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  1. I think I mucked up, I thought I was starting a Build Log, but it appears my first Post was in the "Introductions" folder. So I will now try and start a Build Log here. And I'll start again. Hello, my name is Wayne and this is my first Post here, I joined the group a couple of weeks ago. I’m 74 and in Melbourne Australia and I’m currently building the Billings African Queen. And this has been a quest of mine all my life, I saw the movie as a very young boy when my parents went to the Drive In Pictures, around 1953. And I have always remembered different scenes from the movie. So I have now finally got around to building it, and with live steam. And intend to have RC for the steering, I will just let the steam engine chug along. Yea being an open launch I don’t want to have servos etc spoiling the look of the model. I hope to hide a small servo for steering under the rear seat. And the vacuum formed plastic hull will be water tight when on the water. But I’m thinking of planking over the hull, I hope that will be OK. And I must say, the most important tip I picked up while researching the build was to leave the top extra mounding there, not cut it off until the hull internals and deck were completed. I have the ‘Miniature Steam Models’ plant #4034 here to go into the boat. I must thank gjdale, (Grant) for guiding me to that plant, and it looks spot on for the Queen. And MSM are in Melbourne too. Just ordered 2 universals, 5 to 4mm, and a brass prop from ‘Float a Boat’, also in Melbourne, and they were very helpful. Will have to see if I use the Billings prop shaft or have to buy a longer one.
  2. Hello everyone: This log will go back in time a bit, like a lot of my projects this one started roughly twenty years ago. During the early 2000's this tug, the Malaspina Straits, was listed for sale on a used vessel website. With the posting were a few photos of the tug out of the water along with a few drawings. At the time I was quite into 3D modelling and thought that this would be a fun project to make a few renderings of. One thing led to another and the project never did get off of the ground and the files were tucked away. Fast forward to sometime around 2017 and it was suggested that we build a pond at the local museum; the model ship bug bit, at this same time I was realizing that HO scale model trains, while neat, just won't fit my current living arrangements. The ship bug really bit when the missus and I purchased a property with a small pond, and a pond needs a boat so the search was on for a prototype. While organizing some files I stumbled upon the old drawings and photos saved some twenty years prior. A little looking online showed that she was again for sale and a few queries put me onto the naval architect. After making a call to see about getting a set of drawings the architect noted that this was a common request and asked that I mail a cheque to them, but make it out to another independent society that is rebuilding a steam tug, the SS Master. The Master is British Columbia's last surviving wooden hulled steam tug, once I learned that the "fee" for the drawings was going to help with this restoration I couldn't get the cheque book fast enough. Check out the SS Master here: SS Master The Malaspina Straits was launched in 1964 and was one of a group of three ships, the Rasario Straits and the third escapes me at the moment, all built for Straits Towing Ltd. of Vancouver, BC. Considered a hot rod of a tug it was primarily designed for moving chip barges up and down the West Coast of British Columbia. The tug moved around to various owners over the years and was refit a few times, the model that I am building will be per the original drawings. I've never seen the tug myself so can't post any photos of it but here is a link to a page with a bit more detail: Malaspina Straits - Nauticapedia.ca As far as model ships go, I've never built one, at least from scratch however I have turned heaps of styrene into other buildings, trucks and various model railway related things. As I was more familiar with modelling in styrene and as this model will be used in the water styrene felt like a better fit than wood, it may be, it may not be, time will tell. Just after the ugliness of Covid descended upon the world the model got under way, a few 4' by 8' sheets of styrene were purchased from a local supplier and bits started to be cut out...
  3. I’m just starting this new project. Netherlands started WW2 with 23 submarines, split evenly between Netherlands-based and Dutch East Indies based. Seven of these subs were lost. O-13 first saw action in the Spanish civil war escorting ships, and then escaped from Netherlands to England in May 1040 with many other boats. However, already in June 1940 on her second war patrol in the waters between Norway and Denmark she failed to return. To this day the wreck has not been found, but every few years there are searches with newer equipment. The most likely cause of her loss is being struck by a mine in a (now known) minefield along her route, but also attacks by German aircraft and a collision with a Polish sub are remote possibilities. This model will be radio controlled, and the boat will be in-between my Holland-class O-1 (the first sub in the Dutch navy) and the larger K-XVIII which fought the Japanese in Asian waters. Both those models still sail regularly and well. O-13 was part of a class of 4, at 60 meters in length and with underwater displacement of 750 tons she was suitable for coastal waters, but also travelled to the Dutch islands in the Caribbean and the waters around Gibraltar. She had 4 torpedo tubes in the bow, one in the stern, and two 40mm guns retracting into buns. No deck gun was installed and some of the 40mm guns were removed as the class had significant stability issues. I have the original build plans (which can be downloaded freely from the Dutch national archives), but photos, especially dock-photos are relatively rare. I plan to build a traditional plank on frame wooden hull, impregnated with epoxy and coated with woven glass. Inside will be a watertight compartment made up of several connected tubes to house the technology to fill and empty the dive tank, and to control the two props, rudder and diveplanes. I hope to include running lights in the wet area and also attempt to functionalisme the folding forward dive planes visible in the picture. Due to space constraints I will not aim to make moving periscopes and functioning torpedo’s for this model. In the end the model will be 120cm long, 13cm wide at its widest point, likely weigh 3-5kg, and use tubing of 50 and 75 mm diameter as water tight compartment. So far, I’ve been doing rough planning of the location of components, closure means, and rough calculations of the required size of the dive tank to achieve a realistic waterline. I’ve also started to convert the build plans to individual frame drawings (taking into account the thickness of the hull planks (2mm) and the need to mount the frames on a build plank). Needless to say - this will not be a quick build!
