1/72 HMNZS Waikato

[Alun Gallie]

Couple there I might need to add to the library.

 

Spent a couple of hours today but was mostly priming resin breakwaters and the turret and doing some touch ups ready to remask and respray a section of deck before I move on the the foredeck slope.

 

I don't have the two colours (British Camouflage Grey (Waikato Grey as we called it) and Dark Admiralty Grey (Deck Grey) ) in brush pots only sprays and whilst I have tried spraying a small amount into a cap to use with brush because of composition of paint it doesn't work well. I understand there is a company in UK that matches British Admiralty Colours in small pots but can not locate here so decided to see what Vallejo greys I had.

 

 

Wolf Grey actually turned out to be quite close to Waikato Grey and Sombre is close to the Dark Admiralty so I may be able to mix something useable. When spraying tomorrow I will do a couple of plastic test tiles with spray to try matching on. 

The other thing I did today was fit the draft markings. I could not find accurate reference photos detailed enough to read numbers but know ours where roman numerals and the photos I could find allowed me to determine how many of the grey and how many on the boot topping. I did find a photo of a British leader that showed normal numbers i.e.. 1,2,3 starting at 20 as the highest so just converted those to roman.  Happy enough for now. They are BEC vinyl stickers, trimmed. In close you can see the vinyl backing but have found once clear coat applied and from a viewing distance of 2-3 feet its not noticeable and they are so much easier to work with than waterslides. 

 

[mick]

excellent work

[bissyboat]

Looking very good. ⚓👍

[Alun Gallie]

Progress has slowed a little. I am currently waiting for a hip replacement (too much abuse as an ice hockey goalie for years) but as a consequence I find if I spend too long on my feet on concrete I pay for it afterwards. I had been over doing it on the modelling (despite having a stool I can never remember to sit down) and pulling up quite sore so have had to back off a little. Oh well they say you eat an elephant one bite at a time. 

 

Got the rest of the decks sprayed Dark Admiralty Grey and have moved on to fitting next section of bollards/fairleads, guardrail stanchion bases and wooden beadings. 

 

 

I have decided in this stage to go down to where the bridge screen will be just aft of the turret. So as well as rails/beading etc I will be doing both breakwaters, the turret, forecastle hatch and range of air vents, lockers and other items that where stored attached to the deck between the breakwaters such as the gangway. I then plan to move aft and tackle the quarterdeck and flight deck. Then I will head back onto the superstructure I believe before finally doing the wastes (narrow deck walks down both sides under superstructure overhangs) which feature things such as accommodation ladders (the stairway that gets lowered for boat operations) the boats boom and scramble nets. 

 

I did also play around with masking the flight deck markings. Still have a little clean up from bleeds and some tape lines to remove/touch up but from 2-3 ft has desired effect. I did toy with the idea of doing with computer cut vinyl stickers. The deck is ply which is a throw back to building this as an RC model but now I am leaning towards mainly display I am thinking of replacing with plastic card as not sure on texture.  

 

 

[Alun Gallie]

For Exercise, For Exercise, For Exercise - Fire, Fire, Fire

 

On the cable deck there was two fire hydrants, one on each side just fwd of the hawse pipes. The where used in firefighting, particularly for cooling the boundaries (i.e. hosing the side of the ship to keep cool) as the paint shop was a favourite for fire 3excercises along side for obvious reasons. However they were used more often for connecting a short hose which then hung down the hawse and washed the anchor cable when it was recovered, particularly on muddy bottoms. I think from memory they might have just been salt water mains as I don't recall them being used for fresh water wash downs (yes like it sounds washing down the whole upper deck with soap, brooms and fresh water when arriving in port) 

 

Main reason I wanted to find some references and try to include was they where painted fire red so would add a little pop of colour. 

 

I managed to find a photo of HMNZS Canterbury (wide beam Leander) which showed them and from memory were pretty t across RNZN vessels.

 

 

 

That was about the best photo I could get, appeared to be essentially a piece of flanged pipe with a valve /hose plug at top with a black lever type valve handle.

 

After trying various thicknesses of plastic rob, brass rod etc and comparing to relative scale of other deck items around them (i.e. same height as fairlead etc) 

I cam up with 

 

Once the paint was dry I fitted into corresponding spot on the deck.

 

   

 

I am happy enough, now to see if I can duplicate for other side. 

