HMS Hood main mast, Part I

[MartinJQuinn]

That is magnificent. IIRC, this started life as a Iron Shipwrights Hood?

[Foeth_]

Technically yes, I bought the IS kit. But the quality was so awfully bad I sent it back a few days later. So, I bought the kit by WEM. That kit was so much better. The review on Steelnavy said both kits were equally good which means they are either blind or lying. Through the ages I changed more and more of the kit and no WEM parts are in sight anymore. That is, the turrets are by WEM, but I made the pattern so I guess it's scratchbuilt

[Elvis965]

That is just awesome stuff. I'm always amazed at the scratchbuilding skills of some of the folks on this site!



Bob

[J. Soca]

Outstanding work Foeth detail is crispy beyond crispiness , keep up the good work.


Jose

[Maximus]

Nice work!
I want you reach to finish!. Though can be journey - better than finish tape

[Foeth_]

This is the latest post of my bloglet

For some reason I avoided beginning to build all the mushroom vents of HMS Hood. There are many sizes and shapes and they are both numerous and small. I took the basic measurements from "Anatomy of the Ship: HMS Hood", drawing I1: Fittings. I brought to total number of different mushroom vents down to about 4 and tried to classify all mushroom vents on the drawings and photographs. I decided on Large (2.4mm or 0.095"), Medium Large (2.0mm or 0.08"), Medium Small (1.22mm or 0.048", a punch size), and Small (0.8mm or 0.0315"). I tried to do a head count and came up from 13 large, 18 medium large, 32 medium small, and 31 small; 94 vents in total. As these parts are small I might loose them during handling and as I probably missed a few, I had to make a nice supply of parts.



The largest vents are visible here, cut from tube. I added a disk to all rings so that the support of all mushroom vents has the same height; I now need to cut the support to length on the model, paint it, and then add the mushroom vent. This way I know what the height will be before painting the entire ship and I do not have to get the height correct of each vent with what is visible on the photographs on the painted model. After this disk was places, a small disk was glued on top of the vent as detail. None of the vents on the photographs have any more detail such as a hand wheel. Too bad, would have looked nice. The grille of the vent is simulated by an etched part bent into shape and set with superglue. I only had tubes for the largest vents, the two medium sized vents were made from rod with the center punched out as explained here. This was some work with many casualties due to off-center punching, dropping to the floor, misalignment and more dropping to the floor.



I started with the largest vents which I found to be small to begin with, and worked my way down. The smallest vents were really a challenge. I started by cutting up rod in batches of ten. They had their centers punched out by the ten-fold. I decided the smallest vents can probably be put into place prior to painting with little risk showing their white undersides or can be placed on the painted model. So, I put the rod in place. I first slid the rod in (bottom left), dipped the tip into superglue and slid the ring into place. The bottom right shows the result prior to sanding.




These are all the vents; 20 large, 34 medium large, 40 medium small and 58 small, 152 total. At least, 152 are left and dozens more are scattered around in the hobby room. I do not have the etched grill for the smallest mushroom vents, so they'll be finished when my second set is done. Perhaps casting a few would have been possible, but I didn't look forward to the prospect of casting several batches of tiny parts with a high failure rate.

[MartinL]

lots of little robot heads .
I bet that lot chalenged your concentration ...
Might need a few more though . Check bruce taylors book (also pictures on hood site) page 58, it looks like the skylight is missing and there are more mushroom vents than in anatomy ???

[Guest]

All accounted for, I really spend enough time gazing at pictures I know the skylighs were removed, probably when placing the aft 4" guns. The AOTS books misses about 10 vents.

[EJFoeth]

Update!



http://blog.ontheslipway.com/

[EJFoeth]

Update!

Each of the octuple 2-prd pompoms of HMS Hood is fitted with its own director. From the Anatomy of the Ship book follows they have been placed on the fore top (spotting top) in cylindrical emplacements and moved down to the fore bridge in 1936. A third director was fitted in 1938 to the aft searfchlight platform when the third pompom was placed. Now, the third director is a Mk II while the first two are Mk Is. The Mk II is available through John Lambert Plans, drawing L/0/64. I was hoping that the Mk II and Mk I were comparable. They are not.



Here are the three models of the director Mk II with some etched parts, rod, and tube. The drawing shows great detail that can be added to these small models. The difficult part was cutting the tubing and adding the hand wheels. They kept falling off.



This image shows the directors at the correct location. However, they are much too large. They cannot rotate and the are too high to match any photograph of HMS Hood after 1936.



At left the aft searchlight platform is shown, indicating the location of the director. The top right image shows the location of the Mk Is prior to moving the to the fore bridge, the bottom right image shows them at their final location. From these images is well visible the Mk Is can hardly be seen.

[J. Soca]

Awesome job Foeth!!!



Jose

[MartinL]

So thats what the blighters look like then is it been looking for a picture for ages ...

as ever awsome work

[JIM BAUMANN]

Your tenacity and single mindedness on this most worthy of projects is truly singular--and most admirable!

such dedication to the minutia is incredible- remarkable in 1/100--never mind 1/350!



JIM B