Steve builds a BIG flower

[Steve D]

Ok, I'm back with my next project, a scratch built 1:48th scale Flower class corvette, in wood and metal

 

This will be a big model, over 4ft long and 9 inch beam.  The case alone is probably my modelling allowance for the year!  This is not a project for the faint hearted, the etching work will cost £100's.  I estimate 18 months, but I could be wildly wrong.  I may squeeze in some other small projects along the way, who knows? I have lots of ideas....

 

Still, I think I have one large model left in me, and what could be more perfect than a flower.  Most importantly, I have a place to put it where it will fill the space and look impressive.

 

The work on this project really started a couple of years ago with research and most importantly, deciding which flower and at what period?  When you start to study the class, there are innumerable differences in type, period, duty colour scheme, armament etc that make choosing one extremely difficult.  At this scale, every detail matters, each rivet etc.  So, I needed a boat that had sufficient information to achieve the level of detail I like and the level of accuracy I aim for.

 

I like the early short foc's'le vessels (really I like ships to be close to originally envisaged rather than later developments) but it has to have the radar so it will have to be post a refit, but not a long foc's'le refit.  Getting quite specific now.  I also need some very good quality pictures of the vessel at exact period and drawings, lots of drawings.  Meeting all these criteria, I ended up with just one out of the nearly 300 built, HMS Alisma.  Originally ordered for the French navy she was taken over after France fell and commissioning into the Royal Navy in early 1941 taking the pennant number K185.  She survived the war, became a Greek tramp steamer and sunk in 1954, probably due to poor maintenance.

 

The IWM collection has some outstanding pictures of her after her first 1943 refit with the radar and a type B bridge (more of flower bridge type later).  Lambert prepared outline drawings of her at this stage (and the other two key stages) which I have and which are reproduced I various books.  So, a lot of my criteria are met.

 

I hope this will not be just another flower build.  The plan is a wood planked hull, with copper bulwarks, deck and deck houses.  The hull will be plated in aluminium with as close as I can get to the right rivet detail and plating joints (flowers used both butt and lap joints depending on position).  I have, so far, accumulated nearly 400 relevant files, that will only go up as the build progresses.  Most importantly, over 60 pictures of areas of the deck, without even going close to Sackville... 

 

A couple of moths ago, I visited the Brass Foundry here in London and viewed their drawings of Alisma and Abelia, her sister ship (see @robgizlu excellent model HMS Abelia).

 

I photographed the docking plan and Abelia's GA and purchased the rigging plan for Alisma.  This latter is an incredible drawing, showing each and every rope and its type and size, gold dust...  I have it on my plan wall @ 1:48th scale, the size is a little daunting and its only a waterline drawing.

 

 

I've purchased all the normal reference books.  Note, don't buy Man o' war 7 and Ensign 3, they are the same book, very naughty

 

 

 

Detail from the rigging plan, what a wonderful resource.  However, the IWM collection only contains "as-build" drawings, not post-refit.  I may reach out to the Harland and Wolf archivist to see if they can help and the bridge details I need are in outline only and give rise to many questions.  I will have to do my own drawings of the type b bridge

 

 

a non IWM copyright picture of the post-refit vessel I intend to build, April 1943

 

 

This is going to be great....

 

 

The lines were taken from the anatomy of the ship for Agassiz, however, they needed modifying for the rounded stern, Agassiz had the squarish stern profile while Alisma has a more curving stern.

 

The lines were then turned into frames and a keel profile.  The construction will used my normal deckhouse box concept, where the deckhouse assembly is build separately and fits into a box shaped hollow in the hull. The planking will use 1.8 mm thick Obechi timber which sands so nicely, a mix of 10 mm and 6 mm wide planks, lots of them.  This boat could easily be made into a working model, but I no longer do that.

 

Here is the frame drawing, after around 100 hours of drawing and working out how to build it, so many check and cross checks.  There are 22 frames, set at 4 frame centres and 8 in the centre section where it is relatively parallel

 

The xtool has a capacity of 450 mm so the keel and deckhouse floor are in multiple pieces that lock together.

