1957 - Airfix Cutty Sark (conversion) +++FINISHED+++

[Ray S]

Hello all. Having already chipped in with the Fairey Rotodyne (to be started soon), I looked through my stash and the Airfix 'year of issue' list in the back of a couple of books, I have decided to build this:

 

 

This was issued in 1957 (my birth year) and so makes three reasons why that was a vintage year (along with the Rotodyne's first flight). The moulding looks pretty good for the time, and, considering it was only re-issued a few years ago, it has held up quite well.

 

 

As you can see, it is not all that big (about 12cm long excluding bowsprit), and does not have many bits. Oh, and for those who complain about large attachment points, here is a picture for you!

 

 

That point is almost 1cm big! The instructions are quite short:

 

 

However, how much of this I am going to use is a moot point at the moment. The reason is that I intend to build something inspired by this:

 

 

This book is called 'The Ice Schooner' and was written by Michael Moorcock. By an amazing coincidence, it was first published in 1969, which is exactly 12 years after 1957. Even more amazing was that I was born in 1957 and had this book later in life. It was just as though the stars were aligning for this Group Build...

 

My plan (probably to be adjusted) is to modify the ship to a nearer description of the ship from the book) which (may) mean adding raised fore- and poop-decks, making the hulls appear to be made from fibre glass and crushed whalebone, and finding any other details in the description (the masts were so tall they seemed to vanish in the sky). I have downloaded a silhouette of a three-masted schooner to try and get something that looks more like a schooner, but it will not look like the illustration on the book cover. I also need to figure out how to do the skis, among other things. I will see if I can summon up the soldering gods and build the masts out of brass rod, and I have also got the Fine Scale Modeler 'Build Better Ship Models' special that was out this year which gives a couple of articles on making/improving sails. I have some etched ratlines which, with a little luck, may fit. Oh yes, I will try and put it on a suitable 'icy' base - that will be a test for me!

 

I know this is a fantasy build, but I hope you (and I), enjoy the process. Any guidance will be appreciated.

 

All the best everyone with your own builds, it looks like this is going to be a great collection for this GB.

 

Ray

[Dave Swindell]

Hmmm - Cutty Sark - Built 1869 - Happy 150th Birthday! @Ray S 🎂

Hope your eyesight and dexterity can still cope with the rigging in this scale 😉

[Ray S]

Just now, Dave Swindell said:

Hmmm - Cutty Sark - Built 1869 - Happy 150th Birthday! @Ray S 🎂

Hope your eyesight and dexterity can still cope with the rigging in this scale 😉

 

Doh! Had not noticed that anniversary Dave, well discovered!

 

As for the rigging, I have got pet spiders training as I type...

 

Ray

[Rabbit Leader]

Quirky but I like it Ray! It’s all a bit of fun so why not go for it. Please make sure you photograph those well trained spiders in the act, you maybe onto something here that you could patent and earn a wage from. 

 

Cheers and another warm welcome to you.. Dave 

[Murdo]

I'm keen to see how you get on with this.

 

[Ray S]

On 8/6/2019 at 10:40 PM, Murdo said:

I'm keen to see how you get on with this.

 

So am I Murdo, so am I!

 

These are probably the three parts of the kit I am going to use, but there is an element of doubt as to whether I will use the deck or not.

 

 

The first thing I did today was clean up the top of the hull side walls. I was going to thin them down, but a cunning plan occurred to me, and I did not in the end. Next, I needed to decided where to drill holes in the hull to add the ski support struts. I am at a loss as to how these skis would have been fitted in this future world of ice and snow, but I decided that there would be four holes, and the struts would splay out at about 45 degrees down from the centre line. I used the lower markings for the 'wood' hull that Airfix had put onto the hull as my datum line, and used some Tamiya Tape for curves to mark down 5mm from there after having drawn lines on the hull about 35mm from bow and stern. I then used a (t)rusty needle to bore a pilot hole before using a proper drill to make a hole for some .8mm brass rod.

