USS Cape (MSI-2) by Dr PR - 1:48 - Inshore Minesweeper

[Jim Lad]

Just catching up, Phil. She's coming along very nicely.

 

John

[SaltyScot]

You did a nice job on that deck house framing, Phil, very neat and precise. What wood are you using for that?

[Dr PR]

Mark,

 

The 1/8 x 1/8 inch strips are boxwood. This could be anything since it is hidden inside the deckhouse. The deckhouse sides and decks are SIG 1/16 inch plywood - I don't know what type of wood.

 

The deck planks are 1/16 x 1/16 inch strips. That is to scale, but is pretty small. Nibbing will be pretty tricky. The grout was 1/4 inch (6 mm) on the ship. That comes out to about 0.005 inch at 1:48 scale. I think thin black paper would make a nice clean grout, but that means working with a LOT of thin paper strips! I did this on the schooner build. I have experimented with pencil on the sides of the strips, but it is inconsistent and pretty lame looking.

 

Of course I could use some of the original calking goo we used on the Cape - I saved some in a bottle for use on models, and I even planked a model ship deck with it back in the 1970s! But it is extremely messy. No thanks, once is enough!

Edited June 18 by Dr PR

[SaltyScot]

6 hours ago, Dr PR said:

but it is inconsistent and pretty lame looking.

 

Yes, it most ertainly is.I tried that on the Endeavour build. Very disappointing.

[Ras Ambrioso]

Phil, I am amazed at the amount of detail you have put in your model. Your post is always welcome as we can follow the history of this vessel, the detailing and the construction methods you have used. You could write a book on this build. Congratulations

[Dr PR]

I am about ready to start planking the deck. But before starting that I have been making drawings of the deck fittings (deck furniture in the olden days) to determine what parts I need to have made from 0.005 inch (0.13 mm) brass with photo etching. Here are some examples.

 

This is part of the blueprint for the stern roller chock. All of the minesweeping cables pass through the rollers or blocks attached to the "arms" of the top piece.

 

 

This is just a small part of a large blueprint that gives the dimensions of all individual parts and a complete parts list. From this I made a CAD drawing of the assembly, and from it I can make 2D scale drawings of all the parts. I will make the pieces from 0.010 and 0.015 inch (0.25 mm and 0.4 mm) brass and solder them together.

 

 

 

 

Some of the assemblies are more challenging. Here is a side drawing of the minesweeping winch (for towed sweeps to clear moored mines).

 

 

I have top and end drawings as well. However, these drawings only give dimensions for the entire assembly, to be used for planning the mounting arrangement on the deck. No detailed and dimensioned drawings of individual parts are given, and there is no parts list. So I have to do a lot of measuring and calculating to guess the dimensions of all the parts not shown. I do have some photos, but they don't show many parts of the assembly.

 

Here are pictures of how far I have gotten so far. The light brown parts are the wooden mounting base that sits on the deck. The red parts are work in progress for the metal base of the winch. The gray parts are finished. And the rollers on top are close to the natural colors of the reddish-brown polyester coating on the nonmagnetic metal rollers.

 

 

 

This assembly sits forward of the stern roller chock and aft of the much larger winches and reels for the magtail (magnetic mine sweep cable) and the acoustic mine sweep cable (another very complex assembly!). The magnetic and acoustic sweep cables ride on the two large rollers at the top of the frame. The three large reels below are for the two long cables (left and right) to the pigs (floats) for the towed sweeps for cutting the cables of moored mines. The narrower center reel is for a shorter cable that tows a "kite" close behind the ship that pulls the moored sweep cables down deep just aft of the stern so the cables carrying the mine cable cutters will run under the mines to cut their mooring cables. All of these cables run through the stern roller chocks shown above.

 

I do have separate detailed dimensioned drawings of the winch motor, and it is perhaps the most complex part of the assembly. But I have simplified it greatly, leaving off details of bolts and screws. On the model the motor will be about 0.73 inch (18.5 mm) long so the tiny details are too small to make. The whole winch assembly will be 1.7 inch (43 mm) high, 2.2 inch (56 mm) wide and 1.5 inch (37 mm) long. Most of the parts will be made of brass, but I may 3D print the gypsy heads (if I had a lathe I could turn them out of brass). It will be a nice little model in itself.

 

There are about 30 separate deck fittings on the model, so I am just getting started!

 

Edited Monday at 05:51 AM by Dr PR

[Jim Lad]

Deck fittings can be such fun, Phil (or not!). 🙂

 

John

[TBlack]

Phil, Looks like you've got some pretty good plans as a starting point.

Tom