Scarborough 1914 AD

[Angus Tura]

Hello.

 

 

This groupbuild has crystallised an idea that has been swimming around for me for, literally, years.

 

Here are a couple of Hecker and Goros 54mm figures:

 

 

I do love these figures. They are properly 54mm, or 1/32 scale. The officer has been in my stash for ages but the rating I just bought. I have thought that the officer would be good posed on/in a wedge or section of a battleship to contrast his puniness with the massiveness of the industrial-military complex. I had thought too that I'd like the battleship to be the battlecruiser SMS Derfflinger, because it has the coolest crest. This GB has made me think about possible figures involved in bombardment, and how I might continue with a Yorkshire theme.

 

On 14/12/14 the German battlecruiser group sailed over the North Sea to bombard towns on the East Coast of England, in the hope that the Royal Navy would give battle. Derfflinger and Von der Tann split from the other battlecruisers which sailed towards Hartlepool and Whitby. Derfflinger and Von der Tann sailed south to bombard Scarborough.

 

So, I thought that would make a pretty cool build. I have given a lot of thought as to where to put the figure on the ship. I thought that it would be easiest towards the stern, especially as the freeboard is least there. I got the Derfflinger plans book above to think about this and, having failed to find a place on the ship towards the stern where there wasn't a massive amount of deck stuff to scratchbuild, have ended up thinking that the easiest place to do would be right in the prow. That will let me have the crest which appeared where you might think the name of the ship would go. The bow will also be structurally the easiest, or at least least difficult, bit to make. It begs the question as to, "what these chaps would be up to standing on the prow just as they got to Scarborough?" As they were hoping to draw the British out to fight I think that it's credible that the Derfflinger would be flying its battle-flags.

 

The model then is going to be of two of the crew of SMS Derfflinger off Scarborough at about 8am on 14/12/14. They have just hoisted a battle flag on the bowsprite.

 

I've expanded the relevant bits of the plans in the Kagero book to 1/32 scale. That is x 11:

 

 

 

Looking around, on-line, I also found a very helpful close-up of battle damage to Derfflinger after the Battle of Jutland: https://www.sms-navy.com/bc/SMS_Derfflinger-BatDam_21Jun1916-3.jpg . There are also a number of photos to find with details of planking, rails and guttering on Kaiserliche Marine ships from the period. The Kagero book has really useful 3D plans of some of the deck fittings also.

 

The stem of the ship is 24.2cm in the plan above and I did think this was too high to be manageable but the battle damage photo above shows the boot-topping about 20 scale centimetres below the deck which I think will be better. Allowing for the bow wave, I think it will look OK:

 

 

So, that's the idea. If anyone has any tips about bow-waves in 54mm, I'd be really glad to hear them!

 

See you soon,

 

Alan 

[Jasper dog]

Great idea!

Should be an interesting one to watch!

 

Good luck

Darryl 

[Col.]

You've come up with an interesting and original idea here Alan

[Dave Swindell]

10 hours ago, Angus Tura said:

So, I thought that would make a pretty cool build. I have given a lot of thought as to where to put the figure on the ship. I thought that it would be easiest towards the stern, especially as the freeboard is least there. I got the Derfflinger plans book above to think about this and, having failed to find a place on the ship towards the stern where there wasn't a massive amount of deck stuff to scratchbuild, have ended up thinking that the easiest place to do would be right in the prow. That will let me have the crest which appeared where you might think the name of the ship would go. The bow will also be structurally the easiest, or at least least difficult, bit to make. It begs the question as to, "what these chaps would be up to standing on the prow just as they got to Scarborough?" As they were hoping to draw the British out to fight I think that it's credible that the Derfflinger would be flying its battle-flags.

 

So, that's the idea. If anyone has any tips about bow-waves in 54mm, I'd be really glad to hear them!

Hi Alan,

I thought for a second you were coming over to the dark arts of ship modelling, but then I saw the figure models.

The layout for this vignette sounds interesting, and could be justified for a couple of scenario's but not for what you are suggesting. 

 

Battle ensigns were oversize ensigns flown from the main signalling mast - big and high so everyone can see who you are. 

