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

[Mirabell61]

On 10/26/2018 at 3:16 PM, thormin said:

There are some great shots of Leviathan here.https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search?f[subject_facet_ssim][]=Leviathan+(Steamship)&page=5 

 

J

Hi Thormin,

 

many thanks for that excellent link to those ships pictures.....

 

Nils

[shipmodel]

Hi y'all - 

 

Sorry, that's some of the Texas twang I picked up from Mitch, who did a great job as MC of the conference.  A tip of the hat to him.  Although it was not too well attended, the talks were an interesting mix of high-level technique demonstrations and some underwater archaeology and conservation studies and methods.  The after dinner speaker was excellent.  There are lots of photos of the models in the NRG News section on the MSW home page.

 

Thanks for the compliments on the rivet technique.  I know that it can be improved, but it worked for me.  

 

Phil - glad to have you along.  Let me know how the brass works out.  I did not add any additional glue to the copper, but am not relying on it completely.  By the time the model is done the strips will have been sealed with multiple coats of primer, paint and finishes.  I do use thin CA under any corners that might get lifted during later construction.

 

J - thanks for the link.  I had seen it before, but I had to upgrade my computer to get the most detail out of the photos.  I will be using them a lot.

 

Dan

[shipmodel]

Hello again, and thanks for looking in.

 

Construction continued with the sheer strakes which incorporated the bulwarks of the working decks at the bow and stern.  They are at different levels, with the bow being part of D Deck, while the stern is at the E Deck level.  For the bow I took wider strips of styrene which were 0.015” thick.  I thought I needed the extra thickness for structural strength above the support of the hull block. 

 

The lower edge of the new strip was fitted to the upper edge of the prior plates and parallel with the top line of portholes, then it was taped in place.  Using a compass I marked the inside with a line setting a consistent height of 4 feet (1/4”) for the bulwarks.  The strips were removed and shaped to the line.  I located and drilled three round holes for the hawser leads and two slots for the fairleads, although these were hidden by solid hinged doors such as the one that can be seen just aft of the bow.

 At the stern the strakes around the compound curves had to be built up one at a time, then faired into a final vertical bulwark.  I made and discarded several sets of paper patterns before getting it to match the photographs.  Here I did my first significant split painting.  I sprayed dark grey primer on both sides of the hull with the inside of the stbd bulwark masked to keep it white.  Then I masked the port side and painted the stbd side black.  I got some underspray but I decanted some of the primer and cleaned it up with a brush. 

 

The deck is also split.  Many of the photos of the troop ship have decks that look a lot like they match the grey of the deck houses and bulwarks, so we decided they should look it on the model.  It also gives a stark contrast between the two representations.  To keep the lines of the deck planks visible I misted the paint from a distance to make a translucent layer.  This deck is a test piece and was ultimately replaced.

My guide for the bulwarks was this photo of the troop ship.  The wood deck ends several feet from the bulwark, leaving a gutter space for the triangular supports for the bulwark.  Also in that space are two four-post fairleads near the bow and two three-post ones further aft near the chain winches.  A fairly wide caprail tops the bulwarks with a small breakwater mounted on top at the bow.

The supports were chopped from a ¼” strip using an inexpensive commercial device I bought a while ago.  It has served faithfully as long as I replace the blade frequently.

The fairleads were built up by taking thick strip ¼” wide, cutting pieces to length and sanding a bevel into the inner edge.  Short posts were cut from solid rod as carefully as I could.  Using the squarest ends they were glued to the bases with white glue which gave me some time for adjustments as it set.  When the glue was dry the posts were all reinforced with CA.  When everything was sturdy I lightly sanded to tops of the posts level and even.  Then they were topped by small discs punched out of a sheet with a leather-working punch.

The fairleads were primed dark grey, as were a number of bollards and winches that started life as Bluejacket castings.  They were set in place to help locate the fairleads exactly.  The fairleads then located the bulwark supports and the spacing between them.  This then determined the locations of the stanchions which support the next deck, and they are marked in black.

Everything was removed and the bulwarks, supports and perimeters were given contrasting colors.  I decided on a dark grey for the port side to match the primer on the fittings.  A better deck was made, a margin plank applied, and the port side misted grey before being glued down.

