The Ship Model Forum

Hello Devin
your build is fantastic
nice to see
please more updates as possible :wave_1:

Hi Devin,

well at least I guess it's good news! Lots of work, married etc. could be worse :heh:
Hope to see some progress though. I never really heard or knew about such ships before you introduced me to them with your build. That's probably why I remembered!

Roel,

Unfortunately, no. I've been embroiled in a sci-fi build for a client, and just too little time. My consulting work has been extremely busy this year, and the whole "getting married" thing took more time than we anticipated.

I hope to have the commission build done this month, next month at the latest. I've pulled Carondelet and USS Essex down to the "to do" pile, so I'll get back to her shortly.

Thanks for asking!

-Devin

Hello Devin,

the "few more weeks" are over! Any updates yet?

brgds,
Roel

Nothing as of yet. I've had some writing deadlines lately, so most of my free time has gone to that. I also got a little bit burned out on the tedious sanding aspects of this project, so I am building a couple of quick projects so I can see some results, get something finished, and then I'll be back to this within a few more weeks.

Hello Devin,

Any progress on this build???? Last update looked nice!

Picking up from the gun deck decking photo above. Here it is being glued to a sheet of ordinary pink insulation sheet foam. I got lucky (again) and the sheet foam's thickness of 1" turned out to be the exact height I needed between the casemate floor and roof. I used white glue for this step as the foam will be coming out and I want that process to be as easy as possible.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_3063_web.jpg[/img]

Once that was done I flipped the assembly over, centered and aligned the sheet styrene for the top of the casemate, and glued that to the foam using white glue as well.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_3067_web.jpg[/img]

When the whole sandwich dried, then I shaped it. I started with a coarse rasp file, switched to a fine one, then did the final sanding with 150 grit sandpaper in a sanding block. The rasp made quick work of the foam, almost too quick at times. The foam sands and shapes very well, though.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_3069_web.jpg[/img]

All of the rough sanding done, most of the fine work as well. There are some gaps that I will fill with spackle before I sheet over the foam with more styrene for the casemate sides. Here's an overall shot; besides the pink color it's starting to look like a gunboat.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_3079_web.jpg[/img]

Here's a view of the stern, showing how well the foam blends to the curves. There's a little more work to be done to get it all lined up and right, but it's darn close.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_3080_web.jpg[/img]

I've also started thinking about what I'm going to put in the interior of this thing. Here's the five styrene tubes that will make up the boiler assembly.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_3082_web.jpg[/img]

Tell me about it. This consulting gig I've been on for the past 14 months is over a week from tomorrow. That gives me most of November and December off to work on some novel edits and move forward with this build.

Nice to see you back at it.

An embarrassing long time since an update, but work, vacation, writing, blah blah blah...

This is a single shot of the beginning of the gun deck and casemate construction. I've decided that I want the casemate to be a separate assembly for ease of interior detailing. This is the start of it: the "floor" of the gun deck is taped to the hull, the forward and aft ends of it are where the casemate will meet the deck. (note, this is a different piece than I had in the previous post, I had to cut it again, got a little overzealous the first time!) I have it taped in place for final shaping, and I drilled four holes and have inserted wire to help hold it in place, and also to key the assembly so that I can line it up exactly as construction progresses. The other sheet in the foreground is the top of the casemate, or the hurricane deck. The next step is to take the casemate bottom and the hurricane deck, both of 1mm styrene, and sandwich a sheet of pink insulation foam between them, then start sanding to shape. We'll see how this goes...

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/gundeck/IMG_3062_web.jpg[/img]

It doesn't look like much progress, but it's a major milestone as far as I'm concerned: I have finished planking the bottom of the hull! I'm happy with it, so I'll be using this process for the rest of the ship. A couple of quick photos of the bow and stern sections here.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_2896_web.jpg[/img]

These are before-and-after shots of a sort: on one side of the hull the planking is still sticking out before being trimmed. On the other side I've trimmed them and sanded flush with a very firm sanding block and metal files; you can't have any flex in the sanding medium in this area.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_2897_web.jpg[/img]

I've finally decided on the method for building the casemate. I'm starting with a sheet of .040" styrene, cut to the shape of the deck and as long as the base of the casemate. I'll cut this out, and then cut out the majority of the interior of this sheet as well. The idea is to have a thin sheet all of the way around, sort of like a footer for the wall in a house, to build the side timbers upon. This might be a little backwards and odd way to go about this, but right now it makes sense to me.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_2895_web.jpg[/img]

Bob,

Thanks. Sometimes I do it the way you suggest, especially if it's the first plank in a run and getting the position of it is especially important. The Tamiya glue is so thin that sometimes it will see UP through the seams doing it this way, though!

