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I realised I hadn't spoken much about the planking so if you're interested, I'm using 2mm x 5mm planks in lime, a compromise between the curves and expediency.  The 2mm lets them bend easily while still remaining enough meat for sanding.  The frames are 3mm ply on the 5mm keel and each plank is pinned to each frame with 8mm brass pins, using a wonderful tool I'd forgotten I had, a pin pusher so my thumbs are not all swollen from hammer blows

 

The lines for the propeller shafts and rudders where drilled in the frames and the picture below shows the tubes inserted but not glued yet.  Its easier to sand the hull without them in place.  Those blocks on the rudder shafts are to get the vertical alignment correct,

 

DSCN1603

 

The propeller shafts will have a larger casing covering the exposed end that will be turned from brass and filed to lay flush, after the plating is complete

 

This picture shows the planking around the shafts.  The stern shape will be made in solid Jelutung once the second side is complete and the deck edge sanded to match

 

DSCN1605

 

This picture shows the last two planks with a wedge made to hold the twist while the glue sets.  You can also see that I've notched the keel for the turbine cooling water inlet which of course would have been a much easier job before I planked almost up to it :headbang:.  Beyond that is the slot to take the brass docking keel which I will glue in after sanding

 

DSCN1606

 

And finally, the bow block installed and roughly sanded to shape

 

DSCN1607

 

As you can appreciate, there's a lot more sanding and some (considerable) work needed with filler to get the final bow flare correct but overall this is a positive weekend's progress

 

If this is all too much detail, please let me know, I wanted to record the build fully this time but I don't want to be boring

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5 hours ago, Steve D said:

If this is all too much detail, please let me know, I wanted to record the build fully this time but I don't want to be boring

Gidday Steve, it is definitely NOT boring, it is good to see how you've done this, as I wish to do some hulls later (but in a different scale) but am not sure yet how I'm going to do them. To me the hull is the most important part of a ship. Get it right and you're half way there. Get it wrong and you'll never be pleased with the final result. My view anyway.     Regards, Jeff.

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13 hours ago, dnl42 said:

Please keep this up, I love the detailed progression!

Thanks for the reassurance, you never know if what you are saying is obvious to everyone, glad if the post can help others get into scratch building

8 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Steve, it is definitely NOT boring, it is good to see how you've done this, as I wish to do some hulls later (but in a different scale) but am not sure yet how I'm going to do them. To me the hull is the most important part of a ship. Get it right and you're half way there. Get it wrong and you'll never be pleased with the final result. My view anyway.     Regards, Jeff.

100% correct, and to get the hull right, the frames have to be perfect.  I tried a new technique this time in reducing the lines to allow for the planking thickness and it seems to have worked out as the planks went on quite easily

5 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Not boring, I'm really enjoying the nuts of bolts of this. :)

Steve.

As I said above, I'll just keep the detail going and hopefully encourage others to take the leap.  One of my motivations in ship modelling is the working out how to make each component, that and the research is where my real interest lies.  PLus I love ship models, always have, not sure why....

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Point of assistance please.

 

Grey Fox had a 12 pdr 12cwt QF gun in the Mark IX HA mounting.  I've got loads of picture of these and Lambert's drawings but all the information I can find only includes a flat frontal shield.  The photograph below clearly shows a shield with sides as per 4 inch practice.  I can make it up by mixing the two concepts but I'd far rather base it on a drawing or a photograph.  Do any of you have information that I could use to improve the end result 

 

SGB 4 Grey Fox 3

 

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5 hours ago, Steve D said:

Point of assistance please.

 

Grey Fox had a 12 pdr 12cwt QF gun in the Mark IX HA mounting.  I've got loads of picture of these and Lambert's drawings but all the information I can find only includes a flat frontal shield.  The photograph below clearly shows a shield with sides as per 4 inch practice.  I can make it up by mixing the two concepts but I'd far rather base it on a drawing or a photograph.  Do any of you have information that I could use to improve the end results

Hi Steve,

 

I'm just guessing, but It looks like the gun shield could be a modified cut-down version of the similar Mark V mount 6 pdr shields used on the early Fairmile 'D's.  

 

Here's a link to a full frontal enlarged view of Grey Fox's 12 pdr shield - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Grey_Goose_FL4607.jpg

 

John

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17 minutes ago, JohnWS said:

Hi Steve,

 

I'm just guessing, but It looks like the gun shield could be a modified cut-down version of the similar Mark V mount 6 pdr shields used on the early Fairmile 'D's.  

