The Ship Model Forum

So this is my first. My first major scratch build; first ship; first time posting about my model building. I am hoping that documenting the process will help keep me honest and accountable. Working on a project that requires documentation and responding to the members of this board is my way of achieving this.
So I have 3 ships that I considered for my first build. They are: HMCS Haida, HMCS Kingston and CCGS Henry Larsen. Haida will be tough build as the plans need major work and the amount of detail I will want to add will require a crazy amounts of work. The advantage is the ship is docked an hour away from me and I can take pictures whenever I want. CCGS Henry Larsen has the advantage of good plans however I have only the photos scoured from the internet for reference which is a big disadvantage. HMCS Kingston seemed liked the perfect start into boat building as the hull and various structures are relatively simple. I have excellent plans and the ship docked in front of my office last month as part of a tall ships event. I was able to take tons of photos. I had set my mind to make this my maiden ship. The only thing holding me back is that I don't have any sheer or line plans. So while I try to find these I have gone back to Larsen.
To keep me on track I have decided to show the ship in the October 2017's Ajax Scale model contest. With 15 months until the show, I need to stay focused if I want show anything at all.
I was also tossing up between 1/72 and 1/48 scales for the ship. While 1/48 would be great, it would put the ship at just over 6' in length and for a first go, I think 1/72 is more manageable and allow me learn a lot. The other advantage with 1/72 is that I can utilize a kit for the BO 105 helicopter that is used on the ship.
I am excited about this and can't wait to lay the keel.

Gord

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On the Slip:
CCGS Henry Larsen

On the Drawing Board:
HMCS Kingston
HMCS Magnificent
HMCS Haida

I would suggest 1/72 or 1/96. If you look around the net it seems most plans are 1/96 sc. It is not too difficult to have plans enlarged to 1/72 and there are fittings available like Scale Warship. I have found making everything from scratch is tedious .... The 3d printing stuff is very well done.
Good luck

Thanks Jcray. Yes 1/72 is where I am going with this ship. I am lucky in that I have CAD software and so I can trace scanned plans and generate vector plans in any scale I want. If the plans are more current I usually just need to clean them up and scale as needed. The fittings from Scale Warship will be a big help as well. Thanks for your comments.

Gord

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On the Slip:
CCGS Henry Larsen

On the Drawing Board:
HMCS Kingston
HMCS Magnificent
HMCS Haida

Enjoy! Nothing is more rewarding than building from scratch if you have time on your side.
Have Fun.
John

So a bit of background on CCGS Larsen. She is a Medium sized Icebreaker that typically operates in the north east coast of Canada. She is just shy of 100m (328') in length and has a 19.6m (64') beam. A MBB Bo 105 helicopter is on board for surveying ice as well as the odd rescue. There is a short documentary about the ship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5x3zuACHFY which is interesting to watch.
At 1/72 scale, my ship will be about 54" long and a beam of 10 1/2". I will be building a static version which will simplify some of the construction. To keep me on track I put together a rough schedule which will likely be blown at some point but it all starts with a plan.
August 2016 - Complete Drafting. Cut hull parts
September - October - Hull Assembly
October - December - Skinning the hull and main deck
January - March - Complete Upper Deck fit out
April - May - Complete Flight Deck, Forecastle and majority of superstructure
June - July - Final fit out, BO 105 construction, life boats etc.
August - Final Paint and Rigging
September

At least that is the plan.

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On the Slip:
CCGS Henry Larsen

On the Drawing Board:
HMCS Kingston
HMCS Magnificent
HMCS Haida

Hi Gord
be welcome aboard

Welcome aboard, Gord! Nice subject! I love these icebreakers very much. I will be looking forward to the keel-laying pics!

Aop

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On the way:
--1/350 Tamiya DKM Tirpitz Nov 1944

--1/350 scratch-build HMS Lion never built battleship (1938)

And our artworks!

Thanks Aop Aur and Capitão for the welcome.
So I have wrapped up the drafting for the hull parts. Hopefully everything will line up. I am thinking of using 3/4" x 4" hardwood keel. This is overkill but I'm trying to figure out the line between too much and not enough strength. Especially since my later models will be closer to 6' - 7' in length. For the frames, I was going to use 3/16 plywood spaced at just over 1" apart. I am thinking of leveraging my contacts in my work world to get the frames laser cut. No need to be a hero cutting and sanding each of these by hand but then again I may just do it myself after all. Still debating. The bow and stern will have blocks of balsa so I can sand that to the right shape at the leading edge. Not sure if this is the right wood for that so I am looking to others for suggestions. I have set the frames about 1/8" in from the actual shape so I can skin it with a couple layers of balsa strip. then I will add thin plastic sheets for hull plating and detailing. Cutting starts in the next few weeks.

Gord

_________________
On the Slip:
CCGS Henry Larsen

On the Drawing Board:
HMCS Kingston
HMCS Magnificent
HMCS Haida

Things are moving forward. Over the last few weeks I was able to secure a manufacture I work with sometimes, to cut the ships frames for me. I am expecting these will be done this week and wait with anticipation. During this time I sourced some maple to use for the keel. I choose maple for the symbolic association with a Canadian ice breaker and because it would hold a good straight line. I notched the keel to accept the frames and that went fairly well. However, I had choose to use 3 pieces to form the keel which may have not been the best idea. In the future I will use a single larger piece to avoid the issues of alignment of the parts. The only advantage I had was in cutting the slots perpendicular and square to the base using a table saw. These were assembled and 1" sq balsa block was added to bow so that it can be shaped later. This now sits on the base waiting the frames.

