The Ship Model Forum

Hi

I am pretty much clueless when it comes to scratch building. I have amassed quite a bit of info about it. When I want to start, I get distracted by my stash of styrene and resin kits and build one of these.
I am a lover of oddballs from the world over. Jane's fighting ships books are my best friends. I get lost looking at whatever ships. A training vessel from Chile, an oiler from Algeria and so on...
So eventually I am going to have to start and learn scratch building.
Youtube has some basic videos on how to work with styrene or wood. You want to build a car, a plane, anything railroad, spaceships, huge RC warships you have all you want, but not much on building static warships in 1/350 and smaller. Books, websites that show you completed parts and finished models are ok, but nothing like seeing the modeler doing the whole ship or at least numerous and various parts on a video.

My question to the really experienced warship scratch builders here is:

How come none of you have tried to make a/several "How to" scratch built warship DVD's, market this and make some money in the process?
I for one would buy them that's for sure even at a hefty price.

I am sure there has to be a reason why nobody has done it.

Best regards and thanks

Pat

My 2 cents.

Time. Skills. Desire. Ratios.

First, you not only need someone to have the skills and ability to scratch build a ship.
Then you need someone who knows how to video his work, make it interesting, edit it and make a package for people to watch.
There are only so many people in the world with each skill set.

I'm not going to guess at numbers, but in model building, the majority of people build planes and cars and armour. Next is probably sci fi and space. I'd venture to guess that ships are at or near the bottom of the bell curve.

Scratch building is a small fraction of an already small segment of a shrinking hobby. There aren't too many people in this small segment, especially that want to spend time making videos when they could be building. And with such a small audience, there's no money.

Heck, I can't even keep up posting picks of my builds.

Your best bet is to just start making something and if it doesn't look good, post pics for advice and do it over. You won't get good without practice no matter how many videos you watch. Besides, many scratch builders come up with their own ways of doing things. That's how we all learn and get better.

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Darren (Admiral Hawk)
In the not so tropical climate of the Great White North.

Hi

Well the 2 answers explain the "Why not" very well.
I did not realize how small the market for such Videos would be. I am just going to have to jump right in like you said. Almost done with my current kit, next I am officially starting scratch building, and will get help here

Pat

I look forward to seeing your work!

Here's a link to pics of my 1/96 USS Virginia CGN38 build.

http://www.resinshipyard.com/pictures/Virginia%20Build/

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Darren (Admiral Hawk)
In the not so tropical climate of the Great White North.

Admhawk

Wow pretty nice. Thanks for sharing. I am going to do a French navy spy ship from the 80’s.
I will cheat on the hull and work from a resin one I have and modify it. Can I glue styrene on resin?
Regular styrene glue?
Thxs

Pat

You will need to use crazy glue (cyanoacrylate/instant glue) or epoxy, or any glue that will work on different materials.

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Darren (Admiral Hawk)
In the not so tropical climate of the Great White North.

Ok crazy glue
It will be.

Thxs

Pat

If you post a pic or two of what you intend to do, I may be able to offer some advice to get you started.

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Darren (Admiral Hawk)
In the not so tropical climate of the Great White North.

Hi

Can you see the picture of the ship I want to do?

Yes, nice classic lines.

What are you going to start with?

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Darren (Admiral Hawk)
In the not so tropical climate of the Great White North.

On the technical side: only use CA cement, when you can't possibly avoid it, say in metal to plastic joints or when joining a thermoplastic (styrene, acrylic glass) with a duroplastic (epoxy or polyurethane resin). I you want to join wood to wood (say in bread-and-butter construction of hulls), use white glue. For sticking plastics to porous material such as wood, use contact cement.

Thermoplastics can be dissolved and literally welded together with different types of 'plastic' glue (available in different viscosities), which make a joint almost as strong as the original material in many cases. Also, you have more time to position the part.

There is no magic in building things from scratch. You need to have or make drawings of the parts you need and cut the material to the desired shape. Shaping in three dimensions will be required, but there are sound strategies around for that.

As noted by others before, making videos is a very onerous tasks and distracts from what the actually hobby. Already going to fora and posting pictures of what one has been doing takes (for me at least) almost as much time as the actual doing - photographs need to be taken, post-processed, reduced in size for the Web, put onto a server, text has to be written and then image links inserted ...

There are many books on building techniques around that give you an idea of the fundamentals. There are also ebooks: have a look at Bob Wilson's blog here: http://miniatureships.blogspot.com. He doesn't work with plastics, but the fundamental strategies and techniques are the same.

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Eberhard

Former chairman Arbeitskreis historischer Schiffbau e.V. (German Association for Shipbuilding History)

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I agree that CA isn't the best for everything, some use it to excess, but I disagree with your sentiment about using it for gluing plastic to wood.

Professional builder friends of mine use CA quite regularly for skinning thin styrene to wood for smooth easy finishes. I have had a lot of success gluing plastic to wood and even wood to wood using CA. But I will say it depends on the application. Wood glue is preferred for most larger wood to wood joints.

One thing I find CA extremely useful for is temporary joints. Like if I need several pieces to be identical, I will secure them together with a tiny drop of CA and then cut and sand and pop them apart after I'm done with a sharp blade. Works for plastic, metal and wood.