At any scale the figures would be relatively small and a good distance away from the battle ensign except in the moment of hoisting, but you're still going to loose the figures against the size of the superstructure and mast, or loose all context of the ship id you concentrate on just the figures and flag.

 

The jack (flag flown from the jack staff - the flagpole on the prow), however is only flow at anchor or whilst moored alongside and not whilst under way. 

When entering Scarborough Bay the decks would have  been cleared for action, crew at the guns or other stations and not on deck at risk from blast from the main guns.

When entering or leaving port, or heaving up/dropping the anchor there would be an officer on the focsle to take charge of the anchor or mooring party, so there would be a rating and officer present there for the striking or raising of the jack - so you could link this to departing or returning from the bombardment. It would also solve your bow wave problem as the ship would be stationary.

 

Derfflinger moored to a buoy, jack flying from jackstaff

 

Derfflinger under way, no jack on jackstaff, or ensign at the stern, standard size ensign flying from signal yardarm on mainmast. This would have been replaced with the much larger battle ensign entering Scarborough Bay

 

 

[Angus Tura]

Dave,

 

Thanks for that. I was a bit troubled by the improbability of anyone being on deck on arriving off Scarborough. To set this, as you say, in that moment of departure for Scarborough would be better. Not having to heart-search about modelling waves breaking over the bow is definitely a boon. It is also a boon to know the flagpole is called a Jack Staff and not a Bowsprite.

 

I love that second picture you've posted. I don't think its Derffinger: there's no B-turret and the secondary armament was above the main deck on the Derfflinger. Whatever, it would make a marvellous model in 1/700.

 

While I've got you, do you know a reference for how the Jack would be rigged up to the Jack Staff? That is to say, where do the ropes go?

 

TIA,

 

Alan

 

 

[Dave Swindell]

13 hours ago, Angus Tura said:

I love that second picture you've posted. I don't think its Derffinger: there's no B-turret and the secondary armament was above the main deck on the Derfflinger. Whatever, it would make a marvellous model in 1/700.

While I've got you, do you know a reference for how the Jack would be rigged up to the Jack Staff? That is to say, where do the ropes go?

Hi Alan

 

You are of course correct, that photo isn't Derfflinger, its the battleship SMS Kaiser, with SMS Friedrich der Grosse astern, arriving at the Norwegian town of Balholm for the unveiling of the statue of Fridtjof the Bold on the island of Vangsnes, donated by the German Emperor on 31 July 1913.

I'm not an expert on the German Imperial Navy, nearly all my naval references are Royal Navy. I just googled Derfflinger and picked a couple of images to illustrate my point on flags without really looking at the other details, it is a cracking photo though!

 

Regarding rigging the Jackstaff, the jackstaff itself is very often not permanently rigged, being rather prone to damage if taking it green over the front, it would be rigged or stowed by the focsle party going in/out of port. Jackstaffs often have a decorative truck at the masthead (usually a crown in the RN), check what your drawings show for Derfflinger. This will have a sheave or pulley hidden inside it for the halyard to pass over.  Each end of the halyard has an Inglefeild clip on it, and the Jack has a clip on the top, and a length of rope with another clip on the bottom. The clips on the flag are attached to the clips on each end of the halyard (forming  a continuous loop up and over the pulley/sheave in the truck) and the jack can then be run up the jackstaff. The bottom section of the halyard can then be fastened to a cleat on the bottom of the jackstaff.

The length of rope on the bottom of the flag serves several purposes, it secures the flag when rolled up and stowed, it enables the signalman to attach it to the halyard the right way up in the dark or with it still furled, and if it's secured around the flag correctly the flag can be hoisted into position in a furled state, and then "let fly" with a sharp tug on the lowering section of the halyard. This wouldn't normally be done with a jack, but is sometimes used when signalling -  a preparatory signal would be made giving the order, then a separate signal flag would be let fly to signal when to execute the order.

