Steve D
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Posts posted by Steve D
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14 minutes ago, Iceman 29 said:
We had plenty to answer for on the other side of the Channel...
Ha, at least I didn't say "perfidious French"...
Wonderful pictures Pascal, thanks
I don't suppose that any of these later 19th century French torpedo boats have drawings that are available, how cool to model the opposition
BTW I just love the exaggerated tumblehome of late 19th century French warships.......
Cheers
Steve
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5 minutes ago, Faraway said:
I’m surprised that the trackway on deck was so long. You’d think they could be lowered aboard just aft of the tubes
Its interesting. The tramway specifically runs aft from the area where the derrick is so I'm guessing that the torpedoes could be loaded from an ammunition barge without the need to bring the boat alongside the dock. They tended to be tied-up in rows, not all alongside a quay, would have saved time...
Cheers
Steve
19 minutes ago, robgizlu said:Spellbounding work as ever
Thanks Rob, appreciate the likes as ever
Cheers
Steve
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7 minutes ago, Faraway said:
How many spare torpedoes did it carry, and where were they stored
None Jon, see my earlier post. There is nowhere to store or handle torpedoes at sea, only in port. These vessels were really designed for coastal/anchorage defence to counter the perceived threat from French torpedo boats (sorry @Iceman 29) They were meant to sally forth to sink torpedo boats that were sent to attack capital ships in harbour. All that said, the crews lived aboard. They had names not numbers which I believe meant they had a dedicated crew though the officers would mostly mess on the depot ship.
The transition to large patrol and escort destroyers that could keep up with the fleet for days on end took 15 more years by which time these small TBD's were redundant. That said, some saw service in WW1, as part of the Dover Patrol.
Cheers
Steve
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13 hours ago, Dmitriy1967 said:
Take photos in the daytime.
It works...
Will try harder
Steve
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13 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:
reminding me about. HG Wells' War of the Worlds, and HMS Thunderchild.
My understanding is HMS Thunderchild was based on HMS Polyphemus of 1881 which is a fascinating example of how fearlessly innovative the Victorian navy was. Seemingly freely building quite large ships just to test an idea, in this case a failed idea, but a great subject for a model. That hull form alone would be wonderful to make. At 240ft little too large for my preferred scale or I'd be adding it to the list. Wonderful white and mustard colour scheme
However, you are right, this age is very steam-punk
12 hours ago, Dmitriy1967 said:it was impossible to load a torpedo into a torpedo tube during a sea disturbance
Correct, they carried no reloads, just the two in the rotating mount and one in the forward tube. All loaded in port, with the warheads stowed below the forward crew flat
12 hours ago, Dmitriy1967 said:Take photos in the daytime
should have thought of that....
11 hours ago, Courageous said:Nice use of your croc-clips; clamp and heat-shunt
The only way to keep these strips attached ....
Cheers
Steve
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Little postscript to the torpedo stuff, the trolly and loading try. Due to the location of the engine hatches, the tramway stops about 10 feet short so a removable loading tray is needed to bridge the gap and get the torpedo into the tube. This all appears to have been by hand as the drawings don't show any mechanical means or fixings for them. I guess these small early torpedo's could be manhandled with enough crew
The trolly sits on 4 little wheels that run along the tramway track. It's made from a half section of tubing and some etched components and turned wheels
And here it is doing its job, sweet
The loading tray is stowed beneath the 18ft gig with the trolly stowed on top. The tray is made from a half round section of tubing with some rivet strap edging to add a little detail. It sits on 4 timber baulks. Sorry about the focus, the lighting in my workshop it terrible and these pictures taken after dark always seem slightly out of focus
In place with the torpedo being fed in, Now it is possible to understand why the tubes were opposed. In this way, the tramway serves both tubes as for the second torpedo you would just spin the mount 180 deg, smart....
Rear steering and conning position next, a nice bit of turning coming....
Cheers
Steve
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2 minutes ago, Faraway said:
I’m hoping turning the two handles, rotates the tubes
Well Jon, the spirit was willing but the gear ratio wasn't up to the job
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Time to tackle the torpedo tubes. This is a major subassembly, very distinctive, it has to be right
First job is the rotating platform, which is a simple assembly of etched components
Until you realise that it runs on 8 tiny wheels in 4 bogies running around that circular track, worked OK
Next a lot of turning of flanges and the end caps
For the second one, I gave up drilling out the back flange, as it can't be seen. You can see I've also filed the release opening in the final section
Next the end caps need hinges and the trigger pistol. I believe they were launched with a charge in the tube as they have no external plumbing
So far, so straightforward. These assemble easily, just resting at this stage, not soldered, my drawing in the background
That open flair needs lining with some half round section, 0.8 x 0.4 mm in this case. This was done using crocodile clips to hold things in place and stop already soldered sections springing loose. It was bent in place in 5 sections, tricky to get exactly right. Splatter from the solder paste, lots of stage by stage clean-up on this piece. The end caps were left off to the very end and then fixed with cyno so I could get the hinges exactly horizontal
Now the really hard bit, the training gear is two handles turning the mount via a worm gear. I'd been wondering how on earth I was going to make a decent job of this when I stumbled across Aliexpress, a Chinese on-line shop, with its own mobile app. Some searching found exactly the right super tiny brass gears, both the worm gear and the 45 deg angle gears needed for a pound or two each. a couple of weeks later, they arrived direct from China, amazing...
