HMVS Cerberus 1870 by Louie da fly - FINISHED - approx 1:230 scale.

[Louie da fly]

I just joined the local Men's Shed - this is a common set-up in Oz, where men can get together, talk about men's stuff, tell a lot of lies, and make stuff. The local one is in the woodworking section of a local high school which has now been converted to a community centre, and has an amazing array of equipment and facilities - carpenters' benches, planes, chisels, drill presses, bench and drop-saws, lathes of various sizes, thicknessers, disc sanders (my current favourite!) etc etc.

 

As it's a fairly informal community group they're always short of funds and they make things to sell, to fund their activities - timber cutting boards (bread-boards), birdhouses, that kind of thing.

 

It occurred to me that (not really wanting to make bird-houses, though I might be persuaded to make possum-boxes to put in trees to provide homes for the local wild-life), I should do something more in line with my own interests.

 

Which led to the HMVS Cerberus, a coastal monitor built in England in 1870 for the fledgling navy of the colony of Victoria, Australia. https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-cerberus-hmvs

Fortunately, I was able to find this on-line:

Looking at the plans, I realised she could be made quite simply as a "bread and butter" model, cut from 10mm sheets of pine with my new Precious (scroll saw), with only a little fiddly work to do the additional bits of pieces - the masts and skylights etc (which I will probably make out of bamboo kitchen skewers of various sizes.) I blew the plan view up on the photocopier, and glued the copy onto a bit of pine I had lying around.

 

So, off I went, and here is the beginning of the build. The turrets were cut from the same sheet of pine, using a hole saw attached to my electric drill.

More to come.

 

Steven

 

PS: Dan Vadas (sadly missed) made a model of the Cerberus out of card - you can see the build log if you do a search).

 

 

 

[Jim Lad]

A fun model to build, Steven.

 

John

[ccoyle]

27 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

PS: Dan Vadas (sadly missed) made a model of the Cerberus out of card - you can see the build log if you do a search).

 

I was going to mention the 1:250 card model published by Paper Shipwright and still available from them as either a printed kit or free download.

[iMustBeCrazy]

G'day Steven, Having known her all my life and having walked her decks a few times Cerberus is certainly on my list.

 

1 hour ago, Louie da fly said:

Fortunately, I was able to find this on-line:

I have an original of this drawing inherited from my Uncle. I intend to redraw it in CAD but as usual it doesn't quite agree with other drawings I have found, unfortunately I can't find any 'official' drawings. Even her length varies.

 

Anyway, I have a little collection of photos, drawings etc. If you need anything just ask.

 

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, mate. I note that contrary to the plans I've seen, photos the upper deck is cantilevered over the fore turret, not supported on columns at the front (which would improve the field of fire but means the upper deck must have been pretty heftily built).

 

But to be honest, this is going to be quick and basic, and I'll probably be leaving out a lot of detail. It just seemed like a nice way of combining my hobby with a fundraiser. No idea if the model will sell once complete, but I'll have some fun doing it.

 

Steven

 

PS: Such a shame that she ended up as a breakwater and is now unsalvageable. 

[iMustBeCrazy]

11 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

But to be honest, this is going to be quick and basic

I figured that. One thing they couldn't stop themselves doing was playing with her, hardly any two photos are the same. The deck had a support in the middle of the turret (it shows in the drawing) and the 'cantilevered' deck stopped just past that.

 

15 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

Such a shame that she ended up as a breakwater and is now unsalvageable. 

True but otherwise she would have been scrapped, at least we can still see her.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for that information about the support above the turret. I hadn't noticed that.

 

It's just a pity that they decided to sink her instead of preserve her back in 1926. (sigh)

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

On 6/3/2023 at 1:00 PM, iMustBeCrazy said:

hardly any two photos are the same.

That's for sure. Does she have a wheelhouse at the fore end of the upper deck (as shown on at least one set of plans) or doesn't she?

 

How many vents (I don't know the correct term - those big vertical tubes with a "hockey-stick" bend at the top coming up out of the deck and leading down to the interior) does she have in front of the funnel, and how many aft of it? I think there are two fore and two aft, but it's very hard to work out from the plans and the photos. 

