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Steve D

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  1. Such a good question. It stopped me and made me think. Here are 5 reasons for doing it this way The plates overlap at full scale, so my inclination is to do the same The outer plate @ .2mm is 1/2 inch at full scale, seems about right and even if not, it looks right By overlapping the plates, I can be less precise than I would need to be if I butted them together. Remember, the plates have mostly straight edges but the butt ends are not at right angles to both sides of the join. If I had to butt the plates longitudinally, I would need to cut these slight altered angles into the long edge, and I'm not good enough to do that right. Slight gaps in the join will show up very much and really can't be filled. By overlapping the plates, I don't have the gap problem and it holds the edges of the thinner plates down which have a habit of catching and lifting. The thicker plates don't do this as they are stronger The overlap lifts the outer plate a tiny amount and this evens the finish of the hull making slight blemishes in the wood invisible So, at 1:48th I know this works. If I were working at 1:96th, I'd ignore the inner plating altogether and just apply the outer strakes Hope that helps explain things Cheers Steve
  2. Short update on the plating. Really not much to say, it is a steady job as the saying goes, each plate is cut to size, most are trapezoidal, 4 sides not equal or even necessarily parallel (think that's a trapezoid ) Anyway, the process starts with marking out the lines of the edges of the inner plating strakes. I used stretch flexible line marking tape sold for cars, and kept adjusting it until it seemed about right. This took quite a while That thing behind the ship is an attempt at the buck for the armoured deck house that the bow gun sits on. It's slightly wrong, I will make a better one They don't look even because I worked from both the keel and the sheer line and so the side that is the edge of the inner plating changed. Don't worry, that's probably really confusing statement Anyway, I then used a Sharpie to mark the plating edges. The problem with using pencil is it tends to get wiped on with handling, the Sharpie doesn't. It looks a little crude here, but it will do Here is the beginning of the uppermost inner plating line Both these edges get covered by the outer plating runs so its not too critical. For this job I'm using Aluminium sheet, 0.1 mm for the inner rows and 0.2 mm thick for the outer rows. This cuts easily with a sharp knife, but the 0.1 mm thick sheet is really easily damaged when handling so be careful. You can buy this from 4D model shop among other places. The plates are stuck to the wooden hull using Gorilla Superglue, the brush applicator version which makes it easy to exactly paint the areas of the plate. Mostly there is either no curvature or single curvature only. The rear of the bilge keel inner row has some slight double curves, but tape holds is down enough to settle into the right shape while the glue hardens. More or less all the plates are either 6 or 7 frames long, so 120 or 140 inches, there are a few exceptions but all plates are a whole number of rows long. The only challenge is not getting confused regarding where you are, I do that often these days. Once stuck the surface is cleaned using a scotch pad. This takes the shine away and removes any glue that seeped out. It also leaves the surface perfect for priming. Starting the sheer line outer, all the same width until very near the stern. This has been cut around the bow tube It always amazes me that more or less flat trapezoid plates form such subtle curves. Above you can see that the inner lines are wider than the outer. Obviously the outer lap over the inner and as I only marked the inner, this is the effect you get. In fact, the inners are slightly narrower mostly, though not in the round of the bilge which is an inner line Second line complete, I will do the stern once both sides are complete Last detail is the condenser water intake which is a 9 inch pipe at ~ 20 degrees, so a long ellipse. I cut a short brass tube to the angle, epoxied it in place and then plated over it and opened it up. This hole will be covered by an etched brass grating later. So, not much more to say, this job will take me a few days to complete, but its all the same repetition so I'll post some more pictures once this stage is complete. The butt joints will almost completely disappear as this is flush riveted. However, the key word there is "also", when you look closely, you will be able to see them and that is the whole point of all this effort. Plus having the plates the right shape, means the process will work because it did on the real ship. The other point about using metal is it inevitably takes a little slight damage no matter how careful I am. Rather than worry about this, I like the realism this slightly knocked appearance provides. Cheers Steve
  3. I love this sort of detail, but I'm probably a little weird Cheers Steve