 

Below photo shows a bunting tosser  cleating the halyards after hoisting a jack, note the Jackstaff is removable and has a crown for an ornamental truck at the top

 

 

 

[arfa1983]

14 minutes ago, Dave Swindell said:

Below photo shows a bunting tosser  cleating the halyards after hoisting a jack, note the Jackstaff is removable and has a crown for an ornamental truck at the top

 

If I only read this with no context or without the explanation above it, I would be extremely confused! 

 

A very thorough explanation however!

[81-er]

Thank you for your in-depth explanations Dave, I’m learning a huge amount of nautical information I never knew I needed to know 👍

 

James

[Dave Swindell]

6 minutes ago, 81-er said:

Thank you for your in-depth explanations Dave, I’m learning a huge amount of nautical information I never knew I needed to know 👍

 

James

No problem James, 35 years at sea and I've learnt far more than I've ever needed to know

 

[Angus Tura]

On 1/25/2022 at 4:18 PM, 81-er said:

Thank you for your in-depth explanations Dave, I’m learning a huge amount of nautical information I never knew I needed to know 👍

 

James

 

You are not alone, James. 

 

The critical bit of this whole thing, I think, is going to be the shape of the rear bulkhead of the model as that will control the curve of the side plates, deck, &c. So, I started with that. The plans don't have a shape for that particular frame: 323.

 

 

I've reckoned it as best as I could with pencil, ruler and eyeball. I thought it looked a bit wide at the bottom which begs the question, which I haven't previously had occasion to ask: "how pointy is a German WW1 battlecruiser?" The plans don't have any cross section at the waterline so I've photocopied the waterline plate of a 1/700 ship and blown that up:

 

 

The expansion makes it pretty fuzzy but as we naval architects would say, I can see the "degree-of-pointiness", Dave (!). The forward-most transverse line is the back of the bulkhead. Here's the approximate shape cut out of 6mm plywood,

 

 

and then a good deal of mucking about to figure out the curves.

 

 

After a bit of trial and error, I've stuck the kabuki tape to the plan, cut along the plan, transferred that to the wood, carved it out with an X-acto 11 blade, or two (!), and then used one side to cut a tape-template for the other side to let them match.

 

The very front-most bit seems to be separate from the side plates of the hull. I've no idea what this is called. Prow-post? Hopefully Mr.Swindells can correct all of this nonsense. I've cut the shape of the back of that based on the plans and more especially the 3D images in the Kagero book and made two of these. The front one I've built up with more plastic on a steel rule to ensure it's flat:

 

 

This is the plate at the back, 60 x 80 thou strip, bit of plastruct gutter, 3/8" Evergreen tube and a half-round tube cut from the same 3/8" tube. The sides are 1mm card and there are strips of 60 x 40 thou to fill the spaces. It's exactly 15mm front to back.

 

So, here are my basic shapes:

 

 

The rectangularish bit of 6mm ply is the shape of the centre-line with a cut out for a block which seems to sit on the top of the prow and the angle of the top is the slope of the deck. The piece second right is the other copy of the plasticard on the back of the prow, epoxied to some 3mm ply and should form the shape of the front of the side plates of the hull.

 

I thought then that assembling the pieces would be straightforward and initially it was,

 

 

but then the horrible realisation that the plywood for the centre-line is a little warped and that the back and front surfaces of the rear bulkhead aren't exact. So then a lot more mucking about to get the front plate of the hull true to the bulkhead, and both vertical:

 

 

As you can see the front-bit is well off to the starboard side of the supposed centre-line, but the front and back are true. I have not previously appreciated how helpful the grid on a Jakar mat is.

 

 

Next up will be some stringers/formers fore and aft to support the side plates and starting the guttering at the sides of the deck which should also serve to support the tops of the sides. I thought I might make some lead-shot weights up to make it more stable but once its on this little base, I'm not sure it'll need that.

 

 

I might retire to KUTA 2021 for a couple of days to let my poor fingers recover.

 

Alan

Edited February 21, 2022 by Angus Tura
wrong mat

[Dave Swindell]

2 hours ago, Angus Tura said:

The expansion makes it pretty fuzzy but as we naval architects would say, I can see the "degree-of-pointiness", Dave (!). 