Another test.  The port side fittings are a light grey, the stbd ones are buff colored, as seen in a few photos.  The buff ones are good, but on the port side I did not like the contrast between the light fittings and dark bulwarks. 

At the bow I made the fairleads and bulwarks the same light grey.  I like the look better, and it is closer to what I see in the photos.  I will probably do some dark washes at the end of the build to bring out a bit of contrast.  Now I could mask the interior of the bulwark and paint the liner side gloss black to a point just past the end of the working deck.  The stbd caprail had been left off until now to keep it pristine white, and now it was attached, making a very clean color separation line.

In the middle of this area is a large deckhouse spanning the full width of the deck.  Side panels sit on top of the caprails and curve into them.  A number of portholes pierce all sides of the house, with two wide corridors running through the house, which could be closed off with double steel watertight doors on the forward face.  The forward mast, several boats and davits, winches and ventilators cover its roof, but those details are for much later.

The deckhouse is built up from a ½” basswood for the body of the house, with a 3/32” roof.  It is sheathed in styrene which extends just a bit above the roof.  This lip will anchor the brass railings that will go on later.  Portholes on the sides were installed as before, but I left the ones on the liner side bright brass.  On the forward face I cut two large doorways with rounded corners and flanked them with doors made from strip.  The portholes on this face are PE from Tom’s Modelworks, Nice, but ultimately I did not like them.  It was a question of visibility.  They just did not stand out well enough. Handrails on the liner side are bright brass wire.  On the liner side, soft iron wire.  This is the basic pattern that all future deckhouses will follow.

From the opposite angle you see that the PE portholes on the troop ship side have disappeared completely.  The portholes on the face of the main deckhouse are much more visible and match those on the hull.

The aft side of the deckhouse has the same corridor openings, but without the watertight doors.  The round pillars are bases for tall, thin horn ventilators.  The roof has been pierced for staircases, cut small to be expanded later.

All along I have been taking test photos to judge my progress.  Here is one to check the symmetry of the hull and the details.  If you have a sharp eye, you will notice that the small triangular roof extension at the forward corner of the deckhouse is smaller for the liner than for the troop ship.  This is just the first of many subtle and not so subtle differences from one to the other.

The same techniques were used to build up the small, but detailed, 4^th Class entryway which fits on deck between the deckhouse and the superstructure.  Some more detailing is needed, but it will help locate stairways, cargo cranes, and other fittings.

Here are some of those details for the bow deck, including three hatches and a number of bollards.

And here they are set in approximate place.  Now, as I write this, I can see that the entryway that I spent a good bit of time on is too big.  It crowds the hatches and will get in the way of future fittings, including a gun platform on the troop ship. 

I will have to make up another one.  But not now.

 

Be well

 

Dan

[amateur]

Hi Dan,

 

that two-in-one strategy works out surprisingly well (so far: no idea how you are going to split-paint masts and flagpoles...)

 

Jan

[druxey]

I've no idea whether this strategy would work at small scale, but I've 'split' items by white gluing up two half blanks, turning or shaping them, then soaking the halves apart in isopropanol before painting. They are then re-glued, leaving a clean dividing line.

[Hubac's Historian]

Shaping up nicely, Dan!  I look forward to seeing her next week.

[shipmodel]

Hi Guys - 

 

Thanks for the compliments.  It is a strange critter, and will be getting stranger.

 

Druxey - that is one of the techniques that I will be experimenting with.  There are usually 6 good ways to get any modeling task accomplished, and I will have to find the one that works for me.  But the masts have lookout platforms, various fittings and mast bands, etc. which would also have to be made in two halves.  It may just be easier to use a combination of careful masking and brush painting.  We will have to see.

 

Dan

[cog]

If you want to mask, you might want to try liquid mask. Could be a good solution for small items, or difficult parts to mask with tape. Just brush it up, you can combine it with masking tape too. It's often used with water colour painting. I've Vallejo, and Windsor & Newton. If you go that way, I presume you need to find out which brand has the right properties for you.

Cheers

[michael mott]

Hi Dan, amazing work so far I am envious of how quickly you are putting this all together.

 

Michael

[shipmodel]

Hello again to all - 

 

And thanks for the likes, compliments, and most especially for the suggestions.  The more the better.  A professor of mine once said that there was never an 'A' student who was smarter than 3 'C' students.  So students like me need all the help we can get.

