Ras Ambrioso

Thanks for the likes guys. You all are one of the reasons I am improving my skills.

Finally I can show some progress on Mimi. I did not like the printed planking provided in the kit, so I used prefabricated scored planks from Micromark. Completed the work under the water line by adding the propellers and the rudder. I omitted the propeller skegs. Then I fabricated the top of the cabin, making it removable so as to show the engine room details. Completed the installation of all the deck accessories previously fabricated. Also installed the side rubbing strakes. There are a few bo-bo boos and some touch up required . The Admiral and I are going to be away during the holidays. I hate to leave sunny Florida and spend the Christmas in cold Indiana but family duties prevail and thus I am packing all my winter gear. I plan to work on the engineering for the upcoming tasks which are: to build the guns using my mini lathe. I also plan to build the bilge pump and the hand cranked siren. I wish y'all a merry Christmas and a most prosperous New Year and, specially for Valeriy sake, peace in the world.

This last week I have been working on the hull painting. I had to cover the whole topsides and in sequence spray the hull. The bottom of the hull is described as a dull dark green in my data but had no idea of the top colors. Since r this is a war ship I figured a light grey will be adequate. And thus is the result. After drying, I coated the hull with Minwax polyurethane satin finish. Little bit of touching up will correct some of my mistakes or misses. Painting is not my forte. Now I can proceed to install all of the deck items I have already fabricated and begin building the guns. The end is near.

Glad to hear from you. Your model is magnificent.

Found your new build and will follow. You are a great teacher.

Thank you guys for the comments and the likes.This forum has helped me tremendously by challenging my abilities. Tblack, I live in Senior living facility and they have a "work shed". Everyone that has worked here has donated their tools so we have ample supply of everything including a precision $10,000 router/saw table. Before I moved in, we had sold our house which included my shed full of my tools. As I started back to the hobby I found myself rebuying all of the tool needed for the small work. Right now I am the only one working in this shop. There is another modeler in the building but he rather work in his apartment. Him and I share share spaces in the curio cabinets at the lobby, where we have our models displayed. Keith, I have to admit that the carpet in the shop is awfully old and dirty. And it has an endless appetite for small items. Thanks again

Wefalck, you are absolutely right. On the first try of the gun the gunner was kicked out if the boat when firing sideways. Also the boat rolled almost to the gunnels. Then, they modified the base, and you can see, on the drawings I posted on post #1, how they reinforced the gun base all the way to keelson. They also lowered the gun so that the gunner actually had to kneel to fire it. From then on they actually deleted the sponsons on the sides and the routine was to fire the gun only looking forward. I wondered about how would the gunner and the ammo would have to climb from the cockpit to the forward deck. It must had been a risky try. Those were the things that made me think about building this particular model, A great history behind a simple wooden 40 ft launch. Following are some more pictures of the progress on the model. Please note that the deck accessories are only dry fitted. After I complete the deck fittings, I will paint the hull and proceed to build the guns, install the engines and set the cabin roof that will be removable to allow seeing the engines. A view of the aft deck and the quarterdeck with the ammo lockers. The foredeck. The cockpit with a tool box and ready ammo rack. And finally, my redition of the ammunition for the 3 pounder gun. The one on the left is the kit supplied one. Still need need to refine my duplicating ability.

Wefalk, thanks for the video. It is a great addition to my information package on HMS Mimi. The model has had a very slow progress. Mainly because I am fabricating miscellaneous microscopic parts that keep disappearing into the floor carpet. Hinges and locks for the ammunition lockers 3 pounder gun base. Helm. This afternoon I will take additional pictures of the ship and the deck fitting

Ditto on Sasha's comments. Beautiful work. What is amazing to me is how you can duplicate pieces so accurately at such a small scale.

Making slow progress as the Admiral is out of town and I have to handle a few household "honey do's". I have concentrated now on finishing the cockpit. First was the helm that was a fairly easy job as I am using the supplied metal part. I did a lot of cleaning on the wheel and following is the result. I am still in the dark about the rest of the required engine control instruments for this boat. I assume they should have had a compass, throttles for both engines plus oil and gas gages. I would appreciate the input of the forum on these items. I have fabricated the ammunition lockers (no pictures yet) and last but not least: a tool box. This is the look of my shop while making the tool box. Amazing use of the space for such a minute part. LOL Next, I am thinking of making the cabin roof removable so that we can all admire the engines. After that is done, I will start my favorite subject, that is, making the guns for this little warrior. This experience has been like candy to my thoughts and I am already looking at my next projects and haven't decided between two subjects: the first one is a World War One Austro-Hungarian Danube river monitor and the second is a WWI British Costal Motor Boat (CMB) torpedo boat. Maybe, I will build both. Thanks for following.

Nothing more to say that repeat my WOW.

Wishing you the best Stay safe

I am getting ahead of myself. Haven't finished the Mimi but looking forward to future projects. A couple of years ago I bought the Zvenza kit of the Borodin. Now by following these MSW posts I have gotten acquainted with the extra details that are possible by using PE parts. In my research I came over you post and I love dit. I am also following your U-9 model that I consider the best plastic model presentation of a a submarine. Thanks for such great models for us to drool.

