1/48 German Torpedo boat V105 (1914)

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all


Even more deck detail.

I treated the torpedo tubes the same as the two 88mm guns, breaking them down into sub components which could be more easily cast in epoxy resin.

Plastic, metal and pattern makers carving medium, were again employed to create a master which was used to make yet another silicon mould. This yielded castings, again set on a base, which were removed with a fine fret saw.

With very small or thin items, like the turn wheels, the masters were mounted on a circle of thin plastic card. This allowed for the thickness of the blade and reduced the chance of damage when removing the resin casting from the base.

I discovered, with the guns, that it is a good idea to drill any locating holes (ie the cranking handle on the wheel) with a pin vice BEFORE removing the item from the casting base. It is easier to hold these small items and there is less chance of damaging them.

The castings allowed me to construct the two forward torpedo tubes (in left and right handed format) and using the same major components, construct the amid ships tube. This torpedo tube seemed to have a slightly different race and cranking arrangement but was essentially the same design.

The pictures show the exploded torpedo tube components prior to assembly and the two slightly different designs.

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all

At this point I decided that the model was ready for it's main paint finish. The deck edge stanchions, masts, rigging and some deck detail were still missing from the model. There was nothing very special about applying the paint, other than to note that the main colours were matt finish and oil based, and were applied with an air brush. The lower hull was painted first with the model (minus the removable deck sections) being inverted and balanced on some convenient cardboard boxes.

When the lower hull paint was dry, the waterline was marked on and masked out so that the upper hull could be painted.

The mouth of the large ventilator and any glazed windows were masked out first.

For anyone interested, the colour mixes used are listed below.

Upper hull, bridge, and superstructure and all other detail not listed below.
Mix 1 part �Revell� Anthracite (ref: 32109) to 2 parts �Revell� Black Green (ref: 32140).

Deck, foredeck and other �walked on� horizontal surfaces, but not boiler room roof.
Mix 1 part �Humbrol� Slate Grey (ref: 31) to 2 parts �Humbrol� Dark Earth (ref: 29).

Below waterline (anti-foul).
Mix 1 part �Humbrol� Red Brown (ref: 100) to 1 part �Humbrol� German Red Brown (ref: 160).

Minor detail colouring as follows.
�Humbrol� Gunmetal (ref: 053) for the following components:-
Torpedo warheads, gun breach blocks, sights, muzzle tips and hand wheels.

Mix 3 parts �Humbrol� White (ref: 34) to 1 part �Humbrol� Pale Stone (ref: 121) for the following components:-
Inside smaller ventilator mouths, life belt (halves alternating with red), ship�s boats interior hull (thwarts and duck
boards only), inside stern and aft navigation light reflector boards.

�Humbrol� Insignia Red (ref: 163) for the following components:-
Inside navigation light reflector board (port), life belt (halves alternating with off white).

�Humbrol� Light Green (ref: 120) for the following components:-
Inside navigation light reflector board (starboard).

�Humbrol� Brass (ref: 054) for the following components:-
Binnacle tops, bridge telegraph, navigation lights, bezel around searchlight glass.

�Humbrol� Matt Black (ref: 033) for the following components:-
Interior and grill on large ventilator cowl.

�Humbrol� Red Brown (ref: 100) as a base colour, washed over with dark brown ink to highlight detail, for the
following components:-
Deck mounted drinking water barrel.


The "walked on" deck surfaces on these vessels were probably linoleum (cortescene) covered or painted. Some references talk of paint being mixed with coal dust or ash to create a non slip surface. The colour chosen for the deck was brush applied.

[Richard J OMalley]

The contrast between the deck and the gray is nice .

[PICKETBOAT]

Richard

I wanted the bridge wings to contrast, but in the end it is probably too much of a contrast. If I did this again I would add an off white wash to the wooden deck to make it look more used and tone down the wood colour a bit.

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all

Interesting deck detail.

No one has explained as yet what the wooden barrel was for. It was clearly indicated on the plans. My assumption was that it was for crew drinking water (sort of ready use water, rather than ready use ammunition). I could not see anything like it on any contemporary vessels, but I�m sure some one will put me right on this point.

