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

[ESF]

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

 

Carl, after only a nano-second of consideration I agree that inside out is a better way to proceed.  I’ve already knocked a few pieces adrift trying to reach over the ship.

 

Carl, Jack, Rob and Kevin, I appreciate your suggestions on decals and lettering.  Rob, I don’t have your skill at overpainting but I love your HMS Cottesmore badge.  Kevin, thanks for the link to adhesive decals and for your compliments.  I have adhesive red crosses but I’m not using them since I expect they were painted over along with the crosses on the sides when the ship came off hospital duty.  I didn't realize they still made Letraset.  I used a lot of it back in the day until architectural drawing went digital and our stack of sheets dried out in the drawer.  It was a challenge to install Letraset on Mylar drawing film on a flat drawing board and I’m not sure I would want to try rubbing it onto a vertical curving surface.

 

To make a long story just a little bit shorter I have abandoned white letters.  I even tried light gray thinking they would look white against the dark background but they just faded into insignificance.  So I wetted up a test bit of decal that had the wrong font and applied it to the wood that I had used to experiment with hull paint.  The black gives a legible and reasonable appearance.

Steve

 

Every journey begins with a stanchion.

While eating lunch at work I mulled over an earlier suggestion to use a jig for railing placement.  After a quick sketch and visit to the hobby shop I made up a 1/4 x 1/4 inch plastic angle strip with some half round strips along one inside edge.  The half rounds offset the half round deck edging to allow the angle to sit straight when taped to the deck edge.  The inside view is below.

The jig was the nuts.  In short order I had all the holes drilled along the starboard side of the bridge deck.  I had to set up a second line of jig holes for the aft bridge to push the railing inboard so the stanchion points would be hidden inside the fascia strip.  I placed a ceremonial stanchion to signify the start of the 400 stanchion journey, but the trip won’t actually commence until everything within the railings is installed.

A single railing the full length of the deck would be unwieldy at best, and most likely a folded disaster, when trying to fit, remove for painting and reinstall (no in-situ airbrushing here).  I’ve also been thinking that a pieced railing needs additional support at the ends of each section but I’m reluctant to clutter the walkway with angle braces.  A little knife work in a stanchion hole gives it just enough room to install a double stanchion, so the tentative plan is to build the railing in sections, then solder or glue the stanchion at each end of a section to the adjacent stanchion.  Since the stanchion sections are flat the doubled up ones are barely distinguishable from a single one, but the doubling should(?) strengthen and simplify the connection between adjacent sections.    The photo shows a test double (untrimmed) to ensure it would fit the hole.  If anyone has tried this and found it not to work please raise a flag.

[Patrick Haw]

Hello Steve,

 

I just came across your fantastic build and your skill and attention to the smallest details are amazing!  One thing I love about looking through other peoples' builds is seeing their workbenches and tools and saying to myself...I've got that!  I've got one of those!  I need to get one of those!  Makes me think I may be on the right track!

 

Look forward to following your build!

 

Thanks

 

Patrick

Edited April 7, 2019 by Patrick Haw

[ESF]

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

 

Patrick, thank you for your kind words.  I feel like I’m working with jumbo parts when I see the work of the members doing 1/350 and 1/700 ships.

 

Steve

 

Stair-steppers rise to the occasion.

Not a lot of work this week, between a milestone birthday celebration and simultaneously word of a bad scan for my nearest and dearest, after five years of good ones.  Shipbuilding may be limited for a while but it is therapeutic when there’s time for it.

 

I’ve been folding up the ship’s ladders.  I fold the stringers by squeezing the stringer between tweezer nose pliers and folding the treads up with my fingers.  The pliers only go to about the halfway point of the stringer so I bend a bit on one end, reverse the pliers and bend up the other.  After a few rounds the stringers are in place.  Once the treads are bent up I touch the underside of each tread on with thin CA on both ends to strengthen the stringer to tread joint.  On a few ladders I found that the bottom tread on one side was connected to the stringer at both corners of the tread, which required another snip of the PE scissors to free up one corner.  The PE sheet is short of double railings, allowing only one railing per ladder, but there are a couple of extra ladders so I could scavenge enough to allow two railings for each forward freestanding position.  The other ladders go up against walls so a single rail, while not entirely accurate is at least less noticeable.

