HMS Hood

[Liizio]

Of all the impressive model ship projects I've seen online, this is easily one of my favourites. Superb attention to detail and scratch building skills!

[ArnoldAmbrose]

9 hours ago, Liizio said:

Superb attention to detail and scratch building skills!

Agreed. And a gold mine of information for me. 👍 Many thanks Foeth. Regards, Jeff.

[steve5]

very nice work foeth , your skills are awesome .

[foeth]

  for the comments!

 

Spent some more hours populating the aft quarterdeck bulkhead with a few handrails, assorted details and eyebrows for the portholes (I really dislike adding eyebrows...!)... hope to finish this area next weekend...

 

 

 

There's a small handrail on the side of the quarterdeck bulkhead that was made from some leftover 1:700 railing set. I prefer drilling in the model, so I added a small line and taped the rail in place. With a 0.2 drill the right location was first 'marked', later drilled in using the pin vice. Then follows the horrible part; inserting the rail in bulkhead. I use a bit of tape to keep the part in place. I forgot to photograph the glueing process, using a small 0.25mm strip wedged between the rail and the bulkhead as a spacer, gluing one or two locations at a time. Some minor aligning is always required afterwards. Fortunately the number of these handrails is quite low for HMS Hood,

Edited March 15, 2021 by foeth

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

I hesitate even to ask this question, since your knowledge / research is light years ahead... but are those really hand rails?  Even at their lowest they must be 10’ above the deck, and the slope down is very odd for a handrail.

 

Awning rails? 

[Modelholic]

Just to the left of the arrow in the pic above there looks like a junction box. Could it be a string of lights?

Tom

Edit: Looking closer I'm now doubting the light thingie!

Edited March 17, 2021 by Modelholic

[foeth]

Good point on the handrail... I have to admit I didn't really think it through... but if I have to guess (better 🤭) it's a rail for fixing the awnings (edit, ohoh, that's what Ex-F suggested...)

 

See e.g., https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-60000/NH-60409.html

 

Shows the Quarterdeck awning fixed to it, but only using a small stretch. The boat deck awning is tethered to this rail as well, so that would explain why it runs over the entire bulkhead.

 

Thanks for the correction!

Edited March 17, 2021 by foeth

[foeth]

 

Hood is temporarily shelved for a fun woodworking project (excuse to buy new tools! Proxxon router, Festool planer!). Meanwhile, remember to leave your model not unattended or properly protected from Sigrid the Destroyer.

Edited April 19, 2021 by foeth

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Foeth, just as well the cat's got nine lives. Sigrid has probably used up about five of them sitting on the model like that. Good to see the model was protected. Regards, Jeff.

[Adm Lord De Univers]

Please tell me Sigrid didn't defeat the protection and that your foray into woodworking is almost over?

 

David

[foeth]

UpperFluff usually parks her behind between the modeling tools and not on the model... this was the first time. We have loads of cats and they never break anything...

 

Woodworking was partially interrupted as my brand-new Proxxon router burned out after 25 minutes, so I started work on aerial trunks.... but the woodworking isn't over yet It's amazing what you can't do if you put your mind to it...

 

 

I just replaced all the cutting tools for my lathe by very very small ones, used it for a winch drum on the bulkhead... and added some eyebrows and bottom right a je-ne-sais-quoi device. Oh my, that window on closeup looks awful. Anyway, this is a temporary image, I'll take better ones later and delete this one.

Edited May 14, 2021 by foeth

[Adm Lord De Univers]

Excellent! Welcome back, and sorry for me sneaking over and breaking the proxxon whatsamathingy.

 

David

[Alpha Juliet]

What an amazing build!  So glad I found it.  Love all the research and links to photos - many of which I haven't seen before.  Well done, keep up the good work!

