RMS Carpathia, Scratchbuild, 1/500 Scale

[ArnoldAmbrose]

33 minutes ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

But that will be a while in the future.

Gidday again, I reckon always have models planned for the future - it keeps the Grey Matter ticking over. Regards, Jeff.

[hendie]

2 hours ago, JohnWS said:

Thanks Steve for spending the time to rewrite the above post.  

 

I'm sure he could have put a bit more effort into it if he really tried y'know.  

 

 

3 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

This is to stop seagulls that are overcome with smoke from falling down the chimney.

 

another one of life's mysteries solved... thanks!

I knew seagulls were partial to McDonalds but never realized they had evolved to roll their own

 

Now if only we can stop them from stealing beer...  damn too late!

 

 

nice funnel!

 

 

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

A Tricky Bit

 

Part of the reason that I post all of this nonsense is that one day someone might read something here that helps them solve a problem that they might have been fretting about.

I had been 'sweating' this next step for some time but can now show you what I did and how I got to, what I consider, a fairly satisfactory outcome.

 

Running along the gap between the promenade deck and the boat deck there is a long row of evenly-spaced, thin, upright columns or posts and I was not sure how to go about representing these.  I needed a method that would be tidy, strong and convincing to the eye and was not sure how to go about it. It took a few attempts and a variety of different materials and methods but the sequence below is what worked in the end.

 

Take a piece of aluminium litho-plate sheeting (the stuff that the printing industry uses for lithographic printing) and stick the boat-deck plans onto. Use tin-snips to cut it to the correct shape.  Drill out and shape the bung-hole for the funnel and one or two other fittings that will come along later.

 

Use some dividers to mark out the exact position of each of the posts.

 

Use a drill press to drill out a series of very small diameter holes along the side of the boat deck.

 

Fit a series of cut brass rods into the holes and use two part epoxy to hold each in place.  I've learned that you must use glue because you cannot solder brass to aluminium. Note that in this photo only some of the posts are made from brass, most are made from plastic rod but after fitting them all I decided that the plastic ones weren't strong enough and replaced the lot with brass.

 

I found that if you cut each bit of brass too long you can glue it into place and have the excess stick through the other side into a blob of blue tack. This will hold the rod nice and straight while the glue sets. 

 

Once the araldite has set you can turn the workpiece over and slop some super-glue on from above... just to be sure.

 

Then you can snip the excess 'sticky-uppy bit' off and sand to a nice smooth finish.

 

After priming I had something that looked like this, which was about as good as I could hope for. Each post is in effect just hanging in space. They aren't attached to the promenade deck at all, but it doesn't matter as you can't really see that on the model itself since the base of each column is obscured by the bulwark. 

 

So there we go; a tricky-bit dealt with and a new preferred building material discovered. This litho-plate stuff is really good!

If you want to see some real masterwork using litho-plate then hop over the aviation section and have a look at some of @airscale work. It's eye-wateringly good!

 

Bandsaw Steve 

 

[Chewbacca]

Fascinating stuff.  Just curious though Steve why, given that the uprights aren't load bearing in any way, that you felt the plastic ones wouldn't be strong enough?

[Bandsaw Steve]

Good point Chewie. The explanation as written makes no sense really. The full explanation is that At first I just tried to aryldite the plastic columns directly onto the litho-plate without drilling a hole first - butt-joining each one. This seemed to work ok and was definitely quick but It was clear that each piece was quite flimsy and there was a risk that I might damage them during handling. So I snapped off a few, drilled some holes and tried fitting some brass rod. It was far stronger and looked much better as the brass thickness was more to scale so then I just pressed-on and did them all in brass.

[longshanks]

Neat solution to a tricky problem. There must be something in the beer down there 

 

Kev

[Bandsaw Steve]

Derricks 

 

Back in the day when ships moved more around the globe than just sea-containers full of stuff that was loaded up 'somewhere else' every ship had it's own built in cranes called derricks.

 

Qu:  What do you call a (insert nationality that you wish to belittle here) that can lift heavy loads onto a ship.

Ans: Derrick! 

