SMS WESPE 1876 by wefalck – 1/160 scale - Armored Gunboat of the Imperial German Navy - as first commissioned

[wefalck]

Thanks to all for your kind words !

 

@mtaylor, I probably could have made the gear really working, after all, it is about the size of a ladies' wristwatch, but making the propper gear-cutters would have been very time consuming

 

@Bedford, I am not sure, I understand what you describe there. I think, there was a reduction gear-train on the inside of the upper carriage with a ratio that made the indicator disc do perhaps one revolution for the elevating range of about -5° to +20°. It was fed somehow by the elevating mechanism. The disc would have had engraved the different ranges with different charges for the different elevations and different projectiles (solid armour-piercing shot and granates), being some sort of simple circular calculator.

[wefalck]

Pat, I out something together on these tools:

 

Staking and jewel-setting tools

 

In watch- and clockmaking connections between parts are frequently effected by processes that broadly fall into the category of rivetting, i.e. the mechanical deformation of a part in order to effect its locking with one or more other parts.

 

 

Watchmakers use for this process a tool that is called staking or rivetting tool. It consists of a body shaped a bit like a pillar drill. It has the purpose of guiding the rivetting punches or stakes absolutely perpendicular to the plane of the anvil underneath it. This tool can be used for all sorts of rivetting, punching, pushing-in, pushing-out and similar operations. To this end a set is equipped with a wide variety of flat, domed, concave, hollow and other, specialised punches. There are also varies types of anvils, flat, domed, with notches for watchwheels and –hands, etc. The anvils fit into a rotating plate and can be centred with a pointed punch under the guiding bore for the punches. The rotating plate has also a set of holes (or dies) that are mainly used to support wheels, while the arbors are being pushed out.

 

 

There were/are various manufacturers for these tools in Europe and the USA (and I guess now also in China and India). Notable brands are Boley and K&D. The sets were made with different ranges of punches and anvils. Mine shown in the picture is one of the bigger sets. About 25 years ago it set me back the equivalent of 250€, if I remember correctly.

 

 

Related to the staking tool is the jewel-setting tool. In fact, some manufacturers offered jewel-setting attachments for their staking tools, but these are rare today and to tend to fetch high prices on the second-hand market.

In order to reduce friction the hardened steel axels in a watch are set into bearings made from hard semi-precious minerals, the ‘stone’, ‘rubies’ or ’jewels’. The jewels in turn are set into the watchplate and locked into place by friction only or by a light rivetting, i.e. closing-in the metal around the jewel with a pointed hollow punch. Incidentally, the same technique is used to lock watch wheels and pinions onto their axles.

The ‘jewels’ are made by specialised companies to standard sizes and tools to make the respective holes in the watchplate are made to the required tolerances. The ‘setting’ of jewels has to be done with great care to ensure that their axes are exactly perpendicular to the watchplate. They are rather brittle, so one has to make sure that no pressure is applied to them once they reached the bottom of the hole into which they are set. To achieve this the jewelling or stone-setting tool was developed. Like the staking tool, this comprises a guide for the punch and a seat for anvils. However, the runner for the punches is fitted with an micrometer stop, preventing the punches from being pushed down too far. The punches in this case are actually inserts for the runner. The body is usually die-cast zinc, rather than steel, as not much force needs to be applied during the jewelling operation. Perhaps the best-know manufacturer is Seitz.

Normally, complete jewelling tools with punches, reamers for the holes, anvils etc. are rather expensive. Some years ago I acquired cheaply just the basic body of a Seitz tool with the runner, but without all the attachments. The idea was to use it as a light press to allow e.g. squashing wire to a predetermined thickness with the help of the micrometer stop. The target thickness can be set with the help of feeler-gauges or pieces of wire.

 

Over the years I made various punches and anvils for particular forming purposes. When making the brake-handles above, I should have used this tool, but was too lazy to turn up a 0.8 mm insert punch.

 

 

Overall, I think these are quite useful tools for the modeller, although I have been using so far only a small number of the many punches provided in the staking set, but one never knows what task comes along.

[wefalck]

Completing the upper carriage 3

 

 

 

Progress in homeopathic doses: I realised that I forgot the the two steps at the end of the upper carriage. So, the parts for the frame were laser-cut, pieces of tea-bag mesh inserted and the assembly attached to the carriage with lacquer.

 

Steps for the gun-layer

 

I realised now that I had assembled so many tiny parts for the gun, that it became difficult to not loose them and to remember what they were for. Some of the parts indeed had been made years ago. Therefore, I will proceed now to paint the parts and to assemble the gun, which then will be placed as a whole into the barbette, once the model is getting close to be finished.