 

Here's a link to a full frontal enlarged view of Grey Fox's 12 pdr shield - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Grey_Goose_FL4607.jpg

 

John

Thanks John, yes I have that picture, quite different to the other 12 cwt gun pictures of preserved guns I've found.  The picture below is all I have on the side view, probably good enough to scale something if no one has a better drawing.  I'll check out the 6 pdr gun sheild though, good hint, thanks

 

gun  shield

 

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7 hours ago, Steve D said:

Thanks for the reassurance, you never know if what you are saying is obvious to everyone, glad if the post can help others get into scratch building

The detail photos enable me to take vicarious pleasure in your build!

 

All this work is calling me to pull one of my few wooden models down from the shelf or perhaps scratch-building a 1/48 LCVP to go along with the LCM.

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Quiet day at work so I was able to complete my re-drawing of the shell expansion drawing to 1:48th scale from the maritime Museum scan

 

shell print

For those not familiar with these drawings they show each plate as it would be if flat.  The SGB's had lapped joints fore and aft and between strakes which is why the centre 4 strakes are "In & out" not "in" then "out" as you would see on destroyers.  The keel plates wrap around so both views show half the same plate, you can see the joints line up.  The shaded area is doubling around the cooling water exhaust openings and the rectangles towards the stern are doubling for the propeller shaft brackets (propeller shaft opening shown as a white ellipse).  The lines outside the shape are the deck joint locations port and starboard (also staggered).  It looks like the forward portholes were 5.5 inch while the three to the rear were 6 inch, weird but that's what the drawing shows (more light for the officers I guess!).  Note the porthole locations on each side are not identical. 

 

Because of the lapping, the plating needs to start at the stern deck line and work forward and down from there, should be fun.  If you look carefully, none of the joints are on a frame line (you can't rivet plates joints where the frames are) and no frame gap has more than one joint.  These are firm rules so if you don't have a shell expansion, you can work out a good approximation more or less with these rules once you know the frame spacing.  The plates are mostly around 3-4 ft x 16-20 ft., again a good guide, handling limitation 

 

I will be including rivet detail with a wheel, even though the rivets will be barely noticeable, running the wheel creates a very slight waviness between frames evident on actual ships.  Each plate was of course riveted to each frame.  So many ship models (including some commercial hulls) only show rivets around the edge which is of course daft, the ship would simply fall apart

 

I have this as an A3 .pdf file (or a .dxf of course) if anyone wants a copy

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1 minute ago, dnl42 said:

The detail photos enable me to take vicarious pleasure in your build!

 

All this work is calling me to pull one of my few wooden models down from the shelf or perhaps scratch-building a 1/48 LCVP to go along with the LCM.

Go for it, 1:48th scale is the scale for ships, no question at all in my mind.  Large enough to show gratuitous detail, small enough to stay married :rofl: 

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1 minute ago, Steve D said:

Go for it, 1:48th scale is the scale for ships, no question at all in my mind.  Large enough to show gratuitous detail, small enough to stay married :rofl: 

Have to agree with that. The LCM was quite a pleasure to build--good thing HB got so much wrong or just missing... 

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The planking is complete now and filled with car body filler, very strong and easy to sand

 

DSCN1608

 

Stand in the background, here it is on the stand, lovely sweeping lines to that stern, it is 36" long

 

DSCN1609

 

There's still a little tidy up to do at the bow to build up the knuckle but the fact that there is more wood than filler in this shot says the lines worked out OK

 

I cleaned it up and added a coat of varnish, as a firm base for the plating.  If I was painting this, I'd do a lot more work on the finish, but the aluminium coves minor blemishes easily.  

 

DSCN1612

 

Now I have a coupe of hours of cleaning to do in the workshop, so much dust...  Still that's more of less the end of the wood stage on the project, it's mostly metalwork from here on.  

 

That stem plate really helps define the fine entry and isn't altered much by the sanding, well worth it.  You can also see I've inserted the short docking keel brass plate towards the rear.

 

This has come together quite quickly, lovely simple lines to plank, can't wait for the transformation into metal.....

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On 1/6/2020 at 4:58 PM, Steve D said:

Go for it, 1:48th scale is the scale for ships, no question at all in my mind.  Large enough to show gratuitous detail, small enough to stay married 

I doubt anybody would remain married if they built a 1/48 modern PoW!

 

Stuart

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The more I study the photographs the more I'm convinced that they did flush rivet the hull, I can't see any hint of rivets at all, they were focused on speed, so maybe this makes sense.  However, the deck is another matter. 

 

Made a start on the deck plating today in 0.2mm or 8 thou in old money, Aluminium (4D sell it).  With frames at 18" this means a lot of cross rivet lines, still steady progress.  The plates are stuck down with contact adhesive.  Once this has been rubbed down for painting (with very fine wire wool) only the hint of rivets will remain, but the distinctive lines of the frames on the deck will show through.  1:48th scale is the smallest scale that rivets really work at, but once you start, there is no turning back, its either none or all...