  4. Well a very old project of mine started back in 2010. It's been around ever since, working on it on and off until now. It's been bothering me ever since, she's the reason why I don't like to have a shelf of doom with long lasting projects. With every new small scale project I start, she's standing behind me, nagging for attention. As of late I've been busy planning to finally finish her and since the Spartacus project is on hold for the time being, I've slowly restarted construction on Chaconia. At first I built in a continuous period, however the pace slowed down during the detailing phase and eventually I've abandoned it. At first it would be temporary, just to take on a smaller project and finally get something finished, but as you can imagine, then came another "quick" project and another... Sometimes I did put her in the water and did some small jobs, but it never became my main project again. Now I'm intending to promote her again to the main project. So what is she? Chaconia is an LPG tanker, carrying Butane, Propane (or both) or Ammonia. Back in the days, she was mainly used to transport Ammonia from Trinidad (and other places) to the US (Gulf of Mexico area) for fertilizer production. She also brought Ammonia to Chile for production of explosives for the mining industry. She's not the cutest of ships, but back then it sounded like a good idea. In the end, so many years later, I must say that my period onboard that ship was probably, travelling wise, the most interesting voyage I ever did, covering a large part of South and Central America, including Maghellan Strait and Panama Canal passages. Since I didn't have a lot of resources back then, she was built in sub-optimal conditions and I also didn't have any expertise for such a project, having just started scratch-building in small scale ships. I shouldn't have done a project like that as a first large scale scratch build... In any case, she's there now, so I'll need to finish her. I'll bring you up to speed in probably quite a few posts with pictures. Basic construction was a wooden frame and hull, covered with glass fibre. From the start the R/C idea was incorporated and that complicated things. I had seen a lot of R/C projects online, but they were always twin screw warships. Having a straight, single-piece, keel, which wouldn't work for my project. So I had to get a solution. It's also my first- and only- planking job till now. The rudder post in position. Rudder post and propellor shaft spaces created.
  5. My second attempt at building from a kit . . this time the Amati Dorade and I'm going to try my hand at adapting it to a basic radio control for very very occasional gentle pond sailing, so . . Here we go then . . A few years ago at the ripe old age of 70, I bought Model Shipways Bluenose. A real challenge . . totally amazing drawings of the original but a lot of scratch building. (pic 1 attached and build on another forum). This kit comes with Amati's own set of drawings, lots of shiny brass, sail cloth, threads, sheets and bundles of wood. So . . internal framing part glued but not fitted, 'scuppers' rough formed, main cabin started and planked hatch under trial . . . As I've never built anything for R/C I am on a very big learning curve . . so watch this space . . at least for a laugh !
  6. This is my first scratch POF R/C work. I designed the original full-sized 40' LOD MAGIC for my wife and myself as a cruising home and she was professionally built by Bent Jespersen and his crew in Sidney, B.C., Canada. We were fortunate enough to sail her for some 25,000 miles over the course of nearly 20 years. She currently sails out of Maine and the Abacos under her current owner. In November, 2019, I embarked on this project to create a working 1/8th scale model of her. The original 3/4" = 1' scale plans had been digitized and so I took my files to a local copy shop and had them printed at 1-1/2"= 1' (200%). Like many in the forum, progress was not always steady, but we are close to being finished. If the posting of her past photos is acceptable, I will build this blog to bring the project up to date. Photo by Michael Berman Once i figure out to get the next few photo rightside up, I'll continue...
