gieb8688

Lock for the 30,5 cm gun
 
The next thing to be tackled was the lock piece or ‘wedge’. This 'wedge' has a rather complex shape with a flat front, but a round back and various recesses and cut-outs. I decided it would be best to undertake most of the machining operations while it is still attached to some (round) material that can be easily held in a collet. The round back was milled in an upright collet holder on my mill's rotary table after the various coaxial holes had been drilled and the flat sides milled, all in the same set-up. For machining the other recesses the piece had to transferred to the diving head on the mill.
 

Round-milling  the lock piece in an upright collet-holder on the rotary table
 

Cutting off the finished lock piece
 
The most time consuming part turned out to be the cover piece for the lock, which in the prototype was fastened by five hexagonal head bolts. It holds the moving and locking screws in their place. It took me four tries before I produced a half-way satisfactory piece. Soldering the microscopic bolts (0.4 mm head diameter) in place got me quite a few grey hairs. Finally a fake locking screw was turned up and the moving screw, which moves the lock in and out, was faked from a couple of drilled-together 0.1 mm copper wires, covered in a thin layer of solder to make them look like steel.
 

Milling square and hexagonal bolts
 

Facing the locking screw in special protective brass collet
 
The large re-enforcement ring for the barrel was also turned up and two holes drilled into it for seating the rack quadrant that forms part of the elevating gear. In fact, I had cheated a bit, when drilling/milling the lock seat: the front of the hole should have been flat, which is difficult to machine; so I continued the elongated hole under the re-enforcement ring, which was made as a separate part and slipped over the barrel.
The various parts of the lock were assembled using lacquer and cyanoacrylate glue.
 

 

 

The (almost) finished gun barrel with its lock (toothpick for scale)
 
To be continued ...

The reardeck and wheelhouse are finished now so I post some overall pictures for yoy to see how it's looking now. At this moment I started working on the winchhouse, the mast and the fishingbeams. These are later additions on the ship but they where allready there when my grandfather started to sail with here so I have to build them. It wont be easy because there are no drawings of this later additions and I have not much pictures of it. But with the help of some old fishermen I will make this to a succes.
 
Regards, Kees

Flag Bridge (above the Navigating Bridge) and Air Defense Bridge (highest level) coming together.
 

Conning tower work continues. The Navigating Bridge (with Pilot House up front) is now on top. Two more levels upwards to go.
 
Port side:
 

 
Starboard side:
 

Starting to work on the Conning Tower. The base and internal stiffener are .40 thou. styrene sheet for strength. The sides are .20 thou V-groove with the horizontal grooves on the interior of the tower. I have found that using the grooves as guides helps assure aligned portholes, platforms, hatches, etc.
 


 
If you look closely at the top row of portholes on the starboard side, you will notice that I cut the aft-most two portholes a bit elevated compared to those forward of them. This is deliberate and consistent with the actual ship. On the exterior of the real conning tower side, there is a prominent exterior cable conduit just under these two portholes. Behind these portholes on the real ship was a radar control compartment. Presumably, the conduit contained cables associated with the ship's radars or other electronic gear.
 

 
 

Flight Deck.  This is the flight deck with major structures in place but still very rough.

Much cleanup to be done but you can see 
1. complex planking patterns.
2. the location of the floatplane tracks consistent with available photos.
3. the deck-edge waterways are installed. 
 
Bow. Deck-edge waterways are present. The deck-edge cutouts are clearance for quad Bofors mounts positioned one deck below on sponsons. The major structures are all in place. It needs some cleanup and seam-filling. The elevation of the floatplane tracks needs to be evened out and matched to the planked flight deck. That will be done with putty.

Midships. Bow to left. Open bomb and torpedo elevators. There is still some cleanup and filling here to do. And the floatplane tracks need some evening out to match their height with the planked flight deck surface. That will be done with putty.

 Aft. Compared to an Essex, the flight deck, particularly here, is quite narrow. There is some waterway adjustment and filling to do here but it's starting to look like it should.


Arrestor cable anchor point details to be added next. Note for carrier model builders: a common error modelers make is the laying of the arrestor cables on the wrong side of the anchor points. The arrestor cables on US Navy carriers lay on the aft side of the anchor points. 