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Darren (Admiral Hawk)
In the not so tropical climate of the Great White North.

We shouldn't confuse vaindioux, but one could write books (and they do exist) about (industrial) glueing technology. The point is to understand some basics in order to not become frustrated.

Not only the materials to be joined are important, but also the form and extent of the joint and how the glue/cement can be applied.

There is a huge difference between laminating a thin sheet of styrene with CA onto a piece of wood and trying to cement a protruding styrene piece with a relatively small footprint to it with CA. CA as such is quite brittle an when levering at a protruding piece, the joint will likely separate, because the CA either peels off the styrene or the CA in itself will break.

Using a contact cement that due to its content of solvents will also attack the styrene to some extent will result in a stronger bond. In addition, many contact cements stay somewhat elastic, resulting in a more shock-resilient bond.

It is helpful to visualise some basics of glued joints. The glue/cement can have the effect of locking two pieces together, it can form a chemical bond with the pieces, or there can be simple physico-chemical interaction:

When you glue wood to wood with PVA, you lock the two pieces together, because the glue keys into the porous wood surface. The same happens with CA, but CA being brittle, the joint is quite easily separated by knocking the pieces apart.

When you cement metal to other materials, then on the side of the metal there will be only a physico-chemical interaction, as metals do not react with any solvents.

Liquid CA can be very useful for joints, where the geometry provides the main resistance, say when cementing metal spigots into holes. In general it is a good idea to create interlocking joints, also with the help of a third element, such as a dowel (wood, metal pin, styrene rod).

I think I rather stop here, but the main point was that CA has its applications, but is not the 'one-size-fits-all' solution.

_________________
Eberhard

Former chairman Arbeitskreis historischer Schiffbau e.V. (German Association for Shipbuilding History)

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Absolutely agree! However, I think it's important for Vain (and others) to see these discussions. It can be extremely tedious to go through everything, but highlighting the points relevant to our hobby is worth more than reading generic texts.

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Darren (Admiral Hawk)
In the not so tropical climate of the Great White North.

Hi

Well thanks for the additional posts. It's going to be a slow process for me. So much to compute. I will start with the basics at first. Cutting styrene, sanding , gluing and stuff like that. Where and what to buy, which thickness styrene to buy for each job is one of the first things I want to learn along with the basic tools needed. I build in 1/700. Not so much worried about accuracy at this point.
I got books to read too, that should take a while.

David thanks for the page about the B.E. Berry, I did not know that one. Just so you all know I was assigned for a time to this ship back when I was in the French navy.
It was what they called "Un bateau blanc" which means "A white boat". Basically not a fighting ship, we only had 2 mounted machine guns. It was nicer to be on these ships as middle of the night training for whatever reason were fewer than on destroyers and cruisers.
Tending to officers was my job (Yes like a butler LOL). Other than that during training I was assigned to receive or send whatever was needed to hovering helicopters, food, ammo or evacuating injured soldiers (Dummies here). I had to wear a fireproof suit when doing this and it was real hard to move around in it. When arriving at a pier I was one of the sailors assigned to secure the ship. We would compete to be the first one on land. Good memories though!

I hope I don't make too much of a mess modelling it.

Pat

In general, it is a good idea to use as thick as possible material in order to avoid too many joints - joints are always a source of imprecision. For small ship models you may want to use strips and square or rectangular rods, rather than sheet. Sheets are more difficult to handle.

Thin sheet, up to about 1 mm thickness can be cut with a cutter or scalpel. Greater thicknesses need to be sawn with fine saw (e.g. fret-saw or even better a circular saw).

The main challenge is to create sharp 90° corners. When cutting with a circular saw, this happens automatically, but in most other cases some sanding will be needed. There are several ideas on the Internet for making your own small 90° sanding jig without special tools. A disc sander would also be an option, but most run too fast and would melt the styrene.

A little hand-held electrical drill (PROXXON, DREMEL) is a whorthwhile investment for decades. With little sanding discs etc. it can be used to shape hulls and for thousands of other tasks.

_________________
Eberhard

Former chairman Arbeitskreis historischer Schiffbau e.V. (German Association for Shipbuilding History)

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Good work
What are the hulls made of?
What is the scale?

Thxs

Pat

Most of my ships have been constructed in a very traditional method by cutting frames and laying strip wood over this, using wood working tools and PVA (wood) glues. Even superstructures can well be constructed by using wood. I have skinned this with thin styrene, which can be easily attached with either epoxy or CA. Both have adhered well over decades. My 1:192Alaska, the superstructure and main turrets are constructed of Plexiglass much in the way I would use sheets of wood. I would say that making the hull is maybe 10% or less of the total project!

Currently I am doing a lot of 3D printing. As the solvents effective on styrene do not work I use either CA or epoxy. Sometimes it is desirable to have a quick bond, other times epoxy with a setting time is better both for overall strength and an ability to make minor adjustments in position before it sets hard. The tackiness also can be an advantage in affixing a small part.

Plow through sone of the threads here and elsewhere. Song is one of the finest traditional builders and following along on one hiss battleship projects is a good learning experience.

Regards: Tom

What is NT?

No text?

Pat