Here is my recently finished (O.K. one life-boat is still missing as I am lacking a good plan of the Class III Gig) model of the german Gunboat SMS Wespe, a side-project of my 1:100 Masséna. The original ship was built in 1875 and was intended to defend the german coast and especially the mouths of the rivers Elbe, Ems and Weser in the german Wadden Sea. For that reason it has quite a flat bottom, which allowed the ship to fall dry in low tide. The SMS Wespe was originally armed with a 30,5 cm breech loading rifled gun.
The model is in 1:100 scale and shows the ship in a quite early stage short after comission.
(Original admirality-plan)
The fibreglass hull was provided by Günther Seherr, a modelling comrade of mine. For the superstructure I used mainly sheet styrene from 0,5 to 1 mm thickness. For the details I made excessive use of self-designed brass-etched parts. Otherwise fine details as the grids of the skylights and the differnt gratings could not have been done in this small scale.
For the lifeboats I tested a slightly new way of building: I first carved the form of the boat from balsa wood. From this block I made a negative print in childrens plasticine, which was slightly widend by pressing the block in all directions. After that scratches were made in the block, where the keel and the ribs would show on the inside of the boat. Then cling film was wrapped tight to the block and fine copper wire was winded through all of the scratches. This „roll roast“ was voverd in resin and pot in the platicine form. After hardening of the resin the balsa block was removed and a nice hull with correct ribs on the inside was ready for further detailing (adding outer keel, rudder, benches etc.). The method proofed very easy and the results quite satisfying (at least for boats without a clincered planking).
The model has an overall length of 44 cm and a beam of 11 cm. It is propelled by two small brushless 6 V motors, which make her quite a fast little ship.
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