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

[wefalck]

The last two weeks were spent travelling on business, to Stockholm (including a renewed visit to the Maritime Museum there 😉 ) and to Brussels. Friday and Saturday I spent at the information desk of Association des Amis du Musée de la Marine, which has been finally re-opened (see other thread on this). So, not much time in the workshop, but I still managed to complete the

 

Banisters

 

These banisters are flimsy matters so that I left them to the end as far as possible, still following the pattern to work ‘inside-out’ in order to not damage delicate items.

 

The information is somewhat patchy as to what the banisters actually looked like. They are represented in the lithographs and on one or the other photograph, one can see parts of them. Basically, there are two types: bend pipe-work and straight stanchions located in sockets that support a wooden rail.

As the metal parts are laid out in yellow on the lithography, they appear to have been made from brass (or bronze). One picture shows bare metal for the pipe-work. Hence, I decided to make them from bare 0.3 mm brass wire. At the moment this looks rather bright, but I assume that it will tarnish somewhat with time.

 The pipework ones were bent over a scale copy of the lithograph. The ends, where they attach to the stairs appear to have been flattened, which duly was represented on the model.

 

For the ones with wooden rail at the end of the deckhouse, I cheated a bit and instead of having individual stanchions, I flattened the wire in the area of the wooden rail to have a support for it and bent the stanchions down sharply. The sockets were cut from 0.5 mm OD brass tube, which is a sliding fit on the 0.3 mm wire. The ends were milled down to the appropriate angle. The wooden rail was fashioned from two laser-cut strips of paper laminated together with varnish. With hind-sight, fashioning all parts from brass and soldering them together in a jig might have given crispier results.

 All parts were cemented in place with clear varnish.

 

Overall, these quite simple parts took surprisingly long to produce.

 

To be continued ....

[BANYAN]

Astounding detail at that scale Eberhard, the additional detail you are fitting brings the model to life.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Keith Black]

Incredible work, Eberhard. I look forward to every new post.

[druxey]

Superb at any scale, never mind at 1:160, Eberhard.

[KeithAug]

Very impressive. Not long now until you finish. What next?

[mbp521]

Just catching up Eberhard, and as usual your work still amazes me. 
 

-Brian

[wefalck]

Apologies to all, who looked here in vain for new developments, but real life severely interfered with my workshop time and the zen mental state to carry out miniature work ...

 

In the meantime, I wish all Forum Members a peaceful Christmas and a successful New Year 2024 !

[KeithAug]

Merry Christmas Eberhard. As you say a possible update was very enticing.

[Keith Black]

 And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours, Eberhard. 

Edited December 23, 2023 by Keith Black

[bruce d]

Seasons greetings and best wishes to you Eberhard 

 

Bruce 

[GrandpaPhil]

Merry Christmas Eberhard!  And a Happy New Year!

[Ras Ambrioso]

A very Merry Christmas to you and yours. And another hurrah to your work 

[wefalck]

Well, again, real life with travels around Europe, mostly private have got in the way, plus of course, holiday preparations. Some small visible progress only, though preparations for installing the ship’s boats are under way.

 

Completion of the staying of the funnel

 

According to the principle of working ‘inside-out’, installation of the outer pairs of funnel stays had been left to a moment, when other work would not interfere with them anymore.

 

The remaining funnel stays installed

 

The stays are chain and they were simulated in the same way as the chains for the rails etc. Luckily the lithograph represents these chain-stays by dotted lines, so that the points where they have to be made fast are known. Miniature eyebolts were fashioned from wire and glued into holes drilled for the purpose. They also received laser-cut washers of 0.5 mm diameter. The stays are set taught with lanyards made from thread as used in the old days for mending ladies’ ‘nylons’.

 

Not sure, whether I showed pictures before of how I am making fake chains using twisted wire. The material is oxidised Konstantan (a Cu/Ni alloy), sofar the best material I found for the purpose due to its tensile strength.

Twisting two 0.06 mm wires together so that the length of each ‘twist’ is the desired length of the chain link.

Laying in half of the twisted wire and twisting it together in the opposite direction.

The finished ‘chain’.

