1/200 HMS Lion

[iang]

I'm a serial starter, but I'm hoping that I will persevere with this one, as I find the lines of battlecruisers aesthetically appealing:

 

 I constructed the hull frames:

 

 

but decided against paper for the hull. After some experimentation, I opted for filling the hull with balsa wood blocks.  Prior to this I sprayed the entire model with red primer so that I would be able to see the hull frames during the process of whittling and sanding the balsa blocks to the lines of the hull. I used varying thicknesses of balsa to fill the hull between the frames, fixed with cyanoacrylate glue throughout.  I have been shocked by how much I've used:  5oz of thin and 0.5oz of medium gel to construct the hull. 

 

This is the result:

 

That's a metre rule on Roberts' 1/250 scale plans of HMS Queen Mary from British Battlecruisers. The red filler is damage I caused to the deck and hull during construction. I rested the completed side on the bench edge while whittling the opposite side and discovered that balsa and cardboard are really soft and damage easily! The deck has been soaked in cyano and is fairly hard, but I may still overlay it with thin plastic sheet.

 

 

Sanding to the frames was time consuming and messy, but the overall shape seems pretty good to me now. Only in one or two places have I taken the balsa below the red edges of the frames.  I still have sections for the hawsepipes to fit, and then the plan is to cover the hull in a thin layer of resin. This will hopefully even out the imperfections in the balsa and provide a hard surface to work with.

 

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by iang

[Ray S]

This will be an impressive size. It is a great start, and I am looking forward to seeing this progress.

 

All the best,

 

Ray

[beefy66]

Good start so far will be interesting to follow  

 

Stay Safe

beefy

[robgizlu]

Impressive use of Balsa - Good result

Rob

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Wow!  Such an elegant ship; definitely looking forward to watching this one develop

[ArnoldAmbrose]

7 hours ago, iang said:

as I find the lines of battlecruisers aesthetically appealing:

Gidday Iang, me too, I think they were generally graceful ships. What a shame they had a habit of blowing apart. From an appearance only aspect, my favorites of that era were the Tiger and Derfflinger. I'm interested in how you did the hull. And I'll be following this for any other tips from you, if you don't mind. Regards, Jeff.

[Bandsaw Steve]

Nice! 
 

Interesting approach to building the hull and a good result. I agree that a good layer of resin hardener on the balsa and card surfaces is probably a very good idea.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

17 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

What a shame they had a habit of blowing apart.

 

An outdated attitude of shunning any actual gunnery practise and instead removing flash protection measures between turrets, ammunition hoists, magazines and piling up cordite charges in the turret gunhouses to maximise rate of fire as a substitute for gunnery skill will do that to any ship, unfortunately.

[GrantGoodale]

How does one go about getting this? I am definitely interested.

 

[iang]

Thanks for the encouragement.

 

I managed to get a coat of  resin  on the hull ( I used Isopon Fastglass). I did this in two batches, which was probably a mistake, out of fear of the resin hardening before I could use it all. As it turned out I need not of worried.  One batch would have given a more even coat. I used my finger as an applicator. 

 

I need to sand it down when it is fully cured and then apply another coat, but it is  certainly now a hard surface to work with.

 

 

 

More updates when I've applied the next coat, sanded and sprayed it. It will definitely need a fair amount of filler after the resin coat.

[Courageous]

This looks interesting...

 

Stuart

[Dancona]

What a fabulous start, looks about the same size as my project, good call with the balsa and resin, I should have probably gone that route, though it would have got very complicated with all of the hull openings, are you going to build it as the paper kit, or use it as a basis for something else like styrene or brass ?

I will be following this with great interest for obvious reasons (the one true scale, and a "Splendid Cat" ).

Cheers

 

David

[iang]

Getting the hull smooth is turning out to be a bigger job than I anticipated. The hull has had three coats of resin, sanded between each coat. However, possibly because of the cold temperature, I found that the resin ran before hardening despite putting on thin coats with my finger. The runs were pretty resistant to hand sanding, so I used a 12v Bohler minitool:

 

 

 

 

After sanding I sprayed with Halfords' primer and then filled with 3M acrylic glazing putty. This wet sands really well over the resin (it sanded really badly over the balsa before applying resin). 

 

The hull is now getting smooth. Another coat of primer and another light filler coat should pretty much finish the hull to a stage that I can start adding the armour belt and scuttles (I still have the hawsepipes to sort out!):

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2021 by iang

[Chewbacca]

Look forward to following this.  Never seen that approach to hull construction before but it certainly seems to have worked.  Also never (to the best of my knowledge) seen a WW1 battlecruiser in that scale.

[iang]

3 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

Never seen that approach to hull construction before but it certainly seems to have worked.  

Thanks - this is pure experimentation. I have been tinkering with parts of the superstructure of a 1/200 Ark Royal, but have been put off by the complicated hull. Lion's hull is simpler and I thought it would make a good test-bed, plus the fact that I'd really like a large scale model of Lion or Queen Mary (I have a 1/350 ISW Queen Mary under construction and might start a separate thread for that project). 

 

This would have been a better summer project. The near freezing temperature is delaying curing the resin, filler and primer layers and forcing longer than usual  periods between application and sanding. 

