HMAS Yarra pre WW1 1/700

[Forlornhope]

Evening all, a few months ago I started a thread looking at whether it was possible to convert HP's HMS Saber into an Aussie River class destroyer. Thanks to some advice from a couple of gents here I decided to scratch build.

Started work Sunday night and with it being Teusday night now and back to work tommorrow here's what I got done.

I'm using plans of HMS Ferret, a British I class destroyer which the Rivers were based on with some mods. I'm just comparing Ferrets plans and a side and top view of HMAS Parramatta and improvising the differrences.

Above is the plans and templates glued to sheet styrene for the hull sections

Templates all cut out and glued together for the hull while below is test fitting the deck

below is the decks in place and ready for the first layer of outer skin.

First layer down and sanded plus start of bridge structure

And a couple as she is now.

Its not perfect but I'm pretty happy with it so far.

Thanks for looking and more to come soon

Cheers Callum

[longshanks]

Scratch building a destroyer in 1/700 I take my hat off !!

[Forlornhope]

Its easier in this scale.......isn't it ? Not so much to do

[foxy]

Nice going Callum mate .

Your getting quite a dab hand at this scratch building .

Cheers foxy

[Forlornhope]

Dunno about dab hand but I'm getting plenty of practice. One thing I am concerned about is the circle bases the guns fore and aft sit on, I counldn't get a circle to save myself. Should be interesting.

Currently trying to get a funnel from the Sabre kit and one from the Tamiya Vampire kit to look like a couple from a River Class destroyer, I'll use what ever I can from the spares box so this won't be a completely scratch built

With it sitting on 38 degrees c and not having aircon, I'm off to the beach

More soon

Thanks for the interest

Cheers Callum

[longshanks]

What diameter are the circles?

I can understand your problem with heat but the alternative !

Cornwall UK 0730 local time - its dark and yet again the rain is forecast to fall horizontally ;o)

Keep up the good work

Cheers Kev

[Alan P]

You make it look so quick and easy! Good subject too.

Al

[Forlornhope]

Thanks guys, so far it has been quick and easy, I rushed it a little and should have let the glue actually set as its melted the plastic and my handling has caused some funny shapes. the biggest issue is the bridge structure should be 1mm or so forward

As it is, when the upper bridge deck goes on, the ladders going up to it will be at the edge of the forcastle deck. I'll get back to that one.

The diameter of the circles are 9mm and 5mm, I'm still figuring out just whats happening with the small structures the guns and circular decks are sitting on

I think the front half of the forward mount is used as a wavebreak while the rest is just steel frame work

heres a proper view of the plans to show where I'm talking about

and heres the funnels in place. Vampires is a perfect fit while Sabres is to fat and chucky but I sanded it down more or less enough to work

Kev you don't know how nice cold and wet sounds

Cheers Callum

[foxy]

Well its looking good to me and good luck with the turret base.

Well kev and I live within a stones throw of each other, so will not comment on the weather

'By the way', thanks for the pictures you sent, will come in very usefull.

Cheers foxy

[Ray S]

Hello Callum, looking interesting so far. I have tried scratchbuilding a destroyer (V108) using a free card model download as reference and found that quite tricky, even though it was 1/250 scale, so heaven knows what I would find in your chosen scale of 1/700! I have put that on hold (in excess of 2 yrs) but your doing this may prompt me to start it again and put my Illustrious on hold for a while!

I look forward to seeing your progress. What is the plan for the zig-zaggy bits on the deck (was that anti-slip stuff).

All the best on this one!

Kind regards, Ray

[longshanks]

Hi Callum,

I use the following products for circles

http://toolbug.co.uk/Eyelet=Pliers-Leather-Hole-Punches/Heavy-Duty-Leather-Hole-Punch#.UtcOY7DuPIU

http://toolbug.co.uk/Eyelet=Pliers-Leather-Hole-Punches/Large-Hollow-Punch-Hole-Cutting#.UtcOxbDuPIU

Now you know what to look for I'm sure you'll be able to source them out yonder - when your back from the beach !!

Cheers Kev

[Forlornhope]

Thanks for the interest fella's, its good encouragement

@Frank my fan is telling me its 35c in my lounge at 7:40 in the evening

actually you only get max 9 10 days over summer where its this hot, the rest of the time its more like 32/35.

Looking forward to the cool change coming Saturday

Glad you can find a use for the pics, I wanted to get right down to the water to lose the beach in the forground , but I had my 5yo nephew with me who also wanted to get close to the water. That kinda killed the photo session

@Ray, I reckon its alot easier in 700 scale, more is seen in the larger scales where I can simplify or just not do (can't do what you can't see ) and the parts can be just as small in larger scale plus theres a hell of a lot more of them.

Flyhawk do a antiskid sheet in brass, which are the brass strips running up the deck, I bought this and a sheet of sky lights by Rainbow a while ago thinking of this project.

@Kev .Thanks for the link for the hole punchs. I really need to get a set I think, I keep coming across these damm circles in my builds so I'm sure they will get plenty of use.

I've decided using Sabres structures is a bad idea. I'll have to learn how to make funnels, but that comes back to the circle thing again, For now It will do, it'l just get lost in the eventual clutter of rigging etc. While typing this I've also come up with how to fix the bridge position as well. That can be for another day though. For now I've added the skylights back behind the funnels and given it a coat of primer to see whats going on without the mix of material colours etc. I've done a walk around with the camera to get a larger view of things, a few blemishes to fix but overall its actually come out pretty straight and clean, go me . I still have to add the curved sections of hull between the forcastle and maindeck and do the portholes along the sides then I can see about giving the decks abit of detail before painting. I've stained a bit bit of the deck black to try and highlight the anti skid deck.

