Gunboat HMQS Gayundah, 1/700

[vladimir yakubov]

Recently browsing the site of the Australian National Archives, I came across the drawings of this interesting little ship:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMQS_Gayundah

Its a Victorian era gunboat HMQS Gayundah (HMQS - in this case stands for Her Majesty's Queensland Navy, once of the colonies that later became Australia), was built in 1884 and spent all of its long career in Australia. It never took part in any military action and in 1914 was converted into a training ship. In 1921 it was stricken from the navy rolls and sold to be converted into a barge. In that guise it worked until 1958 when it was grounded near Brisbane to be used as a breakwater, where its remains survive to this day.

This is how it looked in 1912 after rearmament (I'm going to build it as it looked in the 1890s, see second photo):



In 1/700 scale the length would be just 52mm.

As usual I started the hull from regular sheet plastic, in this cause one sheet since the hull thickness is only 1.5mm:


After that I added the wooden deck from Artwox:


Since the casemate will be open from the back and I've added the internal structures and will add an 8" gun. I didn't go all crazy on detailing since most of it will not be visible anyway.


Next I've added the casemate sides and made a rough cutout of the upper deck:



Here is the ship next to a quarter to give you the feel for the overall size of it:


Vladimir

[vladimir yakubov]

Had a very productive weekend and was able to finish most of the hull and superstructure work

Made the 8" gun, the barrel was made from the hypodermic tubing


Painted the interior of the casemate, added some detail, the gun and some figures to give it some life



And finally glued the upper deck, made the smokestack and most of the larger superstructure pieces




That is it for now. The next step will be to finish the superstructure, polish the hull and start detailing it.

Vladimir

[109]

Please keep us updated!

[DariusP]

Great looking model of a very unusual vessel Vladimir! Where did you get drawings from?

[vladimir yakubov]

Great looking model of a very unusual vessel Vladimir! Where did you get drawings from?

Thanks.

I've found the drawings here:
http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/

There is a lot of interesting material there. There are a bunch of line drawings for HMAS Sydney I and II, some WWI destroyers, as well as various reports on various warships.

Vladimir

[DariusP]

How do you look for drawings in Australian NA Vladimir? Keyword search for "HMQS Gayundah" lists photos but no other medium and search for "HMQS Gayundah plans" (or drawings) comes up empty...

[vladimir yakubov]

How do you look for drawings in Australian NA Vladimir? Keyword search for "HMQS Gayundah" lists photos but no other medium and search for "HMQS Gayundah plans" (or drawings) comes up empty...

You need to click on the advanced search, type just "gayundah" (the whole hmqs, hmcs, hmvs, hmas, hms thing is all mixed up in the documents of the era and the same ships can be found under different ones) and select digital copies only checkbox. That should give you everything they have on it.

Vladimir

[DariusP]

Thank you Vladimir. Much appreciated!

[vladimir yakubov]

Finished working on the hull. The hull had a distinctive pattern of hull plating which I decided to replicate using the technique I've seen on the forums somewhere - using pain, so I masked off the lower laying areas of the hull and painted everything else:


After priming the hull you can see the hull plating:


The next step was detailing of the hull. I usually add everything that doesn't interfere with painting to the hull before I paint. Most of the pieces were done with scrap photoetch pieces from carious sets.



Also build the small caliber artillery. The ship was armed with two 37 or 47mm guns and two 4-barrell Nordenfeldt cannons, so I've build those.


Now it was time to paint. I usually paint as much as I can using airbrush, so I mask off the needed areas and then do the touch ups. Here is the hull before the touch ups after removing the masking.



Next step will be finishing painting, doing the wash and dry brush.

Vladimir

[Pieter]

Excellent work as usual. How does one build 4 barrel Nordenfelts in 1/700?

[Richard J OMalley]

Those who can scratch build in 1/700 are in a league of there own .

[Quincy]

Is it very hard to do touch ups on a real replacement wooden deck?




Bob Pink.

[vladimir yakubov]

Excellent work as usual. How does one build 4 barrel Nordenfelts in 1/700?

Thanks . The Nordenfelds were done the following way - four thin strands of stretched sprue were glued together using thin plastic glue on the metal ruler, then a piece of plastic for the breech block was glued to them and couple of gun sights from PE Oerlicons were used for turning handles. That is about it . Unfortunately camera won't focus that close...

Vladimir

[vladimir yakubov]

Is it very hard to do touch ups on a real replacement wooden deck?

Bob Pink.

Not really, it is is real wood, so as long as you don't spill anything on it that will eat into the wood, you can lightly scrape or sand the surface to get rid of the excess paint/overspray.

Vladimir

[vladimir yakubov]

Finished painting.

First I've done all of the touchups:



Then did a was and a drybrush:



Take a look at the portholes on the sides of the casemate you will notice that I went through three different attempts. First I've simply drilled them as I usually do, but they were on the edge of the sides and the deck of the casemate, so I couldn't get them straight and the joint kept cracking. The I've tried PE portholes, but in 700 scale they look horrible, so I toke them off and made my own decals, which seem to look good and to scale. I fact I'm so pleased with the results I think I'll try to use them on my other builds as well.

Next step will be detailing the ship.

Vladimir

[JIM BAUMANN]

Most interesting build.

grea subjct--very well executed!

has Kalakala stalled...?

curious

JB

[MichelB]

This is good!

[vladimir yakubov]

Most interesting build.

grea subjct--very well executed!

has Kalakala stalled...?

curious

JB

Thanks.

Kalakala is stalled. I'm starting to think that I'll give up on cars and build it empty, as I'll never finish it otherwise...

Vladimir

[vladimir yakubov]

Finished most of the detailing work. Attached the conning tower, railings and so on.





Now all that remains will be tail 6" gun, boats and masts.

Vladimir

[vladimir yakubov]

Finished the 6" gun


Also attached the boats, masts and the above gun to the ship




Now all I need to do it finish the rigging and add some final details.

Vladimir