 

Depending on the envisaged use, one could also pull the ‘chain’ through the fingers with some graphite to make the links more visible.  

 

Micro-marlin-spike

In between I also spent some time on the lathe and made marlin-spike for the upcoming ropework. So far, I just used a hypodermic needle, but found holding it between the fingers not very satisfactory. I knew that hollow marlinspikes are being used for work with wire-rigging, but somehow it had not occurred to me to use it in the model-realm. Thanks to ‘archjofo’ who described his marlin-spike made from a sharpened piece of brass tube.

Hypodermic needle as marlin-spike

 

As I have quite a collection of hypodermic needles in my scrap-box, I selected a suitable size. The nice (real) ebony handle also has been in the scrap-box for a long time, waiting for a suitable use. I gather it came from my father’s estate, who had trained as a medical doctor during the war. At that time a lot of better-quality (biological, medical, dissecting) instruments that did not need to be sterile were made with ebony or ivory handles – looking rather elegant today.

 

The handle was almost ready to use and needed just a bit of turning down, where the ferrule will be fitted. The ferrule was turned from 6 mm brass rod and drilled out for the handle. A deep hole for the 0.8 mm hypodermic needle was drilled. The ferrule is a tight fit on the handle, but was secured with a drop of PVA glue, while the needle was just driven into the slightly undersized bore.

 

Micro-marlin-spike

 

Hypodermic needles, of course, are meant to cut through the skin and in consequence have very sharp edges – not so good, when working with fine threads. The cutting edges, hence, were dulled with an Arkansa-stone.

Micro-marlin-spike

 

Using such marlin-spike, it is possible to make fake eyesplices with ropes as thin as 0.18 mm …

 

The next post will concern the installation of the ship’s boats, perhaps the most dreaded operations of all due to the exceeding flimsiness of some parts.

 

To be continued ....

[KeithAug]

Eberhard - thank you for the detailed explanation of techniques.

[BANYAN]

Ditto Keith; those simulated chain stays look great.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[wefalck]

Thanks, belatedly, gentlemen ...

 

Well, some traveling and struggles with tiny and flimsy parts caused again a long delay until this update …

 

Installing the ship’s boats

 

This detail was the most dreaded of all, due to the flimsy character of the parts. The davits had been produced a long time ago, as were the blocks for the hoisting tackle, and, of course the four boats.

 

There are no pictures, except the very first photograph of SMS WESPE that indicate the arrangements for the boats hanging outboard on the davits. While it seems to have been a quite common arrangement on smaller warships of the time, it was already noted in reports by captains of Prussian gunboats ten years earlier, boats in such a position are prone to be carried away by seas of even moderate height. So, quite early on barrings and boat skids had been installed on the WESPE-class boat and the davits lengthened to lift up the boats. For this final arrangement, various images are available.

 

Somehow, the boats must have been prevented from swinging in their hoisting gear. A typical arrangement would have been a spar lashed across the davits and the boats pulled against them with cross-wise boat ties. In the absence of other pictorial evidence, this is what I opted for. There were, however, still some detail questions open: were those ties strips of heavy canvas or braided rope-work and did the spars have bolsters around them to prevent damage to the boats? For the latter questions there are examples of both option on photographs and (contemporary) models. 

 

I recently visited again the Maritime Museum in Stockholm, which reminded me of a possible solution on a model of the same period. The boat-ties seem to have been heavy canvas and had triangular rings at their ends. They are attached to an eye at the top of the davit, run around the boat, then around the opposite davit, and are hauled taught with a tackle of blocks hooked in between them. No bolsters on the spars.

 

I decided to leave out the tackle and just use a lashing between the rings to tighten the ties. The lashing will be difficult enough to access behind the boats.

 

Boat ties arranged on a package of book-repair tape

 

The triangular rings were fashioned from 0.15 mm tinned copper-wire wound around the tang of a triangular file with 1 mm sides. The windings were cut open with a scalpel. The ties themselves are narrow strips of a special kind of material: a kind of very fine silk-paper tape with a backing of a thermos-setting acrylic glue. This material is used in book repair for instance. Brand and other details can be seen on the photograph. The 1 mm strips were cut with a new no. 11 scalpel blade and folded in two. The material is slightly tacky which is helpful when aligning the halves and inserting the rings. The glue was set with the help of my hot-air soldering gun set to 110°C as per instructions. The halves were pushed together using a tool as used in the old days to rub down transfer lettering. The ties were painted in Vallejo ‘hemp’. 

