HMS Rodney Build Log - 1/200

[andyelbac]

In an earlier post I mentioned that Trumpeter have moulded the lower hull below the stabilisers completely barren of any feature; no plating effect whatsoever. Whilst I'm not overly keen on attempting to scribe plating into the hull, it rankles to see the complete lack of detail. Are there any photos of Rodney or Nelson under construction which might offer some clue as to how this should look?

[andyelbac]

My earlier concerns about over sanding the vent plates below the portholes have proven to be baseless. I've been spending more time looking at the photos in Man O' War 3 in more detail and it appears Trumpeter moulded them much too thick, just like the plating. Here's a photo that shows what I mean:

I'm going to give them all a little more sanding. Whilst looking at the hull in more detail I think Trumpeter have placed some of the portholes in the wrong place, including bilge openings as well as their number. The photos in Man O'War 3 show Rodney in more starboard shots than port so I'm more confident of this for the starboard side. You can just see from these two photos the numerous bilge outlets; many more than Trumpeter have moulded:

   

 Also, It looks as if some of them were 'lipped', presumably to prevent discolouration to the hull paint (I have a nasty feeling I know what might have been coming out of those pipes!). Here's an enlarged example:

I'm not sure I can recreate the lips given the scale but I am going to fix the porthole and bilge errors where possible. Here's a picture of part of my proposed fix. Portholes marked in black are staying, stose marked with a cross are going to be filled in and sanded flush:

 I'm not 100% certain these proposed changes are entirely accurate. Some of the photos are far from clear and I'm uncertain as to whether some portholes or bilge outlets were removed over Rodney's lifetime but I'm going to push ahead and make the changes, conscious of the fact that not too many posts ago I said I would not be counting portholes!. Finally, something interesting that I have only just discovered. Trumpeter have moulded in the two torpedoe tubes (or at least outlines). I've been looking at the hull for weeks and only just noticed them. Man O'War 3 states that Nelson had hers removed in 1943 but apparently Rodney's stayed. I'm sure the representation is entirely fictitious ( as is the quite detailed rudder), given that a cursory glance on the internet has not revealed any details of either ships hull below the waterline, but interesting none the less. Here's a photo of the kit hull showing the tube outline:

 I'm obviously giving myself more work with the portholes and bilges but as I'm still waiting for Sovereign Hobbies to decant more NARN 42 I figure I have a little time to burn. Finally, are there any other books on Rodney that offer photos not shown in Man O'War 3? 

[andyelbac]

I was starting to think Trumpeter were a little bit lazy on the porthole research. I thought that maybe they just looked at Nelson and then thought 'that will do for Rodney'. Whilst Man O'War 3 states that the differences between the two ships were essentially the main mast and the crane, it's clear from the photos in Man O'War 3 that there were also differences in the placement of portholes. My suspicions were heightened when I noticed this, moulded into the hull interior:

Yeah, I know. I'm a real Sherlock.

I'm guessing that Trumpeter produced Nelson first (?) and then just used the same tool for the Rodney hull. I understand the reasoning; tooling isn't cheap. But they could at least have indicated in the instructions that some portholes needed relocating. My evidence for suggesting that the placement of portholes on the two ships were different? First of all a reminder of what the kit hull looks like, starboard and port:

 

 You will notice that the last lower porthole is not directly below the upper one. Here are pictures from Man O'War 3 of Nelson which show the portholes in the same layout:

Now let look at these three photos of Rodney, again from Man O'War 3:

I'm more confident now that my proposed changes to the portholes are correct. Let's get started....

[foeth]

Two close-ups...

 

 

 

 

 

[andyelbac]

2 hours ago, foeth said:

Two close-ups...

 

 

 

 

 

Great! Thank you. That second shot also gives me a different view of the starboard portholes without the dazzle scheme masking some of them.

[Rich75]

Looking good, will you be adding the hatches as well?

[andyelbac]

21 hours ago, Rich75 said:

Looking good, will you be adding the hatches as well?

Hi, are you referring to the four square hatches just forward of the last porthole? If so, yes. I've already added two but have a few more portholes to fill and sand first so I can get the spacing right. From photos it looks like they are not equally spaced, with a slightly larger gap between the second and third. I've had to temporarily fix the deck so I can get a better reference for the porthole changes as I keep getting lost switching between photos and kit hull. On the hatches; I did consider briefly the idea of having them open. Pontos provide more detail on the inner face but ultimately the effort involved in cutting square recesses in the kit hull was a turn off. Hopefully I will be in a position to post some photos soon.

