AMAPÁ 1907 by Ras Ambrioso - FINISHED - scale 1:64 - Brazilian Customs Cruiser

[Valeriy V]

Main Particulars	Original
Length over all:	41,76 m
Breadth moulded:	5,48 m
Draught max.:	1,83 m
Speed:	14,5 kn

[Valeriy V]

Engineering  january-june   1909

Edited December 12, 2021 by Valeriy V

[Ras Ambrioso]

Thanks a lot Roger and Flying Fish.

 

Valeriy, Thanks for the information on the Suriya Monthon. It happens that another MSW member was looking for information on my Amapá. He is from Thailand and send me a note asking me for copies of my hull lines plans. We have been in communication since. He is building the Monthon who was a sister ship with Amapá. Your information will add to my files. It appears that these ship class was popular for coast guard duties overseas

[Roger Pellett]

It is my impression that the large commercial shipbuilders of the time had standard designs that they offered to customers.  I have seen catalogs for river boats that could be sent in pieces to be assembled at a foreign location.

 

It therefore makes sense that the yard that built Ampa offered it to other governments as well.

 

Roger

[Ras Ambrioso]

Building continues. I am concentrating now on finishing the hull. After the portholes the next challenge was the anchor chain hawse pipes. I had to remember my descriptive geometry lessons in order to calculate the proper angle for the pipe. At the end I used my eyeballs and slowly drew a sharp needle punch and, amazingly, I hit my marks. I followed with a drill bit rotated by hand. Unfortunately, I did some damage to the hull surface due to the multiple paint layers being king of fragile but there is always Miliput.

 

 

I inserted a brass tube and marked the cuts at the hull and the deck with a black marker.

 

 

 

 

A little more filling and then the finished paint.

 

[Ras Ambrioso]

After looking at the information that Valeriy found, I saw that the Monthon had the whole deck wood planked. So I decided to go that way. Started by laying the waterway on the aft deck. Also decided to leave the fantail un-decked. The plan is to set grating in this part of the ship.  The railing stanchions and the mooring gear will be sitting on the waterway. 

 

 

 

On the forward deck there is a wave dodger in front of the gun. This took a little thinking for  its fabrication on account of the multiple angles but the problem was solved using hard balsa and sanding nail files. The results was an acceptable dodger.

 

 

The plan is to leave this forward deck without planking to mount the anchor winch and its accessories  as well as the forward mooring gear. The un-planked deck areas will be painted a darker grey as well as some of the superstructure roofs.

I am still undecided about the the color of the stack. Will appreciate your ideas. Ships on the old "White Fleet" were white and buff but this one (1907) is a little past that time, more a pre WWI, and the base color is a "Navy Ship Grey".

 

Thanks a lot for you likes and comments. 

[wefalck]

I don't know, whether the customs service at that time was associated with the navy, but it may be worthwhile to have word with the Brazilian Naval Museum in Rio de Janeiro: https://www.marinha.mil.br/dphdm/espaco-cultural-da-marinha

 

I don't know how good the museum is, it seems to be relatively new, at least it did not seem to exist in the early 2000s, when I had been a couple of times down there.

[Ras Ambrioso]

First of all, thanks Wefalck for the tip to the Brazilian Museum. I will be contacting them to see about more information about my project. I do not speak Portuguese but I can understand their writing pretty well.

 

Planking is completed and I have covered it with linseed oil and then finished it with a clear satin lacquer coat. 

 

 

When I was going to finish the upper hull I ran out of the paint I was using. The color is a Stone Grey Rust-Oleum Paint+Primer and for some reason was not available in my local stores. I went to five hardware stores to no avail, and finally ordered it online. 

While waiting for the paint to be delivered, I continued fabrication of several deck accessories. Unpainted are the crew heads and paint locker.

 

 

 

Next I took my Unimat out and made, what I consider my microscopic mushroom vents.

 

 

The paint was been delivered today but I will be taking a break for the Christmas activities. So, I wish y'all a very happy and merry Christmas.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Ras Ambrioso

[Kittichart Boonyapakdi]

I still have followed your project sir. I hope you had a Merry Christmas and Happy New  Year and that your problems have gone away.

[Ras Ambrioso]

Hope y'all had a great holiday. I did. Continuing my build, it was about time to remove the masking tape that protected the ships bottom while I worked on the deck planking. To my delight the waterline came perfectly delineated  and the results show in the next picture. First time I use Tamiya masking tape for this job.

 

 

I also installed the brass porthole rings that have been glazed with Gorilla glue. They came out all right but I had  do a little of damage control with a wood filler wash.

 

 

More pictures to show the progress to date. I continue working on the upper structures and started to use a mix media of  cartuline and wood veneer to complete the trim of the cabins.