Also next, three quad Bofors mount platform bases and splinter shielding to be built next to the funner base. Round downs need more work but they're getting there.

Conning tower and funnel coming soon.

Here's an excerpt from the 1936 design showing the asymmetrical hull to good effect as well as the proper, and structurally logical, location of the docking keels. The hull bottom is not flat but has a subtle deadrise.

Notice the starboard stability blister. Here at midships, the outboard blister side is vertical and extends a considerable distance from the side of the hull. Also note that the starboard side has no bilge keel. The port side bilge keel is present.
 

Starboard side:
 





 
Port side:
 



 
 

One of the most interesting features of the two sisters of the Lexington class is the rudder. It has a distinct flare at the top that conforms to the shape of the hull and the bottom is in the shape of a diamond. Also interesting, the rams which operate the rudder are partially exposed. I have tried to capture the complex shape of the original rudder.
 

 
Compare the effort above with the 1/350 scale Trumpeter kit rudder below which appears to be accurate in profile but wholly inaccurate in shape. 
 

The aft end of the starboard stability blister is just visible in the first photo. At this end, the outboard blister side tightly conforms with the contour of the hull. At midships, the outboard side is vertical and extends a considerable distance from the side of the hull. 

Strake detail is also visible in the top photo. It was a swine to get to look good and considerable study of photos of the actual ship was necessary to identify, locate, measure and position each strake. This was only possible thanks to Tracy, Dave Doyle, and the hull sections on sheets 18 and 19 of the 1936 plans.
 
More photos of the scratch-built rudder:
 



 
 
 

Compare the 1944 flight deck plan laid on top the model with the 1945 post-Kamikaze refit flight deck plan.  
 
During repairs following the Kamikaze strikes, the forward elevator was replaced with a much-anticipated larger elevator.  The aft elevator was deleted.
 


 
The model is being built according to the ship's late 1944 appearance with two aircraft elevators.

Here you can see that chocks and hawse pipes have been roughed in, docking keels have been installed, and the hull has been primed. In 1942, Saratoga's starboard main anchor hawse pipe had been conspicuously plated over. Next installations include propeller shaft housings and port-side bilge keel (no starboard-side bilge keel after the installation of the large starboard side stability blister).
 




Taking a break from further detailing the hull, Flight Deck work has begun. The flight deck's major structures and details for 1944 have been penciled on the styrene deck. Plans for the 1944 flight deck and 1945 flight deck lay alongside for comparison purposes.
 

 
 

I think the watchword is "First, do no harm" meaning don't use any methods that will damage the model. Dry loose dirt can be removed with a dry paintbrush or a toothbrush but usually there is a hard coating of grime.  I agree Q-tips are the tool of choice for the next steps. start cleaning by swabbing with a Q-tip dipped in warm water. Slowly go over every hard surface on the model, being lavish in the use of Q-tips and throwing them away as soon as they collect any dirt.  If that won't work, add some mild soap. Then try some household cleaners. Denatured alcohol is good but leaves a chalky residue. After this point it becomes a chemistry experiment and you are on shaky ground since anything you do from this point on could be irreversible. Thinner, turpentine, nail polish remover and a product called Goof Off sold in hardware stores for removing paint and hardened crud. I have had to resort to all of these at one point or another. But by now your likely to be stripping off original paint and this is something you should avoid. Hopefully you won't have to go to that level of aggressive chemical cleaning.
There is a product sold for art restoration called "Cleaning Solution for Paintings" made by the Webber company. Its probably a blend of a bunch of mild chemical solvents and will make you dizzy if used without ventilation. But it does an excellent job of smoothing out the finish of old ship models and making the paint or varnish look revitalized just by wiping some on with a rag. Since its formulated for art restoration I assume its not as dangerous to the model as the Goof Off mentioned above, which can and will strip old paint to the bare wood.

Onto the rudder hinges.  The generic hardware provided with the kit just didn't do it for me and with the success of the built ones for the Druid I really had no choice (hah hah) but to go down the same route.
 
First up was cutting strips for the 4 hinges required.  My raw brass sheet was wide enough to provide enough strip for each hinge set.
 

 
Simply define the width and run the blade over this line a few times.  I then gently wrap this edge over the edge of a piece of wood using gentle hammer strokes followed by returning it flat.  Then I grab it with my small pliers and with a little wiggle the strip snaps off.  I had previously bought a brass tube and rod that perfectly fits inside for the hinge mechanism.
 
