HNLMS Tijger 1868 by ccoyle - FINISHED - Paper Shipwright - 1/250 - Dutch Heiligerlee-class monitor - CARD

[ccoyle]

Well, not resting on my laurels here -- moving right along to the next project. I wanted to get back to ships and do something not terribly difficult. Tijger fits the bill, so off we go.

 

Tijger was one of five Heiligerlee-class monitors laid down for the Dutch navy in 1867. Roughly 192 ft in length with a beam of 44 ft, they had a draft of only 9 ft 9 in, displaced 1555 long tons, and carried a pair of 23 cm guns in a single turret. Tijger was auctioned off in 1895.

 

At 1/250 scale the finished model will be 23 cm long. In the second photo you can see one of my earlier models, the Spanish monitor Puigcerda, sitting atop Tijger's deck for a size comparison.

 

Build pics to follow soon. Maybe.

 

P.S. My understanding is that HNLMS (His/Her Netherlands Majesty's Ship) is an international prefix for Dutch ships, and that internally the Royal Netherlands Navy uses the prefixes Zr./Hr. Ms. (Zijner/Harer Majesteit's). Here in the American Deep South we would probably just call them "Y'All's Ship," as in, "Y'all's ship is blockin' muh party barge."

 

 

[Eurus]

Looks interesting. I'll tag along. 🙂

[Canute]

I'll tag along, too. A different take on Ericsson's monitor design.

[ccoyle]

First step was to cut out the base plate and temporarily fix it to a piece of glass to keep it flat during construction. Then came the hull formers. I never have much luck with using the plain card pieces by themselves -- I always seem to get some "starving cow" sagging between bulkheads. In fact, one reason why I chose Tijger as my next project is because I mistakenly assumed the deck is flat; I was going to see about getting a piece of wood planed to the correct thickness and create a solid hull. But, in fact, the deck has a slight bit of camber, so I went with option #2, which was to glue the formers to some leftover laser-cut sheets (this is where hoarding comes in handy) before cutting them out, which produces a sturdier sub-structure and provides more gluing area.

 

 

Before attaching the deck, I had to cut out the recesses for the aft deck houses and turret; the latter action is optional depending on if one wants the turret to be able to rotate or not. I'm going for the rotating turret. I also located and made holes for the future mast shrouds and stays. Then the deck was carefully glued on.

 

 

Can't complain too much so far.

[ccoyle]

Moving right along to the aft superstructure. The kit uses gluing tabs on parts like this, which I don't care for. That's not a knock against David's design, since lots of other kits use this same technique. But as I explained in my V-108 tutorial, these tabs act like little springs and don't allow structures to seat as well as they could. What I do instead is cut all the tabs off, then use furring strips cut from scrap material to line where the parts will be glued down; each strip acts as both a part locator and a gluing surface and should produce minimal seams between the glued parts. I did both the main deck and the underside of the superstructure deck in this manner.

 

 

And here's the aft superstructure glued down to the main deck. It doesn't look like much, but there are 30 parts in the sub-assembly. The doors are doubled. The tiny little braces on either side of the structure were not included in the kit, but the superstructure walls were marked for something, and braces were my guess based on similar ships from the same period.

 

 

 

[VTHokiEE]

Very useful tips, if I ever finish up my Half Hull I think I’m going to give one of my card models a try.

[ccoyle]

Hull sides, bridge wing struts, and hammock lockers added. Turret is up next.

 

 

 

[ccoyle]

Turret added. Yes, it rotates.

 

[popeye the sailor]

very nice start Chris......looks awesome  

[ccoyle]

Forward superstructure dry fit -- can't glue it down until some fiddly bits that go beneath it are finished (parts in the background).

 

[ccoyle]

Another day's progress.

 

Hawse pipes, capstan, bitts, chain stoppers.

 

Forward superstructure deck and support columns.

 

Skylights.

 

Meer zal volgen, maar niet vanavond!

[ccoyle]

Ugh ... this next step looks simple, but it was a real booger. First of all, the stack is not a simple cylinder -- it is oval in cross-section, and these are twice as hard to do nicely as just a plain tube. The second difficulty was the guy wires. These are made from EZ Line, and it is not "EZ" to work with at this scale. The anchoring points are tiny, which makes getting glue everywhere a real issue, and the line itself is so light that the slightest puff of air -- like when the AC cycles on -- makes the stuff want to flutter and fly away. I may have needed "special words" for this part. 😬 But at least it is done.

 

[druxey]

Well done, Chris! Perhaps another pic with a match or Tic-Tac for size comparison, please?

[ccoyle]

Well, I wasn't going to add a picture today, because all the bits I added today are quite small, but since you asked ...

 

Here's an over-all glimpse. The additions are the fairleads (8), ship's wheel, and compass.

 

And a close-up of the wheel (10 parts) and compass (5 parts), along with some scallywag's finger for size comparison (I'm fresh out of matchsticks and Tic-Tacs).

 

Thanks for looking in!