 

 

Next I was looking on how to fabricate the miniature fire buckets. I tried using brass tubing been swaged with a punch. The one shown is about 3/16'' OD but the final set will be 5/32".

 

 

And thats all folks!

Thanks for watching and appreciate your comments.

 

[Ras Ambrioso]

Have installed the propeller shafts and fabricated the supports but, due to my less than perfect symmetry and imperfections of in the hull, I had to order smaller propellers which are yet to arrive.

In the meantime, I kept working on the deck accessories. Following is  a photo of the heads (toilets) with the doors installed. I tried several methods to make the doors and finally decided on cutting the door out of 1/32" planks and glue 0.5 mm square strips frame. Later I will fabricate and install the hinges and the door knobs.

 

 

 

Next came the companion ways I used a 1/64" plank to cover the curved area.

 

 

Then , using the same procedure as the head doors I built the sides and front doors.

 

 

Then using the 0.5 mm strips I laid the sliding hatch cover. Door knobs, handles and hinges will follow.

 

Finally  I cut the base for the small skylights out of solid pine. This kind of overworked my little MicroLux saw and burned the the wood in some places. I plan to make the frames and louvers out of the thin planks. Photos to follow.

 

 

This project have been extremely rewarding to me as I venture in the fabrication of these miniature pieces. My results are far from the accuracy of the fabrication by Wefalck and Valeriy but my tolerances stop at +/- 0.5 mm. Thanks for watching.

 

 

 

[wefalck]

You are doing very well and the framed doors are exactly in the way I would have done them !

[Ras Ambrioso]

Thank you Wefalck, I admire your precise work very much. I try to do the best I can with my shaky hands and my poor eyes. I think that the 1/64 scale is a small as I want to build in the future. For your information I am already researching my future project. I have two ships in mind. One is an armed trawler from the WWI period. These were both made with wood and/or steel hulls and were based on the British net trawlers. The other one is a 40 Ft fast armed motor pinnace name "Mimi"which has a very interesting story.

[Valeriy V]

11 hours ago, Ras Ambrioso said:

 

My results are far from the accuracy of the fabrication by Wefalck and Valeriy but my tolerances stop at +/- 0.5 mm. Thanks for watching.

 

 

 

Ras, I am pleased to watch your progress. Your skill level will undoubtedly increase with each new project!   

[Ras Ambrioso]

Thanks a lot Valeriy  You have been a great teacher

[Ras Ambrioso]

In one of my previous posts I presented my method for creating the fire buckets that are shown on the boiler casing.

The bucket that I did for testing was too big, so I used a smaller brass tube. This is the first one.

 

 

This is the whole batch and the holding racks

 

 

And the the final product:

 

 

Before installing them I am going to simulate the legs of the racks and fill the bucket of some very fine white sand (like the one we have here in Florida)

 

I also started the detailing of the life rings. These life rings are 10mm dia and I wanted to add hanging ropes in the perimeter. For this I used a jig to lay the rope between the nails and then dropped the ring over and glued (CA) the rope in the marked four points.

 

 

 

 I will make four life rings using this method and will try to tie the rope to the rings at the attachment points by serving a line round the ring. (Excuse the poor focus in the photo)

[wefalck]

That's a clever idea, this jig for the grabbing-line around the lifebuoys. Have to keep this in mind, as I also have to make a couple of them soon.

 

The lifebuoys I have seen, and the German late 19th regulations stipulate the same, seem to have the line attached with a strip of heavy canvas around the ring, rather than a serving line. I will use some very light silk paper, like cigarette paper, for the purpose.

 

You fire buckets also look good ! I am not a fire-fighting expert (Kurt van Dahm here would be ...), but believe that sand is used only on electrical equipment (would there be electrical lighting on AMAPÁ ?), on material that could with water and thereby releasing heat, or when no water would be available (say in forests). Besides, the sand in open buckets would become wet very quickly from the rain and spray - and there is no shortage of water on a ship   You could give the buckets also handles made from wire ...

[Veszett Roka]

21 minutes ago, wefalck said:

 

The lifebuoys I have seen, and the German late 19th regulations stipulate the same, seem to have the line attached with a strip of heavy canvas around the ring, rather than a serving line. I will use some very light silk paper, like cigarette paper, for the purpose.

 

You fire buckets also look good ! I am not a fire-fighting expert (Kurt van Dahm here would be ...), but believe that sand is used only on electrical equipment (would there be electrical lighting on AMAPÁ ?), on material that could with water and thereby releasing heat, or when no water would be available (say in forests). Besides, the sand in open buckets would become wet very quickly from the rain and spray - and there is no shortage of water on a ship   You could give the buckets also handles made from wire ...

