Merchant Aircraft Carrier Macoma 1/72 scratchbuild

[Skybert]

While this started as the idea to build a deck and bridge diorama for my 1/72 Swordfish, the project has rather expanded to the point that I plan to build the whole ship in 1/72.

I scaled up the drawing to see if its practical. Well its not, since its going to be 1.90m, but what the heck, I want to do this. I'll worry where to put it later:-)

I've never built a ship, waterline or hull, not even from a box, so it's gonna be interesting..

Edited January 2, 2016 by Skybert

[david v]

Great start, I thought my model was big in 1/200 scale, looking foreward to following this one.

Dave

[rmcclure]

This will be fascinating to see unfold - that's going to be a significant bit of kit! Watching with great interest.

Good luck,

Roger

[Martyn]

And peaple say i'm mad

This is gonna be great to watch, are you going for RC or just static ?

Regards

Martyn.

[Skybert]

And peaple say i'm mad

This is gonna be great to watch, are you going for RC or just static ?

Regards

Martyn.

No Martyn, static is already beyond my skill level, let alone throwing sparks and buoyancy into the equation

[Bonhoff]

It'll make for an impressive display shelf....

[thomastmcc]

cool stuff mate .. am getting a 1.72 escort carrier too ...

plastic card or is it cardboard ?.

thomas

[Skybert]

Still have to decide thomas..

[kpnuts]

I recon that is going to be great why not rc its not that difficult if you can build a ship that complex and detailed rc will be a piece of cake I too look forward to seeing this grow

[Martian]

This is going to look so cool!

Martin

[Forlornhope]

Yeah this is gonna be awesome

[Skybert]

Havent found any hull cross section drawings , so am going to use the drawings of the CV 90 Casablanca class escort carrier as template. A Casablanca class was only modestly larger than a MAC, and most escort carriers were tubs anyway, so it will do for a waterline model for sure...

Edited December 8, 2013 by Skybert

[Skybert]

Not having the sources this weekend to work on a pair of correctly scaled hull cross sections of the Casablanca, I set out to do work on the Matchbox Swordfish. Keeping in mind the moderate-to-low accuracy and detail on the kit, and having discovered that buiding a 1/72 carrier is going to be a six month episode at least, I am not overdetailing the kit, but could not withstand turning coffeespatels and sparebox Zuni rocketlaunchers into depthcharges for the Swordfish :-)

Edited January 2, 2016 by Skybert

[110samec]

As this was a converted oil tanker, can't you look for generic tanker hulls from the period for something close? Must be some plans of those knocking around

[Skybert]

As this was a converted oil tanker, can't you look for generic tanker hulls from the period for something close? Must be some plans of those knocking around

I am using the oiltanker side and topviews, but dont have the hull crosscetions, but i do have Casablanca class hull sections now. and will rescale to fit the width of the original oiltanker drawings

Here keel is laid :-)

Edited January 2, 2016 by Skybert

[Pete in Lincs]

I did have a thought here, Dismiss it as you see fit.

In the same way that a tank diorama only has a section of street

or whatever for the model to fit on.

You could get away with just building the superstructure and

a few inches of hull either side. A slice of ship as it were.

That way you don't end up with a huge model & no space.

Visually it focuses the observers eyes onto the important parts.

It is quicker to build (And cheaper). And would be a good practice piece.

Just a thought.

Pete

[Skybert]

Thats how things started out Pete: I planned on just building the bridge and surrounding deck. Until imagination ran away...I've got so many stuff prepared now, I am commit to launch as they say at NASA :-)

There's a december holiday coming up and look forward on loosing myself in a moddeling project, so I guess its on :-)

[thomastmcc]

looking good mate...

[110samec]

I know of people who make tanker hulls using 3 planks and carving a bow and stern from balsa

[DavidJ]

What a great project; a 1/72 aircraft carrier that will be a manageable size - well, almost!

I'll be watching this with interest.

Cheers

David

[Skybert]

I laid the keel this morning, after days of drawing and scaling.

