Hello al!
with the completion of the Winston Churchill sailing schooner
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=165003I vowed to build a steam ship as the next project..
Here we go!
Racecourse Minesweepers of WW1 HMS Athelstone
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hms athelstone.jpg [ 192.44 KiB | Viewed 4250 times ]
She is the only ship of the class for which I could find a photo which had the pilothouse left as a panelled unpainted wood structure
( as per the side elevation image of the IWM model of HMS Ascot ( alas in IWM storage...)
and the above image
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IWM model of Ascot .i.jpg [ 128.31 KiB | Viewed 4250 times ]
The model will be built using the much lauded HMS Ascot kit from AJM Models of Poland
reviewed here @ Modelwarships.com
viewtopic.php?f=84&t=159972and built here by Felix Bustelo (who is the moderator @ Steel Navy)
http://www.steelnavy.net/AJMModelsHMSMe ... stelo.htmlPotted history of the real ship: ( lightly abridged from wikipedia! )
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Built by Ailsa SB at Troon in Scotland, she was launched on 14 April 1916. For the rest of the war she served with the Auxiliary Patrol. Post war she was transferred to the Mine Clearance Service.
at the end of WW1 She was sold to The New Medway Steam Packet Company on 12 August 1927 and converted for excursion work on the Medway and Thames.
She was renamed Queen of Kent. For the next twelve years she could be found working from Sheerness and Southend.
Regular excursions took her to Gravesend, Margate, Clacton and Dover as well as cross-channel voyages to Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk.
In September 1939 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty for minesweeping duties once more and commissioned as HMS Queen of Kent, pennant number J74.
For Operation Overlord in June 1944 she was stationed at Peel Bank off the Isle of Wight as the Mulberry Accommodation & Despatch Control Ship.
Subsequently she was stationed at Dungeness.
After the war she was returned in 1946 to her owners to recommence excursion work around the Thames Estuary.
In January 1949 she was sold to Red Funnel and transferred to Southampton.
After refitting at Thorneycroft's yard at Northam she was commissioned in the spring as the company's second Lorna Doone.
For the next three years she operated excursions from Bournemouth in the summer.
She was finally withdrawn and scrapped by Dover Industries Ltd at Dover Eastern Docks in 1952.
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The plan is to build the 1/350 version as the RN Minsweeper HMS Atheslstone, and the 1/700 version in civilian service with Red Funnel lines
as the excursion steamer Lorna Doone, pertient to me as I live near Southampton on the Solent--the erstwhile steaming ground of Lorna Doone.
onwards with the HMS Athelstone !
The kit at first sight does look pretty good and comprehensive; the wooden deck( which I usually don't like to use- preferring a painted deck)
in this instance looks sharp and subtle
First job was to remove the huge casting flange block on the underside
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To be able to portray a ship at speed I always add a layer to the underside , so as to be able to have the underwater portion showing midships in the typical displacement wave pattern of bow wave, stern wave and a hole in the middle!
Lacking a huge plank of styrene--- I used some square section evergreen
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It gives a stable base and a sharp guide line for the underwater portion of the ship
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Some of the parts have been rapid prototyped -digitally printed I think-- some of the smaller structures showed the typical Layer ribbing on the flat surfaces, r
removed with a quick pare of a Stanley blade
The hull also had some marks of that ilk I think ( highlighted here with Graphite dust
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The first thing thereafter I did was to check the wood deck fit....
which alas was not entirely ideal, being a bit over-length on the weather deck and over-width on the paddle boxes.
The fore and aft location I optimised by removing a bit at both extremities, the lateral width problem was not as easliy re-solved-- as the margin planking even if partially removed would have looked odd.
I elected to shim outboard the paddleboxes, and build up the angled planes fwd and aft--
quite fiddly with much checking the deck against the unglued paddleboxes and for symmetry
( small tabs of double-sided tape on the paddleboxes and a sharp pencil were the key method!)
My paddleboxes had a casting offset on the inboard side- my shimming was not pretty
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The enlargement of the fwd and aft facets were made piecemeal with strips of styrene
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P1200423.jpg [ 315.66 KiB | Viewed 4250 times ]
More soon
Jim Baumann
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FAQ
Telford this year?
-albeit it overscale--but in the overall perception of the model by the viewer...
