HMS Endurance by GiddyGibberish - OcCre - 1:70

[Giddy Gibberish]

Welcome to (yet another?) Endurance build log!

I'm very excited to be starting this build.  It's actually somewhat serendipitous that I have picked the Endurance.  I started ship modeling with a very long term goal of scratch building a close-as-I-can-manage replica of a ship captained by one of my ancestors, a barq called the Florence Treat.  Based on my research into model ship building and my modeling experience so far, I figure I'm 5 years from being able to start such an ambitious project.  I need more knowledge and skillz!  I started digging deep into other ship kits to build up my skills and wasn't finding much to inspire me.  I mean, of course I want to build the $1500 HMS Victory, but not just yet, right?

 

Then one day I was reading the daily page at Wikipedia (yeah, I'm that kind of nerd) and they had an article about Shackleton.   Well... down the rabbit hole I went!  I've since become super passionate about "the boss" and polar exploration in general.  Fram!  Terror!  Erebus!  Terra Nova!  I've found my niche!

So, this will be my second model ship and my first "official" build log.  Although I've completed one build (OcCre Polaris) and even started a log for it, my building was so far ahead of my posting I gave up and just closed it.  Rather embarrasing, really, so I hope to make up for it by doing a better job with this one.  I hope being diligent about this log will help me slow down and avoid mistakes.

I have to start by giving a big thanks to @Tomculb for his great Endurance build log.  I'm mimicking his format and official build updates like this will be in bold font.  I hope that is ok.

 

I found Tom's log when I was researching deck planks on the Endurance.  I was looking at Hurley photos while my kit was in the cart and I felt like the deck planks in the kit were too wide and too bright compared to B&W photos.  I had download the plans and watched the videos so I noticed Polaris used the same 5mm deck planks but at 1:50 scale.  I wasn't sure if it made sense use the same size planks for a 1:70 scale model.  Anyway, Tom's post about his planks showed up in my Google searching.  That was the starting point of my inspiration to try and take this kit up a notch and attempt to make it more accurate, something I had assumed was beyond my skill level.  I read every post and I highly recommend his log to anyone considering building this model.

 

Then, like the first leaf in an Ancestry.com family tree, Tom's log led me to many others and I've learned so many great details about this ship.  Each of those logs were like additional leaves that led to more and more information.  My build will draw inspiration from builds by @B-Ram, @HakeZou, @clearway, @theoracle09 and others.  I'm also very greatful to @Snug Harbor Johnny for all of the insight he provided in those other logs.  Truth be told, I feel very fortunate to be coming so late to the party of Endurance builders and being able to benefit from all of this prior information and experimentation.

 

I also hope to incorporate some unique modifications of my own.  As a beginner I was reluctant to keep a build log anyway.  Everyone here seems to have such great skill and knowledge, I felt I had nothing to contribute and it feels presumptuous to include myself among such history buffs and craftsman.  I was especially worried about keeping one for the Endurance... so many seem to start their Endurance log off with something like "Sorry for starting yet another Endurance build log"... I was wondering if I'd be violating forum policy if I started "and yet another", lol.  Anyway, having gotten over that feeling, I hope this will end up a useful contribution to the rich library of Endurance builds on this site.

 

By the way, I'm going to try and use the correct nautical terms which might make me sound smarter than I really am... please correct my mistakes!

On to the build!  I'll skip all the preliminaries and get right to my first changes which will be very familiar if you've followed any of those other builds. 

My first "cheat code" was in the stern keel area.  Not sure if there is a unpronounceable nautical term for that area (looking at you "gunwale" and "forecastle").  Tomculb pointed out the halfmoon cavity for the prop was wrong and Clearway pointed out there is an angle at the top.  Consulting the drawings on the Shackleton estate website, I cut out the half-moon and tried to mimic the angle from the drawings as best I could.  I estimated it to be between 20 and 30 degrees.  I played with the angle on the false keel to eliminate all the curve from the "moon".

I also noted that there is a slight tilt aft in the vertical part (which is why my estimate above is so broad).  I decided to not replicate that angle and cut it off straight.  I was worried it would cause alignment issues later with the rudder, etc.




Next up was adding the windlass chamber, WC, and lamp room under the fo'c'sle deck.  The OcCre model does not incorporate these areas and I'll be honest... this was a scary thing to do at the very beginning for a newb!  I was very worried about a fatal error that might require replacing a piece so I tried to be especially diligent.  From the drawings, I estimated the width of the opening to be 36mm at scale.  I drew a centerline on the bulkhead and measured out 18mm to each side and cut out the part of the false keel where the windlass will go.

