few details on the naval boats.
I don’t quite feel like building four boats with all their internal constructional and fitting-out details, so I decided to show three of them covered, ready for the sea, while the small joll-boat will be shown ready for launching in an emergency, as it was custom. I don’t actually know, whether this boat or one of the cutters was used for the purpose, but assumed that the smaller boat would be easier to get into the water in a hurry, say in case of man-over-board.
An additional challenge is that these boats were clinker-built. I once built a clinker-dinghy in 1:60, which was only 50 mm long, but it was much wider and deeper and with wider strakes. These boats typically have ten strakes on each side.
I picked the long, but narrow and shallow gig first. I had a body plan available, drawn by a colleague some years ago. In addition, the text-book (BRIX, 1883) provides constructional details. The text indicates the dimension of the various parts.
 Drawing of gig from Brix (1883)
 
I decided on an overhead plank-on-bulkhead (POB) construction, which in a way seemed easier than trying to carve the hull with its hollow lines aft from a solid piece of wood using templates. The individual framing stations were taken from the body plan and drawn with additional material on the top in order to arrive at a common reference plane for overhead construction. The bulkhead were laid out for laser-cutting from Canson-paper.
 
Laser-cut bulkheads and keel-pieces
 
A second drawing for laser-cutting contains another set of bulkhead and doubling pieces for the keel and stem, so that a rabbet for planking can be created. All pieces are doubled up after soaking in varnish to stiffen them.
 
2nd set of laser-cut bulkheads and doubling pieces for the keel and stem
 
The pieces then were assembled as is tradition for POB-construction and mounted onto a piece of Canson-paper for extra stiffness. The whole assembly will then mounted in turn on a piece of wood to ease handling.
 
So far so good, but planking will be challenge, as the individual planks will be less than a millimetre wide overall. In theory, they should be only 0.06 mm thick in 1:160 scale, but I will give it a try with the 0.15 mm thick Canson-paper and see what it will look like. If the planking looks to coarse, I will have to start all-over again …

The assembled parts for the POB-construction
 
Tapering such planks by hand would be too much of a challenge an not quite feasible in paper I think. However, my 2D-CAD program gives the length of the Bezier-curves used to draw the outline of the frames. So, I simply took this length, divided it by 10, divided the result by 4 and then multiplied it by 5, which gives the plank width at each station line assuming that they overlap by about a quarter of their width (according to the drawing in BRIX, 1883). The contours of the planks were drawn for laser-cutting with this information. A first run, was not so successful – I will have to optimise the cutting parameters.
 
 
BRIX, A. (1883): Praktischer Schiffbau – Bootsbau.- 38 p. + 15 pl., Berlin (Hütte).
 
To be continued ....

I’ve completed and am in the process of painting the stern archway brackets.  The channel standards are coming along, slowly, after a little excise and replacement.
 
I have continued to tweak and play around with my new headrail design.  The bottom rail width still requires a little tweaking, but the symmetry and taper are already an improvement over the stock rails.  Here  are the carved elements that I can definitely recycle:

When I re-incorporate stock carvings, I like to undercut the carvings with the tip of a #11 blade, in order to give a better sense of relief; the idea is similar to the process of metal chasing brass castings, for example.  The carvings end up looking crisper, overall, and it is an easy thing to achieve with backward scrapes of the blade point, heal first.
 
The pilasters have been re-spaced.  I wanted them to neatly correspond with either the fleurs of the Xs of the trailboard, but the abbreviated design of the trailboard made that an impossibility.
 


It just occurred to me, as a matter of fact, that I will have to re-check my tentative pilaster layout to ensure that it does not intersect with the run of the gammoning.  On the stock kit, this consideration is moot because there are no ‘thwartship supporting timbers that the gammoning must pass between.  Here, though, those supports will align with the pilasters.
 
I have decided that I will design the aft medallion to closely follow the Berain drawing.  The stock medallion is nice, but it interferes with the horse and pixie sculptures in ways that are un-tennable.
 
As always, thank you for your interest and for looking in.

There is certainly the issue that Henry raised, which I wasn’t even considering.  My trepidation with raising the steeve of the the bowsprit has to do with a cap block that I glued to the middle deck to receive the end of the bowsprit.
 
This block is made of poplar, which is the same stuff I made the dummy carriage blocks from.  The idea of drilling blind, through the beakhead bulkhead into two dissimilar materials (wood and plastic), where the existing entry hole overlaps with the new hole center, just makes me queasy.  There are numerous opportunities for this to go very wrong, and the reward just isn’t worth the risk for me.
 
I thought I still had pictures of this block, but amazingly I do not.

Hi Marc - 
 
I know I'm coming in late to this discussion, and I agree with you all.
But it seems to me from looking at the photos that you could fairly easily raise the steeve of the bowsprit.
 
Cut off the angled support under the bowsprit close to the deck.
Replace or adjust the cutoff piece with one that will give you the steeve that you want. 
Pin it in place with brass if necessary for strength.
Redrill the hole for the heel of the bowsprit.
Fill and paint and the joints should disappear.
 
Or there could be a problem that I am not seeing.
 
Dan 

Hi Marc - 
 
I know I'm coming in late to this discussion, and I agree with you all.
But it seems to me from looking at the photos that you could fairly easily raise the steeve of the bowsprit.
 
Cut off the angled support under the bowsprit close to the deck.
Replace or adjust the cutoff piece with one that will give you the steeve that you want. 
Pin it in place with brass if necessary for strength.
Redrill the hole for the heel of the bowsprit.
Fill and paint and the joints should disappear.
 
Or there could be a problem that I am not seeing.
 
Dan 

Hi Marc - 
 
I know I'm coming in late to this discussion, and I agree with you all.
But it seems to me from looking at the photos that you could fairly easily raise the steeve of the bowsprit.
 
Cut off the angled support under the bowsprit close to the deck.
Replace or adjust the cutoff piece with one that will give you the steeve that you want. 
Pin it in place with brass if necessary for strength.
Redrill the hole for the heel of the bowsprit.
Fill and paint and the joints should disappear.
 
Or there could be a problem that I am not seeing.
 
Dan 

Hi Marc - 
 
I know I'm coming in late to this discussion, and I agree with you all.
But it seems to me from looking at the photos that you could fairly easily raise the steeve of the bowsprit.
 
Cut off the angled support under the bowsprit close to the deck.
Replace or adjust the cutoff piece with one that will give you the steeve that you want. 
Pin it in place with brass if necessary for strength.
Redrill the hole for the heel of the bowsprit.
Fill and paint and the joints should disappear.
 
Or there could be a problem that I am not seeing.
 
Dan