[europapete]

Hiya, any news on this fabulous build? Regards, Pete in RI

[foeth]

 

Only a few vents and aerial trunks were added... as meanwhile my custom CNC-milled package for three more speakers arrived. I'm sanding, sawing, drilling, milling, chiseling, gluing, soldering, painting, oiling, heat shrinking ... You'd think having parts CNC milled parts will save you time... Feeling guilty for neglecting poor old Hood for a moment... Really want to finish this yet-another-multiyear project soon Thinking of two more weeks of DIY vacation but work deadlines are pressing down my overall mood at the moment...

Edited August 11, 2021 by foeth

[foeth]

 

Three out of five done, two more to go.  These are ready to be assembed but vacation ran out... Three weeks of dedication & cursing wood for being such a weird material. Hood is just of out of the frame at right and has to wait a bit longer....

 

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Have you had a listen yet?

[europapete]

Those look awesome! well done. 

[foeth]

4 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Have you had a listen yet?

Yes I have and the speakers sound stunningly good! That is, after I replaced one driver that seems to be broken, and there's still some noise coming from the DIY amps that needs to be removed (no idea how though, have to experiment a bit, must have done something wrong!)

[foeth]

The woodworking is progressing slowly in the weekends, still displacing HMS Hood for the moment. I expect to pick up the project in 2022. I've neglected her for so long that meanwhile my Plastic Magic Glue bottle fully evaporated (yes, the cap was on) so I can't do any modeling anyway. The Dutch IPMS where I wanted to stock up was cancelled...

 

As naval hydrodynamicist with an idle laptop and access to some cool company tools, what can you do when in a Hood mood? Calculate the wave pattern, of course. This is the wave elevation from 10 to 31 knots in steps of 1 knot. I'll probably go for a 22-25 knots speed or thereabout, where Hood sinks in about half a meter as well (squat) and no trim.  Some swell will be added anyway; with some waves around you rarely see the calm-water as perfectly as you do here. Took some time to properly visualize the pattern. Dashed line is zero difference wrt calm water, scale in meters (none of those units from middle earth).

 

 

Edited November 23, 2021 by foeth

[robgizlu]

That is fascinating!

Looking forwards to the Sculpt

Rob

[Dancona]

That is absolutely brilliant, with your permission I would love to use this as a basis for the seascape for my Victorious, I know that the hull shape is probably very different to the eye of a professional,  but it does at least look quite similar in plan view, being quite long and not as beamy (I don't know if that's a word) as a battle wagon.

 

Cheers

 

David

[ERK]

On 11/01/2020 at 13:47, foeth said:

And the rest of the blog post on the ground tackle. Work progressed simultaneously with the cables and each pic is at least a day of work. The modelling mojo is now utterly spent and I cannot gather enough motivation to add primer 😫 Perhaps dry January is incompatible with model building 🤔 I think I'll now spend some more time on my audio project (going to build a surround set) and I'm actually looking forward to going back to work designing propellers...

 

Blog post copied in full

 

With the cables slowly progressing as discussed in part I a few other bits & pieces were built to fully detail the area in front of the forward breakwater.

 

 

The capstan was remade simply because I lost the one I had. These are a nice combination of etched parts and styrene. The main (Napier) capstan is built up from disc and making these discs were tricky to do on a lathe: the parting tool would always deform the styrene. I played with tool angles and revs for a while, but in the end used a different approach by first cutting of a piece of rod with a small step in the diameter (top left). The part would then be reversed and work would continue from the other side with the cutting tool going fully against the chuck (carefully). The top etched parts were a bit of an experiment with three layers of PE and the small eyelets on top. Normally etching 0.1mm holes is asking for trouble as these holes are rarely etched through but now that I have a series of miniature drills I felt confident enough to drill in the etched holes; this went well enough. Too bad the eyelets are are too small to notice...

 

 

The Napier capstan can also serve as a cable holder when its whelps are removed and this holder has five spokes. The main cable holder dimensions were estimated from photographs and I estimate six spokes the holder for a proper spacing of the cable around the holder; otherwise the distance between cable on either side of the holder would not really match the photographs. A small template was helpful to keep the spacing at consistent angles.

