HMS Hood main mast, Part I

[Foeth]

HMS Hood carried a typical tripod main mast, with the topmast fastened with stays from the star fish. Several modifications were performed on the mast, inlcuding the addition of a radar set of which no drawing exist how this was actually done. The main mast is contructed from styrene and the top mast is a brass mast from modellmarine, made by our board member Burkhard. I choose a mast with the correct lower diameter and taper, cut to length later.

Here you can see the tripod under contruction. I choose to do this 'in situ', in order to have the tripod legs fit in their emplacements in the deck part and simultanuously have the mast completely up right. A small mould (tube) was used to keep the mast up. The small platform was cut at least 15 times before I had one with the right shape, with the small strip around the main mast of a constrant thickness. That strip broke often during drilling.

There is a diesel exhaust pipe connected to the port side tripod leg. This exhaust is fitted to the tripod at three points. I first drilled in the exhaust pipe at the correct locations, taken from the best photograph I have to the mast takenf rom the bridge, and then drilled in the tripod through the exhaust pipe. Next, I made several rings simulating the flanges keep the individual exhaust pipes together. Of course, you can use sveral rods and disks, but a single rod and rings is structurally more sound, especially with a few drilled-in holes. After the pipe was glued to the tripod mast, the rings were glued into place. A protective cover is fitted to the base of the exhaust pipe. My guess is that this cover is fitted in order to avoid damage when handling the admirals barge that is stowed very close to this location.

Each tripod leg is fitted with a ladder. I choose to use ladders by Aber, which I considered the best ladders available. They need to be folded, which is very tricky for longs lengths of ladder, but they can be directly glued to a bulkhead without additional supports and drilling in that usually spoils the fine feel of the etched part. Note the odd curve in the ladder as it approached the lower platfrom below the main starfish. I also added a cover to the diesel exhaust pipe, estimated dimensions from the photograph at right.

[Foeth]

A nice detail shot of the main mast below the yet-to-be-fitted star fish. A small ladder runs from the upper platform the star fish. The main topmast housing is fitted to the bottom of the topmast. There are several nice drawings, but none to scale. This part will require more detail. A small metal tube is seen sticking out of the rear of the mast where the tripod legs meet. I have no idea what it is and it isn't on any of the drawings, except vaguely on a few photographs.

A nice close-up of the topmast and wireless yard. Drawings of this yard are much better in Anatomy of the Ship: Warspite, by Ross Watton, including how the yard was fastened to the topmast. I like this detail, I haven't seen it before on 1:350 models. The yard arm was hard-soldered to the topmast. Normal soldering resulted in a very weak bond and I didn't like the prospect of glueing. With these scratchbuilding projects, the chances of handling damage are must greater than with kits, so I wanted a strong bond. I bought a Proxxon torch and started practising hard-soldering. This is really tricky to do and more often than not I completely vaporised the brass parts. This is why the topmast and flagpole are made from steel. But even then, the solder wouldn't flow between the two parts no matter how careful I was with adding flux and aiming the torch. I spent hours soldering wire together and in the end I just decided to stop playing around. Fortunately, the parts were soldered correctly in one attempt, with only some minor deformation in the topmast which was easy to remove. I added very small brass rings to the yard to simulate some much-needed detail. The flagpole is connected some distance from the topmast. To my suprise, the strength of the model is sufficient.

This is the current status of the main mast. I'll try to work a little bit on this part later this month,

[bismarck builder]

Foeth
very nice mate
gary

[MartinJQuinn]

Outstanding, EJ. Very inspirational stuff.

[chuck]

You are a bold man to do this in situ

[MartinL]

stunning work

[MichelB]

Impressive! Maniacally impressive!

[Avery Boyer]

Fantastic work, sometime I'll do a USS Des Moines the way you're doing Hood.

[ModelMonkey]

Superb! Please keep the pics coming!

[nick]

You've added some VERY extreme details Foeth!!!

[M�LDERS]

nice to see you proceeding. Gonna stick to it....

[Aidan]

Now thats just plain "Showing Off" and putting the rest of us to shame, and you've every right to show off, that is an absolutely magnificent piece of work AJ, stunning, superb, magnifico, itsa damn nice, el scorchio, mighty stuff, beautifull job, top marks. When you've finished it, can I have it for my Hood please,

[ModelMonkey]

EJ, how's your wonderful model coming along?

[Guest]

I'm continuing all further updates on my own blog, at http://blog.ontheslipway.com. You'll find that I"m posting old stuff, lately, plus a few new things on occasion. I'm nearly done with the HACS directors which will be in the usual style. That is, with interior, of course

[MartinJQuinn]

That is amazing...nice to see you post here again - don't be a stranger!

[Maximus]

the high class mast , particularly blocks! anxiously expect part II...

[Foeth_]

A small update: bridge superstructure details in the works and some odd stuff

http://blog.ontheslipway.com

[MichelB]

Beyond the confines of the word 'detailed', as usual. What do you think this line/tube was for? It seems somewhat improvisationally installed, through a vizor slit and such...

[Foeth_]

Just a simple voice tube, though one wonders why it had to be placed in this way. Before Hood's major bridge work, you can see a voice tube running from the bridge to the conning tower, suspended in mid air. I managed to find a picture. This is not some part of the rigging. It runs up to the top bridge level, but it shows on only one or two pictures. When I saw this tube (which is plain to see but apparetnly hard to notice) I started looking for other pics and found the new layout. I guess it's the same voice pipe but rerouted?



Detailed? Not at all...

[Maximus]