  7. Introduction I have long had a hankering to build a small launch with live steam propulsion. The African Queen seemed to be an ideal choice of subject, however finding a kit to modify proved somewhat elusive. In the end, I settled on the Billings offering in 1:12 scale as it claims to be suitable for Radio Control (albeit using an electric motor). Here is a picture of the box art. The next challenge was finding a steam plant suitable for inclusion in the model. After an exhaustive search, I settled on a complete steam plant from Miniature Steam Models (MSM) in Melbourne, Australia. It is a 2” boiler with the “Avon” twin cylinder double acting oscillating steam engine. The steam plant comes complete with a boiler certificate and the engine is matched to the size of the boiler. For the tech heads, it has an 8mm bore and an 11mm stroke (and it is reversing). Overall, it is very similar in size to the “fake” boiler/engine plant provided in the Billings kit. Here are a couple of pictures of the steam plant as provided from MSM. What’s in the box? The Billings kit is fairly typical of the Billings offerings. The hull is provided as a single-piece vacuum formed ABS mould. The rest of the kit includes a variety of laser cut plywood parts, some strip wood (not particularly high quality), some brass components and some plastic components. As I will not be using the provided boiler/engine parts, a lot of these will be redundant. I was concerned by the apparent flimsiness of the hull, and my plan is to sheath the hull in timber, and then fibreglass over the top of that. To this end, I have obtained some 1mm thick Alaskan Yellow Cedar from Hobby Mill EU to be cut into planks as appropriate. I will also be adding some aftermarket timber for the deck planking, as the kit would have you simple draw planking lines onto the provided plywood. I’m currently in the process of placing an order for this with Hobby Mill EU. Instructions are, I believe, typical of Billings – which is to say, next to useless. This is not a kit for a beginner, although it is marketed as “Advanced Beginner”. We shall have to see whether I have sufficient skills to pull this off – otherwise, there is considerable investment “down the tube”. The Hull Here are a couple of pictures of the ABS hull. As can be seen in the pictures, there is a considerable excess lip around the upper edge. I will need to remove the vertical component of this before I can do anything else. My current plan is to do that, and then fit the internal frames to provide some stiffening before attempting the outer planking. Welcome aboard for what might prove to be an "interesting" journey!
  8. My 1st scratch build. Zwarte zee tug built in 1/75 to match my previous build of Smit Rotterdam. After some indecision I built the internal structure using cheap plywood and 5 x 5mm stripwood. The bow was blocked in using basswood.
  9. The Seguin From the BlueJacket website: “Historic wooden tugboat, 1884. Built in Bath, ME, the Seguin spent her first years towing wooden sailing vessels in the Kennebec River and towing cargo barges along the Atlantic coast. In the early 1900’s, she became a New York harbor tug, finally returning to an active career in Maine until retiring in 1967”. Why I picked this kit I’ve wanted to try my hand at a Radio-Controlled kit, and while there are far easier kits on the market for a RC first - timer I was really attracted by how good this boat looks, so that even if the RC side is a bust, it should still look nice on the shelf. Since this boat will be waterborne it will be a challenge to get her watertight so I will be leaping into fiberglass, or at least resin - I will have to decide that after the hull is planked. RC I will try to remember to put a green “RC” (like at the start of this paragraph) at the beginning of any paragraph dealing with RC or waterproofing related so that those not interested in those parts can eye-scroll past them. References: Build logs, websites and online forums Building the George W. Washburn: regroups.com>forums>boats>scale boats>building the George W. Washburn a decent build log of a Dumas POF steam tug similar to SEGUIN, has some decent waterproofing and RC info RC Deans marine.co.uk RC and waterproofing info scattered about RC Ship modelers.com>technical library RC info RC MSW build logs (not the SEGUIN) that have decent RC and/or fiberglassing info a. gjdale’s 1949 Chris Craft b.mtdoramike’s 1954 Chris Craft Build logs for the BlueJacket kit a. RC rcgroups.com>Seguin by ropanach b. Model Ship World, Seguin 1884 by RVCHIMA great log of a gorgeous build of this kit, if mine turns out half as good as his I will be happy c. shipsofscale.com >forums (note: anyone can view the site but the photos are thumbnails, if you register on the site you can click on them and blow them up to usable size) both of the logs below are useful for pointing out some problems to avoid 1) Seguin by anchorman 2) Bluejacket Seguin by pathfinder69 RC There is a ton of websites you can find by googling “rc boats” or “fiberglassing rc boats” of varied quality and usefulness but worth some time to look around and bookmark the ones you like. Books: RC in Model Boats by John Cundell. Has a photo of the Seguin on the cover (might be the old Laughing Whale kit) Decent book found on Amazon for about $8. About half the book is dedicated to less relevant things like the history of the hobby, how RC clubs work, high speed RC racing boats, etc but it helped give me a better understanding of what to think about when installing RC equipment What’s in the Box? The kit provides 2 large, clear sheets of plans and an instruction book There is an assortment of dowels, strip wood and name board stickers A set of paper flags A bag of Britannia metal fittings, some sheet brass and a little photo-etch brass There is a fair amount of laser-cut wood of various thicknesses and pre-scribed deck planking material There is also some very detailed laser cut wood of 2 different types of wood that give the deckhouse its unique look. Next post I will show the RC equipment I ordered for this build