Macoma was from the Rapana class; the carriers were originally built as Shell tankers

and the structure is quite different from the dedicated Casablanca class or the converted merchantmen from the Empire class; as the ships served both as carriers as well as tankers, much of the original deck layout was preserved and the carrier deck was built over that.

As a result the Rapana class did not have lifts; any work on the planes needed to be done on the deck out in the open only for a row of aft deck plates that could be tilted to vertical to give at least some shelter.

I only have detailed drawings of the ship as a tanker, thanks to Kees Helder from Helderline.nl

As there are no hull cross section drawings from the Rapana class, I morphed, strecthed, cut and scaled the Casablanca hull drawings from ADM on the ship model forum as seen here to match the dimensions up to the tanker deck of Macoma, quite a struggle I have to say, and it remains to be seen if it looks the part. As the Casablanca has a flat stern, I will need to create the rounded stern of Macoma myself, probably by shaping from a block of balsa.

I made the mistake of choosing thinner multiplex, and that, combined with the foracious appetite of my rather blunt motorsaw plus my my limited skills, did away with the delicate and accurate measuring and drawing of templates i did for a few days :-(

For that reason i choose glueing paste with a bit of filling capacity, to still get strong bonds on uneven surfaces, hopefully later nailing the playwood hullplating corrects any outer dimension mismatch as a result of my plywood massacre.

Any way; here she is: up to the tanker deck in frames, drying under the weight of a ton of bricks

Also had fun to construct the "super" structure, more a garden shed set off the flight deck dangling over the side and open water, otherwise a swordfish would not clear the deck on a t/o run

Finished for the day

In the picture below I have temporarily placed the tankerdeck on the level of the flight deck to see if things look right..

De commandersbridge is too far backward here

After more sawing and hammering I now have the structural box, which is not strong yet, since the tankerdeck is cut through, the sections weight are now all carried just by the keelplate, and there is risk of breaking. I need to somehow strengthen the box, not willing to risk breaking the thing before the sideplating brings sufficient strength.

There is shaping to be done on the back side where the casablanca crosssection template is too wide; can be fixed..

Today was a good day :-)

cheers, Skybert

Edited January 2, 2016 by Skybert

[bootneck]

Real modelling! excellent work there Skybert.

Mike

[foxy]

Great bit of modeling Skybert on a very early carrier.

Nice size too .

You going to add Swordfish later.

Cheers foxy

[Skybert]

Hello guys, I revived the thread from 2 years ago and brought the pics back online.

I made several attempts to restart the project, but ran into problems that took away my mojo, resulting from lack of skills, and proper planning, so much trial, much error.

Also was committed to close down my other project, the nightfighting diorama.

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/25758-nachtjagd-leeuwarden-diorama/.

Made it on time for EuroScale Modelling in The Netherlands this November.

Back to the ship:for starters I struggled with choosing the right way to plate the hull, as Macoma was a tanker, you basically have to build it as a tanker first, then add the support structure for the flight deck and then the deck itself.

I wasen't looking forward to all the detailing of the tankerdeck piping,airway bridges and tons of selector valves, as I had no idea where to get all the stuff in 1/72.

As can be seen below I tried to take a shortcut by making the hull and support structure in one go out of softboard, but failed to make it it follow the hullcurves. Moreover, the Casablanca hull shape I morphed was loolking rather rakish at the bow for a tanker, so hesitated what to do..

I decided that this Xmas holiday in 2015 I should overcome the issues or turn it into a bonfire at new year.

first go with plywood in my life was not encouraging to be honest and the bow really looked wrong.. I was close looking for matches..

until someone told me that working with plywood also involves steaming it using the flatiron

Edited January 2, 2016 by Skybert

[Skybert]

Steaming the plywood allowed me to close the hull but the result is rather crude due to my lack of skills and that I was not precise in sawing out the cross sections..

I will be going to need a lot of filler on the hull to make it reasonably straight..

sand shaping the stern made a mess like a pillow fight..

here she is...

compare the aftviews of the model and the tanker and you can see that the bow is too rakish.. not bad for USS Missouri, but wrong for a tanker

I decided to cap the bow with a new plywood bow shape by increasing the hull width from waterline and make it less rakish

Edited January 2, 2016 by Skybert