 

And so we have 'humour'...  😧

 

Anyhow, Carpathia had a bunch of them - cranes that is, not people who we wish to belittle - and now I have to make a rough representation of them. I say a 'rough representation' because as time was running shorter and shorter prior to WASMEx my pretense towards any form of 'accuracy' was getting thinner and thinner.  Here you can see a profile view of the rear of the ship with a couple of derricks quite visible.

 

I chose to make mine out of fine brass tube and will bring to your attention once more this rather fine little 'el-cheapo' tube cutting machine that I bought in Hong Kong a couple of years ago.  I bought this on a whim, and at the time greatly feared that I had wasted some money. However, the thing has actually proved really handy and now that I'm doing more and more with brass I have found that I am using it quite frequently.

 

As per my developing interest in soldering I made this very simple little jig that holds the brass tubes exactly in place. In jigs like this I have found a very good use for two of my least-favourite types of wood. White 'pinus-radiata' which I find generally too 'chippy' and 'knotty' for fine work makes a good inexpensive disposable backing to the jig. Balsa can be glued very quickly to the backing and - because it's soft - will sort of 'grip' the brass and hold it exactly in place. This little jig only took a few minutes to make and essentially guaranteed that both of the derricks in this sort of 'gallows' configuration would be identical.

 

Once soldered they looked like this.  Note that I also soldered a sort-of 'blobby bit' on the top of each upright to prevent there being a hole on the top.  See, that's called attention to detail is that!

 

By now time was running very short so I formed the main derricks by taking a shortcut; simply bending the brass tube into the 'correct' shape...

 

… and dropping them into some holes that I had drilled and lined with some larger diameter bits of brass tube.  Pretty rubbishy really, but it looks OK if you stand back and view it from about 10 meters.

 

Now I found that I could add some 'detail'. A while back I had bought a bunch of these fine brass pin-like things from a jewellery supply store. Here I found that they slipped exactly and snuggly into the brass tubes that I had made the derricks from. This allowed me to create a tidy and slightly more detailed looking termination to the end of each crane. ‘S arm. This is a good example of complete 'imagineering'. I doubt that the real thing looked much like this at all.

 

Nevertheless, to the uninformed - and I'm definitely one of those - the little sticky outty knobby ends on the cranes look sort of convincing and they will certainly assist me in attaching guy ropes to later on.

 

So - that's about it for this update.

I'm determined to finish this thread because - as those of you who are familiar with early Peter Jackson films will know...

 

Derricks Never Quit! 

 

Best Regards,

Bandsaw Steve

 

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

Impressionist Modelling

 

When I was a silly young Art History student back whenever, I was told that the entire history of visual art could be broken into two traditions, 'the illustrative' and the 'painterly' - if I recall correctly.  The illustrative tradition, in it's purest form, values technical control over whichever medium is selected to create a technically precise 'accurate' representation of 'reality'.  An extreme example might be the photorealism movement of the 1970s American Art.  On the other hand, the 'painterly' tradition values a spirited free use of the medium to create a personalised 'impression' of the subject.

 

I have become all philosophical lately and have decided that I, unlike most modellers on this forum, fall into the second camp. This however, is probably more due to a lack of skill and dedication on my part rather than any actual desire to create 'artistic impressions' of subjects. It's just a fancy way of saying 'she'll be right' really. 

 

let's apply this philosophy to some winches shall we...

 

First, look through your spare bits box until you find some unused rockets from a 1/48 scale Eduard P39 Airacobra kit - I'm sure you will have some somewhere. 

 

Now punch out some small discs of some very fine evergreen plastic sheet.

 

Having chopped two of the four stabilizing fins off the base-plates of each of the rockets, glue a disk onto one side of each one.

 

A process that leaves this.  Now turn them all over and stick a disc on the other side. 

 

Paint each one black with a rattle can - this is the first coat.  See - if you don't look too hard each one looks a bit like a drum winch.  I have made an 'impression' of a winch not a 'model' of one.  Once they are in place and viewed in context, to the uninformed observer -especially one with poor eyesight viewing  from a distance - these will communicate the idea of 'winchesness' the aesthetic and philosophical 'essence' of a winch.

 

Let's try the process again except now with the winchy thing that lifts the anchor - I think they were called 'capstans' in the old days but am not sure that the name applies in the modern world.

