Zebulon B Vance by ESF - FINISHED - Dean's Marine - 1:96 - PLASTIC - RADIO

[cog]

Interesting build => ongoing interest

besides, there is always something new to learn

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Carl, I hope I'll show something novel from time to time.

 

Steve

 

After much thinking and reading I started on the main deck starboard cabin walls.  The instructions call for placing, but not gluing the main deck, and ensuring the sheer is maintained.  Tape pulls the hull sides together and clothespins press the deck to the perimeter support beam.  Each cabin strip is then fitted to the sheer.  The pins and tape were removed for the photos.  

The bases of the wall strips are anchored with the flat support strips placed previously.  Small triangles  provide additional stiffness.

The view forward shows one of the door lobbies.  The laser layout line in the deck generally locates the lobbies, but is not entirely accurate, relative to the cabin wall strip length

Each door lobby consists of two side return walls and one wall across the back with laser lines for door locations; and is backed up at each corner with two support strips.  If you look closely you can see how I had to adjust the right lobby return wall placement since the layout line left the cabin wall strip a millimeter short.  Fortunately the door lobby back walls are sufficiently wide to allow trimming to fit.

 

In between thinking and fitting the cabin walls I painted a few doors to match the hull color, for later positioning over the location tabs within the hull sides port and starboard.

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Steve

 

Fall leaf cleanup, travel, the replication required for each step and a maddening do-over took their toll on visible progress the past few weeks.

To keep the door lobby sides perpendicular while the glue takes an initial set I used some scrap wood as mini-clamps finger-pressed together.

I took several breaks during the cabin wall installation to work on the doors.  After painting and highlighting the door faces I removed them from the carrier sheet, secured them to tape strips and highlighted the edges with light gray, followed by a coat of Dullcote.

The boat deck sits on top of the main deck cabin walls.  Before painting the cabin walls and main deck i thought I should check the fit of the two boat deck sheets so I could sand the wall tops and the boat deck sides if needed.  Then disaster struck.

When I placed the aft boat deck sheet there was a 5 mm gap on both sides between the deck edge and the promenade walls, which extended several inches (sorry for mixing metric and Imperial) on each side.  Was the gap due to a poorly lasered deck, a mismatch between the main and boat deck sheets, a construction problem or something else?  In an effort to pull the hull sides closer to the boat deck I excised another bit out of the the rudder servo support beams, pulled the sides together and held them in place with tape while I sistered new wood strips alongside each beam.  Unfortunately the closure was excessive and put strain on the hull, which in turn gradually stretched the tape and broke the bond between one servo support perimeter beam and the hull.  I had to reduce the compression of the sides and reposition the sisters to allow the perimeter beam to be reattached to the hull.

 

Compounding the misery I thought I should narrow the aft cross hull support beam so I trimmed 10 mm from one end, pulled the sides together and re-glued it.  Unfortunately I removed the tape too soon and when I came into the shop the next day I discovered that the glue, which looked to be hardened, had stretched enough to return the cross beam to its original position.  While it felt solid I decided to add a new cross beam adjacent to it.

 

With the hull sides in the position that felt most comfortable for them I turned my attention back to the main and boat decks.  The narrower hull necessitated sanding both sides of the main deck.  When I did that I discovered that the boat deck gap was not only gone, but the boat deck slightly overlapped the promenade walls in a few spots.  More sanding created a good fit.

 

The lesson learned (again) is that a millimeter here and a fraction of an inch there can add up, and if you are not careful you may make adjustments to something that didn’t need adjusting in the first place.

The boat deck is finally fitted.  Now it can be removed so I can continue work on the main deck.

An aft cabin will be constructed on the main deck under the boat deck overhang.

The main deck forward wall is test fitted, thankfully without incident.  The layout lines are for the air conditioning room.

 

[Kevin]

good recovery, hopefully she has now got the correct shape and allow progress with-out any more setbacks

[cog]

Ah yes the metric, and imperial measurement systems, you could have added the Japanese system (shakkanhō) too, a Shaku here, a Bu there ...

 

marvelous save. I'm glad you kept the hull in one piece, and your deck attached to it. The details on your door will be visible from a distance, which I like for an RC, else you might as well have left them in a single colour ... I might have made myself a new aft boat deck from some 3mm ply ... I wouldn't want to take the risk you took. It usually turns out the other way with me ...

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Carl and Kevin, thanks for your support and encouragement.

 

Steve

Each door lobby, and all outside corners elsewhere calls for rounding off.  I fashioned a sanding block with a curved recess.  Sandpaper was anchored with the round file clamped in place while the spray glue dried.  Photos below show in action and a slightly blurry result.

