1891.. not 1941 !! ==> HMS Hood 1/700 pre-Dreadnought

[JIM BAUMANN]

Hello all again

the winter months have allowed a small amount of extra time to spend hours modelshipping
with the completion of the 1/350 paddle steamer minesweeper

viewtopic.php?f=59&t=166107

I wanted to get stuck into a 1/700 small ship again-- and a not-run-of-the mill " normal " ship--but a slightly flawed , wee bit oddlooking
imperfect but interesting ship!

Hence HMS Hood 1891

she was the last of the rather more normally proportioned Royal Soveraign class, similar in all aspects apart from missing a whole decks worth of freeboard fore- and-aft.

But she differed dramatically in having rotating turrets rather than the open barbettes of the Royal Sovereign class ships.

She was allegedly a more stable gun platform due to lower metacentric height but a rather poorer seaboat-
this was duly noted and she was despatched to the overall calmer waters of the Mediterranean Sea--opearying mainly out of Valetta Grand harbour Malta
.

Good historical overview and kit review by Steve Backer ( Steel navy) was both instructive and fair
link below

http://www.steelnavy.net/CombrigHood1893.html

There is unfortunately a compromise that is common to I believe all the Combrig RN ships of this type, that being that the superstructure deck at either end of the boat -well deck is solid underneath in the kit casting--when on the real ships these were undercut and mostly hollow

On my HMS Magnificent build I " could " probably have gotten away with not making the amount of work required to cure this,
as on Magnificent the boats and the sidedecks obscure most of the view.

here is what I did on Magnificent

viewtopic.php?f=60&t=161114&hilit=hms+m ... nt#p675307



On Hood there is no such overhanging deck--and I knew I could not live with the compromise having solid bulwarks fore and aft

and I approached it in a similar fashion;

--after making paper templates of the decks ,

the tools I used were various undercutting dremel type heads in a mini-drill

I started grinding down the entire boat deck base to
make it lower to be able to accommodate the new deck to the correct height.

it was not pretty

after some smoothing and cleaning with a micro-chisel

then a template was made for the new deck

and cut from 20 20 evergreen styrene sheet-- fit was not bad

even though the levels needed some help...

more shortly


Jim Baumann

[gscott]

Jim, I admire your dedication to detail and absolute fearlessness when it comes to gutting a model to achieve your end vision. I'm always amazed at how, despite the seeming haphazard state of your in progress builds, you always manage to pull it all together in magnificent fashion in the end. Carry on, good sir. I'll be watching and hopefully learning as well.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Gscott wrote:

.... haphazard .... ??!

oh no,,,. its all .... errr... planned....

Moving on...

I omitted to mention earlier that I had previously fitted a styrene riser plate to the bottom of the ship-
( it can be seen as the white strip at the lower end of the hull
- as I wanted her to bed into the sea at her waterline--not get swallowed up

Steve Backer in his steel Navy review---linked above-

correctly I believe--identified that all the other Royal Sovereign( RS) class ships had muzzle blast plates on their decks at the radios of the gun barrel training circle, ==> and that the overhead plan enclosed with the kit showed these

( though I cannot find this drawing in my Burts book (?)--anyone have this drawing elsewhere? -in the new edition of the book perhaps ?

or was it perhaps adapted from the RS drawing?

anyhow-- I looked at my RS class photos and plans and agreed.

As the hull casting did not have these( which is a shame as the ones on the Magnificent were beautifully rendered!)

I drew the parameters using a compass with pencil

and then carved away and pared away the planking

==> Tthe plan is to flood this with a few coats of paint so as to to self level and bring up the heights...

( we shall see if that works... )


The fairleads are about the right shape and size-( huge)- they were very wide athwartships on the real thing
-- but not as 'thick' as cast--
but their disposition is about right , so I elected to use them
...but only after they had been thinned by sawing away at the resin with a very fine drill bit in a hand-held pin chuck
I took the opportunity to drill in the hawsepipes aft both sides

The previously templated decks were cut new of brass sheet ( ex-l'arsenal 1/350 liberty ship PE )

and testfitted them repeatedly with a swipe of a file until they all lay smooth and flush to the superstructure
==> boring and laborious ....