  10. Good morning all, I want to share with you an alternative nice way for caulking the deck of your model ship. I used this technique for the Fifie as you can read by the thread title, but I think the best use case would be for modern era Yacht or similar. I chose this technique because this type of sealant (used in real ships) helps sealing the whole deck as this is an RC model. Precautions is never enough eheh 😁... In any case, I hope it will be useful for people out there building big scale yachts, modern ship or just want to try a new technique ⛵ Here is the link to the full video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CybjsdaI1J8
  11. I am about to begin building my first scratch boat. I was looking for a sailing boat kit that I could add RC to. There are some in the Krick range and I nearly plumped for Ariadne, but was wavering at the required skill level and cost when my son suggested building a model of our old boat that we had when they were kids. Brilliant! I knew where to get plans and have an intimate knowledge of every detail I'll need to pull this off. I contacted some old pals in the Trident Owners Association and within a day, had full lines, construction, section, sail-plan and other original drawing scans. They are at the scale 1.5 inch : 1 foot (1:8). The boat is 24 ft LOA so after converting that to metric, I'm going to end up with a model around 940mm LOA. I think that will be ideal to house RC and for her to sail in reasonable winds. I'll need the equivalent of 760 Kg of ballast in the stub keel (94 Kg to scale..I assume mass has the same ratio as linear measurements when converting for a model ? ) the rest of the 5 tonne displacement will need to come from the construction materials, RC and running gear, batteries and probably some lead shot in strategic places. The original boat was GRP with plywood bulkheads fore and aft of the deck-stepped mast and fwd of the transom. I'll add frames at most stations from something like 12*5 mm strips. The point of the bow fwd of the accommodation will be solid balsa. I'll plank with whatever is reasonable and available at the time, then cover the hull in several layers of fibreclass cloth and resin... at least they are the sketchy current plans.. Lara was 91 out of 248 Tridents built. Sadly the person I sold her to, abandoned her and she just rotted away as far as I know. I am actually still trying to find her after a last sighting 'in a sorry state' 10 years ago. Whatever the outcome, Lara will live on in this model. It isn't going to be a quick build I'm still working in parallel on a CUX 87 kit, I work full time and have a family, so don't expect many updates for a while. Plans and photos attached. sections.pdf 1974marconbrochure.pdf linesmall.pdf
  12. This winter I’m working on a “grandfather” repair and renewal project. My grandfather was shipbuilding engineer, and was drafted in WW1, spending the war in neutral Netherlands on one of the fortresses of the defence of Amsterdam. That’s where my last project came from. From the 1920s until the end of WW2 he worked in Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) for a shipping company. In 1947 after repatriation to Netherlands he filed a patent on a method to launch a lifeboat from a davit through a clever use of a pivot. Two crewmembers each rotated a handle over 180 degrees, which swings out the lifeboat, descending slightly under its own weight. Then lines are slipped to defend it to the sea. To help him sell the patent, he had a demo model built, published an article in a trade journal, and even made a “cartoon movie” from a set of cards to show the operation. I think about a dozen ships were equipped with the system. The demo model survived the past 75 years or so, but was in somewhat of a state when I received it from a cousin before Xmas. The boat is solid. Just needed a paintjob but is unsuitable for radio control. My plan has three phases - repair the model - build a RC controlled new lifeboat to be launched from it - possibly make the Davit RC as well the repair was fairly straight forward, involved re-soldering the brass and copper past, new paint job and polishing up the blocks and brass parts. in the last photo, the solid wood boat is half painted, I decided to make a new boat using “plank on frames”. The new boat will be slightly shorter with room for a rudder, and will have a prop obviously. To obtain a plan of the frames, I marked out frames on the keel of the boat model, and used a home made measuring device to measure out the shape of each frame. from that I drew the frames on a 7mm pine plank, and the keel on another one (slightly shorter and with opening for the prop). also the planks themselves were sawed from pinewood, and I’ve just started mounting the frames and keel on a build plank for planking. TBC…
  13. RS1 Colin Archer, named for her designer / builder, was launched in 1893 in Larvik, Norway. The model, 1:15, is being kit built for Radio Control. The kit is by Billing Boats in Denmark. I wanted to build an RC boat and this one has a special appeal because Colin Archer also designed and built Leon, a 302 ton brigantine in 1880. I scratch built a model of Leon at 1:48. She now sits in a museum in Larvik dedicated to Colin Archer. Her build is described in forum "Build logs for subjects built 1851 - 1900". RS1 Colin Archer, after 40 years of very successful rescue operations saving many Norwegian fishermen, is now owned by the Norwegian Maritime Museum in Oslo. She is maintained and sailed at vintage ship gatherings in Northern Europe by the Colin Archer Cutter Club. The kit models her after the rescue years as she did not have an auxiliary engine until after she 'retired'. This picture is from the box top of the kit. On the way to being ready for planking, the hull is 37" long. Sparred she will be 50" long (62.5'), 54" high (67.5') with a 13" beam (16.25').
