The Ship Model Forum

I should pay more attention!

I see even two more advantages to separate handrails:
- The stair handrails connect much better and more realistically with railings or bullwarks at the upper level.
- Integral handrails often have connection points to the PE fret, which can be hard to remove completely without distorting the handrail, even with brass but especially with stainless steel PE. Separate handrails don't pose this challenge.

Brilliant work Jim!

- no need to have all your stairs etched to fit each individual location on the model (major planning for DIY etching)
- no problems cutting a stair to length ever.
- no problems with the stair at various angles from the vertical, always giving a correct handrail.

Disadvantages
- need to fold the wire consistently
- fragile...
- missing out on handrail stanchion detail (minor)

Foeth wrote...

>>> - missing out on handrail stanchion detail (minor)... <<<


aha! (it is of course more important as more visual in 1/350 )

Not all stairways have stanchions on the sides as I have found

so your are quite right in some instance--
but where--as below there are no stanchions..--thin wire is still King...

_________________
....I buy them at three times the speed I build 'em.... will I live long enough to empty my stash...?
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com

I suppose what you do now is exactly what they did for the actual ship; making it fit to the situation. And you do not have to worry about the railing ending exactly on the right spot to fill the gap with a "stationary" handrail.... a bit more work for a better result; sometimes going for the difficult option is easier in the end! Plus, adding a stanchion with wire isn't very hard in the entire scheme of things.

(one reason I am still set for individual stanchions for 1/350-railing and wiring... no folding, it always fits and so on... as "real" as the real thing!)

I swear, you could write a Tolkien-length novel containing maybe half the techniques you've invented, modified, or conscripted in the construction of itsy detailed ships.

_________________
- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

just wow, I cannot find a single place where youre cutting corners, talk about proper.

_________________
- @Shipific on IG
my gallery

Thank you for kind comments all!

despite the continuing very warm ( fro the UK! ) weather making the model room almost untenable... ( 30 deg C in the shade outside with south facing window !)
there has been some sporadic progress...

I have now completed the boat covers on the launches, and installed all the ships boast on their cradles.

There are still another 4 - 6 boats in davits to go (!!)

One can also see partial views of the extensively modified 6 x 6 in gun turrets now installed, as well as the 2 x main turrets are now also attached










I shall replace the clunky looking dinghy with another that I have in progress !

I also amused myself by installing the bridge window split 'mullions' -, made of white stretched sprue

_________________
....I buy them at three times the speed I build 'em.... will I live long enough to empty my stash...?
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com

How is this project going? Im now doing my Mikasa and following this RN Hood with interest amongst all the more modern builds...

BTW, when you build the masts and I look at pics of the real deal, they seem to sometimes be covered in canvas, like yard arms are wrapped in canvas. Why is that? Do you model that? And what happens to rigging if the yardarms are wrapped? Is it "removed" (may be stupid question this)...

_________________
- @Shipific on IG
my gallery

apologies for no posting of late; an unusually hot summer, too much business and a bereavement have rather restricted model room time...

I shall be back at the bench in about 14 days
will update then

regards and thank you for asking!!

JB

_________________
....I buy them at three times the speed I build 'em.... will I live long enough to empty my stash...?
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com

Tangible progress...!

Ships of this era had enormous anchors which were stowed on vast sloping anchor beds.

To get these monster anchors hoisted onto the beds, the ships had equally monster anchor crane davits.

These were very noticeably tapered .



I used some suitably sized tapered brass- gunbarrels (!) and slowly bent them to the shape required



Collars and base ring made of wire circles.



The turrets had ' turn-buckles ' around their entire perimeter--
( I guess to hold the gunhouse ' roof/ lid' to the barbette ring.)

these are quite noticeable on a subconscious level
( ie my model turrets looked naked and empty)




I tried in vain to reproduce these evenly and exactly in size to 'near' scale

and failed dismally to get the material cut to identical lengths
or manipulate them successfully into place or indeed get the adhesive to work !

I did persevere and then made them again--albeit somewhat over-scale

In the brass they look rather garish and huge;



Fortunately, after paint they were still over-scale and huge

but rather more subtle, and on balance better there... than not !



