USS/SS Leviathan 1914 by shipmodel - FINISHED - 1/200 - troop ship/ocean liner

[FriedClams]

On ‎4‎/‎14‎/‎2019 at 10:24 PM, shipmodel said:

 

The liner side is dominated by white fixtures, including four large rectangular features which I take to be air intakes.  These would not have to be be so large since the liner had a greatly reduced population.  They look to have solid bases, an open middle intake section with thin stanchions that support the roof.  There are shutters all around that could close off the opening in foul weather.  I would love to know if my interpretation is correct.

 

14.psd 2.35 MB · 2 downloads

 

Hello Dan.  Sorry, these are the units I was referring to.

 

Gary

 

[shipmodel]

Hi Gary - 

 

Yes, I see what you mean.  I wonder why there would be heat exchangers on the flying bridge rather than nearer the engineering spaces, but I agree that they were probably not air intakes.  Whatever, your knowledge and experience are far greater than mine in this area.  Thanks for commenting and sharing. 

 

Dan

[shipmodel]

Hello again to all -

 

I hope everyone had a good holiday with family and friends, as did I.  It was also good to see old friends and some nifty models at the Northeast Joint Clubs conference.  But enough fun . . . back to the shipyard and back on schedule.  Another Sunday and another posting.

 

With the bridge completed work moved forward into the well of D deck between the superstructure and the forward deck house. On the plans it is the highlighted area.  It contains the third-class passenger entryway, two cargo hatches, and two cargo cranes with two booms each. 

I rounded up some decently detailed photos of the area from the ocean liner era.

And a precious few from troop ship times.  The two biggest differences, of course, are the life rafts hanging from the railings and the six-inch gun on its built-up platform.

The face of the superstructure was almost complete already.  I just had to add the handrails to the tops of the solid railings on B and C decks.  On D deck two blowers sit with their motors under the stairways.  The hatches were detailed with small bits of plastic strip to indicate the hinges.

The entryway was previously constructed back in November to test spaces and sizes.  Now I went ahead and detailed it with ladders up to the roof and railings around it.  The steam winches are Bluejacket castings.  The hose reels are Shapeways 3-D printed products.  The central fitting is a scratch made crutch for the four large booms that come off the foremast.

Several more cowl ventilators were added in a vee pattern taken from the plans and photos, as was a long-necked blower on the starboard side only.  The ventilators just forward of the deck house were inserted only temporarily until the cargo cranes were installed.

On the troop ship side the gun platform was built up, decked, and railings were installed.  The white warning circle was spotted in only a few photos, but I thought it was a nice touch.

The gun is from Shapeways.  It is a shame that the blast hood hides the truly fine detail of the breech mechanism.

I will be drilling out and darkening the muzzle of the gun before it is installed permanently.

The masts for the cargo cranes are brass tubes with a plastic base and cap.  There is a reinforcing ring near the top for the boom lift blocks.  PE ladders were added to the inward side of the masts.  To keep them aligned I drew a guide line on the cap.  To keep me from confusing the port one from its starboard partner I put a large dot on its cap.

The cargo booms were cut from appropriately sized hardwood dowels.  At their far ends they sit on crutches twisted up from wire, made as I do with eyebolts, but here the top of the eye ring was removed to make a landing cradle for the booms. 

The inward ends of the booms were strengthened with cyano, then drilled for 0.040” iron wires that were bent into a tight L to form the gooseneck joints.  The ends of the wire were slid through holes in the clevis fittings that were cut from strips of U-channel styrene.

The mast and booms were set into holes in a scrapwood fixture so it could be worked on more easily.  Large single lift blocks were fitted with wire posts and secured through the reinforcing ring and the brass mast.  The boom was fitted with a small eyebolt on top of its outer end and two small single cargo blocks below.  For each boom a heavy line was run from the end eyebolt and through the lift blocks at the top of the mast.  The running end of the line was seized onto a double block just below the lift blocks.  A lighter line ran from the becket of the double block and was laced through a matching double block secured to the deck.

The mast was secured to the deck and the boom ends glued into the support crotches behind the C deck rails.  The lower double blocks were secured into the deck and all lines were tightened.  Under the outer ends of the booms a PE cargo hook was bent around the sheave of the cargo block.  It will be straightened so it looks to hang naturally once all the installation is complete.

