1/200 Heller SMIT Rotterdam/SMIT London finished

[flashlight]

Hi everybody!

 

Totally unexpected my new project arrived today. As I already announced earlier it’s the tug boat SMIT Rotterdam/London by Heller in 1/200 scale.

 

I will build this as the SMIT London, because it was the first of the two sister ships entering service and because this is BRITmodeller forum. But first a bit of history.

 

SMIT London was built in The Netherlands by shipyard De Merwede NV in Hardinxveld and entered service in 1974. Constructed especially for towing of very heavy objects like oil rigs over long distances together with her sisters Rotterdam and Singapore these ships had been the most powerful and biggest tug boats of the world in their time with 22.000 hp engine power. They were also used for salvage assistance to ships in distress.

Dimensions:  74,75m length overall

                    15,68m width

                      7,60m depth

 

SMIT London was registered at shipping company SMIT Internationale in Rotterdam from 1974 till 1987, from 1987 till 1991 at SMIT Internationale in Nassau, from 1991 till 1998 as ‘SMITWIJS London’ at SMITWIJS Towage CV in Nassau, from 1998 till 2007 at Wijsmuller Scheepsholding BV in Singapore, from 2007 till 2013 as ‘London’ at Svitzer Ocean Towage BV in Singapore, and in 2013 her name was changed to ‘Global Change’ while being registered at Illiana Shipping Ltd. in Panama, but she was finally broken up in India in the same year.

 

The box:

 

What’s inside? Hull and deck parts

 

Funnels, bridge parts, deck parts, detail parts

 

Railing and anchor chain

 

Decals

 

Instructions come with a drawing of the paint scheme in the same scale as the model

 

Seems like a nicely detailed kit. It comes as a starter kit, which has colours, glue and paint brush included. Also included is a gimmick, which made me smile:

 

So on to new modelling horizons with my first ship build!

[flashlight]

Some plastic is already cut, so it can be turned green in the list, please @TonyOD.

 

I cut off the hull parts, and cleaned them, there is a little flash here and there but nothing serious. According to Scalemates this is an older kit, dating from 1983, the starter sets are reboxings from 2021.

 

There are some ejection marks that will be visible, so I had to fill them.

 

Sanding will be done tomorrow. Dryfit of the hull parts - looking okay!

 

That's it for today, thanks for looking!

 

Any comment, advice, criticism and encouragement is highly welcome!

[bianfuxia]

Looks awesome - I saw this kit on sale once but I wasn't really modelling in those days so I passed on it. I don't think I've ever seen it built even online. Looking forward to seeing it!

 

I don't know if you happen to have any 1/200 airliners you could pose next to it just for a sense of size?

[stevehnz]

I shall be watching with interest. I was lucky enough to see this ship in early 1984 in Capetown, refuelling whilst engaged in towing a semi submersible oilrig from Korea to the North Sea. Not long after returning to New Zealand I'd bought this kit too, alas, it lingers in deep storage still.

Steve.

[Thom216]

That's a tug on steroids!

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Nick, many years ago I read a book by Wilber Smith, "Hungry as the Sea". Written in 1978 the main character, Nick Berg (?) owned a new and very powerful tug, 28,000 hp if memory serves. It was sent south to Antarctica to salvage a cruise liner that had become disabled and abandoned. I'm wondering if the vessel was modelled on these ships here?      I'll look forward to seeing this come together.       Regards, Jeff.

[flashlight]

4 hours ago, bianfuxia said:

Looks awesome - I saw this kit on sale once but I wasn't really modelling in those days so I passed on it. I don't think I've ever seen it built even online. Looking forward to seeing it!

 

I don't know if you happen to have any 1/200 airliners you could pose next to it just for a sense of size?

Thank you very much for your comment! Unfortunately I don't have such a model, so there is no possibility of such a comparison.

 

3 hours ago, stevehnz said:

I shall be watching with interest. I was lucky enough to see this ship in early 1984 in Capetown, refuelling whilst engaged in towing a semi submersible oilrig from Korea to the North Sea. Not long after returning to New Zealand I'd bought this kit too, alas, it lingers in deep storage still.

Steve.

Thank you, Steve! You are very welcome to come along! What is keeping you from building it?

 

2 hours ago, Thom216 said:

That's a tug on steroids!

Definitely! Must have been an impressive sight and sound!

 

1 hour ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Nick, many years ago I read a book by Wilber Smith, "Hungry as the Sea". Written in 1978 the main character, Nick Berg (?) owned a new and very powerful tug, 28,000 hp if memory serves. It was sent south to Antarctica to salvage a cruise liner that had become disabled and abandoned. I'm wondering if the vessel was modelled on these ships here?      I'll look forward to seeing this come together.       Regards, Jeff.

