Steve D

Nice progress Brett, beware the dangers of colour discussions, plenty of meat on that bone. I gave up colour conversations some years ago... Like Pascal, I've plenty of Depth Charge 3d models if you ever need some help. Just sent some off to Australia, always happy to assist Cheers Steve

So sweet, wonderful to watch

Yup , that’s the key to understanding the artwork. Each element ends up a model in its own right so it just soaks up time.

Wow, its been ages since I posted anything. The etching work turned into an A3 marathon with over 600 pieces to be cut. To do this I basically had to work out how to make everything left to make on the model, design each component, scale them, adjust it for etching process etc. Well over 100 hours work on that single large sheet. It's in manufacture now, so I'm very excited to see it completed and then I can start making stuff, lots of stuff As a taster, here is just a section of the artwork. The two large gun platforms will have laser scored and cut planking, I've tested this out and it works great in 0.5mm ply, more later. Anyone wants scored and cut deck planking for very small scales, PM me, this process is really excellent as you will see The other exciting event was the arrival of the guns and props from shapeways These are so cool. Here are the props temporarily fitted, they are very large props. Bronze propellors are essential now I can get them made Here is the 12pdr on its pedestal, obviously more detail coming on the etching sheet and the 6pdrs.. Rear gun on its mount, there is a large platform that surrounds the gun as it's raised to clear the twin tube mounting. In case you wondered, the curved wood circle is my first attempt as the platform planking, just resting on the deck I know I could have just resin printed the guns as they will be painted, but it wouldn't be the same Now, I can get back to making stuff, to much thinking and drawing in one session, very tiring... Cheers Steve

I think Jeff, we can all relate to that one. That said, I reckon most scratch-built models are more accurate than kits and at least the mistakes are your own... Cheers Steve

I was just referring to the need for bottle screws at the foot of each of the standing rigging lines. At present your drawing doesn’t show any means to tension the rigging but I expect it’s still wip cheers steve

Wonderful as ever Pascal. If I may suggest a very small point, standing rigging lines all need a way to tension the lines, bottle screws etc. You may be able to print them as part of the securing pad-eye allowing the sprue to attach to the upper end Cheers Steve

I have to say Pascal, your 3D model looks stunningly like the actual vessel....

Ha Jon, if only I try, that's all, but remain inspired by what these guys could do

Wonderful, I love builders models, just saying..... Cheers Steve

Thanks Brett, in fact in this case the camber is only 1 in 70, not the more usual 1 in 50 or so meaning it’s actually not that bad. Also the camber is created with overlapping plates that are themselves reasonably flat. When this has come up in the past, I’ve used a sanding disk to hollow out the flat surface so that is sits flush, this time it’s not really a problem Cheers Steve

So now I have printer envy as I have the 4k. This will need some serious finesse with my better half 🤔 amazing work as ever cheers steve

You are most welcome. I’m carrying the torch for traditional ship modelling. If we don’t keep talking about these methods they will die out and that would be a great shame I hope you will find the journey interesting Cheers and thanks for your kind comments. I wish more people would comment, it ALWAYS enriches the narrative Steve

Excellent stuff Bertie, with the right tools, brass is brilliant material and so forgiving Cheers Steve