 

Take some brass bits and slap them together with some solder and araldite to yield this thing - that actually does look quite convincing to me.

 

Now take some guitar strings - yes guitar strings and not chains - and make some anchor chains.  Shocking really but I'm running out of time.

 

Paint the winch black, drill a couple of holes for the guitar string to sit in, stick it together and hope no-one looks too closely. 😀  At this point all of the little drum winches are still to be fitted.

 

Although clearly the point I made earlier about aesthetics and Art History is largely tongue-in-cheek, there is some truth in it.   Have a look at this photograph from last-year's WASMEx competition.

 

'GW's Battleship Vanguard' is an excellent example of the technical or illustrative 'school'.  It's technically complete - including everything under the waterline, extremely detailed, and each detail is technically accurate. You could damn near build the real ship from this model!  Interestingly the model is not weathered (GW never weathers his ships) and is not shown in it's natural environment. It's something akin to a technical drawing.

 

AE2 on the other hand (that's my little submarine in the foreground) is much more from the painterly or impressionist 'school'. I make no guarantees as to it's technical accuracy, although I made an honest effort I cut a few corners here and there and am well aware of one or two errors. Nothing that cannot be seen in 'real life' is modelled - specifically in this case nothing is modelled below the water-line. It is shown in it's natural environment, weathered slightly, and has a crew.  This one is something akin to a painting.  In fact, it’s even presented in a frame!

 

 

It's very important to note that neither approach is 'superior' to the other. It's purely a matter of personal taste and preference.  

 

Yours Philosophically, 

Bandsaw Steve

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Steve, good to hear from you. You've just convinced me to add another item to my modelers tool kit - a dictionary. Actually, I thought the tangible and philosophical essence of the winches turned out quite good. In fact the way you made them was quite clever. I was a bit disappointed with the anchor chain though. 😥 If I recollect you were going to make the chain yourself, link by link, after mining and smelting the metal for it. 😁 Was it too 'illustrative' or did you simply run out of time? Your use of guitar strings has got me thinking (yeah, I know, dangerous). Maybe very short lengths, about the same length as the strings diameter, could be used for cable drums and hawser reels. Just a thought.

1 hour ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

look through your spare bits box until you find some unused rockets from a 1/48 scale Eduard P39 Airacobra kit - I'm sure you will have some somewhere.

I've just begun a model of Alistair MacLean's HMS Ulysses in 1/600 scale. I first read the book nearly fifty years ago, in 1970 I think. I'm sure the rockets will come in very useful - if I can find them.

     Regards, Jeff.

[Chewbacca]

On ‎20‎/‎06‎/‎2019 at 14:31, Bandsaw Steve said:

First, look through your spare bits box until you find some unused rockets from a 1/48 scale Eduard P39 Airacobra kit - I'm sure you will have some somewhere. 

 

A process that leaves this.  Now turn them all over and stick a disc on the other side. 

 

very impressive Steve.  I cheated and bought the GMM PE drums which when folded are not at all bad.

 

Must see if I can get one of those punches though - they look really useful.  Never seen one in small enough sizes to be suitable for modelling

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

15 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

Must see if I can get one of those punches though - they look really useful.  Never seen one in small enough sizes to be suitable for modelling

Chewy, you need some of these:

https://www.scalemodelshop.co.uk/product/punch-and-die-set-rp-toolz-rp-pd?gclid=Cj0KCQjwjMfoBRDDARIsAMUjNZq04qRy4qaQBBZi3gTW6zxj4r0tR0w5VN_5_ZmevVcGdSfT0hwHdCgaAhj7EALw_wcB

 

Not cheap - punch & die sets never are, I guess because they need real precision or they are useless.  But they’re really good; I have a couple [Edit: there’s a companion set to the one linked, which goes on below .5], which is enough to take me from 2mm down to exceedingly teeny.  Indispensable.

 

Edited June 25, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

P.S. looking gorgeous, Steve.  I particularly like the non-connecting stantion idea.  Most “painterly” - which means thinking outside the box in your case, and bodging it in mine!

[robgizlu]

Steve - A masterclass as ever.  I watch, I learn, I dribble.