The same configuration was built up for the troop ship, just painted grey rather than buff.

This second cargo crane was installed and rigged like the first.

The final task was to run the lines from the cargo blocks to the drum heads of the four steam winches and secure them there.  Other than installing the cannon, which will be one of the last things that gets done, this area is now complete.

Next task – making and lacing the guy wires for the funnels.  I need 16 for each, a total of 48.  An ocean liner is a continuous evolution of repetition, repetition, repetition . . .

 

Until then, be well

 

Dan

 

 

[druxey]

Nice going, Dan. The cargo boom with the dot distinguishes it beautifully, until you wonder, "Did I mark it on the port one, or the starboard...?" I personally prefer 'S' or 'P'!

[Mirabell61]

wonderful progress on the model Dan,

it looks like you`re doing it well in time, congrats....

 

Nils

[KeithAug]

I look forward to Danday. The quality of the original photos is very good, you must have found them very helpful.

[Jim Lad]

Very nice work on that forward deck, Dan.  She looks really good.

 

John

[shipmodel]

Thanks, everyone.  

 

Druxey - I though of it as designating the troop ship one.  As long as I remembered that the one with the spot got painted grey, I was home free.  After that there was no confusion.

 

Keith - a whole day named for me?  I am honored.  And lucky to find those views.  Other areas of the ship were never shot so clearly.  

 

Nils - actually, I have slowed down a bit.  The government shutdown a while ago has cancelled the exhibit where this was to be the centerpiece.   Now there is no deadline at all.  I will not dawdle, but there will be no 15 hour days either.

 

More soon. 

 

Dan

[cog]

Dan,

Set up of the deck with the winches, cranes etc looks splendid. I get the 3D printed guns for some of my plastic builds also from Shapeways. They deliver some magnificent detailed parts.

 

A question on the boom's rigging: Are those cables to scale? When I look at the scale you are working on 1/1200 they seem a bit heavy to me. On my latest builds (plastic) I've used EZ line which is very thin, still visible. I know of plastic builders whom use threads pulled from a plastic sprue, as thin as a hair. Just wondering ...

 

No deadline ... no pressure ... no mistakes ...  Good to have some breathing space!

[Michel Bénard]

A pleasure to read your post.

[Hubac's Historian]

Cranes came out very well, Dan.  I love the inventiveness of using appropriately scaled U-channel for the clevis mounts; they look exactly like the heavy gauge steel fixtures that they would be.  Great work all around!

[shipmodel]

Mark - yes, I'm happy with how they came out.  Figuring out building solutions is a big part of the pleasure for me.

 

Michel - glad to have you following along and glad you are enjoying the journey.

 

Carl - yes and no.  The larger cable is 0.010" thread, which is 2" full size.  A bit thicker than technically accurate, but in the ball park.  The thinner line is 0.006"  The problem is that by contrast the first looks thicker than it is.  I will probably tone down the visibility later, but that will depend on how the shrouds and other rigging come out.  It won't matter the actual diameters as long as they all look consistent.   

 

Thanks for raising the issue.

 

Dan

Edited May 6, 2019 by shipmodel

[rwiederrich]

Wonderful work....

 

Rob

[shipmodel]

Hi all - 

 

Just a quick post to finish up the foredeck well area.  The only things left were the Carley float life rafts.  They have appeared in some of the earlier photographs of the troop ship.  Although there is a record of a plan for their distribution, I have not been able to get a copy from the National Archives.  However, I don’t think its absence will make much of a difference. 

 

The photos show some floats hanging against mis-matched areas of the camouflage, so they must have moved around a bit. 

The basic principle seems to have been to put as many as would fit in as many areas as would not interfere with the working of the ship.  I guess they figured that if the ship was torpedoed in a combat zone it might be a long time before rescue.  And since they knew that most of the casualties from the Titanic were from hypothermia, they tried to get as many life rafts into the water as possible.