 

I left the last segment with the bow ready for deck fittings, then I turned my attention to the stern.  With ocean liners, which are built somewhat along the lines of a wedding cake, I find that I retain the most flexibility by building in from the ends before moving up in the middle.  Here at the stern there is a three layer cake consisting of, first, the working deck at E level, its deck house pierced by small portholes and several doors.  The middle layer is the aft end of D deck with a narrow extension reaching to the aft rail where the flagstaff is located.  This deck house is more open, with large rectangular windows.  The upper deck at C level is open to the sky and does not connect to the rest of C deck.  It holds various boats, davits, vents, etc., as well as having a small rounded platform for the mooring lookout.  Its deck house is small and square and has a dark wooden surface, possibly mahogany.

During the war some significant changes were made to these decks.  On D deck a platform was built out and aft to hold the stern 6 inch gun.  To improve its field of fire the ensign flagstaff platform extension was shortened.  To reduce damage from the blast shock the overhanging piece of C deck was cut back.  Then everything, including the decoration below the counter, was painted grey.

Taking the shapes of the decks and deck houses from the plans for both the liner and troop ship configurations, and as confirmed by examining the photographs, these deck units were built up.  You can see the lack of symmetry in this photo, which is the whole point of the model, I guess. 

They were built up in my usual way, with sheathed ½” basswood plank for the house, topped with 3/32” basswood sheet, edged in 1/8” styrene which gives a little lip to the deck edge for the railings to come.  The underside of the deck was painted white on the liner side and grey on the troop ship side.

The portholes are the smaller brass grommets, the doors are printed appliques of sturdy art paper, the handrails are wire.  I thought that the textural contrasts would be enough to set off the details on the troop ship side, but it is clear that they simply disappear into the background.  This may have worked during wartime, but for modelling purposes, I thought that they should stand out much more.

Here on the D deck house I made the large rectangular windows by creating and printing them out in black on white carrier film.

The liner side was masked before I added the details to the troop ship side.  This time I cut the windows from art paper that was a bit thicker, hoping that this would give sufficient contrast.

However, as you can see after stacking the deck units in place, the troop ship side was a visually flat grey.

The solution turned out to be pretty simple, and I should have hit on it sooner.  I just printed the black windows onto clear decal film, then set them in place.  They are probably more visible than is historically accurate, but without magnification and direct lighting they do not jump out too much.  Note here the first use of red to denote a structural change on the area where the ensign platform has been cut back.

The site is telling me that I want to put in too many photos for one posting, so I will break it into two at this point.

 

Dan

[shipmodel]

The final structural element of the lower hull was the decoration under the stern counter.  Although the filigree decorations at the bow of the SS Vaterland were removed, these at the stern were retained, with some changes.  The name was replaced in the large flat oval section, called a cartouche, in the center, of course, as was the home port.  Then the German national shield was replaced with the American one.  The rest appears to have been kept as is.

A detailed photo shows that the filigree has a bas-relief fringe on top made up of various feathery and leafy shapes above a large gently curved vine stem.  Below the central stem are some smaller stems that lead to flower heads framing the shield and some small waves to fill the remaining space.  At no point does it look to be more than three inches thick.

There was no way that I could generate the required layout of the two-dimensional shape that would fill the 3-dimensional compound curves of the counter.  Using a very low-tech solution I wrapped the counter in a strip of stiff paper, then trimmed it back till I got something that basically fit.  Taping it to the hull I roughly drew in the major elements of the decoration.  Some of the derived shapes were quite surprising.

 Using the drawing as a guide, I started with the flat oval cartouche for the name.  Again, I cut a rough piece of paper and repeatedly trimmed it until I had an oval that fit between the upper and lower moldings of the counter, and which was symmetrical when I folded it along the centerline.  When I was satisfied I used the paper as a pattern for the plastic piece.  It was checked and rechecked, trimmed and sanded a bit, then secured in its place.

The hawse hole at the top center was built up from several sizes of punched and drilled discs.  The large vine pieces were laid out so they ran along the top of the cartouche then curved and tapered into the lower counter molding.  A paper pattern for the shield was cut and test fitted into its space.

