Re: 1/100 dutch freighter "Proteus"

[Laurent]

Hi Guys,

hereby a building report of a little dutch freighter named Proteus

Proteus has been built as "Minna" by Janssen & Schmilinsky at Hamburg in 1921 for the August Ciellier Co, Hamburg. She became Proteus in 1927 when bought by the dutch company "Koninklijke Nederlansche Stoomboot Maatschappij" (KNSM), she's been sold in 1934 to a norwegian company, Norske Amerika Linje A/S, and was renamed "le Norv�gien II", she survived WW2 and was sold again to a indian company, was then named "Mahahursheed", she then was sold for scrap and broken up at Karachi in 1960.

"Minna", as built, had two identical sisters-ships, "Rudolf" & "Harald", Rudolf has also been bought from the August Ciellier Co by the KNSM, that one was renamed "Odysseus", here under a picture of her:



I have no informations about the further life of Harald...

Those freighters were 65 m long (between PP), 10 meters broad, with a draught of 4.5 meters full loaded.

Now the question as to why building this very ship?

Back in 1985, I visited the Amsterdam Maritime Museum, went to the shop there, to ask for some modelling plans. What I could see were plans from the Nederlandse Vereniging van Modelbouwers (NVM), there was nothing interesting to me, as I was looking for a steamer of the 1900-1930 era. Then the young guy after the desk invited me to the cellar, where there were more plans. I found there a pile of other NVM plans, till the guy showed me original blueprints of a little freighter, named Proteus. After a lot of nagging, I could buy those blueprints, the guy asked me to be quiet about this.

I left the museum with those prints, and they stayed on my shelf for 24 years, almost forgotten, I was no real model builder at that time�

When I began to write articles for a French modeling magazine, writing some articles about my way of modeling ships in paper & cardboard, the boss there asked me to start a project from ground zero.

Proteus came back in my brain, I dig up the plans, and started the building in September 2009.

Scale is 1/100, she will be R/C�d, the hull will be built plank (2 mm thick ply) on (4 mm thick ply) frames, the plating will be done with paper, the superstructures will also be out of card & paper, as I usually build my models.

As by the blueprints, there was no hull lines, I had to draw them by myself, the plan appeared as a free plan in the september 2009 ( n� 551) issue of the "Mod�le R�duit de Bateau".



to be continued...

Regards,

Laurent

[Laurent]

On the plan as published in the MRB, intended for the beginners, there were all the frames drawn one by one, ready to be put on the wood and to be sawn "as is", I glued a copy of those frames on the 4 mm thick ply & saw all the frames on my electric fretsaw:





Everything was then nailed on a building plank. As you may see, the building will occur with the keel up. This is to me the best and easier way to build a plank-on-frames hull, there is access everywhere, no need to turn up a half build hull, and the uttermost point to me, the hull may stay on the building plank to be sanded fully. I also have the habbit to never put the propeller shaft tube in the hull during the planking stage, sanding the hull with a tube already in place is a real pita, the tube may be damaged. This is why I've put a stainless steel shaft in the hull, this shaft remains free and can be slided up'n'down while applying the planking. Most modeller think or say that building a counter stern ( a "fantail" to our US friends here) is the most difficult point on building a scratch hull. No problem at all, the only feature you have to put on your framing is a "underdeck", at the knuckle height, where the "butt" planks will come on, those planks have to be sanded in shape before they are applied.



the prow, the stembar comes from an old VHS reccorder bottom, it's steel, so you'd better never cross my bow when I'm sailing on the pond :



planking may begin, I never use wooden blocks nor in front nor on the rear of my models, unless it's a cruiser stern. I don't like blocks, as they are very difficult to sand properly. As already said, the planking is 2 mm thick ply, is really cheap, I paid almost 15 � for the wood used on the hull. I never use balsa to build my hulls, balsa is to soft for a RC sailing model, it needs to be fiberglassed, I don't like to glass my hulls, it smells ans it's completely unnecessary on a 70 centimeters long hull. The complete weight for the model will be 1.5 kilogram.





planking done:



and sanded:





view from inside, to the rear:



a nice prow, "clipping the waves":




motor and shaft tube are set in:



to be continued

Laurent

[Laurent]

You all perhaps may remember that I do my plating with paper. First to do is to put an underlayer where the complete plating will be drawn on, strake by strake, with the "IN" & "OUT" strakes, plate by plate. When this is done, we may begin with gluing the "IN" plates, followed by the "OUT" plates. Some strakes are "IN & OUT", it needs some thinking before the paper is glued "in situ". When the underlayer is put on, the two hawsetubes may be put in place and sanded.










to be continued.

Laurent

[Yevgeniy]

Hi, Laurent!

It is very long awaited project of yours! Will be watching closely. Interesting as usual

Yevgeniy

[Laurent]

When the plating is completed, it has to be sealed. I use therefore a polyurethane resin, which is called "G4", it's sold by Vosschemie in Belgium, really easy to use, no mixing products, this resin has the property to set by the moisture in the air.

the superstructures.

the deck where the superstructures will stay is a piece of 2 mm thick ply, where I glued a 0.6 mm thick cardboard layer, on this layer I've put the vertical walls of the main castle, each part of the walls is glued with CA glue, CA glue also has the property to set the card, it becomes very tough. On the walls comes the boats deck, which is a piece of 1mm thick brown cardboard, on which I drew the caulking of the planks with a 0.05mm drawing pen. There were two kind of doors on the castle, wooden ones and steel ones, the steel ones were done with 0.3mm card, the wooden ones are an assembly of brown paper, the first layer being the door panels, the second layer being the door frame, the third layer being the door jamb. the air ventilators feeding the boiler room are made the same way I did them on the "Zinnia", the shape of the cowl is typically german.