Thanks all.

Gord

_________________
On the Slip:
CCGS Henry Larsen

On the Drawing Board:
HMCS Kingston
HMCS Magnificent
HMCS Haida

_________________
Have fun, Monkey around.™

-Steve L.

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So things are bit slow as I wait for the hull frames to be cut. I am hoping to have these this week. A part of me thinks I should have just done these myself but I'd like to make sure the basis of this build starts on the right foot. I did receive the BO-105 kit yesterday so that has allowed me to still work on the project. There is definitely not a lot of detail in the kit and it is covered with sink marks and flash. I will have to do a bit scratch building and modifications to get this close to looking like the real thing. Thats it for now.

Thanks for reading
Gord

_________________
On the Slip:
CCGS Henry Larsen

On the Drawing Board:
HMCS Kingston
HMCS Magnificent
HMCS Haida

Fully realizing that this is a scratch building Ship site, I hope everyone will humour me on my initial work on the cockpit of the B0-105. The kits parts are rudimentary and the scale is off requiring a bit of modification to get it closer to reality.

More to come.
Gord

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On the Slip:
CCGS Henry Larsen

On the Drawing Board:
HMCS Kingston
HMCS Magnificent
HMCS Haida

Welcome to the board. There's all kinds of modellers over here and I'm pretty sure everyone loves every piece of modelling, be it a helicopter, tank or ship.
Great work on the helo, it keeps you moving, while other parts of your build are stalled. I always loved icebreakers and have a whole collection of pics and plans on several icebreakers. I just never started one
I'll be following your build for sure, keep it coming

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The merchant shipyard

Thanks Neptune. Just started going through your Chaconia LPG carrier build. Great work on her; learned a lot already through your project as well as the numerous others posted on this site. Unfortunately I don't have any progress to report on the ship. Still waiting on the frames to be cut. In the meantime I was able to finish building a new spray booth and a little bit of work on helicopter. Work has been heavy the last few months so any progress on the model is good. Anxiously awaiting to do some real work on the ship.

Gord

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On the Slip:
CCGS Henry Larsen

On the Drawing Board:
HMCS Kingston
HMCS Magnificent
HMCS Haida

FINALLY. . The frames are cut and in my possession. I spent the night cleaning them up. I have bit more work to do as the frames are made from 1/4" plywood however the slots cut in the keel is for 3/16" ply. I will have to take the thickness down a 1/16" so they will slide in like butter. Now everything is on me to get back onto schedule. Below are some intresting shots of the compressed boat frames. Many thanks to Andy for helping me in routing these out.

Thanks for reading.
Gord

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On the Slip:
CCGS Henry Larsen

On the Drawing Board:
HMCS Kingston
HMCS Magnificent
HMCS Haida

I'll be following your build.Nice work on the Chopper,Gord.

Scott

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K494 HMCS Arnprior
Royal Canadian Navy

Thanks K494. Things have been going smoothly now. The keel has been set up on a board that is square and level. I used 2 dowels on either side of the keel to keep it true while working on the frames. I did not secure the keel to the board opting for the flexibility to flip the ship when it is time to skin it. Using the pressure from the dowel and tension from the tape has kept it fairly stable. Its at this point I started setting in a few of the frames. Some frames required a bit more sanding and cajoling before they sat properly. I have secured only 2 frames and dry fit the remaining while checking alignment and level. I also realize that the separate bow that was attached to the keel has an angle that is too aggressive. Once I set the deck, I will a have to adjust the frames down to align properly with the ships deck. So far so good.

More to come.

Gord

_________________
On the Slip:
CCGS Henry Larsen

On the Drawing Board:
HMCS Kingston
HMCS Magnificent
HMCS Haida

Hi Gord, nice start to an interesting project. Beautiful job on your laser cut frames! this part of your construction should go together smoothly looking at the quality of the frames. well done. Scott

Looks great! I was recommended by a modeller here in my country to get someone to laser cut the keels for me. I think I should really try that! It is very time-consuming and a bit painful to cut these frames by hand, especially when it is thick!

Aop

_________________
On the way:
--1/350 Tamiya DKM Tirpitz Nov 1944

--1/350 scratch-build HMS Lion never built battleship (1938)

And our artworks!

Thanks Scott154 and Aop Aur. Having the frames routed out of plywood felt a bit like cheating since I avoided the struggle of cutting these individually. However I knew there will be more than enough struggles in realizing the rest of this miniature vessel. It was handy knowing someone that could help me out in this regard and the frames fit really well with the keel. I made some more progress last night. The frames have been glued down. After finishing this I can across a few minor issues that need to be addressed before continuing. The first is that some frames are sitting a bit too high and so they need to be sanded down the 1mm+ to even it out. Not that big a deal. The bigger issue is that the forecastle frames have a bit of transverse twist with the port side being about 3mm+ too high. I am thinking to sand the top so it is parallel with the deck frames. Then adjust the hull shape by sanding the balsa skin. I have about 3mm of thickness that I can play with. If I were to cut the front off and reattach it with twist corrected, I believe I will be opening myself up for bigger problems. Any thoughts on how to correct this are welcome.

Thanks

Gord

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On the Slip:
CCGS Henry Larsen

On the Drawing Board:
HMCS Kingston
HMCS Magnificent
HMCS Haida