 

While pondering how best to mask the promenade openings for painting them white on the exterior I had second thoughts about the inside face above the line of the bulwark.  Since the promenade openings were added during the transition from Liberty ship to hospital it seems reasonable to assume the upper promenade area would have started out white rather than gray.  Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, so I masked to allow painting both the inside and outside promenade face.  About 4 hours worth of taping and fiddling and another half hour to paper and tape the hull interior which doesn’t show in the pic.

 

Can anyone fill me in on the two different door styles?  The white door, which you have seen before is shown for cabin doors.  The metal door is listed as watertight, and the molded yellow door just says door.  The instructions and build photos are a little vague.  If there is a rhyme or reason as to the use for each type (other than the white doors) please chime in.  And by the way, do I have the doors right side up?  I'm assuming the round covers are over portholes.

 

[Tom in NC]

Carl:

 

I'm new to Model Ship World and have been rummaging around through all of the build logs.  I stopped to review yours, not because I'm interested in this sort of ship, but because I live about 1-1/2 miles from Zebulon Vance's birthplace just outside of Weaverville, NC.  It's nicely maintained by the state, and Zebulon's claim to fame was that he was the first governor of this state.  Your descriptions and photos of your work are great, and I'll soon be starting my own re my build of the Cutty Sark.  You've given me some good ideas re how to do that.

 

All best,

Tom in NC

[mtaylor]

Steve.

Except for that lone door on the extreme right, the rest all appear to watertight doors.  Those little angled bits at each side look like "dogs" to me which lock the door into the watertight position.   The round covers would be portholes.  

[cog]

Tom, Mark,

 

you'd better answer Steve's question, it's his log <oeps>

[schooner]

Very interesting build Steve. I'm working on BlueJacket's Liberty ship and it is intriguing to see what is the same on this version.

I'm going to watch your RC work closely since you have given me some food for thought. I live on a lake and may take the RC plunge myself for something different.

[John Allen]

Steve,

 

Just caught your build  excellent,  fascinating story.  Stories like these ought to history 101 in high schools "LEST WE FORGET"

[mtaylor]

7 hours ago, cog said:

Tom, Mark,

 

you'd better answer Steve's question, it's his log <oeps>

Oops... my bad.  Lost track of the names... I'll go to the naughty bench.

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Carl, thanks for the redirect.  You’re welcome to take some credit for any good stuff.  You’ve been with me from my maiden voyage with the Bowdoin.

 

John Allen, I agree that some of the lesser known, but important parts of our history deserve more recognition.

 

Schooner, I looked at Bluejacket’s Liberty ship for a possible kit bash to a war bride ship.  I really liked the kit but with only one build behind me I felt I do not have the skill yet.

 

mtaylor, thanks for your feedback.  Since they are all watertight doors I'll need to figure out which openings would be likely to have portholes.

 

Tom in NC, the Vance was originally constructed in North Carolina.  The conversion to hospital ship was in Boston, and the quicky retrofit for war bride use was in Brooklyn.

 

Steve

 

The instructions recommend setting the railing stanchions using a “heat sink” method, wherein you heat up the stanchion by resting a soldering iron tip against it, while holding and pushing down on the stanchion with tweezers (it’s too hot to finger hold).  Since there are 600 of them I figured anything is worth trying.  I made a test with a stanchion snipped from the PE sheet, and found that after a few seconds the hot stanchion point melted the plastic just enough to slide down into it.  As soon as the iron was removed the plastic hardened and made a nice stiff joint.  The goober on the plastic is where I accidentally touched it with the hot iron tip.  The photo below shows how the stanchion penetrated the plastic.  The last photo is the 30W soldering iron.  The pointed tip was just enough to heat the stanchion without melting it.

Now I have to figure out how to make a jig so I can pre-assemble railing sections so I’m not trying to thread wire through the installed stanchions.  Suggestions are welcomed.

 

[ESF]

Just thinking, I'll have to test a painted stanchion and a painted deck.  I'm guessing the iron tip will scorch the paint, but touch ups may be a tradeoff for not having to paint the entire assembly in place.

[lmagna]

Hi Steve

One method you might try is to determine the spacing between stanchions and drill the required size holes in a scrap piece of wood. Place the stanchions in the holes, string the rails through the holes in the stanchions flux and solder everything together. Remove, lay on a flat surface and clean then again place the assembled railings in the jig and paint. When dry place the assembly on the ship and melt into place. You only need to hold the soldering iron on the very top of the stanchion and the amount of damage to the painted surface will be minimal or even nonexistent. This also eliminated most or all of the need to hold the stanchion with tweezers or needle nose pliers that act as heat sinks as you can hold the assembly rather than the single stanchion. This will decrease the time needed to sink the stanchion into place.

