justsayrow

Hello,
 
The stairway was an afterthought. Initially I planned to just paint black the corresponding opening but then - quite late in the process of building the base - I changed my mind and added it as you can see in the below pictures.
 
To do it, I just dril a lot of holes with a 1/4in bit inside the rectangle delimited by the hatch coamings. Then with a big file and a lot of effort while trying not to damage what was already done I made the hole sides nice and smooth. The sides were painted black and the stair was added in.
 
If you want to know how I actually did the stair, let me know as I have pictures on that process also and I can post them.
 
Regards,
Alexandru

Thanks again for the kind remarks and all the "likes".
 
After a few weeks of absence from the shipyard due to work and other commitments, planking is at last complete! The remainder of the deck was completed in much the same way as the fore deck, with the hatch being left in place and planked together with the rear deck. The hatch was cut free on completion, the hatch openings and rear cockpit opening cleaned up, and the transom was then planked in much the same way as the sides of the hull. The transom was trimmed flush with the deck, sides and bottom of the boat, and then the decks were given an initial sanding with 80 grit sandpaper. The aim of the initial sanding is to bring the white caulking strips down level with the deck planks. While it was not difficult to do, it did require a little more elbow grease than I’d anticipated. Anyway, here she is as she sits today. The “spare” hatch is in the foreground (in case my two-part hatch doesn’t work out). There’s still quite a bit more sanding to be done before she will be ready for staining and fibre-glassing.
 

 
 

USS Arleigh Burke guided missile destroyer
 
I recently took a trans-Atlantic cruise from Rotterdam to Norway, Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Boston. I saw so many unusual ships, both models and full sized, that I had to start another model. I was intrigued by the Aeronaut Bismarck model, but I couldn't find any useful reviews. Please let me know if you've had any experience with their kits.
 
Bluejacket Shipcrafters has a couple of WWII kits, but their kit of the Arleigh Burke guided missile destroyer caught my eye and I ordered it. It is by far the most expensive kit that I've ever bought. Please don't tell my wife. Is it worth the price? Well, lets see what's
 
Inside The Box

The model came in a large box packed full of styrofoam peanuts. It was a pain to separate the parts from the junk.
 

Here's what was inside.
 

The hull is machine-carved from a single piece of basswood.
 

The hull shape looks very good, but there are still attachment points that will have to be carved away.
 

There is a 65-page instruction manual that seems to be very thorough. Bluejacket offers a CD of build photos for an additional fee. I didn't order it. The kit includes hull templates printed on self-adhesive paper, a guide for painting the helicopter landing marks on the deck, and a big piece of styrene for God knows what.
 

The kit includes 5 pages of plans. You should be able to see the titles in the photo.
 

There are 5 sheets of laser-cut parts. The cut lines are crisp and nearly free of char. All of the deck superstructure will be made from these parts.
 

The instructions say that there are over 600 photo-etched parts. Whew.
 

The kit had a tiny box packed full of beautiful cast metal parts.
 

There are also a few cast resin parts. These don't look so great. I will be doing a lot of cleanup on them.
 

There is a small bag of wood strips, a bag of metal strips, and a spool of rigging thread. The brass pedestals were extra. You'd think that for what this kit cost they could throw in the pedestals.
 

I also ordered the optional paint kit. It came with a dozen bottles of Testors paints. I will probably spray most of the model gray and use the red and black for details. We'll see.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

build time 12 hours
pieces fixed into position 112
 
Good evening everyone
 
all the longitudinals, are now in position  with the exception of some of the centre keelsoms, doesn't look much i know but the next plates should start to tie it all, in, all this will then be hidden when the deck plates go on

This small project is almost done. Here are some more progress pictures.
 
There are two things I don't really know how to solve so maybe someone can give me some ideas:
 
1. How to coil the rope from the gun tackles on the deck - those rope spirals?
2. How to make a flag and from what to hang at the top of the mast?
 
Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
 
Regards,
Alexandru

AKAGI 1927
 
So here I am, sat at the kitchen table, a bottle of Asahi Super Dry in front of me.
My katana is hanging on the wall - I can't see it from where I'm sitting, but I know it's hanging there ... approvingly.
The only thing missing is a stirring marching tune, blaring from cracked speakers, and the picture would be perfect.
I'm building the IJN Akagi.
 

 
I have no intention of stoking the fires of the silly kit vs. scratch debate, but I almost feel a bit ... disoriented here in the kit department.
The scratch build section is where I usually hang my hat, and my darlings generally have sails and had their keels laid down before 1700.
 
