The Ship Model Forum

great appearence of the model..
good details in the model construction.
very very good

Capitão Norbert;

Wow! I just posted this and didn't expect any comments so quickly!

Thank you again for your gracious and encouraging words!

John

John a good and dedicated job deserves support and encouragment

Hi again!

As I mentioned in the early postings on these pages, I had been inspired to build a model of an LSM after attending an annual reunion of WW2 LSM/LSMR vets. My goal had been to have a model ready for following year's reunion, which seemed achievable. In retrospect, what seemed like a lot of time really wasn't. It's not unusual for me to put in a lot of overtime at my job leaving little time for my hobby and I soon found that the date of the reunion was approaching much more quickly than I'd expected. I had initially expected to have the model almost complete by the time of the reunion but I began to slowly realize I needed to scale back my expectations. With time running out, I decided that the best I could hope for was to have something that was looked vaguely like an LSM. I began to prioritize my efforts, determining what needed to be done to have the model ready and what could be put off until later.

Needless to say, a distinctive feature of an LSM was its bow ramp and doors, so I needed to make sure these were ready. The first two photos below show the hull posed with the newly constructed bow doors and bow ramp. Lacking any drawings for the doors, I had to rely on examination of photos and a lot of trial and error during assembly. Where I could get away with it, I used .020 inch and .030 inch styrene for the doors for structural strength. To give a scale appearance to exposed portions of the doors such as frames and cross members, I used .010 inch styrene.

For the bow ramp, I dusted off the templates that had come with the LSM(R)-192 hull. As with the conn superstructure templates, though, these proved to be a disappointment. The inaccuracies were apparent when comparing the templates to photos. So, I set about making my own set of drawings for the bow ramp and executing those drawings in styrene. The ramp was fairly straightforward in assembly, consisting of side walls of .020 inch styrene and 5 longitudinal frames made of .060 inch styrene, and top and bottom skins made of .020 inch styrene. The most time consuming and tedious part of the bow ramp was drilling out the hundreds of drainage holes in the top skin of the ramp.

The last 3 photos show the LSM-59 when she made her debut at the annual reunion of the USS LSM/LSMR Association in St. Louis in August 2009. In the first two photos, you can see the approach to detail that I took. Key details such as gun tubs, mast, bow doors, and bow ramp were installed, but many other details would have to wait until later to be added. In contrast to the professionally-built display case for the LSM(R)-192 model, I prepared a rudimentary display board and utilitarian transport case for the 59, knowing that these were only interim measures. While at the reunion, I took another big risk: I displayed the model without a cover! It was a calculated risk; I knew that with so little in the way of details on the hull at this point of construction, the chances were good that little or no irreparable harm would come to the model. I have to admit, though, that more than once, my heart almost stopped when I watched a vet point out to his family where he had worked on board!

As could be expected, I was my own harshest critic at the reunion and the model of the 59 was warmly received. Not one person stopped me to ask me why this or that detail was left off or to challenge me about the model's appearance. Without exception, the vets were extremely happy to see a representation of their type of ship, which was very rewarding. The last photo shows your humble narrator with a group of vets and their spouses gathered around the models of the LSM(R)-192 and the LSM-59.

In the time since I returned from the reunion, work on detailing the LSM-59 has continued, albeit slowly due to my work schedule. In the coming posts, I'll show you how those details progressed, as well as the construction of the permanent display base which simulates the beaching of the LSM-59 at Iwo Jima. I'll update again soon, so be sure to check back!

John

Hi everyone!

In my previous post, I described the work that I’d accomplished on the model leading up to the model’s debut at the fall 2009 LSM/LSMR Association reunion. At that time, the model was pretty bare bones because of the limited amount of time I could dedicate to working on it. After the reunion, I began to focus on the details that needed to be done before the next big milestone in the building of the model, which was preparing a base to mount the model.