  14. At this point I'm setting up a temporary rigg so I can test the winches before I go further. I'm waiting for the winches and the submersible brushed motor delivery. So I need the motor before I start working on the keel. I did some tests with the cannons to give them a good patina. Ammonia vapors worked the best, salt and vinegar not so much.
  15. Hi all, after the original forum, where I started posting our build log, has become very silent, I hope to find a more interested audience here! I have been persuaded by my son, then 8, to build a wooden model ship (he had been inspired by seeing a wooden model of a Minoan galley, shown in a excavation museum found on the Greek island of Paros - a reconstruction based on murals 3800 years old). As we were reading a book on Francis Drake at the time, it had to be a sailing ship of roughly that area, of course remote controlled, of course with functioning cannons, and reefing sails was also a desired feature. A good friend of ours builds cardboard models, he gave me a cardbord model kit for the Papegojan from 1624, scale 1:98 - the plans of which I stretched by 320% (such it will just fit into the trunk of our car - and the bigger, the better for real sailing). Our model measures ~1200mm from stern to tip of the bowsprit, and displaces 9.6 kg. Also, we changed the name to "Zeta", and made some minor modifications to the original, as preferred by my son. Apart from that, we have tried to stick as much as possible to historical correctness as possible - with some small compromises to allow radio controlled sailing - I will point these out. For sailing, all sails will be contolled as in the original, with the help of bracing winches (I hope this it the correct English term). Sails also allow reefing, not fully historically acurate, for reasons of mechanical implementation, but more or less close to it. Cannons can be fired remotely, and are also planned to allow running in and out of the ship, gun ports opening and closing respectively. At this time, the hull and all details are complete, so is the rigging - what is missing are the bracing/reefing reels to complete the sail steering unit; the mechanical and software part for cannon control, and the lead ballast. Here are some teaser pictures: if you are interested in a detailed build log (we learned a lot on our journey), let me know, and I will translate the original log (in German) and continue posting here! (As this is our first model, and there were many things we did not initially know about model making as well as about historical sailing ships, we have created a comprehensive log with a lot of explanations, as I felt the relevant information did not exist in a single place elsewhere.) Greetings from Vienna, Austria, -Roman
  16. Starting my build of the Boston Typhoon. I'am not showing the kits content since it can be found in my review of the kit earlier here on MSW. Here we go, the moulded Hull has just been arrived on the workshop table ! It has been washed with soap and rinsed with water to remove any residue may remaining from the moulding process. I will start with the usual activities like building the cradle and sanding and filling some rough spots and dips on the outer hull, etc. More to come!
  17. Most of my modeling history is with railroad subjects. Last week, my Cousin was helping a family after a death and they had a Billing BB588 African Queen. Not knowing what to do with it, they intended to throw it away. My Cousin saw it to be worthwhile, brought it home, then gave it to me. I've had a long time casual interest in Marine models, but never broke ground on the hobby. So here I have one. It is, "built." I'd say the builder's skills, on a scale of 1 to 10, were about a 6 or 7. He made it live steam. Obviously, he intended to do that from the outset, as most/all of the plastic boiler pieces are still in the original box I got with it. Also some laser cut thin plywood pieces, still not punched out. Deck is highly modified, and I have mixed feelings about that. OTH, he probably needed to do something to have room for the live steam components. There appear to be 3 servos installed, below deck apparently, I haven't gotten to them yet. One for whistle, one for rudder and one for.....throttle? I looked for a long time to try to identify the twin vertical steam engine. I think I found what it is but don't have that brand name in front of me. In the box has the full size drawings and the assembly manual. I also got a couple mysterious metal, "tanks," and a couple other items. It would be really helpful if any of you could identify what components I have. I intend to try to do something with it. I'm thinking if I could be sure everything was lubed and, "free," the drive train and engine might turn over with low air pressure. (?????) I've yet to, "mess with it," until I can learn what I'm doing. I'll try to post photos here now, as that is the only way anyone can determine what's going on. Thanks for comments, Dennis in E WA state.