[cog]

Lou beat me to it Steve. You can build entire sections that way. If you silver solder the railings, you do not even have to fear for melting the soldered joints, since your iron won't be able to melt the silver solder ...

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Carl and Lou, thanks for your suggestions.  I’ll try them going forward.  You mentioned soldering - for something this small what do you use for solder/paste?  I’ve done a lot of soldering, but mostly with lead solder on copper pipe and a few areas to join wires.  What do you use for a tiny torch?  Could CA be used in lieu of soldering?

I made test 2 of the heat sink experiment, before seeing the comments above, and after putting a coat of paint on the plastic “deck” and the stanchion.  The ragged railing holes are because the paint covered the holes as it was drying and I reamed them out a bit with wire.  The tweezer nose pliers did act as a heat sink, resulting in a paint burnout where the pliers gripped the stanchion.  There was also a little bubbling of the paint in the immediate area of the penetration.

Collateral damage occurred when I touched the barrel of the iron rather than the handle.  While painful it gave me a good idea of the amount of heat being generated in a very small area.  The paint burnout at the pliers makes me believe I’ll need something well insulated if I try to hold a railing section while heat sinking it.  I’m a bit concerned about pushing from the top rather than near the base since the stanchion is not round and bends in the narrow plane quite easily.

 

I’m thinking the process might be:

• Build and subassemblies using a jig as suggested by Lou and Carl.
• Grip stanchion in the smallest area possible to minimize burnout
• Apply tip of iron close to base of stanchion to shorten the heat travel to the insertion point, but not so close the paint can’t be touched up without mucking up the deck
• Touch up paint at gripping and iron points

Alternatively I could dispense with the pliers and use some insulated gloves but I’m uncertain whether I can manipulate such a small piece while wearing them.

[mtaylor]

Ouch... I know that smarts.

 

Maybe paint after soldering and installation if you can?  

[lmagna]

Here is a possible modification for you Steve.

 

Sorry that I didn't think of the silver solder heat range difference that Carl pointed out, but I almost never bothered with silver solder finding standard solder fully adequate for work like this.

 

If you assemble the stanchion/railing assemblies using brass wire for the railings instead if using a set of needle nose pliers use a stick like an icecream stick of whatever fits that is wider than it is thick. Cut a 1 or 2 mm slot into the stick that will allow the stanchion to fit into the slot while either side rests on the railing wire . Keep the slot as small as possible to allow the stanchion to fit with as small a gap as you can and still be able to place and remove it easily.

 

Then when it is time to place the stanchions you can place the "Fork" stick on the stanchion at the middle or even lower rail and hold it with downward pressure while applying heat to the lower portion of the Stanchion. The wood would not form a heat sink while it should allow you to have pretty good control in the area being heated. There is little need to worry about the solder melting at the stanchion you are working on as everything will be held pretty much in place with the other already soldered stanchions up and down the assembly.  As soon as you remove the heat everything at that stanchion will almost instantly become solid again as the solder cools.

 

BTW grabbing the hot end is HIGHLY advised against. The best treatment in my opinion is to run cold water over the burn for several minutes even after it starts feeling better. Sometimes they hurt even worse on the next day! (There is little need to ask why I know this)

Edited November 19, 2018 by lmagna

[cog]

2 hours ago, lmagna said:

There is little need to ask why I know this

Is there ...?

 

A pair of flat beaked plieers would do the trik, saves time not making the jig ... I prefer this type when doing jobs like the stanchion one:

 

gives you some more space to work with the iron ...

Edited November 19, 2018 by cog

[lmagna]

7 hours ago, cog said:

Is there ...?

If you consider where the information come from then it is pretty obvious that it almost has to be first hand experience.

 

The use of the "forked" stick, while possibly not as handy as a pair of pliers like you show is not a heat sink and will not be all that intrusive to the working area while heating the stanchion. I would probably use the pliers also, even better would be a pair of tweezers as they would have less surface area to act as a heat sink, but Steve seemed to be having issues with paint damage and heat transfer so I suggested an alternative that I thought might help.

[cog]

I think I'd rather go for painting aftwerwards. although I do not use the heated stanchion method, I still paint afterwards ... I know ... my build is somewhat smaller ... a lot when I see those stanchions. However, on the Smit Rotterdam & Nederland I did paint the stanchions afterwards ...