I had already made some cast resin barrels for my sailing vessels, so I utilised one of these, manufacturing a stillage (that is the correct word for the storage cradle) from plastic card. Having painted it flat brown, brown ink was used to highlight the hoops and staves.

The stanchions were being installed at this point too. I used the wonderful brass �split pin type� made by James Lane, Jimmy to his friends. I have used these on all my models and they are accurate, strong, adaptable and easy to install. I hand painted them after installation as air brushing always misses bits or results in drips.
The deck was also being hand painted at this point. The brush strokes show up in the flat paint (see the picture) but disappear when the model is eventually sprayed with a final sealing coat of matt polyurethane varnish.

The plans also showed strange, square box like structures around the base of the funnel casings. Asking questions on this site resulted in a great contemporary photo showing they were the life jacket storage lockers. A logical place to have them too. Canvas and cork life jackets would have rotted very quickly is they were not protected or kept dry, so the base of the funnel is a logical position. As the lockers were curved and there were quite a few, I cast these in resin too.

[Capit�o Norbert]

Hi Picketboat your work is very good
i love your castings

[PICKETBOAT]

Capit�o Norbert

Thanks for the compliment.

I have recently invested in a pressure chamber. This, together with my home built vacuum chamber, means that the quality of finished cast resin items has improved dramatically, and the number of rejected castings has been reduced to just a few percent.

I figured it was quite safe to home build a vacuum chamber, but I decided to buy a decent quality pressure chamber, as any mistakes at 80 pounds per square inch could quite easily blow the roof of my workshop.

The safety valve is checked regularly!

[Richard J OMalley]

Do you have a link for James Lane ?

[PICKETBOAT]

Richard


You're out of luck with the idea of a link for James Lane. Jimmy doesn't "do" computers to my knowledge. He has a little booklet with all his products in and this has all pertinent information. For a nominal fee he will send it to you.

Contact:-

James Lane (Display Models)
30 Broadway
Blyth
Northumberland
NE24 2PP
United Kingdom

UK phone number 01670 352051

Dave Wooley will confirm the quality of his products.

[Neptune]

Hi, that 's some great detail you are putting in there.
THat got me wondering, what is the freeboard of this boat? And do all these details survive on the water? Or is she restricted to flat waters? I see lots of fine threads and stuff...

[sandy]

[JIM BAUMANN]

proof of pudding!...

it floats and the water is err... pretty flat!

JB

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all

Thanks Sandy for posting the NICE BIG picture of V105 taken of her leaving the harbour complex at last years Model Warship Weekend, at Glasgow Richmond Model Boat Club. This probably answers a couple of Neptune's questions. There is sufficient freeboard to keep the model safe and dry during normal sailing conditions. The bows, as you can imagine, are dry pretty much all of the time.
The aft deck gets quite wet but only when sailing in choppy water and speed has to be reduced a little. I subsequently fitted silicon seals to the two removable deck apertures after sailing in some very (non scale) rough conditions and finding some water had come aboard and was sloshing around in the bilges! I will talk about this later in the build.
The simple answers are:-

The model performs as I would expect the original did.
Again careful attention to getting as much weight low down realy helps.
The most delicate rigging (the WT aerials) is well up and away from potential damage.
The stantions are surprisingly robust.
All the deck detail is designed to be unaffected by contact with water.
The biggest risk is getting the model to and from the pond.
If anyone puts a fast electric model on the pond, V105 beats a hasty retreat back to the harbour.

All commons sense realy.

I will post more sailing pictures when this build article is completed.
Thanks again to Sandy for the picture and in the mean time if anyone is interested in this years (2013) National Model Warship Weekend event, go to www.glasgowrichmondmbc.co.uk

More build details in the next post.

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all

I have included some picture in this post of certain parts of the deck detail in its "raw" just cast finish. Probably a bit out of order, as I have previously been covering the painting of the model, but I thought some people might be interested, particularly to see how the individual components are arranged for casting and how these components assemble into the particular fitting.

The first picture shows the resin castings of the ships compass and binnacle, anchor, life jacket lockers and the oval shaped man hole/deck hatch (there are just a couple this shape on the model).

The two anchors on V105 were mounted on beds on the fore deck, so I cast them attached to the bed. This helped get the resin into the mould, saved having to manufacture the beds from scratch and gave the anchors added strength.