The two shields were cut to the pattern out of 0.015” sheet with scallops along the top edge.  The blue field was set on top, made from 0.010” sheet.  The seven red stripes were cut from 0.010” x 0.030” strip and glued in place.  The pieces for the colored shield were pre-painted before installation, while the ones for the troop ship were not.  I made no attempt to put 13 stars into the field that was so small.  I just dotted the field with white using a tool from a nail decorating set purchased at the drug store.

The blank shield was permanently attached, but the colored one only tacked in place.  Using them as landmarks the smaller vine stems were curled to shape and installed.

 I took a page from that wonderful Czech artist, Doris, from this site, and decided to mold the decoration in clay.  I have tried Sculpey, which Doris uses under the name of Fimo, with very mixed success.  I don’t like the process of baking it.  I decided to try an air-dried clay instead.  I was looking for some on the internet when I stumbled on a store in my neighborhood that sells school supplies.  Here I found a number of inexpensive supplies and tools, including a tub of water-based, air-dry clay.  Two pounds for only a few dollars.  Although this is much more than I will ever use, the price was below that of smaller quantities on line.

 

I took a small amount of the stiff compound and softened it with a drop of water.  After some kneading it made a nice, supple, dough.  I rolled it into a long rope, then flattened the rope with a curved spatula to about 1mm thick on a scrap piece of styrene.  Using the edge and corners of the spatula I found that I could approximate the carvings, although I made simplified triangular patterns where the decoration actually has leaves.

I left the test piece to dry overnight.  In the morning it was dry and hard and had not deformed or shrunk.  That was the good news.  The bad news was that it did not adhere to the plastic and it was extremely brittle.  Further experiments followed.  It turned out that the first problem was solved by softening the clay with white glue instead of water.  The pliability was the same, but it held on well to the plastic.  There was some more flexibility when dry, but nowhere near enough to allow me to make the decoration off the model, as Doris does, and then transfer it.

 

I laid a clay rope onto the model above the main vine, flattened and shaped it in place.  The other sections of the decoration were done the same way.  In this shot the decoration is just starting to dry and you can see the upper edge turning white. 

With a small brush I painted the clay with water.  This kept it soft and also smoothed the surfaces.  The edges were defined and any excess clay was cleaned up

The next day the clay was painted with wood hardener which sealed and strengthened it.  Then the liner side was painted gloss black and the troop ship side painted in primer grey.  Liquid gold leaf was carefully hand painted on the liner side decorations before the colored shield was permanently attached.

Tiny letters were sourced on line.  I could have made up decals, like the windows, but I wanted the texture to show through the camouflage grey paint.   The larger letters are 1/8” tall (2 feet) for the name and the smaller ones are 3/32” (18 inches) for the home port.  They were painted off the model before being attached.

So here is the model in its bipolar glory in a shot from low on the starboard stern.  After this I continue building in and up.

Although it may seem that I am building quickly, this is somewhat because I started the build log almost three months after the model construction started.  I am catching up steadily, with these last photos taken at the beginning of October.  When I do, the reports from the shipyard will slow down considerably.  Like me.

 

Until then, Happy Thanksgiving to all, whether this is your holiday or not.

 

Dan

 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2018 by shipmodel

[Mirabell61]

Impressing work Dan,

 

the stern decoration looks very nice....

 

Nils

[druxey]

An interesting solution to the problem, Dan. What gold paint did you use, if I may ask?

[shipmodel]

Hi Nils, Druxey - 

 

And thanks to all who hit the 'like' button.

 

Druxey, here is the gold leaf paint that I use.  I have had the can for quite a while and do not remember where I got it.

 

Dan

[shipmodel]

Hi again to all, and I hope you had an excellent holiday.  Thanks, as always, for the likes and comments.

 

So, with the stern decorations done, I could work inward and upward without having to turn the ship upside down any longer.  This set me up to permanently install the two partial decks at the stern.  The first was the E level deck house topped by the D level deck with the added gun platform.  It was placed so the perimeter was exactly above the caprail below it.  Once it was glued in place I slid stanchions down through holes that were previously drilled in the deck. 

The stanchions were made from 0.032” brass rod, painted grey on the port side and black on stbd.  They were clipped short so they sank below the level of the upper deck.  The holes will be covered by a margin plank and the base of railings yet to come.

