schooner

Thanks for the kind words Ian and Cog, I had a lot of fun with this one, hated to see it come to an end.

Thanks Mike, It IS a fantastic kit, so good that I was able to spend my time doing what I like, which is detailing, instead of having to "fix the kit"!

Well, she's done. Thank you to all who have followed along, made suggestions and contributed ideas. Hopefully I'll be back soon with a lobster boat build that I don't think has appeared here before.

Thanks Steve,but this can't hold a light to your Vance build. It amazes me that while they share the same hull the addition of all that superstructure makes the Vance look at least twice as big as a standard Liberty

Radio Antennas and Flags I found a 48-star flag and the house flag for the Luckenbach Steamship Co online and copied them to my graphics program, adjusted their size, copied them and flipped one copy, backed each half together and printed them out. In order to get the paper to hold furls I used a trick I found on some modeling site. I cut a piece of aluminum foil slightly smaller than one half of the flag. I glued it in place using rubber cement because white glue has too much water in it and it will make the printer ink run. I then placed a length of halyard rope along the fold point, folded the flags and glued them together, once again using rubber cement. The furls were made by folding the paper around a pin, alternating directions. The antennas are made from some metallic thread provided in the kit, it simulates bare wire nicely. Both antennas run between the main and mizzen masts and are connected to the coupler tower on the flying bridge. The insulators near the ends of the antennas are just small blobs of white glue built up over several repetitions. The last thing left to add is the guns and then the big job comes - cleaning and dusting the model prior to casing it.

Lifelines and PE Railings The kit supplied PE railings were too thick for me so I used some 1/192 railings from Tom’s Modelworks which I find very easy to work with. The lifeline around the fantail gun platform is brass and thread. Next up will be the radio antennas and flags.

Final Cargo Rigging The booms on Hatch nr5 are configured in what was known as a “Wing and Wing’ rig, another variation on the Yard and Stay rig used on hatches 3 & 4. The Wing & Wing had the ends of both booms over the side of the ship, allowing cargo to be worked on both sides simultaneously. One feature of it is that the are no inboard guys - the ends of the booms are just lashed together for support. I still have to trim some tag end and add some rope coils. Next up will be the lifelines and PE railings.

Thanks for the link Nic. Just out of curiosity, is BlueJacket looking at using 3-D printing for any parts? I know the upfront costs can be eye-watering.

Rigging Hatch Nr 4 I lost a few weeks of work when I did not pay attention to my supply bin and ran out of rigging thread. It has finally come in so I can press on. This hatch, like Nr2, also has a jumbo boom (30 ton vice 50 ton) which I decided to rig in the vertical stowed position: Since Nr4 hatch will be the only completely “open” hatch on this build I wanted to show a suspended load above it. I thought it would be quick and easy to find a truck or bulldozer online but it ends up that 1/192 (1/16 inch) scale is not used for model railroading and there is really nothing out there near this scale that I could use so I decided to whip up a large crate. After numerous attempts and a lot of bad language I was about to give up because I could not get all the corners square, then I had a DUH! moment and realized I did not need to build a 6-sided box - I could just get a piece of rectangular stock of the right width and height, cut it to length and “plank” it which ended up being very simple to do: This boom arrangement is a variation Yard and Stay rig used on hatch Nr3, this one being called the West Coast Rig. It is supposed to work faster but I’m not sure why. Since this hatch is completely open I arranged the removed hatch covers and hatch beams along the unengaged side: Just one more hatch to go and this build is almost done:

wonderful scratch building - love the engine room!

Greg, just got thru with the first page of this build only to find you already have 10 pages posted! Its amazing how much ground you cover in just 3 months. Interesting choice for a build. I've read a ton of naval history but never gave this ship much attention since she was never completed. I had no idea she was so big, I just assumed as Germany's first carrier that they would have started off with something small to learn the tricks of naval aviation. Guess they must have thought "Ach, how hard can it be?" Given Germany's huge problems with inter service squabbling its interesting to think what problems they would have run into if she had become operational. I'm sure they would have made the RN's problems with RAF control of carrier plane design and acquisition seem minor by comparison. Your scratch building and weathering are, as always, the top of the game. Now, back to page 2 of your build!

Thanks for the kind words

Hatch Nr3 Rigging This hatch, like the last 2 to still to come, is rigged as a “Burton” or “Yard and Stay,” rig which had several variations. This hatch is rigged as the “standard” type. What made these rigs interesting for me is that the booms do not move during the cargo operation; the cargo can be moved anywhere along a line connecting the 2 points directly under the end of each boom by coordinating the 2 cargo winches. In this case one boom is positioned directly over the center of the hatch and the other over the side of the ship for loading to/from a pier or lighter. When I was onboard the SS John Brown in Baltimore they ran a demonstration of a yard and stay rig at work, pretty simple when you see it in operation but it took a lot of concentration by the winch operators and foreman, one missed signal and the winches could end up pulling against each other which would quickly collapse the whole rig, with all the expected death and destruction. Here the 2 cargo whips are rigged together and secured to an eye pad near the hatch: I had to install the life raft racks before rigging the guys to make sure there would be no interference. The racks are made up of 4 pieces of VERY thin laser cut wood. It was a little intimidating cutting them loose from their fret/billet but once they were glued up they are pretty sturdy: Here is the final rigging, minus rope coils that will come later - it is starting to look pretty busy:

Rigging Hatch Nr2 and the 50-ton Jumbo Boom The first step was to rig the 2 5-ton booms in the vertical stowed position: Then the fun started. I usually enjoy rigging blocks because they look good on a model. Up to now a triple block has been the most ambitious for me but this called for 4 quintuple blocks and having to adjust the tension between 20 running lines on the blocks tried my patience. I came to realize that I had to be able to tension the rig after the blocks were set so I decided to use the 1 hatch beam and show it suspended as if it had just been hoisted off the hatch and about to be stowed on deck near the hatch covers that had already been removed. Doing so allowed me to use the 2 tag lines from the bottom of the beam to tension the whole rig. Once the boom vangs were rigged I was able to attach the shrouds on the foremast so everything is good to go. The 2 jumbo booms were the only ones that pivoted on their base like a normal crane - the 5-ton booms were fixed in place. In order to swing such a large boom the vangs had to be taken to power using the capstans on the 2 winches on the adjacent hatch so using a jumbo boom required 4 winches and prevented the adjacent hatch from being worked at the same time. Doing this part of the build showed me what a huge job it was on these ships to shift between the 5-ton booms and the jumbo booms or vice versa. As shown now, to go back to using the 5-ton booms their cargo whips would have to be unwound from the storage reels on top of the mast house and laid out on deck. Then the Jumbo boom cargo whip and topping lift wires would have to be removed from the winches on Nr2 hatch, wound onto the storage reels, and then the 5-ton cargo whips wound onto the winches. It is hard to imagine a more dirty, difficult and dangerous job than wrestling with so much thick wire rope, all of it covered in thick slushing grease and full of needle sharp broken wire strands and fish hooks. Tough, tough guys.

Thanks Nic, Although they turned out alright they involved some very Easter-inappropriate language! Glad I had some spares to fix individual letters.

Nice template work

Wonderful work, very crisp and clean. The Willie B is my all time favorite kit, one of the few available that allows you to build a model that is 100% authentic, and is built in the same sequence as the original. Making the winding frames and railings was a grad course in soldering and metal work for me - learned a lot. Keep the pix coming