My strategy for getting the model ready for the base centered on addressing two bottlenecks. First, I would need to finish all the interior details that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to work on once the ship was permanently mounted on the base. Second, the external hull would need to be complete enough to apply the camouflage scheme. Once the camouflage was applied, the model could be mounted onto the base after weathering the finish.

One of the significant internal details that needed to be completed was the stern anchor winch. The winch is located at the stern on the port side of the tank well. This area of the tank well on the model is very difficult to work on since it sits under the overhang of the main deck. Once the model is mounted to the base, there is a much greater risk of damaging the model if I were to attempt to install the winch at that point. Hence, the winch had to go in before the model was attached to the base.

In addition to LSMs, many amphibious ships relied on a stern winch for beaching and unbeaching. When the LSM approached a beachhead, the stern anchor was let out. When ready to unbeach, the ship was pulled off the beach by taking in the stern anchor and ringing up full astern on the screws. During the war, a 4-cylinder gasoline engine made by Gray Marine drove the LSM winch. Postwar, some ships were refitted with a diesel engine.

In contrast to previous models I’ve built, I wanted to bring the model to life by adding crew figures at all of the topside stations. This included installing figures of the operating team for the winch, which consisted of a winch operator and a ‘phonetalker’ in communication with the conn. A phonetalker was a designated crewman who wore a set of sound-powered phones to communicate with a controlling station such as the conn or Damage Control Central. Being a phonetalker wasn’t a glamorous job but it was indispensable in ‘fighting the ship.’ From examination of videos and photos, the phonetalker usually stood outboard of the winch. That meant that even before I installed the winch, I needed to have the phonetalker in place.

To make the phonetalker, I scavenged a pilot figure from a Monogram kit, trimmed away the distinctive uniform features and sculpted a life jacket out of Green Putty. The sound-powered phone headset was constructed using bits and pieces of styrene and wire. The ‘talker’ helmet was made from a heavily modified GI helmet. After painting, I glued the phonetalker into his position. The first photo shows the phonetalker manning his station in the stern, patiently waiting for the winch to be installed.

The stern anchor winch is an extremely complicated piece of equipment to model. If a modeler wants to build an accurate replica of the stern anchor winch on an LSM, he will probably not find much in the way of available reference material. The only drawings of the winch that I found were overhead plan views that gave little to no detail; likewise, good photos of the winch are very scarce, also. Once again, my photos of the winch on the LSM-45 came in handy.

The second and third photos show a couple of views of the stern anchor winch nearing completion. The winch is about 50% castings and 50% styrene. Because I intend to build a couple examples of LSM/LSMR variants, I’ve taken to using many homemade cast parts so that I can make multiple castings. In the case of the stern winch, I constructed masters of major assemblies of the winch, made molds, and then cast copies. The cast parts included the engine and transmission assembly, drive gears, and the wire rope drum assembly.

In my next post, I’ll show you the detailing that is going into place on the bow and foc’s’le. See you then!

Time again for another post!

The bow and foc’s’le of an LSM have an enormous amount of details that are difficult to discern in most pictures and much too small to replicate in smaller scale models. In 1/48th scale, the clutter of machinery in this area becomes too obvious to ignore. It is difficult to get proper installation and alignment of the components while working with a model mounted on a cumbersome base, so I determined that this was another area that should be detailed early.

Among the items atop the bow were the bow ramp operating pulleys and the mechanism for operating the bow doors. Cables from the electrically-driven winch in the ‘bow ramp machinery room’ ran up to pulleys on the foc’s’le and then to both sides of the bow ramp. Each pulley arrangement had a cable guide shroud and a shock absorber. On the foc’s’le deck just forward of bow ramp pulleys were the hydraulic actuators for the bow doors.