 

The very front-most bit seems to be separate from the side plates of the hull. I've no idea what this is called. Prow-post? Hopefully Mr.Swindells can correct all of this nonsense. 

 

So, here are my basic shapes:

 

The rectangularish bit of 6mm ply is the shape of the centre-line with a cut out for a block which seems to sit on the top of the prow and the angle of the top is the slope of the deck. 

 

Next up will be some stringers/formers fore and aft to support the side plates and starting the guttering at the sides of the deck which should also serve to support the tops of the sides.

Some major snippage of Alan's post above for comments below:-

 

Pointiness - Fineness - A fine bow is sharp/narrow at the front as per what you are modelling

 

Prow-post - I see you've picked up a bit of nautical terminology, the prow is the front part of a ship ie the whole of what you are modelling, the bit where the side plates join at the front is the Stem, the part that they join onto being the Stem-post.

 

Your basic shapes are pretty good, the stem post in particular isn't far off full size practice in some ships where a pipe is bent to the shape of the stem, with strip steel welded on to support the plates

 

The angle of the slope of the deck on the centreline is the Sheer. There's usually a curve to the deck athwartships (the top edge of your bulkhead) known as Camber

 

The horizontal supports for the plates between the frames are indeed stringers. 

[Col.]

Impressive construction work Alan.

[Angus Tura]

Thanks Col., and Dave for the gen.

 

Two steps forward and one backwards....

 

This has been a bit slow but progressing. I've found that the last few days' news hasn't increased my enthusiasm for making models of chaps planning to bombard innocents even if it was a hundred years ago.

 

 

Here is my SMS Derfflinger so far. The main structure has had the stringers added and the cross piece at the top to make a flare out of the bows at the top. Beneath that, the triangular piece is the bottom to fix the bottom edges of the lower plates on the hull. Below that are two pieces from 40 thou card with half-round edges to mark that edge of the flaring. slow-epoxied to spruce stringers. The plastic surfaces will form the edges so that I can stick the plates, plastic-to-plastic quicker and , I hope, more securely. Below that is the prow post and a base. I've taken the sides off the prow post as you can just about see. 

 

 

This is the flare at the top of the bow, immediately below the deck. I had hoped to use 40 thou for the plating but that has been a worry because the 40 thou is tough enough to make it difficult to get it to curve as much as it needs. I had meantime been looking into the thickness of the bow plating on the real thing. I wanted to know this because the step half way up the hull between lower and upper plates is formed by the upper plate being bent outwards to rest on the lower plate, rather than being a separate piece. This is not clear in the Kagero plans but it is very clear in the photo of Jutland damage (link above): where the upper plates are blown out, they're clearly continuous with the step. So I needed to know the thickness of the plate which ends up at its bottom edge with the bottom edge facing laterally. I eventually found a note somewhere on line that the bows were in 30mm plate, which is scale 0.035" so I thought I'd use 30 thou + paint and that made me try 30 thou for all the plating and it's a lot easier.

 

Unfortunately the prow post I made before had 40 thou sides and it'll stand much too proud of the 30 thou plates I'm now planning to use. So it's had its sides taken off and it'll need new side plates and re-finishing.

 

Sorry to ramble on. Thanks for looking. Free ukraine.

 

Alan

 

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by Angus Tura
typo

[Col.]

Glad to see you are making some progress with this impressive project Alan and fully understand your reaction to the new of what's happening in the world at the moment; all I can say is sadly this is a constant that only becomes apparent when it is occurring closer to us.

[Angus Tura]

Col.

 

You are right, of course. Thanks for it.

 

Alan

[Angus Tura]

Hello.

 

This has been going on while work allowed. The next job was to get the panels on. For the upper panels I made a paper pattern and used a rolling set to get the flare at the top:

 

 

Then ample slow-setting epoxy on the stringers and the panels were clamped at the front, and taped at the back and finally liquid glue lathered into the joins to bits of plastic:

 

 

This worked well. I filled the whole of the flare on both sides with epoxy to make sure the curve stayed on. Paradoxically the lower, flatter panels have been a lot more trouble. I haven't put enough stringers in the lower part and the panels detached themselves from the stringers and needed clamping back on and more glue from the inside.