For silver soldering there has been lots of posts but essentially the ingredients are:
 

 
Acetone for cleaning the brass, water for cooling after, flux (the right stuff), the silver solder pieces and finally the torch.
 
The tube was first soldered to the strip and then cut to size.  After repeating this eight times I then soldered four rods for the mating pieces.
 

 
After it was all done (less than an hour) I did an initial bend and everything looks good.  Still some refinement but another hour or so and these will be ready for blackening.  The original kit piece is in the upper left.
 

 
Very solid (and permanent).  It will look like a million bucks soon.  Next step is to drill holes for the bolts, bend to shape and get them configured to the hull.
 
Stay building my friends,
Mark

Quick update with an hour in the shipyard tonight.  The rudder just kept nagging at me, that I was settling.  The bottom line is that I did not have walnut of the width necessary to build the rudder from scratch.  Then it hit me, why replace the whole rudder?  How bad would it look to laminate boards onto a core?  Only one way to find out - try it out.
 
I sanded the existing rudder to a little under a 1/2 of its original width.  This accounted for two 1/16" laminates plus a little more to make it more pleasing to my eye.  I did this with the spindle sander taking a 1/4 off each side to keep the tiller arm centered.  Then using the pattern showed earlier I added the faux planks to each side.  After some sanding and....
 

 
I am pleasantly surprised that even the edge on look doesn't appear too bad.  I am satisfied now.  Now for silver soldering some rudder hanging hardware.
 
mark

I have worked my way through affixing all 50+ eyebolts.  About half of those were put in by the plugs described earlier.  Towards the stern two ring bolts each side were too close together for individual plugs so I cut a rectangular one that encompassed both bolts.
 

 
So the next step was to move on to the rudder.  I keep reminding myself that the point of this build was to provide a basis for learning rigging techniques, that the main hull was supposed to be out of the box.  So much for that plan.  The rudder provided by the kit was a large chunk of walnut cut to the shape of a rudder.  My first step was to look in Crother's book on clipper ship rudders and it was seen this was a pretty good form:
 

 
However, more than one chunk of wood was used.  It is interesting to note that some of the beams drawn out do taper to a sharp point, the first instance where I have seen this done on an external hull in actual practice.  Trying to keep this build going forward (and get to the rigging) I penciled in the beam lines into the kit rudder and scraped them to provide a resemblance of the separate pieces.
 

 
Another challenge that presented itself was the tiller arm.  Looking on deck with the rudder now in place, the attachment of the tiller is pretty far back towards the back rail.  I will have to think this through on how to work this.  I always have the option of making a rudder box obscuring the whole thing.
 

 
Stay Building my Friends,
Mark

My Lady Anne has sat patiently but today was the day I listened to her call.  I am pretty close to rigging so that will be a good companion to the Druid-X.
 
I dusted her off and re-oriented myself to where I left off.  The last item I had done was position the eyebolts.  This ship is to be rigged as an operating clipper ship, the Pride of Baltimore II is the plans I am basing this off of.  Lots more blocks, eyebolts and lines to lay than what the original kit intended.  Pretty much nothing left of the original kit Harvey at this level.
 

 
I had concerns with how well the eyebolts would stay simply glued in place on the deck.  I have looked at the various options for affixing them but arrived at a solution for the ones on the deck:  I will add plugs of walnut for a little more pop and the ability to clench the bottom of the eyebolts themselves.  
 
This was a simple matter of finding an available walnut dowel that I thought correctly sized and drilling a companion hole for the dowel to fit in.  The dowel itself was drilled through for the eyebolt to pass and clenched down.  There are over 20 eyebolts to do but that shouldn't take too long.
 

 
After dry a couple swipes with some sandpaper should clean any residue up.  This is a fun build that I do what I want.  I will finish her this year.
 
I need to really think about what finish to use.  Suggestions are welcomed.
 
Mark

One item on this ship that I saw someone else do that I knew immediately that I was going to copy was the stairwell going down to the lower deck.  In a PoB - and one that has the hull complete - how would you do this?  The answer is to make a self contained box  and lower it into a cut hole in the deck:
 

 

 
In the following pic you will notice a slight indentation at the top of the box.  This was to allow the box to slide down next to the center bulkhead.
 