Making the hydraulic actuators was straightforward: the bodies were made of various diameters of styrene tubing; the mounting hardware was made from varying thicknesses of styrene strip. To dress up the assemblies more, I simulated rivets and fasteners with .020 inch styrene rod. For the bow ramp pulley assemblies, I used styrene to build the shock absorbers and once again used homemade castings for the pulley and shroud components. Among the distinctive details on the foc’s’le were the ventilators on either side of the 40mm gun tub. For these, I made a 2-piece master consisting of the upper ventilator body and the lower base. I chose to mold the ventilators in two pieces because it made casting easier. After casting copies, I glued the bases onto the foc’s’le and installed the upper ventilator bodies over them, using angle styrene to make the ‘legs’ of the ventilators.

The photo below shows the details I've described.

Just aft of the foc’s’le are a considerable number of details that are much easier to put into place before the model is permanently mounted on the base. These details consist of the ladders on either side of the foc’s’le, the bow anchor windlass and associated equipment, the half-chocks at the aft bulkhead of the foc’s’le, and the spray shields on the port and starboard gunwales. For the half-chocks and anchor windlass base, I dusted off the molds of that I’d made for the model of the LSM(R)-192 and made castings. The rest of the details in this area were constructed with styrene. The photo below shows the features I've described. However, note that this photo was taken prior to affixing the gunwale spray shields and installing the hawser on the anchor windlass. Photos of those will come in the next post!



The last photo shows work that on the Conn superstructure. When I initially started on the model, I’d installed various lights in the superstructure, including in the radio/navigation room so as to illuminate interior details for viewing. After a while, I decided that I probably wouldn’t end up using them, the main reason being that despite the presence of lights, it was very difficult to see any of the interior details. In the Conn superstructure, I’d planned to have the radio/navigation area lighted, but as I began to install the interior details, I began to realize that very little would be visible through the door opening in the aft bulkhead of the Conn superstructure. Up until this point, I’d only temporarily installed the starboard bulkhead of the radio/navigation room because I’d intended to add more detail. The fourth photo shows some detail work I was doing on the inside of the weather deck below the wheelhouse. After adding details such as the framing and electrical wiring shown, I permanently installed the starboard bulkhead.



In the next posting, I’m going to continue my description of detailing the bow. Also, I’ll show you the progress on the bow ramp and the bow doors.

'til next time

Hi JC
Your winch looks great . Was the engine gas or diesel ?

_________________
If you are not living on the edge then you are taking up to much space

I've seen this model up close and it looks great. It's interesting to see the build progress.

_________________
Any ship larger than a Destroyer is a waste of metal.

Richard -

Thanks for checking in!

The engine was gas. After the war, some LSMs were given a diesel in its place.



John

Hi Les!

I'm back to working a weird schedule, so it may be a while before I see you guys at another meeting. In the meantime, I'll keep up the posts of the build progress, so keep checking back!

John

Hi everyone!

In this posting, I’m going to describe more of detailing of the bow, including installing the gun director tub for the 40mm gun.

Here’s a photo showing the gun director tub:

A little discussion… Initially, LSMs had two 20mm gun tubs on either side of the bow. Shortly after the first ships began rolling off the builders’ ways, the Navy realized that LSMs needed a bit more punch up forward. The two 20mm guns and their tubs on the bow were deleted and a single 40mm Bofors installed on the bow. The Navy already had plans for beefing up the armament of LSMs because along with the bow 40mm gun, the newer ships were provided with a tub for a Mk 51 Gun Director. This addition enabled the Navy to upgrade LSMs with a dual 40mm gun directed by the Mk 51 director once sufficient supplies of weapons became available. As it turned out, larger ships were given priority and few, if any, LSMs actually reached the war zone with dual 40mm Bofors before the war ended.

Here’s another view of the bow. In this shot, you can see the details I mentioned in my last post.

The LSM-59 was like her sisterships in armament in that she never got the dual 40mm bow gun and associated gun director. She did, however, have the tub. Building the tub was easy enough; roll a section of .010 or .015 inch styrene and glue the ends, and then mount it onto a .010 inch styrene base. Then, construct the brackets that mount it to the foc’s’le from various thicknesses of styrene. One aspect of the gun tub that took a bit more effort to construct was the elevated rings on the base of the tub. These appear to have been installed to provide a non-slip surface in the tub.