 

Boat ties in detail

 

It took some tries to work out a workable sequence for installing the davits, spar, boat-ties and boat-tackles, considering also the difficulty of access. Eventually the ties were fastened to the davits and the tackles hooked into the latter with the loose end already belayed to the clamp on the back of the davits.

 

Davits fitted out and ready for installation on board

 

The davits then were inserted into their sockets and fixed with a drop of white glue. Next the spar is lashed to the davits. Then the ties were arranged in preparation of the boats and the lashing is reeved. 

Davits ready to receive the boat.

 

The davits are now ready to receive the boat, which is slipped in and the tackles hooked into the respective rings on the boat. The ties are now pulled tight, so that boat rests against the spar.

 

Boat stowed in the davits.

 

Overall, the installation of the first boat went reasonably well. However, it is hanging a few millimetres too low. The boat’s keel should have been level with the bulwark handrail. Somehow, I didn’t manage to make the close-hauled tackled as short as it should have been. Also, the hooks on the blocks are a tad too long. Not 100% satisfactory, but I am not going back two steps to remake the blocks and tackles and all. Let’s assume the crew hasn’t done such a good job in stowing the boats and the officers haven’t noticed it yet …

 

To be continued ....

[Mirabell61]

Very nice work Eberhard,

and a smart Idea with that repare-tape, thanks for sharing, a few weeks ago I was looking for something alike to strap down a boat on the Ergenstrasse

 

Nils

[GrandpaPhil]

That looks really good!

 

Very neat solution with the book repair tape!

I will have to remember that!

[Ras Ambrioso]

Wefalk, you never cease to amaze me with your micro work. Thanks for being such an example to us plebes.

[druxey]

Stowed at the correct height or not, that is impressive, Eberhard!

[BANYAN]

Those gripes/sea lashings look so good Eberhard, very nicely done.  Now I have something to try and emulate for the Victoria's boats   Can I be so bold as to ask for a link to that material for making them?

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited February 9 by BANYAN

[wefalck]

Thanks, gentlemen, for your kind comments!

 

Pat, I obtained the tape from a local art supply store. Here is the link to the manufacturer's Web-site: https://www.neschen.de/en/product/filmoplast-r/#pdetails. They probably sell world-wide, but I would suspect that there are other manufacturers with similar products. Basically it is an extremely thin silk-paper to which a film of heat-activated acrylic compound is attached. This acrylic film actually detached quite easily and could be used even for other applications.

 

[BANYAN]

Thanks for the info Eberhard.  In hindsight, and as I am working at a larger scale, do you think drafting linen might work? 

[wefalck]

Pat, I don't have hands-on experience with drafting linen, only know it from some old drawings in archives. However, I think the thinner the material, the better. Such canvas straps would be perhaps 3 mm thick at most in real life.

[Ab Hoving]

An amazing build Mr. Falck. My compliments.

Ab

[wefalck]

Thanks, Ab, much appreciated !

 

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

 

Installing the ship’s boats 2

 

It is done! All four boats are suspended from their davits and the work was achieved without major damage to other parts.

 

Good thing that there is not (yet) any brain recorder … because of the mental language that accompanied the process at certain stages.

 

Still there is a lot to be done, such as tidying up the loose ends, making and installing the coils of rope from the runners of the boat-tackles and the longitudinal chain-stays for the davits.

   

 

To be continued ....

[Wintergreen]

Yup, it's a good feature that brain language isn't recorded anywhere outside said brain 😄 

Very convincing deck, me like.

 

Keep it up!

[Hubac's Historian]

Truly lovely Eberhard, a thing come to life.  This is exquisite work in such a small scale!

[KeithAug]

Wonderful overhead shots Eberhard. She looks magnificent - that is apart from the crews dereliction of duties on the rope work. Have they been on the schnapps?

[BANYAN]

Great work!  I especially like the open boat, it looks so life-like.

 

cheers

 

Pat