 

I have no plate layout for the deck, but the shell expansion shows the butt lines on the Port and Starboard edge plates and I decided that they could use 8' wide plates on the deck as its relatively flat and joints are weaknesses.  The butt lines are generally ~ 16' apart so 16' x 8' plates cut to shape might be the practice they used.  Separating the butts on the centre plates by 2' from the port and starboard butts seems to work, anyway too late now to worry about it.  Most of this detail will get lost when the equipment is added....

 

As an interesting aside, the two commercial plans show clean rear decks, but the admiralty GA clearly shows mounting bars for depth charges and mines as per the practice adopted on the Fairmile 'B' so I will add them to the model

 

DSCN1613

 

You'll see I've glued back the circle I cut from the deck for the Oerlikon.  Grey Fox didn't mount an Oerlikon on the bow, it had a single 2pdr in a non-motorised mount.  The pictures seem to show this flush on the deck so the piece went back in.... 

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More progress on the plating this weekend, the deck is completed and looking ok, the knuckle is tough, will improve with some filler later

 

DSCN1614

 

The chart house is yellow due to filler primer, helps to remove the grain from the plywood and achieve a smooth finish

 

Then I started on the hull plates which are joggled.  I've never done a hull with joggled plates, these are very hard to get right.  I always display models from the starboard side, this one I may display from the port as my joggling is getting better, the joints on the first couple of strakes here are too wide, don't like them but I'm stuck with it now.  At least once it is painted and the extra armour plating added, they won't be so distinctive.  I'm also wondering if it would have been better to use 0.1mm sheet not 0.2mm, ah well

 

On a brighter note, plating like this really helps you understand how the hull was constructed, creating a complex compound shape with mostly straight edged plates and single curvature, really clever

 

DSCN1621

 

Its a slow job, ~4 pieces per hour once the shape is correct etc....  You can also see here I've added the first three portholes, in 4mm diameter brass tube filled with water ripple stuff.  I'm going to mask them with flexible masking and then add the final surface once the painting is complete

 

below is how I'm doing the joggling.  A sheet of 0.3mm copper, two rulers and a mallet, all pretty hard to control.  Like most jobs, it's only at the end you get the hang of it and then the skill gets lost before it's needed again...

 

DSCN1619

 

To cheer myself up (this has all been a bit stressful to be honest), I covered the roof of the chart house with thin cotton as the drawing said the roof was canvas covered, and added some battens, I think you will just see the texture after painting, more pointless detail ....

 

DSCN1622

 

These pictures it looks awful, in reality it looks a bit better, more fettling and filling will improve matters (I hope)

 

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8 hours ago, Steve D said:

Like most jobs, it's only at the end you get the hang of it and then the skill gets lost before it's needed again...

Gidday Steve,   -   too true!

 

8 hours ago, Steve D said:

more pointless detail ....

I think it is often detail that can high-light a model. She's coming along very well, and you're braver than me, doing a model like this. Regards, Jeff.

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Fantastic work Steve, way beyond my skill and stress level.

14 hours ago, Steve D said:

I always display models from the starboard side, this one I may display from the port as my joggling is getting better,

Just an idea. If you always display starboard, why don't you start on the port :wink:.

 

Stuart

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1 hour ago, Courageous said:

Fantastic work Steve, way beyond my skill and stress level.

Stuart

Suart said it for me.  You present the modelling equivalent of an Alpine peak to climb towards.

Damn - it looks good.

Will you ever display this at a show - I'd love to see it close up?

Rob

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1 hour ago, Courageous said:

Fantastic work Steve, way beyond my skill and stress level.

Just an idea. If you always display starboard, why don't you start on the port :wink:.

 

Stuart

Too easy, where's the fun in that? :rofl:

5 minutes ago, robgizlu said:

Suart said it for me.  You present the modelling equivalent of an Alpine peak to climb towards.

Damn - it looks good.

Will you ever display this at a show - I'd love to see it close up?

Rob

I'll be at the National Model Engineering Exhibition (in Doncaster) NMEE this year with a couple of models and maybe this one part complete, I'll see if I like it enough at that point

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1 hour ago, Steve D said:

Too easy, where's the fun in that? :rofl:

I'll be at the National Model Engineering Exhibition (in Doncaster) NMEE this year with a couple of models and maybe this one part complete, I'll see if I like it enough at that point

I should add it would. be great to meet any forum members there, plenty of war stories to share

 

Steve

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