The starboard ladders are fabricated and the wall railings are trimmed to allow a tight fit to the wall.  I also notched the quarter round trim at the top to accommodate the stringer.  The railings have no length adjustment to speak of so the slopes are slightly different to match the different deck-to-deck heights.  I added a bit of plastic at the head of the lower ladder to give it a bearing surface but it looks like I need to trim it a bit to blend with the adjacent curved wall.

At the forward ladders there is no sidewall for fastening so I added an L-shaped pin under the bottom tread to help secure the stair in place, after realizing that the small deck divots I added under the bottom of each stringer were contributing almost nothing to stabilization.    I filed the top of the L flat to get a good bond with the tread.  I thought the photo below looked good until I realized the right hand railing is glued lower on the stringer than the left so a repair may be in order.  Too bad because the railings are very fragile and don’t take kindly to fiddling.

[lmagna]

Hi Steve

 

I kind of literally stepped out of things over the last couple of weeks but even though I have not commented much I have been keeping up with your fantastic work.

 

I really like your answer to the stanchion/railing issue. The double stanchion at the joint areas is a simple but very strong option. Give your plans a look and see if there are areas where there are other objects close to the stanchions that may help cover the fact that they are doubled.

[cog]

That last picture, I would have expected either the railing to be longer - all the way up - or the ladder to be taller, so it would meet up with the deck. It looks like it doesn't belong on the spot. Am I wrong in that?

I like your stanchion template. Maybe I should try something like that as mine wobble along the side in a drunken line. Fortunately my stanchions are way smaller

[Jack12477]

Steve  you coud get one of these Hold and Fold tool to fold your stairs.  I've used them on 1:350 PE, they work well, are easy to use and more accurate than pliers.

Edited April 12, 2019 by Jack12477

[ESF]

Thanks to all who gave likes.

 

Lou, thanks for stopping in and for your ongoing interest.

 

Carl, I set the ladder too flat.  I propped up another one in the same location, but more vertically oriented and it should look much better.  I'm working on a little 60 degree template to see how that compares to the new alignment.  My tendency is to want the ladders to look flatter since stairs in buildings have a much shallower aspect, more like 7 vertical to 11 horizontal, but online drawings of ship's ladders have them at 60 degrees which is much steeper.  Soooo, patch the deck divots and hole and move the ladder in.  The handrails are another issue.  The supplied ones are PE flat which makes them a challenge to blend into the round deck rails.  The good news is that a photo of the ship shows the ladder rails independent of the deck rails, closely aligned at the ends but not touching, so the current plan is to fab the deck rails in a similar manner to avoid trying to blend round to flat.

 

Jack, thanks for the suggestion.  I liked the hold and fold type of tools but I have very limited PE to fold up so I'm going the cheap way out.  At this scale the tweezernose gives an acceptable sharpness to the inside corner, at least at the ladders.  I figured I would use utility knife blades if I need anything sharper.

 

Steve

[ESF]

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

 

Steve

 

Ladder redux.

I re-drilled the mounting hole for the forward ladder base pin to make the ladder more vertical, reset the right hand railing to better align with the left and added grab bars to pick up where the railings leave off.  Now it looks like you could actually get up and down the ladder without falling off.

The aft ladder leading to the top deck.  That's where I'll be short a rail.  They'll just have to be careful.  The white triangle is my home made 30-60-90 triangle to help with ladder alignment, although I'm the last one to say any of them are a perfect match.