Edited January 9, 2021 by iang

[iang]

On 08/01/2021 at 12:01, Dancona said:

What a fabulous start, looks about the same size as my project, good call with the balsa and resin, I should have probably gone that route, though it would have got very complicated with all of the hull openings, are you going to build it as the paper kit, or use it as a basis for something else like styrene or brass ?

I will be following this with great interest for obvious reasons (the one true scale, and a "Splendid Cat" ).

Cheers

 

David

 

Thanks. I've been watching the great job you've been doing on Victorious.  Not sure about the superstructure yet. I'll probably use the paper parts as a template for styrene construction, plus 3D printed parts.

[Wez]

I find the British battlecruisers hugely interesting so I shall be following this thread with interest.

 

No doubt you've seen Drachinifel's guide on the Lion class?

 

 

[iang]

After a lot more sanding and filling, this is where I'm up to:

 

 

 

I'm tempted to take the masking tape off the deck and press on, but reluctantly I have to accept that it still needs more sanding (and filling), but I've run out of sanding belts for my Bohler and new belts won't arrive until next week. The hull skin is very hard, and once I get it smooth, it will be a good surface for detailing. However, I can still see the ghosts of the cardboard frames and unevenness in the lines at certain angles - this might not matter that much as I've still to add the armoured belt, scuttles and torpedo net boom attachment points etc., which will break up the lines of the hull.  

 

I've learnt a few things for future projects: cardboard soaked in cyano is harder than balsa and it is very difficult to lose the frames completely in the sanding process; runs in the resin coat are really difficult to eliminate afterwards (in retrospect I should have started this when outside temperatures were higher and the resin cured faster); this method of hull construction requires a LOT of sanding and filling, but is capable of producing a strong hull that conforms to the lines of the original paper model.

 

 

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

That looks fantastic Ian.

[iang]

I've sanded and filled several more times. I've  also spent a long time looking at photographs, plans and available line drawings. The plans I have are the Roberts' 1/250 plans of Queen Mary, the smaller plans/ line drawings of Lion and Queen Mary in  Burt's British Battleships of World War One and those in Backer's Grand Fleet Battlecruisers.  I'm having doubts about Lion, given that the most useful plans are Roberts' of QM. I've changed the title of the thread to reflect this indecision (I know QM was 6 inches broader in the beam, but I can live with that, if eventually I choose QM). 

 

One of the issues I have is the armour belt for Lion. I'm not sure if it is exactly the same as QM, but I've added the first part of the belt, using the Roberts' plans of QM. If I go for QM I've also got to make a stern walk, so decision time is fast approaching.

 

The GPM paper deck is quite nice (it's just resting on the hull and still needs a final trim), but there is a slight mismatch between the colours of the forward and rear sections, which is a little off-putting.There would also be a join that would be difficult to disguise,

 

 

The alternative is making one from a Scaledecks wooden deck uncut sheet, but given the quality of the GPM deck, I'm leaning towards using the paper one, which fits well already. If I do, it would push me towards Lion as there are differences in the position of the deck fittings between Lion and QM.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Ian do you have any vector drawing skills? John could possibly be persuaded to laser cut the Scaledecks blank for you if so, and it would also allow you to reposition stuff on the vector drawing should you in fact lean towards Queen Mary.

 

P.s. this still looks excellent.

[TallBlondJohn]

Maybe scan one of the deck parts and re-print it? Probably too big, and very difficult to colour match. If a few of the planks along the join could be picked out and replaced, that might work. Does look very good so far.

[mdesaxe]

20 hours ago, iang said:

There would also be a join that would be difficult to disguise,

From my experience working with paper models I can pass on a couple of things that may help make the join less obvious. First, do not cut on the printed black line at the join but cut on its inside, thus eliminating it. The difference in the overall length of the deck will be in the order of 0.02mm. Secondly, it pays to lightly burnish the cut edges on both the top and the bottom of the paper to eliminate the very slightly higher edge caused by the knife blade. The disadvantage is that the burnished paper will be shinier than the surrounding area but a coat of flat finish will fix that problem. Also, remember it is not o good idea to use acrylic finishes over paper-it can take up the water and buckle-so it is better to use a lacquer for this.

 

Maurice

[iang]

Modelling has been in abeyance for a while due to a domestic injury to my right thumb:

 

It is healing (steristrips), but opens up still if I flex my thumb. It probably needed stitching.

 

However, I have made a decision to model Lion at Dogger Bank 1915. I don't want a dark grey model, and cannot find a photo of Queen Mary in light grey with a dark grey hull panel.  This photo of Lion was taken after Dogger Bank (I've purchased a high resolution copy):

 

 

There is also a poor quality photo in Burt of A & B turrets looking to the stern, with the turrets trained in the same position as this photo. It shows a  pole mast, rather than a tripod mast, which is something I was unsure about until I found this photo.

 

I'd appreciate views on the staining over the dark grey hull panel.  

 

More updates on the model when my thumb heals more.

Edited February 7, 2021 by iang

[Courageous]

That wound looks nasty, needs looking at.

 

Stuart