The Ship Model Forum

Got the hull cut today guys. I can only post three pictures at a time here so I'll just post a few. The rest you can see at my forum. Thanks Chuck for pointing that out.

Reid the foam you can get from a lot of different places. Do a search on line. This piece of high density blue foam came from my buddies shop near by that makes airplane wings and was a scrap. I'll find out from him where it comes from but I know he buys huge sheets.

Here's some pictures that tell the simple story.



Here's the foam cut into sections at each bulkhead station.
What I do next is use a bit of 3M 77 and tack the formers either side of the section, level to the top and center to the center line. Hard to go wrong this way.



Then I use my wire hot cutter and by hand cut each section.



Here's the end result of a couple of sections.

Once all these have been cut they are assembled on a flat surface and glued together with epoxy. I only use enough to secure them without having the epoxy reach the edges. You don't want it there as you can't sand it without cause ridges.

To continue:



Here's all the sections together. I later added the small bow section with some scrap foam. As you can see doing the sections with so few bulkheads removes some of the curves. This is natural. A way to fix this is to make more formers but it takes a great deal more time and I find a bit balsa filler and then glass corrects this very quickly. After it's glassed I use Evercoat metal Glaze to really polish it off.



Here it is top side before I started shaping the stern.



The stern has some complex angles from all sides I was able to mark and then cut with a razor saw.

More tomorrow folks. To see the rest visit the thread on SP.

Steve

Reid thanks I got some proper planes from Gantu of the T-34/75 turrets today so I'm all set.

Steve

That hull building method is genius. Obviously simple, yet genius. The only problem is that now I want to try it...

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Thanks Devin. Try it you'll like it!

Steve

Do you think the wire cutter would cause problems if one were to use styrene for the station formers? I have the desire to do a 1/350th scale carrier hull. Using your method as-is I could do the final hull with vacuum forming, in theory, but that's a big chunk of plastic to form. If one could use styrene for the formers, then sheeting the hull with strip styrene might work.

_________________
We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

You would have to keep the temperature very low. Even then I think the wire would melt the styrene. I use model box cardboard. I harden the edges with CA and sand them again until glassy smooth.

I have a large vacuum form machine here that I rarely use. I plan to do some simple hulls on it one day. But for our type of ships, not unless you make female molds or moulds, and reverse pull, the styrene doesn't capture detail.

I'll be making a one piece silicone RTV mold of this hull with a epoxy glass mother mold.

Steve

great stuff!! that is sooo cool!! it will be a blast at Hansen when you get finished

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Reid, PIO of the 48th Fleet
http://www.48thfleet.com

Thanks Reid. Not too much done today as I had to do more work on the Washington class sub kit I'm reissuing. Tomorrow after the lake I'll be back on the hull.

Steve

Well I'm back at her after finishing the masters up for my George Washington Class sub kit. Glad to be done with that!

On my forum one of our members made a great find that makes things a whole lot easier for me and fills in the blanks.

http://www.walkarounds.airforce.ru/navy ... /index.htm

Talk about good reference. I was floored.

Pictures later.

Steve

Not much to see. Glassing the hull. Got a bunch of layers on today. Tomorrow I'll sand and glaze. Next step after that is to hull plate it with styrene sheet.

While I'm waiting for epoxy to set up for another 24 hours I'll start on the deck structures. More tomorrow.

Steve





All sanded and ready to go.



All glassed with 5 layers of 2 oz. I only need it as a barrier for the styrene. More than enough.

u have glassed th ehull and will add styrene to plate it... then melt/take out the foam?

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Reid, PIO of the 48th Fleet
http://www.48thfleet.com

No I'll be making an RTV silicone mold Reid.

Steve

that is big silicone mold! cool... the bigger the better!!

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Reid, PIO of the 48th Fleet
http://www.48thfleet.com

I've made bigger for myself and the studios. This one will take two gallons. Another for the resin parts. That's about 400 bucks! Yikes. And people ask why do these things cost so much? Worse with subs.

As in many building threads here by find craftsman anyone with half a brain need not ask.

Steve

steve.....your last sentance says it all......most people don't understand the cost for patterns and molds and the time involved to make these products.....i know brother...boy do i know....

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http://www.48thfleet.com

Yes indeed. When I started subs first off my RC plane buddies were choking on the price of a sub. They were to use to massed produced Chinese made ARFs for the great unwashed. Our ships and subs are not massed produced such as the RC planes. Especially the subs and WW2 fighting ships.

Steve

hows it going steve??

_________________
Reid, PIO of the 48th Fleet
http://www.48thfleet.com

Just sanding and shaping the hull Reid.

steve

Finally got this lumpy hull sanded down smooth enough to start the hull platting with styrene. I have lots of left over pieces from vacuum forming that came in handy.

I did the deck first. Thats the easy part and then using the plans and pictures of the model started plotting the panels or plates. Not easy as the plans don't show their locations at all. So you have to work from pictures of the real boat and model and wing it. As it turns out from boat to boat, like so many other things built in WW2, they are not consistent giving me some latitude.

Tomorrow I hope to get most of the platting done. For the curved areas I plan to use a heat gun to soften the plastic and bend it around. I'm using contact cement to glue the platting on as CA will crack and weaken styrene.

Once all the platting is on I will use CA over the seams to create the welds. It should be OK to use it for that purpose once the plates are glued down.

It's starting to look like a hull.

Steve