The Ship Model Forum

Hi all,

Like others, I have the Trumpeter 1/350 Liberty Ship and have decided it's time to pull it out of the stash and make a start. So, a couple of questions for the experts here.

My initial thought was I wanted to do it in dazzle or similar disruptive camo (i.e. one of the measure schemes) but I can't find any definite answers/pictures. Were any serving Liberty ships painted in dazzle (ideally) or other multi-colour Measure schemes? Or was the speed of production/launch date/use deemed not to warrant it? Seems to be more other civilian/auxillary ships I can find in the schemes. Any reference pictures or answer would be appreciated!

As happens, I went down the research rabbit-hole and then found some were converted to Radar Picket Ships after the war. So this got me interested, and I thought rather than just torture myself with all the PE and rigging, why not make it harder and convert one to a radar ship? I'm still doing research, but any pointers on finding plans (in particular), decent photo's, etc, would be greatly appreciated. I haven't found any good plans or images yet to allow me to assess the difficulty of making the radar equipment and gantries. I have been throught the Navsource pages for hte class, and plenty of good pics but I'd still prefer any drawings or plans to help with scaling and getting the radars right.

Here's a pic of one for those who haven't seen the radar conversion.

Thanks in advance,
Darren

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Melbourne, Australia

Current builds:
- 1/350 SMS Vulkan sub tender
- 1/350 Chen Yuen Ironclad
- 1/72 Gato Class Submarine

Hi:

Well not exactly a Liberty/victory ship: I am scratch building an APA in 1:120. On the fantail there are 4 55 gallon oil drums. Perhaps for the smoke generator or LCVP engine oil. What color would these drums be?

Thanks! Tom

Radar picket ships:
I spent some time working on that project a few years ago. (the kit is still on my shelf of doom). I found a lot of photos on the web, including a few sites with collections of photos from crewmen. The biggest collection seems to be found at http://www.yagrs.org/home.htm, although there are some different photos at the navsource http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/62/62idx.htm for AGRs. You may bump into a designation obstacle, as they were typed as YAGR for the first two years during which they had booms on the two forward masts, and then retyped (in 1958, I seem to recall) as AGR, and the booms were not in place on the eight ships built in 1958.

Besides the obvious challenges of all the masts and antennas and radar dishes, we start with the fact that all sixteen AGRs were converted from the "boxed aircraft transport" version of the Liberty ship, the Z-EC2-S-C5. As far as I can remember, the only visible difference between this and the standard Liberty ship is that the aircraft transport had only four holds instead of five, so that they could handle the size of the boxed aircraft. In my 1/700 kit, it was a major pain to remove the five hatch covers and replace with four, of roughly the correct size and location. My kit went to the Shelf after I had built and installed the masts and kingposts and then decided maybe I had made them too thick. Or maybe they were ok. Or maybe too thick...

Finding PE for the various radar dishes was the least of my challenges - they are all standard US radars.

Good luck with your project,
Rick

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On the workbench:
1/700 Jouett - JAG
1/700 Lupo - Delphis
1/700 Ulsan - Kobo Hiryu
--and dozens more

TK1, search Navsource for the Crater class of US Navy cargo ships. AK-70 and up. You might find some dazzle photos there.

Or here is a good site for some background info;

http://www.shipscribe.com/usnaux/AK/AK70.html

There were some IX station tankers converted on the Liberty hull, Porcupine class, maybe some dazzle exists of these also.
I know there were other "classes" converted, I just can't recall them right now.

If you have time and wanna search thru this site, you'll find some dazzle for the EC2 ships, by class;

https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collec ... 00000.html

Paul

Thanks Rick & Raggs for the links and info. Will keep researching - still undecided if I'll go camo or radar, maybe I need another kit...

Sounds like some challenges with the radar picket ship, but would be cool to do it. I think in the absence of any plans I'll have to try and take dimensions off various photos using known dimension to calculate the mast heights, etc. I wasn't aware they were all form the boxed aircraft group, so one more hurdle in changing the hatches!

Will definitely post any info I find and hopefully some build pics in the future.

Regards,
Darren

_________________
Melbourne, Australia

Current builds:
- 1/350 SMS Vulkan sub tender
- 1/350 Chen Yuen Ironclad
- 1/72 Gato Class Submarine

Question! I see a divergence from what seems normal practice in a number of APA models. The entire hull is painted in boot top black. The photos I have examined do not show enough of the hull to see where the bottom ends, if it does. One AKA on a similar hull is light enough forward that it appears that maybe the boot top ends down about 8'.

Anybody have any definitive info on this?

Thanks: Tom

If you are Absolutely sure that you are not seeing Navy Blue (Ms 21), then I understand that there was a ship (possibly one in each theater) that returned bodies to the continental US after the war. This ship was painted overall Dull Black.

And if I read that on this site shame on me and I apologize.

