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

[shipmodel]

Bob - 

 

Forgot to answer your question.  I have a photo of the troop ship being loaded with coal, so I presume that the coal-to-oil conversion happened later.

[michael mott]

Loading that coal looks like it was back breaking work.

 

Michael

[hexnut]

On 3/25/2019 at 1:35 PM, shipmodel said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brilliant work, as always!  Reminding me a bit of some of Charles Sheeler's great artwork... 🙂

Edited March 30, 2019 by hexnut

[druxey]

Interesting comparison, Hexnut.

[shipmodel]

Hi again to all who are following along with this journey, and thanks for the positive responses.  I missed a post last week, so this one is longer to make up.   It has a lot of pictures, so the system has made me break it into two parts.

 

After fitting out the top of the deck house area between the first two funnels, I added the machinery which was alongside the deck house.  As seen in the photo, there is a large unit in the middle, with smaller ones fore and aft.  Unfortunately, this is the best photo of those elements, and the white-on-white paint makes it hard to see what is really going on.

After studying that and other photos, and taking into account the recent discussion and photo of exhaust blowers, I made my best guess as to the construction of the large central unit.  The one for the liner is on the left, with a small blower sitting on a large duct.  The troop ship is the same, but with a small cowl vent intake.

It sits here for the liner

And here for the troop ship

After painting, they were set in place, but not attached, so they could be moved to balance the other units in the same area.  I also could see where a little more sanding of rough edges was needed.

The two smaller blowers were made up as usual, while the two small engines are Bluejacket castings that were modified to more closely match the photos.  I also decided to put a cap on the top duct.  I realized that ducts without caps are seen only on the Vaterland.

Here is how that area turned out, which can be compared to the first photo in this segment.  It is close enough for government work, and since this is for the government, I think it will do.

Here are the blowers and engines for the troop ship.  I used a contrasting shade of grey so they would stand out for the viewer, but I may yet match them to the background and let their shapes alone set them off.

Aft of the middle funnel there are a gaggle of blowers and a flock of ducts to be puzzled out.  Here is the plan of the area.  Although there are similarities, there are quite a few differences from side to side.

The photos confirm that this lack of symmetry was present at all times in her life, so I pieced the machines together and matched them to the known information and came up with this.

And here it is from a lower angle.

End of part 1

 

Dan

[shipmodel]

And here is part 2

 

The area around the third funnel and aft of it was difficult to make out and I am still not completely sure that I got it right.  Here is the plan.

But careful examination of photos reveals a number of differences, not only with the plan, but with each other.  I took what I was certain of, and made my best guess as to the rest.

One of the things I was most certain of were the two largest blowers on the ship, which connected directly to the side of the funnel platform.  Their motors were large enough that I turned them in the drill press and added three grooves as decoration.  A number of the blowers had ducts that angled across the roof of the deckhouses and came down the sides.

Ducts were led as seen in the photos, even if I did not understand where they were going or why they had so many bends.

Here is the liner side of the area, as well as the top of the funnel platform.  At the back of the funnel there is a large round pipe that feeds into a square curved duct.  Some of the photos that determined that shape will be coming up later.

Here is the port side in shades of grey.  The last pieces to put on before leaving an area are the railings.  They tell me not to mess around any more without a very good reason.

I was lucky to find these two photos taken from the same viewpoint of the deck house area behind the last funnel.   From the troop ship to the liner the ventilation towers grow taller, ducts come and go, and the duct from the funnel loses a large horizontal pipe.  This pipe is to starboard of the centerline, so in this peculiar format, it will not be modeled at all.

The duct was built up and painted red to match the liner funnel since it was entirely on the starboard side of the centerline.  However, it really stood out when viewed from port, so I fudged things a bit.  I moved the duct slightly to port until it just touched the centerline.  Then I painted that face to match the blue-green of the camouflage. 

     On the roof of the deckhouse I made up the several sizes of blowers and skylights that I could see in the photos.

At the aft end of the deckhouse are four very large blowers, two on the roof and two standing on the deck below.  Between them is a small blower with a tall vertical duct that rises exactly on the centerline and had to be painted down the middle.  Practice, perhaps, for the masts to come.  On the starboard side is an ‘L’ shaped room fitted out with some portholes and a door.  A number of lines from the antenna array lead to it, so I suppose that it is the radio shack.  On the port side only a stairway leads down to the deck below.

