Taking a Liberty No.2 - merchant cargo ship

[bootneck]

I have managed to acquire another Liberty ship kit and therefore can start with my second conversion project; this one will be a merchant cargo ship.

With the ending of hostilities in 1945 most of the surviving Liberty ships were returned to the United States. Some of these ships were used to return military personnel from the theatres of operation back to their homelands; whilst other vessels were utilised to repatriate PoW's back to their own countries. The remaining vessels were either utilised by American shipping companies or laid up in case of requirements for re-activation at any point in the future; although their weapons were dismounted.

Meanwhile, nations across the world had suffered terrible losses of shipping and personnel during the war and those ship owning companies had urgent needs to replace their vessels in order to re-start the work of rebuilding and recovery. Building new ships could take years, plus the costs would run into millions of pounds/dollars which, in those austere times of the immediate postwar period, was not readily available therefore other means were urgently needed to help overcome this shortfall. As such, the U.S. Government; having been regularly petitioned by all of the allied nations to sell off surplus stock, authorised the release for sale to foreign nations some of the laid up tonnage for commercial use. The majority of the vessels released for sale were Liberty Ships and this offer was immediately taken up by the allied countries such as Great Britain, Greece, Norway, France and even Italy as a quick and cheaper means of getting the movement of essential products around the globe. Following the initial allowance to those countries mentioned, further sales were later authorised to Belgium, Netherlands and China.

Of the 2,710 Liberty Ships that were built during the war, 127 were sold postwar to Great Britain (some of these were already under British management through original lend-lease agreements) with one such vessel being bought by T. & J. Harrison and Company Ltd, Liverpool and which they named Successor.

This vessel will be the subject of my conversion project and I shall use the Trumpeter 1:350 scale Jeremiah O'Brien as the base kit.

portion of a painting of s.s. Successor by Colin Verity

The initial stages of the build are identical to my other project "Taking a Liberty No.1 - Royal Navy repair ship" therefore I will not take up space repeating those stages here. What is different though is that the hatches will remain in place and some of them will be opened, as they would be for loading and unloading. This causes a change to the normal assembly process of the kit in that Liberty ships had additional holds in compartments just below decks; these decks were commonly known as 'tween decks. The opening of the hatches on the main deck means that the 'tween decks will be exposed below and therefore I shall need to scratchbuild this area from styrene sheet.

These ships had welded hulls which left long seam lines along the length of the hull. I have tried to emulate this by scribing some lines along the kit sides. I have used Dymo-type tape along the proposed area that I wish to scribe here.

The hatch covers have been opened up on the main deck pieces, plus the 'tween decks structures have been cut, including three of the four visible hatchways being opened.

Here, the 'tween decks have been temporarily fitted in place, and the main deck attached, to check for fit and alignment of the hatchways.

I need to prime and paint the internals of the model before I can proceed any further, hopefully I shall be able to do this soon and have more to show over the weekend.

Thanks for looking.

Mike

[keefr22]

Watching this one too Mike! Nice to see a merchantman being built.

Keith

[foxy]

You don't hang about Mike do you.

Nice to see the two being built together.

foxy

[bootneck]

I know............. what have I let myself in for???????

I have a (cunning) plan to do four projects, all involving Liberty ships but it is finding kits at affordable prices on a pension

Thanks for the kind comments

Mike

[Martian]

I like the idea of the twin builds.

Martin

[ShipbuilderMN]

Liberty ships were designed for ease of build as well as a decent cargo capacity. Some of them were completed withing days of laying the keel. This has rubbed off on models of Liberty ships. There is very little shape to them, and the accommodation is all flat plates welded together. A couple of sheets of plasticard, and plastic weld, a modelling knife and a few hand tools are really all that is needed to build one! Here is a perspective plan of the 'midship island, of a Liberty, reproduced by kind permission of "The Motor Ship!" I know they were steamships, but after the war, quite a few were converted into motor ships!

Bob

Edited July 30, 2016 by ShipbuilderMN

[bootneck]

Thanks Bob,

all information and especially drawings are very welcome indeed.

Mike

[Housesparrow]

I wonder if the front side of the main structure above deck is supposed to be flush, or, if it is supposed to look like it when you have glued the parts together, showing thin pieces (floor) of plastic in between larger parts of walls.

On my model, I took some time to sand the whole front flush, to hide all the seams.

[bootneck]

Postwar merchant versions tended to have the front fairly clean as shown in these images of Hellas Liberty in Piraeus.

Bridge and accommodation windows (portholes/scuttles) were updated from their wartime versions. Some had a few windows squared off whilst others had them all modified. It all depended on the owning company and how much they were prepared to spend on the conversions to mercantile shipping.

I cannot be certain whether the seam, which can be seen across the front and just above the air-con units in this view, is a deck layer or where structural items have been cut away. The seam is in line with the boat/upper deck level.

[ShipbuilderMN]

As they were built in sections, it is most likely just a weld seam where the accommodation was joined on. The accommodation was built in one piece in another part of the shipyard. They were just lifted on, and joined up when the hull was ready to receive them!

Bob

[snapper_city]

Watching with interest

[moaning dolphin]

Another interesting build to follow, it's good to see some veriety in this kit. I don't know if you've seen it but there is a nice etch set from GMM for these kits. Not sureally how relevant they would be for your versions though.

[bootneck]

The internals have been painted and a light grey primer has been applied over the external areas. This identifies where the seams need filling and sanding down before the next stage.

With the sanding completed a coat of white has been applied, mainly to represent the white bulwarks around the main deck. Following that I sprayed the main deck to represent the red lead colour of this deck.

The white bulwarks were taped over for protection and then the black hull was painted. For this I used Humbrol 85, satin black, rattle can spray. Note the area marked 'cut away' in the image below. Some vessels had this area opened out to provide additional working space when offloading.

One area to be given additional consideration is the hatch covers, especially when constructing them in an open setting. Unlike modern ships that have solid covers, these had loads of timbers to cover the hatch and there were over 70 per hatch. Underneath the timbers where large cross-section girders that were fitted into cleats inside the hatches rim and the timbers would rest on them.

This view is from under the main deck hatch and shows the timbers, running lengthways and the girder supports running across the hatch. The cleats which hold the girders can be seen on the far right.

The view below is of the girders across the 'tween decks hatch. Note the vertical steel strips running across the girders in between which the timbers would be held in place when stowed and closed up.

To gain access to the holds, all of these timbers and girders would first need to be lifted off the hatch and then stowed somewhere on the deck whilst unloading and loading took place. They also had to be stowed in areas which would not impede the crew's access to the hatches or lifting machinery. This is where I need to do some more research as to how best I can make these pieces and where they would sit on the deck.

The more I learn, I'm finding the less I know!!

Thanks for looking.

Mike

[bootneck]

...........I don't know if you've seen it but there is a nice etch set from GMM for these kits. Not sureally how relevant they would be for your versions though.

I do have a set of etch from L'Arsenal which is similar. As I intend to do three conversions, maybe more if I can afford more kits, I am holding off which etch to use and where; hopefully being able to use the one set across all the builds. I may need to scratchbuild some similar parts if I need more than what is in the set.

cheers

Mike

[Julien]

Interesting, I never knew Harrisions had these.

If any modellers are interested in Mike's pictures of the Hellas he sent them in and we have a full walkaround here.

If anyone has any martime walkarounds we would welcome them as we dont have many.

Julien