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Knight Templar 1872 Iron screw steamer


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Ray,

 

That is really starting to look good. I do like your idea of using paper with a texture as a start for your sea surface.

 

I have been toying with the idea of making a small nautical diorama of sorts of a waterline tug boat and one of the areas that I have been spending a lot of time thinking over is the water as I have never done that sort of thing before. 

 

cheers, Graham

 

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On 8/18/2022 at 7:23 PM, ColonelKrypton said:

Ray,

 

That is really starting to look good. I do like your idea of using paper with a texture as a start for your sea surface.

 

I have been toying with the idea of making a small nautical diorama of sorts of a waterline tug boat and one of the areas that I have been spending a lot of time thinking over is the water as I have never done that sort of thing before. 

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

Cheers Graham. It is well worth trying the embossed card, especially if you want to do the sea in a calm state. I have also in the past used Winsor and Newton Heavy Carveable Modelling Paste to try and sculpt waves, but found it tended to create sharp peaks if I was not careful.

 

On 8/19/2022 at 9:23 AM, Courageous said:

Everything is looking good to this layman, so much so, that I'll soon be getting back to my Fushimi Maru. Like what you've done with the sea, I have seen molded water colour paper being used too.

 

Stuart

 

Stuart, thanks for that, Good luck with your ship.

 

On 8/20/2022 at 3:16 PM, Bandsaw Steve said:

Looking good Ray. That rolling sea looks very promising too. 👍

 

 

Cheers Steve!

 

I will be getting back to this, but I tested positive for Covid last Friday and was pretty much floored over the weekend, my wife had tested positive the Tuesday before so we were a right pair! We were so glad we had been vaccinated. 

 

More soon with luck,

 

Ray

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9 hours ago, Ray S said:

my wife had tested positive the Tuesday before so we were a right pair! We were so glad we had been vaccinated.

Gidday Ray, isn't that a basis of a good marriage - sharing together? We have managed to avoid it up to now but no doubt if one of us gets it the other will too. Oh well .  .  . 

And I know not all agree to vaccination but I've had four shots, my wife three to date.       Get well soon, both of you.

       Oh, and as an aside, I'm thinking of trying your crinkled paper idea for a relatively smooth sea. Regards, Jeff.

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Hello all, I have finally got back to work on Knight Templar today. I repainted the hatches with a better shade of 'wood', and they look better to me. For some reason, I turned them upside down, and found out that I had actually done some pre-planning!

 

DSCN9028

 

I actually reminded myself as to which cargo hatch went where many years ago! 

 

I had a good look at the plans today, and ended up confused! In the next photo, there is a raised platform ahead of the funnel and over the structure which holds the midships wheel. This shows on the side elevation, but is not shown in the plan view:

 

DSCN9029

 

This got me to wondering if the platform would have been full 'span' of the ship or just over the deckhouse. (Note there is no sign of the stairway up to the platform on the plan view either). So I cut out some bits of card to show a short span and a full span platform:

 

DSCN9030

 

No, I cannot really see it being that! so,

 

DSCN9031

 

That looked better, and more plausible. I had a look in my etch collection to see if I could find anything that would act as supports, and found something suitable in a 1/350 HMS Dreadnought set. I dry-fitted all the deck fittings again, and this time I added the three winches that I had made the other week. Looking at the plans again, I have decided that they are too small, and I am also not that happy with the shape, despite having said earlier in the thread that they would do.

 

Now, a request for help if I may. I need to make three of these winches, but I cannot find any illustration to show what they looked like. This is how they appear on the plan:

 

DSCN9032

 

I cannot quite get that into a 3D image in my mind, and I have been unable to find anything on google. Do any of you have any access to an illustration which might help me out with this please? I will also pop a 'help!' question into the Pre-WWI Maritime chat section here, and hopefully I can get on with things.

 

That is it for today, there was not much but it was oddly satisfying to actually make some progress.

 

Ray

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20 minutes ago, Ray S said:

Do any of you have any access to an illustration which might help me out with this please?

 

I just googled "early steam windlass" = loadsa pictures of some likely looking things.

 

Maybe like this one? https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/steam-winch-gm172424855-23696317

 

Not my period so I'm just guessing.

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19 minutes ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

 

I just googled "early steam windlass" = loadsa pictures of some likely looking things.

 

Maybe like this one? https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/steam-winch-gm172424855-23696317

 

Not my period so I'm just guessing.

 

Bertie, thanks for that, it looks very possible. I did wonder if my terminology was up to par or not - had not thought about 'windlass'! I just really want to do something more plausible that what I had previously attempted.

 

Cheers again, Ray

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13 hours ago, BillF67 said:

Don’t know if this helps but HMS Warrior has a similar platform running the width of the deck.