I don't really know what happened. They found the Musashi, and I sat through every minute of the 2,5 hour Expedition Live Feed.
Then it was on to IJN battleships on Wikipedia ...
I suppose the fate of all those lovely ships got to me; the wastefulness of it all. 
The Dai nippon Teikoku Kaigun deserves a bit of resurrecting, albeit in 1/700 scale.
 
The plan is to assemble a little fleet of IJN ships.
We'll see how far I get.
 
Anyways, I picked the Akagi as the first ship because she is a bit of an odd one, with her three flight decks.
An aircraft carrier is also completely new territory for me - thought it might be fun.
 
 
WWII is fairly new to me in modelling/painting terms.
(I've only built Russian tanks and painted Finnish infantry before this project.)
So I'll take any expert advice, cheering on, pointers, source material (English, Japanese, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish are all OK) etc. I can get.
 
 
For those interested in the subject, here are some links:
 
http://ww2db.com/ship_spec.php?ship_id=10
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Akagi
 
https://fiftiethstateofmind.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/akgimg_00071.jpg
 
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/75/d4/97/75d497ac91cd0121abebeac8459d56d4.jpg
 
 
The Kit
 

 
The kit looks nice and detailed and the instructions seem OK. Although I did find som (mandatory) japlish. 

It's good that the black isn't TOTALLY gross, just semi gross.
 
The kit certainly includes the most minuscule aircraft you'll ever see.

No kids or pets around so I might leave the planes loose.
 
 
Weeelll, the sprues have been washed so, here goes.
 
Sam

SD14 - Midships Section - Shell bottom plates
 
Total build time 2 hours
 
 
 
Started of by cutting out all the plates from the 1st four sheets, which is the bottom of the ship,  all the frames are numbered and knowing that port is even numbers it is quite easy to follow the instructions, however care is needed to ensure that all the lines do align

 
laid out on the work bench, all these make up the midships section 29" long

 
and the first plates are joined,there is quite an overlap, presently I am using Elmers PVA
 

 

On a previous attempt to build this, we had a disaster, which resulted in the whols lot going to land fill, even though it was only fractionally completed, but I vowed to attempt again in the future
To be worked on alongside the Victory build space permitting (this is over 7 feet long, when built as a complete vessel and the Victory must take priority 
intentions are to build as 3 static displays with weathering, and led lighting
 
The sheets 180 of them are well printed and the instructions are very clear,, here are a few photos as she arrived today, having been ordered yesterday from Model Dockyard 
 
 

Aft Deckhouse
 
The aft deckhouse went together just like each layer of the main house; 3 wood lifts topped by a laser cut plastic deck, and the sides covered with thin ply.
 



The deck edge coamings and underside stiffening girders are scratch. One item that will be different from the plans is the large gun tub. Rather than have a solid waist-high shield I’ll install a single strand lifeline, like you can see in the upper background of the photo below, the early Libertys seemed to have that style. Not sure what I will use for the lifeline stanchions yet but they are quite a ways down the road anyway.
 

 
 
Next up will be the 3 crane houses.

In my opinion, that which makes a log good also makes it hard to keep up.  I have often gotten bogged down on a model because I am taking so much time and effort to get pictures at the right point, get thoughts on paper and compile a good post.  I don't know if that ever came through in my logs, but I tried.
 
    Here is what I think makes a good post:
 
    Explain what you are doing as you go along.  Looking at pictures of how your model is progressing is nice, but looking at the process you are using to get to that point is even better.  How did you make that thingamabob?  What problems are you having?  Detailed info on how you make something can be enlightening.  There is a fine line between going into TOO much detail and no enough.  I have seen things that I have tried to make many times and I cannot get them to look that good.  How did you do it?  I guess that is what IMs are for.
 
    A lot of pictures.  Close ups, full model, different angles, high resolution.  The latter is important particularly when illustrating a lot of detail.  I find it frustrating to click on a photo to blow it up, only to find it is not very large or poor quality.  My rule of thumb when I was a newsletter editor was I should be able to expand the photo to 200% and still get good detail.  Different angles are good.  I have been trying to find some shots of where the wales come together at the bow, both sides.  I cannot find many.  Most shots are of one side or the other, but not both.  Same goes for other areas we don't normally see.
 
    In my opinion, a very good example of a good build log is Dan Vadas' "VULTURE" log.
 
PS.  His VULTURE cross section isn't bad either.

Deckhouse detailing
 
It’s been fairly slow going adding detailing along the upper deck edges and stiffeners under the upper deck projections as well as completing the sidelight boxes and adding the forward gun tubs. 
I’d planned on adding some details to the bridge wings but after looking at photos of all 3 surviving Libertys I realized that compared to Navy ships they had virtually nothing in the way of rudder angle indicators, pelorus’, sound-powered phone jacks, etc.
 