Its going to be interesting to see how she looks after my days off work next week, hard to believe I only started Sunday night,

I'll shutup now, sorry if its too many pics for so early progress

Thanks for looking

Callum

[Ray S]

Thanks for the interest fella's, its good encouragement

@Ray, I reckon its alot easier in 700 scale, more is seen in the larger scales where I can simplify or just not do (can't do what you can't see ) and the parts can be just as small in larger scale plus theres a hell of a lot more of them.

Flyhawk do a antiskid sheet in brass, which are the brass strips running up the deck, I bought this and a sheet of sky lights by Rainbow a while ago thinking of this project.

Callum

Hello Callum, skylights were one of the main reasons I set aside my V108, I could not scratchbuild them neatly, so you mentioning Rainbow may be the prompt I need if I can still get some in larger scales (where do you get them? I have never heard of that manufacturer) - I will google them and see what crops up. Thanks also for the Flyhawk antiskid guide too!

Yarra is looking good so far, and the pics are great! Keeeep Posting!

All the best, Ray

[Forlornhope]

Thanks Ray, I'm not sure how much help this build will be, The aftermarket options are more plentiful in 700 scale (and its amazing some of the stuff thats coming out) Same situation for 350 scale. I did find a Honk Kong based mob called Hobbyeasy. Theyhave alot of the Asian AM companies like Flyhawk, Rainbow etc and have really good prices plus postage to Australia is bugger all. But you maybe hard up in 250 scale for parts.

http://www.hobbyeasy.com/

Dunno if that will help though

Cheers Callum

[Ray S]

Thanks for the link Callum, I will check it out!

Regards, Ray

[Forlornhope]

No worries Ray.

Well I've been a busy little beaver and while its not accurate, I'm quite happy with it.

I fixed the bridge position and added the curved deckends. I got a bit carried away sanding the hull so I've lost some or the roundness at the bow and stern

Using vents from Battlefleet models and assorted pe boxes from the above link I've busied up the raised center section thing with the funnels on it. Some of the parts are too big while others are too small but its worked out pretty well I reckon.

I made a start on the raised gun levels, I got close with the scissors cutting circles out, glued these to some plastic tubing for the base.

And last of all I wanted to see how it looked next to Australia since they will be going on a board together.

The portholes are over sized, I bought tiny drill bits that day but forgot to put them in till I had done one side, so I just went wih it.

Didn't quite get them in straight lines either

Thats it for now, thanks for looking and comments

Cheers

Callum

[longshanks]

Looks the part! Makes me wonder what you could do with a real scale ;o)

Cheers Kev

[foxy]

G.Day.

Great work so far Callum mate.

She looks good against Australia.

Cheers foxy

[Forlornhope]

Dunno Kev about real scale, all those little shape issues and defects in 1/700 would become quite major problems in 1/1. For starters I think the slightly off centre bow stem would create a hell of alot of work for the helmsman to stop the ship wanting to constantly turn to port.

Thanks Frank, once Yarra's finished that will just leave me a Town Class light cruiser to do and then I want to do something like this with the 3 together

I've been playing some more with the forward gun bandstand, still early stages and needs some TLC but its a start, also tried to lay stretch sprue across the top of the deck to represent the lines on the deck of the bandstand in the drawings in an above post. came up a bit of a mess and a sand down will lose alot of it but maybe something will show.

Thanks for the interest fellas and more to come soon

Cheers Callum

[longshanks]

Hi Callum,

By real scale I mean 1/35. . . . . . ;o)

[Forlornhope]

Oh, comments re small scale/small problems turning major issues still apply. Am toying with the idea of a 1/72 HMVS Cerberus for RC, could be fun. Don't think plastic sheet would be the go though

[Forlornhope]

Ok so a quick update, the forward gun bandstand is done and I 've started adding details to the forcastle and bridge.

The pics are great for seeing things clearly. So after looking at them it now looks like this

I've also started playing with the torp tubes but I think I'll do these out of brass instead. Dunno why I left it in the photo

The position of the anchors was too close to the bow so I have moved them back abit. I was getting ahead of myself withthe railing on the bandstand. I'm using WEMs Ultra fine railings (thankyou very much Sean) and they really are fine and very fragile I don't want to even breathe on them.

Of coarse ten minutes after getting the bit down I put my thumb on it. I'll do the rails last.

I went looking for some bits at my LHS the other day and took the plans with me to compare sizes (my ruler doesn't do under a mm). Fella asked why I didn't bring the full size plans, seemed suprised when I said they were full size....

more to come soon

thanks for looking as always

Cheers Callum

[Forlornhope]

Evening all, after my last post where I started stripping things off again, I ended up going to town.

But I've raised the sky lights, made new funnels and got the steam pipes set up more accurately, plus changed the setup a little.

Just got the handrails and 4inch gun to go up the front of the ship but the rest has come up looking allright.

Think its time to give the eyes a break, but more to come soon

thanks for looking

Cheers Callum

[longshanks]

Looking good !

[foxy]

Thats the way to go, I can appreciate You having to start again on parts that do not look right.

Its coming on fine .

Cheers foxy