Icebreaker USCGC Burton Island (Conversion Loose Cannon)

[maxim]

The icebreaker Burton Island was one of the ships of the Wind class. She served with the US Navy from 1946 - 1966, was transfered to the US Coast Guard and was decommissioned in 1978. Both the Navy and the Coast Guard used her to explore the Arctic and the Antarctic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_class_icebreaker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCGC_Burt ... AGB-283%29
http://www.uscg.mil/History/webcutters/ ... d_1966.asp
http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/08/0801.htm

I am using the 1/700 Loose Cannon kit of the Eastwind for a conversion to the Burton Island in the late 1970s.

Here is the Eastwind in 1944 showing how she is depicted by Loose Cannon:


USCG photo

and the Burton Island in the 1970s:


USCG photo

I have not found any good drawings showing Burton Island the this fit. Therefore I am using photos as reference. Here is the original hull of the Loose Cannon kit:



I removed the splitter shield for the 20 mm Oerlikons aft, the 127 mm training gun midships and the base for the 127 mm turret in front of the bridge. I also elongated the bulwark:



All the bridge decks had to be cleaned (the lowest deck broke during sanding). Here I had only to remove the rear part of the splitter shield of the 40 mm Bofors:



The next deck was modified slightly removing two platforms and the bulwark:



I had problems to find out the exact shape of the bridge wings, but I am thinking that they were modified (in contrast to her sister ships). But anyway I had to elongate them on both sites. I also removed the after part of the bridge:



On the portside I added a new deckhouse below the (still to be added) helicopter deck:



I also cut the asymmetric helicopter deck to shape. Here it is not yet fixed:





Currently additonal modifications of the bridge are in progress.

Any comments, criticisms and recommendations for sources of good drawings are welcomed.

[George W]

Maxim
Nice detail and attention to detail. During the winter I will be doing the Loose Cannon Canadian Coast Guard ship Radisson.
Best Wishes
George

[maxim]

Nice detail and attention to detail. During the winter I will be doing the Loose Cannon Canadian Coast Guard ship Radisson.

Thank you. I have also Loose Cannon's kit of the Pierre Radisson, which will be one of the next icebreakers I want to built. I also have the kit of the Shirase of the Japanese Coast Guard by Seals Models/Interallied.

Do you know, which helicopters were (are) used on the Pierre Radisson?

There is some progress with the bridge:



I enlarged the deckhouse below the bridge. Then I added an additional deckhouse behind the bridge:



Next was the ice lookout above the bridge:



I have also started to built the helicopter hangar. You can see the skeleton of it:



It will be depicted in the retracted state.

[George W]

Maxim
I do not know for sure but given that Raddison was finished in 1978, Bell Jet Rangers would have been in use for shipboard use then but in the 1980s BO - 105s replaced them for general shipboard use because the later had 2 engines. The BO-105s are still in use. I noticed that the CCG still has some Long Rangers in use but I do not know whether they are used on any of the ships. I was wondering too about 1/700 helicopters and my search only came up with the Bell 212. The Bell 212s are used by the CCG but I wondered if they would be be too big for the deck or hangar.

The canadian Coast guard site is below in case you do not have it book marked yet.
http://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/eng/CCG/Home.

Best Wishes
George

[maxim]

Maxim
I do not know for sure but given that Raddison was finished in 1978, Bell Jet Rangers would have been in use for shipboard use then but in the 1980s BO - 105s replaced them for general shipboard use because the later had 2 engines. The BO-105s are still in use.

Thank you for these informations. I would also need BO 105 for the German research icebreaker Polarstern, which I would like to built sometime. I guess that it is not that difficult to scratch built one (and make some copies of it). I am trying to do this with a Eurocopter AS 565 SA Panther (a version of the Dauphin, also used by the USCG as HH-65 Dolphin and by the Chinese Navy as Harbin Z-9 Haitung):



As you see there is still some work around the turbines necessary and I have still to do the landing gear and the main rotor. Here are additional photos showing how I built it:

http://www.modellboard.net/index.php?topic=29227.0

Back to the Burton Island, for which I need Sikorsky HH-52A Seaguard. I hope that it is possible to convert a SH-3 Seaking.

After I made the above shown photos of Burton Island I realised that the bridge and the ice lookout are too high. I measured some additional photos to determine the dimensions. I removed parts of the superstructure below the ice lookout and of the ice lookout itself. The ship is still a little bit too high (c. 1.5 mm), which is caused by the now difficult to correct bridge superstructure.



I have also closed the hangar with a 0.25 mm plastic sheet curved around the skeleton. Above this I add another, which is little bit shorter to simulate the retractable part (I can see on the photos of the retracted condition only two parts, not all three).





I still have to add the hanger door and to clean several parts.

[maxim]

I added the hangar door:



And a deck for the signal flags :



Also the bulwarks of the bridge wings are in place:



And the attempts to produce templates for the decals:





The upper one is the template for all colours except of white - the lower one is the template for the white areas (white is depicted as black).

[maxim]

The doors lost during sanding were replaced by parts from the "WWII water-tight doors" set by Flyhawk.





The crane (only the one on the starboard site) is from the Loose Cannon kit, some parts are still missing.

The supports under the first superstructure deck and the flightdeck are also in place.





On the last picture I have already added a first layer of the hull red (Vallejo 28).

[aleccap]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2553/386 ... a649_b.jpg
Although built straight from the box, and I am having problems submitting this photo and the other's to the gallery, I originally brought mine cheep, so honestly, I am looking forward to seeing what this braker should look like.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2487/386 ... 5cef_b.jpg

[Finland's Jonne]

Looks so interesting ship!

Such has nice to see differents model ships!

Joe

[maxim]

@ aleccap: the old Revell kit Fortunately I am building only in 1/700 scale and therefore I am immune against trying to built one of these old kits. But Revell and others had/have some interesting ships...

Burton Island had two boats: one of the typical whale boats (I used one of the Loose Cannon kit) and one which look like a Higgins Boat (LCVP). There are some available in 1/700, e.g. by Battlefleet Models, but I was not able to get one. Therefore I used this drawing:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... P-plan.gif

and built one:



Burton Island had three radars: SPS-6C, SPS-10B und SPS-53A. For the first two I used LionRoar's US Navy Radar Set Cold War & Modern, the last is easy to scratch built.







On the last photo you can see the two Sikorsky HH-52A Seaguard (Sikorsky S-62), which I am converting from Trumpeter's Sikorsky SH-3 Seaking (Sikorsky S-61).

[maxim]

I have completed the Burton Island.



I added the rigging and some antennas, which were made from stretched sprue. The anchor chains are made by BJ-Modellbau (see here) and the nets around the flight deck are made by LionRoar.

The two Sikorsky HH-52A Seaguard are converted from Trumpeter's Seaking. The fuselage is shortened and the landing gear is moved forward. I changed the opening for the turbine, because the Seaguard has only one. The rotor (3-bladed in contrast to the 5-bladed of the Seaking) is made from Evergreen's profiles.

The decals were printed by Druckenonkel, who has an Alps printer and therefore is able to print also white decals. I made the master drawing using the available Coast Guard symbols (you can find them on Wikipedia).

[Christian Bruer]

Hi,

a nice subject, she looks really good

[George W]

Maxim
Very nice work and very good skills with the scratch building and only 3 weeks from your first posting!
Best Wishes
George W