At the starboard ladders I trimmed the wall railings to provide more clearance when ascending the ladders, and added a grab bar to close the gap between the ladder and the bridge deck wing wall.  The jury is still out on that piece.  Maybe it needs the mounting points pushed in almost flush with the wing wall.  Anyway, this finishes up the fabrication of starboard ladders, plus a few to port, so now they can go into paint.  I plan to do as much as I can on the starboard and top sides before rotating the ship to work port side.  The more stuff that goes on the harder it is to make the swing so I only want to do it once more.  Probably wishful thinking...

[ESF]

And boy, did I hate to cut those railings after all that work.

[cog]

6 hours ago, ESF said:

And boy, did I hate to cut those railings after all that work.

Or what the Stones would say: "You can't always get what you want" ... At least not always the first time ...

 

You did well Steve, dispite the hardships

[ESF]

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

 

Carl, thank you for your kind comment.  My wife had two lung cancer surgeries six years ago, and had five stable scans since, but unfortunately the latest scan indicated a new nodule in a new location.  We’ll know for certain after a biopsy but it looks like another surgery may be needed.

 

Steve

 

A moment’s inattention.

All the ship’s ladders are painted and all but two are installed.  I have also sanded and washed all the lifeboats so they are ready for fit out, and set some in position to feel good.

When I need a break I drill more stanchion holes.  With the template it’s mindless work - well not quite mindless as a moment’s inattention resulted in a few holes using the wrong template row.

[lmagna]

Sorry to hear about your wife's latest tests.

 

My wife also has had kind of the same thing. Lost one kidney then three years latter part of the other to cancer. All has been well as far as the cancer issues until last Christmas when on her annual checkup they found two growths. One on her remaining kidney and the other next to her spine behind her heart in a hard to get to location. 

 

Several MRIs, CAT scans and a bunch of stuff later and they determined that the one on her kidney was just a cyst, but were unable to determine what the other was without a biopsy that was a little touchy because of the location. They were able to do the biopsy successfully and the day after I shattered my ankle two weeks ago, in fact at the same time I was in surgery getting it repaired, she got the answer that the other growth is not cancer! It is actually even stranger, but that is a story for another time.

 

She was there when I woke up with good news and I wish the same for you, without the broken ankle!

[mtaylor]

Steve, I want to "like" the work but not like what's happening with your wife.  

[cog]

Sorry about your  wife's recurrent node. I hope, if surgery is required, it will be easy on her, and she'll recover quickly and fully. You are in my thoughts. It must be very hard on you both.

 

About the mindless work: Yes that happens if you let your mind wonder at other (complex/interesting) things, for you do not seem very mindless to me. To avoid using the wrong row of holes in your template, mask the row you do not need as a visiual aid. Although, it does make the mindless work even more boring.

 

I like your lunchboxes in the last picture  I think I would have liked a pair of those when I was at highschool.

[ESF]

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

 

Lou, it is unfortunate you and I and our spouses seem to be sailing in the same boat.  I had foot and ankle surgery last year due to an accumulation of injuries that started in high school, exacerbated by a foot with a very high arch.  But I’m walking well today and I’m sure you will too.  Our thoughts are with you and your wife and our prayers are for continued good news.

 

Mark, thank you for your kind comment and expression of concern.  We really appreciate it.

 

Carl, thank you for your words of comfort.  You’ve been with me since the beginning of the build and I’m sorry to be dragging you through our stormy seas.  Hopefully there will be sunshine ahead.  I should have made the lunchbox roofs removable for easier storage of snacks before the voyage.  I think I’ll leave the extra row in the stanchion template uncovered to force me to think a bit.

 

Steve

 

Davit plus.

Since the lifeboat adventure is on the horizon I thought I would experiment with the davit construction.  Five pieces per davit, flash to remove on every piece plus filing and sanding, plus butt joint gluing, times 32 davits was daunting, a word I’ve unfortunately used quite a few times on this build, not so much for the complexity but more for the quantity of each operation.  But no more whinging.  It wasn’t so bad once I realized that medium CA is better than thin if the metal surfaces aren’t perfectly flat after filing, and one tiny drop is much better than more on metal to metal if you want it to set up.