  4. Thanks for the clarification David, much appreciated. My comment came from the as-built drawings of HMS Medea where an identical chute was identified as an ash chute. For interest, I looked this topic up in Sennett and Oram's "The Marine Steam Engine" published in 1916. Various types of pressurised ejectors are included, both above and below the waterline. However, the book makes it clear that not all Naval vessels at that time were fitted with pressurised ash ejectors. Instead they make the statement this is only normal practice where it is not advisable to move ash across the deck as would be the case with a liner like Titanic. . The attached extract (which looks like a heavy cruiser or battleship from the sloping armour deck in section), shows the means of lifting ash to the deck for disposal overboard down an ash chute So potentially we're both right Cheers Steve
  5. When I've seen these on drawings before, I thought they were ash chutes for use when cleaning our the boiler fire grates so the ash doesn't blow all over the ship etc., not kitchen slops. They seem present on coal fired ships but absent once oil took over. I may, as ever, be wrong on this point. Anyway, it looks great of course, you have to maintain this standard for ever now Cheers Steve
  6. Thanks Dmitiry, I'm doing my best to do it justice. The hull is paper thin after sanding, the metal plating is needed to firm things up. Should have used 1.5 mm, lesson learnt The privilege of sharing my few successes and many failures is all mine. By showing these techniques, I hope others can be inspired to return to more traditional model ship materials Cheers Steve
  7. Not really much to say about planking once you start, you keep going until there are no gaps left, tapering the planks as necessary, all a bit boring really.. Approaching the bilge, I inserted a 4mm wide plank across the main point of curvature This curve was too tight for the 6mm planks I'm using and placing it there gave me two easier segments to complete, worked OK in the end Done, with the second of three rounds of wood filler to ease the hollows and smooth the plank edge alignment (1mm really is too thin for this job...) There is quite a pronounced belly in the centre, still really its a canoe The stern needed my usual jelutong blocks added, seen here roughly shaped. Note the tube for the rudder lower hinge. The rudder lifts up into this tube and then is anchored and hung from the top hinge, more on that later Some time later The exact shape of that lower inner edge is unclear, I've left is crisp at this stage and will sort it out once I try to make the plating work. Note, I added some 2 part wood filler to ensure a blemish-free join So, the hull is made and ready to plate, with a light coat of matt acrylic varnish applied to seal the surface to help adhesion of the plating glue I was really lucky with the wood order this time, the lime is very fine and nice, it's not always the case. On to metal now Cheers Steve
  8. Real craftsmanship on show there David Cheers Steve
  9. Rather than write another essay, below is an extract from Practical Ship Construction by Carmichael 1919. This explains how joints and rivets were "calked" to prevent leakage Interestingly, my copy of this book is marked as once belonging to the library aboard USS Boise (CL-47), a light cruise of the Booklyn class launched in 1936 Just sharing Cheers Steve
  10. Back to work. Update on the planking tomorrow, meanwhile, I wanted to get to grips with the shell expansion drawing. For those unaware, the shell expansion is the plating of a hull laid out flat, so sort of each plate true shape which then bent (normally only one axis) forms the ever changing curve of the hull. As I plate my hulls in Aluminium, this drawing is key to getting this aspect correct on the model Problem is, they are not common and never shown on model plans. Havock does not have a shell expansion saved in the IWM archive so it needs to be worked out from rules and logic. So, here I go attempting to explain the rules as I understand them. In the days of rivetted hulls, hulls were made up from alternating IN and OUT strakes of plating which overlapped horizontally forming stripes on the hull. There are a few ways plated are jointed to each other Overlapped, used for horizontal joints Butted, used for vertical joints with a backing plate Joggled, can be used for both if that is the pattern adopted. Grey Fox had horizontal and vertical joggled joints, its quicker to build as the outer strakes don't need packing pieces... getting off the subject One point often missed out, even on commercial hulls that show rivets, is that all plates are riveted to the frames as well as each other. There are a lot of rivets on a hull. Also, butt strapped vertical joints are mostly double rivet lines (each side of the joint), some places they can have as many as 4 rivet lines each side. In joggled construction, single rivet lines can get used depending on load. So, overall, showing rivet detail on a hull is a nightmare without the shell expansion drawing. This will show all the rivets and include head sizes. Luckily in this case Havock was flush riveted. Before turbines, small fast vessels (as this was) were flush riveted to reduce parasite drag. Once turbines were installed, the power was so much, this no longer mattered and so they left the rivet heads proud to save money. So, WW1 destroyers all have exposed rivets, as do Flower class corvettes in WW2 as speed was not the main concern, cheapness and speed of construction mattered more. So, we don't care about rivet patterns , but will return to the subject on the deck. However, we care very much about the shape of the plates. Luckily, Lyon's book has a tiny shell expansion drawing for a slightly later vessel. Different size, no bow tube, different stern, but enough to identify the shipyard practice being used for these TBD's Scanning and scaling got me nominal plate sizes ~ 30 inches wide by 140 inches long. The keel plate looks to be 24 inches wide and the sheer strake is mostly parallel (it not tapering). 