 

Rob

[ArnoldAmbrose]

1 hour ago, robgizlu said:

Steve - A masterclass as ever.  I watch, I learn, I dribble.

Gidday, I mainly watch and dribble. But then, as Meatloaf sang - "Two out of three ain't bad!" Regards, Jeff.

[Chewbacca]

On ‎25‎/‎06‎/‎2019 at 12:50, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Chewy, you need some of these:

https://www.scalemodelshop.co.uk/product/punch-and-die-set-rp-toolz-rp-pd?gclid=Cj0KCQjwjMfoBRDDARIsAMUjNZq04qRy4qaQBBZi3gTW6zxj4r0tR0w5VN_5_ZmevVcGdSfT0hwHdCgaAhj7EALw_wcB

 

Not cheap - punch & die sets never are, I guess because they need real precision or they are useless.  But they’re really good; I have a couple [Edit: there’s a companion set to the one linked, which goes on below .5], which is enough to take me from 2mm down to exceedingly teeny.  Indispensable.

 

Thanks Crisp.  Expensive as you say but then precision engineering always is.

[Bandsaw Steve]

Gone Fishing

 

Less than 1.5km from my house is one of the finest hobby shops in Australia, so naturally when I'm looking for parts for my models I go to the fishing store that's right next door to it.

 

Here's what I found at 'Boating, Camping, Fishing' :

• Two packets of radial lifeboat davits 
• One packet of spare maritime winches
• One packet of rigging attachment points for masts

When I took this lot to the counter the spotty young shop assistant asked me 'Are you after guppies with this lot mate?'

 

I looked down my nose at him and told him quite firmly that 'The only things these hooks would be lifting from the ocean were survivors from the Titanic disaster!' He appeared confused, so I went on to tell the young chap that he should 'Show some respect to those people who had suffered so horribly in 1912' and to 'go home, spend less time on your I-phone and read some history books!'  

 

He pretended to not know what I was talking about, but I think my speech hit home. By the way he was scratching his head and muttering under his breath I think he was having a good hard think about his yobbish outlook!   It's not really his fault.  Personally I blame the teachers! 🤨

 

Anyway, when I got home I started with these little brass thingamebobs that had a useful central ring-thing that could be drilled out and threaded onto the mast as shown. The idea was that the ring once soldered in place would make a very secure attachment point for rigging and ratlines. It really is not accurate at all, but by this stage I was pressed for time and this offered a quick and secure way to sort out all kinds of rigging issues, so I went with it.

 

After soldering and cleaning up with acetone (good tip that one thanks @hendie ) I had tidy looking set of four masts that looked like this.

 

I then opened up the fish-hook packet and clipped the bent bit off a bunch of them with a pair of pliers. This left only the shank and the threading loop at the end.  After drilling a series of holes these fitted into the deck as shown and will form the secure tie-down points for ratlines.

 

Here's how she looked at this point.

 

Now to the life-boat radial davits. Also to be formed from fish-hooks selected to have just the right curve in the hook for this part.

 

After clipping off half of the curve of the hook and the loop at the thread end I had made a bunch of davits that looked about right - at least from a distance.

 

But here on the boat deck there was a problem. Here there's nothing solid to attach the davits to - the deck is only about 0.7mm thick aluminium sheet - so this was looking tricky.  The solution is a bit rough, but sort of clever if you ask me. If you look closely at each drill hole in the deck you can see that I have allowed the drill to just 'clip' the side of each lifeboat.  Each davit now fits into the hole in the deck and fits into the notch drilled on the side of the lifeboat. As each lifeboat is very securely held in position with araldite it provides a secure structural support to the davit.  This is a bit dodgy because of course the lifeboats in real life don't have big chunks drilled out of them, but at this scale the error is hard to detect and in my view this imperfection is worth the additional strength. 

 

The advantage with using manufactured parts such as fish-hooks, is that it is much easier to get uniformity than if they were hand-made. 

 

And here is where the ship was up to at this stage.

 

There are one or two bits and pieces in this photograph that I have not yet discussed, but that's mostly because the entire build sequence was becoming very 'compressed' at this point.