 

Thanks @BillF67 for that information. It would make sense as it would give the lookouts a chance to see either side  easily.

 

12 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

 

Funnily enough, the pic that I linked to was listed as a winch! I think early + steam did the trick.

 

Bertie, it is the final result which was important and the more I look at it the more spot on I think it may be. I will see if I can knock three up in tan(tri)dom, all at the same time so they have a chance at being the same as each other. I will see if I can break it down into components which I can pre-form before assembly, it only needs to be an impression at this scale.

 

All the best,

 

Ray

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I promised myself that today I would not be distracted by the internet but be in my model room by 0900.  Here I am 80 mins later having been completely beguiled by this charming thread.  It's not just Ray's superb and ingenious modelling but also the way the BM shopmodelling community has rallied around to offer such a wealth of help and advice, as well as some folk's apparently bottomless well of arcane knowledge.  I have learned a lot about seafaring as well as scratchbuilding over the last hour.  Well done all and keep up the good work, Ray.

 

PS I still think having Knight Templar "fitted for but not with" loos was a mistake.  I know it's all the rage with MoD contracts at the moment but it must surely offend against some Victorian health and safety regulation.

 

Right, let's see if I can make the model room by 1030!

 

From a mere kit assembler.

Edited by Seahawk
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@Seahawk, thank you for those kind comments, and I echo your thoughts about the knowledge and advice that has been so wonderfully given, it has been of very great assistance. Forgive me for having detained you from your modelling pleasures for so long!

 

As for today, because of the great help from @Bertie McBoatface and Stuart ( @Courageous) who have helped me out with the winches; diagrams thereof, I have bashed up three replacement winches now, and have a severe case of eyestrain!

 

DSCN9037

 

Bertie and Stuart both led me to the same diagram (thanks both!) and I have made a simplified structure to give the impression of the winches. 10 pieces of trimmed plastic went to make up each one, along with a sprinkling of nautical language, and a couple of re-tries. I think they are better than my original effort:

 

DSCN9036

 

These winches had been one of the issues that had led me to shelve this project a couple of times (maybe even three), and I am so glad that I have got something a little better for my efforts now. All I need to do now is get them painted without breaking them!

 

That is it for now, thanks for looking and most importantly, for the advice and encouragement.

 

Ray

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Hello all!

 

The winches were painted successfully and removed from their masking tape holders without breaking. Yippee! This morning I checked how the Knight Templar fitted into the slot in the sea base, bearing in mind all the polyfilla I had used previously. It did not fit! No problem, a few swipes with some sandpaper and the excess filla had gone and the ship was nestled snug as a bug again.

 

I then fitted the deckhouses, cargo holds, winches and front cabin structure onto the deck. As they are not load-bearing, I used PVA for that as it was less likely to damage the paintwork if I got them in the wrong place and needed to slide them about a bit. Which I did. A damp cotton bud cleared the excess PVA nicely. The cabin windows were filled with Humbrol Clearfix.

 

DSCN9038

 

DSCN9039

 

The ship is still only friction-fitted into the sea base at the moment. My plan will be to wrap Knight Templar in cling film next, then fit it into place, fill the slight gaps along the sides of the ship, paint the sea then cut the cling film away, followed by adding the wake along the hull sides and aft. It is a technique used by one of our old (now left the Forum) members, and will be the first time I have tried it.

 

In the meantime, I had to check the funnel fit:

 

DSCN9040

 

The funnel had three brushed coats of red paint, and that meant I needed to file the opening a little as it was now too narrow for the fatter funnel! I prefer the colour scheme I have now compared to the original which was this:

 

DSCN8999

 

It is purely speculation, as I still have not been able to find any information out about the owners (Baird and Brown, Glasgow) and their colours.

 

I have again tested positive for Covid (a week after my first +ve) and still feel grot, but at least I can concentrate a bit better now.

 

Thanks for looking, this was good progress today!

 

Ray

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Cheers Bertie!

 

Today, I was a bit concerned about some white stuff I found in the ship's windows:

 

DSCN9042

 

This was Humbrol Clearfix, and it had always produced crystal clear windows for me in the past, but of the five windows, four of them were still white, 24 hours after the Clearfix had been added! I am going to leave it for a while longer and see if it clears, if not, I will do something about them.

