by Stephen Allen » Wed Jul 15, 2009 2:54 am
Thanks all.
The hull plating is done using the good old masking tape and paint method to lay in the 'in' and 'out' strakes of plating longitudinally along the hull. Early welded hulls were not as featureless as you might think. The Baltimores (at least the early ones) had 'in' and 'out' strakes for much of their hull length just like a conventionally riveted ship (very clearly shown in diagrams and photos in the CA-70 Battle Damage report), and of course other classes had thicker hull plating for key strength areas, which can appear like 'in' and 'out' strakes.
The plate butt ends are simply scribed in with a scalpel blade but very gently - this leaves a very slightly raised line once covered with paint (unlike a scriber, which leaves a recess) - it's just enough to catch a little paint when drybrushing the hull - ditto for the edges of the strakes. One issue you will need to watch with this is that the scalpelled lines can become points of failure for the paint substrate, encouraging paint rip off when masked. I had a little of this occur when demasking, but mostly avoided it by using bits of paper under the masking tape to protect the paint
I can't claim that the plate layout, especially below the waterline, is precise as I didn't have access to a shell plate expansion plan, but I based as much of it as I could on photos.
The more vertical pattern of hull plating at the extreme bow is very noticeable in pictures of Canberra at launch. Some Baltimores also show very prominent butt plate reinforcement straps along the hull (complete with rivets), some don't - this may be a trick of lighting, later units might have been built that way, earlier units might have been reinforced at some point. For now I have left them off as they are not discernable to me in any photo I have of CA-70 in the period in question.
The ladder rungs are copper wire formed by winding around the edge of a steel ruler and then cut. These are then attached to the structure with clear varnish. Early Baltimores have lots of these individual rungs rather than separate ladders. This is a somewhat quicker method of producing these items than drilling holes and gluing rungs in for a true 3D effect. I did do this for the rungs on the hull near the fantail catapult mounts but I compromised on all the others for sanity's sake.
regards
Steve
Thanks all.
The hull plating is done using the good old masking tape and paint method to lay in the 'in' and 'out' strakes of plating longitudinally along the hull. Early welded hulls were not as featureless as you might think. The Baltimores (at least the early ones) had 'in' and 'out' strakes for much of their hull length just like a conventionally riveted ship (very clearly shown in diagrams and photos in the CA-70 Battle Damage report), and of course other classes had thicker hull plating for key strength areas, which can appear like 'in' and 'out' strakes.
The plate butt ends are simply scribed in with a scalpel blade but very gently - this leaves a very slightly raised line once covered with paint (unlike a scriber, which leaves a recess) - it's just enough to catch a little paint when drybrushing the hull - ditto for the edges of the strakes. One issue you will need to watch with this is that the scalpelled lines can become points of failure for the paint substrate, encouraging paint rip off when masked. I had a little of this occur when demasking, but mostly avoided it by using bits of paper under the masking tape to protect the paint
I can't claim that the plate layout, especially below the waterline, is precise as I didn't have access to a shell plate expansion plan, but I based as much of it as I could on photos.
The more vertical pattern of hull plating at the extreme bow is very noticeable in pictures of Canberra at launch. Some Baltimores also show very prominent butt plate reinforcement straps along the hull (complete with rivets), some don't - this may be a trick of lighting, later units might have been built that way, earlier units might have been reinforced at some point. For now I have left them off as they are not discernable to me in any photo I have of CA-70 in the period in question.
The ladder rungs are copper wire formed by winding around the edge of a steel ruler and then cut. These are then attached to the structure with clear varnish. Early Baltimores have lots of these individual rungs rather than separate ladders. This is a somewhat quicker method of producing these items than drilling holes and gluing rungs in for a true 3D effect. I did do this for the rungs on the hull near the fantail catapult mounts but I compromised on all the others for sanity's sake.
regards
Steve