Sink the Bismarck! HMS Ark Royal, 26 May 1941

[Modelholic]

Crispin,

I think your swinging the lead with your last post.

Tom

[Brandy]

Well that was an enjoyable catch up! Some lovely detail going on here Crisp and I'm learning almost as much as Alan - I think 15% is closer though. Almost as good a score as my chemistry "O" level!

 

Ian

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

A long time ago in this build I showed you some replacement anchors (North Star) that I had used to replace Merit’s offering - which, as you will again see shortly, can only be described as “pathetic”.  
 

Though really nicely cast and infinitely preferable to the Merit things, it has been nagging away at the back of my mind that they still didn’t look like the real Ark’s anchors.  North Star’s are entirely the wrong shape for this purpose, & it was bugging me.

 

Looking on the Micromaster site the other day (for something entirely different), I discovered that our resident Kiwi genius has produced a set of Taylor’s 160cwt anchors specifically for Ark.  Drain my account a little more, then - but his stuff is amazing.

 

Exhibit A - as delivered; note that there is even a smaller one to represent the stream anchor discussed a few days ago:

 

Exhibit B - alongside Merit’s travesty

Exhibit C - the starboard pair fitted:

Exhibit D - the real thing:

 

Exhibit E - some other Kiwi wonderfulness (HACS tubs):

 

Actually I wasn’t looking for the HACS tubs either...  but for some Carley Floats, which you will see in due course (but which are equally beautifully cast).

 

More soon

 

Crisp

[biscuit]

The micro master replacements look fantastic, and reasonably priced as well 

[PolarisPrime]

Well...  I guess my Ark Royal is going back onto the bench.  I had planed on replacing the anchors when I found some good ones, but now I will correct the HACS tubs too.  Those parts look absolutely fantastic!  I am still completely mystified about how those atrocious anchors ended up in the kit.  They actually look 700 scale to me. 

 

Oh...  And while I was on the MicroMaster web site I decided to get the turrets for HMS Hood as well - and a few other things... 

 

My bank account thanks you Crisp.

[perdu]

Now I am getting worried Crisp, I think I recognise the place she was moored at in your recent photograph.

 

Too many ferries to France huh...

 

 

You are giving her the imposing-ness look of the proper job with all this detail, wow you will never get me up in one of these things.

 

So complex.

[Terry1954]

49 minutes ago, perdu said:

I think I recognise the place she was moored at in your recent photograph.

 

Too many ferries to France huh...

It's that mizzen topgallant in the background that does it Bill! Mind you, I doubt that one is going anywhere near France these days - she had her day a while back as I recall .........😁

 

Terry

[Terry1954]

Bill's post reminded me that that I have a recent picture showing that HMS Victory still stands proud close to a much newer generation of fine ships. I'm hoping you won't mind me sharing this one Crisp.

 

This shot was taken on 3rd March last year on a flight I took with an ex Navy friend of mine who I was at school with. We had started to do these sorts of flights every few months, but sadly that one was the last for a while due to the current pandemic. It was a wonderful day for flying, we had lunch at Bembridge and a very pleasant pootle around the IOW before returning to Hurn. We were planning the next trip to be around May where we intended to hop up to Kemble and meet another school colleague who lives in that area. That one's on a back burner now!

 

Victory can just be seen bottom right, with R08 sitting neatly in the centre.

 

 

Portsmouth RN Dockyard has to be one of my favourite places!

 

Terry

[S-boat 55]

12 minutes ago, Terry1954 said:

Bill's post reminded me that that I have a recent picture showing that HMS Victory still stands proud close to a much newer generation of fine ships. I'm hoping you won't mind me sharing this one Crisp.

 

....

 

Victory can just be seen bottom right, with R08 sitting neatly in the centre.

 

Love the photo, if my eyes don't deceive me I spy 4 of the Type 45's there at present, talk about eggs in a basket lol

 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

1 hour ago, Terry1954 said:

It's that mizzen topgallant in the background that does it Bill! Mind you, I doubt that one is going anywhere near France these days - she had her day a while back as I recall .........😁

For the true Pompey aficionado there are lots of clues that Ark is on South Railway Jetty in that photo - essentially the first berth you come to inside the harbour on the Eastern side.  It’s right in front of the offices of the Captain of the Port / QHM (Queen’s Harbourmaster); here are pictures of Eagle...

