HMS Onslow destroyer

[Modelholic]

Plan 'C' 

Modelling her getting 'pooped' by a following sea?

Tom

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Tom, yeah, there's an option. I think that would be quite frightening in the Arctic, or anywhere I guess with weather that wild. Regards, Jeff.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday All, the next task for my conversion to HMS Onslow was to reduce the depth of the hull, which means I have to waterline the hull - twice. Below is a photo of that happening.

      You can see the two waterlines. Two? The upper wl is measured down from the deck, ie the freeboard. The lower wl is measured up from the keel ie the draught. The bit in the middle is the error in hull depth. I've said in previous posts that I think it's about 4mm, for a Tribal. But as HMS Onslow is a smaller ship that surplus depth is about 5mm. I did both cuts simultaneously, while the hull was at its most rigid. And actually it was easier than I thought it would be. Drawing the two lines was a bit awkward, I needed three hands. Mrs AA kindly loaned me one of hers. You'll notice that I stuck masking tape to the hull. I thought it would mark and show the pencil lines more easily.
     And here are the three hull halves. (Yeah, I know, a contradiction in terms 🙂).

      The next job (after cleaning these up a little) will be to form the stern of the upper hull. I plan to do that by wrapping the hull sides around the quarterdeck. Once that is done I plan to try to rejoin the upper and lower hulls. 
     And the middle bit? Anyone want 1/4 of a 1/600 scale Tribal hull? Maybe I could put a deck on it, add a round turret and call it a 1940s version of the USS Monitor. A bit late (nearly 80 years) for the Hampton Roads battle though.
     Well, that's it for now. Thank you for your interest. Stay safe, and regards to all, Jeff.

[Dancona]

Blimey Jeff, you don't muck around !!

Great stuff, keep it coming 😁

 

Cheers

 

David

[Adm Lord De Univers]

I think you've made that look a lot easier than it actually was! Very impressive work.

 

David

[Gisbod]

Scary stuff Jeff, I’m hiding behind the sofa 🤭

 

 

Guy

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday, seriously, it wasn't that difficult. The hardest part was getting the two waterlines in the right place. The plastic cut easily, and the further along I got the blade had to be laid along the hull, which in itself assisted in a straight cut. Gluing the two halves back together, well, that might be fun.

     And Guy, while you're behind the sofa have a good look around. I think carpet monsters have been known to hide their left-overs there. 😁 You might be surprised what you find.

Thanks for your interest and comments. Regards, Jeff.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday All, I've wrapped and glued the sides around the stern of HMS Onslow. Due to the damage to the stbd side at the stern I couldn't get a piece long enough to reach the centre of the stern so the port side had to wrap around far enough to reach it. Hence the join is off centre and at present doesn't look the best.

     Hopefully with a bit of cleaning up it'll look better. I'll only do a token clean-up at present, until I get the lower hull attached. Which won't be tonight as it's not far off midnight here.
So good night All, stay safe and regards, Jeff.

[beefy66]

Evening Jeff looks like your off to a flyer here will follow along always like a good history lesson along the way.  

 

Stay Safe

beefy

[JohnWS]

Looking good, Jeff.

 

John

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday All, I have a meagre bit of progress on HMS Onslow to report. Despite my best efforts the cuts to the hull weren't perfect, plus the combined depth of the two halves is still slightly oversize (although to me it doesn't look it). So I attached a large file to a block of wood and have been slowly and laboriously filing away.

     I've been placing fingers all along the hull and sliding it back and forth along the file. This has helped me get the cut line dead flat. In the background is the lower hull, which has been receiving the same treatment. The photo probably isn't the sharpest but with the large void area behind the hull the camera had trouble deciding what to auto-focus on.
     I have a book on Australian destroyers and one of the statistics it provides is 'molded depth' which appears to be the sum of the freeboard and the draught, measured amidships. While the freeboard and draft may vary depending on the ship's loading the molded depth remains constant. For this model it should be 9.5mm, measured just behind the break in the hull. I'm nearly there, but I want to reduce it a little more, then slide a sheet of styrene between the upper and lower hulls to aid the join. Hopefully that will be in the next day or two.
     So that's it for now. Thank you for your comments and interest. Regards, Jeff.

[JohnWS]

Hi Jeff,

 

Good job on flattening the cut line.  As much as I've tried to do straight saw cuts manually, like you I always end up filing & sanding the cut edge flat.

 

John

[Dave Swindell]

1 hour ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

 I have a book on Australian destroyers and one of the statistics it provides is 'molded depth' which appears to be the sum of the freeboard and the draught, measured amidships.

Close, but no cigar. Freeboard and draught are external measurements, moulded depth is an internal measurement, it's the height between the top of the frames (keel) to the top of the main deck beams at the gunwale amidships. Used in conjunction with moulded breadth in calculating  a vessel's net tonnage i.e. not really relevant to warships.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday, and thanks. I must have misinterpreted what I read. It's the only reference I have that mentioned it. The book is "The Destroyers", Australia's Naval Heritage by Vic Cassells.

Regards, Jeff.