 

 

Preparations for painting

 

While the paint scheme overall is quite clear, as it had been laid down in an ordinance of 1874, a few details have caused and still do cause some head-scratching. One of them is the exact hue of the ‘yellow’ for the funnel and the two boiler-room ventilators.

Unfortunately, no colour recipes seem to have survived, if there had been any. I undertook some research by proxy, reviewing what other navies at the same time might have done. The paint scheme of the French navy of that time is very different, but that of the Royal Navy is quite similar (or perhaps the other way around). For instance, HMS GANNET, preserved and restored in Chatham, is from the same period. Due to the Corona-crisis the reponse from Chatham to an enquiry is still incomplete. I wanted to know what paint was used in her restoration. Looking through artistic representations of the time, one has the feeling that the yellow was paler and more like buff, than the one used later by the Imperial German Navy.

It is notoriously difficult to judge hues on computer screens and on printed colour cards. To begin with, I selected a range of possible colours from my stock and also went through the colour cards of Schmincke, Vallejo, and Prince August (the French trade name for Vallejo).  These candidates I tried out on pieces of the material to painted.

 

 

Colour samples

 

The hull will be black outside and white inside, the deckhouse and the inside of the barbette will be also white. The decks, where not wood, will be a dark grey, as they had been painted in tar with sand mixed in to make them less slippery.

The gun carriage will be painted green, as evidenced by some contemporary builders’ models and a somewhat later instruction manual. The hue of the green is another issue. It was probably based on chrome oxide green.

The barrel of these breech-loading guns was scraped clean, then wiped with vinegar until a brownish oxide layer developed. The process was repeated several times and any loose ‘rust’ wiped off. Finally, the barrel was rub down with lineseed oil, effectively producing in situ a paint with ferric oxihyroxide and ferric acetate as pigment. The resulting colour would be something like caput mortuum. This is the way the barrel of the demonstration model in Copenhagen seems to have been treated. Moving parts and mechanically relevant surfaces were keept clean carefully, of course. I will, therefore, lightly spray the barrel in Schmincke caput mortuum.

 

To be continued ...

[Keith Black]

My hat's off to you, Eberhard. If I tried putting in the detail you have at this scale, I'd be a basket case. It's nothing short of absolutely amazing. 

[druxey]

From paintings I've seen, I would agree that the yellow ochre was more of a buff color. Of course this is my subjective opinion but, as a designer, I've a pretty good color memory.

[KeithAug]

Eberhard

 

I love the detailed explanation of the gun elevation mechanism as much as i admire the detail. Excellent work.

[wefalck]

 

Thanks for the kind words !

 

************************

 

Assembly of the gun

 

Slow progress with steps forward and backward ... and a lot of sweat and bad language ...

All parts temporarily assembled had to be taken apart for painting first. After selecting a green for the carriage, all the parts were given several light coats with the airbrush until a uniform colour and sheen was achieved. Not so easy on some of the complex parts. After letting it thoroughly dry, the paint was scraped off from those parts that are meant to be bare metal, but could not be masked off, due to being difficult to access.

 

 

The assembly then proceeded from the inside out on the lower carriage. First the parts for the hydraulic recoil brake were installed. I decided to deviate from the prototype and not to install the protective tunnel over the piston of the brake in order to show the metal-work. I think this small bit of artistic license is permissible. All parts were put together with small blobs of zapon-lacquer, which dries up quite invisible.

Next the spring buffers were installed. Putting in the tiny hexagonal nuts required a very deep breath each time.

 

 

Flipping the carriage over the caster-wheels were put back, but this really taxed my patience. The wheels are held in place by little flat-head pins inserted from both sides. A simple through-pin would have been easier to install, but wouldn’t be quite prototype fashion.

The lower-carriage was very difficult to handle due to the flimsy and delicate grilles and steps. One was broken off in the process, but luckily attached nicely again.

 

 

The rail on which the upper carriage runs would be bare metal. Here the limitations of using cardboard as structural element shows its limitations. If I had used etched brass parts, I would have chemically tinned them before assembly and now could have just scraped off the paint or masked the area before painting to reveal the metal. Now I had to simulate it with paint and a soft lead pencil. I am not entirely satisfied with the result, but can’t do anything about it now anymore.