In keeping with the semi-scratch nature of the model, I found acceptable units already in production at Shapeways.  They come in sets of multiple numbers, so the cost was not prohibitive.  [I tried to import an image from their website, but couldn’t get it to work.] I trimmed them from their sprues and gave them a coat of grey primer.  This also worked for the dark sections of the camouflage.  Where the floats sat over other colors they were hand painted using a dry brush technique on the mesh floors.

On the face of the superstructure the floats were initially attached with tacky white glue.  When this was dry they were further secured with cyano.

Looking back, I should have installed them before the cargo cranes went on.  The lower floats were quite hard to position in the cramped space.  I decided to leave them a little crooked.  I think it reinforces the impression that they are temporary.

I leaned two small ones against the entryway house.  Two larger ones stand up near a stack of three. 

I also installed the twenty nine sit on the roof of the main hall.  There will be many more all around the ship.

 

More soon.

 

Dan

 

 

[Jim Lad]

Another reason for plenty of Carley floats, Dan - how many of those soldiers couldn't swim?

 

John

[lmagna]

In addition to the number of rafts needed for possible use by the massively over crowded ship there is that fact that if sinking it is possible that more than half of them would never be deployed by passengers or crew.

 

In early 1942 the USS Houston was struck by gunfire and multiple torpedoes. While she was sinking she did not go down extremely fast yet time and time again the accounts state that the crew jumped overboard with nothing more than what they were wearing witch in some cases were not even life jackets. Some rafts were launched, and others attempted to get more over the side but if you notice they tend to be a bit large. more than just a few can handle. It appears that many of the people who were able to get onto rafts did so after the raft was already in the water and they swam to it or were dragged by others. I think many of the rafts just floated off as the ship sank.   

[mtaylor]

20 minutes ago, lmagna said:

It appears that many of the people who were able to get onto rafts did so after the raft was already in the water and they swam to it or were dragged by others. I think many of the rafts just floated off as the ship sank.   

Accounts of various ships going down do mention that the rafts came off.  However, they were usually pulled under (along crewmen too close the ship) and were pulled under by the "suction" of the ship going under the surface.  I suspect that when the order to abandon ship was given (if there was time) jumping off and swimming as far away as you could get would be the priority.     As for swimming, I don't know if the army did teach swimming in boot camp like the Navy and Marines did..  The Army Air Corp air crews (fighter and bomber) did though.

[cog]

9 hours ago, shipmodel said:

Looking back, I should have installed them before the cargo cranes went on.  The lower floats were quite hard to position in the cramped space.  I decided to leave them a little crooked.

DAn,

 

When I look at the picture, they are all crooked, so I wouldn't worry to much. You are recreating reality ... looks good, like the mesh

[shipmodel]

Hello again to all –

 

Thanks for the compliments and likes, and for the comments and critiques too.  The more feedback I get, the better the final model will be.

 

This will have to be a quick one.  I am going on vacation tomorrow for two weeks and will be cruising up the Danube between Budapest and Munich.  I will be looking for points of maritime or modeling interest along the way.  I am sure to get my fill of beautiful churches and historic castles and scenic town markets.

 

Back in the shipyard –

 

With most of the detail work in the center of the ship already done, I added the guy wires that support the funnels.  None of the photos of the ship are detailed enough for me to determine whether they would have been different colors during the two service periods.  Besides, depending on the background, they change color anyway.

I decided to do them in contrasting colors, with dark line for the troop ship and bright steel for the liner.  For steel I have previously used an actual stainless steel beading wire, but it is unwieldy and difficult to get tight and straight.  Any kink, no matter how small, is hard to get out.  This time I tried silver metallic thread for the liner side.

To get the wires taut I first needed small eyebolts, which I made up from 0.011” wire twisted around the shank of a 0.020” drill bitt.  To stand in for the turnbuckles I used ¼” long by 1mm o.d. beads that were sourced from a beading supply house called Fire Mountain Gems.  They have a surprisingly large number of products and tools that are useful in ship modeling.

The wire is threaded through the bead, then through the eyebolt, then back up through the bead.

To install it, the eyebolt is glued into a predrilled hole, taking care not to glue the wire or the bead.  The long end of the wire is tied to an eyebolt on the funnel, then the short end is pulled up through the eyebolt until the line is taut.  The bead is slid down till it seats against the eyebolt.  With tension still maintained, a drop of cyano locks everything together.  Here I am working on a simple test bed to see if the thread will bend tight enough around the eyebolt.