 

 

 

In the book, Michael Moorcock suggests there were main, middle and poop decks, so by now I had come to the conclusion that the kit deck would also have to go, as it only has a very small forecastle deck. I still used it though (especially as this kit is the reason for qualification into this GB!), but only as a template. I drew around it onto some thick-ish plastic card and produced my own, new deck which, as it has no 'planking', is more in keeping with the description in the book as being made from fibre glass.

 

 

I have made a number of trial fits, and the deck fits quite nicely BELOW the kit location aids, as I wanted to drop the main (middle) deck down a wee bit (which then would allow raised fore- and poop decks. I marked off where I wanted to cut the deck into three, and used a lovely pair of Fiskars haberdashery scissors to make the cuts. I also added some plastic strip just below the location 'ledges' which will become the new resting point for the main deck later on. I am minded to cut out the hull sides along this deck to give a different contour to the sides, and put some railings along, after all they were not using the gunwhales to keep water out in this frozen world. I will see.

 

 

I have also kneaded up some Miliput and put that in the hull interior over the holes I drilled for the struts. This, in theory, will provide a more solid anchor for the struts when I add them permanently later in the build.

 

 

 

 

 

On 8/6/2019 at 10:20 PM, Rabbit Leader said:

Quirky but I like it Ray! It’s all a bit of fun so why not go for it. Please make sure you photograph those well trained spiders in the act, you maybe onto something here that you could patent and earn a wage from. 

 

Cheers and another warm welcome to you.. Dave 

 

I have had a word with the Webmaster's Union representative, Mr Silc Spinner, and he has said that I am not allowed to publish photographs of his comrades at work, as it infringes their Arachnid rights, as per dictat EU12987 in the 'Rules and Regulations of the Spiderworld'. Sorry, I will ask nicely again.

 

That all for now, more soon with luck,

 

All the best, Ray

 

 

Edited August 9, 2019 by Ray S
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[Bugle07]

Can the spiders be hired out? Didn't see anything in the Union regs about that when I last looked.

 

Going to enjoy watch what you do with this, best of luck!

 

Geoff 

[Rabbit Leader]

Top work Ray. There’s a lot of thinking going along within this build, most enjoyable to watch come together. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[Ray S]

On 8/8/2019 at 12:05 PM, Rabbit Leader said:

Top work Ray. There’s a lot of thinking going along within this build, most enjoyable to watch come together. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

Dave, every time I think about this build, something changes!

 

As you may have noticed in one of my previous pictures, the hull, despite not being very big, was a bit twisted. It needed a little help to get it together

 

 

Now I do not know about you, but I have always had difficulty clamping curved/angled surfaces. I don't know how I managed it, but I actually had a brainwave! I popped a couple of pieces of blutack onto the bow section and clipped a peg into that, and the peg did not go flying off into the sunset. A bulldog clip dealt with the rudder area (the rudder is probably another area which will vanish soon, as a rudder quite a few feet up in the air above the ice was not probably a priority to build into an Ice Schooner).

 

Now it was time to deal with the various levels of decks. The other week I finally invested in a scriber, so the first use it had was to scribe marks along the hull side in the area I wanted to remove.

 

 

Having read quite a bit about scriber use, I did remember to score lightly making the weight of the tool do the work, and it seemed to do a good job. Another new purchase, a set of etched saw-blades and a handle, set the vertical limits for the scribing, and shortly afterwards I had my gunwhales cut out, and it did not hurt a bit.

 

 

I used four more bits to the kit this morning, and built the stand. The joints were so good I did not need to use glue. I did the 'place-the-hull-upside-down-and-draw-round-forecastle-and-poop' routine on plastic card again and cut the new decks out (slightly over-sized). These will glue directly onto the hull side tops later on further increasing the height of the decks. In the next picture, the ship is sat on the silhouette I had downloaded, so you can see a bit more of the inspiration for the layout of this fantasy ship.

 

 

The ship is beginning to look quite different now compared to the Cutty Sark, but it is still recognisable.