[Faraway]

11 minutes ago, Alun Gallie said:

two fire hydrants,

Would these be found on all ships ?

Jon

[Alun Gallie]

All I served on had them in one form or another. I have also seen photos of them on RN Leander's to so think were standard for that class at least. There was one other use I didn't mention. In 1988 we visited Australia for their Bicentennial Fleet Review. We entered port behind USS New Jersey, the WWII vintage US battlewagon. A number of Greenpeace protesters where out in kayaks and inflatables but I think they took one look at the New Jersey, all 44000 tons of her and decided to focus their attention on the 'little' ship behind (ironic when you consider at that time NZ was the first nuclear free country in the world I believe) Those hydrants came in handy for the fire hoses to 'dissuade' the kayaks from getting too close - purely for their own safety of course. 

 

[Faraway]

1 hour ago, Alun Gallie said:

All I served on had them in one form or another.

The reason I ask, is that they don't appear on models as a rule.

I wonder if they weren't so obvious on WW2 warships ?

Jon

[Bertie McBoatface]

8 minutes ago, Faraway said:

The reason I ask, is that they don't appear on models as a rule.

I wonder if they weren't so obvious on WW2 warships ?

Jon

 

I think the habit of painting fire fighting equipment red started much much later than WWII. The British Standard for red extinguishers (whatever the extinguishant) dates only from 1997 and before that they came in a ton of different colours including dark green on military vehicles, whatever you might see on model tanks. I suppose there was similar variety for hydrants? I can't find authoritative specs for the navy unfortunately.

[Alun Gallie]

Have a fairly big weekend ahead of me (Rugby World Cup final tomorrow morning and out all day today) so wanted to get an hour or so in this morning. 

 

 

Fitted the starboard side hydrant and another U shaped vent pipe that was alongside it. Mixed some deck paint and did a few little touch ups. You can notice in this photo not so much due to colour but rather shine but I think a bit of time (and a couple coats of clear coat) should help bring together. If not I can live with it. A real ship was patchy paint up close due to the constant maintenance and touch ups and only looked truly coherent after a major refit/repaint in dry dock.

 

 

 

I also fitted the fwd breakwater - the fit to the deck is not perfect as the resin piece did not quite match deck contours despite twisting and sanding but again I am happy enough with it and figured the risk of making a sticky mess trying to get a perfect fit was higher than living with the slightest of gaps that basically are not visible now the vents are in place and the is still more clutter to be fitted (fire hose basket etc) 

 

 

[Dave Swindell]

11 hours ago, Alun Gallie said:

A real ship was patchy paint up close due to the constant maintenance and touch ups and only looked truly coherent after a major refit/repaint in dry dock.

I'd fully agree with the first part, but not the second - every drydock I've come out of the hull sides were lovely, but the decks were in a right state.

The external hull and especially the hull bottom were stripped/touched up as appropriate and given the required finishing coats - part of the reason for being in the drydock in the first place, but nothing above that would be painted unless specific repairs/modifications were done, and then only the repair area would be painted.

The decks would generally be in a worse condition coming out of dock than going in, having received further damage from hull blasting, dockyard equipment, stowage, cables, hoses etc and overspray from hull painting.

Sorting this out didn't require the ship to be in drydock, could be done on passage by crew, and, most important - didn't come off the superintendant's docking budget!

[Alun Gallie]

 

14 hours ago, Dave Swindell said:

I'd fully agree with the first part, but not the second - every drydock I've come out of the hull sides were lovely, but the decks were in a right state.

The external hull and especially the hull bottom were stripped/touched up as appropriate and given the required finishing coats - part of the reason for being in the drydock in the first place, but nothing above that would be painted unless specific repairs/modifications were done, and then only the repair area would be painted.

The decks would generally be in a worse condition coming out of dock than going in, having received further damage from hull blasting, dockyard equipment, stowage, cables, hoses etc and overspray from hull painting.

Sorting this out didn't require the ship to be in drydock, could be done on passage by crew, and, most important - didn't come off the superintendant's docking budget!

I get your point and agree with while actually docked - but I did mean entire refit process or at least way RNZN did it for major refits. First thing we used to do after undocking in a refit was a full deck and superstructure paint before sailing for shakedowns and workups. 

[Alun Gallie]

Well I wound up with a bit of spare time today after all after a change in plans. So I decided to work on the ships fittings stored between the two forecastle breakwaters.

