1/700 LPG Carrier

[Neptune]

Thanks for the comments guys.
So, my patience was finished and I just bought Revell paint. The orange is glossy, but at least I can continue! I also found a sort of red which matches the hull colour more or less. Luckily our hulls fade and so any type of Red would be more or less ok.
So here is where I am now. I painted orange what had to be orange. I also painted some stuff white and I started with the hull red (but discovered that I had to add some external strengtheners before I can fully paint the hull. But ok, I could check the correctness of the colour after all.
I also painted the powder extinguishing stations red and added two of them on each side of the 100t deck tank.
Overall view with the now cancelled Sergiy Osipov, you can see the size difference and shape difference. Although only 20m longer, the beam is a lot more (and speed slower of course).
So you can also have a good look at all those small holes which are drilled in the deck, because those have to be filled with supports! All of them really! And around the tank domes I'll add the platforms which will be protruded by the supports too. It'll take a while to get anywhere but I'll keep you posted if there is any decent progress.

[Neptune]

Ok, so this one went faster than I thought.
I added the two external stiffeners aft. Painted the funnel.
I also continued with the frames and put the tankdome platforms in place. The two and three bigger stanchions sticking out just aft of the tankdomes represent the pumps. In reality there is a little more detail on them, but in this scale it's not possible to add that. If you look at the pumps from a distance they are just cilindrical. Practically the impellers are down on the bottom of the tank, then a shaft runs up about 17m to come on deck, where the seals and bearings are and on top of that is the electric motor which drives the pump. The pumps are cooled by the cold liquid which they are pumping out.

Normally the platforms are gratings, but the holes are so small that it's impossible by any way to represent them. (squares of the grating are only about 2cm x 2cm).
Now that these are in place, the real headache can start. The pumps pump the liquid up and send them in the liquid line, so practically I'll have to add these lines which go up in a 90� angle to the lines on top of the supports. Every tank dome also has an inert gas connection, vapour lines, condensate lines and so on.
Here is a picture to show what the tank domes look like (on other LPG's this is much easier though).

Next up are these lines on the tank domes, the external stiffeners over the entire length of the hull and the manifold platform with a place called "the forrest" on top.
Also the booster pumps are placed on that platform, these pumps allow the ship to discharge with a 20+ bar pressure, enough to pump our cold liquid in a fully pressurised tank at atmospheric temperature ashore. They aren't used much though. If used, they are placed in series with the pumps of the cargo tanks.

Now the pictures:

[Neptune]

And here the picture of the real tank dome. This is only dome 1, with two tomatoes, two and three are hence even more complicated. I'm not sure how far I will (and can) detail this part of the ship. I actually never thought about this before.
I also bought some 0.4mm steel rod (smallest I could find), 0.5mm and 0.8mm. Smallest lines I will represent by the 0.4 (spray system, condensate system), 0.5mm will be for the liquid line of tank 4, vapour lines and some other intermediate lines and 0.8 will be used for the IG lines and liquid systems.

[Cadman]

Wow, that looks like a plumbers paradise. Good luck with that!!!!

[Dave Wooley]

Neptune Why are you are punishing yourself, What an awsome project this is turning out to be , this would be the sort of subject master model builder Jim Woods would relish but NOT at your incredibly difficult scale.
Dave Wooley

[ASFC]

Because 1/700 modellers are maniacs? I know I am.

Keep up the good work .



p.s. Neptune I got your email .

[Neptune]

Well Dave, I'll tell you the story and you won't be that surprised after all.