7 strakes were used, 4 outer and 3 inner. Keel and sheer strake are always outer strakes so its always an odd number (tip) Using the cad programme to measure the curve length on the lines, the maximum half perimeter is just over 200 inches, so that aligns well with 6 x 30 plus 12 when you allow for a 2.5 inch overlap joint between strakes The shape of the hull laid out was drawn by plotting the perimeter distance at each build frame (15 points), at rightangles to the keel line and joining that with a Bezier curve. Setting a curve 30 inches lower (the stern takes some adjustment and setting a keel plate up 12 inches got me the inner shape to plot (I don't know if this is making sense, but I'll soldier on...). The keel plate is 24 inches wide so only 12 on each side, it is bent up to shape not joined I then split the remaining distance at each frame in to 5 and joined these points, giving me the nominal strake lines and tapers. But then the 2.5 overlap has to be incorporated, inner plate go under outer ones of course, so copying up or down does this. Now, the scuttles need to be added as they can't sit on a joint. They are 9.5 inch down from the sheer line, 6 inch dia. Ok, not the fun starts, working out where the vertical joints go. There are important rules for this On each side of the hull, there should not be two joints between the same two frames as this creates a weakness, a potential failure line. If you think about it, 7 strakes, 20 inch frame centres and 140 inch long plates makes this feasible Joints can't be where the condensing water inlet and outflow holes are, nor can they cross the elongated opening for the prop shafts or clash with the scuttles. Joints on adjacent outer and inner strakes should be as far apart as possible, so with a 7 frame pattern, at least 3 frames between adjacent outer strakes (for instance) So, the problem is an interesting one. In this case, a few rules needed banding as the scuttles don't comply with the 7 frame spacing, due to internal constraints. Never model riveted joints in a simple brick pattern .... Welded hulls are different as the weld should be stronger than the plate so these considerations don't matter. After much juggling, I'm OK with this result which complies in general and has the least number of broken rules. See if you can spot the rule breaks.... The pale green lines are the actual hull frame centres, 20 inch all the way along Note the very large elliptical opening for the condensing water intake, which I bat on about being missing from almost every model. The sections on the as-build plan show the pipework so I could work out exactly where this is. The round hole higher up and rearwards is the outlet. You can't run a steam plant at sea without a lot of condensing water cos you can't boil seawater and expect to go far.... In this case, both sides are identical (apart from the crew heads outlet, starboard side only). This is not always the case, plating often varies side to side (also scuttle positions) but the example in Lyon's book is identical which is great. Also, this canoe hull has strakes running the full length, in model larger vessels this is not the case, additional strakes are inserted to create the bilge with a triangular plate joint detail I've now probably lost the room, so I'll stop here. Please hand in your papers when finished Planking update tomorrow with not more naval architecture lectures. Cheers Steve
  11. From memory, there is a good detail drawing of a rn sweep winch in the anatomy of a ship series flower class, can’t remember the name. If you still need it I’ll look it up next week when I’m home, scan and post it here cheers Steve
  12. Thanks for the vote of confidence Brett, I try to explain everything I do (and also the stuff I get wrong) to encourage others to take a more classical path. Personally, I can't make plastic sheet do anything I like so watching this thread and other scratchbuilds in plastic leaves me speechless. There are two tools I cannot live without, a mini-drill with sanding disks and my oxy-propane torch with micro jet. Everything I do in metal involves these key tools. Master using oxy-propane and hard solder (actually easier than soft solder once you get the hang of it) and you can make anything. Obviously a lathe helps a lot as well... Lastly, I know my techniques work at 1/48th scale, but have zero experience in smaller scales. The robustness of the materials work at the scale I use, but would suffer when you go smaller, what people do with PE at tiny scales simply mystifies me... Sir Lancelot is a really impressive build, I bought the book and am tempted once the long list of vessels I have me eye on gets a little shorter If I can help you with the PE artwork or resin items, please drop me a PM, I'm always happy to assist scratch-builders Cheers Steve
  13. Great progress on this really interesting topic. Interesting detail on vacuforming thanks for that explanation. While I struggle to understand people shying away from using metal in place of plastic, I really appreciate to skill on display here cheers steve
  14. Your plastic assemblies as you call them are miniature works of art Rob. I’ll never be able to paint the way you do. I just saw, file and sand stuff in the hope it works out Cheers Steve
