Steamship ERGENSTRASSE by Mirabell61 - FINISHED - 1:87

[Jim Lad]

Beautiful progress, mate. What are you using for your deck plating?

 

John

[Mirabell61]

Hi John,

I still have some of that self adhasiv aluminium foil 0,125 mm thick with acetat glue film and protective pull off cover foil rearsides, same as I used for my other models with riveted skin. 

The plates are cut from the roll wih a paper guillotin for straight edges.

The wood surface has been primered with a nitro based primer (Einlassgrund) for a good contact surface.

I hope that the remaining rest of this batch will last for the complete hull. It seems to be taken from the market lately, and an alternative wich is only unfortunately 0,1 mm thick will be available. I did`nt try it yet, but guess it would suit as well.

The poncing tool I still have for 1, 2, and 3-fold riveting lines

 

Nils

[Mic_Nao]

Beautiful work Nils.

[Mirabell61]

Thank you very much Mic

 

Nils

[FriedClams]

On 7/1/2023 at 4:28 AM, Mirabell61 said:

I hope that the remaining rest of this batch will last for the complete hull. It seems to be taken from the market lately, and an alternative wich is only unfortunately 0,1 mm thick will be available.

 

If you haven't already, check your local hardware/building supply outlets as this sort of tape is often used on sheet metal ductwork to prevent air leaks.  Varying widths and possibly thicknesses.

 

Excellent (and fast) progress on your model, Nils!

 

Gary

[Mirabell61]

Thank you Gary,

most self adhesive aluminium foil (used on ductwork, etc.) is too thin for good results. For poncing the best results were with 0,125 mm thickness.

 

Nils

[Jim Lad]

Thanks for that, mate!

 

John

[FlyingFish]

Blimey Nils - you are cracking on with this - great work! The director would have hired you for the movie progress like this! The sheet metal work looks spot-on!

[Mirabell61]

Hi Andy,

thanks for your kind comment .......

I am continuing with the vertical panels to the bulkheads for poop, forecastle and middle island. Here starting with the doors. Each door gets a bulleye.

Also the aft bumper rail is mounted and I`m preliminary positioning some of the load geer winches in dry fit. Also the rudder has been plated.

Unfortunately I have no building plan for all the super structure, and so I have to download  lot of stand pics from the Sea Chase movie and to evaluate how things fit together. The hull itself I adopted from the Ferris type wooden Steamer, just about the same rating and tonnage as the Ergenstrasse aka the Corsicana Laker

 

Nils

 

 

 

I found these nice steam driven winches in scale 1:100, I wo`nt build them again myself like I did for the Heinrich Kayser model. They come in size to match for 1:87 scale as well 

 The 4 bulwarks are fitted

 

the rudder is plated

these will be the first doors. The low cost bulleyes are made from hollow rivets and the "glassing" is made from 3mm round extruded silicone sealer

[flyer]

simply genious! 😲

[Mirabell61]

Many thanks Peter,

I`m pleased to hear from you again, hope you are well.

hows your Bellerophon getting along to date...., or did you interrupt the build ?

 

Nils

[flyer]

Well, thanks, I'm as fine as I hope you are.

In a way of speaking, the Bellerophon build did interrupt by itself. While struggling to hoist the fore topgallant yard I found the main topmast stay broken - the eye around the mouse parted somehow. I had to make a new stay, to replace the broken one and set up quantities of rigging anew. But I'm on track again and hope to have an update within a few days.

Peter

 

[Jim Lad]

Looking good, Nils. Those winches should work very well with a little cleaning up.

 

John

[Mirabell61]

Many thanks Peter and John,

 

Peter, good to hear that you are back on track, keep the pics coming...,

I remember when once my chebec, in build stage, fell off the table and right onto the bow sprit. The sprit could be shafted and the rails replaced, nothing to be seen of the broken parts any more.

 

John, yes I dicovered those winches from a Hamburg based web shop, and also found they need a little deburring and cleaning up, in generel they have a good cast quality.

 

I have an idea what the poop bulkhead face covers will look like. The color is "desert sand". The door bulleyes ar slightly smaller in diameter and the silicone "glassing" worke well

 

Nils

 

 

[Jim Lad]

Looks good, Nils.

 

John

[Mirabell61]

8 hours ago, Jim Lad said:

Looks good, Nils.

 

Many thanks John,

here all 4 buklhead faces are completed...

