Bandsaw Steve

Both wings and the fuselage built without so much as starting up a bandsaw!?!? 😱 This is an outrage! 😡

I might be able to start something I suppose…🤔

Dear NATO fans, It is with a heavy heart that I must advise you that I have looked at my work schedule and other commitments for 2024 and am no longer confident that I am going to be able to take part in this most excellent group build. I will definitely be following along and yelling encouragement from the sidelines but think I’m very likely to be stretched too far if I attempt to build anything worthwhile for this. Leave my name on the list though; you never know…

I truely hope so! 🙏

What a fascinating story, I’ve never heard of this incident before. Good luck with the model, it looks like a later version of the Xantho in some ways.

Watch this space…

If I’d known how long it would take to get this far I doubt I would have ever started this mad venture. 🤔

I can’t post short cuts and links at the moment because I don’t know how to using this phone but I would also humbly recommend looking in Britmodeller at my build of ‘HMAS AE2’ and ‘RMS Carpathia’. I made a sea-scape for both of them and documented how I did it in both cases. Neither Sea-scape was anything like as good as a ‘Flodberg’ effort but I was happy with them. I was effectively a beginner when I made these because these are the only two I’ve ever made. I hope you find something of use in those threads. Stevr

I know a modeller who claims that excessive exposure to CA glue fumes caused him to loose his sense of smell so be careful with this stuff, it’s nasty. BTW I did not know you could get odourless CA. I must see if I can find some.

She looks like one awesome battleship mate! 👍👍👍

For Better or for Worse As per my earlier comments on this thread (Oct 22 2023 ‘The Current State of Play’) I am - reasonably happy with the hull contours from the bow through to about ¾ of length of the ship. The shape of the stern however seemed too ‘bluff’ and ‘fat’ and needed further work. After a fair bit of reading and reviewing photographs, drawings and other models I realized that the most direct path to a defensible interpretation of the hull shape is to reference the archaeological outline of the hull as shown below. The problem with the 'dashed line' outline in this drawing is that it is not clear exactly which waterline it is intended to represent. Is it intended to be an interpreted guess as to the shape of 'the' waterline or the general form of the sub-suface hull? At the very stern-most section of the hull remnant we can see that the corroded remains terminate about half-way up the rudder, we can also see that the interpreted lines also meet-up with the rudder, so my best guess is that the dashed line is intended to represent the form of the hull at a height about half-way up the rudder. In any case, the archaeological map clearly shows is that, as @Dingbatsuggests, the rear of the ship has no sign of ‘hollowing out’ of the contours of the stern. It also shows that the ‘fineness’ of the stern (if that’s the correct term) is broadly comparable to that of the bow and hence the current stern - as I have modelled it - is indeed too ‘full’. At the same time however the portion of the keel immediately ahead of the rudder is too fine. As an aside, note that this plan is laminated and then cut out at the relevant line. This is an easy way to convert a paper plan to a semi-rigid template. With this information in mind, I set about ‘fining down’ the stern and recontouring it to match, as closely as possible, the preserved shape. This is a matter of using chisels, rasps and very coarse sandpaper to reduce the thickness. The main challenge here is to maintain the symmetry between the two halves of the hull, this is achieved by working on both at the same time and constantly checking that what is done on one side is done on the other. The process of ‘fattening up’ the keel was made by the generous application of 'knifing putty', a single-part automotive filler that I am finding especially handy. After a fair bit of carving, rasping and puttying I had a close match to the shape indicated by the archaeological diagram. From here the sanding begins in earnest... The first layer of automotive filler primer is applied... and the ‘Prime-inspect-fill-sand, prime-inspect-fill-sand, prime-inspect-fill-sand’ cycle begins. Hopefully each cycle involves dealing with smaller and smaller imperfections until in the end we are dealing with blemishes that are damned-near invisible. So now we have a basic model of the interpreted shape of the SS Xantho’s hull. It's been a long, long time coming and, for better or for worse, this is what I’m running with. There are certainly many details to add but now, at least in terms of basic shape, the hull is done! Best Regards, Bandsaw Steve

Two pieces of advice: 1. Google ‘Chris Flodberg ships’. In my view this guy makes the best seascapes in the world and has published various articles on how he does it. 2. Study the geometry of ship’s wakes. A lot of modellers model what they think a ship’s wake looks like and end up with a wake that bears no resemblance to any wake that ever formed in the ‘real world’. Ship’s wakes form in specific patterns called a ‘kelvin envelope’ or ‘Kelvin Wake Pattern’ . Once you know something about these patterns you will avoid the worst errors. Steve

True enough, but also useful for adjusting the length of fingers and fine-tuning the attitudes of selected recalcitrant individuals.

Well! I stand corrected! 👍 Too many years scratch building and not following the kit market I guess!

I find it weird that we can get 1/35 scale cheese but not a 1/35 scale Spitfire. 🤔 Just saying.

Like so many Japanese jets, that is a thing of great beauty! 👍

That’s so impressive!

Drats! My answer was so much better than the truth! 🤣

Here’s a guess; inappropriate relationships with married women? Perhaps wives of senior officers? Just a guess.

Beautiful precision work!

We currently have 65 participants in this group build. Is this a record?

No - but a week ago I was onboard HMAS Castlemaine in Melbourne and that’s well worth a look! 👍

Wanakas toy and transport museum is also good, although very… eclectic… and a little eccentric. My daughters loved it for the barbie collection- I loved it for the ex Cranwell Jet Provost and the Mig 21. My wife was less enthralled. 😬

Also, if you are going to Mandeville and have any interest at all in road transport, then press on to Invercargill and have a look at the road transport museum there. It’s one of the best collections of its type anywhere.

If you go to ChCh and Wigram you really should/ must press-on another 50 miles south and go to the Ashburton Aviation museum. Make an appointment for a visit- it will not disappoint.