 
After priming the main deckhouse it can be set aside for awhile and I’ll move on to the after deckhouse and the crane houses.
 

I needed to make a half dozen fire buckets for my project so I took a few photo's to show how I made mine. Once I had a size in mind I made a pattern and cut some thin brass to that shape. I than tinned opposite ends and opposite sides. So that when the brass is rolled into a cone the tinned ends will be face to face. I used a tapered dowel to help form the rolled cone shape for soldering. The rolled forms are a little long/tall for triming down later. Using a block of wood with a hole drilled just shy of bucket height and snug at the top i than placed a ring of wire around top of bucket and soldered in place. using the tapered dowel while soldering ring in to place helped line things up. Should come out looking like this. the next step was to cut out small disc of brass that was just a bit bigger than the bottom of bucket. with the disc on the end of the tapered dowel a bucket was lower over the end and pushed the disc to the bottom of bucket but not clear thur. Just enough of a lip to solder it in place, Some clean up with files and paper is next. Lastly some paint and install handle. Not sure when it became the practice of painting fire buckets red or if there ever was a rule to do so. 

Frank,
Happy 2 year anniversary of your build log.
 
I love following along!

Thanks very much Bug, Popeye, Lawrence, Rusty and all the "Likes".
 
A minor update this week....
 
Deck Planking
 
Planking the deck has presented no particular problem thus far. The instructions direct you to alternate a caulking strip with a plank, but I found it easier to laminate one of each together and then shape and fit as a single unit. The only tricky part of shaping was the last plank on either side around the side of the cockpit, which just took a little time and patience to ensure a good fit. The ends of the planks were trimmed close to the forward end of the cockpit and then taken closer still with a sanding drum in the rotary tool, before finishing by hand.  Once all the planking is complete, the surface will be sanded level such that all caulking strips will be level with the planks (at the moment they stand just a little proud). Not bad for a day’s work! There will be a brief hiatus for a couple of weeks as I’ll be travelling with work.
 

 
 

Frank,
Happy 2 year anniversary of your build log.
 
I love following along!

Frank,
Happy 2 year anniversary of your build log.
 
I love following along!

It's a shame that one can only click "Like This" once! Beautiful work.

Another update on this project.
 
Alexandru

Planking
 
Planking the hull turned out to be a little trickier than anticipated, and included a “near disaster”. Planking the first side, I followed as closely as I could the lining out marks, having first tapered the planks to fit against these. The problem was in the lateral bending of the planks. Ideally, they should have been spiled. However, the planks provided are not sufficiently wide enough to spile (and I didn’t have any sheet stock that I could substitute). The kit planks are also wide enough that edge bending is very difficult, if not impossible. The result was a less than even surface. On the second side, I decided to adjust the lining out marks to allow the first (chine) plank to fall naturally – which took it exactly one strake higher on the lining out marks at the bow. This meant that I had to insert a wedge shaped piece below this plank, but the remaining planks on that side went on somewhat more easily than the first side. The result also meant that I managed to maintain alignment of planks on either side at the bow.
 
The near disaster came when I went to give the hull an initial sanding to even out the surface. Following the lead of others who have gone before me, I broke out the powered mouse sander and set to. I must have been a little too aggressive in one place because I suddenly noticed that I had sanded through the entire thickness of the planking and could see the white plastic showing through. Oops…..  I also discovered that on the other side, one plank had developed a hole – not sure how, but the timber is very dry and brittle. Hmmmm, two repairs to make!
 
My first thought on repairing these was to use epoxy putty, but one of them was quite a large area and was going to look dreadful. After sleeping on it for a couple of nights, I decided that I would remove a section of the planking and patch it with new planks. Another few days to consider exactly how to achieve this, and I finally gave it a crack yesterday. I used a mini circular saw blade held in the Proxxon rotary tool and gently made some “stop” cuts at the extremities of the section I wanted to remove. I was then able to insert the blade of a No.11 Exacto knife and prise the damaged planking free. A quick clean up with the drum sander in the Proxxon to remove the residual glue and it was ready for the new timber. I took my time in shaping in the “patch” parts, and even managed to spile some thinner sections to get a very close fit. I also used some epoxy putty (Milliput) to blend the area at the bow where the timber transitions to the plastic sheeting of the hull bottom. After a careful HAND sanding, I was quite pleased with the results. Here are a couple of views of the completed repair job (forgot to take pictures of the “before”).
 