 

Nils

[Mirabell61]

Update

I`m working on the anchor gear, today I made one of the two workable mini chain stoppers, the anchor tubes at the forcastle, and the anchor fairleads

 

Nils

for documentation (all decks) where the frames and supporting structure are situated I attched a scale before mounting the closed decks

the anchors are from cast metal, one can see where I plugged off  hole in the skin made by an error

the anchor fairleads are from brass-coated steel

 

 

forecastle deck outlet of the anchorchain tubes

the raw forecastle deck is on

one of the two chain-stoppers

[Mirabell61]

Update

 

this is the template for the aft rounding. I also started with the stairs for the three islands...

 

Nils

 

 

I have to find out if the copy shop is able to print the name lettering onto transparent self adhesive foil in white letters, so that cut out names names can be brought on the black hull

[Blue Ensign]

Creating such wonderful models from scratch, I’m amazed how far you get in such a short time, Nils, interesting stuff.👍

 

B.E.

[Jim Lad]

Coming along nicely, Nils. I'm surprised she had screw stoppers on her cables instead of simple compression stoppers like the ones below.

 

John

 

 

[Mirabell61]

Many thanks for your comments B.E. and John,

 

B.E.

the idias for solving some of the tricky sequences come with the progress....

 

John

Yes you`re right, I do`nt know either, as I have no pic on this detail from the movie.

Thanks for your detail showing the make / function of the compression stoppers. Great input, I`ll save this for another ocasion and they shoud`nt be difficult to make in brass or so, even the swivel handle and the locking pin

[Jim Lad]

Most of them didn't have the locking pin. Nils. They simply relied on the weight of the compressor bar to do the job.

 

John

[Mirabell61]

7 hours ago, Jim Lad said:

Most of them didn't have the locking pin.

Thank you John

 

Nils

[Mirabell61]

Update

 

I started with the metal plating today....

It will take a few days and my 0,125 mm thick self adhersive aluminium foil roll is coming to the end. lets see how far I get with it...

 

Nils

 

[steamschooner]

coming along very nice. Nils

[realworkingsailor]

Looks good Nils! Before you get too far ahead, you should sand the bar keel down the centre line flat. I think I read you based your build on plans for the wooden version of these ships, which had the old style keel, but that shouldn’t feature on this sort of steel ship.

 

Andy

[Mirabell61]

1 hour ago, steamschooner said:

coming along very nice. Nils

Thank you steamschooner

Nils

[Mirabell61]

Andy, many thanks for your comment.... I appreciate very much that you know so much of the design of these lakers.

I`m not sure if I understood you right there, do you mean the ships bottom along the keelline should be flat, and flush with the hull skin ?

The keel in centerline is in the moment only standing out about 1,5 mm, wich I would`t mind about. Bilge keels and center keel are horizontal at the same level.

 

Nils

[Jim Lad]

I hate to disagree with you Andy, but some early steel ships had bar keels.  Here's another illustration from Pursey's book showing the construction of a bar keel at top left.  I should add that Pursey was probably outdated even when it was first published in 1949.  Such archaic tomes had no doubt been long withdrawn by the time you were studying for your tickets.

 

John

 

[realworkingsailor]

20 minutes ago, Jim Lad said:

I hate to disagree with you Andy, but some early steel ships had bar keels.  Here's another illustration from Pursey's book showing the construction of a bar keel at top left.  I should add that Pursey was probably outdated even when it was first published in 1949.  Such archaic tomes had no doubt been long withdrawn by the time you were studying for your tickets.

 

John

 

Good ol’ Pursey’s! Yes I agree some early steel ships did have bar keels, but from what I understand, by the time period of WW1 lake ships had long abandoned that design in favour of internal keel girders (duct keels). A keel hanging down below the hull reduces the amount of “useful” draft a ship can have, ie you carry more cargo if your 25’ draft is all ship, rather that if 6” of that was bar keel hanging down below the bottom. A significant amount of what we would call “modern” steel ship construction was developed on the lakes (the bulk carrier, for example). The lakes have long been about maximizing the ship size to fit a given space.

 

2 hours ago, Mirabell61 said:

Andy, many thanks for your comment.... I appreciate very much that you know so much of the design of these lakers.

I`m not sure if I understood you right there, do you mean the ships bottom along the keelline should be flat, and flush with the hull skin ?

The keel in centerline is in the moment only standing out about 1,5 mm, wich I would`t mind about. Bilge keels and center keel are horizontal at the same level.

 

Nils

Yeah, the centre line keel. Generally speaking, if you took a transverse section  of your ship and drew a square around it, where the bottom of the square lined up with the flat bottom of the ship, and the sides lined up with the vertical section of the extreme breadth, the bilge keels should fit in the triangular section formed by the sides and bottom of the square and the rounded turn of the bilge.

 

Andy