Bandsaw Steve

As I learned during my AE2 build many early submarines had collapsible masts for radio arieal lines and other gear that needed to be elevated when in use. I expect that in this case any mast or derrick or aerial etc would either be collapsible or retractable and would be tucked away before the submarine dives.

Rippa model! I really like that cold grey sea too! Just read through the WIP and have picked up a couple of useful tips. 👍

Great result and a really good thread. 👍

Welcome aboard. Always good to see more Aussies here! 👍

Looks very promising! 👍

No problem- I always hesitate to ‘point things out’ with models as it can be taken the wrong way. But obviously not in this case! 👍

Not bad… but my understanding is of all the divergent waves only the first one (the bow wave) will actually be in contact with the hull. The second, third etc will be rolling away and don’t visibly contact it. The remaining ‘gap’ (between hull and divergent waves) is where the lower height sine-form ‘transverse’ waves form. Remember though this is your model (and I too am a beginner with seascapes) so feel free to make your own interpretation.

Balsa! I never would have thought of using it in this context. Looks like it’s going to work very well though. Watching with interest.

As a kiwi I’m very excited to read that A4 Skyhawks have finally replaced F15 C Eagles.

Welcome aboard!

Yes it is! And it’s nice to have the bulk of the research out of the way too although some of the forthcoming details, including the rigging, might require some more investigation and thought.

Stolen Time Over yonder on the Aviation WIP pages I recently made a pledge that the Mirage III project would be wrapped up by no later than 01 March 2024. This is both the 103rd anniversary of the formation of the RAAF and the third anniversary of that mad project. Unfortunately, since I'm having a great time at the moment with the SS Xantho - and actually making progress too - I fear that I am stealing a great deal of time from the Mirage and spending it on this thing. Here's where we last saw our little steamship. As noted in the commentary much of the superstructure shown here is just a sort of preliminary 'roughing out' of what the final shapes might look like. Having made the hull of this ship four times I have no qualms about spending five minutes cutting a piece of MDF to about the right shape just to see how things might look. Sooner or later though some serious work must begin. Ross chose to put the ship's galley in a prominent, elevated position directly behind the bridge which makes sense to me, not only because this is a typical arrangement but because some galley equipment was salvaged from the wreck, so may have been near the surface after the ship sank. If you have read my threads before you may well have heard me rant about the excellent properties of gridded plastic. Once again I sing this stuff's praises. As a modeler who is always geometrically challenged and incapable of building any 'true' right angle this stuff is a Godsend. Here I've marked up the walls, window and roof of the galley in such a way that I can just... cut out the outline of the basic geometrical shapes and scour where certain folds need to be made... and fold the whole thing like a piece of oragami. Obviously some of the edges are a bit rough and this needs some more surficial work, but this structure is both geometrically 'true' and a very close dimensional match to Ross's drawing. It's also hollow, so by cutting out a couple of rectangles of exactly the correct shape I can make a little floor for the galley which... when glued onto the deck of the ship serves as a mounting block for the rest of the structure. Now I can remove the galley at will and return it to exactly the same spot every time. It's a bit like making my own kit. Now let's turn our attention to 'cabin-shield' or 'weather-guard' or... whatever it's called. (If anyone knows the proper name please write in). This is the curved, continuous band of protective metal that extends right across the beam of the ship - from gunwale to gunwale - directly under the bridge. Underneath this shield, we hypothesize, was a captain's cabin and chart room, a small first mate's cabin and various lockers for stores and equipment. Of all the features that Ross incorporated into the final drawings this is the one that most surprised me. I'm not saying it's 'wrong' just that I never would have thought to incorporate it. I have also been very worried about how to model it. Here's how I managed. Start with a piece of 0.25mm thick brass sheet and carefully mark up the relevant geometry. Note that I know of no such thing as gridded brass, but i wish there was such stuff! Now chain-drill the brass and cut from hole to hole with a jeweler's saw. I'm not sure why I made such a complete mess of the drilling and cutting but... there you go. Now sand all the rough edges flat. Brass is magnificent material to work with; very forgiving. I used to be intimidated by brass as a modelling material thinking that only 'professionals' could use it. Nothing could be further from the truth, it's easier to use than cardboard. This is the result of the first cuts. Now I annealed the brass with the family's creme-brulee burner... carved out a balsa former... taped the brass to the former... and bent the entire thing into the required shape with my fingers. After a bit of measuring, cutting and adjustment we have a fairly convincing looking 'weather-shield' thing. Now I've cut the balsa former in an appropriate way to ensure that it fits in between the gunwales, have made an alley for the crew... and used some more gridded plastic sheet to tidy up the front and rear of the cabins. Here’s the hatch at the rear of the alley-way. This will be at the top of a short interior ladder. Mind your head! Here is this structure fitted alongside the galley and some new cargo hatches. And here's what the SS Xantho looks like at the moment. Note also that there is a new access at the fore-castle for the crew to get to their fo'ard, below-deck cabins. This structure was made in a very similar way to the galley. Here she is from a different angle. That's about it for now. This project has had long periods when it has not been much fun, but at the moment I'm really enjoying this so you never know, I might just steal a few more hours off the Mirage. Stay tuned. Best Regards, Bandsaw Steve.