Overall, I am somewhat ambivalent as to the merit of using cardboard. The surface and cut edges simply are not as smooth as those of metal or plastics, such as bakelite paper or styrene. Unfortunately, styrene could not be cut with my small laser-cutter.

 

 

When proceeding to the upper carriage, I noticed a couple of mistakes I made years ago, when putting it together. Two of the transversal members were installed at a wrong place. The wheels of the carriage would have not touched the rails otherwise. When trying to rectify this, the whole assembly gave, but luckily I managed to put it back together without permanent damage.

 

 

Another issue also arose: one should not work from drawings alone, particularly in a project that streches so long as this one. It turned out that the carriage was a couple of tenths of milimeters to narrow and would not fit over the lower carriage with its guiding plates. I should have properly verified this, when developing the parts for the lower carriage. With a bit of bending and tweaking it could be made to fit, but cobble-jobs like this leave parts behind that are not as crisp as they should be.

 

 

Painting the gun barrel turned out to be a major nightmare. I did not want to prime the steel in order to not loose its metallic appearance. Usually, acrylic paints dry so fast that there are not serious issues with rust formation. When I first applied the first coat it looked ok, but the next morning it had developed a mottled appearance. The same phenomenon reappeared after each coat, but somewhat less. I attributed it to the fact that the bottle of paint was actually almost 25 years old and it had not been sufficiently mixed. In the end I cleaned off the paint and began again, but with the same result. Once more I took the paint off and then sprayed it, but without agitating the bottle, thinking that some of the pigment might have coagulated – same result. Finally, I decided to lightly prime the barrel with zapon-lacquer to isolate the steel. This forms a very thin and virtually invisible layer. This did the trick, but the priming was not done carefully enough and some spots were left bare – with the result that those areas appeared mottled again. I tried dipping, but this leaves a too thick layers in corners etc. Eventually, I managed to obtain a reaonably even layer – one has to work very fast and going over areas already treated is virtually impossible due to the rapid drying. It is also very difficult see, whether one has covered the whole surface. In conclusion, I think the pigment of caput mortuum, which probably is the mineral haematite (Fe3O4) has reacted with the steel (Fe0) leading to the mottled appearance. However, I managed to reproduce the appearance of the barrel of the demonstration model in Copenhagen reasonably well, considering the small scale.

 

 

A few of the flimsy and easy to break off details have not yet been installed and some levers to work the mechanisms still have to be fabricated.

The close-up photographs also show a lot of dust and fluff that need to be cleaned and that the paintwork has to be touched up here and there.

 

 

To be continued ...

[Keith Black]

Eberhard, the photos did not come through. Would you please post the photos again as I'm eager to see them!

[wefalck]

Not sure, what is going on there. The MSW seems to have changed the functionality of the site.  I had problems attaching the pictures from my Web-site as I normally did. They did not show up with an http-link. As the system at some told me that http-links are not accepted anymore, I changed the link to https. However, my SSL-certificates is not valid anymore, as the provider changed their software and I couldn't renew it from my old browser anymore. I have to look into this whole story and probably need to change my DSP, as they also refuse to co-operate with my old browser (and I can't upgrade, because then I would need to upgrade the MacOS and then I would need to buy a whole lot of new program licenses and ... this become really a pain and we are getting trapped in the money-generating machinery of the software industry more and more.

 

I will see, whether I can upload my pictures to MSW, which is something I normally don't like to do.

[Gahm]

Your gun model is just a miracle of details and precision . . . and I don't even dare to think at what scale you are doing this! Outstanding work!

 

Thomas

[Keith Black]

WOW! Such mind blowing detail at 1:160. I am in awe, Eberhard. Absolutely amazing work in every aspect.

[Roger Pellett]

Beautiful realistic work !

 

Roger

[mtaylor]

Beautiful work, Eberhard.   Even pointed out, I'm not seeing the errors.  

 

As for uploading... if something happens like a server move, all your photos will disappear so there's one good reason to upload them.   Over the years, more than few logs had be deleted as the owner and the photo storage site went away.  

[FriedClams]

Spectacular work!  I’ve seen very few modelers who can successfully include this level of detail at so small a scale.  And the fact that this sub-atomic modeling is also realistic is truly exceptional.  Very nice!

 

On 9/27/2020 at 4:01 PM, wefalck said:

decided to deviate from the prototype and not to install the protective tunnel over the piston of the brake in order to show the metal-work. I think this small bit of artistic license is permissible.

Good call - don’t cover up the magic.

 

And I echo Marks’ comment that even pointed out, I don’t see the errors.