[lmagna]

I would have liked to see your Smit Nederland. I have built the 1/200 kit and it made a nice beatle size model. Then I bought a Fiberglass hull and got plans to build a  scratch build. It was going to be my next RC large model to replace my ocean going tug that was getting a little old. Then I also bought a 1/48th vacuform hull from Model Boats in England, A big deal in those days and planed to use the plans they published in their magazine. That was going to replace my smaller ship handling tug that had won several regatta tug events over the years. 

 

Kind of fell out of the RC ships about then when life got in the way and both hulls are still sitting in my basement with motors and running gear waiting the build. I also have a 1/48th Voith Schneider drive tug waiting for servo installation and a few finer details that would finish it's ability to operate. The drives alone cost more than any of my other models did all together back in those days. I don't know if they even make the drives anymore but if my bath tub tests were any indication if finished it would be a pretty powerful and certainly maneuverable tug!  

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Lou, Carl and Mark, thanks for your insight and suggestions.  My first real opportunity to test will be the roof of the MDAC rooms (Main Deck Air Conditioning) which I am working on.  The railing goes around three sides of the roof.  Part of me wants to paint after the railing is installed.  I’m unsure of whether I can be as clean and un-drippy as will be needed, but it would be very nice not worry about paint when I am soldering.  Stay tuned on that.

 

Steve

I took a break from stanchion heat sink testing and installed the cabin doors at the main deck.  After discarding the kit watertight doors (different from the cabin doors) I ordered a PE sheet of them from Tom’s Modelworks and hopefully they’ll be here in a few days.  From what I can tell the main deck has a watertight door the starboard promenade, two at the MDAC (Main Deck Air Conditioning Room), two along the forward wall on either side of the MDAC and one at the MDL (Main Deck Locker, aft of the cabins.  There are more on the upper decks.  The pic shows the kit cabin doors which I have retained.

I installed the glazing for the main deck portholes, which consists of 10x10 mm clear acrylic squares glued to the backside of the portholes.  Noth ing fancy but it gives a spot of brightness and reflectivity at each porthole.

Aft of the main deck forward wall is a support wall for the boat deck.  On the aft face of the support wall I added shims to fully engage the wall with the main deck hatch cross beam, and  at the forward face I added plastic triangles for additional support.  The second pic is the same view with the forward primary wall temporarily set in place, and the MDAC rooms being test fitted.  The forward wall has a slight curve and the MDAC roof must be scribed and sanded to it.  

Above are two pics, one from the model and the other a blow up from the Vance in its John J. Meany hospital ship configuration, courtesy of the National Archives.  Both views show the starboard boarding area opening in the promenade bulwark.  Now that I have cut the promenade wall down on port and starboard sides I have to figure out the infill to match the NARA photo.  There appears to be a recessed wall about 4 ft high, with four vertical supports along the outer face.  The supports look like they are shaped to do double duty as a rest for the boarding ladder (?).  So far, so good.  I’m guessing the low wall stops toward the forward (right) end of the recess, but I’m wondering if anyone knows what the thing is adjacent to the ladder.  Is it a small raft?  How would the ladder be deployed?  Would it just be untied and dangled over the edge for pickup by someone on the dock, or is it attached to some rigging?

[cog]

You could use liquid mask to protect the deck from dripping or smudging ... better try if you do, it may take off the paint from the deck ...

[lmagna]

I am in no way an expert, or even a novice for that matter, but I would think that the ladder would only be used when there was a boat along side like a pilot boat or some such where someone needed to board or disembark while the ship was still free of a dock. In that case it would more than likely just hang straight down from the portal, probably where you have the notch in your bulwark.

 

When the ship was at a dock they would more likely use a gangway that I would think would normally be stowed either somewhere close onboard or at the dock.   

 

My only guess on the other thing to the far right would be a fire hose or something secured to a framework on the inside bulkhead.

Edited November 27, 2018 by lmagna

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Carl, unfortunately I have become well versed in paint pulling, I think partly because of rushing a bit between coats, or having insufficient dry time before applying masking tape over the new paint.  I don’t have an airbrush but I’m leaning toward installing the railings and stanchions naked, and painting after.

 

Lou, thanks for your input.  The ladder in the Meany picture looks to be a bit more than just a ladder, perhaps a portable version of a ship’s ladder with inclined steps?  The notch in the bulwark is actually the bottom half of a scupper that I had cut in before cutting down the promenade bulwark to deck level.  I’m planning on filling it in while working on the inside bulkhead.

 

Steve

In anticipation of the upcoming marriage between the main deck and hull I added another layer to the perimeter deck beam, giving a more substantial bearing surface.