 

As others have done, I also enlarged the portholes.  However, I chose to go with 3/16" instead of 1/4".  If I did the calculation correctly (ok, I'm lying... if Chat GPT did the calculation correctly), 1/4" would be a ~17.5" porthole which seems large for an arctic exploration ship from 1914.  Also when compared to the pictures of the portholes.  3/16" is 13" which seems closer to scale.  Having said that, I plan to add interior lighting (oops, spoiler alert!) so larger portholes would be nice, but I couldn't convince myself to go bigger at this time. 

 

I will be ordering (or 3d printing) porthole covers but they will be inset into the cavity from behind.  This may also require enlarging or beveling the inward part of the opening.  I'm going off photos like these (sorry but I could not find who originally shared these).  In the second photo, an adult male head is 9-10" tall from chin to top of skull.  I'm not sure who that is, but if they tried to stick their head out the porthole face first it looks like a they'd only have 1-2" clearance.

 

That's all for my first post.  I think my next update will be building out the WC and lamp room walls/floors.  If my deck timber arrives I may also include some information about that.  Thanks for checking in!

 

~Giddy~

Fair winds and following seas.

 

 

Edited March 14 by Giddy Gibberish

[ccoyle]

7 hours ago, Giddy Gibberish said:

like the first leaf in an Ancestry.com family tree

 

Ha! I know all about that leaf!

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  There are minor adjustments to a couple OcCre bulkheads (noted in my kit review) to make the hull lines closer to those available for the ship - slightly reducing the 'flare' at the bow.  The book 'Endurance' is highly recommended - an amazing true story.  When it comes to classic ships in the age of Polar exploration, don't forget the Aurora - used by Shackleton in a prior expedition, and it was the 'other' ship in his last adventure - stationed on the opposite side of the Southern continent to pre-position supplies.  The Aurora had its own tale of a narrow escape - but was ultimately ill-fated (perhaps from the accumulated stresses).

[Giddy Gibberish]

Wow!  I was just reading that review this morning.  I was trying to decide if I was brave enough to attempt that.  I haven’t glued any forward bulkheads yet.  

 

I was trying to find a post you had made about replacing the blocks and sails but I think it was on someone's build log.

[clearway]

welcome to the Endurance club (really should kick start my build again)!- don't worry about making alterations, just go steady and think it through and you will be fine, and if worried about "another endurance log" just check the amount of Constitution and Victory logs on here 😉,

 

Keith

[Giddy Gibberish]

Ahoy!  It's been a couple of weeks since I posted and I've been busy in the shipyard.  Not a great deal of actual progress due to lots of testing and experimentation.  Lots to catch up on so let's get underway!

 

First, I decided to try and adjust the shape of the forecastle deck using Snug Harbor Johnny's suggestion.  I created a paper template based on his drawing.  Rather than modify the supplied deck I created one from scratch.  I actually made two.  I didn't have wood the exact same thickness.  One was a little thin, the other a little thick.  I ended up going with the thicker piece.

This reshaping cuts of the forward tab where the bulwark sits so I'm a little nervous about what might happen when I get to that step.  I plan to dry fit things for as long as possible before committing to my custom deck. I have not shaped the bulkheads to match yet.

 

 

My deck overlaid with the kit deck.

 

I was very pleased with the final fit.

 

Several different people suggested using filler blocks.  I decided to try and use the filler blocks as the floor for the area under the forecastle deck. 

 

I also experimented with a few different door designs.  I really liked the first version but it ended up being too thick so I made thinner ones later.  Painting them was very difficult.  Hard to get an even coat of paint without clumps on something so small.

 

OcCre door and mine.  I've ordered 1/32x1/32 wood. so I can narrow the frame.  I used laminated pieces of the supplied sycamore wood and 1/16x1/16 for these.  I tried to make them work but they are too thick.  I made some new ones with a single layer of wood which are much better.

 

The one on the left is the single layer version.  It was very fragile until I brushed CA on the back.

 

My deck timber also arrived.  Due to some logistics difficulties, I ended up ordering from multiple places and all of them showed up.  I have plenty of 1/32 x 1/8 planks for two or three Endurances.