Now all I had to do was solder them all in place. This process of trial and error took a few hours and was too frustrating to stop and take pictures. However, the result is OK I think. The angle gears need a magnifying glass to see, but the worm gear looks the part, all will be better when painted
In the background is a naval rating saluting. I'll post much more on where I got him and his many crew-mates later, exciting new development
So, finally, the completed mount on deck. This opposing twin mount is, I believe, a unique solution only build for Havock and her sister ship, HMS Hornet. All the other A class TBD's have two single mounts as they are about 20 feet longer. The short overall length of these two first TBD's forced then to build this twin mount due to a lack of deck space. Clearly, its wasn't a success.
Torpedo trolly next
Cheers
Steve
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Makes sense
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Are these the wheels you refer to?
Just wondering
Cheers
Steve
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Nice to see it getting a bit dirty and rusty....
Cheers
Steve
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26 minutes ago, 2Step said:
in German too
Kein Stein blieb auf dem anderen
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57 minutes ago, 2Step said:
you have something in your traesure chest?
Few torpedo tube images, not sure they help much
And I agree, weathering is always a challenge....
Cheers
Steve
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47 minutes ago, theskits62 said:
That really does belong in a museum.
Thank you, I've certainly seen worse models in display.
But for now, it belongs at home where, I'm not ashamed to say, it gives me pleasure every day....
Cheers
Steve
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58 minutes ago, 2Step said:
the measurements in the drawing are in inches, centimeters, in the 1/20 scale?
In my opinion, those are actual size measurements in cm, the scale is irrelevant. They were small and easily manhandled
Cheers
Steve
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30 minutes ago, 2Step said:
it shows two bottles/containers attached to the port side of the cover of the hatch to the crew quarters/galley
They are small smoke buoys, Nebelboje. They seemed to be stored randomly around the deck on various images, I think they were grabbed and thrown overboard. That space seemed a good spot, not much science I'm afraid, I just like cluttered decks. My models are never exact, what I hope to do is give an impression of the vessel in service
Cheers
Steve
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9 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:
the gold medal that year must have been truly amazing
On 21/01/2024 at 18:26, Bertie McBoatface said:I guess the Gold Medal went to Faberge
All very kind comments, thanks.
To explain a little. The medal system at the old Model Engineering Exhibition (which now seems defunct since covid) was a points-based system where every model could win a gold if it was good enough. So the number of medals awarded were not limited. The silver award in my case was limited by the limited quantity of detail and small research portfolio I was able to present, not, I believe, by the model per se.
However, it is true that MEE gold medal ships are amazing, I've seen many and they (rightly) should make your jaw drop. I've managed just one, and I'm still not sure how I did some of the detail. I promise to feature it when Havock is complete as it has a companion relationship..
All that said, I also love this model which is now developing a pleasant patina with age
Cheers and thanks again
Steve
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1 hour ago, Bertie McBoatface said:
've seen this done with a table saw in bigger scales
Yes, Bertie, I've also seen that but table saws can tear the wood and the intermediate pins are likely to get damaged. On my flying boat tender (1:12th scale), I cut the gratings by hand with a piercing saw, takes ages....
Cheers
Steve
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Few more brass bits.
First I want to give a shout-out to Barry Stephenson at Metalsmith. A very nice chap, very helpful and he stocks a huge range of milled brass sections, tiny brass sections. All the brass sections I use come from him, please check out his website . I think his main market is fine-scale model railways.
The deck has a long torpedo tramway to get torpedo's from the range of the lifting boom to the tubes. There is a little wheeled tray that is used to run them along the tramway, which I will make later. The tramway is not straight (would be too easy!) it has a subtle curve to run it past the funnels. Placing one T section in the right curve is not too tough, getting the second one exactly parallel is harder. The T section I'm using is 1.5 mm x 1.5 mm, true scale
After the first rail was epoxied in place, I made up 4 gauge frames (laser cut...) to lock the second rail perfectly parallel while the glue set. In the foreground you can also see the engine room hatches that follow the shape of the tripple expansion engine so one hatch per cylinder. These were etched wiht the fly-clips etched into the base plate to make it easy to fit them. The hatches has deck lights and vents, turned on the lathe. 8 out of 13 vents turned now, boring..... The short cylinders are the bases for 3 cowl vents
There are three stove chimneys on the vessel, but two sit underneath gun platforms and will be shipped in the model. Only one will be standing, here it is scratch-built on a temporary stand, this will be fixed in place after painting (the circular ply bases were scrap from the dolls house, I didn't make them specially in case you all think I've totally lost the plot...
