USS Baltimore CA-3 1890 by Jsk - Heinkel Models - Scale 1/200 - CARD

[Jsk]

Here we go again...

 

One of the great benefits of card models is that, in their un-built state, they can literally occupy zero space. Nada. No storage concerns, whatsoever. Perhaps the wise builder invests a little storage space in getting professionally printed kits with all the bells and whistles, laser cut formers, etc. I've never been accused of wisdom.

 

There's a model designer whose work I have frequently admired. Company name of Heinkel. I believe the designer is Fernando Perez Yuste. He's designed a lot of American Civil War ships and has expanded into the pre-Dreadnought era. When I saw the USS Baltimore show up on Wargame Vault I decided to splurge and add it to my virtual stash. (I say splurge but let's face it, card modelers seldom really spurge--Shipyard models excepted. The Baltimore cost me $15.25US. And I had credit on WV so in reality it cost me nought.) A couple of weeks later WAK published the Baltimore for a princely sum of $12.82US and they can provide laser cut parts and gun barrels, etc for additional funds. (Oh my, just noticed WAK's on-line shop is closed due to the floods in Europe. Here's hoping for a quick return to normal life for everyone!)

 

So a little about the USS Baltimore. The US Navy was caught in the financial doldrums for twenty years after the Civil War. In the 1880s and 1890s the Navy reinvented itself by designing, purchasing and building new, high-tech steel hulled ships. The Baltimore was one of the first generation of new armored cruisers of the new navy. Built to a British design, she was launched in 1890.

 

The following pictures are from John D. Alden's "American Steel Navy":

I won't detail the history of the ship here. She's pretty well documented on Wikipedia and there are many photos at Navsource.org. But, like the more famous Spanish American ship USS Oregon, the Baltimore fought in the Spanish-American War, served as a mine layer in WWI and was present (though as a hulk) at Pearl Harbor in WWII. A last poignant picture from Navsource.org, 1944, just before being scrapped:

The Model

This is my first Heinkel model. There is a bare minimum of written directions but the pictorial instructions should be enough. It's also the first test of my laser printer. I will state, however, the design is for A4 paper. North American builders should be aware that if you print at 100% on letter size paper you will most likely lose the top and bottom edges of the model parts sheets. You can print on legal size paper without issues. Also be aware that the finished model is a full 51cm long (20+ inches). So not really a small model.

Now, I've been planning on this build for a while. Consequently, I've been stocking up on that cool European 1mm card supplied by Seahorse as I've worked my through the Revenue Cutter. I've printed out most of the interior parts and used a glued stick to laminate most of them to card.

Cutting will probably begin tomorrow.

[ccoyle]

Really looking forward to watching this one come together -- love the subject, and of course I love the build medium as well. I always enjoy seeing kits by designers who are unfamiliar to me -- it's kind of like letting you be the guinea pig instead of me!

 

Best of luck!

[Jsk]

13 minutes ago, ccoyle said:

it's kind of like letting you be the guinea pig instead of me!

Gee, thanks. I think.

[GrandpaPhil]

Looking forward to this build!

[Canute]

Interesting subject. I'll follow, too.

[Jsk]

Thanks for the likes and comments. They do keep one motivated.

 

Here are some progress shots of the framework construction from this past weekend. I actually like this phase. Once you get through most of the cutting the assembly goes quickly for really satisfying results. The only 'oh-no-he's-gone-rogue' activity was to add two pieces of plastic tubing to the keel piece. I want to mount the model on a stand with posts rather than a cradle and the tubing will be the sockets for the posts.

 

I found that a box cutter is better for me to use on the 1mm card rather than a scalpel. My cuts are more vertical. Though I do wonder if the notched pieces provide that much advantage. It would be less cutting to just slice the bulkheads in half (taking care for the thickness of the longitudinal pieces and glue the full edge. I guess you'd have to take greater care to ensure everything lines up correctly and is at right angles. Hmmm.... I might have to try it on my next project. I had all the notches cut in this one when I got to thinking about it.