 

 
 
And here is a close up of the bow, showing the alignment of the planking. The stem is not perfect, but as it will be covererd later by the cutwater, I’m happy with it as is.
 

 
Then, at last, it was time to start on the deck planking. The process starts with the attachment of the edge or margin boards. These are die cut parts, slightly oversized, and are relatively easy to fit. Once in place, the outer edges are sanded back flush with the sides, and a strip of white “caulking” (.04” x .08” styrene) is applied to the inboard edge. The next step is to place the centre plank on the forward deck. This requires that a length of caulking be sandwiched between two planks (3/8” wide mahogany), then shaped to fit the bow and fixed in place down the centreline. Compared to the hull side planking, this was dead easy!
 

 

 
The remainder of the deck planking will follow a similar pattern, with a plank being glued to a strip of “caulking” before being shaped and affixed as a pair.  I’ll be back when the deck planking is complete.

Some time ago I advised that I needed to stop work on my ‘Francis Pritt’ in order to build a set of boats for a 1:96 scale model of the four masted barque ‘Herzogin Cecilie’ that a group of us were re-building for the museum.  I was asked at the time whether I could let people know how I built small clinker planked ship’s boats so here, at last, is a bit of a description on how I go about it.  Just to whet your appetite, here are all six boats in various stages of completion.  The piece of wood across the inside of the boat at bottom right is to stop it from trying to close up before the thwarts are fitted.
 

 
The first thing is to make a plug to the dimensions of the inside of the boat’s hull, but considerably taller than the boat.  The reason for this will become apparent shortly.  Any sort of wood will do for this, but a soft wood is easier for carving.
 

 
You can see from the photo that these plugs have been used before.  The rough line of the gunwale has been marked on the plug plus a guide for positioning the frames.
 
Now you need to cut some fine pieces of wood for the frames.  Again, the choice is yours, but I’ve found that for most boats at 1:96 some of the very fine scale wood used by model railway enthusiasts works well and is fairly easy to come by in a range of small sizes.  In this case the wood came from America and is, I think, birch.  Cut sufficient lengths for all the frames plus a few spares, ensuring that each frame in long enough to bend around the plug to a position well above the gunwale of the boat.
 

 
Steam or boil the frames until they are soft and pliable.  I have an old saucepan I use to boil my timber on the kitchen stove.  This method works well, especially if you are softening a lot of pieces at the same time.  Once pliable, bed the frames over the plug and hold them in place with elastic bands.  The frames don’t have to be in their correct positions at this stage – just roughly arranged along the plug so that they come reasonably close to their final shape.  I find that it’s a good idea to use at least to rubber bands for the job; otherwise as you put the end of a frame under the band the one next to it is liable to pop out.  If you use two bands they can hold alternate frames and make the job easier.
 

 
In this case I added an extra rubber band when I’d finished all the bending just to make sure the frames were held tightly against the plug.  Don’t worry too much if some of the frames crack as you’re bending them – that’s why you cut extra.
 
Now for one of the ‘tricks of the trade’.  We’re going to use quite a bit of glue in making these boats and if any of it happens to seep down between the frames and the plug it will be impossible to remove the completed hull from the plug, so – some people wax plugs to stop glue sticking, but a surer way is to use a bit of Glad Wrap; cling wrap; kitchen film; whatever it’s called where you live, but I mean the clingy plastic film used in the kitchen for covering such things as plates of sandwiches or cakes.
 

 
Cut a small piece of this film slightly longer than the boat and just wide enough to go over the plug down to the line of the gunwale.  With the film between the plug and the frames, there’s no way the hull can stick onto the plug!
 
Now we can starting fitting the frames.  Place the midships frame over the plug; ensure that it’s square and sitting down hard on the plug and glue the top ends of the frame to the plug above the line of the gunwale, at the same time ensuring that your piece of plastic film hasn’t slipped out of place.
 

 
You’ll need to clamp the frames in place while the glue sets to ensure that it’s sitting tight against the plug.  As I use fast setting epoxy for this sort of work I simply hold each frame in place with my fingers while the glue sets, but if you use CA, you’ll need to devise another method of clamping.  Keep working fore and aft with the frames until they are all firmly glued in place.  I find that I can hold several frames in place at once while the glue dries.  As you reach the bow and stern, fold the extra length of film around the end of the plug and hold the folds in place with the final frames.  This will ensure that no glue can leak under the film at the ends.
 
Once all the frames are in place, cut a piece of wood of suitable thickness for the keel, but cut it deeper and longer than needed.  Carefully glue the keel piece in place to the frames along the midships line fore and aft.
 

