Mirabell61

lovely work Keith,

she`s getting along very nice

Nils

Many thanks Keith and Michel,

Keith,

this was the easy and many times approved part of the early hull making ...

Michel,

now starts the part where I have to add balsa blocks or so, for doing the stern-roundings. Also some of the slots for the stringers have to be tuned for better and more accurate alignment.

Nils

Update

All frames cut out and (dry-fit) mounted with keel bow and stern parts. Nothing is glued together yet.

The stringer liners and the pine-planks can be ordered now. For planking I intend to do it with 1,5x8 and 1,5x10 mm planks. The stringers will be 2x3mm

Nils

frames kept down to the base board with clamps. Note the reinforcement squarebar 13x13mm, this gives a strong hold

all 16 frames set up

Very nice progress Valeriy,

Nils

Update

Today it starts with sawdust making.

The base construction plate was used fro the "Ergenstrasse", sanded over and fitted with frame-spaced little squarebar pieces that were glued on in place.

The keel with bow and sternpost ist cut out and glued together, also the reinforcement 13x13 mm squarebar with pushed in counter-nuts. ( for take up of the stand spindle later on ) is made and ready for assembly.

The "raw frames" are cut out from the 4mm ply sheet in order to have  more handable "tiles". Then holes were dilled, in to the outcut spaces of every frame.

Now the 16 single frame contours are carefully cut out, tile by tile in the good old hand jigsaw manner. I can imagine that those who are assemling kits comprizing laser cut frames are smiling here, but this is scratch-build

Nils

the shipyard build base with spacer lugs. This one is from former "Ergenstrasse"build, sanded over and equipped with new distance lugs. the frame spaces are taken from the sideview lines / frame plan

the reinforcement squarebar with pressed in counter-nuts

the lines for stringers were added on the frame plan

frame-outlines on transparent paper, with drawn in notches for the stringers later on

here the keel with glued on bow and stern. The cut outs take up the frames during assembly

rough cut 16  "tiles" for better handling

Thanks Greg for your explaining words,

now its understood ....

Nils

On 2/22/2024 at 1:06 AM, Greg Davis said:

I have all of the hoop material for the main pontoon laid up on the formers. Three ply's for each. They were not too difficult to set up until the diameter dropped below 0.5" - the smallest one 0.30" was not fun.

I'll part off 3mm hoops on my lathe. Most I only need to cut one from but there are two pairs of hoops #4 & #7 and #5 & #6 that have the same diameter. For those I laid up wider strips of wood so that I can part two off each.

 

Still thinking about an assembly jig. This is what I am currently thinking of making:

There would be a 16 pieces of 1/8" hardboard cut to the above shape - one for each hoop. Each riser would be be made with the center of each hoop at the same height. The semi-circular cut out for each hoop's out diameter would top out 1.5mm lower than center to accommodate the 3mm side stringers. A notch would be cut at the bottom to accept the bottom (or top) stringer. To help keep the hoops stabilized thru the stringer installation, I will slice off a 3mm disk from each form to sit inside each hoop. This way I can press down / clamp the stringers without fear of breaking a hoop. A couple of tabs on each riser should keep the hoops / discs vertical.

 

An alternative would be to cut a more standard comb jig and keel support like those used for typical scratch built framed ships. For some (unknown) reason I'm more worried about getting all the necessary alignments to get the symmetrical / linear cigar shape.

 

Input certainly accepted!

 

 

 

An very interesting model Greg,

did this hyroplane ever lift off?

Nils

Thank you Gary,

right, it did`nt take long to make up my mind what would be next, because the build of this lightship model is one of my favorites, and as always there will be many details to be carried out along the way.

Nils

Thank you Hermann,

It shall be great when you start that project.

Your offer for possible support is very much appreciated very kind of you and I may come back to it when my own build is further on, and I get to details

Nils

first update

I got started with the standplate (without staining yet) and the pedestals.

Probably the base mounting plate for fixing the framing is next. Allthough there is no hull yet, There are fist evaluations for the later metal plating.

As usual for my builds I intend to fix a "backbone" 13 mm beechwood square-liner, (also counterhold for the press-in-nuts for the pedestal spindels) just above the keel, to provide a strong and sturdy setup, as well as stringers appr. 5 per side lengthwise

The later has proven to ease the planking afterwards, and to keep the hull in shape, because there will be only one planking layer

Nils

this is basic for lofting the 16 frames

starting with the base plate

raw baseplate and pedestals done. Fastening with spindles and press in counter-nuts within the hull

made a dummy plating arrangement in order to see if the single plates 15 x 50mm will be OK. Rivets in 2 row lines

I think it looks OK with the stagered arrangement. The horizontal line 1,2,3 are put on first with gaps inbetween and then lines 3 and 4 are added by overlapping at the gap. The lines 3 and 4 act like a belt

I know that some fellow model builders will comment the "too large" and dominant rivet heads, but these will be at least 50% covered by metal contact agent, the primer- and the final paint coating

Thank you very much Hermann,

yes I know that and also saw that it is quite expensive, about twice the cost of the first issue many years ago. Helmut Thomas is taking reference to exactly that plan in his publication (but only 2 plan pages instead of 6) shown there, but many pictures in color and a build log as well). I scaled down the drawings I have to 1:87 instead of 1:50

Without the original plan it will not be easy to build the mid-lightmast and its lenses as well as the foremast and its many signal details. I`ll try to do these from pictures I have, and am still gathering information on those. Perhaps at some degree of building I may regret not to have bought the plan as you have. Are you still intending to build her, or is it she in progress by you already ?

