Regia Marina - 1/700 Ancona - (ex SMS Graudenz )

[JIM BAUMANN]

Ancona was a WW1 German light cruiser( SMS Graudenz) ceded to Italy at the end of WW1

She was later converted to carry a catapult and seaplane on the bow (!) and gained a clipper bow-

-which is why I feel so drawn to this quirky ship--with her long slim hull, tall funnels , almost infeasibly lofty masts and yacht-like bow,,,

after some initial doubts about the kit and some of the plans drawings

I made a start--using the fine set of 1/200 scale plans drawn by Franco Gay back in 1962 as primary reference

HP models produce a kit of this ship; it is an elderly kit and may of the parts will be substituted , replaced and scratchbuilt.

At first sight all looks well and interesting--and then the battle commences...

Ancona had steel decks--the kit deck has wooden planking...( at that stage I should have closed the box... )

anyhow...

I elected to remove all cast on detail as much of it was clunky, crude or 'round' including some "Aztec" steps

after a lot of blade-work, dust and chippings , microchiselling,. sweat tears and some blood (!)

the decks were pared flat

I then started to cut open the torpedo tube aperture

I am currently figuring out how to make the sharp angular bridge structure with its big windows

more soon !

Jim Baumann

[Giampiero]

Hello Jim,

I Sent you with the email plan ship photographed Historical Office of the Navy, I'm looking for more information

Regards
Giampiero

[LE BOSCO]

Hello Jim

a new project from you,and we are sure to take a model making lesson
always a pleasure to follow your thread
cheers
nicolas

[Stefano Salesi]

me like it. me like it. me like it.

[Quincy]

Hi Jim:

Blood is a good thing! No pain, no gain! Looking forward to the rest of your build.




Bob Pink.

[maxim]

Interesting - I have also that kit and will follow your report.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you for your encouraging words

Having pared the foredeck off--it had reduced the height so much so that I added a new deck shim

which also restored the relative port-hole height-to-deck edge relationship

Ancona had a strange cutout on the foredeck--port side only--it can be seen in the plan-view-- but not the side elevation as the drawing shows stb side only!

i do not know what the purpose of this is --but had to add it...

so some brutal chomping ensued

the funnels on Ancona were asymmetric--the fwd being round the two aft funnels being oval with flat sides

the lower part below the cowls being soemwhat wider

The funnels in the kit were a curious two part affair--the funnel base and the upper tube-- the intention being a very overscale simulation of the sub-cowl cutout

alas without modelling the cowl... (!)

here is another Ancona build showing the issue with the kit items

I elected to make my own funnels using aluminium tubing an a miniature tube cutter

Many fine models in 1/700 scale are to my eyes compromised by the vastly overscale funnel rails...
( often being thicker than a 1.700 scale crew--members torso... and projecting off the funnel as scale 3-4 feet!!!

so I have been experimenting ...with using the tube cutter to cut a recess into which I could lay thin copper wire to simulate the railing

the idea being to make them all round first--then compressing two of them in a small vice to gain the flatness...



after painting adding small pencil lines underneath the rail to imply the shadow of the railing-stand-offs

this is as far I got so far with my initial experiment-- me thinks I need less tube cutting for the recesses... (!! )

more reporting in with new funnels soon


Jim Baumann

[maxim]

Oh, the funnel issue is a massive one.

The tube cutter is an interesting tool!

The cutout reminds to the ones for anchors, but it has a strange position for that.

[marijn van gils]

Now that's an interesting looking ship! It will take some work indeed, but the result will no doubt be very unique.

Thanks for the detailed write-up. Always very informative, and a joy to read.

I guess you thinned the upper edges of the funnels with that conical bit in the Dremel?

Cheers,

Marijn

[Royaloakmin]

I think the cut out may be for launching paravanes.

[Guest]

It looks like it's used for an anchor to me. I think you can see it in your first photo "Ancona1_3.jpg".