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On the workbench:
1/700 Jouett - JAG
1/700 Lupo - Delphis
1/700 Ulsan - Kobo Hiryu
--and dozens more

After extensive Google searching I ended up with more questions than answers: It was stated that of the first 260 Liberty Ships ordered by the US Maritime Commission, 60 were for Britain - so some Liberty Ships sailed under the Union Jack? Also when were Liberty Ships first used in North Atlantic convoys, ie; Newfoundland to Britain?
As an interesting aside, when I was a kid (60 - 65 yrs ago) I possessed an already very old board game called "Carrying the Tools to Britain", which probably dated from the early 'forties! It was map of North Atlantic East Coast Canada/US to Britain, and I think, Russia. Played with dice and markers, you had to navigate a convoy across the North Atlantic through perils such as U-Boats, storms, raiders, etc. I believe CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) published the game. Sadly, the game disappeared after several moves.

Memories...I just discovered the above game on Google... https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/342 ... ls-britain !

Hi Drastic,
Question: What does it mean to say "too much reference material"?
Answer: Having four books to search for your answers.
So, I will seek best approximation.
1) How many Liberties were for Great Britain? Either 60 or 88. The British Liberty names were all prefixed by "Sam", as in Superstructure Aft of Midships: Samaustral, Sambanka, Samcebu, etc. (Maybe. Or maybe they referred to Uncle Sam. Or something entirely different, perhaps) I thought the 88 number might have incorrectly included Sam Houston, Samuel Gompers, Samuel Adams, etc, but there are too many Samuels to make 88, so I will just leave that.
2) When did they first sail in convoy? SS Francis Scott Key left Philly bound for Murmansk on 29 Jan 1942, but due to circumstances didn't arrive at Murmansk until 4 May with convoy PQ15.
3) Note that most, including the British ships, however many there were, served as merchants, not in naval paint. Think plain grey. The books I have don't show any wartime photos other than a dull single color.

Happy to dig for other specific answers,
Rick

_________________
On the workbench:
1/700 Jouett - JAG
1/700 Lupo - Delphis
1/700 Ulsan - Kobo Hiryu
--and dozens more

The first 60 were the "Ocean" class of ships, which pre-date the Liberties but are their direct predecessors. Due to high losses on the North Atlantic, the British had 60 freighters build in the U.S. in 1941/42, 30 each in newly constructed yards in Portland, Maine and Richmond, Calif.. While the ships have the same hull form which would later be utilized for the standard Liberties, including welded construction, they were coal fired and the deck houses were of the more traditional split British type and look very different.

For an excellent overview of the Liberties and their predecessor, I'd recommend downloading "Workhorse of the Fleet", by Gus Bourneuf Jr.

https://ww2.eagle.org/content/dam/eagle ... t-2019.pdf

Also recommended on the topic:
https://www.amazon.com/Libertys-Provena ... 526750635/

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-- Scott

Thanks! Long read but interesting!

This is the present status of my 1/350 Trumpeteer Liberty ship. I have been spending quite a lot of time on it and i am quite satisfied with the mast (reworked the top and the base), the rails, the ladders. The tent was very challenging and i am not sure i won the challenge, even though the one shown is not the first trial. One of the next challenges will be about the pulleys. Any suggestion to make a realistic one in 1/350?
Note. I am trying to make a 1942/43 ship, not the present status of the John Brown or Jeremiah O’Brien.

Being forced home due to coronavirus, today i spent a couple of hours in trying to improve the Liberty lifeboat of the kit. I did not find photo colours of them, just a colored photo. Neither i was able to find a photo of them empty, so i worked with the colorized photo of lifeboats of Titanic i found. I think that the result was worth the effort (even though the closeup photo highlights the defects more than the human eye). What do you think?

Today i spent some times on something i did not think i could do. Oars. And the final result is something i am proud of.

Today handrails of the gun deck in the bow area. Challenging due to the strange shape. Again i used a spare photoetched from uss the sullivans 1/350.

Looking good! Note that the hatches were covered by canvas tarps and, aside from the steel cross straps, would not generally be painted. Opportunity there for a little color contrast.

_________________
-- Scott

Today i tried to simulate the rings in the bow and stern of the lifeboat. I had a chain used in my previous 1/350 diorama with russian submarines. And cut in two some chain rings and cyanacrilated them to the boat. Below the final result. I also added some ropes to two boats.

Do you suggest something darker? Like in the picture below? That’s a good idea, really thanks. Such covers were under my eyes and did not notice they should be differently shaded. Thanks indeed. Work for tomorrow !

Sure. Any dark gray that compliments the colors around it would be my recommendation, although I suspect there was wide variation in colors. Likely dyed, but the references I’ve seen have mentioned canvas tarpaulins being water tight when wet, so assuming not generally painted or linseed oiled.

Nice color reference here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=78zu7hSXS-k&t=1174s with very dark gray hatches on Hannibal Victory. 8:20 and 19:15

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-- Scott