 

 

The final thing I have prepared today is a socket to fit the middle mast into, in the dropped main deck. I have decided to have a 3cm gap between masts, it seems to give a reasonable 'balance' to the ship, but they need to be very precise in their positioning. My idea was to fit a piece of Contrail tube under the main deck to act as a guide for the mast, which will be 1.2mm brass rod. The rod slides into the tube nicely, but I am not sure if the tube will be strong enough. Thankfully, the tube does not interfere with the Miliput padding I added earlier for the ski supports. This side of things may possibly change, and I may well end up putting some blutack into the hull to hold the mast, but which will allow 'wriggle room' to ensure it is vertical and the rakes are the same.

 

More soon, with luck. Thanks for looking and for the comments, all very encouraging,

 

Ray

 

 

Edited August 9, 2019 by Ray S
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[Ray S]

I had a bit of a think over the long duration of the night just gone, and decided to fill a chamber with blutack for the mast support. The tube I had fitted to the deck was not quite true, and the dry-fitted mast canted off starboard too much for my liking. I knocked up some chamber walls from the remains of my original replacement deck, reinforced it with more card and ended up with this:

 

 

I built the box to try and prevent the blutack creeping out when I pressed the mast in later.

 

 

This was my test fitting to see if the mast would stay true with the blutack in place. It did, and I found I could shift it slightly to allow a little bit of rake if I want to. Having sorted that out, it was time to add the decks. I fitted my new new deck (without the tube receptacle) and then added the forecastle and poop decks.

 

 

I have deliberately made them over-sized and that will allow me to trim them down later. That is also the excuse reason for the cross-deck bulkheads being a tad large too:

 

 

I have decided that this is going to be a 1/700 representation of the ice schooner (it is not far out in size from a 1/700 WWII destroyer), so I feel that using 1/700 railings will be okay, along with inclined ladders to fore- and poop decks. 

 

I am going to let this lot set for now and tackle the deck/bulkhead trimming tomorrow.

 

Thanks for looking, cheers,

 

Ray

Edited August 10, 2019 by Ray S
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[Rabbit Leader]

Coming along nicely Ray and good to see you're staying up in bed thinking about those next modelling challenges - something I tend to do in between tossing and turning trying to find that comfortable spot! 

Cheers.. Dave 

[Ray S]

Hello all.

 

I trimmed up the cross-deck superstructure and the decks so things were reasonably level, now I had to build some cabin/deckhouses. I used some plastic strip, 4mm wide for the base of them, then gave them sidewalls with 3.2mm wide strip. Using the one lot for the base gave me something to glue them to, and enabled me to make the walls vertical and true. To help me remember which was which, I wrote inside where they were to go:

 

I used my tried and trusted 'cut-the-bits-too-long-and-trim-later' ploy and it seemed to work ok. Later, after trimming the remaining long ends, I transferred 'Mid' and 'Aft' to the underside of the bottom plate as I would paint the insides black...

 

 

In that photo, I have just dry-fitted the two deckhouses. You may be able to make out that I have added some entry doors on the sides, since then I drilled out a few scuttles in the deckhouse walls and the hull sides. I thought that although this is set a long time in the future, scuttles would still be round, rather than having been replace by much more ornate square/rectangular ones (and round ones are easier to drill out!). The mechanics of strength are still valid then as now, and the ship would possibly need to be stronger in an on-ice environment than an in-water one.

 

I made up another deckhouse, for the fore-deck this time, but that needed a slight angle to be sanded on the bottom to ensure the deckhead(? - roof) stayed parallel with the surface and did not rise up fore like the deck itself.

 

Anyway, here she is now with the three deckhouses glued in place. I have also added a cargo hatch behind the mid-deckhouse, and will add a couple more later on.

 

 

I have said in a number of my projects that planning is not a strong point of mine. To prove it, here are a couple (or three) things I where I have failed. 