Imagine, you're a modelbuilder, even worse, a scratchbuilder with main scale 1/700. You arrive on a ship in charge of the safety. Meaning, you run around the ship all day checking the fire lines, extinguishers, fire suits, breathing apparatuses all around the ship.
In the meanwhile you were smart enough to take the plan of an old small tug with you and a bunch of building materials, since you hope to finish at least something onboard. After starting you tug build, you notice from pictures that the plans are not the same as the pictures of the ship you were willing to build. So you stop that thing.
You don't have internet yet you keep seeing all those cool ships around you... And you still run around your own ship all the time. And then, one day, the captain comes to you and says you have to make a new safety plan for the ship since you have a 5-yearly renewal of these.
So, you are, as a scratchbuilder, you are vulnerable to ANY plans you can find and all of a sudden you get a very nice one in front of you and together with that you have the best reference material you can ever dream of.
The only disadvantage is that the "thing" happens to be the most complicated ship you have ever seen, but with two months to go onboard that ship, that doesn't seem to be much of an issue.
So I built even two hulls!

Yesterday however, I discovered that these pipes on the tankdomes are probably not even possible in this scale. With the steel rod, I can bend some stuff to get at least something, but connecting another pipe to that seems to be impossible. I think the contact surface is way too small to get anything strong. I could try with stretched sprue, but then I would have 90� angles all the time, no real bends. I'll see what happens next. Now I'm working on the manifold lines and the platform on top of that. I'll post some pics when I have any progress there. I'll also post a picture of the forrest, you'll see that the tankdomes aren't that complicated yet...

[Dave Wooley]

Roel I sympathize, if people in authority thrust plans into your lap, what is a self respecting modeler to do? The temptation to build becomes overwhelming, but at least you are there, on the deck, amongst all those lovely pipes and fittings. I truly envy your predicament but rather you than me. I'll stick with the easy subjects!
Dave Wooley

[Pieter]

Let me think.... (Ouch ! That hurt!). You are trying to have some very small lines to connect at about 90 degree angles and make a significant bend just outward from that connection, and possibly put a hand wheel or lever on top of some of these. What you'll need is to find someone who has already done this before in PE so you will only have to beef up the flat PE parts . The connection in your picture looks like a combination of a beefed up triple 25mm gun or 2pdr PomPom from WEM. Maybe the 1/600 version should do it. My own WEM AA gun sets have only one been used once in their official use (on a Tama class cruiser) but their PE pipe structures, boxes and hand wheels are everywhere in my collection.

Well Dave, I'll tell you the story and you won't be that surprised after all.

Yesterday however, I discovered that these pipes on the tankdomes are probably not even possible in this scale. With the steel rod, I can bend some stuff to get at least something, but connecting another pipe to that seems to be impossible. I think the contact surface is way too small to get anything strong. I could try with stretched sprue, but then I would have 90� angles all the time, no real bends. I'll see what happens next. Now I'm working on the manifold lines and the platform on top of that. I'll post some pics when I have any progress there. I'll also post a picture of the forrest, you'll see that the tankdomes aren't that complicated yet...

[Neptune]

Dave, wouldn't call all that stuff lovely. Your models are for sure lovely and I'd love to walk around on those decks too!
But ok, next time I'll try to get on some stealthy warship or a car carrier

Anyways, I'm continuing. Thanks for the advice Pieter. I also got some advice from someone else and more experienced in this. Thanks for following this topic and trying to solve my problem, I think I will follow his advice and use the steel rod, then stick the stuff together with glue.

For now, I've continued with the strengtheners on the sides, paint and added the supports around the forward decktanks.
Also the manifold lines were done first and the platform with two booster pumps (not glued yet) is there near the manifold.

The manifold area, four liquid and four vapour lines (normal LPG of this size has two of each)


And a bow view:


Framing on the forward part:


And the midship manifold part:


Now I'll start with the steel rod on the tank domes. (and see where I end up)

[ARH]

Well I have to say , this is looking splended, I have been keeping an eye on your thead from a distance, it gets better by the day,

[Neptune]

Great to see also you looking in this small scale stuff.

Here are some pictures for the holidays. I'll be off for a week or so and after that my next trip is coming up. (with more new hulls being built during that trip).
Anyways I noticed I didn't post many pics of the real thing, so here are some of them.