[JIM BAUMANN]

Oh why of why did I not simply put the model back in the box and do something different?!!....!

[JIM BAUMANN]

anyhow....

The deck houses in photos had a 'beading' around them ( join of deck to vertical

I replicated this ( quite laboriously ) using copper wire

some of the joining deck sections were made of brass PE scrap plate and I made an allowance for the stairway stb aft

The large open mouthed square cowl vents were of course solid--albeit a good shape

rather than loose the will to live and question sanity by drilling and cutting them open ( and thereby risking destruction)

I elected to use suitable ladderstock to make a sharper opening with defined edges

(in the photos they have has a first later of watercolour only so far

[JIM BAUMANN]

The funnelmaking process revisited

I remade the funnels--using less pressure on the tube cutter and using narrower copper tube for the two oval flat-sided funnels which gave the correct cross profile when squeezed in the vice ( with a wooden former inside to prevent crushing )

The cowls were made of thicker wire-- I added another layer of wire balanced (!!) and glued to the outside of the first layer--as the lower sheathing of the funnels was greater than I first realised--after photo study... (! )

I used two layers of Becc vinyl tape to gather the additional thickness... note the increased diameter at the lower end of the funnel in the 3/4 rear view of the real ship below.

the funnel bases in the kit were a peculiar rounded shape--they should be clearly faceted as seen in the photo of the real ship

Some deft blade-work made them look more acceptable

[JIM BAUMANN]

The deck superstructures in the kit--are infuriatingly in a way ,.. ( !) about the correct size and shape

( off the Franco Gay plan) but the casting and exact outline detail shape shape and finish and level is in many places poor

as I did not want to completely remake them all ( lack of time and wanting less dust -- and other ships to build ! )

I sheathed the superstructure parts in ( BEC's) vinyl tape to get a smooth demarcation line to deck and a better finish

and also ridding myself of sloppy detail on the casting

eg the square windows in the casting were obviously just not good enough... being not square to the deck...(!)

The joins in the tape were hidden on the fore and aft sections--where they are concealed by mast or overhanging deck section

The bridge casting with the multiple windows was shockingly horrid.

I experimented by piling up ladder stock on styrene strips

--but nothing I did was sharp or good enough...


a fellow modeller tried the same in a much larger scale and also drew a bit of a blank....

In the end I was about to stop, give up and draw up and make a window decal....

when I remembered that.....
having built a model of both Novik and Zhemchug ....

( see here
http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/sh ... /index.htm


and here )

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... /index.htm

and having bought more North Star PE sets for these ships than was sensible (!)

I had a few pilot house PE's left over


with some careful cut and shut....

a fairly sharp and hopefully acceptable result with the correct amount of windows will come about---with the benefit of being hollow and glazed

as a distraction from balancing tiny pieces of PE on each other I re-made the fwd gun bow breakwater made up and bent of brass-waste-PE-fret-surround

more soon

[MartinJQuinn]

Oh why of why did I not simply put the model back in the box and do something different?!!....!

LOL. Looks good Jim. Love your attention to detail.

[Frank Spahr]

Smashing job on an HP kit, Jim!

Thanks for providing such an in-depth account, there are so many useful pointers in it. I wonder if you annealed the wire you used for the funnel rings and the like? I find it much eases work to have the wire ductile without any elasticity.

Looking forward to your further progress

Frank

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thanks you Martin!

@ Frank

the wire is sooo thin... and it is tinned copper --that it was not really necessary to anneal it ( applying the flame simply burnt it! )

I did try some very very thin stainless steel wire--but that was very unwieldy and did not allow me to glue, bend around and keep in place!!!


much bad mouthed muttering!


JB

[Rob]

nice to see you tackling this one mate. Some fine work there too!

Rob

[zs180]

Very interesting subject, a challenging task of building a decent looking early HP kit, ingenious solutions as ever -
I will follow this thread with great interest!