Phil, thanks for your quick reply I will be following your posts. Amazing the work that guys like you, Valeriy, Wefalk, et al, do to our hobby. Thanks again.

This last session feels like I am attending a class with the best professors sharing their knowledge. Thanks Valeriy, tell me what is forosho cutter.

From your reply to Valeriy I found your post. What an amazing job collecting all that information. I have used the Archives before but mostly for general arrangements. I will be following your build in one of my future projects that is a Sumner class destroyer USS John W. Weeks (DD-701).

Beautiful guns. They look nicer than my Amapa’s and mine is at 1/64. And, by the way, I also missed the firing pistol.

Found your log toor late to follow it. I love you attention to detail. Also the discussion about the minesweepers were very interesting. Witing to s follow your next build. Great job, thanks.

My knowledge is increasing exponentially since I joined this forum. I just learned a lot about cuttle fish bones on wikipedia. Amazing bones. Thanks Mark.

After my catastrophe with the carburators I changed the design to a front mounted carburetor feeding a straight down manifold. It worked. The engines still need a little dressing up but for all purposes I considere them finished. They will be put aside until I finish the engine room and cockpit. The next item are the gear shift levers that will stand at either side of the helm. These were provided in the kit but following my desire to scratch build I tried to develop a simile. Next I am going to tackle the helm itself. For this one I feel I will use the steering wheel provided in the kit. With the engines completed I worry about the remaining controls: throttle, choke, and the instruments: RPM, compass. Based on the models I have seen there were very few accessories to run these engines. We will see what comes to my old brain.

Wefalk, thanks again. Bewitched was one of my favorites back then. Look my next post for the results of the "nose twitching". Graham, thanks for your advise. I never heard of cuttle fish (calamari) bones being used on anything. Learn something every day.

Well, when you are scratch building it means you have to scratch your head several times to decide how to build something. For this project I only had one sheet with the general layout and three cross sections of this boat. Deans Marine offered a kit at the scale I had selected for the model with a molded hull in styrene (?) and the materials to make a R/C model in plastic. I decided to use the hull and scratch build all the details. One my interests was to build the engines and, after a failed research, I used the information on the cross sections, several inquiries on google, and my engineering background to come with an acceptable looking simile. So far so good. No where I could find what to do for the carburators since I had assumed that a "petrol" engine requires one. I figured that a 100 HP the engine would need a carburetor with at least a 3 Inch throat. I remembered, back in my youth, my dad had an MG-TC with a beautiful set of SU carburators. So I decided to do SUs for these Thornycroft engines. And this was the result I developed an intake manifold (see post #22) and also fabricated an exhaust manifold. This is how the port engine looked after I finished. Boy, was I pleased! I went on and built the second engine making sure that the new engine was an starboard engine. Then, another catastrophe. There is barely any space between the engines to fit my contraptions. The drawings indicated that both engines were identical but the engineer in me saw that there would be no way to service these engines within the space between the engine blocks and the hull so I figured that a RH-LH arrangement would work. Also, as I noted before, the molded hull is about 1/4 inch narrower (6 inches in the actual boat) than the drawing sections shown thus limiting access even more. Scaling the actual space available between the engine mounts came out to only 12 inches available access for service. The fact that the roof of the engine room has two huge hatches led me to believe that the intention of the builder was to remove the engines for any service and that would have been very difficult by the shores of lake Tanganyika. My solution now is to redesign the intake manifold and relocate the carburators to the front and lower side of the engine. I am so much fun. LOL

Continuing with the engines, I tackled the intake manifold using solder material that was the same diameter that I needed. I did some experiments with the soldering with some failures. Too much solder I refined my technique and using the same jig came out with two acceptable manifolds. The carburetors are coming up next and I had the great idea of casting them using the same low temperature solder. As a test, I made a mold drilling a piece of hardwood and proceeded to melt the solder into the holes. So far so good. Another catastrophe. I could not remove the lead from the mold. If I make the mold out of metal, what can be used as a mold release? I am now thinking making a simile of a SU carburetor using brass tubing and lathe turned brass rods. Any suggestions? Your comments will be appreciated I then turned to the other end of the engine and fabricated the spark plugs. The one on the far left shows the brass jacket that will be painted white to represent the porcelain and the nails will be clipped to fit the holes previously made in the cylinder head. I will them make a manifold where to introduce the cables and direct them to the far end of the engine where the magneto will be located. Thank you for your likes and comments.

Being working on a simile of the petrol engines. The following photo shows the various parts built. The crankcase, transmission and starting crank support. Cylinders, and cylinder head housings. The engine being assembled. The starter cranks. And finally the engine dry fitted to the boat. I also installed the fore and aft sub-decks with the marked accessories I am now researching the engine attachments such as carburetor, magneto, plugs, intake and exhaust manifolds. Most of these will not be visible once the cabin roof is in place but, I thought that the engine would not be complete without them. I am having a lot of fun researching and figuring out what to use to represent these items. Thanks to all you for the likes and comments.