Here’s the davit in its approximate location.  With the feet glued to the davit sides it is reasonably stable which bodes well for final fitment, although the castings are a bit cockeyed relative to plumb and require some careful twisting and bending to achieve a reasonable alignment.  If all the rest go as well as the first one it will only be about 50 hours of effort, not including paint and rigging the boats.  Which brings up another thing.

The PE sheet includes faux rigging for the davits.  The instructions say to tie the looped end of the rigging set (on the left in the left hand group of the photo) to the davit arm, and to heat set the other end into the lifeboat interior.  Has anyone seen PE rigging before?  I’m almost inclined to get some blocks (pulleys?) and rope to make up my own, but that will be 64 blocks and blah, blah, blah.

 

And another forward looking consideration….

The photo, kindly furnished by Dean’s Marine from their archive when I purchased the kit shows a pipe frame with fabric roof over the aft bridge deck.  It could be fun to solder up (he said) but I’m wondering if the fabric would hold up during the pond voyage.  Alternatively I could just leave the fabric off which is what they may have done at sea.  More decisions.

Edited April 19, 2019 by ESF
had the davit part count right in the first place

[lmagna]

Those are great looking davits Steve. I think I would have preferred davits made from brass with a one piece deck shoe that could be pined to the deck, but like you said 32 is a daunting number. 

 

As for the awnings, I think that you will find that almost any materiel other than tissue will hold up OK under normal pond conditions if your frame is solid.

Painted silk span or hankie weight Nylon will also do just fine.

 

Now all you need to do is locate a dozen enjoyable looking women dressed like Rosie the Riveter!

[Rcboater Bill]

Steve,

 

I wouldn’t worry about the awning on the pond - you’ll only be sailing on nice days, after all!   I used painted (acrylic) printer paper for the covers on the lifeboats on my 1/96 Lightship, and they’ve held up well for years.

 

I have seen PE boat falls on smaller scale models, but not in 1/96 before.  The issue with PE for stuff like this is that there is no depth to the part- the blocks should be thicker than the line.  If I had 2 or boats to rig, I would  replace the brass parts.  But 16 boats???   I think I’d try painting them first, to see if that helps.   Another option might be to add a small disk  of plastic to the top pulley to make it thicker than the line-  maybe just on the side facing out would deceive the eye...?  

 

-Bill

Edited May 8, 2019 by Rcboater Bill
Fixed typos

[Kevin]

Lovely work, i have heard that wipe wipes do well to represent coverings sorry about the health issues, give my regards to your wife and hope yr ankle mends ok

[cog]

4 hours ago, ESF said:

I’m sorry to be dragging you through our stormy seas.  Hopefully there will be sunshine ahead.  I should have made the lunchbox roofs removable for easier storage of snacks before the voyage.  I think I’ll leave the extra row in the stanchion template uncovered to force me to think a bit.

Don't be sorry, so far it has been reasonably smooth sailing, and as you know life's the accumulation of sunshine, squals, storms, and sometimes even tempests. They are all better when shared.

Removable lunchbox tops, Should have thought of you sealing them shut, so typical. I thought you would want to think, but you can have a thoughtless sequence if you want to ...

 

I like those davits, so much better than the ones at 1:350. No matter what I do, they keep on looking flimsy, and on a battleship flimsy davits only look good 5 miles away. One of the Steel Navy builders here uses medium CA as a filler, so you didn't make a bad decision. The awning was mainly used when the weather circumstances required it. You can leave them off when you take her sailing in bad weather.

Edited April 19, 2019 by cog

[ESF]

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

 

Lou, thank you for your kind comment and suggestions.  We’ll see if the Rosie’s are attracted by the awning frame.  I decided to bite the awning bullet so I picked up some brass rod at the LHS.

 

Bill, thanks for your feedback.  I’ve decided to stay with the PE boat falls.  I plan to add a cross rope between davits, with hand ropes as shown in several pics of the ship.  Hopefully the clutter will draw attention away from the skinny falls.