For a change of discipline I elected to drill out the gun barrels.

Usually I substitute for brass barrels-- but the resin items in the kit did have a pleasing flare of the muzzle--and being short I decided to use them
--but they needed drilling...

I made a centring divot with my spike and followed this up with thing drill bit as a guide

and then followed up with a 'bigger' ( Haha !) drill bit.

Whilst in drilling model I decided to make a start on the myriad of cowl vents.
Combrig did a good job on these ---the look right dimensionally as well as in shape--
so I proceeded to drill the vertical shaft hole, followed by grinding out the cowl further before thinning the rim to about 2 thou

Clunky vents can alas so often spoil a ship model-- and I do try and get them as thin as possible, hitherto without any catastrophe failures
nevertheless it can be nerve-wracking if/ when it goes wrong...

The funnels were actually rather nice in shape --apart from being solid and a bit thick on the upper rim

I drilled and thinned these and they will serve well--

no point in making life harder than need be..!

More progress soon

Jim B

[Bouncy70]

I'll be following this thread with interest!

[Silenoz]

Some first class modelling... Nice explanation of how you solve the things encountered...

[Chris Meddings]

great project Jim, looking forward to more

[marijn van gils]

Subscribed!

The big surgery might not look as sexy as the tiny details, but is of course equally important to the final result, and sometimes harder to do.
Great job Jim!

Cheers,

Marijn

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you gentlemen!

further recent progress;

The excavated blast plate areas ..( filling with paint to self-level ..?-pah! what was I thinking! )

I made templates and drew them with a compass on paper

and selected the best part of my scissor cut edges

whilst in trhat vicinity, I testfitted the turrets ( after flatting their bottom by 1 mm )

a lovely fit but just up proud slightly due to the radius of the resin cast edge on the underside of the turret plug

Rather than hollowing out the bottom of the turret step edge--I simply rounded off the edge on the barbette-
(-this area will be concealed by the turret skirt )

more butchery on the grand scale...

the position of the portholes ( which is correct in a vertical plane

was marred b the vastly oversized strake-- not allowing space for a white line and porthole and strake !!

off it came....-- along with the non existent fictitious stake in the midships area

after much careful paring, sanding and scraping...
( oftehn with heart in mouth carving away in a hollow...)

Once the new rubbing strake had been added using thin wire

there was actually room for the white line

Phew!

with the addition of the red decal stripe over the previously varnished white striping ( hence the additional waterline plate to gain the height needed

I was able to complete the underwater part ready for mounting to the sea-plate

with screws allowing for tuning the hull (cast) warp as well as securing mechanically

and getting my hands away !!!

More progress shortly !

JIM B

[JIM BAUMANN]

getting on with it-
-not as fast as hoped ( is it ever...?!)

--as staring at photos for ages trying to glean the information and compare to drawings of the " normal" Royal Sovereign class
does not always result in tangible progress!

here are some 'halfway' stages of various elements,

Hood's funnels--along with her near sister-ships had prominet cowl overhanging the uptake casing

these were square and faceted.
Tediously this was not on the castings.
They are quite a tricky shape to model--I tried cutting them of paper; whilst I could cut them cleanly I was unable to join them cleanly....
I resorted to a different ruse to be able to produce these shapes

I made some symmetrical oblongs in brass, larger, so as to overhang the square uptake shaft casing

The very incorrect round cowls were cut down and away-but used partially as a support
small pieces of brass were glued on to form the facet apex ridges

These were then spanned with white glue to produce the flats,

once dry and guide-coated in black they
received a second coat of glue

I am awaiting the glue to harden through completely and will then assess further after paint.



anyhow-- the 6 x 6 in gun houses...