[andyelbac]

There's  been slow progress since I started my new job (posting this on my lunch break). Not just because of the job but also because I really need to progress some of the other kits in part build. Normally I would only have two on the go at once. I tend to start building a new one when the current build gets to paint stage. However, I had a funny turn during lockdown and found myself starting kit after kit. Current work in progress, other than Rodney are: Airfix English Electric Lightning (1/48 and 1st aircraft build), Meng D9R armoured bulldozer with after market brass slat armour (1/35), Trumpeter Longtrack S band acquisition radar (1/35), Trumpeter Landing Craft Air Cushion (1/72), Meng Zeppelin Q Class Airship (1/350), Trumpeter Atomic Annie Howitzer (1/35) and Anangrand Caspian Sea Monster (1/144) in resin. So, got myself into a right pickle. The good news is that Atomic Annie is almost complete. Back to Rodney then, and I recently found this book in a second hand bookseller. Not sure how well known it is:

 It was published in 1971 and is a series of pull out ships plans in profile and plan view. Each pull out is about 700mm x 350mm. You can see from the front cover the ships that are detailed. Rodney is included and shows her general arrangement as at 1928:

 Whilst I am building Rodney as at her refit in 1942, the porthole arrangement looks to be identical to some of the photos on this post so I plan to utilise these plans for the porthole placement (certainly for the starboard side) as I can see the whole ship length clearly. Interestingly, there is a Bradford City Library card on the inside showing it was purchased by the library in 1973 and only ever issued out once, on 12th February 1979. No return stamp is evident which suggests it never made it's way back. As it's a book for modellers, I'm going to be generous and suggest whoever took it out moved away before they could return. If you're still out there, you know who you are! Given the attrocious level of funding for libraries in the UK, I have emailed Bradford City Library to see if they would like it back, free of charge. It seems to me that the good people of Bradford paid for this through their local taxes and it belongs to them (blimey, I make it sound like I've discovered the Ark of the Covenant  and it belongs to Bradford Council!). Mind you, I have told them they will have to wait until I have finished with it!😃

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Andy, that's a very noble and generous action of yours, very commendable. As it was taken out 43 years ago they may state that under the statute of limitations it's now yours. The least they could do is give you honorary membership to the library. 🙂 Regards, Jeff.

[andyelbac]

18 minutes ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Andy, that's a very noble and generous action of yours, very commendable. As it was taken out 43 years ago they may state that under the statute of limitations it's now yours. The least they could do is give you honorary membership to the library. 🙂 Regards, Jeff.

And very handy it would be too Jeff, being just 4.5 hours away by car! Mind you, with some of the best curry houses in the country,  it might prove to be a most enjoyable way to visit a library!

[andyelbac]

I've been doing more work on the hull. Reference the ex-library book in the previous post; when I saw it online I hoped it would have details of the plating below the stabalisers, but no such luck. Ignoring that then I carried on drilling out the portholes. By the way, are scuttles another word for portholes or does that refer to hatches inset into the deck? Back to portholes;  I'm looking for consensus on whether the black mark I have circled below should be a porthole and whether the five bilge outlets circled actually existed as shown by Trumpeter:

 

Here are a few shots of Rodney from Man O'War 3 which possibly show a porthole (again circled):

 

 You will also note that whilst there is evidence of bilge outlets near the bow of the ship, it's far from clear that there were 5 in tight formation under the anchors. Thoughts?

[ArnoldAmbrose]

5 minutes ago, andyelbac said:

By the way, are scuttles another word for portholes or does that refer to hatches inset into the deck?

I think 'scuttles' is the naval name, 'portholes' is the civilian name. But I'd seek a second opinion on that. Regards, Jeff.

[andyelbac]

On 10/04/2022 at 22:30, Rich75 said:

Hi this all looks great so far well done, just a thought on your director ladder, yours seems to have 9 rungs, the one in the pontos picture 7? Maybe that's why it's too long so perhaps you're right about trimming it down, anyway keep it up👍

Thanks @Rich75, just reviewing these posts and I came across your comment again. I think your point about the number of rungs may hold the answer to why the ladder is too long. I don't know why it failed to register first time I read it. Possibly Pontos got the part numbers mixed up. I will check it later.

