The Ship Model Forum

In general I'm interested in WW 1 ships but due to fact that my grandfather served in WW 2 on a ferry pram Type C I'm interested in this sort of ships and collected some drawings and photos over the years.

Artillery Ferry Prams (AF's) were at first hand converted Ferry Prams (MFP's), based on Types B, C and D. Later in the war they were built as AF's Type D 2 and others.

I'm concentrating on this type here, which is one of the first bunch.



My intention is to build a hull first which will then serve as a plug. So I can build a whole "family" of them consisting of:

- regular Ferry Pram (MFP) Type B and/or C
- an AF Type B and/or C
- a MFP converted into a Minelayer for shallow waters, Type CM
- finally a MFP with three Type VII-C turrets, built for the U-boat-school

Types A, B and C almost looked the same, B and C only differing in the height of their loading compartment.

Type D MFP's had noteable different hull shape due to the straight deck as can be seen here in comparision to the above photo.



I built this model years ago in 1/100 scale and it is now displayed at the german Naval school in Glücksburg, near Flensburg. It was my first scratchbuilt model.

that is one snazzy looking ship well done on getting it into that school.

Copying drawings and cutting the pieces from wood is no big deal I think, so I took no photos until the hull was rougly in shape. I used a wood named MDF in germany. It is cheap, heavy and horrible if you plan for a smooth surface. I will not use it again.

For those not familiar with MFP hulls, the bow (or better forward end) is located in the left side of the photos. This here is the top side



and this here the bottom



Corners at the bottom and the bow are rounded to radius of 2.5 mm - and I was so excited doing this (with a tool), that I rounded also the stern corners. But - they have to be sharp...! I marked the error in the following photo.



Correcting this with putty was out of question, instead I did this: Cutting out the rear corners and fitting pieces of hardwood into them and then cutting and sanding it back into the correct shape.




Next thing to do are the housings for the three shafts.

This is what I have to built. I would appreciate if someone gives me the correct designation of these:




Recently I had good success building housings for Navigation Lights on a destroyer by using 0.2 mm Aluminium sheet. So I choose the same method here. I redrew the pieces in CorelDRAW and printed them out, glued them with rubber glue to the sheet.



I took then a hobby knife to partly cut the surface according to the lines drawn. This serves two things. You may break the aluminium at the line or you bend it.



This is the result:



It may look ok on the above photo, but it wasnt. The shape was not overly correct and the corners far from being crisp.

Time for some machining...

I thought of cutting styrene to the correct shape, but this turned out bad too, since it was not stiff enough to provide the sharp corners I was looking for.


Perspex was my next choice and it worked well. The pictures speak for themselves.




So far so good, but how to achieve the 7° angle without spoiling the shape? Sanding it down by hand might be an option but not for me, I'm not accurate enough for this. Discsander would be good, but how to hold this tiny little thing (3 x 6 x 30 mm) at the correct angle?
After some thinking I tried this - attaching the item to a piece of teak wood by glueing it temporarily with CA type glue. I was sure I could remove it after sanding and it worked:




I used a hobby knife to remove the item from the wood and cut it then to the correct lenght.



This whole thing cost me about two hours of trying and doing. But I would need THREE of them.
Time for molding and casting...

I built a styrene box in a suitable size, marked the dimensions of the item and drilled some 1.5 mm holes in the bottom of the box. By doing this I'm able to glue the piece into the box from behind using CA glue without spoiling the outer surface.



Filling in silicon rubber, waiting for 60 minutes and then casting three indentical pieces from resin. In the photo below you see them laying at the stern bottom - just for the photo.



The next pictures will tell you how I attached them finally.







Next step is detailing the hull bottom.

A wonderful photo of AF 27 sitting on the ground during ebb tide. Best chance to clean the hull



Back to modelling. The ships were (in general) built in three sections, bow, center and stern. The plates were connected in way that they leave scalwise only an appr. 1,0 mm wide strip on the surface. Good for me - so I can use adhesive strips to simulate this.
The junctions of the three sections was a little bit more sturdy, which will demand a slightly different method at the model.

Here is a drawing showing the starboard side of station 27 showing not only the stripes but also that the bow ramp lays on the hull plating. Good for me too.