  18. I intend to make a model of a 6 meter barge/sailboat that my grandfather designed and built when stationed during WW1 on a fortress of the Dutch “water defensive lines” around Amsterdam. As the Netherlands (thanks to this defensive line of fortresses) remained neutral in WW1, the troops stationed there had much time on their hands. My grandfather was studying shipbuilding at Delft engineering school when he was called up into the army. in attached article (which first appeared in 1914 in magazine “de watersport” which went out of business in 1937) he describes building a footferry that doubles as sailboat on the shallow canals and lakes surrounding the fort. the name of the fortress (and his own name) were withheld in the article! I would like to build a radio controlled model of this “boat” if I can. At first glance, at 6meter long, 0,7meter long, and 0,25meter high (freeboard plus draft), the boat could be quite unstable. Masts are not that high (3 meter), and sails not that big, but it’s nearly a canoe! At 1:5 scale it would be easy to transport (150 cm long), but still very narrow (14cm) and shallow (5cm). I’m estimating the allowed weight including ballast at 1:5 to be about 2 kg. Given the design, I don’t thing a deep “central false keel” with lead bulb (as I did on Corsaro 2) would work on this boat and I need to put most of that weight into the sword and rudder. Any thoughts on scale, stability, tricks and tips are very much appreciated before I get going!! Hope the attachment is readable, here are some of the images Sailboat - Ferry WW1 -english.docx
  19. Good morning all, This is my first post in here - my account has just been approved, so I'm going to try and start off with something I've just finished...and we'll see how this works. Long story long - (as this always is with me) I was asked by a friend if I could help make him a 3D printed ship to go with his railway layout. So, we bantered back and forth about that, and he settled upon wanting a Liberty Ship. There being a set of free plans for it available on thingiverse, I downloaded, scaled, and started printing. Liberty Ship (RC) - Revision 5 by JohnButtery - Thingiverse Thing is, I had just bought a second 3D printer (a Prusa) that let me scale it to 1/88 because it had a slightly larger build plate than my older printer...so I built my friend's on the prusa, and while it was spitting out parts, I set my older printer to knocking together a 1/96 scale version (that would fit on its build plate) and so, for basically about 3 weeks, my printers were running continuously popping out parts. Here's a 'partially done' picture: And here are the two hulls complete: As you can see in the lower photo, I also assembled and collected some hardware/running gear. The original 3D model was fairly basic, and was scaled to about 1/160, so some of the 'detail' bits were lacking when scaled up a bit. My buddy is a former RCN Weapons Tech (he fixed the 76mm OTO Meleras on our destroyers) so I spent some time modifying, then creating entirely new detailed guns and other bits to improve the models. I uploaded most of those extra bits to Thingiverse, and here is the list of all the models that are available associated to this in case anyone wants to print one of these 'kits' as well: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4411101 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5259865 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5259056 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5274078 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5258022 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5259571 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5274077 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5259970 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5334214
  20. Hi all, After completion of my submarine Auguste Piccard, I started on my long delayed Corsaro 2. I bought the kit about 12 years ago from a model shop that went out of business. Price on the box is 288 UKP, but I bought it in Holland for less. Looks complete but someone made some pencil scribbles in the manual before returning it. I intend to make it radio-controlled. Never built a sailboat before but I understand I will need to build light (I.e. take weight out of the hull where possible), likely need a deep add-on keel with lead bulb, enlarged rudder, and much more I don’t know about yet. Started sawing out the insides of most of the frames and the keel”plate”, before mounting the frames. One of the difficulties with this model is the curved deck needing to be glued to the frames right away. So access to the interior is very difficult. I cut out the deck under the deckhouse, and will make the deckhouse detachable. I did think of putting a first coat of varnish on the frames and keel before planking, and ensuring water coming into the hull can find its way to the lowest point. Then started planking the hull. The manual is short but highlights the important steps such as planing the frames and adjusting the width of the planks. also made sure I drilled out a cavity for the rudder-“axle”. The wooden keel and rudder seen here need work much later but I can mount a “sailing keel” on it later. Both are of course not attached yet. so after about a week the hull has a first planking. Instead of the second planking, I intend to sand - epoxy - putty - and cover the hull with glass-fabric and epoxy. That requires some time, stuff to be ordered, and anyway, the holiday is over. Later more. All suggestions of course welcome!