Both fwd and aft turrets have a stairway down to the turret top roof from the lower bridge-work level

these locations , angles were tricky identify from the photos






Fortunately the NEW edition of Burt's British battleships 1889-1904
has within this fine volume reproductions of the builders drawings of the deck layouts of HMS Hood within-
-which was very helpful in locating and identifying numerous other features also

These ladders were fiddly to make and install ( with numerous failures! )



The funnel siren platforms have been made and installed but still need their steam pipes fitting



more in the next update

JIM B

_________________
....I buy them at three times the speed I build 'em.... will I live long enough to empty my stash...?
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com

These 'turnbuckles' are interesting feature. Never seen/noticed such thing before. Have to investigate their function ...

Otherwise, a true 'Baumann' is coming along

_________________
Eberhard

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

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Love it. My Mikasa has much to aspire to! My next build in pre-dreadnoughts will try to go into this much detail. Very cool!

_________________
- @Shipific on IG
my gallery

Thank you !
Cooler weather yesterday-I actually made a tiny bit of additional progress;


installed the siren steam pipes,


made and installed the covered chart table on port bridge wing


made 20 odd liferings...and installed x 8 liferings ,






made and installed the semaphore masts fwd and aft --with the lights
( for night use I guess- pre Aldis lamp?)

aft is offset on port aft wing fwd is offset to stb bridge wing


hot and sunny again alas
more progress soon

JB

_________________
....I buy them at three times the speed I build 'em.... will I live long enough to empty my stash...?
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com

Spectacular Jim. Always so sharp

Fantastic work as always Jim! The finesse of work is nothing short of amazing.
And good to see some progress again. A motivation and inspiration to get back at the bench myself!

With the Telford deadline looming-...- and the weather being cooler

==> normal service seems to be resuming

A few more bits of progress;
Davits... on the real shio these could rotate--as well as be deployed angled outwards
to facilitate this lateral movement she has triangulate brackets ,
which act as guides to allow the davit swing outboard
These also had a hole within them





I used the smallest triangular brackets with perforations I could find

( Lion Roar generics)

and then cut them down further



These were attached to the hull in pairs



Once these were painted white--the hole seemed to disappear to the naked eye

so I then ran the tip of a circularly sharpened propelling pencil lead around the hole to give some contrast

seems to have worked as a visual trick!

8x large davits--all with the same progressive smooth curve to be bent in brass wire.
==> surprisingly hard to get repeatability!

made the drawing and tweaked to get them right



For light relief added the boat booms and their supporting brackets


a while back after adding the boats -I was very unhappy with the 14 ft dinghy and removed it.
I took another dinghy and pared away at the hull sides with blades until a believable thickness as reached


I cut a disc of brass PE sheet to make the aft mast platform.
alas as I kept fiking away at iot it became a bit oval and undersized....( oops! )

No worries -- I made the railing to the desired correct size, tacked it on with CA glue
and backfilled the gaps with thinned white glue




The masts had the yard arms added, these were tied on with Caenis thread and backfilled with CA glue




after quite some degree of fraught work

at last I had the breakthrough moment I was awaiting...

Masts ...... UP!

_________________
....I buy them at three times the speed I build 'em.... will I live long enough to empty my stash...?
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com

Outstanding! I love all the details you've packed into this model!

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

great work again Jim. good tip on the white glue.

What is Caenis thread>

Jim the yard arms are superb. Are they some brass items you buy? I could sure use something like that, they look great.

_________________
- @Shipific on IG
my gallery

@ Chris Meddings
caenis thread is used by many as a rigging thread
https://www.johnnorris.co.uk/products/v ... nis-thread

as used to great effect by David Griffith
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

and described in detail his method and application of Caenis in his( very good! ) book
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ship-Models-Ki ... +from+kits

( cheaper here !)
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Sear ... kits&isbn=

I use CAENIS thread sometimes-- but usually prefer it for tying yards, lashing masts etc
an innovative use of it was here:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=159412


HTH

_________________
....I buy them at three times the speed I build 'em.... will I live long enough to empty my stash...?
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com