 

• When I made the replacement mid deck, I had drilled the hole in to check how the centre mast would sit in the blutack. Seeing it was better than my original idea of gluing a tube under the deck, I promptly glued the deck into place. Then found I had not centered the mast hole properly. Quickly sorted with a new, measured hole and some filler.
• Being better prepared, I measured and drilled a hole in the poop deck for the aft mast, marked the deck and measured and marked the location point for the hole in the aft deckhouse roof and drilled that too. I then needed to enlarge the hole in the poop deck to give some wriggle room for the mast. (Fine!).
• Then I used the same drill to open up the location hole in the forecastle. And realised I had used the BIG drill rather than the smaller, correct sized one! And that is why there is now a deckhouse on the forecastle, when I had not planned one...

Never mind, serendipity and all that. I was again thinking late in the night (I don't sleep very well!), and decided that the coxswain would need to be forward on a vessel like this. On our normal sailing ships I would imagine they would be aft to be near the rudder. Well, on an Ice Schooner, they would need to be near the front as the front pair of skis are where the steering is, and where better that on the forecastle? I have been looking though my photo-etch and think I have found something that could do as a ship's wheel. I will see if I can modify it a little and use that. I have also found some skylights on another sheet so the deckhouses can have some lighting from above.

 

I have now also found a couple of nice photographs of a three-masted schooner, one with sails set and one with them furled. I am going to see if I can find out how to make furled sails, for a scene I have in mind for this.

 

That is it for now, thanks for looking,

 

Ray

Edited August 13, 2019 by Ray S
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[stevej60]

Great project Ray.Something very different too and a cracking start.

[Jinxman]

Loving it - a very creative project indeed.

Can't say I've read much, if any, Moorcock. Must remedy this - charity shops might get a perusal in town tomorrow. 😀

[Bugle07]

Like where your going with this, and there's nothing wrong (sometimes) with not planning everything out.

 

That's when you can create some of the best stuff!

 

Geoff

[Rabbit Leader]

Such large and detailed updates are always a pleasure to read, even though you are working on such a small kit! This is coming up very well. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[AdrianMF]

What a fabulous build! That kit is showing it’s age now and your conversion is giving it a new lease of life.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Ray S]

Hello all, thanks for the comments and likes, they are always appreciated!

 

Over the last few days, I have been trying to pluck up courage (and solve a problem) concerned with soldering. I needed to work out how to size up the positions of the booms and to try and ensure they were all roughly equal along the horizontal in relation to each other. I think I got it solved by drawing out a datum line on paper, shoving the brass rod into the appropriate hole on the deck, and marking up where the boom was to be. Like this:

 

 

I cut out the bits of brass, and decided the booms would be 2cm for the upper, 2.5cm for the lower, and angled them as per an image I got from the internet. At this point, I was unsure whether to attach the bits directly onto paper when I was soldering. I did in the end, and secured the parts with blutack. Not long afterwards, I had three masts!

 

 

Thankfully, I did not set fire to anything, but I did have a wet towel handy, just in case! I marked the masts F(ore), M(id) and A(ft) just in case I forgot which was which, as they had different setups. Later, I swapped a couple round which made the lot look better, and re-marked them in marker pen, bolder...

 

I now needed to think about how this beast was going to move around the ice plateau. It had runners, but I decided it would have ski rather than blade runners. I looked through my stock of plastic strip and found something that looked just right to me. I cut them all to exactly the same length with my guillotine using the measure attached to it, then trimmed them so they were REALLY the same length - I cannot believe that I could get something so simple as cutting 4 x 4cm strips so wrong! I used my multi-purpose probe with a round wooden handle to form a curve up for the front lip of each ski, and sanded them to a front-ski shape.

 

 

I now fiddled around with the model to try and get the best 'looking' position for the front runners. I also needed to add an extra support, and measured the positions out, re-checked and then drilled. I selected another bit of lined paper, drew in a datum line for the centre of the hull fore/aft, and then marked out where the runners would go outboard. I fitted the brass struts into the original holes which were backed by the miliput I had added earlier, and promptly heard a rattle inside the ship. The miliput had come loose and now no longer supported one strut! Doh...ah, well, lessons learnt and all that. Next time, FILL the cavity with miliput, not just blocks of it.

