Sink the Bismarck! HMS Ark Royal, 26 May 1941

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

3 hours ago, Gisbod said:

That’s really inspiring PE Crisp..

 

I may have missed it, but what do you use for glue? I’m always on a quest with PE to get the ‘magic’ solution...

 

Guy

Most of the time I use Gator’s Grip for my PE - but as it happens this crane was made with thin CA; the attachment surfaces are tiny and access not always easy, so I needed something that was thin enough to flow well under capillary action.  The key is to use tiny amounts.

[Martian]

Awesome work Crisp!

 

Martian 👽

 

 

[Courageous]

Love it. That new phone of yours is really showing the detail.

 

Stuart

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Still chugging on, but not really worth bothering you with duplicate photos.

 

And then there were two Seaplane Cranes:

More soon

 

Crisp

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

After finishing the cranes I moved on to a couple of the platforms that fit high up the mast - one described as “Meteorological Platform” on the plans, which seems to mean that it was for an anemometer (not yet fitted, but Tetra do provide one!); the other called “Yardarm Platform”, carrying the tops of signal halyards, assorted lights and other seamanlike gubbins.

In this first photo, the Met platform is done; that’s the triangular thingy, here seen from above (most shots are from below, for reasons that will become apparent).  The holes are for the tripod mast legs.   The other thing is the start of the Yardarm platform, which is more complex; that rounded square piece has to fit on top of the bent guardrails... a good game played slowly.

Here the same scene, but with the Met platform upside down; this is how it will be stored until fitted onto the mast, because those two brackets underneath will disappear into the CM at some point otherwise.

 

This shows the technique I use for rounded corners in guardrails; find a drill bit that matches the radius you’re after and then use it as the bending template - this is a 1.6mm bit.

Not easy, but I got there in the end:

 

 

And the flat piece (representing a wooden handrail) does fit:

Having reached this stage, the Yardarm platform was also turned upside down and assorted support rackets fitted - and the yardarms themselves, of course.  Here are both platforms with a scalpel blade for scale (& some nasty CA overflow which wasn’t obvious to the naked eye, and has now been fixed):

 

And finally a photo from more side-on, showing the yardarms etc.  This is heavily magnified, so it really doesn’t look this messy to the naked eye!

Definitely enough Optivisor work for today.

 

More soon

 

Crisp

 

[giemme]

          None of these looks messy to me, and I'm watching on the big PC screen!  

 

Ciao

Edited April 18, 2020 by giemme

[Gisbod]

That’s beautiful PE work Crisp, I’ve spent the day under the optivisor too and can fully appreciate your efforts.

 

Guy

[Martian]

Those cranes are awesome!

 

Martian 👽

 

 

[TheBaron]

5 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Not easy, but I got there in the end:

Like there was ever any doubt about the matter.

 

The Met platform anemometer you mentioned - it is going to give an accurate scale indication of wind speed, right?

 

Ps. This arrived on Friday after your previous recommendation - looking forward to getting stuck in.

[hendie]

masterful craftsmanship on display there Crisp.  Those cranes look so delicate, yet so robust at the same time.  They're going to look fantastic under a coat of paint

 

[CedB]

More fantastic, tiny work. Great stuff Crisp  

[Richard E]

20 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

And then there were two Seaplane Cranes:

 

Exquisite photoetch work Crisp.

 

As an aircraft modeller who is becoming increasingly fascinated by the art of small scale ship building I'm going to apologise if I'm asking a stupid question: unless the description Seaplane Crane is a generic term for a type of crane which would be used for general purpose handling, why would the Ark need to be able to handle seaplanes ?

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Not a stupid question at all - it does seem incongruous to our modern eyes.  To a certain extent the name is misleading - the crane also handled the larger ship’s boats, for instance - but to understand it you have to think of Ark as a child of her time.  
 

We know that she was commissioned less than a year before the outbreak of war (16 December 1938), so spent ⅔ of her life at war - but she was designed in the early 30s, and carriers then occupied a very different role in the minds of High-Ups.  Even during her active life carrier ops evolved massively; the bonkers “hunter-killer” idea, for instance, which cost Courageous’ life (and with less alert look-outs would have cost Ark’s too) in the first couple of weeks of the war, seems insane to modern eyes.

 

But she was effectively a bridge between the old world and the new; in the Old World, when she was designed, carriers were an adjunct to the main deal - the battleship navy - at best, and probably more akin to cruisers; useful for scouting, patrol vs commerce raiders, spotting for fall of shot... and at a pinch using torpedo bombers to slow down enemy battleships so they could be despatched by the grown-ups.  [Ironically, perhaps, the only time this doctrine - much practiced between the wars - actually came to pass was the Bismarck action, though it came close to success at Matapan as well].  The penny had not dropped in 1935 that carriers were not something that supported the High Value Unit any more; they WERE the High Value Unit - that was the New World.