  15. The food bill alone is crippling. Problem is they are happy 😃 what can I do?
  16. I've also never launched a torpedo, I suspect it would be a serious situation, more so with a bow tube at sea where it's hard to reach. The warhead should be safe however, as the little propeller on the front winds in the detonator and that only starts when its moving through water... As an aside, I read that the crews hated these bow tube as the inner working of the tube was in the roof of the forward crew flat, where they lived and slept. The bow tubes leak apparently and made the living space very wet. I have a book about WW1 torpedo boat operations and the birth of the destroyer called "Hard Lying", sums up the conditions the crew faced living aboard these vessels I agree re the planking. Like sanding a hull, you get a "sense" of the hull form that you can't get another way, This time I'm using 6mm x 1mm planks which to be honest are a little too flexible for this frame spacing. If I did it again, I would prefer to use 1.5mm think planks to even out the shape between frames, or reduce the frame spacing by going for 20 frames not 15. I'm gluing the planks to each other with PVA while gluing them to the frames with cyno. I use masking tape to pull the planks together and align the edges while the PVA sets. This will create a rigid egg shell effect that will give the whole thing added strength. Where the bilge is I'll reduce the width to 3 or 4 mm to follow the turn of the bilge, but that for when we get back Cheers Steve
  17. It seems I'm teasing because after a long gap and (now) two posts, we're away for a couple of weeks so I'm afraid the thread will go silent once more. However, before that, here is where I got to. I was hoping to complete the planking before we left, but time got away from me as it so often does. Still, back to progress. The last post took the build to adding the deck. The next item to tackle is the bow torpedo tube because the planking runs round it. The tube end is not an ellipse, it is two half circles and two straight lines as two slender triangles are inserted to the tube to prevent torpedo's getting stuck on the way out, bad karma... The scale tube is made from 11.1 mm brass tubing, here it is with the triangles added and soldered in place. The job is by no means perfect, all but the last 3-4mm gets covered up so I didn't worry too much about cleaning it up, no one will see it. BTW the triangles were hard soldered to the loose piece of tube first and then the assembly was soft soldered in place. A very short length of the exact inner tube (one size down) was inserted at the join to help locate the loose piece. It has that length to pass through the second frame to keep it all in alignment Here it is in place. The top line of the stem plate aligns with the tube lower edge. They are then epoxied in place As I said at the end of the last post, the planking is done with the hull upside down. Here is the build board adapted to support the deck in exactly the right alignment. The tops of those thee supports are curved to match the camber of the deck. No light should show through if I have this right (I did eventually get this right....). BTW the deck camber (rise to width) is 1:75 which is very shallow, 1:50 is more common. Everything on this vessel is subtle First sheer plank in place More planking, the weights are then to help is settle down true, I really don't trust myself wiht this stuff... Bored with planking, I added the second layer to the turtle-back to strengthen it. This was 0.5 mm ply cut on the angle so its very flexible. The nose was just too tight a radius to I used some scraps of 0.5 mm pear wood. Remember, this will all be plated in Aluminium later.... You can see the planking cut round the tube exit And here is where I have to leave it, just over half done. I'm planking alternately side to side and top to bottom which I hope helps reduce any build up of twist, the real enemy... The stern will be carved from a block of jelutong as normal, once the planking to the last frame is done. I have to set a small length of tubing into the extreme end of the keel to support the rudder. more on that detail later. Here are the bow lower planks. Full disclosure, I really messed these up by tapering the first two too much . It is so fine, it was hard to judge. This took some extensive sorting out and once again, filler is my best friend, this time a pale wood filler. Panic over, on we go The idea is that when you look along the hull from bow to stern, the edges of the planks should be even side to side and smooth with no sharp kinks. This picture explains what I mean I can live with that. I'll be back on the 13th so hopefully an update on the end of the planking will follow shortly after Cheers Steve