Thanks for your comment, Jeff! Don't know the book, but maybe you are correct about it. 

[stevehnz]

1 hour ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Nick, many years ago I read a book by Wilber Smith, "Hungry as the Sea". Written in 1978 the main character, Nick Berg (?) owned a new and very powerful tug, 28,000 hp if memory serves. It was sent south to Antarctica to salvage a cruise liner that had become disabled and abandoned. I'm wondering if the vessel was modelled on these ships here?      I'll look forward to seeing this come together.       Regards, Jeff.

Hi Jeff, if Nick will indulge me, it was that book that stirred my interest in these big towing/salvage tugs. Smith had spent his time on the Wolraad Woltemade, one of two giant SAF Marine tugs that were commissioned to patrol the Cape Sea route which had become ever so busy after the Suez canal was blocked after the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Rather than tell the whole story again, I'll link to a post of mine on Ships Nostalgia Forum where I relate the story of my visit to the WW, unfortunately, the Smit London was not as hospitable a week or so later.

Steve.

[flashlight]

Good day, everybody!

 

Not very much to see, but quite a lot has been done.

 

The hull halves were glued together. Fit is okay, but some filler was needed at the seams, I used Gunze Mr. Dissolved Putty..

 

While the filler was setting, I prepared the propeller shafts and fairings.

 

I also assembled the funnels and boats.

 

Out came the primer after sanding of the hull and the hull and the two big deck parts were primed with a white rattle can primer which I bought in a DIY shop. For the quarter deck (lower left) and the smaller parts I used Gunze Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500 white.

 

That's it for now.

 

Next step will be painting the hull red and the decks dark green and when there'll be enough time, I'll also paint the funnels blue.

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Any comment, advice, criticism and encouragement is highly welcome!

 

[stevehnz]

Nice progress. This is coming together well.

Steve.

[Grandboof]

Looks like plenty of detail . Good luck 

Martin H

[flashlight]

1 hour ago, Grandboof said:

Looks like plenty of detail . Good luck 

Martin H

Thank you very much, Martin! Yes, it seems to be pretty detailed. Some details are already moulded onto the decks, painting these will be big fun! 

 

11 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Nice progress. This is coming together well.

Steve.

Thank you very much, Steve. A dryfit of the quarter deck into the hull reveals quite a good fit, hopefully it stays this way! 

[flashlight]

Good day all!

 

This is my today's progress.

 

First I started with painting the hull and some parts of the quarter deck Revell Aquacolor 37 Reddish Brown in the morning. Propeller shafts and fairings were painted too.

 

While it all was set aside to dry I painted some small parts that will be attached to the quarter deck later on and started to assemble the masts.

 

In the evening I masked off the hull along the water line (Heller provides a very fine raised panelline to help) and painted the hull using Revell Aquacolor 09 Athracite. I also masked off the already painted areas of the quarter deck and then I painted the decks Revell Aquacolor 363 Dark Green. I nearly messed up the quarter deck, because at the first attempt I got the colour way too thin. With a new mixture it went quite okay.

 

Hull and quarter deck unmasked. Quarter deck is dry fit for the photos. Some touchups are needed there.

 

I am quite pleased, although it's far from being perfect.

 

As you can see, these parts need another coat of reddish brown, as usual with my paint jobs I always leave something out.

 

The rest of the decks also turned green. Most of the raised details have to be painted,

 

The detail parts for the quarter deck and the masts.

 

That's it for today, thanks for looking.

 

Any comment, advice, criticism and encouragement is highly welcome!

[Cklasse]

Wow! Very nice build.

I built one but under the name of Waker, a Smit Rotterdam with a helipad in front. Didn’t completely finished it. Maybe your build will inspire me to take out the shelf Queen.

 

 

[arfa1983]

This is going to be so impressive when it's done! 

[Alan P]

Definitely looking the biz! The bright colours are very welcome in a fairly grey build catalogue here 😂

[flashlight]

4 hours ago, Cklasse said:

Wow! Very nice build.

I built one but under the name of Waker, a Smit Rotterdam with a helipad in front. Didn’t completely finished it. Maybe your build will inspire me to take out the shelf Queen.

 

 

Thank you very much! But it's better to wait with Waker, I'm not so sure if my build will be inspiring! 😆

 

3 hours ago, arfa1983 said:

This is going to be so impressive when it's done! 

Thank you very much, Arthur! It's quite big, but with my non existent ships modelling skills it might not turn out impressive at all! 😆

 

1 hour ago, Alan P said:

Definitely looking the biz! The bright colours are very welcome in a fairly grey build catalogue here 😂

 

Thank you very much, Alan! I didn't want to build a battle ship, because I thought that a tug boat would be easier as a start into ships modelling. Well...

 

Hi all!