The boat are done my usual way, building up the clinker paper planking up on a card stem/keel/stern piece, the ribs are done in paper, kind of a pita to put them right in , the davits are made in brass tube.














to be continued.

Laurent

[MichelB]

D*mn, you make it look easy! Nice work!

[Capit�o Norbert]

Hi lAURENT good to see a comercial vessel here too.
i like it and the construction is good and is taken a good form.
many regards

[Dave Wooley]

Hi laurent good to see you posting . This is an excellent project . As you say balsa does the job for the hull .
Dave Wooley

[Laurent]

Hi all,

many thanks for your comments!

D*mn, you make it look easy! Nice work!

Michel,

it IS easy

the next step was the building of the cargo winches and the windlass. They all are built in paper, the shafts being 1mm brass rods, I represented the connecting rods with 0,5 mm brass rods either

the winches:







the windlass:

the gears are made of paper, no teething but the spokes are in paper.









here, you have seen with those pictures for about 8 months of work, the next steps still have to be made, so be patient!

regards,

Laurent

[Yevgeniy]

it IS easy

I almost started to believe you until I read this

here, you have seen with those pictures for about 8 months of work,

Always glad to see your work.

Regard,

Yevgeniy

[ccain]

Very nice work!

[Pieter]

Very nice, especially the winch.

[JIM BAUMANN]

back to MW.com Laurent!

Good to see your masterful step by step again!


JIM B

[Neptune]

Thanks for posting! At least I'm not the only merchant ship builder.
It sure looks easy, that's the "problem" with most build posts here, people show the frames and then almost immediately you see the fully planked hull, readers without experience (like me not that long ago) think it's going that fast... Until you give it a try yourself. On the other side I wouldn't discourage anybody, the whole process is pretty rewarding and taking your time to make it right sure is worth the effort!

Hope to see more progress on your Proteus, you kind of solved my anchor winch problem too, I didn't quite see how I would make that wheel for the anchor chain...

[Laurent]

Hi all,

thanks for your inputs,

Roel,

you're right, I'm building my 7 or 8th hull, so it is easy to me.

before anyone should begin with scratchbuilding a hull, I always give the advice to begin planks on frame models by buying a cheap kit, Billing Boats offers cheap kits under the 100 $ or � mark, I'm thinking about their 50 ft steam picket boat for example, Mr Pinniger here on this very forum built it, and was quite happy with the results.

this is the pad I followed years ago, I build two kits before I tempted to build my first scratch built hull, and that one wasn't perfect at all.

The second advice I always give to newcomers in scratchbuilding hulls, is to pay a fee to become member of a well known modelling club in the vicinity. This is what I self did 12 years ago, because I knew I was nowhere about modelling, those guys learned me alot! "E-learning" on a forum isn't enough, you have to be coached in the very beginning by a "tough guy" in the "business". This is what I think anyway, food for thoughts...

I began my papers mockup because I had no money, I was just married, my wife was pregnant, we just had bought a house, so there were other priorities. I could switch now to more expensive materials, but I don't want to, I just like what I'm doing right now. I think I got it right, I could developp those skills, and I feel happy, that's what's important in life, being happy.

Regards,

Laurent

[Laurent]

Hi Guys,

little update, with pic's

The rudder is done, I used a galvanized iron plate, with an inox shaft:


Hereby the sternpost, made out of a 2mm thick epoxy plate, the propeller & rudder


the propeller is a Raboesch one, 35 mm diameter, I filed the blades to get the right shape, they were too large for a 1920 freighter, the boss is also filed, to get a rounded appearance:



the pulleys for the cargo booms are made out of 0,3 mm "bristol paper":




the bulwark stanchions:




Regards,

Laurent

[Lazarus]

Fantastic looking work so far, I will be following with great interest, certainly a good motivator as I`m good at procrastinating.

[Dave Wooley]

Hi Laurent I do like your method for the pully blocks , I must confess I have a soft spot for this period of cargo ship construction . The Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool is home to many such models and I do spent hours just viewing them as I live quite close to a number of such museums within the area I live. Great project and skillfully crafted. Thanks for the update it's appreciated.
Dave Wooley

[loganevh]

Super nice model Laurent. Appreciate the post. May I ask how you painted the winches. I could swear they look so much like the real thing in miniature. I am also wondering about the hand rail stanchions (how were those done). Thanks again.

[Laurent]

Hi all,

The anchor winch has been painted with Tamiya XF1 "flat black", and painted with a brush.

The railing has been done with PE stanchions I bought in Germany and 0.5mm brass wire, each stanchion has been soldered to the three wires passing through the stanchions. Quite easy to do. Those stanchions are also available at scale 1/96 at John Haynes. There are stanchions for static models, really nice but fragile, and there are other stanchions, a little tougher, for RC models.

Now busy to upload new pictures, stay tuned.

Regards

Laurent