Here is the area of the third funnel all fitted out.  Almost finished.  It just needs the small houses that fill the notches in the aft end of the deck house

In the Vaterland these were wooden sheds that stood on legs a bit off the deck.  The starboard one was the florist shop and had many windows.  The port one was the dog kennel.  They remained during the war and for a while afterwards on the liner, but had been removed in some other photos taken later in her civilian career.

I made them up from cubes of basswood set on small styrene feet.  They were both sheathed in cherry veneer with window and door decals made up and printed on clear film.

After a thin molding was added to the top of both, the troop ship one was painted and the decals applied. 

I think they give this area a nice visual grace note that would be missed if I were modeling the later configuration.  The rounded fitting aft of the shed is a test piece for the hoods over the stairheads.  Like the sheds they come and go, but I think I will add them if I can.

Finally, the obligatory ‘here’s looking up your old centerline’ shot.

Next, the roof of the bridge deckhouse, with the huge ventilator, the lookout house, and the rangefinder platform cut right in half.

 

Till then, be well.

 

Dan

[Mirabell61]

excellent work Dan,

 

those vent machines and - ducts are beautiful 

 

Nils

[KeithAug]

As always it is a pleasure to find your updates Dan. I just get a bit depressed when I see how much you have achieved. She continues to look very smart. Looking forward to the next update.

[druxey]

Coming along nicely, Dan. That's a lot of clutter on top! It must have been frustrating to deal with that one item crossing over the centerline. That's as neat a solution as any that you decided on.

[Jim Lad]

Those vent fans must have driven you crazy, Dan.  They really look first class in the completed state, but to be very picky, I think you missed a bit. 

Towards the end of part one of this update, you show an image of the plan abaft the funnel showing blowers port and starboard with long horizontal trunks leading forward to the funnel casing.  These two blowers appear to each have a second trunking leading athwartships out to the deck edge, which you don't show on the model.  Just a thought.

 

John

 

[shipmodel]

Hi John - 

 

Well spotted.  The first photo that I used was taken from an angle that makes it seem like the short duct is not even present.  It is, but with the crowded area around the blower, and having to mate up that duct with the longer one coming off the curved roof led me to skimp a bit on the detail of that short duct.  I may have been a bit tired as well.  Here is a better view.  Better, but not perfect.

  

[rwiederrich]

Dan......just finished reviewing your log... and boy oh boy, what a beautiful ship...great job dividing her too.  Makes for a great history lesson as well.

 

Rob

 

[FriedClams]

Wonderful work Dan - Very nice.  Such a tangle of ductwork to sort out.  If you ever tire of ship modeling, it looks like you have a career in HVAC waiting for you.

 

Gary

[KeithAug]

Hi Dan - hope you know it is Sunday????? Your updates are so good.

Edited April 14, 2019 by KeithAug

[shipmodel]

Build log 16 – Leviathan

 

Yes, Keith, it is Sunday and here is another installment.  Glad you are enjoying them.

Thanks to all for the compliments and comments.  A lot of the fun of doing these logs are the interactions between all the great friends across the globe.

 

We move on now to the top of the bridge deck.  Here the structural revisions from the troop ship to the liner are the greatest.  Mostly this has to do with the reduction in ventilation systems and their upgrades.  The plans for the area were abstracted from separate plans of both the troop ship and the liner.  I then halved them and combined the halves to make one plan for the model.

I started with the troop ship side.  I located a photo taken from the foremast lookout platform which shows the area, especially the large air intake structure and the strange square construction on top.  It also shows most of the deck details on the aft portion of the deck.

Most of the details in this area are similar to the blowers and ductwork which were made for other areas, and the techniques used were the same.

In addition to the blowers and ducts there are several cylindrical tanks for liquids, although I do not know what the fluids were.  A large flat skylight will have to be cut in half, but two smaller ones exist in both incarnations, so they were made in full.

In this detail photo, probably taken while she was being converted to the troop ship, the entire intake trunk can be seen, along with the two lookout houses to either side, and that square construction in the center.   I had no notion of what this was, until I read the official history of the ship.  It turns out that this is a platform for a large rangefinder for the 6 inch guns that the ship carried.  I found drawings of several types and will probably try to make something convincing later on.