[andyelbac]

On 10/04/2022 at 22:30, Rich75 said:

Hi this all looks great so far well done, just a thought on your director ladder, yours seems to have 9 rungs, the one in the pontos picture 7? Maybe that's why it's too long so perhaps you're right about trimming it down, anyway keep it up👍

Thanks @Rich75, just reviewing these posts and I came across your comment again. I think your point about the number of rungs may hold the answer to why the ladder is too long. I don't know why it failed to register first time I read it. Possibly Pontos got the part numbers mixed up. I will check it later.

[andyelbac]

I've been working on the hull again this morning, looking once more at the portholes, or scuttles as I shall henceforth refer to them (one less character to type!). Cue feeling of deep depression. Why did I think building a big ship was a good idea? Stupid, stupid, stupid. ☹ Comparing photos again, I have been filling in scuttles that I thought were correct and drilling out scuttles that I had previously filled in! I've sunk 8 hours into the hull and still a way of priming. Here's an example of why I think some scuttles were moved, added or deleted during Rodney's service. Take a look at these two shots of Rodney's starboard side (courtesy of Man O'War 3). The first is from 1928, the second from 1937. Compare the positions of the circled scuttles:

 I'm reasonably happy now that the changes I have made to the starboard scuttles are as close as I can be to how she was in 1942 (although the question of a lower scuttle at the bow under the anchors remains unanswered, re. previous post above). The port side is also problematic, especially, and as previously mentioned, there are less photos of Rodney's port side. A big concern I have is that around amidships there seem to be many more scuttles on the kit hull than show in the few photos available. Here's what I mean (again from Man O'War 3):

 

 This shot is from 1942. Is it me or do there seem to be many less scuttles in the area compared to the circled area on the kit? Irrespective, I have made a few changes to some of the scuttle locations at the rear and are going to call it done as I am starting to feel incredibly cheesed off at ever having started counting scuttles in the first place. I'm particularly concerned about getting the hump with this kit and parking it indefinitely (something I imagine happens a lot with big ship models) so want to move on before that feeling embeds itself in me. I will clean up what I have done and move onto finishing the bilge outlets, which shall be almost entirely imaginary but also criticism proof as so few conclusive pictures are available. By the way, I also scribed some sample plating into the lower hull to see how that looked. Let's just say I have a little more filling and sanding to do! Another reason for wanting to avoid getting bogged down on the hull is the weather. The year is rushing past and were already about to tip into May. I need to get the hull primed and painted and both of those tasks are likely to need completing outside. So I'm reliant on the British weather 😎. Scr*wed then! Before I know it summer will be over (if it ever starts) and the hull will need to be mothballed for the winter. You know it's bad when you start thinking fondly of getting back to the P.E.😁

[ArnoldAmbrose]

3 hours ago, andyelbac said:

You know it's bad when you start thinking fondly of getting back to the P.E.😁

Gidday, I try not to think of PE at all, fondly or otherwise. But yeah I think there comes a time when you say "enough research, time to get on with it." I guess the trick is knowing when to say it. Best of luck. Regards, Jeff.

[andyelbac]

8 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday, I try not to think of PE at all, fondly or otherwise. But yeah I think there comes a time when you say "enough research, time to get on with it." I guess the trick is knowing when to say it. Best of luck. Regards, Jeff.

Well Jeff, they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks but this old mutt is saying 'enough with the hull already!' Time to prime.🙂

 

[andyelbac]

I've run into a problem; one of my own making. Whilst prepping the hull for priming I noticed that I had been a bit slapdash in drilling out some of the scuttles. Basically, some of them now sit too high. When looking at the few clear shots of Rodney side on, you can clearly see that the scuttles are at the same height along the top row. Unfortunately I had drilled a good half dozen too high. Although they are only about 1.5mm higher it is quite apparent as you run your eye along the row. Very frustrating! I thought long and hard about leaving them as is or considering how to correct them. In the end I decided to try and fix them. The issue then became how? I considered just filling and re-drilling but was concerned that the putty might crumble if I drilled part through the filled cavities. In the end I decided to plug the holes with 2mm rod and copious amounts of glue. I will leave them for a few days to ensure they are well and truly welded and then try to drill them out, this time measuring the height in the process. I'm trying not to think about what I do if this doesn't work. Can you imagine the cost of a new hull from Trumpeter and the cost of shipping? 😬

[andyelbac]

Following on from my previous post, I have plugged a few more scuttles with 2mm rod (they were taunting me, all crooked like). You can see the result below:

Hopefully, once sanded flush I will be able to measure them up for re-drilling. The good news is I received a notification from Sovereign Hobbies that their NARN42 anti fouling paint is now back in stock. The bad news is it's only available for collection until the 17th May ☹ 