 

I was also a bit concerned about the winches and how susceptible they were to damage from the cling film, so I cobbled some balsa together to create a barrier above the winches, then wrapped the ship in the cling film. I tried not to add it thickly as I still wanted the ship to fit the slot. Oddly, although the film wanted to stick to itself when I removed it from the roll, it then did not want to stick to itself when I wrapped the boat. I suspect CA must have been one of its parents, as that follows a similar rule! I might see if it tightens up using pegs to keep it so. As it happened, the Knight Templar nestled into the slot as good as gold:

 

DSCN9048

 

My winch-barrier is now looking worse for wear, but the winches are still intact. I had a fun few minutes wiggling the ship into the stance that I wanted her to have, and then I needed to work out how she was not going to fall through the bottom. I turned the whole lot upside down, then started ladling on Polyfilla underneath into the cutout, and all the while trying to squeeze enough filler up into the gaps along the sea/hull edge. A couple of layers with a good amount of drying time in between has produced this:

 

DSCN9047

 

I may well get some more card and fix that to the underside when this has all dried off, and that should prevent this section of seascape becoming the modeller's equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle and stop another ship vanishing into the ocean. I will let this dry properly for a couple of days, then start trying to work out how to get the best 'Atlantic Ocean' colour mixed up.

 

That is it for today, thanks for looking,

 

Ray

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19 hours ago, longshanks said:

Looking very tidy Ray

 

Kev

 

Thanks Kev. I was looking through another old scratchbuild project of mine on BM yesterday, I hope to get back to that when I get a chance:

 

That one too ground to a halt four years ago, but this Knight Templar has got me back into the swing of things again!

 

Anyway, back to this build. Yesterday's Polyfilla had set, the ship had not fallen through, so it was time to start infilling along the cutout and the hull:

 

DSCN9050

 

The spatula thingy allowed me to press the filler down into the gap, and I used my fingers to hold back the clingfilm. One good thing about the spatula was that it also acted as a scraper to remove any excess filler from the card. Twenty minutes later, it was all done:

 

DSCN9051

 

DSCN9052

 

You can see the benefit of the clingfilm now, as despite being as careful as I could, there was still plenty of filler creeping up the hull sides. The same will probably happen when I get to the paint stage. This will all need to set now.

 

The next update should be soon, but I have just spoken to my employer and they are happy for me to go back to work tomorrow, even though I am still showing +ve on my Covid test (1st +ve was Friday last week so it has hung around a bit!). I have to say I have misgivings about that.

 

Thanks for looking, Ray

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3 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

Seeing the pegs has just prompted a complete reset of my impression of the scale of this ship. I thought it was MUCH larger.

 

It is a small one Bertie, 1/300 scale (done from plans in a book of mine).

 

This late morning and early afternoon has seen some paint go onto the sea. After mixing some acrylics, the first coat looked like this:

 

DSCN9053

 

As always, it scares me a bit when I get to this stage. The paint looks terrible, but like when painting the model itself, more than one coat is required. I used four paints to mix this, and the end result is not too far from one of the Ocean colours in the link from another site I posted previously. These were the paints I used:

 

DSCN9054

 

The mixing was not a scientific process, I used three equal dollops of the white, grey and blue, then a smaller splodge (about 1/5th size) of the green, mixed the lot up and then added some water and mixed again. I used a wide, flat brush (exclusively for seascapes) and dabbed the paint on, no long brush strokes, just short dabs. I let that layer dry for an hour or two, mixed up another lot and did the second coat:

 

DSCN9055

 

DSCN9056

 

That is better. I quite like the way there is variety in the surface colour, that will do for me now. I will let that set properly before adding plenty of gloss coats before removing the cling film, and then dealing with the wake.

 

My hope is that the sea colour would be in keeping with the ship being off the west coast of Africa in sunny, calm conditions but with a swell running.

 

That is it for today, thanks for looking.

 

Ray

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26 minutes ago, Ray S said:

My hope is that the sea colour would be in keeping with the ship being off the west coast of Africa in sunny, calm conditions but with a swell running.

 

I've seen the Mediterranean exactly that colour on a sunny clear blue sky day in summer, when viewed from a Wessex at a couple of hundred feet, which is about the viewer's altitude above your ship. So you get my vote of approval Ray.

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1 hour ago, Kevin Aris said:

i believe this might be the same vessel but the dates dont quite tie in

 

Knight Templar 1889 (tynebuiltships.co.uk)

 

Kevin, that one was a later Knight Templar, but thank you for the link, she also looks a mighty fine vessel.

 

2 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

 

I've seen the Mediterranean exactly that colour on a sunny clear blue sky day in summer, when viewed from a Wessex at a couple of hundred feet, which is about the viewer's altitude above your ship. So you get my vote of approval Ray.

 

Phew! The Med will do! At least it is plausible, so thanks for the confirmation Bertie.

 

2 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

I think the new colour scheme looks much better. 
 

Good work all round.

 

 

 

Thanks Mr Bandsaw, that means a lot to me. And secretly, I prefer the new scheme too.

 

Thanks for the looks, likes and comments,

 

Ray

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