  21. IMPORTANT NOTE: This build log is a title change from the previous title "Arduino Rowing Mechanism for RC Galley". The log was originally opened to record my progress on making a servo-driven mechanism to move banks of oars in a realistic manner, for the purposes of building an RC Roman galley, propelled by her oars, at 1/32 scale. An Arduino "Uno" interfaces to the RC Rcvr and four servos which drive the oars on two sides, with author-written software to control the oars according to the "throttle" and "rudder" signals from the Rc Transmitter. Software was developed using the Arduino "Integrated Development Environment" (IDE) and a prototype test jig containing several oars per side. The log got pretty long in the end; readers interested only in the actual ship development should jump to post 164 on pg 6, bypassing the tangled history of the software and rowing mechanism development. Those who might be interested can read the initial pages. *************************************************************************************************************************************** *************************************************************************************************************************************** START OF ORIGINAL BUILD LOG: Lately I have become interested in ancient Greek and Roman galleys, and have been toying with the idea of making one for RC. When I saw Richard Braithwaite's demo mechanism I became even more intrigued with the idea. As opposed to using electric motor(s) and some sort of mechanical drive with pulleys and chains I thought a better way might be to use hobby servos for the job; one servo driving the forward/backward sweep and a second driving the up/down motion of the oar loom beam (per side). And rather than having a four channel set and continuously twiddling the sticks to make the oars row, it seems an ideal application for an Arduino microcontroller running custom software. In this scheme, the Receiver output servo signals for "throttle" and "rudder" are connected directly to, and read by, the Arduino. The rudder signal is also connected to the rudder servo via a y-harness. Arduino software controls the four oar drive servos. This servo-driven scheme has several advantages over electric motor mechanical drive: (1) Since software is driving all four servos, it is simple to keep them all moving in sync, whether going forward, backward, or reversing oars on one side during a turn, at any given speed, (2) Software can use the "rudder" input to decide when to move the two sides differently; for example a slight course correction can be ignored (by the oar servos); a middling rudder angle could halt the oars in the water on the inside of the turn; a large rudder angle could reverse the oars on the inside of the turn (while keeping the start and end of the stroke synchronized on both sides). (3) When slow speed is desired, the software can shorten the stroke as opposed to an electric motor drive which still executes a full stroke making it look like the oarsmen are stretching right out and pulling back, all in slow motion. (4) Software can provide a slight pause at the end of each power and return stroke, as would occur naturally as the oarsmen absorb then reverse the inertia of the oars. (5) Software can make the return portion of the stroke faster than the power portion to better represent actual rowing. The shape of the overall stroke is formed by the dynamic relative movements of the sweep and lift servos; any shape can be formed, eg rectangular, oval, eliptical, circular, by performing a bit of math in software to calculate the next servo position writes. In short, the oars can be made to do whatever one wants, and is capable of writing code for. I decided to build a test jig for code development. Each side of the jig has 5 oars in a bireme arrangement; I'm thinking of making either a Quadrireme (88 oars in two remes of 22 each side), or a sextere (120 oars in two remes of 30 each side). See Michael Pitassi's book "Roman Warships". Here are a few photos....... Each side's "platform" slides on two Slim-Line drawer slides which only occupy 3/8" of vertical space. Much less than ServoCity's X-beam with mini rollers etc which was my first idea. The vertical chunks of wood at the platform ends are dadoed to let the oar beam slide up and down; the ends of the oar beams I wrapped in packing tape to make them "slippery". In an actual model I'd replace these with ServoCity's SS shafts and linear bearings. The dummy oars pass through a "hull section" which defines the spacing between the two remes' "tholes". Here we see the two servos which drive the platforms back and forth. Here we can just see the two servos which drive the oar beams up and down. Here is the Arduino board, and a prototyping board which will be mounted on it and contain connectors for the receiver inputs, servo outputs, etc. My simple two-channel RC set can only drive one side right now, without the Arduino. Tried to upload a video but no joy; will try again later.
  22. CONVERTING RMS TITANIC TO HMT OLYMPIC. Using the 1/200 Trumpeter RMS Titanic as the base kit. Acknowledgements. The vast majority of the source data I used were taken from the Titanic CAD Plans website, created by Dr. Bob Read. Sadly, the operation has been permanently closed, but the site is still available as a research center. If you purchased any of the Olympic plans when they were available, I would like to get some information off them, because the thumbnails on the site are too small for me to see some of the details. Caveats. This is just a construction log; historical information is available all over the place, so I will only discuss them as they relate to building the model. Also, I am not attempting to rebuild the Trumpeter kit from the keel up. To me, it is perfectly fine for what I am doing. If you are wanting to 100% "accurize" the kit, like correcting the stern hull plates, etc., I recommend visiting 1/200 Titanic Builders Group on Facebook. This kit has upgrade detail products available out the ying yang. I have no vested interest in any of these products, but I will describe what I used and why. HMT OLYMPIC. Below is a photo of Olympic in camouflage scheme, 19A. She is underway at around her full speed of 23 knots, with a full load of troops. She is in battle-ready condition, with lifeboats swung out and her complement of (6) 6" guns manned and ready (the aft two are visible on the poop deck.) She is also flying the white Royal Navy battle ensign from her aft mast. This scheme was applied in 1917 and sometime in 1918 it was changed to 19Ax. Note that the canvas is removed from ALL of the lifeboats: it was a lesson learned by the sinking of Britannic that she might be needed to offload her entire complement of approximately 4,000 souls in less than one hour! Of particular interest to me is the two long booms swung out near the forward well deck. I believe these are for handling lines to operate the paravanes, but if you have other ideas, please comment.