 
The box is painted black below deck level to allow the illusion of desending.
 

 

 
I really like the opportunities this provides both on this ship and others.  An easy implementation with good results.

Lou and everyone,
 
I feel obligated to state again everything I have done has been for the fun of it.  I have no problem sharing, just don't want people to think I have done any big amount of research and is the last word on the subject (hah hah). 
 
I did have to laugh when you mentioned my windlass, because my first thought was the capstan.  A capstan made from the kit part with cut down wooden cocktail toothpicks for arms!  However, I figured out you meant the forward windlass (which I am pretty proud of).  I can't locate the pictures of it being built unfortunately but I did design it out beforehand and lathed it using boxwood.  The lathe was procured not because of the ships, but to make pens:
 

 
This is a related hobby that actually brings in some income!  The best part of this is that I get to really understand different types of woods.  Their look, how they sand, how they finish and their usability in the future.  A bonus is I do get to use it occassionaly for ship related articles.
 
On the camera topic, I use an (older) Kodak EasyShare DX 6440.  The big discovery was the ability to go into close up mode.  This has to be selected and produces very clear images.  They are not achievable otherwise.  I then edit them to resize to 25% normal size.  If anyone particularly wants one larger, PM me and I can send it out.
 
For the bowsprit I flatten it a little where it meets the deck and butt it against the windlass:
 

 
The stem defines the angle of the bowsprit.  It really is up to you on how you want to terminate it, but by lodging against a solid beam, less deck area is taken up by it.  To insure the position is fixed I did drill through and dowel it into the deck.
 
Cheers, Mark

Since this was a working boat it spent a good chunk of time moored to a dock while it loaded or unloaded, so……it needed a robust way to tie up, usually to docks below the height of its bulwarks.  I had noticed the use of cavels on some wooden period ships I have visited and thought this the perfect solution.  A quick check of the Pride of Baltimore II reinforced this by seeing she had them.
 
These were pretty straight forward but I believe really added some pop to the hull.  I decided to use a block of walnut for the hull pass through and basswood (my go to wood) for the interior tie up post.  Since the bulwark was veneer overlaid on the inner sub-layer the walnut really provided a consistent clean look that I liked.  For location, I drilled through the inner bulwark at the center point between frames for accuracy.  A little wood removal with a sharp knife / files and lots of test fittings and this part was good to go.  The inner cavel post was pretty straight forward (don’t forget the matching center hole to the hull) and glued on.  All in all, this was less than an hour of work.  A total of four were put on the Lady Anne (two each side).

This is my build of the Lady Anne (named after the wife – bonus points).  If you squint real hard and tilt your head you may recognize the hull as the AL Harvey.  Other than that it has been a whole lot of kit bashing.  This model was given to me by someone who had just glued the bulkheads on and decided this just wasn’t the thing for him.  Over time (as a break from the Druid) I have done a little bit here and a little there.  I planked the hull as a standard model hull to demonstrate to someone else it wasn’t that hard, so there are planks that taper to points and no real attempt to mimic real practice.  I had ‘assumed’ it would be built out of the box and continued in that direction.  Then things started to get fuzzy. 
I knew that Harvey was a fictitious ship and things really started to bug me about how realistic it was.  The deck furnishings especially just seemed haphazard and in some cases wrong.  This is where I stepped out of the box and this fast build took a hard right into kit bashing.  Over the years I had made a point of keeping pictures of ideas on real ships and models of things I really liked and I started to look at what I could add / substitute in this build.  I started perusing books about clippers, especially ‘The American-Built Clipper Ship, 1850-1856’ by Crothers to look at deck arrangements used by Clippers (and believe it or not, I did find those outhouses shown on the Harvey.  I don’t like them, but I found them).
 



 
I cleared the decks (literally), made paper cutouts of potential deck furniture, and spent a lot of time pondering the imponderables.  A big decision was to rig her as the Pride of Baltimore II was rigged, a true Baltimore Clipper.  This defined the needed pinrails and deck tie downs required (as well as block counts which were a LOT more than the kit supplied).  I moved the pumps aft to where they could actually do some good.  The forward windlass was replaced with a windlass actually capable of bringing in an anchor.  The capstan was moved to a position where it could actually be used, a below deck access was added and on, and on, and on.  The last addition I added are cavels to allow easier docking.  To retain its original heritage I created a 1:48th scale workman that I named sailor Harvey to verify heights as I proceeded.
 