Combrig had more or less captured the shape well enough... enough for me not to want to remake them...

However they were solid at the fwd enc and lacked sufficient overhang on the roof
that said the inboard face will not be visible really so I hope to get away with it..



I added the roofs of white tape, with the edges sealed with CA

I still need to thin the aft edges and then sharpen up the inclined edges of the sides

The fighting tops walls , as cast in 1: 1 scale -- would have the splinter shield walls at knee level--
ie they are not deep enough and the crew would simply stumble over the edge!

I removed the cast walls, ground down the insides
and made new walls of brass by rolling the brass strips on a post-it note pad with a piece of undersized tubing

surprisingly tricky to get the lengths EXACT for a clean join..(!! )
but the results were pleasing

[marijn van gils]

I missed the last update on the hull, so to me there seems to be a lot of progress!

Anyway, the quality of work is high as ever.

Looking forward to all the other detail additions...

Cheers,

Marijn

[J. Soca]

Spectacular work as always!!




Jose

[zs180]

Jim,
love to see your ingenious solutions to the kit's problematic details.
Another masterpiece is in the making!

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you gentlemen!

small stuff in todays update, --but it all counts...

All the Royal Sovereign class -including Hood -- had on the stern a number of skylights, which had solid
lids on them to cover the glass at sea

this should be easy !...

BUT....is it....?

Only Hood had portholes in the lids...

so each skylight side had 6 panes of glass and 4 portholes

The glass pane window breaks on the model were made of suitable very small ladderstock ( very old but fine Toms modelworks )

I agonized about the portholes--trying to cut the the lids of paper and drawing them on, I tried drilling brass--

but it all was just not neat enough,

better under-scale than overscale and wonky!

I spent considerable time looking through all my PE for possible sources of PE strips with suitably sized and spaced holes within

It took a while ..- but found some spare unused Regia Marina PE frets from my 1/350 Roma project a few years ago.

with a bit of deft cutting .... ( and a high rather UN-deft failure rate!! )
I was able to get something that looked acceptable

The brutal close-up photos alas do rather let the side down- - I need to sharpen up he paint a bit more on some of them.

I used the point sharpened pencil to spin inside the portholes to visually enlarge them slightly, I plan to glaze them and the skylights with crystal clear .

I made the large skylight ahead of the foremast using ladderstock and styrene strip

The Combrig model casting completely ignored the high torpedo net shelf ( This was lowered later in her career)

This high shelf did go around the 6 in gun turret sponsors, evidenced by the long legs supporting the net shelf in those area

I made the shelf of stainless steel PE waste strip along with cut-and-shut PE scrap pieces

Not completely happy with the sharpness of my workings--

though when viewed without the 5 x magnifier Optivisor and large x 10 digital close-ups ,

==> it looks better to the naked eye

( self-procrastination...)

more soon

JIM B

I may yet re-visit this if it upsets me enough!

[marijn van gils]

I'm not detecting any lack of sharpness on those shelves� Looks nicely thin and straight!

Great job on those skylights! They look very sharp.

Cheers,

Marijn

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you Marijn for your confidence boost!

I have reached the stage that I reach in every ship model project;
when it all is still looking bitty disjointed and there is no flow or harmony yet with all the parts of the ship.--

not crisis per se (yet!)

I shall just get head down and plough on!

Today's very brief bit of progress;

the intangible part was that I have been trawling haberdashery stores ( that are open on Sundays in the UK ! ) and wife's sewing boxes seeking a suitable torpedo net material
( looking for 1.5 mm- - 2mm woven cordage-/string/ bungee elastic or otherwise that has fine woven texture and that is not hairy!)

The more tangible part was installing the struts supporting the netshelf,
( made of black stretched sprue for a clean cut off with liquid cement)
and a second coat of paint on the shelf

along with installing the torpedo net booms

an interesting peculiarity I have found whilst studying the various images to glean detail...