Great work Jeff and a great thread too. Looking forward to seeing this one on the table at Wasmex this year! 👍

Great subject, great story, awesome courage! 👍 I always think there’s something special about peacetime heroism.

As it says in the first post of this thread - ‘Xantho was a rather extraordinary vessel in certain regards’. 🤔

It can’t go fo’ard - helicopter operations would interfere with the navigation radar.

The kit might be fighting you but so far it looks like you are winning! 👍 Keep going!

Wicked model! 👍👍👍

‘Heads’ edit made. ’Maximize cargo capacity?’ Yes - agreed. No point in wasting potentially economic space. WRT the layout, much depends on how much Robert Stewart was willing to invest time and money on this project. It’s easy to dismiss this as ‘do as little as possible’ but if with a bit of ‘superficial’ superstructure construction he could make a more modern-looking ship his additional outlay might be more than recovered. ’Guess’ Yes, it is a guess. But one that’s fairly tightly constrained by documentation and by the known state of shipping technology of the day. As stated at the start I want to make something that can’t be proven wrong. That’s why Ross rejected my suggestion that we put a heli-pad on the stern. 🤣

Thanks, I’m pleased you are enjoying the thread. The brass is not photo-etched, it’s just 0.4mm brass sheet cut and folded to the correct shape. The brass gets scribed with a sharp tool such as a needle or razor blade and then held in a vice while I ‘work’ the fold over and over till it breaks on the scribed line. The zig-zags are done in a similar way. Scribe where you want the fold to be then hold one side in a clamp and gently fold the structure until the ‘zig’ has the correct angle of ‘zag’. Repeat until all are done. It turned out to be a remarkably simple exercise, which is something I was not expecting! 👍

Yes indeed. Of course it’s very important to remember that both are just artists impressions and I don’t really consider this one ‘right’ and the other one ‘wrong’. I was surprised at how much superstructure Ross gave this interpretation and hence how ‘modern’ it looked, but despite Xantho’s faults she was a sea-going steamship capable of travelling from Scotland to Australia. She was also capable of carrying up to 24 people or more so it’s not unreasonable that she would have a bridge, charthouse/ captain’s cabin, galley, and skylights. She will also need a toilet (heads). This view is supported by the list of auctioned items. I now think that the original impressions have a deck plan that look a bit sparse. A shame really because ‘sparse’ is much easier to model! 🤣

Wow! How did I miss this for so long? What an achievement!

Stand Now that the basic shape of the hull is finally finished, it’s time to ensure that it can sit level and steady while I'm working on it. Sooner or later a stand will be required for this model, so let’s make one now. I’ve chosen what I consider the simplest approach. Take a sheet of 16mm MDF and cut out three pieces; a rectangular base a bit longer than the hull & two pieces cut to match the profile of the hull -see photo below - at points 1/3 and 2/3 along the length of the base. Stick the frame together with ‘Titebond’. The hull now sits very steady in it's cradle. At this point I noticed that, by coincidence, the thickness of many of the superstructure fittings were also 16mm so I carried out making the basic shapes of some of the key parts such as this skylight. As mentioned in various other posts I'm frequently finding MDF a most useful material for model-building and consider it a generally under-appreciated material in this discipline. Before long I had some of the main components roughed out in MDF and could easily put them in position for a quick preview of what the final upper-works will look like. Since the deck is now held both firmly and level this 'dry-fit' is much more stable than before. There is definitely a lot of fine-tuning required on these parts, and many will be completely replaced before this project is finished, but it’s most encouraging to see this thing starting to look something like a display model. 👍 Best Regards, Bandsaw Steve

For many (most?) of the aircraft types we are discussing, less time elapsed from the Wright Brothers to first flight than from first flight to today. Which I think is pretty amazing!

The gruesome King Stephen story sounds like a gruesome Stephen King story. 😱