 

In the meantime I've made a bit more at the Men's shed - I'm trying to make the whole thing using scrap timber so it's all profit except for the time I invest in it, but they don't have any dowel, so for the skylights on the fore and after decks I've had to bodge some up.

 

I saw a similar skylight on Brunel's Great Britain in Bristol when I went to visit the UK back in 2009. Very cool.

 

Steven

 

 

[iMustBeCrazy]

1 hour ago, Louie da fly said:

Does she have a wheelhouse at the fore end of the upper deck (as shown on at least one set of plans) or doesn't she?

She did when she arrived, later they moved it down the back yard as a garden shed and built a pergola for the helm. Later again they put a search light on the roof of the garden shed.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Louie da fly said:

How many vents (I don't know the correct term - those big vertical tubes with a "hockey-stick" bend at the top coming up out of the deck and leading down to the interior) does she have in front of the funnel, and how many aft of it? I think there are two fore and two aft, but it's very hard to work out from the plans and the photos. 

One giant one aft with two small between it and the funnel and one big one forward (I can't see any others but). On the colour plans The giant one aft didn't have the 'hockey-stick' bend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, mate. Do my beady old eyes deceive me or is the mast coming up through the huge vent? There appears to be a vent just forward of the steersman's pergola in the second picture, and the big vent forward appears in the last photo (and the garden shed appears to have been mostly demolished to make room for it), but not in the third. I think I'll probably work with the second photo as my version of choice, but I don't know about doing that mast coming up through the front turret with the weird ball thing on top.

 

I want to have enough fiddly details (particularly on the upper deck) so she doesn't look too boring, but I'm not prepared to put in too much, as it's not likely to be appreciated. There are two cubical "deckhouses " at the top of the two sets of steps, which should be easy enough to make.

 

I'm still trying to nut out how to do the railings and the davits without either doing a ton of work or having them look crappy.

 

Steven

[iMustBeCrazy]

44 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

Do my beady old eyes deceive me or is the mast coming up through the huge vent?

I would say so.

 

45 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

There appears to be a vent just forward of the steersman's pergola in the second picture

I think it's a binnacle. It seems to have 'balls'.

 

54 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

but I don't know about doing that mast coming up through the front turret with the weird ball thing on top.

Skip it, it only occurs in that pic. It looks like it belongs on a castle wall with a fire in it.

 

57 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

but I'm not prepared to put in too much, as it's not likely to be appreciated

You have to strike a balance, it only has to be good enough to sell and price will most likely be the deciding factor. It can also look a bit rustic. Rails could be bicycle spoke posts with automotive electrical wire with the insulation stripped off soldered to the posts (use one that has tin plated wire not bare copper) as cable. Don't do all the railing, just some.

 

Pic 4 zoomed out a bit:

 

 

 

 

[Louie da fly]

34 minutes ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

I think it's a binnacle. It seems to have 'balls'.

I think we are talking about two different things. I mean the one about halfway between the pergola and the funnel.

[iMustBeCrazy]

9 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

I think we are talking about two different things. I mean the one about halfway between the pergola and the funnel.

Possibly the same thing that keeps moving?

 

The wheelhouse is actually the binnacle-house (9). With the wheel at (19).

 

The binnacle-house becomes the binnacle-pergola.

 

A new compensated* waterproof binnacle is installed and the pergola is moved to between the funnel and ventilator.

 

* probably to allow the fitting of the two Nordenfelt machine guns.

 

[wefalck]

Love those Victorian-era warships, black-white-buff and still a lot of varnished wood and polished brass, much like the passenger steamers of the time. And indeed, they often had fanciful skylights and such.

 

The ventilators seem to have a rather peculiar shape. As to the position of ventilators: the really big ones are probably providing the draft for the boilers, smaller ones would be associated with living quarters and places like that.

 

The Dutch still have a couple of those monitor-like ships afloat, the BUFFLE and the SKORPIOEN, which may provide good pictorial reference for certain period details.