 

 

After I thought the main deck was done I made a few passes finding out small details I might have missed. The top row of images shows a small Y-shaped manifold behind the forward breakwater and against the rear quarterdeck bulkhead (a pair of them). I do not see more of them and they also do not show up on any of the plans. The forward hatch received a small support roller and some hydrant manifold. All parts are mainly soldered Albion Alloy tubes.

 

 

There are two pairs of paravane fairleads and the rear pair was replaced by some small support structure. Initially I thought this was added to keep any paravane cable away fro the degaussing cable but this structure shows up in 1939, prior to fitting the cable; a small plate was added in front of the structure when the degaussing cable was present though.

Top right shows the floor plate of the navel bonnet under construction. With the Proxxon drill press and divider it’s very easy to drill a polar array of holes on a plate. A small jig was built using 1.5mm rod and some strip with a hole punched out. The rod was made on the lathe as my experience showed that stock rod by Evergreen or Plastruct is not round enough.

The bottom right show the cable holder arrangement, a collection of strips finished by Magic Sculpt. The arrow indicates some detail but I do not know what it was for.

 

 

And here is the entire fo'c'sle. After the chains and capstans were replaced a few lifting eyes were added that are scattered around the deck. The cable holder brake handles were reproduced as well as a pair of staghorn bollards near the torpedo loading hatch (the wide hatch in front of the breakwater. A few hatches, capstan and support rollers are not yet fixed for ease of painting. One thing I do not really like is that the skylights on front of the breakwater should have a bit more distance between them; ah well. (Click for larger version)

Amazing and Superb work  beyond beautiful.

 

Erk.

[foeth]

15 hours ago, robgizlu said:

Looking forwards to the Sculpt

 

Of course, that will take a small while. When the project is rebooted I need to finish the main superstructure parts (nearly done though), do a beauty pass of the hull plus painting, then do the waves. But I am looking forward to that part Hide that hideous underwater hull (mistakes were made).

[foeth]

21 hours ago, Dancona said:

[---] with your permission I would love to use this as a basis for the seascape for my Victorious, I know that the hull shape is probably very different to the eye of a professional,  but it does at least look quite similar in plan view, being quite long and not as beamy [---] as a battle wagon.

 

 

Please do! Most warships are quite slender and copying the wave pattern would work quite well. There are always differences, and comparing the pattern to photographs would work best I think. These images might help udnerstanadong what to look for. This calculation doesn't include wave breaking and so on, and you need good pics to model that. I've been planning writing down what it is you see in a pattern for ages but never really felt like actually finishing that (also wondering if people have the attention span to read with youtube two clicks away so never bothered).

 

I uploaded jpegs as well, just change the speed in the URL between 11 and 32 to get another pattern; this one shows 22 knots. Note that the scale for the colour outline is every quarter meter, so most of the bow waves remain below +/- 1m; not that much in 350 scale! With a bit of seaway this wave pattern can become undiscernable, so there's major artistic license.

 

The main thing to pay attention to is the wave pattern from the bow. For Hood this bow wave become more noticeable around 17-18 knots. I'm not really a wave person, but I do notice a few things that modelers often miss

• The angle of the bow wave does not depend on ship speed; this angle is constant at about 39 degrees. The animation shows this as well. The angle remains the same, only the distance between the waves increases.
• The bow wave is not a single large diverging wave but this undulating pattern you can see above. Most diorama's aren't too wide but you can still get this "in frame".

The wave pattern at the stern is not super accurate; there is no propeller action in this simulation and also no effect on friction (edit: or wave breaking; the effect of very steep waves is not captured here). A trade-off between a few hours of work and some assistance from our CAD engineers, versus several days of work and a lot of CPU time... But adding some modeling froth will go a low way.

 

This pattern would not work well for bluff hulls such as subs at the surface, or trawlers and tugs. For high speed craft the pattern changes as well, so fast cruisers exceeding hull speed and planing (the transom-sterned vessels). For most carriers and battleships it should work well enough,

Edited November 24, 2021 by foeth