 

Here they are all cut out, this is what a hull kit would look like when unboxing

 

 

Let the fun begin

 

Cheers

 

Steve

[bootneck]

Hi Steve,

 

what a great subject and scale.  I shall be following with interest as I shall be scratchbuilding HMS Endurance of 1982 fame.  I wanted to do it at 1:48 scale but that would be too large so I shall do it at 1:72 scale which; coincidentally, will make it the same length as your Flower class.

 

cheers,
Mike

[Steve D]

6 minutes ago, bootneck said:

I shall be scratchbuilding HMS Endurance of 1982 fame.

Wow, Mike, that's a huge endeavour, best of luck, I'll be following

 

Cheers

 

Steve

[Stew Dapple]

To say that's a bold venture you're embarking upon would be a bit of an understatement Steve, best of luck with it I look forward to seeing how it goes

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

[Andy H]

Steve builds a BIG flower.
Andy buys the world's biggest bucket of popcorn.

 

The very best of luck with this latest endevour. 😎👍

 

 

[bootneck]

15 minutes ago, Steve D said:

Wow, Mike, that's a huge endeavour, best of luck, I'll be following

Thanks Steve,

I don't have an xtool but I do have a good cutting machine, similar to Cricut or Silhouette, which means that I'll probably cut the parts from styrene sheet.  I have a 3D printer but the parts would be too large for it.

 

cheers,
Mike

[Faraway]

1 hour ago, Steve D said:

I may squeeze in some other small projects along the way

Seems to me this project is going to be lots (& lots) of small projects.

And what a project, this is going to be amazing.

Are you going to do her ‘dockyard fresh’ or ‘well used’ ?

Jon

[theskits62]

This is going to be brilliant ! I'll be following closely...

[Hencore]

Wow, looking forward to following along with this! Enjoyed your Havock build!

[Steve D]

56 minutes ago, Faraway said:

Are you going to do her ‘dockyard fresh’ or ‘well used’ ?

Lot's of time to decide, but probably lightly used, a little bit worse than the pictures above.  Some flowers look like they have been blown up but failed to sink, dockyard fresh is too close to builders model.  

 

Cheers

 

Steve

[Archelaos]

Awesome project!

[theskits62]

4 hours ago, Steve D said:

I may reach out to the Harland and Wolf archivist

I thought that the H&W archives were undigitised and held at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum or I think that was the case about 8 years ago when i looked into it. Has something changed since then ? Please let me know how you get on with that. 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

 

Wow!  This is going to be a lot of fun (for us, anyway!)

 

[JohnWS]

Another WOW!

 

Really interested in following along as well, Steve.

 

John

[Steve D]

17 minutes ago, JohnWS said:

Really interested in following along as well

Welcome aboard John, I'm actually excited about this one, sooo many details, I love it

 

Cheers

 

Steve

[mdesaxe]

This should be an epic build and exciting to follow.

 

I do have one question.

 

On 7/24/2024 at 7:30 AM, Steve D said:

The plan is a wood planked hull, with copper bulwarks,

Do you have a plan for dealing with the possible long term problems this may generate? The reason I ask is that the Mariners' Museum has a spectacular 1:48-scale model of the Liberty Ship Zebulon B. Vance, the first launched from the North Carolina Shipbuilding yard. It was built to US Navy ship model specifications for longevity with a wooden hull and brass bulwarks. Over the years since it was built (in 1942, I believe) the paint finish has cracked all along the joint between the wood and the brass due to differential expansion of the two materials. Have you had similar problems with your previous models?

 

Again, you won't be able to keep me away from following this!

 

Maurice

[Steve D]

31 minutes ago, mdesaxe said:

he paint finish has cracked all along the joint between the wood and the brass due to differential expansion of the two materials. Have you had similar problems with your previous models?

That's a great question Maurice.  The immediate answer is no, but then I don't have any models 80 years old!

 

The challenge with the flower at this scale is the high thin bulwarks that are internally braced with angles.  They are too thin for wood to be strong enough for the rough handling my models get during a build (you'd be surprised...)  So, 0.3mm sheet copper was my idea.  This will be set in place with epoxy resin to slightly thinner planking on the sheer line below them.  This joint will then be covered by external aluminium plating showing the rivet detail (brass butt plates on the inside).  The deck plates around the stern will also be copper so that I can solder the angles in place and make a proper job of it!