  23. While waiting for some parts to finish Project X I started my next project. It is the Robbe Dusseldorf Fire Boat. I was lucky enough to find an old Robbe kit with almost all of the extras one could acquire for this model. It came with the Robbe Navy-Kompackt geared motors, the two accessory kits to embellish the model and animate the Fire Monitors, that were not supplied with the kit, the water pump, the miniature motors for the radar and anchor, and all of the sound generators. The condition of the rest of the contents is immaculate, no plywood warpage and in excellent condition. If I were to make one criticism, the die cut plywood sheets have just been lightly embossed with no cutting action at all. These parts are easily removed using the scroll saw. A real pleasure to become the owner. This will be a complete build with all the bells and whistles (LOL). For those who are familiar with the Fire Boat, the finished model is quite impressive. Most of the functionality is controlled using Robbe Multiswitch devices of which I still have a nice assortment. My F-14 has been converted to 2.4GHZ using the RIPMAX TM-24 module but I am disappointed with it in that there are very few receivers that will work with it. I am going to convert to the JETI TU2 TX module which is a perfect addition to the F-14. It will also be fitted with a JETI Box. It will work with most of the JETI R# receivers. Looking forward to this. To get started, the hull was drilled with all the necessary holes for the anchor tubes, the rudders, motor stuffing boxes and water intake for the fire monitors. The usual deck support strips were added and 2 x 2mm strips added to the outside of the hull. These will hold the rubbing strips which have a 2 x 2mm groove cut in them for mounting. The two motors have been bolted to the support bulkhead and it has been placed into the hull for fitting only. Permanent installation after the hull is painted. Painting will be done in the next few days. With all of the detail and animation, this is going to be a fun build. Until next time, IR3
  24. After struggling with restorations on several kits, it just turned out to take much to much time and very little progress was made. I have several Marten, Howes, Baylis kits and decided that building a kit with high quality materials and excellent instructions accompanied by photographs was the next thing to do. I chose a project the Brian Marten and Liz Howes made available in 2019. It is their Project X. It is a prototypical concept that M and H designed to represent a fast commuter launch of length 50 feet. Its in 1:12 scale with a length of 50" and a beam of 7". With the steam plant installed it has a freeboard of about 2.85" so for steaming purposes it will remain in a very calm pond or swimming pool. The Steam Plant is by Martin Baylis custom built for this project. It is a very nice Triple Expansion Steam Engine with a Kingdon boiler. First cabin if you will pardon the expression!. I will start out with a few pictures of the unboxing and checkout of the bits and pieces. The hull is magnificent. It will be a very simple process to smooth the bulwarks and finish the outer hull. The rest of the contents are machine cut sheets of various thicknesses and woods as necessary for the various structures in the model. Also and appropriate amount of strip woods of various sizes along with several wire sizes. There are very nice fittings and a prop along with assembled rudder assembly. The instruction manual is very clear and it is supplemented with pictures showing every step of the assembly process down to installation of steam plant and position of radio components. This is going to be a pleasure to build. It is the perfect area to post a build thread as there is a significant amount of wood work and finishing that needs to be done and the MSW is the place to go for the expertise. Here are some pictures and the first build update will be the display stand. Until next time, IR3
  25. I thought this would be a good time to dust off this great kit, Revell's "America", circa 1969 edition. The hull is cast in black plastic and the sails are more usable than the vacuform sails that are in the newer released kit version. The surface detail is fantastic, both on the hull and decks. The scale is not perfect and it is not 1/56 scale...not even close...it is 1/61ish and the boat is 1/4 inch too narrow on the beam. Still, it's close enough that it is still pleasing to the eye. The instructions state that the model can be sailed on a pond (as a free-sailor) if certain steps are taken, so adding some radio gear should make it that much more fun! Instructions for free-sailing are vague on making this happen, but two steps are clearly stated. One step in making this a pond boat is to add 15 ounces of a birdshot/modeling clay mixture to the bilge from stem to stern. This is great news... you could put all the radio gear you need for sail and rudder control and still have to add lead ballast to come up to 15 ounces. The other is adding the furnished clip-on fin that attaches to the keel to help tracking and minimize leeway. I'm going to improve the sailing characteristics by following suit, but with a larger copper fin that will help by putting more weight lower and improve handling. I know this is a deviation from the prototype, but the model is too small to rely on just the hull. Also, I'm going to use as much of the kit parts as possible, but will bend the rules for ease of sailing/building sake. In other words, this should be a fun build. Before welding the hull half's together, it's a good time to paint the interior bulwarks white. Rattle-can primer and color coats for this. Taping was tedious but pays off when peeled away. This would be harder to do if the half's were joined, but still possible. The plastic parts respond very well to solvent (a medium hot type was bought at Tap Plastics) and are almost impossible to separate after it cures...about 5 minutes! This is one of the attractions of building this model, the ability to weld everything together with solvent. The cap rail is painted a rich brown to simulate Mahogany. I'm using artist oil paints for most of the detail and though it takes a long time to dry, I really like the results. Joe
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