 

EDIT: There's also a new cowl vent in front of the stack. You'll notice it points upward at an awkward angle. I can't get the cowl vents in these kits right if my life depended on it. We'll just call them "Coyle-style cowls" -- or maybe just "Coywles." 🙄

[druxey]

Coywles: Collectors of both fresh air and fresh rainwater! Congratulations, Chris; you have invented a dual-purpose vent.

[amateur]

I have this one in my increasing stack of card models.

The amount of very small parts lowered my initial enthousiasm, so I did not start.....

Dutch navy had a couple of these ships, but none was ever used in action. They were notorious for their bad handling in choppy sees (as the North See happens to be most of the time)

The Rijksmuseum has a designmodel of the ship: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/NG-MC-1239

 

And as far as I know there is only one pic of the original:

Davids model is -timewise- somewhere between the model as designed, and the picture of her as shown: the ships were at some time modified with a machinegun platform and a searchlight platform, and repainted in a rather dull, boring grey.

 

Jan

Edited August 16, 2021 by amateur

[ccoyle]

Bollards, anchors, chain, anchor davits. The chain is a bit over-scale, but it was the smallest I could find at Hobby Lobby. I had to individually pinch each link with pliers to get the chain to pass through the chain stoppers and hawse holes.

 

 

Boat supports are next.

[gak1965]

On 8/14/2021 at 7:48 PM, ccoyle said:

Well, I wasn't going to add a picture today, because all the bits I added today are quite small, but since you asked ...

 

Here's an over-all glimpse. The additions are the fairleads (8), ship's wheel, and compass.

 

And a close-up of the wheel (10 parts) and compass (5 parts), along with some scallywag's finger for size comparison (I'm fresh out of matchsticks and Tic-Tacs).

 

Thanks for looking in!

 

EDIT: There's also a new cowl vent in front of the stack. You'll notice it points upward at an awkward angle. I can't get the cowl vents in these kits right if my life depended on it. We'll just call them "Coyle-style cowls" -- or maybe just "Coywles." 🙄

Wow. I would have expected the wheel to be inside somewhere (like the Monitor) rather than out in the open. I imagine that it would be an, ah, uncomfortable place during combat.

[ccoyle]

1 hour ago, gak1965 said:

Wow. I would have expected the wheel to be inside somewhere (like the Monitor) rather than out in the open. I imagine that it would be an, ah, uncomfortable place during combat.

 

Many, if not most or even all, warships have redundant steering systems in case one is put out of commission during an action. I'd bet dollars to donuts that Tijger has an internal steering station somewhere.

[ccoyle]

I did the port-side boat supports last night and finished up the starboard side tonight, then did the first two boats (not glued in at this point). I usually have quite a struggle with the boats, but these turned out nice, probably because I opted to forego cutting out the spaces between the thwarts and adding the optional internal detailing. That produces boats that are less 3-D, but they're also much easier to build.

 

 

 

BTW, the secret to those spindly little support columns is to wick some CA into the cut edges before doing the edge coloring -- makes a big difference.

[druxey]

Oh, Chris! You didn't cut around the thwarts? What would the late, great Danny have to say? Here's to Dan!

[ccoyle]

I've done so on prior pojects, but then the resulting part is very flimsy and difficult to get mated to the boat's hull correctly. One has to carefully choose one's paper battles! (And yes -- Dan was a master, and he's missed.)

[ccoyle]

Okay, now I have an issue. There are four boats; the kit refers to the larger boats as "lifeboats," and they are supposed to on the amidship chocks. The smaller boats, a whaler and a cutter, are supposed to go aft. The issue is, if the boats are placed in those locations, then the shrouds leave insufficient room for the lifeboats -- they're too big for those spots. However, I can move the lifeboats aft, as shown in the photo, and everything will fit. The question is, will I be violating some sacred Dutch naval protocol if I swap the boats around in this manner? BTW, the rigging was a complete pain in the Tuchus!

 

 

I did not attempt to make the masts from the supplied paper parts. I replaced them with turned plastic rod.

[ccoyle]

I just now saw that the display model at Paper Shipwright has the boats switched around in the manner I described above, so I guess that's the way to do it.

[druxey]

You are the captain and can do what you like. So there.

[ccoyle]

So here's tonight's progress. The biggest remaining task will be the railings, which I will again be making from thread. Other than that there are just a few bits left.

 

[ccoyle]

Well, I only made a tiny bit of progress on Sunday. If you can spot the additions, then you have a keen eye for detail!

 

[druxey]

Well, a nicely draped ensign, for one thing!

[VTHokiEE]

...and teeny lanterns I believe? Coming along very nicely

[ccoyle]

44 minutes ago, druxey said:

Well, a nicely draped ensign, for one thing!

 

Thank you! I moistened the original part so that I could remove most of the paper layers before folding (not draping) and gluing. To do the actual draping, I use a scribing tool and just try to imagine how the cloth would fold over on itself if it were hanging.