 

Now as this will be carried out at room temperature, I assume the materials will be stable and if stored/displayed at room temperature, no harm should occur.  I guess if the model was stored in an unheated warehouse during a US East coast winter, differential shrinkage could cause the problem you report.  I'm not going to do that...

 

Welcome aboard, I hope you find the build interesting

 

Cheers

 

Steve

[Stephen Allen]

I will follow this with interest. I was lucky enough to have a private tour of Sackville in 2018 while she was out of the water having the hull repaired. Wish I had taken more photos of and under the hull, as she has subsequently had some extensive but non authentic hull restoration undertaken. Welded not riveted, as no-one has the ability anymore to do it on the scale needed at a cost that could be afforded.
 

 She is a much modified Canadian Corvette, but it was interesting to see how clearly the original short focsl lines show against the extensions from her latter refits, and how prominent the riveting, butt straps and bilge keel supports are. What photos I have are yours with pleasure.
 

This will be a spectacular build!

 

cheers

 

Steve

[Jeff.M]

Steve,

 

Oh my gosh, what a surprise, and what anticipation. Doing final detail work on my own Flower build, I now wish I were only just starting so as to capitalize on (and profit from) your stellar work to come.   
 

To say I look forward to your build is a complete understatement!  
 

Best,

 

Jeff

[Steve D]

5 hours ago, Stephen Allen said:

What photos I have are yours with pleasure.

Thanks Steve, that's a great offer, I will take you up on it if I may. 

 

One detail I'd like to confirm early relates to the large square main injection valve opening on the port side.  The detail drawing on Agassiz show this as completely open, ie no debris bars across the opening, is that right? 

 

Plus, any pictures you have showing the bilge keel, washport doors and any openings in the hull would be really helpful.  I may be back 

 

Cheers and thanks again

 

Steve

[Steve D]

3 hours ago, Jeff.M said:

To say I look forward to your build is a complete understatement

Ha, I knew this would peak your interest Jeff, after so much excellent work on your own flower! 

 

At 1:48th scale the challenge is all in the minute detail you can bring to the model.  Takes a ton of research to pull it off, I hope to do the project justice.  That big brass sweep winch alone will be a model in its own right

 

Please comment and assist as I go along, I need all the help I can get

 

Cheers

 

Steve

[chrisr57]

Hi Steve,  if this is going to be as good as  Havock , I might just put Vince on hold for 18 months and pull up a chair,   If its going to be that Big well stick a motor and a radio in it  join the boys down the local lake.

I know this is going to be spectacular , good for You

Chris

[robgizlu]

Well done Steve, no guessing my thoughts on this😂

It’s going to be an epic build and the interest expressed by so many is a testament to the esteem you carry here with your masterpieces!

I don’t think I have any extra references from you.  As you may recall I have visited Sackville and have multiple pics including of the engine room etc.

However she is much converted from the original.

As you near the end and detailing you might be interested in some of the depth charge stencilling and fuse setting wall “charts” etc.

My Amelia was done through guesstimating in regards to radar tower height etc - wish I’d had those plans

And what a good choice of ship, excellent photographs though atypical in many ways from the majority

Carry on Skipper 😎

Rob

[Steve D]

2 hours ago, chrisr57 said:

I might just put Vince on hold for 18 months and pull up a chair

Thanks Chris, but please don't put it on hold, I'm enjoying it too much

 

55 minutes ago, robgizlu said:

As you near the end and detailing you might be interested in some of the depth charge stencilling and fuse setting wall “charts” etc.

I thought you might like this one Rob!  As to that detail stuff, absolutely, I think there is a lot I can do re signage and transfers I've not done on past models.  

 

Cheers

 

Steve

[beefy66]

3 hours ago, robgizlu said:

Well done Steve, no guessing my thoughts on this😂

It’s going to be an epic build and the interest expressed by so many is a testament to the esteem you carry here with your masterpieces!

 

What he said another masterpiece in the making.  

 

Stay Safe

beefy