Is that some images of the ship in this paint scheme showed the deck hardware
==> ie Bollards, fairleads,bits, hatches, vent bases et al to be all white fwd and aft,

other images show them to be all black fwd and aft

and my chosen image for a timeline datum shows them to be-interestingly -- all white aft and all black fwd !

My guess is..( only a barely educated guess ) is that saltwater surface corrosion was more evident fwd --hence they painted it black rather than have rust leach staining on white,

....and perhaps they they thought it to be a good idea and painted all the hardware aft black as well !! (?)

anyhow--I like the hybrid stage--

[gscott]

One aspect of your WIP threads I enjoy so much, Jim, is your questioning every detail that goes into a build. It is a pleasure to see how you address or improve various features of every kit that lend themselves so subtly to the overall presentation of the completed subject.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you Greg , its my questioning everything that makes my models take so long to build,

( I sometimes wish I could '... just get on with it....' and be happy !!

I obsess about minor detail that only few people would recognize or be able to differentiate as being right, wrong or missing!

anyhow--here we go!!

the 'elephant in the room' that I have been avoiding eye contact with....

is the wide open and empty boat deck....

it was equally empty as per the original Combrig casting...

the cast resin boat skid structure as supplied by Combrig was simplified, chunky and fairly wrong !

(note: this photo is borrowed from the Steel Navy web-site review of this kit
-- as I broke and discarded my casting ) )
http://www.steelnavy.net/CombrigHood1893.html

It is decidedly tricky to extract the information for the ( more or less ) correct layout of these boat stow arrangements

as most drawings obscure it with the boats in place

Staring at the few large res photos I had show similarities( though not completely identical ) to the Royal Sovereign ,
drawings of which are available from the National Maritime museum ( at quite a price !! )
They do also have some original size artprints -low res -previews of these are online ( as the original drawings are 1.2 -- 2.6 meters long )

The most useful of these was the shelter deck drawing,

once I had fiddled with it on the PC and made it monochriome I found it easier to read/interpret

==> useful and helpful also was the Brian King 1/96 model of another RS class ship 'Empress of India'
though this also did not quite tally with the Hood photos ( do the drawings ever do so with photos ?! )

I made the longitudinal carrying beams which seemed to have a T profile first in brass and stainless

but these were so sensitive to cracking the glue joints whilst handling / trying to install

I then re-made them in styrene strip

The main supports were made of strip brass

very important was the placement of the fwd vent bases

as this dictated the position of the racking 'twixt the fwd vents


I also made and added what detail I could glean from the NMM deck layout drawing

along with the previously made and painted central walkway
( which I traced off the re-sized drawing--and then cut from paper)

thereafter came the side carrying members of this whole structure

once painted it all started to look more agreeable

I scoured various haberdashery/ hobbycraft shops for something tha could be representable of the torpedo netting--which on Hood was not always that neat!!!
I bought various diameters of beading cords, elastics etc...

and ended op using 0.75 mm shirring elastic cord

as a diversion halfway through I also made the funnel twin steam-pipes and their stand-offs--made of ...paint!

lets see what further progress the weekend brings

Jim Baumann

[marijn van gils]

Great work Jim!
Slowly, she is starting to look busy...

Cheers,

Marijn

[JIM BAUMANN]

Marjin wrote;

>>>.......Slowly, she is starting to look busy.......<<<

Aye aye ...I think I am getting past the 'loathing' stage

( happens with every model of mine , when no tangible progress is visible despite hours of time expended )

but... new issues have manifested them selves and solutions needed to be found....

I added some divisions to the conning tower sighting slit ( not exactly accurate or to scale-- but buried underneath the flying bridge it will
give a better effect that merely a plain slit

from "reading" old photos of Hood , her near sisterships, as well as other contemporary vessels I have 'deduced' the
boat rack walkway plan layout as installed below ( before I install the boat cradles )

These were made of brass strips , painted first and then glued on with varnish

Rather trickier was making a start on the fwd bridge and wheelhouse.