Where do the week's go... Sorry for the silence, I have been tinkering with stuff, but not produced anything worth posting about. Really, I'm at that stage where each of the major components needs designing from a "how am I going to make that thing" perspective. As so many of these components require phot-etch pieces, this entails breaking each item down into what can be etched, what I can do with standard stock brass, what must be turned or otherwise scratch-built and what bits are just too time consuming to make in metal and so need 3D printing (which category I'm trying to minimise this time). A good example of this is the cowl vents. I have made these from brass in the past, forming the bowl in a doming block, soldering it to a length of brass tubing and sitting it on an etched base. The Admirals Barge I turned into a diorama a few years ago had two brass cowls the bowls were polished and I'm not a fan of brass paint effect. It was also made pre-resin printing days. To get this right, if like me you're not a trained silversmith, takes ages and the result is never really even. For any one wanting to give it a go, take a disk with 90deg segment taken out, make a cone, silver solder the join and start hammering in a doming block with doming punches. Starting large and reducing the size until you get the right finished shape. You will need to re-soften the brass as it work hardens, probably 3-4 times before you are done. Much filing and use of sanding disks later, you will get a reasonable dome you can soft solder a tube to and then drill out the opening and file it to a smooth transition. 1 per day is good going... For Havock, I have 14 vents to make in three sizes, the largest of which is 16mm diameter tube, really large. As I've posted earlier, I'm printing these, but the bases and core tube will be brass, the printed cowl will slide over the brass tube, really like full scale practice. I'm not sorry, the finish I can get on the printed parts is superb these days is way better and more uniform than my pounded metal items. So the steady process of preparing the artwork for the etcher entails scanning drawings, re-scaling them, tracing components in turbocad, 2D and then thinking through how they can be made with the limitations of photo-etch brass. I've not really talked much about the photo-etch design process before, so I thought it might help people understand what I'm up to if I spent some time running through the considerations. These notes relate to 1:48th scale specifically, but the general stuff works at other scales. I've recently been helping a modeller in Australia with a model of a Fairmile B @ 1:72nd scale and he seems able to use my artwork and scale it down by 67% for local etching in 0.3mm brass, I hope this works out. First, plate thickness. I almost exclusively use 0.45mm (20 thou in old money) thick brass. This has a number of benefits, the main one being that half-etching allows relief detail to be included, specifically rivets and bolt heads. Adding rivets is necessary at 1:48th scale or the model will look to bare and unrealistic.. As I've said earlier on this thread, Havock was flush riveted on her hull, so that saved a load of time, but pieces were put together with rivets in the 1800's and these were mostly left exposed for economy. I've found that rivet spacing of around 2 - 2.5mm model size, (~3.8-4.5 inch true size), looks about right for edge rivets on plates, hatches etc. Much closer and it starts to look too cluttered. My rivets are .5 or .6 mm diameter model scale, much smaller and they tend to disappear when etched. As I've said before, I'm trying to create an impression of the vessel, not an exact in every detail scale model. Considerations of scale impacts everything that is made, in particular metal thicknesses have to stand handling etc. In addition to creating relief, half etch is also used for: Fold lines Locating shapes within surfaces Raised edges Lifting shapes (like hinges and hole surrounds) out from the surface Creating thin sections where .45mm would look too heavy Drawing joining lines that hold the pieces together during and after the etching process Drawing the scale on the frame to allow the etcher to calibrate the artwork in the preparation of the photo-tool Some etching companies require colour separated artwork, 4D will take a single image (I use hi-def PDF file) and do the colour separation themselves. For them, the colour code is the following (but check with who you are sending the file to, one I know is a reverse of this) Black, no etch, leave full thickness Red, half-etch from the front; Cyan, half-etch from the back (sometimes items need both up folds and down folds. Sometimes, it is easier to use front and back logic to remember how the part fits together White, etch right through So, after the line drawing has been done to the right scale with minimum width taken into account (very thin shapes just etch away, line thicknesses that work are related to the metal thickness being etched), each shape need to be closed and filled with the right colour. This is really all quite time consuming and each sheet is a whole bunch of expensive prototypes that will hopefully work. 25 years and I'm still making mistakes, normally by pushing my luck on detail Each sheet requires a photo-tool to be produced and then used to etch. Repeat sheets just need the second stage, so the first sheet is double the price of repeats (approx). As I normally only product a single sheet, its costly but can produce 100's of otherwise impossible pieces to make. In recent models, I've ended up doing two or more etch jobs for each boat, but this time I'm doing a single A3 sheet with everything on it. Hence the long time to draw everything and the silence on the thread. For those who want to read more, here is the link to the 4D website with the guidance and pricing etc. 4d Etching services This is what the finished artwork looks like (sheet from my MGB thread which mostly worked.)... Well done if you're reached the end of this wordy post. We're away for a week from tomorrow so I will be back the week after next with an update and hopefully final artwork for Havock. I've ordered the guns and props from Shapeways in brass and bronze, arriving mid-December, We're coming to the part of the build I like now and which is probably the most interesting as the various components take shape Cheers Steve

Great stuff Stuart, I'm in awe of how clean you work, Nothing like that ever leaves my workbench, nothing whatsoever..... Cheers Steve

Lovely work as ever Pascal. The funnel detail is very instructive, too many people believe funnels on motor vessels are open as for steam boilers. Of course, as you correctly model, they are just fairings around various exhaust outlets It will be sweet little model, resin printers open up so many opportunities for the hobby Cheers Steve