I agonized quite a bit over which stain to use.  More than is probably reasonable.  After several trips to the store I ended up trying 4.  I settled on an aged wood accelerator from Varathane.  It was a little darker than I was after, but when I saw photos of the "official" Endurance model, the deck planks are even darker and that made me more comfortable.

 

I decide to stain the full length planks before decking.  This was another 'analysis paralysis' moment.  I noticed a lot of builders would plank the deck and then stain it but I found several references recommending staining the planks in advance.  A couple of the decks were pretty warped.  I was worried that if I stained it after the warping would get more pronounced.  Turns out just gluing the planks caused them to warp more anyway.

 

Aged wood, gray aged wood, summer oak,  pine.  Summer oak was my second choice but felt too... decadent?  Fancy? High-falutin'?  Not right, anyway.

 

My choice:

 

The wood warped considerably when applying the stain so I flattened it out while it dried.

 

Museum Model of Endurance

https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/gwinnettdailypost.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/e4/5e410d78-7138-11e9-b73f-3b8cfd7eec88/5cd23dcc7a24a.image.jpg?resize=666%2C500

 

I also started looking at the white paint for the walls.  I didn't want bright white.  I had some "Warm White" from Model Shipways and the white from OcCre.  I tried them both and on their own neither was right, so I mixed them until I had something I liked.  I did a lot of dry fitting with finished pieces before I settled on the color scheme and then I planked part of the WC and lamp room walls.  I noticed during dry fitting that my door was going to be too tall so I had to shorten the design a little.  This is my test door.  I'm using the supplied sycamore for the walk planks.

 

Next I was on to planking the decks.  I decided to use a three-butt shift like I did on Polaris.  I made a few hundred 90mm planks.  I search and searched through photos of Endurance's decks to try and see if I could determine how long the actual planks were.  It was so hard to pick out seams that I gave up and just sort of picked a convenient length.  90mm is about 20' which seemed reasonable for the period and where it was built.

I really wanted to do a good job on the deck so I wanted to tick out guides but I felt using ruler and pencil was too imprecise for me.  I found a tutorial online where someone had used 1/8" graph paper to tape down a pattern on the deck.  I just took that concept a bit further and made an Excel file that can generate a grid of any size to the desired scale.  I plan to expand this to support much larger layouts.  I type in x and y dimensions in pixels and I have a module that will adjust the grid size perfectly.  It also automatically positions the centerline.  The offset is necessary because depending on the printer, the centerline may be slightly off center when printed vs what is on screen. 

 

Here's some photos of that process.

 

Through trial and error, I determined 12px = ~1/8".  The centerline needs to be 1 pixel to the right of center on screen to print perfectly centered on my printer.

 

I print the grid and cut it to shape, making sure it's shorter than the deck.  Then I tape it down.

 

I cut out a few sections (being careful to maintain enough paper for the template to retain it's positioning) and tick the deck.

 

Ready for planking.

 

On a larger deck.

 

Pretty proud of that.  It needs some refinement but worked really well for the four Endurance decks.

 

It took several days to complete the decking.  The workers kept getting distracted.  "The Boss" showed up to supervise the rest of construction and keep us focused on the mission.  The crew were ecstatic!  All decks are dry fit.

 

Fun fact... Sir Ernest was 5'10" tall according to my research.  At 1:70 that makes him exactly 1"!

 

 

I tried to remove the warping from the deck.  It was partially successful.  After planking I wet the back with a brush and then heated it with a heat gun.  I took a trick from Tomculb and used a metal helping hands base with some magnets and left it overnight.  It was a noticeable improvement but there is still a small amount of warpage.  I'm sure I can remove the rest with careful clamping during gluing.

 

Earier in the build I had also started experimenting with lighting and wiring runs.  Just some photos.  All of this is just for testing.

 

Whew!  I should hope that's enough for this one.  Next I will finish the area under the forecastle deck and install the wiring harness for the lights.  I'll also finishing cleaning up deck cutouts.  

 

My PWM controllers came in so once I finish experimenting I was planning on a specific post about the lighting.  I haven't looked at any build logs with lighting yet but I seem to remember seeing an Endurance model being built like a plank on frame model with lighting and interiors.  Haven't been able to find it again... sound familiar to anyone?

 

Thanks for checking in!

 

~Giddy~

Fair winds and following seas.

 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 06:33 PM by Giddy Gibberish