The kit item alas .....

does not really bear much resemblance to the real thing- (! )

( though the deck outline shape corresponds to the scaled drawing-albeit a bit too fat fore and aft)

The real ship had the planking of the bridge run across athwartships, so I had to make new deck anyhow--as the kit item(...s) have no planking details
and suffer from solid bulwarks ( Hood rarely carried dodgers- so no excuse!! )

I had some PE windows left over from a (Chinese recast of Kombrig Magnificent ) HMS Mars kit I used when I built HMS Magnificent

link for anyone interested

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

anyhow-

the proportions of the windows were significantly better than the above pictured Konbrig resin item.
but I wanted to represent the distinctive panelling below ( note for interest how in the BIG close-up the panelling is alternating diagonal )
==> not that I will try and emulate that anyway!

I cut down some more windows and reversed them onto the windows to gain the required height and ' look'

The issues were rather greater on the aft flying bridge

The kit part matched the drawings ok..( the red lines denote the angles running parallel of the superstructure and the bridge



at this point I nearly gave up on the model ...

as I think the drawings is accurate(ish) -==> but I fear the hull casting is not....

Tediously -- the casting when compared to photos actually looks ok--I have not yet established where it actually( is/ might be) wrong

I ( allegedly ) " suspect " the Hood overhead view drawing with the kit is an 'adjusted' version of the Royal Sovereign Burt drawings
with which it is completely and totally identical apart from the turrets
I have been hitherto unable to locate that Hood overhead view drawing, despite having both the new and old versions of Burts book

anyhow I digress-

-the kit part was in any case unusable--as the aft bridge wing angles need to be parallel to the superstructure-,-whilst clearing vents etc

some frustrating hours spent establishing the correct outline and relative proportions to gain correctly positioned overhangs
not as easy as it seems..

( it was made more difficult by me having installed the conning tower and vents /... doh!

I reached an acceptable compromise shape that looked about OK-- more of that soon

Having decided NOT to give up on the model...

I wanted to do something seemingly more satisfyingly constructive--

so set about installing the forest of cowl ventilators on foredeck , midships and aft.
Not all of the possible vent positions would have been used all the time at sea...( or in port)

so I made and installed many of the vent 'stub' positions as well

These vents nearly eluded me-- not shown on any drawings -- but I got the clue from this image

and then was able to see it here ( at last !)

....... and having fun again at last...... I made the aft hawse-pipe surrounds

and the very large prominent bow-crest-- made of thin brass-wire twirled around other small wires and flattened

whilst not EXACTLY the same - the outline and proportions are about right

with some gold paint added and a bit of touching up it looked a bit crisper
( note also the low black coaming bulwark added of brass at the bow)

Back to obsessive minutia....

this is the ONLY image(I have found so far ) where these steam pipes are clearly identifiable-usually obscured by ships boats

-and as far as I can ascertain the other sisterships did not have them (?!)

they were fiddly to make and install


With the imminent building and installing of the flying bridges and their spindly supporting legs I think the model will start to look more interesting soon



JIM B

[marijn van gils]

Aye aye ...I think I am getting past the 'loathing' stage

( happens with every model of mine , when no tangible progress is visible despite hours of time expended )

Very recognisable!
The early phases, when sometimes even more detail is being removed from a kit than added, can be tough indeed. But it is of course this kind of 'preparatory' work that lays the basis for all the more fun and fancy stuff to follow. At least that's what I tell myself...

Since I like to do as much construction as possible before painting, I have the same loathing feeling after basecoats of paint are applied. The model then looks at it's worst to me: the details are not so visible anymore than they were before painting and don't pop out yet with washes etc., and the model just feels toy-like to me.

Very fine work you have done! The bow crest is especially spectacular!
Great progress too; it seems you're putting in a fair amount of bench hours nowadays?

Cheers!

Marijn