 

Kevin, thanks for your kind comment and your suggestion.  We appreciate your concern.  My ankle and foot were last year.  They have healed well and I’m back to walking for exercise.

 

Carl,  I never had experience with lunchboxes, but lots with a plastic sandwich ziplock in a paper bag, including to this day.  My typical lunch has been referred to as a slam sandwich (two pieces of bread with a piece of meat slammed between them).

 

Steve

 

The davit workshop.

This is the davit workshop.  With 32 davits to assemble I thought it would be easier to gather all the parts together, figure a standardized filing and sanding sequence for each part and then prep all parts of same type together.

These are the tools for the 64 davit shoes.

A pair of davit shoes, before and after prep.  The narwhal spike was only on a few shoes.  The good news is that all 64 shoes have been run through the prep line.  Next will be the 32 rear davit supports.

 

[ESF]

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

 

Steve

 

Davit therapy.

 

Not a whole lot of work this week due to much anxiety about my wife’s CT-guided needle biopsy, which fortunately was completed without incident.  I learned that the tumor is close to the lung surface which hopefully could make it easier to remove without having to take so much lung tissue.  We get the results and the plan for the next step in about a week.

After sanding, the davit parts were rough cleaned in paint thinner, then washed in soapy water, rinsed and air dried.  The pic shows about half the parts remaining after some assembly work.  I thought I was all ready for (relatively) quick assembly but I discovered that using small metal files on the joining surfaces in soft metal smoothes everything out so much that it doesn’t take medium CA well, so I re-did the join areas with a few swipes of 180 grit sandpaper on a stick which seems to give a better tooth to grab the CA.

The little butt joint between the davit and the rear bottom bracket needs plenty of drying time to withstand the fitting of the lifting piston between the bracket and the top of the davit so I glue a bunch in the evening and then wait a day before fitting the piston and shoes.

The mockup is encouraging and daunting (there’s that darn word again) at the same time.  A question is whether to glue the davits in place and then fit the rigging and boats, or make up whole assemblies (davits, rigging, boat, and cross-rope between davits with coiled hand ropes attached)  and glue the entire unit to the ship.  If I do it as a unit I’ll need a jig, or maybe just some tape(?) to support the davits while rigging, but then how do I hold the whole assembly while trying to glue the pair of davits in place at the same time?  I suppose if the boat is glued to the davits it could lock the whole thing together.  The sequence could also be glue davits to deck, glue boat to davits, install rigging and cross rope.  Time will tell.

 

It's curious that the davits are so close to the cabin wall.  It doesn't seem to leave much room to walk behind them.

[cog]

3 hours ago, ESF said:

I discovered that using small metal files on the joining surfaces in soft metal smoothes everything out so much that it doesn’t take medium CA well

Odd. When I look at how smooth brass PE parts are for my builds, I would expect to not be able to glue them when you put it that way. Your davit regiment looks good though.

 

I think it will by rather hard to rig the davits off ship, add the boat and get them on, or you should have a jig with which you can slide the entirety on it's place, and even then to glue that will be a pain.

 

3 hours ago, ESF said:

It's curious that the davits are so close to the cabin wall.  It doesn't seem to leave much room to walk behind them.

Do you really need to walk there ...

 

I wish you and your wife lots of strength the coming weeks, take care

[ESF]

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

 

Carl, thank you for your thoughts and caring.  I measured the space between davit and wall and it scales almost 3 feet, so plenty of room to walk by.

 

Steve

 

Davit progress and a near oops.

I ground through the davit construction and now have a full stash.  I painted half and let them dry while finishing up the rest.

I settled on installing davits first, then rigging the boats, but while I was doing a rough placement it occurred to me that if I set them I would have no room to install the railing at the bridge deck and would need quite a stretch to set the top deck railing.  A guaranteed recipe for broken davits and bent railings.  I plan on installing the top deck bits and masts from the port side.