[Adm Lord De Univers]

4 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

In the background is the lower hull,

Bit macabre, but you could use that lower hull to trial out a capsized diorama/scene? Actual boat is looking good though.

 

David

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday David, I believe the USN lost three destroyers late war in the Pacific due to a typhoon. I think this was the incident (or similar) that Herman Wouk portrayed in his book "The Caine Mutiny" when USS Caine came upon a capsized destroyer. From memory  of high school years in the early '70s I thought USS Caine could have been a flush decker or four stacker destroyer in the book but later destroyers were used in the film. This is a very long way of saying that your idea is very plausible.

     On this build I'm going to try to reattach the lower hull, but if that's not very successful then I have some 'capsizable' hulls from future models. Regards, Jeff.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday All, HMS Onslow's hull is almost done. Almost, but not quite. I need to get some filler because the stuff I have is getting a bit old. I've rejoined the upper and lower hull, as you can see below. You can also see how much chunkier the original hull (background) was, compared to this modified hull (foreground).

     The white strip along the sides is in fact a 0.5mm deep sheet of styrene. Due to the flair of the bow and the cutaway under the counter (the stern) removing a 5mm deep section of the hull meant that the joining edges of the two hull halves no longer met properly, particularly at the stern. Hence the styrene sheet to allow contact area for gluing. It is not intended to mark the waterline but is actually very close. As I said, I've got some filling and sanding to do. And a patch job. While trimming the white styrene sheet after gluing I slipped with the knife and sliced a little of the top edge of the hull. You can see that here too, just aft of the break in the foc'sle and main decks. That hopefully won't be too hard to fix. I've also sanded the scuttles (portholes) and will be filling them in when I get the filler. I'll then re-drill them, but currently there's about twice as many as I need.
     Well that's it to date. I won't be able to get any filler until late in the week so I guess I can start looking at the superstructures in the interim. And maybe make some anchors and screws. I've only done screws once before, for my recent May 1941 version of HMS Hood. These obviously will be much smaller, maybe too small for me to manage. The kit screws look OK, minus the flash, but annoyingly Airfix rarely gives you both left- and right-turning screws. You usually get all of one or the other.
     Well, that's it for now. Stay safe, and regards to all, Jeff.

[steve5]

very nice work jeff , braver man than me .

[ArnoldAmbrose]

4 hours ago, steve5 said:

braver man than me .

Gidday, not really. It's a relatively cheap kit, and I have spares if I botched it. Those that take on the big expensive kits with all the PE and AM stuff, like yourself, are the brave ones. But thank you anyway. Regards, Jeff.

[Chewbacca]

Some great work going on here Jeff - very impressed.  Personally  would have cut a chunk out of the hull midships and joined them together before repairing the damage to the stern with filler rather than trying to bend the residue of the stern around but you made that look really easy.  How did you get it to bend without the use of heat if I may ask?

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Chewy, I usually do remove a midships section then rejoin as you suggested, but in this case the stern was damaged (it looks like it was melted a little, it came like that), the melted bit extending all the way down to the waterline. Hence once I removed the lower hull there would have been nothing holding the stern together. This way also meant that I didn't have a join mark amidships down the side. I thought at the stern it would be less noticeable. I'm not very good at filling and sanding joins.

     The plastic folded around the stern deck piece OK, I did it a bit at a time. The deck piece acted as a shape guide. Then once the two sides met I glued a piece of styrene strip inside across the join to help prevent it popping open later. All this was before I attached the white styrene sheet and lower hull.

     Regards, Jeff.

[Modelholic]

I've bent styrene in the past by vertically (if doing the same fix as Jeff that is) sawing partway through the piece every 2-3mm or so on the inside of the bend. The sharper the bend the closed the saw cuts need to be.

Tom

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday All, here's the next (minor) installment of HMS Onslow. I've filled and sanded the hull. As a filler I've used white Tamiya putty. My LHS was a bit limited in the choices available but this being brand new it seems to have done the trick. I filed, than used 240 grit paper, followed by 400 then 800 grit sand paper. The hull looks and feels quite smooth now. The hull form is not perfect but I think as close as I'm going to get. Of course, all that sanding created a lot of dust, requiring the hull to be wiped down. I needed something soft to do the job, and ended up using a damp tissue.

     I've still got to mark and drill the required scuttles (port holes). Plus the hull entry points (shaft bearings?) of the shafts are a little too far aft, but that's a minor thing I think, shouldn't be too much of a problem to fix. After those two jobs are done I'd better start thinking about painting the hull.
     I've also started making the superstructures and deck houses, but not worth a photo yet.
So thanks for your interest. Stay safe, and regards to all, Jeff.

[PF Naughton]

Hi,

Your build/conversion is looking great.  Can't wait to see more.

Pat

PS.  Hope this isn't too far out there, but am I the only one that when I see the name "HMS Onslow" I wonder if there is also an "HMS Daisy", "HMS Rose", and "HMS Richard" to make up a complete "Keeping up Appearances" flotilla (maybe USS Bon Homme Richard" (Good Man Richard) could fill in the Richard part  )

30th Anniversary of Keeping Up Appearances - British Comedy Guide

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Pat, they're on my "Bucket" list. 🙂 Regards, Jeff.