 

...and Norfolk (my first ship post-university):

...both at South Railway.  It was so-called because in Victorian times it had a railway that went to it on a curved bridge (that ran straight through where Warrior is now, if you know Portsmouth):

 

You can see Semaphore Tower (QHM’s gaff) on the right in the Victorian and Eagle photos.  That dainty Victorian shelter thing on the left of the Norfolk pic is called the “Admiralty Shelter” (and I strongly suspect must be Listed) and is still there:

The shelter was for people who had just got off the train and were waiting to join their ship (at anchor out in Spithead) by boat, and it can also be seen in this poor quality pic of Ark - which looks to me like a still from a piece of film (and might well have been taken on the same day as the bow photo which started this discussion off):

 

Finally, another one of Ark at SRJ - this one showing what looks like bomb damage to the buildings in the background:

 

[Our Ned]

Warning - Thread Highjack!  As well as a Battle of trafalgar survivor, there's also the remains of a First World War combatant visible in the aerial view of the dockyard - thanks for posting.

 

The dark shape in the water in Fountain Lake, to the east of the small marina astern of HMS Bristol, is all that is left of the German torpedo-boat destroyer V82.  She, and fellow TBD V44, were used as targets for firing trials after the war, and then beached on the southern shore of Whale Island, where their rusted, weed-covered remains can still be seen at low water.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Our Ned
Typo

[Our Ned]

Crisp wrote "The shelter was for people who had just got off the train and were waiting to join their ship (at anchor out in Spithead) by boat ..."; I've heard a different story.  I believe (and so does Historic England - https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1272292) that the shelter was built for royalty.  The story goes that it was designed so that Queen Victoria could board a Royal Yacht directly from the Royal Train, without risking getting wet if the weather was poor, on her journeys to the royal residence at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.  Until the viaduct was built in 1867 to allow the rail connection (and for some time afterwards), the jetty was known as Farewell Jetty, as it was usually where larger ships would be berthed before leaving for a foreign commission.  The shelter was moved from the western edge of the jetty in 2002 as part of the redevelopment of that part of the dockyard.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Our Ned
Typo

[Terry1954]

So in my picture Crisp, is South Railway Jetty the third on along (to seaward) of QE, at the extreme right hand lower edge of the picture? That would seem to give the correct viewing angle for Victory in your picture?

 

Terry

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

8 hours ago, Our Ned said:

Crisp wrote "The shelter was for people who had just got off the train and were waiting to join their ship (at anchor out in Spithead) by boat ..."; I've heard a different story.  I believe (and so does Historic England - https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1272292) that the shelter was built for royalty.  The story goes that it was designed so that Queen Victoria could board a Royal Yacht directly from the Royal Train, without risking getting wet if the weather was poor, on her journeys to the royal residence at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.  Until the viaduct was built in 1867 to allow the rail connection (and for some time afterwards), the jetty was known as Farewell Jetty, as it was usually where larger ships would be berthed before leaving for a foreign commission.  The shelter was moved from the western edge of the jetty in 2002 as part of the redevelopment of that part of the dockyard.

 

Sorry - inexact use of language on my part; you're right - I believe the shelter was designed/built for Queen Victoria en route to/from Osborne House, but after she died (when the House was turned into a Naval College anyway) the Royal Family had no use for it so it was used as I described.  Boats would operate from The Camber (which is the L-shaped piece of water inside South Railway); in Terry's photo it looks as though there are a couple in there.

 

Terry, the layout of the dockyard has changed a fair amount even since my day - the jetties that I knew as South Slip, Middle Slip & North Slip have all been amalgamated into one giant berth for Big Betty / Jug Ears.  But South Railway still seems to exist - in your photo it is just disappearing out of shot to the bottom right.

 

I found a couple of interesting maps of the dockyard from the Dockyard Historical Society; this one from 1898:

 

...and this one from immediately before WW2:

 

The names from the 1935 map are mostly as I remember the dockyard in the 80s & 90s - I don't recall the name "Sheer Jetty" being used, but that might just be because I was in ships that didn't use that part of the wall.  I also had no idea that there had ever been a North Railway Jetty!  Boat House, Pitch House & King's Stairs were certainly all in general usage in my era.  The figures in circles are the depth of water available at the various points.