Between the funnels and the rear large cowl vent is the boat deck. The vessel carried two normal boats (a 13' 6" dingy and an 18' gig) plus and two Berthon collapsible lifeboats, of which much more later.
Anyway, the dingy was stowed upside down amidships on three frames. These allowed the crew to actually man-handle the boat over the side, must have been interesting to watch in any kind of sea
Here are the frames, ready for the boat, all different heights and widths to follow the boat's sheer line. The boat will be fixed to these walnut beams and then the whole assembly installed after painting, hence the temporary mount
Next little project was the searchlight (still working my way towards the stern). The base was turned on the lathe, nothing special there and the light body is just brass tubing. The challenge is the cradle. I had etched a frame for this but it was rubbish, not everything works.
So, back to basics. To get the side arms exactly the same, two lengths of 1 x 2 brass flat were soldered together with paste, so they are both bent at the same time. The circular base was turned and slots filed to take the arms
After silver soldering them, the cross tube section was soldered on top (also hard solder for strength), this is all cut away to leave two loops on the arm tops. Doing it this way, ensured alignment
Here it is, with an etched wheel added. Also nice shot of the engine room hatches and chart table.
Actually that picture is missing the top vent to let the heat out, below actually finished. The white disk is a test resin print of the lens (I was using white resin at the time, will replace this with clear for the final version. If you look closely, you can see the wires supplying power to the light.
These were carbon arc lights in the 1890's and were actually indirect lights. The arc had a disk in front of it and the light reflected of the parabolic mirror at the back. It was focused by moving the arc assembly forwards and backwards. Just a little historical detail....
The observant will see that I'm now very close to the torpedo tubes. This is perhaps the most interesting assembly of the whole project that I will be tackling this coming week. Meanwhile, squeezing in between Sunday lunch, I managed to make up a torpedo. This will be placed on its trolly on the tramway.
The torpedo's carried by these TBD's were the early 18inch RGF (short) torpedo not the pointy Whitehead, see the lower one in the illustration.
These were made from a short length of tubing and two turned ends. The fins and the propellers were on the etch sheet
Here is the rear section being turned. It has a 0.8 mm hole bored in the rear. I then cut two 1mm long sections from the rear to act as packers for the propellers and the rear was slotted to take the fins (very hard to get those slots right), but solder works as a filler...
Here is my only complete brass propeller, though I will turn up two more head sections for the tubes, the finger rods at the front trigger the detonator
Cheers
Steve
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7 minutes ago, Dancona said:12 hours ago, Courageous said:
Nice bit of wood work.
Wot ee said, an ongoing masterclass !!
To be honest, it was an experiment that went right first time. How often does that happen? I guess if you keep trying new things, once in a while they might just work.
I'm now actually excited about what that xtool can do for custom gratings, though finding boxwood in anything other than 1mm sq or veneer is very hard.
Love that natural rich honey colour though, paint can't get close. Later, I'll probably knock it back with some grey wash, but for now, I'm just enjoying it
Thanks guys for your kind comments, now back to filing....
Cheers
Steve
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49 minutes ago, 2Step said:
Do you have information about that
I checked all my 90 odd type38 images and I can only find the capstan on this one which I think is an early type 38. Note also the anchor is a much heavier weight model than the light anchor I have drawings of. This boat may have been operating on a deep water area. It also has a handrail to the starboard side to help the crew while operating the capstan. So, I think you are right that they were not generally fitted, certainly not on the later boats that I have images of
Re your hose cage racks, I didn't include them on my model but this image shows one very clearly. Other images don't have them fitted, things were not always the same in war time. This boat seems to be in Norwegian camo
Cheers
Steve
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7 minutes ago, gunzo said:
You can always commission bespoke waterslide decals
If its any help David, I use these guys, standard price for an A6 sheet, though I just noticed their new website doesn't show it. They specialise in guitar transfers, but will happily price custom sheets from pdf artwork
https://rothkoandfrost.com/collections/parts-components-waterslide-decals
They can also print in white
Cheers
Steve
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HMS Havock 1893 - A class Torpedo Boat Destroyer
in Work in Progress - Maritime
Posted
Damn, the secret is out. I guess I should have marked the thread as "Strictly Confidential"