It proved really tricky to get good photos of this area on any Leander's, let alone Waikato but I did get the following screen shot from a blurry 1980s video.

 

It is a couple of years before my target period (as I can tell from the red mesh on the inside of the vents, one of my first jobs onboard on my first posting was to paint these grey) 

 

 

From left to right, looking at the items secured on deck is

 

a) some sort of straight spar, possibly related to jackstays or a boats boom - can not remember.

b) two PVC covered items, I believe these are fuel hose extension pieces for refuelling. They are covered in grey PVC covers here but I know at times (and in other photos) were also left uncovered which is how I have decided to model for interest. 

c) two shorted pieces - may be also fuel related - I will leave these for now and try to better identify. 

d) you can then see two boards running sort of horizontally between the breakwaters, this was where the ships brow (or portable gangway) was stowed. In this video the ship is under tow to the ammunitioning wharf and I suspect the brow has already been moved ready for use. 

e) then there is one more long, slightly thicker boom/spar - I suspect this might be the stumpmast for jackstays. 

 

 

[Alun Gallie]

I started with the brow. This was a slight H profile so a made the basic shape from styrene, using the rectangle shape that represented it on my 1/72 plans to get size.

 

 

Photo before clean up.

There was then a number of small square mounts along the outer rail edge where the guardrail 'plugged' in and anti slip steppers fitted horizontally across the deck part. These became really important in posts like Darwin where huge tide changes could see the brow move from sloping up to the flight deck at 45 degree angle to down to O1 or even Seacat deck during a 6 hr watch. It was not a fun port to be duty.  

 

 

It was then fitted with adhesive anti slip treading between the steppers. I decided to try to recreate this at scale so cut and glued some of the finest grade emery paper I had in place after having already painted. One thing I do enjoy about this scale is you can be creative with materials.

[Alun Gallie]

I then moved on to the spar and fuel hoses. The spar (whatever it is) is straightforward - from details I can see its just a piece of straight styrene rod to represent that. I know everything was secured to deck either with tiedowns through eyebolts or something a little more. From memory these items had a couple of wooden mounts making a cradle and then metal hinged half loops that closed over top and were secured with wing nuts. 

I made these from Styrene and used a couple of different radius rat tail files to make the 'cradle' 

 

From memory and photos fuel hoses were black rubber with a metal wire cover in rubber forming a ridge on the outside and strengthening.

 

 

As can be seen above. To try to simulate/imply this I had an idea.

 

I started with a piece of aluminium tube of suitable diameter cut to length, some very fine solder wire and some electricians rubberised heat shrink. 

 

I wrapped the wire around the aluminium (note after finding above picture I may have a second go at this with tighter wrap but technique will still be the same) 

(complete with Waikato Grey on the fingernails - ahh the memories) 

I then covered with heat shrink.

And applied heat

I got this 

Trimmed and fitted two pieces of styrene tube to each end for the couplings 

I am fairly happy although will probably have a go at a tighter wrap.

Off to do a bit more work now then hopefully some finished in situ shots of this stage. 

 

 

[Alun Gallie]

Got the pieces I was working on done and sitting in place (not glued yet) 

 

 

 

 

 

And the view as you walk down the waste onto the forecastle.

 

I leave for a two cruise to Tonga and Fiji at the end of the week so I don't think I will get too much more done in next week. If a am quiet for a couple of weeks that's why. I haven't lost momentum yet.

 

Edited February 18 by Alun Gallie
photo issue

[Steve D]

Alun, clever use of heat shrink, I'd not thought of that.  Now I just need to find a wire reinforced hose to make....

 

Looking very tidy

 

Cheers

 

Steve

[Chewbacca]

On 26/10/2023 at 09:48, Alun Gallie said:

I think from memory they might have just been salt water mains as I don't recall them being used for fresh water wash downs (yes like it sounds washing down the whole upper deck with soap, brooms and fresh water when arriving in port)  

 

Definitely salt water firemain.  The fresh water evaporators would never be able to produce enough fresh water to support even the size 1 hoses used tween decks let alone the size 2s/3s used on the upper deck.

 

On 26/10/2023 at 10:00, Faraway said:

Would these be found on all ships ?

Jon

 

Every ship I have ever served in has had at least two hydrants (painted red) on the foc's'le used, as Alun says, for boundary cooling and cleaning the anchor/cable.