Here’s a photo showing the gunwale ‘spray shields’ I mentioned in my last posting. I know; kind of a crummy photo…

I’m not sure if ‘spray shield’ is their actual name, but the name seems to be a fair enough description. If anyone knows their real name, please let me know! These began as .010 inch styrene for the wall, with .010 styrene strips for the frames. The shield supports were made of .020 inch styrene. The finishing touch was adding the rivets. For this, I used a neat new product from the Floating Drydock; resin rivet patterns that apply like decals. Until I stumbled across these, I was at a loss as to how to replicate the prominent rivets on the shields.

And finally some detailing of the bow doors…

When the model was displayed at the reunion, it was equipped with bow doors and a ramp, but they were still very far from being finished. Along the leading edge of the bow doors were turnbuckles and dogs that kept the doors shut while the ship was underway. On the inside of the port bow door was a ladder. A crewman climbed down this ladder to release all the dogs and turnbuckles as the ship was preparing to open the bow doors. A little-noticed feature of the bow doors was the presence of small bow door flaps at the bottom leading edge of the large bow doors. These flaps were operated by a cable linkage so that the bottom leading edge of the bow doors would not impale on the beach. I haven’t added this feature to the doors, yet.

Most of these details are also visible in this photo:

In my next posting, I’ll discuss my strategy for painting the camouflage and describe some of the other details I’ve been working on. ‘til next time

John superb quality work showed here
i like so much
very well detailed and a touch of life complete this piece

Capitão Norbert;

Once again, thank you very much for your kind words. It is very rewarding to hear such feedback!



John

John
Thank you for discribing the workings of the various parts of the boat . Always like to learn things that I know nothing about and never would except for your post .

_________________
If you are not living on the edge then you are taking up to much space

Richard,

Thank you also for your encouraging comments! I've been trying to do exactly what you describe and I'm very happy to see that readers are enjoying the posts while gaining an insight on these unheralded ships.



John

Hi everyone,

Before I get to the subject of today’s posting, I’d like to make a quick note of the earthquake in Japan and its aftermath. I commented at length elsewhere on this site, so I will be brief here. My thoughts, prayers, and sympathy are with the victims of the earthquake and tsunami, and I pray for their recovery.

In my previous posting, I referred to the ‘spray shields’ on either side of the bow. I’d solicited feedback from readers about the correct terminology and my brother stepped up to provide the correct terminology. The official nomenclature is ‘bulwark.’ Yeah, I know; bulwark is a pretty nautical-sounding term and I should’ve realized that’s what they were called! Thanks for the help!

Today, I’d like to tell you about my strategy for painting the camouflage on the ship. At the start of my postings on this model project, I posted a photo of the LSM-59 at Iwo Jima. At commissioning, most LSMs displayed the Measure 31 design 10 or design 17 camouflage scheme. Due to the harsh environment of the sea, it didn’t take long until ships needed repainting. As can be seen in the photo of the 59 at Iwo, when repainting became necessary, it was typical that the new paint went over the old, using the same pattern and colors the ships wore when leaving the shipyard.

Initially, LSMs displayed 3 to 4-foot tall hull numbers painted in white on the bow and stern. As experience was gained from amphibious operations, the Navy ordered ships to repaint their hull numbers larger (approximately 6 feet tall) to aid in identification.

One more thing to consider. In the photo below, you can see the weathered paint scheme on the bow of the 59.

Also note that the ship’s original small hull numbers are still visible even though they’ve been painted over. Although there aren’t photos that show the rest of the ship with such clarity, I think it is a safe assumption that the rest of the hull numbers were painted over in a similar manner.