From below the platforms and railings of the lookout sheds can be seen, as well as the strange angled sides of the rangefinder house.

The intake structure started with a central wooden block for the body of the intake trunk, with thin vertical separators as seen in the photos.  The curved end was carved from a block of basswood.

After priming in dark grey it was evident that the intake ports were too simple and looked wrong.  I added shallower dividers and painted the interiors flat black, which improved things a lot.

The lookout house and its walkway were built up out of cherry veneer with a rounded basswood top and an “X” frame PE support taken from from the spares box.  Here they are being test fit.

The rangefinder house was pieced together with styrene cut and fit.  I thought that the angled sides would be more of a problem, but I sanded bevels into wide strips of plastic and welded them together with liquid cement.  The three required pieces were cut off and the mating corners beveled until they formed an open rectangle.  Cap pieces top and bottom were added, then mated to the solid floor. 

A paper floor was cut and fit inside, with PE supports cut and fit underneath.  The ‘cut’ edges were painted red to show the line of cleavage.  Note to self – clean up the camo paint inside the intake.  Damn, these digital closeups show everything!

Viewed from aft, the walkway and railing can be better seen.

Here is the completed troop ship flying bridge.   Note that the railing around the forward edge is solid and has the same ‘vee’ shape as the rangefinder house. 

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.

They were built up with a sheathed basswood base, a middle section with an internal support and PE ladders turned sideways to represent the stanchions.  Tiny shutters of .010” plastic were cut and delicately glued in place. 

Here is the combined area.  On the liner side the railing is not solid, but is strong 4-bar PE with a wooden caprail and a paper strip to simulate the canvas wind screen.  I also added a Bluejacket binnacle along the centerline.  There is some navigational device there in one of the photos, but I could not make out which it was, so this is a bit of a guess.

Lastly, the centerline shot.

Next week is Passover, so I probably will not get to put together a post. 

 

So a very Happy Pesach to all my tribe, and Happy Easter or other spring festival of your choice to everyone else!

 

Dan

14.psd

[mtaylor]

Have a great one, Dan.   I hope the weather gets nicer.  This is one impressive build.

 

The range finder is interesting looking at the pictures.  Appears to be tarp hanging from it.  Is there any side view to show how high it is above the "walls" (for lack of a better word)?  Since it had to rotate, there must have been some sort of column underneath it holding it up. There should be a hatchway, I'd think, to get in for servicing and possibly operating it.   There also should have been two.... one forward and one astern as the Navy always like "backups" as well as have 100% coverage.

[cog]

Wouldn't louvres be more logical, especially on forward ducts? 

 

 

Happy Easter

Edited April 15, 2019 by cog

[Jim Lad]

Some complex work on the monkey island, San.  She's really coming along very well.

 

John

[shipmodel]

Hi all, and thanks - 

 

Carl - in today's world I guess you would be right, but the vertical dividers seem to be what I am seeing in the photos.

 

Mark -  Yes, I skimped a tiny bit on the access hatch.  There is a suggestion of a two-step stairway up the back center in the detail photo.  But the space is only 3mm tall and then I would have to cut the steps in half!!  I chose to believe that the hatch was on the liner side and did not have to be modeled. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

The rangefinder will have to be tall enough to look over the walls of the platform, which are scale 6 feet high.  That would not be a problem on top of a sturdy column.  It is probably housed in that long, square box that seems to sit athwartships on top of the walls.  Is that a protective cover that was removed during use?  Do I show it or show the rangefinder exposed?  How do I model it so it tells a story?  Questions for a later time.

 

As for the height,  there are no plans, but here is the photo taken closest to horizontal.  It has fairly high resolution for such a long range shot, but this is as much as it could be enlarged before it pixillated.  Some artistic license did have to be used.

    

[druxey]

Great going, Dan. And a happy Pesach to you!

[KeithAug]

Lovely job Dan. The ventilation modification for troop transportation are really interesting - it is surprising that they went to so much trouble - I cant believe they were just to increase comfort, I guess they must have had some concerns about health.