Forward of this area the D deck house sits back from the sides of the ship, creating an open walkway for a portion of its length.  The shape of the house was taken from the plans, then cut, sheathed and painted.  The windows, doors and handrails were added and it was secured in place.  Along the perimeter two pillars of 1/8” square stock hold up C deck where it overhangs the deck house and gives a roof to the walkway.    The C deck piece was carefully aligned and glued in place, then stanchions were painted, located from the photographs, and installed as before.

The small D deck house island had to be located so its perimeter stanchions rose exactly above the ones below.  To do this I slid in extra-long rods through the holes in both decks and adjusted them until everything lined up.  Then the island could be permanently glued in place.

The remaining stanchions were drilled through and installed, completing the stern structures.  Photoetched stairways and railings add detail and a sense of scale.  The one stanchion that is a bit askew was later corrected after examining this photo.

Continuing up and in, the large C deck house was built in the usual sequence.  I am finally happy with how the dark windows and doors set off the grey of the troop ship side.

The aft end of this deck house is labelled on the plans as the ‘veranda’, with a feature that I could not understand.  There were no photographs of the area because it is deep under the overhang of the deck above.  I chose to interpret it as casual seating with a plain wooden bench for the troops but upholstered seating for the paying customers.  No one will see it, but I will know that it is there.

The deck house was installed, leaving an even wider and longer open space than the walkway below.  At the perimeter of the ship ten pillars support the overhanging B deck and divide the area into sections.   The edging is quite low, almost at deck level for most of the length of the area, but with raised solid railings in two of the sections.

Rather than being a promenade, as is present on most ocean liners, this open area houses some of the many lifeboats that the ship carried, even as the Vaterland.   Was this a change made during construction in response to the Titanic sinking only two years before her launch?  The exterior location and ‘added on’ look of the boat cranes that you can see in the photos perhaps points in that direction.  An interesting question, but one I do not have time to explore now.

The port side received the same pillars and railings, only in grey rather than white.  Now I could give the entire troop ship side its coat of dark grey primer.  This visually flattened out all of the rivets, portholes, doors and moldings that I worked so hard on, leaving only a sense of rough texture.  This was just the look I was going for.

With the B deck piece set in place you can see how the solid and open areas are forming and defining the unique look of the ship.

It turns out that this is a good point to pause in the structural construction.  B deck actually extends out beyond the lower hull.  The overhang is only about 18 inches on each side, but it makes a distinct shadow line that appears in this photo and many others, and has to be accounted for on the model.  

Above this line the design of the ship gets very complicated and intricate, so I took the opportunity to do the final painting on the lower hull while the masking was easy.

 

Next time – the dazzle scheme.

 

Till then, be well.

 

Dan

 

[Hubac's Historian]

Excellent research and execution, Dan.  Also, good catch on the stanchion askew - otherwise, I was gonna have to be the jerk to point it out to you 😉

 

”Hey guys, check out all the progress I’ve made!

 

... yeah, yeah but that single stanchion!”

 

This is a remarkable model, Dan.  I’m really enjoying the build.

[Jim Lad]

You've made excellent progress while I've been away, Dan.  Well done, mate!

 

John

[shipmodel]

Thanks for all the likes and comments.  And Marc, never hesitate to point out something that I may have missed.  More eyes just means that fewer mistakes will get through to the final product.

 

With the model hull on the port side fully primed, it was time to figure out how to paint the complex and confusing ‘dazzle’ design that the troop ship bore. 

Dazzle camouflage, called ‘razzle-dazzle’ by us Yanks, was developed in England during World War I in response to Germany’s use of unlimited submarine warfare.  Credited to both a marine artist and a zoologist, the idea was not to make a ship invisible, as overall grey tries to do, but to make it difficult to estimate a target's range, speed, and heading.  It was intended primarily to mislead the enemy about a ship's course and so to make him take up a poor firing position.   It generally consisted of complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colors that interrupt and intersect each other.   It has been suggested that it works on the coincidence rangefinders used by submarines by making it hard to align the split images in the eyepiece.  The clashing patterns look abnormal even when not seen through a rangefinder.  Below is an actual photo of the USS West Mahomet.  Try to find the bow.

As seen in this 1922 illustration from the Encyclopedia Brittanica, dazzle can work for single ships, but for a convoy the appearance can be overwhelmingly confusing.  