-Devin

Devin,

I love the Civil War era and I'm really enjoying this build. Good work!

Just a suggestion regarding planking and glue... The "accepted" way of laying the planks would be to set a plank in place, dry, and then touch the edge (or drag along a long edge) with a brush dipped in the solvent. Capillary action will pull just the necessary amount under the plank and pretty much eliminate the possibility of oozing up between planks. The most common mistake with solvents is using too much. Having said this, if you've worked out a method that you're happy with, stick with it!

Looking forward to more.

Regards,
Bob

Thanks Dan and Dave. It's fun, but a learning cure, to be sure. I'm doing the individual planks on the bottom of the hull mainly as practice. I could have done a full length of the hull strip with the plank ends scribed in on this flat surface, but that won't work on the hull sides at the fore and aft curves, so I'm making my mistakes now on the bottom where most people will never see them.

Dan, yes, I'm using the Tamiya liquid cement. You have to be careful because if you put it on too wet it will indeed squeeze out of the seams and destroy the effect, but that can be cleaned up by sanding and running a scriber along the seam. What I normally do is paint the hull surface with the Tamiya, let it set and tack up for 2 or 3 seconds, then press the plank into place. That makes a nice neat seam, no seepage, and it sets up fast.

I've got kind of bored with this phase, though, and want it done, so over the past two evenings I've nearly completed the planking on this part and am ready to start on the hull sides and casemate.

Hi Devin Good to see more up dates on this unusual subject. Your styrene work is clean and crisp.
Dave Wooley :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1: :wave_1:

Great work but, what a pain on the planking. What kind of glue here? Just more Tamiya thin liquid? I ask because I would think it would dissolve the seam between the planks.

It's kind of repetitive to say how busy I've been lately, but it does impact the modeling time. I continue with the tedious task of laying the 1mm X 3.2mm X 102mm planks. Each plank is cut to size, all four edges of the top surface scraped with a scalpel to knock off the sharp edges and give definition between the planks, and then glued down. I'm laying them in a staggered pattern of 4 rows before I repeat the pattern. I futzed around with the contrast and such on this photo so that hopefully you can see what I'm talking about.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_4263_web.jpg[/img]

That's it for now, but I believe I might have worked out how to begin laying out the casemate, something I've been pondering for a couple of months now. Hopefully I can proceed soon, or at the very least finish planking the bottom of the hull and move to the hull sides, which will be done in the same manner as the bottom.

Hi, Devin

Nice to see that your Carondelet is growing up !!!
But you need just a bit more of free time :-)

Cheers

JP

I finally got some time off (my first free weekend in nearly a month). So, an update:

Had to do some damage control. I realized that I hadn't fixed any bolts inside the hull to mount it to the base. I opened up a couple of the holes in the deck and put them inside, positioned them with a paint brush handle, tacked them in place with super glue, then packed epoxy putty around them to get a solid join.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_2792_web.jpg[/img]

Here's the curve between the lower and upper hull that I showed started a few posts ago. Now I've finished planking the curve.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_2891_web.jpg[/img]

The City Class had three keels. Here's the centerline keel with the upturn for the bow. Nice, simple 45-degree angle here.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_2794_web.jpg[/img]

Here's the rear end of that centerline keel, attached to the hull. I had to rip this piece out once as it was WAY off of the center line. Working backwards I found a measurement here and there off by only a millimeter or two which added up the problem. A lot of sanding and swearing and re-measuring fixed the issue.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_2793_web.jpg[/img]

Here's where I sit now. The three keels are clearly visible here. I've started planking the lower hull. I'm using Evergreen strip styrene, 3mm wide by 1mm thick, cut into 103mm lengths. It's slow, tedious, yet rewarding work. I'm leaving the keels and the planks proud of the hull edge for now so that I can trim and sand them all at the same time for a uniform finish.

[img]http://www.devinjpoore.com/models/carondelet/hull/IMG_2890_web.jpg[/img]

That's it for now.

Yeah, the putty is well dry by now! Since my last posting I've only been able to add the three keels to the hull and begin planking the lower hull. Life -- as it often does -- has intruded with me being called back to work, and I had some editors ask to see some samples of my novel, so those items have been taking priority. I'll try to get some photos posted this weekend.