With this method the 48 wires for the funnels were set up.  The result is a bit simplistic, but the wires will always remain straight and tight, which I think is the most important thing.  More improvements to the system will be worked on to get the turnbuckles looking more realistic.

The troop ship side was rigged with dark line.  I initially installed them with the brass colored turnbuckles, as in the photo.  However, I did not like the look, and they have since been painted grey, which solved the problem.

On the liner side, however, the silver thread did not work out quite as hoped.  It looks good in moderate light, but in strong light it is much too shiny.  I have dulled it down with matte varnish, but I think it is still too bright.  I will show it to the powers that be for their opinion, but I will probably overpaint with steel grey enamel.

That will have to wait until I get back.

 

Until then, be well.

 

Dan

[lmagna]

Nice work Dan

I have used much the same method for rigging a number of RC models in past years and found it to be very effective.. The only difference is that I used  These;  https://www.amazon.com/American-Fishing-Wire-Diameter-100-Pieces/dp/B004VZKO4W/ref=asc_df_B004VZKO4W/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312154679201&hvpos=1o4&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12007297228370317583&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9033347&hvtargid=pla-568637132129&psc=1

 

They come in very small sizes and when crimped down look very turnbuckle like. They can also easily be cut down in length and end up being even smaller.

[Jim Lad]

Very nice funnel rigging, Dan!

 

John

[KeithAug]

Nicely done Dan. Enjoy the Danube and the fine local wine and beer.

[Hubac's Historian]

Your guy-wires are not simplistic-seeming at all.  They look great!  Hard to say from the pics, whether the silver line is too bright.  Maybe clear dull-coat, brushed on will dull the brightness?

 

I’m looking forward to pics of your trip.  ‘Sounds like an amazing adventure.

Edited May 19, 2019 by Hubac's Historian

[rwiederrich]

Wonderful...just wonderful/

 

Rob

[Mirabell61]

funnel rigging looks great Dan,

 

Nils

[shipmodel]

Hi guys - 

 

Back from the Danube - now known as the River of Death! 

 

If you have missed it on the news, a week after we were in Budapest a Viking river cruise ship, almost identical to our Uniworld ship, rammed a smaller South Korean tourist ship with the loss of 33 lives.  I saw that very Viking ship along the river just days earlier.  The problem was that Europe has had its coldest and wettest spring in 40 years and the river was very high and brown, with tree branches floating along.  The current was running at 6-7 knots and our ship made labored progress upriver.  Going downriver it must have been impossible to slow or steer the big ship as it approached the crowded lane under the Margareten Bridge.  The video of the accident shows the smaller Korean ship being trapped against the bridge piling before turning and being swamped by the impact.  One of my travelling companions, who is frightened of the water in any event, now will not even consider another similar trip.

 

Our own trip was uneventful.  Much too uneventful.  Lots of bus tours with herds of other tourists.  Castles from a distance.  Churches and monasteries from the inside, whose golden decorations all blur together.  The Hungarian Parliament building and the Vienna art museum,  both done at a speed too fast to properly appreciate anything.  A nice small private concert at the Vienna Opera House, but in a small side room.  No access to the main hall, considered one of the most beautiful in the world, on a par with La Scala.  Salzberg was nice, and there was an interesting visit to a farm that grows saffron.  I enjoyed watching us go through several locks on the river, but my companions all slept through them.  The ship was nice, the food was good, the service was excellent.  Otherwise, save your money and buy a good video travelogue.

 

Anyway, glad to be home.  Back to modeling in the next post.

 

Dan

[KeithAug]

Hmmmm! A river cruise is suddenly off the bucket list. 

[druxey]

Welcome back, Dan!

[mtaylor]

Good to have you back, Dan.  I think I'm with Keith... scratch the river cruise.   I thought about one here in the States, but I don't the flooding on the Mississippi is going to go down quickly.  

[Bob Cleek]

Sorry to say, I feel your pain. "Packaged tours" are to travelling what kits are to ship modeling. Next trip, try it as a 'scratch-traveler." Take your time, Explore. Enjoy. You'll be glad you did!