 

Correct, the grabbing line wasn't served but attached with canvas. Here are two pictures of 1920 hungarian ships' ring, i held them in my hand in reality too.

Sand is not for electrical fires, but oil or grease, any liquid which lighter than water thus 'swimming' on it and cannot get separated from oxygen source.

[Valeriy V]

Ras, fire buckets were kept empty, the handles of the buckets were not made of metal, probably so that they would not heat up in a fire.

 

 

[BANYAN]

Neat idea for that jig Ras, I'll tuck that away as I have to do mine very soon.  Unfortunately, those links give a 'forbidden' error message.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Roger Pellett]

I have also read (somewhere) that the bottoms were often domed so that they would not stand upright on the deck, thereby being useless for anything but their intended purpose.

[Veszett Roka]

8 hours ago, BANYAN said:

Neat idea for that jig Ras, I'll tuck that away as I have to do mine very soon.  Unfortunately, those links give a 'forbidden' error message.

 

cheers

 

Pat

 

Here are the pictures of the lifesaver rings, i downloaded them for you
 

[Ras Ambrioso]

Guys thank a lot for your replies and suggestions. 

First on the life rings I like the idea on using canvas to attach the hanging line. This will be a lot easier to do than the serving and I can use vinyl drafting tape for it. Good tip. 

Secondly on the fire buckets. I like the idea of using a rope as the handle. At this scale it be a lot easier fir me. Good tip. 

For the bottoms, since they can’t be seen, I was going to use glue as I did for the portholes and then fill them with sand. I have to do a little more research if to use sand or leave them empty. 

Thanks again for all your comments and extraordinary source of  research.  

[BANYAN]

Thanks Ras, appreciate the images

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Ras Ambrioso]

After a rainy, dull weekend I went back to the miniaturization work on Amapá. By the suggestions of this forum, I was going to add rope handles to my little fire buckets. I thought it would have been difficult to drill the tiny holes on the sloping side of the already fabricated buckets. So I decided to fabricate new buckets and pre-drill the holes. Using a wood dowel as a mandrel I proceeded to drill the tubing all the way across . Good!

However, I forgot my engineering studies on stress, and when I tried to swage the bucket, the brass gave up. Bad!

 

 

After spending a couple of hours on this exercise I was back to step one. I then decided to glue the rope handles. Again, using the wood dowel mandrel, I deposited a tiny drop of CA on one side and carefully located the rope's end. After the CA set, I placed glue on the opposite end and completed the loop.

 

 

 

And this is the way my fire buckets look on their racks.

 

 

In the plans the boiler casing is very bare, showing only one watertight door for access. I thought of adding a handrail for the crew to hold on on heavy seas. I used the leftover eyebolts from my previous build, the Fifie. Also completed the life ring using tape instead of serving the hanging rope. I also had purchased some etched WT doors. This is a preview of the final look.

 

 

I am enjoying my first scratch build, I love the planning and the experimentation on methods for the fabrication of these miniatures. And it makes me even more aware of the talents of some of our micro-engineers like Valeriy and Welfack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[wefalck]

👍

 

I always found that patience and perseverance are the most important skill of a modeller

[Roger Pellett]

Patience and Perseverance:  it’s nice to have both, but if you don’t have patience, you better have perseverance!

 

Roger

[KeithAug]

17 hours ago, Ras Ambrioso said:

I am enjoying my first scratch build,

 

Yes it is fun finding ways of making things, well done thus far.

[Ras Ambrioso]

Thanks guys y'all are my inspiration

[Ras Ambrioso]

Propellers have not arrived so I continue working on the superstructure details. I deviated from the plans a bit with regards to the water tanks. I could not figure out why would they have a seawater water tank so I decided to make a bigger fresh water tank to sit on top of the boiler casing. This is the tank before painting and installing a feed pipe.

 

Added the sky lights and the fire buckets to the casing. Also notice the detailed WT door (Brass etching). 

 

The plans I have for this ship indicated that two pumps were located in the forward wall of the casing. A fresh water and a sea water pumps. I decided to install a fire station in the forward wall of the casing including a standpipe and fire hose. The fire hose gave me a lot of trouble since I couldn't get the materials to wrap around the spool as I wanted. Finally I used a very thin strip of white vinyl tape and fabricated a connector and a nozzle.

 

I also fabricated the smallest thing I have ever made: a gate valve for the standpipe.

 

And following is the standpipe before cutting out the excess wire. The photo also shows some of the deck vents that will be installed in the casing walls.

 

My next little project is the stack. I am considering making the stack out of heavy (lacquered) paper. I am practicing in making the cylinder by wrapping around a proper size dowel. This will be my first use of paper in modeling.