 

 

I checked a number of times (with reading glasses and with my head-magnifiers), being especially careful with the head magnification as they seem to adjust perspective quite a lot. Hence the lined paper. I drilled holes in the back-end of the runner for the brass rod (about 1cm from the back), then another on each runner for the front plastic support about 1.5cm further forward. I also propped up the hull with blutack to ensure the hull was horizontal. I tacked the metal rod in place with CA, then trimmed the plastic rod to size and secured that with thin Tamiya liquid cement.

 

 

That lot seems to have set okay now, it all appears to be solid. But, of course, I needed to see how the Ice Schooner looked with the masts up, so

 

 

 

The big lump of blutack is not part of the build, I promise!, it is not part of the brake system...I still need to add the rear runners, but hopefully should be able to do that tomorrow.

 

I am not happy with the aft mast after all, I will redo that one as the lower boom is still a bit low and it will be difficult to get it to stay in place as it is, and I think I am also going to give it a bigger lower boom, more in keeping with the image I have. I am hoping to remember that the booms need to be offset with a following cross-breeze when I finally attach them. I am only going to put one jib(?) sail onto the bowsprit (still to be made) so the coxswain will have a better view from the fore deck area.

 

I also need to figure out what colour to do this. It is set in an icy area, does not need an underwater hull colour, but the vessel would need to be visible if it got in distress. So, black or orange hull? I am minded orange but may well change my mind. That, of course, never happens in my builds, does it?

 

I have been getting some ideas for the sails, and I will let you know how things go, for good or ill.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Ray

Edited August 19, 2019 by Ray S
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[Rabbit Leader]

Another super post Ray, full of creatively, imagination and a sprinkling of humour! There’s lots going on but it seems to be all coming along nicely for you. My pick would be an Orange hull, but then I like bold and bright models.

 

 Cheers.. Dave 

[Ray S]

Deleted duplicated post due to edit function freezing! Technology, eh?

 

Ray

Edited August 22, 2019 by Ray S
Duplicated post

[Ray S]

Hello all.

 

I made another aft (mizzen) mast, this time with longer booms, then got to thinking about the now unrequired ex-mizzen mast. I had a thought (this is getting to be a habit!) and cut off the two booms, and soldered them together for them to become the bowsprit. Then I thought there was usually a sticky-down thing where the two parts join, so I then soldered in one of them too, and ended up (surprisingly) with this:

 

 

Mmm, I was quite happy with that, because a) it looks like a bowsprit and b) it did not fall apart when adding the sticky-down bit. I went one better a little later and soldered another angled part to the back of the bowsprit as I had found it was not too secure when I added it to the forecastle deck, it was front-heavy and tended to fall off. I had used a small section of Contrail Rod for a support - I had cut off about 1mm, then sliced that into two vertically, and fitted one U section to the bow. Now, If I was capable of forward planning, I would have used new rod and cut it over-long and bent it to shape in the first place, this angled bit will now fit nicely into the hole I had drilled into the fo'c'sle and steadies the bowsprit. Here they are all dry-fitted:

 

 

Now I started to think about the sails. I tried drawing 'stitching lines' onto plain paper, but despite using 4H pencils, the point blunted quickly and gave irregular lines, and my measuring was not too hot either. So I called upon my computer to help me out. I tried using MS Word to produce a grid without vertical lines, I tried using MS Paint but could not work that either, so I called upon the mercies of the BM massive for help. @thorfinn suggested ways to do the lines with Paint (that is still a work in progress), but in the meantime I had worked out a way in Word. I found out how to change the print size and set it to 2pt, created a table with one column (I did not know I could do that!) and then entered 300 rows. I had more than one page after that, but deleted all the rows on the second page. Then I found out that I could extend the rows to the edge of the page! I then did the same thing on page two, and when I printed them off onto one sheet of paper, I had nicely lined paper with very fine spacing, and it seemed to be well aligned front and back. It was suggested that I changed the lines to grey rather than black, but, at the moment, that is beyond me. This is what I had (along with a print of the image that is inspiring me for the sail plan):

 

 

This was the setup before I had found that I could extend the lines to the paper edge. I now needed to colour the paper, so I tried a few ideas. Revell Acrylic Beige, Humbrol Acrylic Cream, Humbrol Enamel Wine Red (and a second thinned version), and finally, a wet tea bag!