 
The deck currently has a configuration that I am happy with.  The last original piece is the aft deckhouse and it just seems out of proportion for sailor Harvey to navigate through so that will probably be scrapped and an alternate built in its place.  Oh, I retained the cannons since my son insists that cannons are cool and I couldn’t possibly take them off.  I did, however, modify their locations, retain only six (continental breeched) and will probably have two of those stowed parallel to the bulkhead.
 


 
As time allows I will post past pictures of the process I used to build various pieces and the rationale used for including them (which may just be I liked the look).  I am really trying to focus on the Druid and get’r done, but this ship will be warming up.  As usual, any comments are welcome.
 

 
Mark

Some progress on the little trawler from Holland.
 
I made some antenna's, a compass, a searchlight and some other bits and pieces.
It's hard to build an acurate model. Drawings don't show enough detaills and the photo's are made from to far sitance or are bad quality. I have to use lot's of photo's (also from other ships), drawing, the internet and the help from an old sailorman to make the parts but its very rewarding to do.
 
Now I will start working with a very strange material. Its has a brown collour, has a smell, splinters when you break it, and is not very easy to bend. I think it's a high tech new material from Nasa's laborotery's. Do you know the name? Very strange.... It makes me sneeze when I sand it


























 

The last few days I worked on the upperstructure of the ship and the bridge. I used only polystyrene and glue. I am using lesser CA-glue these day but use super thin ps-glue. It glues fast and strong but you have the possibility to position the pieces you want to glue.
 
Pictures say more than words.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello everyone,
 
I managed to do some work on the KW49 Antje and I came some further with her. What was in the begining just a piece of raw plastic is now becoming more and more a ship. I really like working on here. I need to figure out a lot of things every time I have to build something, but its fun.
All the half round is added, the hole for the anchor is made. I adde al the visible ribs to the deck and I made the front deck and under it some hatches and a winch.
Now I started working on the upper structure and the bridge.
 
Regards, Kees

Nice work.
 
I find it funny that when building a wooden kit, I do my utmost to hide the planking when painted - so it almost looks as smooth as plastic. But plastic kit manufacturers do their utmost to show the planking, to make the surface look like wood!

Some background: I started this build a year and two months ago. I did some modeling when I was a kid, but discovered other joys of life when I reached puberty 🙂 In the meantime I settled down and decided to take it up again (I'm 30 years old).

I decided to go for a challenge and went for the Heller Victory. I wanted to try all the new and exciting tools & techniques I did not have the money for when I was a kid. I started out using acrylics by brush, but invested in a good compressor and airbrush a couple of months ago. Too bad I did not have this at the start of my build! The finish is so much nicer!

The goal is not to make a true to life representation of the actual ship, but a nice looking model in warm colours with lot's of detail that looks good under glass in the living room.

Enough background, here are the pictures:



You can clearly see half of the hull bee lines haven't received the sepia wash yet I use to give it more depth and a warmer tone.





I also need to rework the figurehead a little bit. The white crown is a bit to big and the white horse needs some TLC as well. Otherwise, I'm very happy with the look of the ship!



I used some styrene sheet to make the gun port thicker. I like that look even though it's out of scale.



After a lot of trial and error, I finally settled on a style of gun carriage lashing. I used 2mm single blocks and Morope rigging chords. The most difficult part was making the two holes in the top blocks. I ruined quite a lot of blocks just to get these guns finished 🙂 Will need to order lot's more!

I was not completely happy with my decks. The colour was a bit to pale, it missed some 'life', and some parts were damaged a bit. So, in a moment of temporary insanity, I went out and got a second Heller Victory kit. Maybe a bit drastic, but now I have spare parts for everything and this allows me to experiment a bit more.

I tore out the old deck. This meant I also had to take out the four guns I tackled already, unfortunately. I redid the decks using the same technique, but this time I added two coats of MIG brown filter. This added a nice weathered wood tone. I'm very happy with the result, but judge for yourselves (the foto does not do it justice, though):



The stanchions were made using 2mm eyelets and 0.1mm Morope rigging chord.