 

BUFFEL: https://debuffel.nl

From: https://onzemarinevloot.weebly.com/hrms-buffel.html

 

SCHORPIOEN: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zr.Ms._Schorpioen_(1868)

From: my photograph

[BANYAN]

Hi Steven, the club built a model of Cerberus which is in the HMAS Castlemaine Museum now; I think this was as delivered.  I have a few images and I am sure you are aware of the 'Save the Cerberus' web page which has a wealth of info?  Looking forward to seeing your build.

 

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

Thanks Craig, Wefalck and Banyan. It's good to get this information.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Latest activity. I've made most of the fiddly bits to go on the upper deck to give the vessel a bit of character (I have to admit, she's a bit on the bland side).

 

But before that, I cut some thin brass tube to make the guns and inserted them in the turrets. Just black paint for colour, the muzzles are barely visible, so no need to get into the whole blackening thing.

 

Then made all the fiddly bits and dry fitted them (actually just plonked them on the top). Wheelhouse on the far left, then companionway, funnel with base, some kind of oval thing (I dunno what it its), gigantic vent, and another companion. As I mentioned, I'm keeping this all very simple.

And here are the davits, made out of galvanised tie-wire from the shed.

And first coat of paint.

There's another vent to make, and I think that'll be the lot. I'm not prepared to make the boats - too complicated to attach them to the davits, and there are photos of her without them, so I feel justified.

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

[iMustBeCrazy]

16 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

some kind of oval thing (I dunno what it its)

The Captains (armoured) observatory.

 

29 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

funnel with base

It's a little more complicated (just a little I promise). But perhaps I'm being fussy.

 

And no, I wouldn't be making the boats either. Way over the top.

 

 

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for that, mate. That captain's observatory - I would never have thought of that.

 

But I think I'll still be oversimplifying the funnel assembly. It all just starts getting too much otherwise.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Latest configuration. Here are all the bits so far - the superstructure bits and pieces have been glued to the upper deck,  the gundeck is glued into place, along with the pivots for the turrets and the cabin(?) structure onto the gundeck. Also the skylights and smaller cylindrical things glued in place. The pyramidal "glazing" of the skylights turned out to be easier than I'd expected - in a junk shop (you know, they sell cheap knock-off tools, flower pots, potato chips, you name it) I found some craft stuff - letters of the alphabet intended to be sewn or stuck onto kids' clothes or pencil cases or whatever, made up of a whole lot of small plastic "diamonds". Ideal. Just cut two off and glue them in place on top of the skylight assembly. The davits have been painted and are ready to put in place except for trimming them all to the correct length.

And all the above dry fitted.

Positioning everything correctly once I'd removed the photocopied deck plans that had been glued to the decks could have been difficult, but fortunately there are masts immediately fore and aft of the gundeck structure, and the smaller vent goes right down through the upper deck and into the hull itself, giving me reliable reference points.

 

Pulled apart again, and working on the railings. I'm using brass "sequin pins" (tiny little things) for the uprights, and for the rails I'm using wire from a set of tiny LED fairy lights left over from Christmas. Very fine, very soft. I'm just hoping it'll all stay together - some of the posts have rejected the CA I used to glue the rails to the posts. We'll see how it goes. If successful, I'll trim the posts to length when the glue's been dry for a while. Oh, and I've added the upward extensions (bulwarks?) at the bow and stern for the hawseholes.

 

 Still more to do, but getting fairly close to completion.

 

Steven

[iMustBeCrazy]

At this stage she's looking better than the original!

 

But don't forget the new paint scheme:

 

[Louie da fly]

Well, the experiment is complete. I wanted to know if I could mass-produce a simplified version of the Cerberus as a fund-raiser for the local Men's Shed. Simple answer - no. It appeared fairly uncomplicated at first glance, but as I progressed through the build I came up against a dilemma - either I had to oversimplify it to the degree that it would not look interesting enough to be saleable, or I had to add all the details that made it look interesting and make it uneconomical as a project.