Nils

Thank you very much MIchel

Nils

Thank you Yves,

I`ll do the best I can get out of it ....

Nils

Many thanks to Keith, Ken, Andy, John and Denis,

and keep tuned .... 

Keith,

yes, I found it interesting as well, as I remembered that there was also a very nice description with pics, plan and build-log in my possesion already, and ready to be kissed awake.

Ken,

I am pleased you like it and that you shall be following along

Andy,

well actualy, no, I only swaped a place for my Bohuslän, which is now in my attic office, and the Ergenstrasse took it`s place in my hobby office instead. The lightship, when done, has no final mooring place yet.

John,

Most of the German lightships have this clipper bow. Maybe thats the reason that quite few, when taken out of service, have been converted to 3-mast barque sailing vessels  ( like the "Alexander von Humbold 1,"  well known threemast-barque, with the green sails)

Denis,

I only know that there must have been a Billing Boat Elbe 1 lightship kit as well as the fabulous fittings-kit thereto, and very long ago.  One must be a  lucky guy to find  an unbuilt kit like that somewhere .  I found some information for that on U-tube channelI.  My drawings are from the 80 page  "Modelwerft, special" eddition 1994/1, like described in my log intoduction. By the way, I have`nt heard from you for a long time, thanks for looking in again, its good to hear from you.

Nils

Thank you Veszett,

yes, probably Mike Maynard

Nils

40 minutes ago, Javelin said:

Since I love colourful ships, you can count me in. Never really seen a model of a lightship being constructed from scratch, should be interesting! 

Thanks Roel,

for looking in and stay tuned...

Nils

Hello Veszett,

 that is a great model in an excellent diarama, thanks for sharing the pics and the story of the author (within the logs reading), do you know who the name of the model builder in that forum ?

Nils

Hi Veszett,

Nils

I wish you success, much fun and good luck, whenever you get started. It will be an interesting project

Nils

Many thanks Uwe, Chris and B.E.

I`m happy to see you on board already !

Uwe,

yes, thats right, an interesting way-point and the bright red color is clear visable at day from afar, The light per night.

Chris,

thanks for your input, but I would prefer a wood built ship rather than a card model in this case.

Thanks B.E.

well I`m realy still at the kick off point. This time I`ll be starting with the stand, before I go for the frames. I still have the wood and two pedestals over from the prevous builds.

Nils

Today I would like to introduce my new chosen-out project :

It will be the well known lightship Elbe 1 ( named Bürgermeister Oswald), the "red Lady", since then being appointed as an German lightship and on duty in the German Bay, mouth Elbe river, Northsea. After serving for 50 years it was directly replaced 1989 by an unmaned lightvessel-robot on the former position of Elbe 1.

Several years ago my attention was drawn to this lightship, and to keep in mind for building a model of it someday. At that time I had purchased a special edition of the rare  1994 MODELWERFT magazine, related exclusingly to the Elbe 1 Lightship an kept it since then somewhere in my hobby office. A few days ago I remembered it and went looking for that magazine, and it seemed to be lost. After a days search I finaly found it sticking somewhere between my maritime books on a shelf.

This publication was issued by author Helmut Thomas, a very talented and skilled senior modelist. The incredable model he had created of the Elbe 1, the fine pics and detailed build log description shown therein was very inspiring for me and it was my "benchmark" if I ever were to build it myself, knowing that I would be pleased to get at least somewhere near to that benchmark.

The 80 page publication was comprising also 2 outfold double pages of a buildplan including lines and frameplan. I let these build plan pages magnified to scale 1:87 in my local copy-shop, and started to study all about the ship, and if I could possibly build it, ot try to do so.

In comparation to Helmut`s model that would have been too large (length 114 cm)  I decided to downscale it to an overall length of 66 cm. An apprropriate glas-case for that size would also be whithin my capability afterwards.

I remembered that once Billing Boats had brought out a model in scale 1:50 of this model, but it was the predecessor of this lightship with several differences, Unfortunately today there was neigther an unbuilt Billing-Kit perhaps even with fine fittings-detail-kit (lightmasts, etc, ) to be found anymore, so a scratch build would be the solution.

So this is what came out : .........

Nils 

The beginning

The rare "Modellwerft special" magazine of 1994 / 1

Model of Helmut Thomas

a postcard

side view overall

frameplan

good brass and soldering work Valeriy

Nils

super neat work B.E.

Nils

Thank you very much Gary

Nils

Very nice Eberhard,

I like your arrangement with the boats. Especialy that with the open dinghi without cover

Nils

Many thanks Rick, your comment is much appreciated.

I am in the moment thinking about a new project and am gathering information about it

Nils