Actually, due to my incompetence with the scuttles, I need that extra time to prepare the hull ready for the camo scheme (every cloud...). Once I have pre-drilled to the correct height I will add assorted bilge outlets and get it primed. I no longer care if some of the scuttles are in the correct location or not, even if it does upset the river counters amongst you 😁 I just need to get the hull done! I've spent 11 hours on the hull so far (I've no idea how) and 1 hour this evening removing all the pieces of plastic Pontos want removed from the kit deck to accept their wood alternative. That gives me a total build time to date of 72 hours. When you think about it, that's only 3 days work....sounds much better!

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday, I've often had to plug holes in models and styrene rod is how I do it. In fact I'm about to do it now myself. If you do the job early (as you have done) and are therefore able to sand the surface before other stuff gets put in the way I think it works well. Now that you know the scuttles are in the wrong place and have the opportunity to rectify them I think you'll regret it if you don't do it now. Good luck. Regards, Jeff.

[andyelbac]

5 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday, I've often had to plug holes in models and styrene rod is how I do it. In fact I'm about to do it now myself. If you do the job early (as you have done) and are therefore able to sand the surface before other stuff gets put in the way I think it works well. Now that you know the scuttles are in the wrong place and have the opportunity to rectify them I think you'll regret it if you don't do it now. Good luck. Regards, Jeff.

Hi Jeff, it's less that I know some are wrong, more that some photos are too inconclusive and I can imagine finishing the model and someone producing a photo I haven't seen showing some scuttles in the wrong place. If I have confidence that some are incorrect I will rectify where possible. 

[Rich75]

Hi looking good so far, I sure you've probably looked but on the IWM website they have some great pictures, I just searched for HMS Rodney 1942 and found a really nice shot of her from sort of 3/4 astern dated 4th May 1942 liverpool after refit, it shows nearly all the scuttles I think you might need, if I could work out how to share the link I would🤔 but their photos are quite well researched i believe, all the best with the build👍

[andyelbac]

11 hours ago, Rich75 said:

Hi looking good so far, I sure you've probably looked but on the IWM website they have some great pictures, I just searched for HMS Rodney 1942 and found a really nice shot of her from sort of 3/4 astern dated 4th May 1942 liverpool after refit, it shows nearly all the scuttles I think you might need, if I could work out how to share the link I would🤔 but their photos are quite well researched i believe, all the best with the build👍

IWM? No, never heard of it but thanks for the tip. I will check it out. I'm happy to extend the time spent on the hull if not doing so makes it obviously look wrong. @Rich75 is right in that I don't want to look at the completed model in years to come and wish I had persevered just a little more with the scuttles. The temptation to just move on though is huge because with work and 'life' commitments, build time availability drops considerably and I don't want to find myself getting bored with the build. The encouragement however has convinced me to spend a little more time on getting the scuttles as correct as possible. Thanks!

[andyelbac]

11 hours ago, Rich75 said:

Hi looking good so far, I sure you've probably looked but on the IWM website they have some great pictures, I just searched for HMS Rodney 1942 and found a really nice shot of her from sort of 3/4 astern dated 4th May 1942 liverpool after refit, it shows nearly all the scuttles I think you might need, if I could work out how to share the link I would🤔 but their photos are quite well researched i believe, all the best with the build👍

Imperial War Museum!!!! The penny has just dropped! "IWM, never heard of it"! Don't I feel stupid. On a related note, I applied for the role of Procurement Manager at the IWM in 2020 (I've been in procurement for nearly 40 years). Unfortunately I didn't get selected for interview but it was my dream role. I literally would have deferred retirement till I was 90 to have had that job!

[Rich75]

3 hours ago, andyelbac said:

IWM? No, never heard of it but thanks for the tip. I will check it out. I'm happy to extend the time spent on the hull if not doing so makes it obviously look wrong. @Rich75 is right in that I don't want to look at the completed model in years to come and wish I had persevered just a little more with the scuttles. The temptation to just move on though is huge because with work and 'life' commitments, build time availability drops considerably and I don't want to find myself getting bored with the build. The encouragement however has convinced me to spend a little more time on getting the scuttles as correct as possible. Thanks!

Thanks, although I think it was @ArnoldAmbrose who said it might bug you in the future! But i had a similar dilemma with my current build, I think I would always wish I'd dealt with it. Ships can be quite time consuming I've found, don't give up!!