 

But all that was light years away when Ark was designed.  She was from the era when Naval aircraft all needed to be capable of operating from floats - Shark, Swordfish, Seafox, Skua, Roc, Albacore (even Barracuda in the earliest design studies) all had floats designed into them.  Her design must have started in the Fairey IIIF and Flycatcher era - when Hermes routinely disembarked a Flight of Flycatchers to operate independently from a beach on floats against Chinese pirates, while the ship went up the coast a bit to do something similar.

 

Ark’s characteristic round-down was there to minimise turbulence on finals - but inside it was a large “Seaplane Conversion Set Store”, and there were positions for the stowage of floats built into the deckhead of the hangars.

 

I am not aware that Ark ever used the cranes for recovering floatplanes.  The only time she definitely recovered a floatplane was at Oran, when Warspite’s Swordfish landed on deck (lots of sparks, but apparently fine) when time was of the essence in negotiating with the French fleet.

 

[Edit: I beg Lt Cdr Breese of HMS Valiant's posthumous pardon: it was Valiant's Stringbag, not Warspite's - apparently the only time this was done (nailed that landing, Sir!)]

 

 

But it was definitely designed for them!

Edited April 19, 2020 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Short update today, cos I’ve been busy elsewhere (glorious weather here in Salisbury, so I was never going to get away with sitting inside all afternoon!).  None the less, productive.

 

The Met platform that I built yesterday is designed to sit on a triangular protrusion on the Merit (styrene) mast, and I told you a long time ago that I plan to replace the mast with brass for strength (and also because the kit tripod legs are wrong).  So today’s job was to file a suitable piece of triangular brass (which took about 80% of the time) and then solder it to my brass mast - you’ve already seen the mast, which is three section of slide-fit Albion Alloys tube, thus giving the same fitting point on the top for the homing beacon tub (which will be Merit’s).

 

So here’s the outcome in gruesome close-up, showing still a little solder cleaning needed:

Here is the Met platform dry fitted in place.  You can see from the angle of the brackets underneath the platform that they butt against the tripod legs (a point which had somewhat escaped me until this moment!):

...kind of like this:

More soon

 

Crisp

 

Edit: some more dry fitting for measurement purposes:

 

Edited April 19, 2020 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[gunzo]

Didn't Ark Royal embark a Walrus or two for rapid ASR and other amphibious duties?

[giemme]

That last pic os just spectacular, Crisp!

 

Ciao

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

36 minutes ago, gunzo said:

Didn't Ark Royal embark a Walrus or two for rapid ASR and other amphibious duties?

Not sure Ark ever did, no - but in any case the Walrus was an amphibian; you had the option of wheels or floats every time without getting any spanners out

 

Edited April 19, 2020 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[gunzo]

Actually, I was thinking of practical use for a float store/ workshop?

[Terry1954]

Amazing brass work as ever Crisp, and some more excellent back story.

 

Terry

[dhogue]

Apparently the Ark did operate floatplanes.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

The island looks rather spiffing.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

5 hours ago, dhogue said:

Apparently the Ark did operate floatplanes.

Excellent!  Never seen those; may I ask what book?

[Our Ned]

The photos posted by dhogue appeared in the second issue of the quarterly publication "Warship" published in 1977.  They form part of an article entitled "HMS Ark Royal Part 1: Design" by JD Brown (as far as I know, Part 2: Operational Career never appeared).  The photos aren't credited, but there is another from what seems to be the same series on the back cover of the first issue, where the caption states that it was taken in Portsmouth in March 1940, with reference "CPL. W/1/016-017" (presumably Conway Photographic Library).  No serial is visible on the aircraft, but the code E8F was allocated to the 2nd Battle Squadron, specifically to HMS Resolution; she was allocated Swordfish E4222 in this period.

 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Thanks, Ned.  She's clearly alongside (WT masts raised, weapons and sights covered).  Looks a foul day, too!

 

Nice view of the "Affirmative" shutter in its "Yes" mode.

 

Is it just me, or does the Swordfish look as though it's been damaged on the port side of the fuselage abaft (behind, Hendie) the TAG's cockpit?  Visible in the picture from above and the one on the lift.  I wonder whether she was coming on board to access Ark's workshops, which would have been better equipped for aircraft repairs than a battleship. 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Our Ned]

There does seem to be a slight dent there!  The other photo shows the starboard side of the aircraft, standing on the flight deck just abaft the starboard seaplane crane.