The PE sheet of watertight doors and frames arrived from Tom’s Modelworks, very timely shipping even without considering the holiday mail traffic.  The sheet is well detailed, with setups for open and closed doors of several different types.

The closed door, shown here with a dusting of primer and topcoat to preserve detail, but without final trimming of sprue, has appropriate dogging.

The open door configuration, which I tried out on the main deck locker, moves the dogging onto, and parallel with the frame.

With the main deck doors in place it was time to march down the aisle, holding my breath as the deck and hull said their vows.  A bit nerve wracking considering there is over 3 meters of glue line to place, followed by setting the deck, pulling in both hull sides with yards of tape (more metric/imperial crosstalk), and applying downward pressure with clothes pins and anything else at hand.  Hopefully it’s a productive honeymoon, with full bonding in a few days.

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Steve

The deck to hull marriage was a success.  The honeymoon is over and the next step is installing perimeter support posts for the boat deck.  In the model they don’t actually support anything since the boat deck sits on the first floor cabin walls and is glued to the inside face of the main deck promenade wall.  The kit says to cut flat strips off the PE carrier sheet  to simulate the posts, but since photos look more like round posts I decided to cut them out of brass rod.  The question was where to terminate them at the top since the boat deck gets two strips under its outer edge to act as a perimeter beam and to provide more gluing surface.  I made a little jig, with three strips equal to the boat deck/beam thickness, a fourth strip to sit on top of the promenade wall, and a vertical strip to act as a handle.  It made quick work of locating a line in each post location to set the post cut off height.  Action photo below.

The posts were fixed to the promenade wall with thin CA.  Some promenade openings sanded out a bit high (or the top of the promenade sanded too low), leaving very little area for gluing the top of the post.  I added some medium CA along the lower portion of the posts to strengthen the installation.  It just occurred to me that after carefully masking and painting the inside top of the promenade wall I have to sand it down to give some bite to the boat deck edge gluing....  

 

The only part of the post that is visible is the exposed surface at the promenade opening.  The exterior view is below.  I shifted the work lights to throw a little shadow at the post tops.

[cog]

You could have used polystirene for the posts ... Evergreen has got quite a selection of shapes, and sizes. Looking good though. She starts to look less like a tub

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Carl, thanks for the styrene suggestion.  I recently purchased some Evergreen flat strips at the LHS for misc trim work, but hadn’t thought of styrene rod for posts.  I guess it’s my architectural background - whenever I think posts I think metal pipe.

 

Steve

There are no details for the accommodation ladder recesses on port and starboard so I fabricated them based on the blurry closeup of area on the Vance in her hospital mode shown in the earlier posting.  The first try was clunky, too thick, too deep and too tall.  The second was better and is now in for painting.  Still haven’t finished filling in the divot at each recess.  The ladder is a kit part.  From what I have seen in articles it appears the accommodation ladders had a grating platform at each end that tilted to remain flat.  The ladder itself was installed in position using a small crane or other lifting device, and handrails either snapped into place or were placed in sockets along the stair stringers.

 

I decided to take a crack at some railing assembly.  Above is a jig and railing parts.  I stretched the wire to stiffen it.  I started out trying to saw grooves into the wood to take the stanchions laying down, but quickly abandoned that idea in favor of a more workable set of drilled holes in which to set the stanchions.  I actually started out trying to use an exacto knife to cut slots in the wood, but abandoned that after the no. 11 blade tip snapped off in a few spots, which forced me to re-establish the layout line.  As it turns out the flat stanchion is held reasonably well in a drilled hole.

I threaded the top railing into one stanchion, then added all the other stanchions.  Before spreading them out I stacked them together and found that the holes lined up well enough to push the second and third rails through quickly.  Then it was just a matter of spacing out the stanchions to align with the layout holes in the jig.

For this short section I applied a drop of CA to each railing/stanchion connection.  it seemed to stiffen it up pretty good.  Between the success in drilling the layout holes and the clean look of a CA’d railing I’m reconsidering the whole railing experiment.  At the moment I'm leaning toward drilling the deck at each stanchion location, and using CA to anchor the stanchions and make the connections, in lieu of heat sinking and soldering.  That would help immensely if I choose to pre-paint the railing assemblies before installing them.  But I’m also thinking about leaving the railings unpainted.  They look quite elegant, at least to my eyes.  Even though they would be historically incorrect would a clean, simple appearance be preferable to adding blobs of solder and layers of primer and paint?  Biased opinions and heated debate are welcome.  Take sides and take no prisoners.