The Ship Model Forum

Current progress on electrical armament, sometime logistics being the most important aspect of operations. Re printing the electrical cabinet, a little wider. Again not exact specs fro this unit.

Tom

This gives an entirely new meaning to the term "portable generator."

Nice model.

Phil

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A collision at sea will ruin your entire day. Aristotle

Tom,

Extremely nice!!! the b/w photo is quite apropos. The model is quite convincing!!

Hank

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HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

Currently working n the 26' MWB Davits, as far as can tell a similar setup to that used on the Fletcher Class DD's. I already have some printed 1:144 MWB's, a cooperative project between Hank Strub and myself and already printed in various scales for other projects, 1:192, 1:144 and 1:120.

Tom

Phil:

I just finished a Douglas Reeman Novel about operations aboard a RN Fleet Minesweeper, you should be pleased to have successfully escaped the peacetime sweeping community. The scenes in the Channel on the open bridge in Winter, part of an invasion fleet and on and on. Sailors getting W/T message that their home was obliterated, no survivors! Tough times. The common use of alcohol on board, quite a contrast to USN practice sine who was it? (Josephus Daniels?) SECNAV early in the last century.

That and the usual results of the uncertainties of such wartime operations.

It was a constant move to the search engines to penetrate some of the particular RN slang.

Cheers: Tom

So far pretty happy with the davits, interesting that these ships during the wartime only carried a 26' MWB on the starboard side. Actually slinging the MWB from the davits a challenge yet to be resolved.

As it turns out The DE and Fletcher davits for the MWB were somewhat different. It appears that the DE's used two of the aft type davits with the tapered round base. I have trial fitted the assemblage and hung the MWB with success. I made lifting eyes fro the MWB by taking a brass wire and closing an eye in the end, secured by solder, then drilling and CSA'ing in place fore and aft. I made J hooks to match and attached them to the pull sheaves of the davits, hooked the boat into the davits and slid their bases into the davit bases. Surprisingly it worked. One could print. detailed block and tackle, but I am not sure that it would survive the at sea rigors of model shiphood.

A tendency of printing is we can live in the model design world and not pay enough attention to the engineering aspects of what we are building. Yes we can design and maybe even print something that may look nice but won't survive even assembly and handling. With experience we Ian some understanding what we can get away with.

Tom

Tom,

Very true! Perhaps a possible explanation as to why kit manufacturers have parts that are lacking in detail and quite oversized - in order to compensate for the assembly & handling aspect of constructing the model.

I know I try to incorporate as much scaled detail as possible - sometimes this works, sometimes not. We usually find a happy medium.

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

Hank:

You are good at riding the edge on what works, I know for my part that it often takes several iterations. I still haven't got the LCVP's hanging from their davits on the ARL. I initially thought that the DE and Fletcher davits were the same but apparently not. Wonder why they changed the forward one? An advantage of home printing as opposed to sending things out, we can approach the edge of what works more successfully.

Rigging the davits may be yet another adventure!. Replacing kit parts as you are on Stoddard does put you into a bit of exploratory territory. That and you have two boats to hang!

Best regards! Tom

I had briefly considered covering the boat, but ready for war the boats were probably not covered, needed on short notice for plucking aviators out of the drink and whatnot. As it turns out there was a reward, the generally accepted value of a Naval Aviator was considered to be 5 gallons of Ice Cream! I'll probably do the straps which hold the boat inboard from slices of tape. Divining the method of rigging the boats, standing and running, may take. bit.