So, at this point, we are talking about a ship that has had locally-applied camouflage painted to mimic the original scheme, with larger hull numbers and evidence remaining of the earlier hull numbers, and the ship is heavily weathered. So, how to replicate this on a model?

Well, here’s the strategy I decided upon. First, I’d give the ship an overall base coat of ocean green. Then, I would paint on the small white hull numbers. Then, I’d paint the camouflage scheme and next, I’d use a suitable shade of paint to paint over the existing hull numbers so as to leave a telltale sign of their presence. Once this is completed, I’ll spray the hull with Future and weather the hull. Sounds pretty easy, huh?

The photo below shows the first steps of translating my strategy into reality. The model is painted overall ocean green and the small white hull numbers are applied. At the time I painted the hull, I got ahead of myself and forgot about what I believe is referred to as ‘scaling colors.’ That is, addition of gray or white to the paint to give the model a more authentic appearance. Straight out of the bottle, paint will usually appear too dark on a model. Since painting the hull overall ocean green is just the first step in the camouflage process, it is not a major concern.

The next step is to begin laying out the camouflage scheme and applying masking. The Measure 31 scheme consisted of Ocean Green, Navy Green, and Flat Black. This is the point at which it is important to remember to ‘scale’ the paints. To mask the areas of Ocean Green off, I rely on a latex masking liquid called Magic Masker, which used to be made by Walthers. It appears they have recently discontinued producing it, but I have some old stock still around to use up. To augment the Magic Masker, I use plain old everyday painter’s blue masking tape. Yeah, not very exotic, I know, but since I am not concerned about having sharp edges to the paint, it is more than adequate. I’ll show you how that is progressing in my next posting.

One last thing before I wrap this post up. Earlier, I posted a couple of shots of the stern anchor winch. The winch wasn’t finished at the time because it lacked the wildcat drum on the side and some handwheels. I solved the handwheel problem by ordering some PE handwheels from the Floating Drydock. I scratch built the wildcat drum using the very common method of layering styrene. The minimum diameter of the drum was ¼ inch, which allowed me to use styrene tubing as the basis for the drum. Standard everyday hole punches make a ¼ inch hole, which I used to punch holes in .010 inch styrene. I chose .010 inch styrene because I wanted to take advantage of the additional strength gained from multiple layers. I then cut ‘donuts’ out of the .010 styrene. I didn’t worry too much about them being pretty because they would be filed down anyway.

Here’s a shot of the beginnings of making the drum.

I glued all the ‘donuts’ onto the ¼ inch styrene tubing using Testor’s liquid cement and let the assembly set overnight.

Lacking a lathe, I put the assembly into a standard electric drill and with a file and sandpaper, shaped the drum to the desired profile. Pretty high-tech, eh? Here’s a photo of the winch in its final configuration with the handwheels and the wildcat drum.

After a bit of cleaning up, I’ll spray it with future and weather it. Photos to come.

In my next post, I’ll show you the progress on the camouflage. See you then! John

John
Looking good . Will LSM-59 have a cargo?

_________________
If you are not living on the edge then you are taking up to much space

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the question because I'd mentioned the cargo on another page and had completely forgotten to mention it here.

At Iwo Jima, LSM-59 carried 5 Shermans, 5 Jeeps, a 10 ton crane, a bulldozer, a tractor crane, a 6X6 truck, and 3 trailers. Pretty amazing amount of stuff they could carry, eh? I've collected kits of a lot of that stuff, but some of it will be scratchbuilt. Needless to say, this project is going to take a while to get finished!

for the question!

John

Hello John I have just picked up on this build and and impressive it is . The winch is a little gem and considering it was all made with out the use of a lathe speaks volumes regarding your skill . Seldom do we see this type of landing craft on scratch build board but it is always good to see such a history making craft .Thanks for posting
Dave Wooley

Hi Jonh
Can't waite to see her with all that cargo aboard . What did they do ,stack the Shermans on top of each other ? Very interesting project .

_________________
If you are not living on the edge then you are taking up to much space