 

Add to that the fact that I was always faced with the choice between doing it fast enough to be worthwhile (= fairly careless) and my own pride in my work. As it turned out, it was neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring - not precisely enough built to satisfy me, and too fiddly and slow to mass-produce.

It's ok, I suppose, but I can't see myself doing it again. If I'd wanted to do a proper model of the Cerberus I'd need to put a lot more time and effort into getting it right, just to be satisfied with it. I'd want it to be a model I was proud of, and I'm really not prepared to do that at the moment, if ever. I have too many other projects I'd like to get into.

So as an experiment it was a success -  I did want to find out whether or not it was suitable for its original purpose, and the answer is no. As a model I'm less than satisfied with it. I'll still put it up for sale - somebody will probably love it, but I won't put a terribly high price on it - it's not well enough made and finished to justify it.

My next experiment will be making a couta boat (originally for catching barracuda in the years up to the 1920s and 30s when they were superseded by motorboats), a particular favourite in the State of Victoria, where a lot of them have been preserved and are used for racing.

 

Steven

[iMustBeCrazy]

1 hour ago, Louie da fly said:

Well, the experiment is complete.

Well, it was a valiant attempt and certainly a success in it's own way but I suspect that even if you churned out kits on a CNC mill it would be difficult to show a profit.

 

Meanwhile a couta boat. There used to be a few in varying states of decrepitation and perfection on Mordialloc creek. If the sun comes out and I'm down there I'll see if there's any left and grab you some shots.

[Louie da fly]

2 hours ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

If the sun comes out and I'm down there I'll see if there's any left and grab you some shots.

No real need, but thanks. There's plenty on-line, even down to diagrams of the lines. I'll be oversimplifying this one, too, and I haven't even decided yet whether it'll be a full hull or just a waterline model (a lot easier, but not as attractive).

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I come into the Men's Shed this morning and one of the guys says "Oh we sold your model of the Cerberus". It'd only been up for sale for about 3 days (in with the wooden cutting boards and bird houses etc), in the room where everybody's projects are up for sale.

 

It's in a community building which used to be a high school and we work in the wood workshop with all those wonderful tools available to us. A guy came in with a bunch of schoolkids, saw the Cerberus up for $100 and bought it!

 

Amazed. I'm still not going to make another of the Cerberus - too fiddly for the amount of effort I want to put in, and I'm really not proud of the quality of the model, but it shows there is a market out there for such things. But there are other projects that I am interested in, simpler to do, but just as likely to produce a sale. 

 

I'm not in it for the money, but it's nice to be able to get something back for the group, and in return for the effort.

 

Maybe there's a new career out there for me (I'm on the pension, so the money really isn't important, but I'm allowed to make a fair bit from hobbies before it affects the pension, and a bit of pin-money would be nice).

 

Steven

[Jim Lad]

Your 'Cerberus' turned out very well, Steven. I'm sure whoever bought ot will enjoy it immensely.

 

A 'couta boat would be a great project. They're such an iconic design that we have one in the museum collection!

 

John

[GrandpaPhil]

Steven,

  Your Cerberus came out quite nicely. 
 

I’m not at all surprised that it sold very quickly.  

 

You did a nice job of it.

Edited July 8, 2023 by GrandpaPhil

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, people. Glad you didn't see it close up. Too many dodgy details from being in a hurry.

 

Yes, couta oats are very beautiful. There are quite a few down at Geelong, where we sometimes go for a drive from Ballarat (nearest bit of coast). They really stand out from the run-of-the-mill boats in the marina.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

I'm not doing a formal build log for the couta boat, but here are some photos of the model as of today. It was built up in layers and then sanded to shape with a belt sander. A lot of mistakes (it was the first time I'd used one of those things) but fortunately builders bog filled in where I'd sanded off too much, so she's looking pretty good now.

I've also been working on a signal box for model railways (HO scale - 3.5mm to the foot), on 4he offchance that there are people out there who'd be prepared to pay for such things. It's taken from a real one in Ballarat and is still in progress, but it's going quite well.

There'll be 'glazing' in the windows and the roof is removable so lights can be put inside.

 

Steven