I cut the bow ramp from brass sheet 0.1 mm and scribed the backside a little to get the "hungry horse effect" which came with the welding. I glued the sheet to the hull using epoxi.



Here is the bow ramp attached together with the first two strips of adhesive left and right side of the bottom. I'm really happy that my drawings provide me with such informations.



More to come...

You mean "Propeller Shaft / Housing" ???

Great project...were did you got the plans from ??? I could be interested in getting a copy to myself...

.

A couple years of intense research on this subject resulted in some drawings, pictures, contact to the former CO of AF 26 and other stuff. And as you know - one can never have enough source material.

The drawings are definetly not available via a shop or something.

If you think of building it according to R/C tanks in 1/16 scale - here is what you get:

2.95 m length - 40 cm beam - appr. 60 kg displacement

Honestly - I heard of a guy planning exactly this...

Hi everybody. Here you see the hull with all the seams attached to the bottom, ready for priming.



And this is how it looks after applying the primer - it begins to look like a ship - finally. Check out the strips with the rivets simulating the connection of the three hull sections.

Tip Top work--and great methodology!

Good to see an otherwise overlooked vessel being given such thorough treatment!

Bravo!

JIM BAUMANN

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thanks Jim - I appreciate your interest. And thank you for the praise.

Yes, MFP-models are hard to find. Interesting enough since the KM built almost more of these than Type VII subs. If I would allow me being boysterous I would claim that the Landingcrafts of the KM were the Top-Threat for Great Britain during the 12 month from Summer '40 to Summer '41.

Anyway - this type is (in scale 1/100) non-exciting for modellers . MFP's are ugly to the bone, they were damn slow, were auxilaries and not overly succesfull during the war. And not to forget: 50 cm length together with little space and only 200 g (appr.) displacement is not very motivating for RC-Modellers.

Aside from this: The box-shape hull looks easy to built but I find it quite a task since all corners and lines are straight. If you do something wrong to the model - and may it be the most minor error - everybody will see it at first glance, contrary to more round shaped ship hulls...
For my first modell I used Styrene sheets of 1.5 mm for the stations and 0.8 mm for planking the sides and deck. It was so weak and wobbly that I found myself endlessly using putty and sandingpaper to achieve some straight surfaces.
This is why I started now with "a big block of wood" - it will keep its outer shape.

Do you know if anyone did an AF (Artillery) in scale 1/350? Would be intersting since some of AF's served in 1944 as additional Flak at Bodö inlet in Norway. Maybe a TIRPITZ diorama with AF's off the net cage? Just a thought.

During this week I do not see a real chance for progress in the project. But I'll keep posting when I've done something new.

Any build is interesting, keep up the good work, ARH

_________________
Simple but effective.

Here you see me doing what I dislike the most. Using putty and sanding. But it has to be done anway - decks must be straight, corners sharp and surfaces smooth.



I haven't decided yet wether to put 0.1 mm brass sheet on top of the deck or not. The decks have the width needed and they are straight from stern to bow since this was one single piece of wood for each side. Cutting a brass strip of 500 x 12 mm is quite difficult for me and I' tending to avoid it. On the opposite - if the deck is looking worse without a brass strip, I will give it a try then. Lets rejudge after sanding and priming.

Hi all, here are the next steps. The Deck edge has to be made. I will use a brass angle 1.0 x 1.0 x 0.3 mm to do it.



For the round corner at the bow I have to cut the angled strip partly away so it will allow for bending it.



Then its time to attach the angle to the deck. I do it using CA glue which is sufficient for a plug.



Here is the rounded bow section of the angle bent and attached to the deck. It still has to be cut to the correct length which is simply a job for a jewellers jigsaw.

finished with that...

Looking good! I can't wait to see more

_________________
-Abram
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Thank you.

After attaching the deck edge I saw and foremost felt a little gap remaining between hull and brass strip. So how to fill in putty without spoiling too much of the outer hull?

I tried this:

Putty mixed with nitrosolvent (50:50) and applied with an old brush 2




this shrinked a lot during the process, but it doesn't matter that much since I could do several layers "wet in wet". That was fun - the sanding will be not.

Slowly working my way towards molding the hull. Here I attached styrene strip 2 x 2 mm to the inner sides of hull. My goal is casting the hull complete with the side weatherdecks.
It should become more clear after the next steps...