 

 

The thinned Wine Red looked good to me. There is history with sails being burgundy I am sure, so it is not improbable. The thinned paint went on very well, and allowed the 'stitching' to be visible, and it does not stand out like a sore thumb. Any way, armed with this new discovery, I laid the mizzen mast onto the lines (aligned in the same way as per the photo) and drew along the mast and booms to get the shape of the sail. I drew above the top boom and below the bottom boom to get a bit of extra sail, which hopefully will allow some 'billow'.

 

 

In my reference image, there appeared to be some strengthening stitching on the back end of the sail, so I drew them in with the H4 pencil, then thinned some more Wine Red and painted this side:

 

 

I then made the amazing discovery that painting thinned enamel onto paper allows the paint to dry very rapidly. It was dry in only a couple of minutes, so I turned the paper over and marked the extra stitching and painted that side too. A couple of minutes later, I was able to trim out the sail with a scalpel, and it does not look too bad. The sail also seems to take a curve if I pull it between thumb and finger, so that 'billow' may well be possible.

 

 

 

This is only an experiment at the moment, but it certainly has potential. I used Layout paper, it seems a bit thinner than normal inkjet paper, but I will try that too as the inkjet paper may take the curvature a bit better. 

 

I have to say I am quite pleased at how this has come out so far, hope this good fortune continues.

 

Thanks for looking, Ray

 

Apologies if this is a duplicate post, I had trouble editing the previous one (if it is still there)!

[AdrianMF]

Looking good! I wouldn't have thought about red sails but when I read your post the phrase sounds instantly familiar, and there's at least one song title out there...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Murdo]

A very interesting build indeed!

[Jinxman]

A lovely build with plenty of creativity - very much looking forward to seeing this progress.

[Ray S]

Hello all!

 

I have just finished another project, and have been able to come back to this conversion. I looked through my selection of photo-etch to see if I had any bits that could be used, and found some skylights, doors, railings and ladders which would do. The skylights and doors were 1/350 scale but do not look out of place, the ladders (vertical and inclined) and railings are 1/700. The railings are from an Eduard IJN set, but when they arrived I found they had individual stanchions as their deck location points, rather than the continuous rail that most other sets had. I had tried fitting them as intended on IJN ships, but, even using CA, I found they tended to fall off even if you only looked at them. Heaven help you if you want to pick up the model! Now, I just trim off the stanchions and make them into a one-space (one bar?) railing; at least I can put a decent amount of glue on to get them to stick...

 

The Ice Schooner has now got a lick or two of paint on, and I went for a mainly black hull in the end. This ship was described as being made from fibreglass and whale bone, so I left the decks white (aka primer!), but I did add some colour using Humbrol 71 Light Oak for the cabin deckheads, and Revell Wood Brown for the hatches. Oh yes, three of the 1/350 doors were laid flat on the deck and they became deck hatches for the smaller cargo holds fore and aft. I used some gloss black to represent the glass in the skylights. I painted the skis Revell Iron, and their supports Revell Brass.

 

 

Then it was time for the 62-year-old child in me to fit the masts! You would not believe it, but I must be like Airfix or Wingnut Wings because my manufacturing tolerances were virtually nil! I had fitted and refitted those masts goodness knows how many times and they went in like a dream, but, having sprayed them a couple of coats of primer and a couple of Light Sand, would they fit? Not on your Nelly, they wouldn't! A bit of sanding (below the deck-line on the masts) sorted that though, and a few smears of CA fixed them in place, and they did align okay in the end.

 

 

 

Sorry about the quality of that last piccy, I hoped that not using flash would show it up a bit better, but even the image stabilisation did not help. Anyway, I remembered to have the booms all at a similar angle. I hope to get the sails on in the next week or so, more soon with luck!

 

Thanks for looking, and all the best,

 

Ray

Edited September 12, 2019 by Ray S
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