 

I reckon another two or three of these retrospective updates should see us to the end of this tread.  So - assuming I 'pull-finger' and don't swan off fishing or something, then the write-up for this project should be complete sometime in the next fortnight.

 

Best Regards,

Bandsaw Steve

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Bandsaw, fish hooks for boat davits, a brilliant idea, I wish I thought of that for HMS York. Which hobby shop is this? Regards, Jeff

[hendie]

excellent update Steve.

 

Those masts are very impressive.  I love the out of the box thinking, but now you have switched allegiances, won't the young assistant at the haberdashery be feeling abandoned?

[Courageous]

Just caught up on this thread, excellent work. Good lateral thinking on use of fishing accessories. Your Carpathia is looking fabulous and will undoubtedly get better and it's given me a boot up the bum to move my Fushimi Maru scratch build up the list.

 

Stuart

[Murdo]

Brilliant ideas and brilliant work mate! 

 

Been saving some of your ideas for later

 

 

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

10 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Which hobby shop is this? Regards, Jeff

Hobbytech - Myaree - Leach Highway (and the BCF shop next door). 😀

8 hours ago, hendie said:

but now you have switched allegiances, won't the young assistant at the haberdashery be feeling abandoned?

Perhaps I am not documenting ALL of my visits! 😍😘🥰

[Bandsaw Steve]

Bits and Pieces

 

Ok - this thread is getting a bit frayed and untidy now - if you will excuse the pun.  The fact is I'm writing this almost three months after the event and at the time all sorts of things were going on in quick succession, so this narrative is not necessarily going to run in any kind of logical time sequence. I'm just going to pick out some bits and pieces that were done along the way that might  be of interest.

 

The first random detail is, if it's what I think it is, a very important one. This, I think, is the transmitting antenna for the Marconi wireless unit. If so, this was the piece of equipment that allowed Carpathia to confirm to Titanic that she was on her way and that allowed Carpathia to request specific information and updates from the doomed liner, at least - of course - until Titanic lost power.

 

It's made by supergluing some scrap brass and steel tube onto a thin brass rod. A very simple job.

 

Here it is mounted on it's relevant housing...

 

and here it is on the finished model. Half way between the two forward life-boats.

 

This is a skylight fitting that sits directly behind the funnel.  This was created by simply cutting a rectangle of sappelli to the correct dimensions and then sanding down the corners to give a triangular cross section. Subsequent to this photo I fashioned the windows from adhesive silver foil. 

 

Here's the finished result, visible directly behind the funnel and with a great big ventilator sticking out through its roof.

 

This is the anchor - mostly finished. Plastic card cut to the correct shape and super-glued onto a length of brass and then spayed black.

 

Some thin evergreen card is being used to shape the panel in front of the bridge.

 

Self explanatory really. Good stuff this plastic. I should use it more!  You might note that there's a little wheelhouse added too. 

 

I found that inserting and gluing a small length of brass tube of the correct diameter into the various fittings gave much more secure anchor points for the masts and davits.

 

All of which gets me to about this point. 

 

Just looking now I can at least one important detail that I have not written about - that's the decking over the housing towards the stern.  This is nothing too clever, just a bit more aluminium lithoplate cut to the correct shape and stuck on with some araldite.

 

OK - the end is in sight now...

 

Two more posts to go I think. One on giving the ship a name and one covering rigging and flags. Not much to go now.

 

Bandsaw Steve 

 

 

[Heather Kay]

Maritime subjects aren't really my thing, but it's still making models. I follow the ones that interest me, and this one is a superb build. I especially love the way you've treated the water. Very effective and gives an excellent impression of Carpathia running at full chat to the stricken liner's position.

[hendie]

1 hour ago, Heather Kay said:

Maritime subjects aren't really my thing

 

me neither but I guess someone's got to do it.  Agreed, the water is excellent

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

1 hour ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

so this narrative is not necessarily going to run in any kind of logical time sequence.

Gidday Bandsaw, neither did the book, if I recall. It was still an interesting read, though. Thanks for all the tips and tricks, you never know when they will come in useful.

     You mentioned Evergreen plastic. I rather like working with it. I only discovered it a few years ago and it has opened up a whole new modeling world for me.

Regards, Jeff.