 

Gary

[druxey]

The graphite metal looks very good on the photos, Eberhard.

[BANYAN]

Eberhard that is very well constructed and beautifully detailed.  Concur your decision not to cover the detail; that is what makes your models so unique.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Keithbrad80]

This is pretty incredible, and at 1:160, wow. Hats off to you. 

 

Bradley 

[wefalck]

Gentlemen,

 

Thank you very much for your kind words and praise !

 

I think that not scale is the problem, but rather the limitations are due to materials availability, its workability and perhaps also skill, but certainly patience. If I was working at, say, a scale of 1/48, I would want to put roughly three times the amount of details in - which then would also take roughly three times as long. On the gun there were a lot more details that I could have added, based on the available information, but it was physically (at least for me) not possible.

 

For me the material really is the limitation, there are vitually no wires of less than 0.05 mm diameter, and if so, they would be physically almost impossible to work with. I have drills down to 0.1 mm diameter, but drilling holes with less than 0.3 mm diameter is, depending on the material, a real challenge. I can turn short stubs down to 0.1 mm, but it is very difficult to make longer parts with less than 0.3 mm diameter in steel, let alone in the much softer brass. For such operations one would need much bigger machines with well-balanced, vibration-free spindels etc.

 

The next update will look into ammunition for the gun and its handling ...

[KeithAug]

Eberhard, can I add my admiration. Wonderful explanation and exquisite workmanship.

[wefalck]

Thanks, Keith !

*************

Ammunition and ammunition handling

 

Thanks to a book published in 1886 by Carl Galster, we are relatively well informed about the ammunition of the German naval artillery of that time. The WESPE-Class was the only class of ships fitted with the Rk 30,5 cm/l22. According to Galster, three types of projectiles were available for these guns in the late 1870s/early 1880s: a) armour-piercing shells, b) shells with a time-fuse, and b) dummy shells for gun-drill.

All shells had two copper guiding rings that would be squeezed into the rifling. One ring sat shortly above the bottom and the second ring where the cylindrical part would transit into the ogival part of the shell.

The armour-piercing shells were cast in a particular way to harden the steel from which they were cast. They were hollow, but with only a relatively small chamber for powder in the rear part. The nose was cast solid. However, at that time functional impact fuses were not yet available, so the shells were filled with a mixture of sand and sawdust to give the approximate weight distribution as a powder charge would give. The threaded hole for the fuse in the bottom was simply plugged. Armour-piercing shells were painted blue.

The ordinary shell had thinner walls and consequently a larger power-charge. The nose was threaded for time-fuses. It is beyond the scope of this building-log to discuss the fuses in detail, it suffices to say that these were made from brass. Shells were painted red and when actually charged with powder marked with a black ring around the nose.

 

Shells in handling cradles on the Copenhagen demonstration model (note that in real life the shells would be painted and the museum placed them the wrong way around into the cradle)

 

Dummy shells were ‘seconds’ of ordinary shells filled with a sand-sawdust mixture to give the same weight as a real shell. The hole in the nose was closed with a wooden plug. They were painted black all over.

Powder charges were supplied in cylindrical bags. Each bag weighed 46 kg. Up to two bags could be loaded, allowing to adapt the firing range. The bags were stored and handled in cyclindrical boxes lined with zinc sheet or where made from German silver.

 

Powder bag and tampion at the demonstration model in Copenhagen

 

 

A total of five shells were kept ready in the open barbette. I would assume that these would be only the armour-piercing and drill ones, as the fuse of ordinary shells would be rather exposed to the elements. I set out to make six shells in total, three armour-piercing and two drill-shells, that were stored in their respective racks in the barbette. The sixth is an ordinary shell to be placed in the shell-cradle under the crane.

My preferred steel in the workshop are copper-coated welding rods. The copper-coating is very convenient here, as their diameter of 2 mm is exactly the scale diameter over the copper guiding rings. The nose was turned free-hand with my special Lorch, Schmidt & Co. graver holder. The shells are 4.8 mm long. For the live shell, a little brass button was turned and inserted into a pre-drilled hole in the nose.

 

Free-hand turning of the shell nose

 

It not clear, how the heavy shells (weighing around 330 kg) were handled inside the ship and hoisted to the level of the barbette floor. The crane on the gun-carriage does not actually reach over the access-hatch to the shell-store through which the shells presumably were hoisted. The drawings are not clear on the various hatches in the barbette and over the shell-storage, because of various elments being hidden behind others and therefore not drawn. I will have to live with this ignorance.

