The Ship Model Forum

James
Your build is getting more and more interested in doing a St Laurant build . I see you are in the service .I spent eight years in all at FT Bragg.

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If you are not living on the edge then you are taking up to much space

Richard,

The build is taking forever. I have rebuilt the hull as it had an accident and made some improvements like what Russ has done on his build. (the bow area where the bridge will fit in) For the rounded deck edge, I have found doll house sized quarter round which seems to work to give the right curve. I followed your build of the T3 and plan to use this hull as a mould to build several ships of the class and her successors. Right now, I am making 3 sets of everything as I want to have the 3rd Destroyer Sqn in 1/72, HMCS St. Laurent, HMCS Ottawa and HMCS Assiniboine. circa 1957.

I am in the Cdn army reserve (28 years). Right now, I am on my Army Operations Course which is 10 months of part time study. They have me away every 3rd weekend for in-house training. With a regular job, family and the army, time for the build is very limited.(plus winter was not good to be outside working as I don't have much space for the hull inside at the moment.)

I am working mainly on the fittings such as air look out seats, search lights etc. that can be done in one sitting. I am trying to build these with the idea of casting them in resin so going forward it will be easier to build the next ship as the parts can just be made rather than built from scratch. There is not much out there for 1/72 fittings(except Australia with TF 72)

I did build the 3"/50 gun house only to find photos that confirm that for the period I am building the ship, she had both mounts open. I have started the process of building the open 3"/50. What a plumbing nightmare. There are boxes, terminals and wiring everywhere. Good thing HMCS Hiada(WW2 tribal class, modified post war) is just down the road as she has a 3"/50 mount and I have taken 40 photos of it which are a big help.

My camera is still MIA from Christmas so I am going to finally buy a new one. Just need to wait till after the next army weekend. Then I will post some photos of what I have been up to lately.

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James W.

Dry docked:
1/72 HMCS Assiniboine DDE 234-1960
1/72 HMCS Ottawa DDE 229-1960
1/72 HMCS St. Catharines-River Class Frigate-1944
On the slipway:
1/72 HMCS Camrose-Flower Class Corvette-1943
1/72 HMCS Trillium-Flower Class Corvette-1942

Don't give up James, I know about builds taking forever, my Chaconia is also under construction for several years now. If weather isn't good, it's not really encouraging, I know that feeling too. But try to concentrate on bits and pieces that don't require the hull to be finished and finish those off during winter time. After the hull is finished or nearly finished, you won't feel much to build those anymore since the resulting hull gives a certain feeling of satisfaction already .
I'm watching this since the subject really is interesting and quite rare! Hope to see some progress from time to time. Details are in fact the most hard to build!
For my rounded sides on the deck edge on Chaconia I used a half circular piece of wood, cut it in two and mounted it on top of the frames. It also gave an edge for a removable part of the main deck. I aftwards integrated it in the hull with fibreglassing and did a tiny layer of car body filler over it. Honestly that wasn't the best idea, as when you start sanding the filler, it has the tendency to peel off once it's too thin. Not sure how to solve it. Hope you have a good solution for it so that perhaps I can use it in a next build!

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The merchant shipyard

Hello,

I am done my army course and am back working on Assiniboine. I have a question about the ship's boats. The plans show a RN 25 foot motor cutter and RN 27 foot whaler but photos from the period show this:

The cabins are similar to the 25 foot cutter but the main cabin front is not open and there are only 3 windows per side rather than four(including 3 on the main cabin forward face. The 3rd photo does not have the forward cover in place. The boat has a pointed bow and stern as shown in the first photo were the 25 foot cutter has a square stern. Also these boats do not appear to be clinker built. I have tried searching the net but found nothing so any help would be appriciated. I thought they might be 27 foot motor whalers with the cabins added but the seem beamier than a regular 27 foot whaler and also deeper. These boats did not last long. By the early 1960's they had been replaced by a new pattern 25 foot cutter and the old 27 foot whaler (built from fiberglass rather than wood) during the DDH conversions.

If all else fails, I am planning to pattern the boats after the 27 foot motor whaler and add the cabins as in the photos.

Thanks

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James W.

Dry docked:
1/72 HMCS Assiniboine DDE 234-1960
1/72 HMCS Ottawa DDE 229-1960
1/72 HMCS St. Catharines-River Class Frigate-1944
On the slipway:
1/72 HMCS Camrose-Flower Class Corvette-1943
1/72 HMCS Trillium-Flower Class Corvette-1942

James, There isn't much about these boats that I have found. My guess is it a Canadian built version of the RN 25' work boat. I know the RCN did some experimenting with 'plastic' boats in the 60's until they finalized the Fiberglass cutter used through the 70's and 80's until the RHIBs took over. Darren

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Darren (Admiral Hawk)
In the not so tropical climate of the Great White North.

Thanks Darren,

I am working on drawings to make the boats based on the photos. Depending on my measurements they are between 25-27 foot boots so I think I will split that at 26'ish The hull lines just look a little better than squishing to 25'. I intend to mould them as I want 6 all together (3 ships worth). I am following the process from "RMS Titanic a modelmaker's manual" by Peter Davies-Garner. I will deviate some and try to mould in the rib detail on the insides rather than scratch those for each boat. I will post pictures of the process as I progess.

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James W.

Dry docked:
1/72 HMCS Assiniboine DDE 234-1960
1/72 HMCS Ottawa DDE 229-1960
1/72 HMCS St. Catharines-River Class Frigate-1944
On the slipway:
1/72 HMCS Camrose-Flower Class Corvette-1943
1/72 HMCS Trillium-Flower Class Corvette-1942

Hello,

It has been awhile. I have not had success making my ship's boats and I kind of lost interest for a bit. Watching Russ' build has sparked the bug again to get going. I am not giving up on the boats but just moving on to something else and will go back to them later. Sorry I don't have any photos I just wasn't happy with what I did so I did not take any.

What I am interested in is, does anyone know the location of the fire hose connections? I have the locations of the fire hose racks but I can only find 3 connections for the hoses to hook up, 1 on the forecastle, one at the base of the bridge face next to the fire hose racks there and one aft near the aftermost hose racks. I am thinking there should be one located on the bridge deck as there are fire hoses located there, one on the after deck structure near the funnel, vents or 40mm guns as there are hoses there and I believe there should be one under the deck structure between the ships boats and lastly one somewhere near the aft 3" mount. I have reviewed all my photos and haven't been able to spot them. As most are just general 1950's shots they are not close up detail shots for modellers. When you zoom in they just get too blurry to make out details.

I will post soon some photos of what I have done.

Thanks for any help anyone can give on the fire hose points. I know I am grasping at straws here. Worst case I will make an educated guess as to were they should go. My plans to not show any.

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James W.

Dry docked:
1/72 HMCS Assiniboine DDE 234-1960
1/72 HMCS Ottawa DDE 229-1960
1/72 HMCS St. Catharines-River Class Frigate-1944
On the slipway:
1/72 HMCS Camrose-Flower Class Corvette-1943
1/72 HMCS Trillium-Flower Class Corvette-1942

hi james, i do not have many pics of the ships as thay were built but i will do a little looking around to see if i can spot anything.