1/96 HMCS Bonaventure

[NavyShooter]

Brutal!

Do you have a fairing for the aft end of the skegs/strut supports? A squared-off aft end would create a lot of turbulence and drag.

Phil

Phil,

I have a new set of skegs on the printer now with a 'faired in' end on them.

These ones were printed at 0.3mm steps as a draft to see how it would look/fit.

A bit of filling and sanding on the new ones and things will look much better.

[NavyShooter]

New skegs are off the printer - also designed some search lights.

[NavyShooter]

OK,

Having taken a bit of a pause on the Bonnie - I had a couple of other projects to get done - I'm now getting back on track with her.

New skegs printed, new motor mount printed, new alignment piece printed. MASSIVE holes cut in the bottom of the hull to allow things to be lined up properly...now it's time to start the rebuilding portion of this phase.

Here's some imagery....

Once the shafts are in, I'll re-do the sealing around the skegs. Putty and fairing compound.

[NavyShooter]

I finally got back to working on the Bonnie this week. After a bit of a pause to build the St Thomas, the bonnie is back on the bench and progressing.

I have the new skegs epoxied in place, and last night they got a layer of putty to start blending them in with the hull.

As I was waiting for the putty to dry, I did some work on the anchor, and drilled holes and installed the anchor chain hawse pipes. Then I looked at the anchor, added a bit of lead solder on the bottom of it to give it a bit more weight to help it drop free easily when released.

Then I did some inletting to get the hangar deck down to the right seating depth. It looks like things are going to actually fit together properly!

[NavyShooter]

And here's the hangar deck inletted properly.

This fit was a key concern - all the motor mounts and electronics/batteries/etc will be going below this, and it needs to be able to lift out with the island in place, and it appears that it will do so.

Very pleased with how it looked, so I dropped in a few Banshees to see how that would look.

[NavyShooter]

Oh, and here's the skegs for the prop shafts installed and starting to get faired into shape with some putty.

[NavyShooter]

So....in looking at the photos above, I realized that there was a gap that bothered me. That being the gap astern of the aft hangar bay. When the flight deck panel for the aft hangar bay is open, it will let this space be seen, and I'm not a fan of this big ugly gap...so what to do about that?

I stepped back to the plans, and pondered things.

See the plan view with the red highlights....That's what I'm going to build to fill the gap.

Some 3D design wizardry and 4 hours of printing, and presto...I have the 'sample' to test fit and adjust ready to pop into the hull tonight. There WILL be changes necessary to this, however, the most important part of fitting in with the already printed cable deck section was key.

It fits as can be seen in image 3. Which is a good thing.

I've already started doing some detail-work on the interior spaces - there is a selection of workshops and the wardroom galley space in here, so I'm going to have fun designing and printing some of these bits. We'll see how it all looks in the end!

[NavyShooter]

OK,

Version 4 is pretty much there.

NS

[Fliger747]

Always nice to do interior spaces!

[NavyShooter]

I've reached out to a F-book Page which has some of the former crew in it and have asked for input about colours.

My plan is, dark gray decks, off-white/green bulkheads (as I recall from my first ship the Gatineau) with light gray work benches, wooden work bench tops (brown paint) with red bench vises.

Question - if you were a 1950's era British 4.5" lathe, what colour would you be? I'm leaning towards green?

[NavyShooter]

Since the Carrier was built in the UK, I'm guessing UK.

Myford or maybe a Southbend? (I am aware that Brits called a 9 inch diameter lathe a 4.5 inch lathe.)

[BB62vet]

Brad,

Nice job on the interior spaces!

I worked a contract at Rocket Ctr, WVA in 1996 for 3 mos. and was in the mechanical fab shop one day to oversee the construction of a part I had designed and the lathe they were using was a 1930's era large metal lathe that came off of one of the older WWII carriers (w-a-y before CNC came along) and it was in its original med. gray (as were all the shop tools I could see). The shop personnel told me they wouldn't trade it for anything as it was precise and always worked as needed.

I know this won't help you, but just a small notch in nautical historical lore!!! FYI - Rocket Center, WVA is an old USN weapons testing area that in recent times is the facility where many rocket motors, etc. are manufactured - I think it's now under totally new owners than when I was working there.

Hank

[NavyShooter]

I had a post WW2 Southbend that was green.

I've seen them in gray, green, blue and red.

The thing is, when I googled "southbend lathe Colour" the first picture that showed up was a green lathe as well.

I think, in the end, unless someone has a photo of what the shop actually looked like, no-one is going to call me out for an incorrectly painted lathe, because in truth, it is representative of what was there, and having it a colour other than gray will make it stand out (a bit).

[NavyShooter]

what, no pink polka dots?!!

I've actually reached out to a veterans group that has Bonnie sailors in it, and none have given me any feedback about the colours of things from....well...over 50 years ago.

I've also visited the Shearwater aviation museum, and they have an extensive collection of imagery from the Bonnie, but very little interior detail, and nothing of the workshop spaces, and certainly nothing in colour.

I have a sailor from the Bonnie dropping out next week with a mutual friend to have a look at how things are going.

I am doubtful that he will spend much time pointing out inaccuracies. Instead, I hope to hear him tell me some stories, and that seeing his old ship again helps him tell the tales from a new perspective.

In the meantime, I've done a bit more sanding and filling on the shaft lines. One more bit of sanding, and I think I'll be able to slap on a layer of fiberglass and start sealing things up again.

NS

[NavyShooter]

Brad,

Nice job on the interior spaces!

I worked a contract at Rocket Ctr, WVA in 1996 for 3 mos. and was in the mechanical fab shop one day to oversee the construction of a part I had designed and the lathe they were using was a 1930's era large metal lathe that came off of one of the older WWII carriers (w-a-y before CNC came along) and it was in its original med. gray (as were all the shop tools I could see). The shop personnel told me they wouldn't trade it for anything as it was precise and always worked as needed.

I know this won't help you, but just a small notch in nautical historical lore!!! FYI - Rocket Center, WVA is an old USN weapons testing area that in recent times is the facility where many rocket motors, etc. are manufactured - I think it's now under totally new owners than when I was working there.

Hank

Hank,

I love the stories! As mentioned above, I've got a sailor from the Bonnie dropping out at some point next week, so we'll see what tales he has to tell.

Maybe being with the model will bring some memories to light!

[NavyShooter]

With a couple of other RCN vets coming out on Wednesday evening, I decided to tidy up the garage, put the shaft-line repairs on hold, and 'dress ship' to prep for my guests.

I'm generally pleased with how she looks!

NS

[NavyShooter]

A great visit with some vets...and now back to work.

Here's how the fiberglass went on. Quite pleased with how it looks.

Some sanding required to tidy things up a bit more, but this is 1 layer of cloth and 4 layers of resin.

[NavyShooter]

Deleted that - realized I had already posted it up.

New update to follow.

[NavyShooter]

The bottom of the hull has been refinished - looks pretty good. I flipped the ship over once that was done and have been working on another project for a bit.

[NavyShooter]

One of the things that inspired the Hangar deck work was this picture from another builder's HMS Hermes project:

You can see from this picture that I'm mostly there...ish....

That said, I had a plan to do interior access, which has the edges of the flight deck fixed in place with removable panels allowing access to the interior spaces using this plan:

So, I started hacking up the plywood flight deck that came with the hull and had a go at making it work.