 

 

More problematic has been convex, bowing-out of the lower panel on the port side. That was the first panel I put on and I hadn't learned that it was best to put the epoxy on the stem-post and the rear bulkhead after the panel was clamped on. Putting it on before the panel was in place made it difficult to get the panel to sit down in a straight line on the plastic formers. I think at least that that's why I had this problem. I've sort-of made a new stringer by clamping again with the panel already in place,

 

 

and then feeding in 5 min epoxy from the inside to meet up with panel. This is not the easiest to photograph:

 

 

This was really tedious, indeed is really tedious: I'm still doing it. It takes a lot of applications of epoxy before the glue makes a bridge between the centre line-plywood and the panel. Once it does it gets a lot easier and quicker. I could have saved myself this grief with an additional stringer. Thankfully the starboard side is OK.

 

Meanwhile I've made up the ship's crests. These were cut with a compass cutter and a scalpel from 40 thou card and then edged with half-round 40 thou strip:

 

 

Here they are with the hull plating nearly done and with the stem post with its new, 30 thou sides:

 

 

The fit of the stem-post is poorer than I hoped and needs sanding flush with the panels on the hull. It has also needed a bit of fattening up in places. Here it is with 10 thou patches welded on with glue and stopped from sticking to the panels with baking paper.

 

 

The strip at the bottom is the top of the hull panels where they form the outer side of the gutters that run along the deck sides.

 

Here is the little bit of deck on which the figures will stand. This was 40 thou card with planks cut with an Olfa P cutter. I've made a paper pattern for it and then cut it to that size while trying to keep the planks centred. They're not quite right but I'll fatten up one side with a strip of 20 thou. I've marked the ends of the planks which don't reach the front of the deck, and cut those with the Olfa-P cutter also.

 

 

Here it is in place, -ish. The Kagero book shows the planks on the edges to have a saw-toothed appearance to fit with the planks that don't reach the front. I'm not sure how accurate that is but its a pretty nice appearance. So, some of the plank-joints have been filled with 20 thou rod and then I can smooth them out. The deck is resting on a box composed of the cross member at the front, a cross piece at the back and the inside surfaces of the guttering.

 

 

I will be some glad to get the deck finished, which will let me get the figures started, which was the point of the build.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Alan

[Col.]

Wow! That's quite a construction Alan and a lot of interesting techniques being employed.

[desert falcon]

A very interesting project to follow 👍 

[81-er]

Very, very, different to anything else in this GB, but absolutely fascinating to watch. Fantastic progress too.

 

James

[Killingholme]

Cool project!

 

Re the deck planking, you may find this article useful: https://ontheslipway.com/ever-more-deckersizing/. 

 

Will

[Angus Tura]

Hello all.

 

Not for the first time I realise that posting frequency is inversely related to amount of modelmaking done.

 

On 3/30/2022 at 3:46 PM, Killingholme said:

Cool project!

 

Re the deck planking, you may find this article useful: https://ontheslipway.com/ever-more-deckersizing/. 

 

Will

 

Thanks Will. That is a fantastic website! I wonder where all these photos are found? IWM I suppose. I found the website a bit strange as it was very difficult to access any general page to understand what is being built. I think its a 1:200 Hood? Anyway, what a reference. The deck photos would certainly support the idea of sawtooth-shaped edge planks. I had a lot of trouble getting this to be symmetrical, such that the saw-teeth on the two sides were the same size, before realising that I needed to draw it based on the central plank. That's on the right here:

 

 

I used a wikimedia picture of Von Hipper standing on deck with his staff to figure out the width of the planks. I've made them 3.5mm in 1/32. I also thought that the first effort (the centre one here) had too deep a division between planks. The second effort right and final deck left were done with a 0.5mm Tamiya scriber and look better. The scribing across the saw-toothed planks has been filled with styrene rod and then sanded flush.