 

The 1898 map has South Railway, but describes that area as "Watering Island"; that name had definitely gone by the C20th.  It also shows why the 3 "Slip" jetties (North, Middle & South) were so called; that's clearly the area where ships were still being built in those days - I believe the last RN ship to be built in Pompey was either a leander or a Type 12.

 

Terry's photo seems to suggest that the 3 Slip Jetties, Sheer, Pitch House & Boat House have all been subsumed into the new carrier / Type 45 berths.  South Railway is the only one of the originals to survive - though I have no idea what the new berths are called.

[Dave Swindell]

4 hours ago, Our Ned said:

there's also the remains of a First World War combatant visible in the aerial view of the dockyard

Not the only WWI survivor visible, Monitor M33 can be seen in the drydock next to HMS Victory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_M33

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

A day that will be familiar to all ship modellers; lots of little pieces being built  & readied for primer - from left to right 4 hawser reel barrels, 4 PE hawser reels (destined for the quarter deck, which is in the foreground), 8 WEM boat chocks (each a folded piece on top of a separate baseplate), 4 x North Star 44” searchlights & 2 x 20” signal projectors (also North Star).

 

It feels like a lot of work for not very much, but it’s all progress.

 

Meanwhile, I’ve been experimenting with the paint erosion so obvious in Ark in 1941 - this is simply airbrush through one of those “random” weathering templates:

 

More soon

 

Crisp

[giemme]

Definitely looking forward to more, Crisp   

Ciao

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

The Quarterdeck is now nearing completion; hawser reels installed today  (the stream anchor only dry fitted, and will stay that way until the deck is glued into the hull):

 

And here a couple with the Tetra brass bulkheads dry fitted so you can see where we’re heading:

 

More soon

 

Crisp

[Dancona]

Hi Crispin,

 

This is looking incredible, you really are knocking it out of the park, the level of gribblyness (layers of detail if one is speaking adult) is spot on, nice to see a well fettled quarterdeck !

 

Cheers

 

David

[giemme]

Quarterdeck looks amazing, Crisp  

 

Ciao

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

While looking for something else, I came across this diagram of a Night Life Buoy in Vol.1 of the 1937 Admiralty Manual of Seamanship - nicely supplements our discussions of a couple of weeks ago.  I can’t think why I hadn’t consulted that particular Bible before on the topic!

 

 

[Martian]

A quick question Crisp. I may of course be being unobservant and I did go back through this thread to try and find out but what did you use to glue your port holes in place with so neatly. I ask as I have as similar task looming in my not so distant future.

 

Martian 👽

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

1 hour ago, Martian said:

A quick question Crisp. I may of course be being unobservant and I did go back through this thread to try and find out but what did you use to glue your port holes in place with so neatly. I ask as I have as similar task looming in my not so distant future.

At the very start I tried drilling holes and then adding the brass - but an experienced man like you will already have spotted the flaw in that; it is very, very hard to drill holes in exactly a straight line, and the human eye picks out even small misalignment very fast.  [Low down on the starboard bow is the evidence, if you’re looking, and it will be masked by the seascape!]

 

I then moved to drawing the scuttles in with a pencil, gluing the PE and THEN drilling through the scuttle once cured.  I use Gator Thin, followed up with a tiny amount of CA via capillary action a few days later after cleaning excess Gator.  They have proved to be pretty solid; in all the subsequent drilling, sanding, cleaning et al I’ve only had about 5 fall off.

[foeth]

For straight lines of portholes (or straight enough...?) I use my pointy scriber to first press a tiny mark; then I start drilling very carefully. You can always check if you scribed points lie along a line before you proceed. I have a small 1mm reamercylindrical drilling bit to clean up the hole afterwards... (need more of those, actually..)

 

 

Very brave you drill trough the PE part.. I'd expect that if your drilling is off you dislodge the PE part? More than 5 at least

Edited February 18, 2021 by foeth

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

I initially tried it assuming exactly that, Evert-Jan, but was pleasantly surprised at how well it went.  In a couple of places I had to drill through Tetra’s brass sheet where they’d missed a scuttle (e.g. the gallery visible top centre of this photo - which is from several weeks ago) - that certainly caused some trepidation when I first tried it!