As you can see, no bulb!


In dry dock, being repainted. As you can also see, there is a big structure between funnel and accomodation. That's a crane which moves sideways to move spare parts to the engine room.

The forrest:

I probably won't be doing this one accurately as I don't even recall all the lines in that place...

Tank Dome 4

for only one lobe, the thing is still extremely complicated. Everything is situated differently on that tank.

[ASFC]

Excelllent model! I couldn't imagine having to do all those small pipes on the deck.

[Neptune]

Here's the work of a few days ago. Anyway it's a Christmas update now.

Here we are, finally, the pipework. I guess most of you were already thinking how I was going to pull that off. Well practically, I can't... I have been forced to simplify it a bit since it's simply not possible to do it more accurately. In fact, I do think it could be done, but I'm not in for a 3-year project here and it's quite likely that once the upper pipes are in place, nothing of all these details can be seen.






So now the first tank has a vapour line, vent line, liquid line and condensate line. Normally however there are a bunch of by-passes and connections between some of them and also the liquid line only comes from the pumps now, normally there is also a part extending it to the tank dome to load. I couldn't seem to get that one right, but I'll give it another try. I could produce the parts, but I hate CA! And it became once again painfully obvious why... The other tanks all have vent lines and liquid lines, but the others still have to be added.

And a Merry Christmas to everyone and enjoy the feasts!

[Nektarios]

Great work Neptune


Merry Christmas to you too.

[ASFC]

Indeed, Great work and Merry Christmas.

[Neptune]

Well, continued and painted a little. I guess it'll stay this way, since any more detail would be very stressing and overkill. I am however thinking of using my second hull too. This one is a nice try, but I see now that I didn't drill my holes correctly in straight lines and so some things are a little out. I learned a better way now, so I think I might actually use my second hull to make a better model. That hull is better shaped than the first one anyway.

Here's the current status, the PE walkway is not glued on.

[Neptune]

Making good progress now, although hardly visible I suppose. Soon I can start the top layer of longitudinal pipes and catwalk on top. I'm also doing a little more painting on the accomodation.



Tank 3 and 4, a little bent and punched look, but I'll try to fix that. Doubt it'll be visible after the top layer is in place anyway.


I'm trying to get as close as I can to make the forrest, but 100% accuracy is impossible in this part. I'm working from memory and only one or two pics. THe booster pumps have an entrance and exit connected, so that's "operational".


And an idea of the size, from the port side. Where the manifold pipes can be connected to one another.


And a top view. Soon it'll look a lot more different.


There's already more than 0.5m of pipe in this boat and I hardly got started...

[Cadman]

Are you going blind yet? That has got to be driving you insane!

[Neptune]

Too late for that, the fact I'm sailing that stuff should tell you enough about my state of mind

Happy New Year to all modellers and their families!

And another update, started doing the top lines, first were the four liquid lines from the tanks to the manifold. Now also the ventlines from tank 3 and 4 are placed up till the ventmasts. The U-shapes are difficult to do, but it seems to work more or less. Not entirely happy with the results so far, but I guess there is little to do about it. (unless breaking it down entirely and restarting from the deck up).

Liquid lines in place. First one was the narrow steel wire one. Started from the manifold, measured where the U-shape should be and then continued till aft.
Second one was the bigger one, starting with the U-shape to be sure it fitted around the narrow one, then put in place (dry) and measured where the ends should be.




And the forrest has a couple of trees more, line 4 going to manifold 4, line 3 to manifold 3 etc.


And then some real trouble, took me about 30 minutes to get one of these lines shaped. It's made out of 0.8mm brass tube and that stuff is a lot more sturdy than the 0.5mm which I used for the other lines. However with different techniques it seemed to work.


Now I'm working on the superstructure since I'll need that for more pipes and I had a litle setback on that front since some of the painted windows came off together with the masking tape...


I'm putting the platforms on the decktanks etc. to be able to continue with more pipes.