 

I had hoped to make the stem-post in such a way that there would be a panel line between it and the plates of the hull but that was never going to work. Instead I've stuck it on, filled with rod melted into the spaces with liquid glue, sanded it smooth and cut a new panel line just in front of the join with the P-cutter.

 

 

I've cut another panel line on the lower plates as well.

 

 

The step between the plates has been filled with a triangle of 40 thou edged with half-round 40 thou strip. The strip extends forwards to the stem-post. This worked really well further back but the front bit needed several attempts with plastic rod and 5 thou card fillers to get the starboard side symmetrical with the port. Eventually I resorted to Mr.Surfacer 1500 to try to mold the shape and not have to carve back so much. I also found that the p-cutter wasn't controllable enough here: the plasticard texture is different after multiple soakings in liquid glue. I've cut the horizontal-ish panel line with the tip of a rat-tail file.

 

 

 

Here's the easier port side. I've painted it with Mr.Surfacer to compare more easily. I've also tried out stippling on the Mr.Surfacer 1500 here to see if that would work for replicating the "Krupp cemented plate".  There are some not very good pictures of that on-line. I think its OK:

 

 

It's going to take a bit of time to cover the whole thing in this.

 

Here is all of the plasticard-work, as it were, finished. The strip above the step was a strip of 20 thou cut with the knife held at 45^0. Easy-peezy. It's a bit bowed unfortunately but the ship's crest which sits over the middle of this covers that quite well.

 

 

On top of the stem-post is a block of bollards. This is well illustrated in the Kagero plans. The same web site as has the picture of the bow of Derfflinger (SMS-navy.com) has a close-up of bow of the Derflinger's sister-ship, SMS Hindenburg: SMS_Hindenburg-stbdbow-drydock.jpg (840×619) (sms-navy.com). This would suggest that the top of the stem-post should be much wider than the Kagero plans suggest. Whether the two ships were the same here I don't know. It's too late for me to change it anyway. Here's a box made to be the outside of the block.

 

 

Then I built up what I could with plastic card. The tops of the bollards are two thicknesses of 40 thou.

 

 

Then the spaces filled in with magic-sculp shaped with a wet finger and paint brush handle.

 

 

The very nice people at the Leeds Model Shop let me rummage about in their back shop where I found these Billings-boats type fittings, albeit not by Billings Boats:

 

 

These are two-hole railing stanchions and masts. I made this rivet factory out of magic-sculp with holes made with a rounded off bit of 1mm rod. Then rod melted with a cigarette lighter and shoved into the hole, and then the rivets cut off. Historex agents do have some rivets one can buy, but they're from Russia.

 

 

Here is a bracket for the railing stanchions which is a bit of plastic rod, layers of 20 thou card and rivets:

 

 

The figures are free-standing which is cool, but they're not sanding very straight on the shear of the deck.

 

 

So I've sawed through their ankles, but not right through, and bent them about a bit. I tried sawing them with a hacksaw initially and it was making a terrible mess. Thankfully an X-acto razor saw worked fine and was a lot more controllable.

 

 

Here they are with the gaps filled and arm on. The gaps have been filled with Devcon for stength and then drilled through to made a handle of brass rod to paint also. Here they are ready for paint. I've started their eyes.

 

 

The jack I'm going to make out of my last bit of tomato puree tube. I must remember to eat more. I thought I should strip it of its covering which was easy with cellulose thinners. The inside of the tube is plated with some yellow metal or other and I can't shift it, but I don't suppose it matters. It's sized from photos at SMS-Navy.com at 45 x 73mm and the rope is a Caldercraft 0.75mm rigging cord also found in rummaging at the Leeds Model Shop. It's stuck on with epoxy resin. As long as the rope is taut, it holds the flag well but I'll need to fix the rope in some way when the flag's up or it wants to rotate about.

 

 

So, so far it looks like this:

 

 

Next up will be the jack-staff:

 

 

The bits and pieces are the commercially made mast at the top. This is not long enough so the lower bit is some 3mm tube which will be the bottom of the staff. That will sit on the finial bottom right on top of the round bollard in the prow. The holes in the brass tube are for the two stanchion-tops so that the rails can run back both sides from the jack-staff. The hole in the mast is for the top of a smaller stanchion to take the top of the lanyard of the jack. The shallow-U shape is a cleat to tie on the lower end of the lanyard. It's made out of a bit of 1mm brass rod. The other bit is a bit of mashed up brass square to join the 3mm rod to the filial. 