So it’s off to the railing races, starboard heat.  Trim stanchions, thread onto top rail, stack stanchions together, slide mid and bottom rail in, re-space stanchions in deck holes, add CA at each joint, wait until tomorrow to remove, paint and reinstall permanently, then move on.  A few pics follow including some davits to get a better idea of the overall look.

The davit painting resulted in a little texture which I’m not unhappy with since they were probably showing some wear after years at sea.

[cog]

Ship shape ...

[Kevin]

do you have any pictures of the davits in real life, i wondered if there was any connection to each pair to stop any twisting, if there was then you could complete of the build and put them on in as a unit

[mtaylor]

Good catch on the railing, Steve.  That would have been a bear to put in after the davits.   Looking super from here.

[ESF]

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

 

Carl, thank you for your kind comment.  Ship shape makes me feel really good measured against the MSW artisans.

 

Mark, thanks for your nice feedback.

 

Kevin, I have a number of photos of the davits on several of the sister ships but as in the model the boats and davits are close to the cabin wall so there is no view behind them.

 

Steve

 

Railing accomplishments, but on the other hand.…

I dug up some courage and decided to try fitting the curved railing at the forward end of the top deck.  The railings were long enough to extend most of the way down each side so the difficult part could be done in a single piece.  I’ll trim them back to the last stanchion and fit in a corner piece on each side.  I’m so pleased I couldn’t resist popping in a few more pics.

I also built a railing return at the stair, to match the wall grab rail on the other side.  I thought that might deserve a few pics too.

I made up another straight section of railing to I could test my idea of doubling up the end stanchions.  To build the second section I marked the hole location for the last stanchion in the first section, then removed the first section and placed the first stanchion of the second section in the marked hole (you probably see where this is going).  I aligned all stanchions for the second section and glued the railings to the stanchions.  Then I reset the first railing after sanding the railing stubs off the last stanchion.  But when I went to place the second section I realized that I had placed the last stanchion of the first section in exactly the same place in the deck hole as the first stanchion of the second section.  I couldn’t push the stanchion to clear the first section without messing up the alignment of all the second section stanchions in their mounting holes.  So now I have some close quarters trimming to shift the second section first stanchion one stanchion width aft, or abandon the double stanchion idea and solder the railing ends to the first section, assuming I can trim the railings tightly enough to butt against the stanchion.  The good news is I discovered the multiple stanchions create a stiff railing section, even before final gluing into the deck, so maybe my concern about wobbly railings was unfounded.  Live and learn.  Or is it learn, live a little, learn, live a little.......

[cog]

You are really getting better and better at bending railings, Steve. that last image is a little gem when you look at the end stanchion

[Kevin]

That looks so much better and tiedier

[ESF]

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

 

Carl and Kevin, thank you for your kind feedback.

 

My wife's biopsy was summarized as a true negative, a much welcome surprise.  We meet the doctor next week to discuss next steps.  Thanks again to all who expressed concern.  We really appreciate it.

 

Steve

 

Railings - the other hand fights back….

While in the thinking position, which seems to be a good spot for mulling over ship stuff, it occurred to me that I was trying to force a bad idea by trying to push two railing stanchions into the same hole, and there was no way I could build one section, take it out, build another section starting in the same hole and expect all the holes, stanchions and railings in both sections to align properly.  So I did the next best thing - I clipped the mounting pin off the bottom of one stanchion.  Then I assembled the next railing section, aligned the stanchions, except the cut off one, with their mounting holes, and slid the railings in and out until the railing ends were just touching the last stanchion on the previous section.  After gluing all but the end stanchion to the railings the railing position was fixed, and I could slide the cut off stanchion until it butted against the end stanchion of the previous section.  A touch of CA fixed the stanchion to the railing but I was careful not to glue the two end stanchions together so I can remove the sections for painting.

 

The double stanchion stands out in the very close view above but the extra thickness blends in reasonably well in the more distant view below.

Here are three railing sections test fitted and ready for the paint shop.  Each section has some stiffness for handling, even out of the mounting holes.  It bodes well for the remaining railings.

Edited May 4, 2019 by ESF
fixed a typo