 

On 26/10/2023 at 12:05, Bertie McBoatface said:

I think the habit of painting fire fighting equipment red started much much later than WWII. The British Standard for red extinguishers (whatever the extinguishant) dates only from 1997 and before that they came in a ton of different colours including dark green on military vehicles, whatever you might see on model tanks. I suppose there was similar variety for hydrants? I can't find authoritative specs for the navy unfortunately.

Fire hydrants/hose baskets were painted red in HM warships for as long as I can remember (my first time at sea goes back to 1977 as a Sea Cadet) though I do recall that the upperdeck hose baskets were repainted grey around the time of the First Gulf War (still housed red hoses so made very little difference!)

 

8 hours ago, Alun Gallie said:

I get your point and agree with while actually docked - but I did mean entire refit process or at least way RNZN did it for major refits. First thing we used to do after undocking in a refit was a full deck and superstructure paint before sailing for shakedowns and workups. 

I remember bringing HMS GLASGOW out of a 15 month refit in Devonport's covered "garage".  While we were dry docked, the whole of the hull from keel to upper deck was painted but as @Dave Swindell says, the upperdeck was left until we were outside.  The refit contractor moved us out into the basin over a Bank Holiday weekend and the first I knew about it was the Monday morning when I had a call from my Duty Refit Senior Rating that they were doing it.  As the CO, I thought they would at least have had the courtesy to tell me even though they had charge of the ship until we went tidal.

 

When I left for the weekend, the decks were unpainted steel.  When I got back on Tuesday morning, they were being painted...in the pouring rain.  Was it any wonder that within 6 months we were back in having the whole of the upperdeck repainted under warranty?

[Bertie McBoatface]

5 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

painted...in the pouring rain

I wonder if that’s what happened to my Cinquecento…

[Faraway]

3 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

in the pouring rain

Sounds like my county council. I remember following a gritter lorry, spreading road grit/salt in the pouring rain.

Jon

[Chewbacca]

The funniest part t that though was when we did come back in to be repainted, on the day they were due to start I went up to the Flight Deck for morning colours and again it was pouring down.  Just after we piped the carry on, I noticed this dockyard worker swinging something on a bit of string above his head.  I asked him what he was doing and his reply was "testing the humidity to see if we can start painting..."  I often wonder what they would have done if his humidity tester had been faulty and said yes.

[Alun Gallie]

Only a very small update - picked up a piece of fine brass tubing and finished off the fire hydrants. 

 

 

 

Now to break out the Brasso 

 

Of interest to previous discussion on red fire fittings I found the following video 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KyeJpP6QZI

 

of HMNZS Waikato with HMS Alacrity in the Indian Ocean in 1982 (before my time but believe when NZ assisted with Indian Ocean patrols to allow HMS vessels to deploy to the Falklands)  Apart from some great shots of the mighty Wasp ( I was an ASAC so logged many hours with Wasps and have a soft spot for them ) it shows a landing and a winching to the forecastle. The hydrants can be seen but are deck grey at this time so for RNZN appears the red came sometime between then and 1987. 

Useful video though and I have captured some stills (albeit blurry) of forecastle and later quarterdeck detail. 

Edited February 18 by Alun Gallie
spelling

[bissyboat]

The fire hydrants look very good. This model is turning out to be a very authentic build. ⚓👍

[Alun Gallie]

One final small update before I leave for two weeks cruising Tonga and Fiji.

 

 

 

I added the support stanchions for either side of the anchor platform (single support) and the most fwd guardrail stanchion (twin V support). Used a very small block of styrene (just slightly bigger then the hole drilled in it (learnt was easiest to drill hole then cut down to size, rather than trying to cut size and then drill hole) to represent the deck mounting blocks these attached to. Note they are not yet attached to the guard rail stanchions at top as none of those have been glued in place yet to make threading the guard rails easier. You can see holes in deck on right for the port fwd V.

I hate photos that zoom this much as you can see every little imperfection but given those guardrail stanchions at total of 15mm high luckily most are not noticeable.  

Edited February 18 by Alun Gallie
photo issue

[Bertie McBoatface]

12 hours ago, Alun Gallie said:

every little imperfection

You can see them but to me that ship seems perfectly prepared for Admiral’s inspection. 
 

It’s rather good, you know.