 

I spent an entirely wasted day yesterday trying to solder. I'm going to start epoxying the bits of Jack-staff together today and should hopefully be able to complete the building over the next week. I doubt rather that I'm going to get it all painted by the 13th May but I can probably get the basic colours on the ship.

 

Thanks for looking. Sorry for the length of post, and see you shortly,

 

Alan

Edited May 2, 2022 by Angus Tura
not filial but finial

[Dave Swindell]

19 hours ago, Angus Tura said:

I found the website a bit strange as it was very difficult to access any general page to understand what is being built. I think its a 1:200 Hood?

Hi Alan, right ship, wrong scale. The model is a 1/350 Hood, Evert @foeth has a build thread here on Britmodeller

Good progress there on the bows 

[Col.]

Impressive progress there Alan.

[Killingholme]

Properly impressive fabrication there! 

[Angus Tura]

Ah me! Yet another DNF.

 

The dread Mrs.T has egged me on to solder the jack-staff. I think she has designs on me doing some jewelry making.

 

Here are the parts of the jack-staff soldered. 

 

 

I have to say that Mrs.T was right. I now love soldering. David Griffiths says one should tin each part with solder and then rig them up together and just touch the soldering iron on the joint and it fuses together. Mike McCabe says one should coat the iron tip with solder and then just run it into the joint. I couldn't get anywhere with either of these techniques. On line I found this: https://davidneat.wordpress.com/tag/guide-to-soldering-for-model-making/ . This worked. In short, this says to make a jig to hold the bits together and hold the iron such that it is touching both sides of the joint and then, when it's hot enough, just touch the solder into the fluxed joint. On the bigger bits there is a lot of heat sink into the part and I was surprised how close to the joints one needs the iron to get this to work. David Neat suggests tinning the tip of the iron with solder in that case. That does make the heat transfer to the parts better. I was worried that doing each joint in turn would loosen the joints already done but the proximity of the iron to the joint for the heat to get high enough seems to prevent that problem.....usually! Where I had two joints close together, such as where the crossbar sits on the joint of the upper mast and lower tube extension I got pretty hacked off with it. 

 

I hope I'm not teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, as it were.

 

Here is the jack-staff in place with its stanchions held in place with a matchstick scaffold epoxied to the brass and trued-up with a new, and rather brilliant toy: a 36cm set-square.

 

 

I could then take the jack-staff and stanchions off the boat but still held together at the correct angles, and solder them together. I hardly need tell you that this took more than one go. Here is the scaffolding half-off:

 

 

Here is the jack-staff finished:

 

 

The details of how the stanchions join to the staff with the cross-bar for support is from the piccy of SMS Hindenburg mentioned above...and that's as far as I've got.

 

Here is my current state of play:

 

 

I've started making the brackets to hold the stanchions of the jack-staff. The flag hasn't been wrinkled but I'm happy with how it rigs up of the jack-staff. Thanks Dave Swindell for that. Once it's properly on and painted I'm hoping that some tiny beads of epoxy in place of the blu-tac will work to hold the flag still. Once the stanchion-brackets are done I just need to add the outside walls of the guttering/tops of the hull plates, and it'll be done apart from the railing/cable, which can only go on once the jack-staff is permanently fixed.

 

In looking at many photos I've come to the conclusion that the crest being on a separate shield is wrong. This is how it's portrayed in the Kagero plans but all the photos I've seen would suggest that the crest should be painted directly onto the hull plates. I do think that the separate part will have a better appearance and it'll certainly be a lot easier to paint.

 

Sorry not to finish on time. I have massively enjoyed this GB. Making something from scratch is great and soldering is also great, albeit there both a bit time consuming. Thanks Dave for the gen and Col for the GB and thanks for looking.

 

Alan