1/350 HMAS Melbourne R21 (1982)

[Bonobo_Atho]

Well according to the supplier those are WWII USN Destroyer winches. They were the closest thing I could find.
https://www.shapeways.com/product/R3WWY ... arketplace

As for the unplated midships section a sponson and boat go there. That will hopefully hide my poorly aligned ladder, unless it gets to me and I go back and fix it

[Fliger747]

Nice photo, operating a squadron of A-4's and an S2 sitting there. Because of the flat flight deck we are led to believe carrier models will be simple! Ummmm, possibly not! Song is doing a bang up job on his Nimitz, always a lot for the rest of us to learn watching his techniques.

Looking good so far!

Cheers: Tom

[Bonobo_Atho]

Ladders installed on the starboard side. And openings cut for starboard weather deck under the island. And yep I cut them too big to start off with so had to add some material back. Going to have fun hiding that!

[Bonobo_Atho]

Soooo, progress has been slow on the Melbourne lately. The work crew have found themselves unable to deny the call of better paid work. But after some hard negotiations they got back to work today and managed give the weather decks an undercoat of grey and then a coat of white. A second coat of white should follow tomorrow and then installation of the hull skin around the weather deck openings can begin.

[Bonobo_Atho]

I managed to convince the painters to stay on another day and finish the white on the weather decks. Only cost me a couple of beers

[QMG_Waz]

Hi Im not sure if you were aware the quaterdeck on Melbourne was wood?

Cheers

QMG_Waz

[Bonobo_Atho]

Yep! I've seen the photos. Due to my poor choice of construction sequencing painting the quarter deck a wood-like colour is going to be challenging.
Maybe I can hire tiny painters.

[Bonobo_Atho]

Tiny steel workers were hard at work this weekend installing the hull skin over most of the weather deck openings.

[Bonobo_Atho]

Sourcing the ships screws has been bothering me as I've not been able to find anything suitable from suppliers. Enter 3d printers

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Sourcing the ships screws has been bothering me as I've not been able to find anything suitable from suppliers. Enter 3d printers

Neat solution of the problem!

But: having dissimilar screws on a ship is NOT normal. Are you sure these were used on HMAS Melbourne for a good reason? To me it seems the three bladed port screw is standard, the four bladed starboard one seems to be a temporary replacement, maybe because of an accident.

Or: the dock image (which is certainly a good thing to have when modeling a full hull ship!) seems clear, but might show a moment halfway replacing both screws.

BTW: on my 1/350 ARA 25 the Mayo (a sister ship) I solved the propeller problem by using the Heller props: these were supposed to be 1/400 of course, but appeared so much over scale that they are perfect for 1/350 Also, they have the right amount of blade pitch (which is considerable!)
You can see also: I had created a master for the S-2A Tracker and cast these in resin. Also modifed these to S-2E and will re-cast these in the future. You might acquire some of these from me then.

[Fliger747]

Nice job on the tracker!

Cheers: Tom

[Bonobo_Atho]

In my research I found a site which related the story that in the early years of operation the propeller fell off and not wanting to wait for the casting of a new one the RAN opted to use an available one. I cannot find the website where I found this story however the HMAS Melbourne Wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Melbourne_%28R21%29) does say it had one 3 blade and one 4 blade propeller. Looking at the drawings for the Melbourne and her sister ship HMAS Sydney it looks like the 4 blade was as per design. As far as I'm aware the arrangement was never returned to design.

I'd love to know more about your S-2 casting experience Maarten as I am looking at doing the same for my air wing. I deliberately bought the Gallery Models 1/350 USS Intrepid so I could copy the A-4 and E-1 from that kit, modifying the E-1 to S-2 of course. I have been looking at 3D model files available online for printing but they all seem to lack the detail you find on an injection molded kit. I've even emailed Trumpeter and suggested they do a run of A-4's but never heard back Nice job on the Mayo by the way

I will be attempting the draw the island in CAD and then 3D print that. I think I have enough reference material to do an adequate job.

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Hi Bonobo-Atho,

Converting an S-2 into an E-1W is quite a challenge, look at: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2013 ... 2e-1b.html.
To do it the the other way 'round will be an even greater challenge, be sure! For a start, the Intrepid's E-1s have some serious flaws. I also made an update on those for my friend Walter Sonderman's build of that kit http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... /index.htm so these E-1s already look quite different from what the kit provides you with!

For the S-2 I started really from scratch from the basic drawings of the S-2A. And I like the result indeed.

[Fliger747]

The variations of the S2 are interesting. A fellow in town here had one, which unfortunately got crashed a couple of years ago. A friend of my dad was an S2 pilot and one of the first 8 aviators to transition to the jet powered S3. For may yeas I did flight dynamics for aircraft used in the Microsoft flight simulators and the Lockheed Martin version including a number of the S2-Willi Fudd series. Fun to land the on the carrier!

Not easy to model small scale aircraft, Song has done an impressive job recreating the whole air group for his 1:200 Nimitz.

Nice work and thanks for sharing. Tom

[Bonobo_Atho]

Openings to the aft weather deck started. Filling depressions in the hull skin started. Building up the prop shaft nacelles, if that's what you could call them, started. I see a long road ahead tidying up those weather deck openings

[Bonobo_Atho]

Experimenting with 3D printing the A4's. Obtained the stl files from Cults https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/do ... -4-skyhawk.
Using a Creality Halot 3D printer with Monocure 3D Rapid resin. With the model being so small and the wings etc so thin the Monocure Rapid is a little too soft and the wings deform easily. Am thinking of trying Monocure Tuff next.

[Bonobo_Atho]

3D printing the ships props. Still using the Monocure Rapid resin and the those tiny thin blades just snap right off when you look at them:(. Hopefully the Monocure Tuff will prove to be a bit more durable but at $70 for a 1 litre bottle of resin this is an expensive experiment. Still toying with the idea of casting in resin. What a shame Trumpeter won't answer the call to run a batch of A4's

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Openings to the aft weather deck started. Filling depressions in the hull skin started. Building up the prop shaft nacelles, if that's what you could call them, started. I see a long road ahead tidying up those weather deck openings

Hi Bonobo,

Some notes on terminology:
You call this the 'weather deck', but it should be the 'quarter deck' - see your post with the photo of the Melbourne quarter deck, several pages back in your thread. viewtopic.php?f=13&t=214450&start=74
In previous posts you also used 'weather deck' where you were actually referring to the side galleries - where the ship's boats are located. The term weather deck is a generic word for all the decks of a ship actually exposed to the elements, so not having another deck overhead - which is clearly the case on the side galleries and the quarterdeck in these carriers.

As for the prop shafts: these are called the 'fairings' not 'nacelles': that word is more commonly used in aviation when engines are enclosed in a separate 'pod' or 'body' apart from the fuselage.

[Bonobo_Atho]

Hi Maarten. Thanks for the terminology clarifications. As you can see I know boats very well . My background is aviation, hence why nacelles came to mind, but I also really like boats that support aviation. Actually I like most things military, ships, armour, aircraft, hence the photo a number of posts back of me arming my HMAS Melbourne with the turret from a Sherman tank (May make a great what if ).

I have no doubt that as I progress through this build I'm going to use many more terms incorrectly and as and when I do please continue to guide me to the correct terminology.

[Fliger747]

Ah, nomenclature! Occasionally what english speaking people see as maritime naming errors have to do with translation from another language. A very talented and experienced sailor occasionally uses terms like "castle or smoke stack" which I presume are translations from whatever the terms are in his language. So little color gets added. Maarten is very diplomatic and such elucidation is always welcome.

Keep up the good work all!