The next picture shows the anchor being assembled, with brass wire being incorporated and fine securing chains.

The last picture shows one of the ships boats. This has a vac formed hull with the resin thwarts and floor boards being installed, The plastic card seats have already been installed in the stern and the thwarts are about to join them. The rudder will be shown stored in the boat when it is installed on the deck of V105.

[Jimmy Conway]

In this post

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=42791&p=288299&hil ... at#p288299

I put some pics of V105 Mazur...........................may be of some help?


Nice progress you are doing with your model, congratulations :
Jimmy

[PICKETBOAT]

Jimmy


Thanks for inserting this link and thanks for the compliment.

I had already discovered it and used it as one of the sources for drawing up my own plans.

A great picture of Kazub making serious smoke!

The pictures also show how I got the smaller ventilators shape wrong! I will put it right on my model, and have already amended the plans.

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all


As the painting of the model reached its conclusion, I started on the mast construction. The masts were installed very near the end of the build for obvious reasons. They are strong enough to stand any normal use on the water, but it is very easy to get things hooked round them and do a lot of damage, plus they get in the way during the painting.

This model was the first I had built that depicted radio (WT) aerials, so I had to think how this �cobweb� could be partly disconnected to allow the removable deck section to be lifted off.

My previous model HMS Velox was built as launched, and at that time (1904), communicated via flag signal, so the small mast and associated rigging did not present a problem.

I decided that the aft mast on V105 would be fixed in the deck and stay there on the model. This was stepped into a section of aluminium tube secured in the non removable deck section. The smaller forward mast, stepped just aft of the bridge, would be glued in place the same way, but would obviously lift off with the bridge and removable deck section. All rigging to the forward mast therefore had to be either self contained within the removable section or be disconnected from the rest of the model.

The masts and spars were made up from some light, straight grained and strong �Western Red Cedar�. These were run up on the miniature circular saw, then carefully planed (with a finely set miniature block plane, flat on the work bench) first into a round cross section, then given the appropriate taper. They were finished with fine sand paper. The pictures show the mast components during manufacture.

The picture of V105 in its transportation/storage box gives a light coloured background so the rigging is easier to see. The arrows indicate where the rigging unhooks.

More on masting and rigging next post.

[moomoon]

Very nice Velox too!
What color did you use for her deck, red/brown for corticene?

[PICKETBOAT]

moomoon

Yes that's right I went with the cortecene deck finish for HMS Velox. I used Humbrol ref:186 which matched up pretty closely with the underside of a chunk of Edwardian linolium I came across. I painted all the "walked on" deck area that colour, but the boiler room roof was painted black.
I believe the cortecene was laid in bands (width unsure but probably between 3 and 4 feet), probably stuck down to the steel deck with some sort of tar or pitch like substance, the edges held down by brass strips and countersunk brass set screws. In hindsight it might have been good to put these brass strips on the model as painted brass lines on the deck, but lacking any accurate info on them I didn't bother in the end.

Anyone having more accurate info please let me know for future reference.

Below are pictures of the bridge and deck of my HMS Velox model (1/48th scale) and a contemporary shipyard model of HMS Cobra (?) held at the Newcastle Museum. The colours of these shipyard models can be a guide line but should under no circumstances be used as hard and fast reference for lots of reasons.

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all


The rigging on this model is made up of different materials, depending on (A) what I am trying to replicate in miniature, (B) the properties I need, or are trying to avoid in the rigging threat.

Nylon fisherman�s mono filament is good for things like the funnel support cables. Shorter lengths, where the cable can be pulled tight are a good use for this material. Passing it through a folded piece of fine sandpaper ensures superglue and paint adhere to it better. It is hopeless for situations where you need the cable or rope to hang in a curve, created by gravity, as it has a natural tendency to curl up. Here traditional hemp or cotton thread is best. This should be pre-prepared, stained and waxed.

The WT aerials on V105 needed to be kept taught, but also needed to be partly dismantled as I have described previously. Here I used fine cotton coated elastic from the haberdashers. It is white, but the cotton outer layer takes stain and acrylic paint well.

Sometimes you need to create a distinct downward curve, for example the operating cord for the steam whistle. Fine lead wire (used for tying fishing flies) is good for shorter lengths and tight curves.