 
I find that there’s no need to rebate the keel, as the garboard strake will be fixed to it with a good line of glue; however the bow and stern posts will need to be rebated to provide a landing for the plank ends.  These rebates should be in a little from the inboard edge of the posts.  Again, cut the bow and stern posts wider than required and make them long enough to reach from the feel to the top of the plug.  A small groove is cut in these from the keel end up to the height of the gunwale and both posts are then glued to the keel and the top of the plug, ensuring that they are hard up against the plug.
 
In the first of the following photos you can see the pencil marks where I have marked the stem post for the height of the gunwale and the top of the plug.
 
 


 
 
When the ‘backbone’ of the boat is in place and the glue nicely hardened, planking can commence.
 
.
 
This topic will be concluded in Part 2.
 
John
 

Perhaps a small section of acrylic rod, the ends cut and polished?

I agree with Jim: Greg is very hard on his machine tools!! Thanks for the donation, though, Greg. The new owner will have a machine with a provenance, checkered history and having belonged to a former Famous Owner.

Deckhouse detailing
 
Before heading off on a week and a half vacation there’s a little time for a little detailing.
 
The gun tubs are made out of styrene and the plastic armor belt added:
 

 
The deckhouse front facing piece on the kit provides cut-outs where the sidelights go and the plans show the box in which the lights sit but there is no material or mention of it in the instructions so I think it just fell thru the cracks. Here’s what they looked like on the ship:
 

 
Here’s the start of the modification, the box on the starboard side has had its height increased and it’s depth decreased, the port side is the original:
 

 
 Here’s one side finished, overhangs have been added to the bridge wing deck to cover the outboard ends of stiffener pieces I will add to the underside next:
 


 
Next steps in detailing will be to add the vertical braces between the decks in order to stiffen the currently floppy plastic bridge wings and set their angle and spacing, some stuff on the wings like voice tubes and junction boxes, then move up to the top deck and add the gun tubs and flag bag.

Thank you for explaining as to how you did this and the pictures also. Excellent detail work, it took time but the results are outstanding for sure.

Hello Mark,
 
Sorry for the late replay but my computer (where the pictures were) was broken and it took a while to fix it.
 
Here is a short description on how I did the balusters:
I cut the desired shape in a piece of steel (an used broken knife blade) - you can see the shape in the first picture. On the back I glued a piece of wood the same thickness as the balusters (2mm in my case) at same distance (2mm) from the top of the shaped blade. I also glued two more pieces same thickness to delimit the length of the baluster stock - about 25mm apart. This way the square 2mm stock cut at 25mm length will fit exactly in that space and won't move sideways and its top will be flush with the top of the shaped blade. The whole assembly was hold in a vice. The square pieces of box wood (blanks) were placed in that notch and fixed in position by two small clamps as seen in the second picture. This kept the future baluster from moving back and forth on the next operation - filing the shape.  With several small jeweller files (square, round and trapezoidal) the shape from the blade was filed into the wood. Be careful to keep the file perpendicular on the template and horizontal so to have the same depth of the cuts across. See third picture for the result of this operation. Losses the clamps, remove the baluster, turn it 90 degrees, put it back and fix it with the clamps. Repeat step 6 Repeat step 7 again by turning the blank in the same direction and that's it - you'll have a three sided square section baluster - I only needed them three sided as they were glued on the stern gallery but you can do them four sided if you need. Another tricky part was doing the balusters that were placed at different angles (increasing angles) like those in the last picture.
 
For those first and third sides (side views) were cut (filed) perpendicular on the template but the second (front view) has to be in an increasing angle. In order to do that, the filing of the second side has to be at an angle which required the baluster blanks to be a bit shorter (say 23mm instead of 25). Here are the steps:
 
​place the blank in the jig as before aligned with the left side (future top of balusters). This will produce a small gap (2mm) at the other end. file first side perpendicular as before place the blank exactly as in step one for the second side file de second side in an angle bigger than 90 say about 100 degree (I estimated the angles trying to increase them for subsequent ones by trial and error) considering it from the left side (baluster top). Be careful to du all the "cuts" at the approximately same angle. After scraping several I got the hang of it. unclamp and turn the blank (always in the same direction) but this time it has to be shifted a bit to the right - depending of the angle you did the filing - say 1 mm in this case to be able to align the notches on the second side with those on the template, clamp back. shape the third side perpendicular again as the first one you're done you just have to cut it at the required length to fit the space you need it for.  
Hope this lengthy explanation is clear enough. If not just ask.
 
Regards Alexandru