 

Today I finished the details on the quarter deck - I did all the detail painting and attached all the detail parts. I will start the weathering process before I attach it to the hull.

 

The pale yellow is a selfmade mix of two Gunze yellows. In the photos of 'London' I saw that the cranes and other structures were in a different shade of yellow than at the bow. So I tried to replicate this. The area next to the sort of staircase or chicken ladder (or however this is called - please forgive a landlubber!) will be touched up after the steps have got their correct colour. I forgot about it and realized it after looking at the photo. 😆

 

I am not quite happy with it and I hope that some of the flaws will be hidden by the weathering.

 

I also painted the yellow strip on top of the bow. I took Gunze yellow RLM 04. The white strip that you can see is a masking tape that stays on till tomorrow when I will paint the blue strip. During masking off it should reveal a fine white strip beneath the blue one, if it'll work out the way I want.

 

I also gave the propeller shafts and fairings an additional coat of brick red (or 'reddish brown' as Revell calls it) and attached them to the hull. With hindsight I should have done this before painting of the hull but I thought that I would get problems with the masking of the water line. The parts don't fit very well (as I did the dryfit before painting I had a different impression and thought that they'd fit okay) and look horrible now. Well - lesson learned.

 

Next steps will be the painting and attaching the propellers and rudders, painting the blue strip and also the blue funnels and weathering of the quarter deck.

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Any comment, advice, criticism and encouragement is highly welcome!

 

 

[flashlight]

Ahoy there!

 

Some progress today.

 

I painted the blue strip at the bow. Will have to see how I get the yellow and blue seepage from the white line.

 

Painted the bulwarks pale yellow, they'll get a second coat tomorrow...

 

...painted and attached the propellers, the colour looks funny in the flashlight. Instructions called for leather brown, which I don't have at the moment, so I took RLM brown violet. In daylight the propellers look more like a rusty brown than this funny violet colour in the photos.

 

Painted the funnels, they are waiting for their top pieces...

 

...started weathering of the quarter deck. The flash over emphasizes the effect, in daylight it looks much better. Anyway it will be toned down by the washes that I plan to apply later on. I took a lighter shade of green and drybrushed it randomly across the deck to break the uniformity of the dark green.

 

Finally I painted and attached the rudders.

 

The hull is quite complete now, only the anchors are left.

 

That's it for today, thanks for having a look!

 

Any comment, advice, criticism and encouragement is highly welcome!

 

[PeterB]

Either decal strip or a white paint pen might be the solution to your bleed onto the white line.

 

Pete

[flashlight]

10 hours ago, PeterB said:

Either decal strip or a white paint pen might be the solution to your bleed onto the white line.

 

Pete

Hi Pete, thank you very much for the kind advice! Decal strip seems to be a good solution. Don't know if I have a white decal strip, will have to do an examination of the spare box. 

[stevehnz]

That is looking brilliant, I'm enjoying this coming together.

Steve.

[Grandboof]

Looking splendid . Like the colour combo 

Martin H

[Alan P]

No criticism here, the green deck looks spot on 👍

[flashlight]

12 hours ago, stevehnz said:

That is looking brilliant, I'm enjoying this coming together.

Steve.

Thank you very much, Steve! It's quite a slow progress but progress.

 

11 hours ago, Grandboof said:

Looking splendid . Like the colour combo 

Martin H

Thank you very much indeed, Martin! I'm not used to work with so many different colours on one object, I always have to think about how and when which colour to paint.

 

10 hours ago, Alan P said:

No criticism here, the green deck looks spot on 👍

Thank you very much, Alan! I managed to tone it down a bit, to me it's looking better now, please see the pics below.

 

 

Good day everybody,

 

some visible progress at last. It's interesting - you work for hours and and when you look at the result you feel like you can't see any progress at all! Therefore no photos yesterday, but now things have changed a little bit and I am able to show you some visible progress.

 

The quarter deck is finished now, weathering done and attached to the hull, and then I painted and attached these arcs across the deck which seem to act as a support to the ship's structure and stability. They'll get some weathering too, but much later. The quarter deck is looking quite busy now!

 

I also started the next deck, which will be midships. Painted it dark green and this time I sprayed a lighter tone of the dark green randomly across the visible areas, to get a similar effect to the quarter deck. I use this build for a litte experimenting in weathering. I also attached the house (cabin?) after I sprayed the walls dark grey inside and white outside. There is no interior but a see through situation therefore I also painted the deck floor dark grey. It's a bit warped, but no problem to attach it to the hull. I also painted some of the details that are moulded on.

 

And here the deck is stuck to the hull, the fit is good.

 

That's it for today.

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Any comment, advice, criticism and encouragement is highly welcome!

 

[Alan P]

It's looking really good Nick! The colours and more intricate details really stand out.