 

I also found the easiest way to glue this was to simply dry-fit everything together and then run CA along the joints with a fine tip applicator. Again, making sure everything was positioned correctly but that's second nature at this point.

 

I've got two sub-deck pieces to add to the frame work and a little bit of fairing and shimming. Then comes skinning the lower hull. We'll see how that goes. I've got a feeling I won't be very happy with it. I think I may have to do some puttying, sanding and painting to get what I want.

 

[Jsk]

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Skinning commences.

 

After figuring out how to adjust the colors I reprinted the under-the-waterline hull sections. They look much more pink in the pictures than in reality. Took me a little bit of time to develop a good technique so, unfortunately, the good 'ol Baltimore has a little bit of the starving nag look. This is more prominent towards the stern where I was simply applying too much pressure when trying to get the glue set.

 

I had planned on starting at both ends and work towards the center but I ended up simply working stern to bow. It just worked out better that way because of the way the joiner strips were laid out with the hull sections. I learned that using scissors worked better for me on curved lines than using a knife. I colored the cut edges with a red pastel and used a brush to apply the glue. Normally, I glued the skin section to the centerline keel member first and after that dried then I'd work from the keel to the waterline gluing the skin section to the joiner strips. There are a couple of seams that a bit uneven but, all in all, I'm not unhappy with it.

 

I used a length of aluminum tubing to pre-curl the pieces. In the next picture you can see that I'm too cheap to waste 14 inch card stock and printed the bright red version on the back of the earlier printed brown. I could have just hidden the evidence and no one would have been any the wiser!

 

It was at this point that I had my first issue. Not sure why but I ended up with a gap in one of the sections. I simply glued in some shims to support the next section.

 

In the end you couldn't tell there was an issue.

The bow also suffered from a little gap where the pieces no longer fold over the keel but are split into separate port and starboard panels. I did a little bit of tightening up and touching up with paint at this point but I'll leave the final fix until after I've installed the rest of the siding.

And finally a shot with all the lower skin sections in place. Along with the scrap pile.

 

My next step is to apply a thin coat of shellac to the skin and I'll probably do some paint touch ups to blend in the few areas where the toner has chipped away from the card.

[Jsk]

Just a quick update before heading out for a trip to visit the in-laws.

 

Couldn't help myself now that I know I can alter the graphics a bit in Inkscape.

 

On the right is the original deck color. On the left is my preference. Inkscape is not completely accurate when it imports the original *.pdf but it's close enough to work with.

 

 

[Jsk]

Well, what fun. Seven hours in the car, forty hours in Ohio, seven hours back home. I'm getting too old for trips like that!

 

Anyway, over the work week I was able to start decking the Baltimore. Installed the walls for the aft cabins and what I presume are the crew heads in the bow.

That all seemed pretty straight forward. I messed up the wheel pretty badly. My plan was to rough cut the wheels (which are double layered) with the handles intact, coat the whole thing with CA to firm it up and then remove the spaces from between the handles. Turns out, CA dissolves laser ink toner so I ended up with smeared graphics. Then, as I removed the spaces between the handles, the card began to de-laminate. It looked horrible so I cut the handles off. It will do, I suppose, as the wheel is not all that visible under the after deck.

 

At this point the failings of all-picture instructions became apparent. I was trying to figure out how the gangways to the lower decks are modeled. Throughout most of the instructions sub-assemblies are numbered and then the sub-assembly number is referred to in later steps. It took me a day or two to figure out that sub-assembly 4 is what is used for the gangways. But that number "4" does not appear anywhere else in the construction pictures. But the part numbers are! Additionally, each gangway has separate part numbers so it's not blatantly obvious that they are used to create additional sub-assemblies "4". This shot of the instructions (with my annotations in red) shows the issue. I had to use a greatly magnified view of the instructions to make the connection between sub-assembly 4 and the various gangways.