Thanks Pascal, I went through that thread, amazing work as ever. I thought I'd taken on board all the pictures you posted but somehow missed this one I believe this to be a slightly later version of the gun I need, but a couple of details around the shoulder brace are much clearer in this view and I've corrected my 3D model accordingly. The elevating wheel will be etched of course. I'm excited to see it in cast brass.... Cheers Steve

I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t think my castings are much good. Still I’m going to try it again for the anchors as they are quite simple with little surface detail. It will be in the thread later on 🤞 I’m trying very hard this time to stick to metal for metal but quality mustn’t suffer Cheers Steve

Yes I’ve done many soft metal castings and intend to make the anchors this way but I don’t have a furnace that I can use to cast brass plus I can’t get the detail I need without a rotary casting machine. I looked into it but it doesn’t warrant the investment cheers steve

The QF 12pdr 12cwt gun is mounted on a P1 pedestal mount, which once again, I have no drawing of. However, in addition to the photograph above, I found this picture which I believe to be the same gun and mount aboard the passenger ship Giuseppe Verdi during WW1 (note shield added about the recoil carriage, not RN practice) There are also a number of engineering drawings and images of later variations of this mount in use as coastal defence guns,. From all these, I've created the following 3d model which seems right and matches the detailing on the GA in all the key aspects. Some of the elevation detail is speculation, but it does align well It has been simplified somewhat to help get a successful print. Here is a test print in resin, primed to help show the detail. This is in two parts, the rotating cradle and the gun and recoil sleeve. The elevating wheel, range finder, locking levers and shield will be etched or made up from stock. These can now all be ordered from Shapeways to be cast in brass along with the bronze propellers. Back to etching drawing work... Cheers Steve

The Hotchkiss QF 6pdr gun was released for use in 1885, by the navy and also for coastal defence purposes. There are a lot of images on line of Hotchkiss QF guns of the late 1800's, but most are of the 3prd version which took a 47mm shell, the 6prd took the larger 57 mm shell. They are very similar and can easily be confused (by me at least). Many of the 3prds are still used as saluting guns across the world. Later versions of the 6pdrs were used in the early male tanks of the the first world war with a reduced charge and shortened barrel) and still later on recoilless mountings in escort vessels in WW2. A version was also developed with the same recoil cylinder mounted below the barrel as the army gun, I have not been able to find any engineering drawings of this early gun on the naval mount but I did stumble across this illustration in "Naval Gun" by Ian Hogg and John Batchelor published in 1978, and this has guided my own scale version, using the barrel length to scale it and matching this up with the outline drawing on the GA. The rotating carriage and pedestal are wrong, but otherwise this is a reasonable start. When looking at pictures, the key thing that differentiates the 3prd from its larger brother is the recoil arrangement. In the 3pdr, the recoil cylinders sit either side alongside the barrel. On the 6pdr, there is a sort of two tier affair as you can see above. This picture is the best shot I could find of a preserved one (in the USA), but its not really much help from a drawing standpoint, it also has some bits missing compared to the RN version. This is the right gun, being used in a coastal defence role, note the distinctive two tier recoil arrangement I would still have struggled, however, I stumbled across this gun (not very well) preserved at Tibury and this 3D model made up from over 200 pictures turned onto a 3D model on sketchfab. Note the odd recoil arrangement below This was the most useful reference I found as it allows close examination of the cradle. Confirming this is the right gun, this picture of some contemporary TBD's shows one in the foreground minus a shield Some days later I was able to produce this 2D drawing that I'm confident it pretty accurate. The pistol is not shown but otherwise it's complete. I think this is probably the largest calibre hand trained gun, not a wheel in sight (scale is feet of course) And so from this, many hours later, I was able to produce this 3d model Which should cast fine in two parts. There are some fittings to add manually. The locking levers, the rest, the gun shield (will be etched), but overall, I'm pleased with this result. I will probably add the pistol gripe, it should cast OK, just As a check, I printed a couple in resin, this annoyingly out of focus picture shows one of them primed They will look great I think. I just have to complete my work on the 12pdr (12CWT) on a P1 pedestal mount and I can get the cast stuff (4 guns plus two props) ordered from Shapeways. This is the correct 12pdr in this very early mounting, missing the gun shield. I'll post more pictures once I've completed the drawings and 3D model Progress on-going on the etching artwork, will be all next week and some so not much actual building going on at the moment.... Cheers Steve

You have to love steam pinnaces

Thanks Bertie, I spend a lot of time researching this stuff but don't write about it very much. I should correct that. Cheers Steve