On the decks, the shells were wheeled around in trolleys. In the Rigsarkivet in Copenhagen a blue-print (in the true sense of the word) for such a trolley has survived. The trolly forms a cradle that can be hoisted by crane to the breech of the gun. At the rear of the gun two hooks are provided (not realised on the model) into which the cradle hooks. The shell then can be pushed into the gun with a rammer.

 

Gun drill, showing the cradle hooked to the gun (LAVERRENZ, 1900)

 

The parts for the trolley where laser-cut and assembled using zapon lacquer. Effectively the trolley was built around the shell for rigidity. A hole was drilled into the shell to secure the hoisting ring.

The racks for the ready shells were laminated together from laser-cut pieces and painted white. The retaining bar was made from flattened pieces of 0.3 mm diameter copper wire that was chemically tinned. In theory, each individual shell should have had its own retaining ring (keeping in mind how important it is to restrain these 300 kg beasts in anything but the slightest sea), but after several attempts to put these into place without damaging the paint-work on the shells too much, I gave up. Flattening the wire reminded me of another pending workshop project, namely a micro-rolling mill to produce metal strips of consistent width and thickness from soft wire.

 

The finished ready-shells (close-up photographs are terribly sobering ...)

 

Reference:

GALSTER, C. (1886): Pulver und Munition der deutschen Marine.- 99 p., Berlin (E.S. Mittler & Sohn).

 

 

To be continued ...

[BANYAN]

Another masterful example of your skills Eberhard; they look great!  A very nice addition of detail.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[druxey]

I'm sure when not seen under macro-photographic scrutiny, the shells look terrific. BTW, does your graver holder just ride on the cross-slide?

[Roger Pellett]

I am constantly amazed by what crews were expected (and apparently managed) to do 140 or so years ago.  Imagine standing in a poorly protected gun tub on the foredeck of this gunboat in a seaway handling these heavy shells using a davit and block and tackle, all while being shot at.

 

Roger

[wefalck]

Thanks, gentlement !

 

Druxey, the Lorch graver-holder was supplied together with a small table, that has a T-slot on its underside and fits on the holder for the so-called T-rests on 40 mm centre-height so-called D-bed watchmakers lathes. On my 50 mm centre-height WW-style watchmakers lathe this would be too low, but I have a special raising block that clamps onto the bed.

 

Here are my specimen on http://www.lathes.co.uk: http://www.lathes.co.uk/lorch/img35.gif

 

Recently, Mr. Gottwaldt (gg-tools) has started to sell a reproduction of this graver-holder, but without the table it seems: https://www.ebay.de/itm/28074-GG-Tools-STICHELHAUS-STICHELSTOCK-FUR-DREHSTAHL-Uhrmacherdrehbank-DREHBANK/143752548776?hash=item217851d1a8:g:BZMAAOSwyRdb6dZu. However, it is adjustable over a greater height range than the original and therefore can be adapated to different types of lathes. One would just need to provide a flat and smooth surface that is exactly in the plane of the lathe axis, e.g. a plate screwed onto the cross-slide.

[Gahm]

Gorgeous detail!

 

Thomas

[druxey]

Thanks, Eberhard. It seems a good alternative to use instead of the tip-over rest. The T-slot in the table is an even better idea.

[wefalck]

It certainly requires less practices and dexterity than the T-rest, though sometimes I still use it. The strange thing is that Lorch, Schmidt & Co. seem to have been the only manufacturer that ever offered such a hand-held toolrest - perhaps the professional watchmakers frowned on it, being proud of their capabilities with lozenge-shaped graver.

[KeithAug]

Nicely done with the shells Eberhard. Do you know how many shells the magazine held? With such a large gun mounted on a small hull I am assuming that the magazine capacity was very limited.

[wefalck]

Thanks, Keith. I had a look over the oldest known version of the plans and counted 60 rounds in total, not counting the (assumed) two drill dummies. It seems that the barrels only lasted for a few hundred shots, before the powder chamber and some of the rifling was eroded. I doubt that the guns ever fired that many life shots. The shells were also rather expensive. Most of the time aiming practice was done with hand-gun barrels mounted into the gun, but the arrangements for this particular gun are unknown.

[KeithAug]

11 hours ago, wefalck said:

counted 60 rounds in total,

More than I would have guessed Eberhard. She is a fascinating little vessel. Logically she would have been very vulnerable to fire from smaller quick firing guns. I guess her rate of fire was quite low and presume her accuracy was somewhat problematic. The crew must have been quite nervous between shots.