 

 

NOW it makes sense. The gangways are little cubes with stairs on the inside. Fiddly work... but that's card modeling for ya.

 

Here are my steps in assembling a gangway. the next challenge will be to see if they actually fit down in the holes in the deck. Stay tuned for that.

[Jsk]

Been a bit of real-life interference lately. Oh well, wha' cha gonna do? I did get the foredeck attached and the sides pieces cut. Then I decided that some of the detail parts were just too fine for my sausage fingered abilities. (Links, not patties.) So... since I've been wanting to try designing parts for 3d printing I decided this would be a good test.

 

I started out simply 3d modeling what the paper parts would look like (like the big gun barrels, below) but I couldn't resist adding more details to the virtual parts (like the small 6-pounders, 4-pounders and Gatling gun). That, of course, leads to more research and, and, and.... Since I can't find a lot of photos from aboard the Baltimore I've based a lot of the details on equipment aboard the USS Olympia. I'm not sure the banding of the big guns is very close to the historical look. I've yet to find a good picture or schematic of what the barrels of the  8-inch primary and 6-inch secondary guns looked like. I suspect the kit supplied barrels are considerably simplified due to the nature of using rolled paper.

 

I still need to model the anchors and there are five different sizes of ventilators to be done. I may possibly make the various boats, too. It's taken the better part of the week but I think I've got a workable work-flow as well as a reliable source for the actual 3d printing.

 

I suppose I'll have to start calling it a 'mixed media' rather than a 'card' model, now.

 

[Jsk]

I've been stalling on this build waiting to see how successful the 3d printed parts would be. Well, the resin printed parts arrived yesterday and while not all were successful most of them were. Interestingly enough, the bigger parts, e.g., the primary and secondary guns all failed to print. That's probably a discussion I'll start over on the 3d print area rather than here. Still, I think the barrels are big enough that I'll be able to use the card parts for them. A lot of the small parts, like the bollards--well, there's just no way I'd be able to build them so I'm glad they came out OK in the print process. A few of the parts, like the ship's wheel, were complete failures on my part simply because I made them too thin for the printer to be able to handle. So there's a lesson for me.

 

I'm particular pleased with the capstan, the boats, the search lights, and the anchors. Most of the ventilators came out, all the bollards, and I think most of the small arms will be usable. I really enjoyed the process of modeling these parts and want to continue down this path.

 

 

[Jsk]

A shout out to MSW's own @JerryTodd ( a 'scholar and a gentleman' as they say) for helping me out with the remaining 3d printed parts. I've had them in hand for a few weeks but real life has reared it's ugly head again and slowed modeling progress. I've been attended twice weekly physical therapy to address some back and knee issues--but that comes to an end next week. (Yay!) Nevertheless, I finally made some significant progress on the Baltimore by skinning the hull and assembling the sides and sponsons. The next step is to install the rudder, propellers, shafts and bilge keels then I'll start on the funnels and deck fittings.

Here's the first of the 3D parts installed. If you scroll back a few posts you'll see how the resin wheel is so much better than my bungled card wheel.

I have to admit that I almost binned the project because of the stern. It's... well, lumpy. I'm not sure what went wrong. I suspect I don't have the aft decking placed at the proper place but for the life of me I couldn't see where it could go anywhere other than where I put it. Granted, the stern on this ship is a complex shape to form in paper. And my lack of experience... er, learning curve, doesn't help. But after pushing through I decided that it's all about developing skills isn't it? I've got the trash-toss down pat--I don't need to practice that! Maybe some judicial use of white paint will make the stern issues less obvious. This is the kind of shape that would be so much easier to shape in wood than in paper.