 Its effectiveness was analyzed after the war.  Although British data is equivocal, among American merchantmen 2,500 tons and over, 78 uncamouflaged ships were sunk, but only 11 camouflaged ships sunk by torpedoes.  No camouflaged US Navy ships were sunk at all.  In the words of a U-Boat captain:

      “It was not until she was within half a mile that I could make out she was one ship [not several] steering a course at right angles, crossing from starboard to port. The dark painted stripes on her after part made her stern appear her bow, and a broad cut of green paint amidships looks like a patch of water. The weather was bright and visibility good; this was the best camouflage I have ever seen.”

     This may have been what he was looking at -

Fortunately I did not have to rely on photographs of the troop ship to get the dazzle design I needed.  The National Archives contains drawings of the dazzle pattern for Leviathan.  Here is the one for the port side.  This and the several photographs of the ship taken during the war were my starting point. 

Obviously, both the pattern and the photos are in black and white, but color was also a central part of dazzle camouflage.  For Leviathan it appears from the different shadings within the various areas of the pattern that several colors were involved.  The Brittanica page has a chart of all the colors used, but which colors went in which area?  Fortunately, the Merchant Marine museum has a large painting of the ship in moderately heavy seas.  It was done by Frederick J. Waugh, a marine artist who had been part of the American Camouflage Section which was responsible for designing the patterns for US Navy ships.

The painting was very helpful in identifying the look of the ship, but for model making it has some problems.  Careful comparison with both the drawn pattern and the photographs reveals some inconsistencies in the size and location of some of the camouflage shapes, so I went back to the photos for the final layout.  As for the colors, I was somewhat hesitant to rely on Waugh’s choice of hue and tone since he has other artistic factors to consider beyond exact reproduction.  Instead, I went back to the color chart on the Brittanica page.  It was clear that the page had yellowed somewhat, so I took the chart and adjusted the contrast, hue, and saturation until the background color of the page and the white color chip looked as close as I could get them, which is the lower set of colors.  After consultation with Professor Smith, we selected 1 Grey, 3 Grey, 1 Blue Green, 2 Blue, and White.

With those decisions made I took the dazzle layout and enlarged it to the size of the model.  Here it is, propped against the model.  I should have put them side by side for comparison, but forgot to take the photo.  So for comparison here is a shot of the port side from an earlier date.  The red things are the backs of our dining room chairs.

To lay out the design I knew that I could not simply cut out the pattern.  The model has too many curves that would distort the shapes, and I found that in any case the pattern did not accurately match the landmarks and dimensions of the model.   I would have to draw the pattern on the model by eye.  I decided to start with the bow, even though it is the most complicated area, because it had a clearly defined edge that could be reliably fixed to a landmark on the ship.  I covered the bow with strips of masking tape, then drew on the diagonal line at the aft edge starting with the point where the superstructure met the side bulwark.  Using the photo, the drawing and the painting, together with a small straightedge and some ships’ curves, I sketched in the outlines of the color areas.      

A word here about the tape.  It is “Frogtape” in the yellow formula for delicate surfaces.  I find that it holds quite well and releases cleanly with no residue.  I messed up drawing the bow pattern several times and had to remove all of the first layer of tape which came up without damaging the surface at all.  No connection to the company, just a happy customer.

          I repeated the process at the stern, which has a much simpler pattern, but has to work around much more acute curves.  You can see how the shapes had to be modified to hit the landmarks on the ship rather than simply taking them from the drawing.   Once the drawing was satisfactory, I cut down through the tape to the hull using a new paper cutting blade. 

The tape was burnished down and a sealer coat of clear acrylic was brushed along the edge to reduce bleeding.  Then the three open areas were sprayed with the 1 Grey color.  When the tape was removed the results were surprisingly satisfactory considering how uneven the surface is.  Only a little cleanup along the edges was needed.

Returning to the bow the long white stripe was cut and unmasked, burnished, sealed and sprayed.   When it was dry the area was re-masked with tape.  The inside of the bulwarks, the tops of the deck houses, and all other side areas were masked with tape and newspaper before the light grey areas were unmasked and painted.  When everything was dry the masks were all removed.  The result was a - - - Disaster!