[shipmodel]

Hi Keith - yes, they had lots of health concerns.  On one crossing there were over 14,000 soldiers, sailors and nurses aboard.  Without major ventilation they could have exhausted the available oxygen pretty quickly.  Whatever their concerns, they were not enough, and almost 1,000 soldiers died of influenza during another crossing.

 

Dan

[KeithAug]

Dan 

 

A few months ago I watched a very interesting programme on the Spanish flue epidemic at the end of the 1st world war. News of the epidemic was suppressed among the combative nations and was only called Spanish flue because as a non-combatant Spain did not have such restrictions. The source of the flu was ultimately traced to a USA farm worker who joined the US army. It travelled to Europe by troop transport and clearly Leviathan was part of this transmission path. It is not often that a ship has been a key player in the death of over 40 million souls.

 

[shipmodel]

Yes - I believe I saw the same show.  It changed my view of that little bit of history.

 

As for ventilation, it was always considered a serious issue.  It is reported that the Vaterland had 113 ventilation blowers, 51 exhaust and 62 supply, and then there were the ones added during the conversion to the troop ship.  The importance of breathing is obvious.  From the history of the ship's Medical Department written by its head Dr. Dunlap:

". . . quotative examinations of the air in the troop spaces were made at different hours both day and night to determine the temperature, humidity, and amount of carbon dioxide in these places; these observations were made the subjects of various reports and resulted in the installation of new ventilating  systems and correction of those already in operation . . ."

 

No wonder I can't figure out which ones went where at any specific time.

 

Dan

 

[mtaylor]

Thanks for the explanation, Dan.  As for the ends where the mirrors are, I wish I could reference precisely but generally, they had either canvas covers or on some steel "hatch" that was hinged.  I'm assuming they were somewhat "standard" so pic from a cruiser might good. 

 

I  can see your dilemma with the ventilators.  On the plus side, you can never be proven wrong.  

[rwiederrich]

Magnificent work.....

 

Rob

[shipmodel]

Plausible deniability - what a wonderful phrase.  😁

 

Dan

 

[lmagna]

Just think Dan

!4000 people is probably ten times the number of bodies the ship was designed/certified to carry. Plus you need to add the number of crew to that and I believe you said something about enlarged power requirements in one of your earlier posts. At any rate in bodies alone 14000 98.6 degrees makes a lot of heat that needs to be carried off!

 

On the other hand in the case of influenza, I am pretty sure the fans carrying all that air around added to the higher relative humidly that is also caused by all those extra people breathing was nothing but a almost perfect breading ground for the Flu.

[FriedClams]

What a unique and complicated build you have going here Dan.  So interesting, and it’s coming along beautifully.  It’s easy to forget how small some of these details are – the dime placed next to the sheds is a good reminder.

 

Your interpretation of the large white roof units as air intake might be correct, but I have a few reservations.

 

First I want to state that I am not an HVAC tech or a system designer by a long shot.  Most of my working life was in industrial automation and electrical controls, but I worked on these systems when HVAC people were not readily available and production lines were shutting down due to unhealthy air conditions.  In complex environmental systems, it doesn’t take much to throw things out of balance.   And just for the record – if the impeller on a large roof mounted centrifugal blower decides to throw itself apart – it will always do so at 2:00 AM in the middle of a blizzard.

 

But back to your white roof units.  My doubts that they are air intake stem from the existence of the shutters.  Air makeup units have to continuously supply fresh air in all weather conditions.  Also in the photo I notice the exhaust of a rather large blower pointed at the unit.  It doesn’t seem like a good idea to blow stale air back into the intake.  If I were to guess (and I am) I’d say it was a heat exchanger.  In bitter cold, the shutters could be closed fully or partially.  My second guess is that it’s a hotdog stand. 

 

Thanks for all the effort you put into your build log – it is instructive, educational and fun.  Keep up the good work.

 

Gary 

[shipmodel]

Hi Gary -

 

Not sure exactly which units you are talking about, but you certainly may be right.  I claim exactly no experience with HVAC systems since I never handled a lawsuit that involved them.  Most of my units are my interpretations of the external appearance of what I can make out in the photos that I have, which are incomplete, not usually very detailed, and only show a snapshot of what was a 17 year long movie.

 

Hotdog stands work for me.  I believe that I can make out the word "Sabrett's" on the side of one . . . (a New York in-joke)

 

Dan