  18. Art Deco coal fire 1/12 scale replica of the one in our dining room......
  19. Golly, 6 weeks without an update, must be a record, for me, sorry. The dolls house turned out to be something of a monster build, right down to the birthday, long days.... Still.... I now really have got the hang of the xtool laser cutter and some 40 sheets of various thicknesses of ply with strange shaped holes in them. Complete with working lights.... Now, back to Havock The Maritime Archive came through with the as-built drawing and I rescaled it and had it printed, shown here on my magnetic wall with an artwork print of Havock, good for showing the size of the mast and yard The materials I've had to buy, planking (6x1mm lime) and some tubing. The rest will be stuff I have lying around Some hours later, the lines were reduced by 1mm to allow for the planking and then the cutting dxf file was exported. Here is the xtool doing a far better job than my jigsaw could ever hope to do. This is all cut in 3mm ply btw You will see that the turtle deck is incorporated in the frames and also the hole for the bow tube. The C sections are locking pieces to strengthen the keel joints (too long for the xtool bed) The assembly process begins It's shaped like a canoe The longitudinal beams are made up from 3 x 1.5 mm lime glued together in a curve. Using laminated thin material means that the longitudinal curve doesn't leave any strain in the hull. The sheerline stakes are 2mm sq. Note the 3,5 mm brass tube prop shaft guides in place, I'll plank round them I'm really worried about two things on this hull, keeping it straight and preventing longitudinally twisting. To help the latter, I added some 3mm sq diagonal bracing (sorry, out of focus shot) This stiffened it up somewhat ready for the ply subdeck (in three sections). Turtle deck longitudinal beams added as well. You will see that the stem is missing. That will be made of brass and added later. Making the stem out of brass ensures a crisp line to mate the aluminium plating to, not impacted by the inevitable sanding of the planking The deck has holes for the funnels (20mm thin wall brass tubing), the armoured conning position and the mast, each provided for in the keel ply sheet The brass stem after filing I applied two side sheets of 0.5 mm lime sheet to the turtle deck, cut to the expansion shape nearly worked well). This will be reinforced (probably) with flexible 0.5 mm ply added diagonally. I'm still thinking this through. It need more strength certainly First plank in place The lines are so fine on this boat, there is nowhere to hide. This is where I got to last night and overnight, I've decided to plank the hull upside down, glued to supports that will prevent twisting. Its already a banana, I don't want a twisted banana.. In spite of the diagonal bracing and the deck, it is still too torsionally flexible and it is so easy with planking to induce a twist that will be so apparent and ruin the hull Another update tomorrow Sorry again for the radio silence, normal service is resuming Cheers Steve
  20. Hi Pascal, I just purchased a 1986 copy of Warship, volume X (which for some reason missing was from the sequence in library...) and it contains 2 quite extensive articles on the French Dreadnoughts of the Bretange class by Robert Dumas with many line drawings and pictures I'm sure there is nothing there you don't already know, just sharing for anyone else who would like to read around the topic Cheers. Steve
  21. Pascal, Aside from the skill on show, you know I love your drawing work, this thread is an amazing information warehouse for others, many thanks for the work it takes to do that I still intend to get round to that Canot one day, in wood @ 1:48th scale of course... Cheers Steve
  22. Excellent project and great print Pascal. Your threads are an amazing resource of information for others, on behalf of the people who follow on behind, thanks. 1/15th scale is totally unforgiving, it needs to be perfect, luckily it is 🔍 Now just imagine it cast in brass by Shapeways...... Cheers Steve
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