          Despite the burnishing and sealing there was bleeding at so many spots that I spent more time hand-painting the edges than I had spent on the masking.  Ultimately I was satisfied with the sharpness of the edges and the layout of the pattern, but it took a lot longer than it should have.

With most of the kinks worked out I taped over the long midships section and laid out the pattern.

This time, after removing the masks from the Blue Green areas, I lightly brushed the paint from the edge of the tape inward toward the center of the area.  Using a fairly dry brush gave me no bleeding under the edge so when the tape was removed the edge was cleanly marked by a light layer of paint. 

A second coat was hand painted up to the edge to even out the hue and to make it fully opaque.  This was not difficult with the edges so cleanly marked.  The same was done for the light grey areas.  Here is the forward portion of the ship.

And here the stern.  I will never look at this without seeing a rabbit chasing an octopus.

 I wonder what the U-Boat captain might have thought, seeing this in his periscope.

By way of comparison, here is the boring black and white of the ocean liner.

Travel and family gatherings will fill the rest of the month, so I bid everyone a joyous Happy Holidays and excellent New Year.

 

Dan

 

 

[Jim Lad]

A very interesting piece of work, that camouflage, Dan.  Very well executed.

 

John

[amateur]

Wow.....

just a question: was the dazzle also applied to the deckhousing between decks, or just to the hull?

 

Jan

Edited December 5, 2018 by amateur

[Kevin]

Just caught up with your log, lovely work

[cog]

I've seen the dazzle from the Mahomet before at art class. It really is one of the best examples of that specific application

 

dispite the bleeding, you have done a remarkable job on the camouflage. On the plastic kit I'm working at currently, I smoothed down the edges of the masking tape with a q-tip. That helped considerably against bleeding. I also cut the masking tape off the boat. I made a template from the sides drew in the shapes after which I transfered that to the tape, which I stuck on some plastic, and after cutting moved it to the hull. I have to add that mine was a lot less intricate, so hardly if at all worth comparing

 

Safe travels and happy holidays to you too

Edited December 5, 2018 by cog

[Mirabell61]

Good progress Dan,

 

she`s coming on very well indeed.....

 

Nils

[Hubac's Historian]

I wonder what Jimmy Hendrix would have thought of that, if he could see it through his purple haze periscope.

 

What a learning experience, and effort well expended.  The dazzle really came out beautifully.  Interesting period pics, as well.  It really is confusing to make out the shape of the bow on that pic of the ship in port.

[michael mott]

Outstanding work Dan. I did not really understand this type of camouflage until now so thank you for adding all that information, it now makes sense to me.

Michael

[druxey]

Well done, Dan. Now enjoy holidays and the family!

[shipmodel]

Hi all - 

 

Glad you all liked the dazzle work.  I am still a bit uncertain about the tint of the Blue Green color.  Living with it for a while I believe that it may be too green and maybe a shade too light.  Professor Smith has some paint chips that should help.  I think the other colors are good, so the upgrade will not be too difficult.

 

Jan - I have evidence that the camouflage was painted on the forward face of the bow superstructure deck house, but none of the photos show the midships deck houses that are set back from the side of the ship, so I do not have that information.  I am leaving them grey until more information becomes available.

 

Marc -  Confusion is precisely the goal of the dazzle schemes.  Here is an approximation of what a U-Boat commander might have seen.  With the Leviathan steaming along at 26 knots any hesitation would have meant that the opportunity for a torpedo shot would be quickly lost.

  

"Gunnar! Ein torpedo los!

"But, Capitain, was do I aim at?"

 

Be well

 

Dan

[cog]

Dan,

 

You might take into account scale colouring, i.e. giving your colours a lighter tone by adding very light grey, or white to it. At 1/350 it is approximately 25%. At the scale we work on colours aren't as bright as on 1:1, that might have thrown you off

[shipmodel]

Hi Carl - 

 

Yes, you are quite right.  The optical effects of distance can be significant. 

Since it is a diorama, I planned to do a bit of weathering with filters, washes and glazes anyway, and I will take your advice to heart.  But I first wanted to get the base colors as close as I could.  The exact shades and tones may depend on the colors and intensities of the ocean once I model it.

But that is for much later.

 

Dan

 

[mtaylor]

Wonderful work, Dan.   That dazzle makes me cringe and my mind boggle just looking at it.  I don't know you managed to do it.