In addition I see many small details that bug me. Things like the misalignment of the upper and lower hull sides will take some creative solutions but I think I'm over the hump. I just now noticed that maybe I used the wrong sponson fairing pieces? The historic ship had one port hole in the rear sponsons and two in the front. My model has it the other way around. Hmmm... I'd have to check the assembly drawings on that one. No matter. It's going to stay the way it is.

 

One of the biggest challenges I've had is that I don't have any type of jig to hold the model still as I work on it. There is no keel to speak of so I've not been able to clamp the hull to anything. The model has little weight and the hull is quite round in cross section so it likes to roll out from under my hands as I try to attach parts. I'm trying to handle the model as little as possible so I don't dent the paper skin. I saw someone (@GrandpaPhil ?) using Legos to build a jig. I might need to try that.

 

In general, though, I think the model will look better as a whole rather than in detail.

 

 

 

[GrandpaPhil]

Jeff,

  Baltimore is looking good!  

Yes, Legos make excellent jigs and temporary stands to hold the model steady!

 

Don’t be afraid to use paint, or even filler (sometimes I use the max hold CA as filler, especially with paper).  The clear coat will blend a lot of the coloration together.

[Jeff preisler]

Very nice work!!  I always wanted to try a card model myself.  I will be following your build with great interest, thank you for your detailed photos and instruction.

[Jsk]

Thanks for stopping by and likes, everyone.

 

Today is the second day of forced leave due to weather events in the DC area. Since I don't telework I'm forced to use my accrued leave. Frankly, I had other plans for my leave hours 😞 . I am so looking forward to NOT being a federal government contractor. Oh, well.

 

On the up side, except for some painting I think I've got all the below-the-waterline work done on the Baltimore. It was all a little challenging. I wish I'd studied the parts a bit more when I was designing the parts for 3D printing. I would have/should have include the propellers. The propeller hubs were too small for me to assemble. I could cut them fine, but the tiny petals of the bullet shaped hubs defied my ability to glue them together. So I fell back on my scratch building skills. I placed a bullet shaped lump of plasticine clay on the end of plastic rod, covered it with several coats of CA to firm it up and glued the propeller blades to the new clay hub and painted the propellers bronze. I then wrapped paper round the shaft to achieve the correct diameter for the propeller supports.

 

After gluing the shaft fairings to the hull and the longer of the two supports to the prop shaft I inserted a little 'blu-tac' into the fairings. That allowed me to insert the shaft into the blu-tac to hold the shaft steady while I glued the long prop support strut (which was already attached to the propeller/shaft assembly) to the hull. Once that dried I could then attach the second support strut to the the shaft giving the whole assembly three points of contact with the hull. Once that was done I realized that the conical pieces that reduce the fairing openings to the shaft diameter were too small. So I had to cut off the original ones and cut new larger cones. Gluing them onto the shaft while it was in position was tricky but not impossible.

 

I also took the opportunity to glue on extra pieces at the bow and stern to match the length of the underwater hull to the length of the white, above surface portion of the hull. After that, attaching the rudder and the bilge keels was fairly straight forward. I think I'm going to end up painting the entire sub-surface hull. I wanted to avoid doing that since I went to so much effort to change the red color in the printed parts but ultimately I think it will look better.

 

 

 

 

[Jsk]

Yes, painting the sub-surface hull was definitely the right decision. Looks much better and I'm feeling pretty good about the whole model now. Adding the hatch covers on the hull and the other exterior details really helps move the whole thing to a higher level.

I'm now working on the deck houses and skylights. I have found, however, that scoring and folding the small pieces leaves me cold. It might be because I've used 110# card for the whole thing and I think that's probably a bit heavier than what the design was intended. I just haven't been able to get crisp folds and being laser printed the toner tends to flake off at the folds. So, I'm avoiding folding and cutting all the sides of the structures separate. That of course means I have more edges to paint (and try to color match!) but I'm ok with that. It also means that I've been cutting 1mm card to use as a support piece inside the structures.

 

The next step will probably be the stacks.