Building SMS Vulkan (sub-rescue ship )and its tugs in 1/350

[Iceman 29]

Very nice set of tugs. And as usual, lots of useful tips for everyone.

It's going fast, can't wait to see the rest Jim.

[marijn van gils]

Good solution for the curved sides!

And also a good idea to use the finely textured foil!
What glue will you use with it? I'm asking because have used similar foils before, and found that gluing with superglue was not ideal. I made it work, but had to be very careful afterwards because the foil detaches again easily. Maybe white glue would work better, or something else?
But maybe the foil you are using is backed by a thin layer of paper, so this wouldn't be an issue?

[JIM BAUMANN]

@ Marijn-- I will report in on the foil shortly;

==============================================

meanwhile-- work is continuing on Schelde

The upper -to-be-the deckedge-strake has been added

The sweeping curves aft on the curved whale gang have been formed
via the wire beading ...(and some CA filling ! )

The templates were made for the superstructure deck as well as for the flared foredeck
using yellow post it notes--the contrasting colour quickly showed up any anomalies in the shapes

quite a lot of effort was expended on the making of the anchor winches from very small bits,
this windlass is mostly under the foredeck-- but quite visible from oblique angles

poor quality photo alert...!�

with the foredeck dropped in most of it vanishes ...

The bulwark stiffening gussets are made of grain-less paper coloured black with an indelible marker
tacked in place with matt varnish

Aft the gratings over the rudder quadrant were installed, additional bulwark stiffeners have been installed,
fair-leads drilled, and another thin coat of paint on the hull; by the time Schelde was in service
with the Imperial German Navy Tug/ towage division, the smart white sides had been painted hull colour...

( boring-- but easier! )

more soon--

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

SCHELDE (1906) is coming along VERY nicely Jim! Keep up the good work!

And I'm just as curious as anyone how the RETTER 'Riffelblech' (treadplate) deck will turn out eventually.

[marijn van gils]

Beautiful work Jim!

Did you use generic (real) wood deck material? Or is it printed on paper, like you did in 1/700 for Normandie?
Anyway, it looks really good...

[JIM BAUMANN]

Well-- nearly a month away...
1/1 scale work completely overwhelmed me and we have been rushed of our feet.

There was precious little progress in the modelroom

==> though the indifferent weather this weekend allowed me start getting over some of hurdles .

@ marijn -- very late answer---, yes its from sheets of generic wood decking from MK1 design-
which so far is to my eyes the most pleasing of the wooden decks--
( made of Bamboo )
featuring subtle butt ends--most of which I remove using fine sandpaper and a blade until they are a merest shadow ...







meanwhile....

The curved fronted wheel house presented with me some issues , the severe deck sheer requiring some thought
as the verticals needed to be vertical to the waterline...

I tried making a hollow wheel house using a paper template to create the 3 D shape layout
harder than I thought and it resulted in dismal failure

' Trouble is... the original , as-built state of the Tug -as per the plans- is rather more attractive to the eye

than the altered , extended version of the period I am trying to portray .
' We 'have so far only found one image of the Schelde as in 1919 'ish...

( thank you Lars Scharff--great find )

and they appear to have added a wooden vertically planked bulwark ** all around the whole roof of the wheelhouse, and to try and counter the severe cold and wind-chill of of the Baltic Winter they then- on top of that --added a series of uprights which carried a series of canvas blinds that could be raised or lowered.
(Initially I puzzled about the "Red or Green Cross" on the side of the wheelhouse....???

it is actually the Navigation light box in front of the door...!!!)

from above--** this type of bulwark was originally on the bridge/boat deck as well-- but appears to have been replaced with stanchion rails and canvas dodgers

so all in all its just trying to interpret as best as we can the status quo as per the 1918 photo



so I reverted to old low tech and made a solid block of styrene out of strips ,
shaped to the sheer-line to keep the upright fwd and aft plane vertical relative to the deck sheer-line
and then wrapped the lot in thin styrene sheet and trimmed off,

The wooden bulwark was made of PE torpedo net shelves ( old WEM )
and the wooden decking was added now as well

for the canvas blind uprights , I used some elderly stainless steel single bar handrail cut down

The effect was al least regular and allowed me to bend the uprights to be vertical to the sheerline

The prominent raised window frames were cut and sanded to size from a suitable size odd scale old ladder stock Photoetch

attached to the bridge block it all looked a bit crude when viewed enlarged on the screen,
1: 1 viewing ( I removed the Optivisor x5 from my head! ) ...

and it looked better!
alas, you see the enlarged version here- some paint may hide multiple of sins

the canvas blinds --(so as to appear as they do in the one and only photo of that tug in that era...)

I made of white glue--applied in layers--so as to make the function of the blinds more self evident to the casual observer

I left two of the blinds in the raised position

with some paint it started to look more of a piece, with some subtle weathering and creases painted in ,
and some gentle high-lighting it should look more convincing

===============================================================================

..........aside from the fiddling with the bridge,
the funnels were cut to size from copper tubing

( the funnels at this point in time no longer had the fattened colour-coded section)


and a start was made on the engine room skylight, constructed of various sizes of styrene,
the skylight in this ship having round radiused edges at the juncture of sloped top to vertical sides fore and aft

I hope to be back soon with more progress!

JIM B

[maxim]

Very interesting ideas for building some of the details!

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Hi Jim,

With your progress on the SCHELDE I'm getting more and more frustrated and wanting to build that lovely tug myself. Of course in a different setting:

The five masted bark in tow is the POTOSI, the older sister ship of the better known PREUSSEN (from the German P-Line). The location is Rotterdam around 1910. From the POTOSI ample information is available, and now from the SCHELDE as well... Tantalizing!

[JIM BAUMANN]

thats interesting

I have a photo of the same scene--amazing how colour in the artwork makes it look more alive ...

[pascalemod]

Very interesting progress!

There I was down the Wikipedia rabbit hole reading about this and that when I came across a ship that reminded me of something being built by Jim! Kommuna inspired by Vulcan, bizarelly living on as sub resque vessel still to this day.

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

thats interesting

I have a photo of the same scene--amazing how colour in the artwork makes it look more alive ...

Yes, I knew the photo, but the recent watercolour painting based on it gives it a lively touch indeed.

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Very interesting progress!

There I was down the Wikipedia rabbit hole reading about this and that when I came across a ship that reminded me of something being built by Jim! Kommuna inspired by Vulcan, bizarelly living on as sub resque vessel still to this day.

Yes, it's really a surviving oldie, in service from 1913 and still running! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_s ... ip_Kommuna
Maybe the other German salvage ship SMS Cyclop was also a source of inspiration, this ship having the more extensive gantries much like Kommuna.
https://i1.wp.com/www.militaer-wissen.d ... Cyclop.jpg

[marijn van gils]

Great bridge Jim! The canvas blinds are most convincing, and the solid windows look great too.

And thanks for the deck info!

[Iceman 29]

Nice progress Jim!

[JIM BAUMANN]

Good day all!

The model of Schelde is coming along now that I have a had a few hours to spend on her...

Onwards with the aft engine room hatch...-- unlike my previous Dutch tug model- Manzee--

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

this time I wanted to depict the hatches open--as they seemed to often have been ;

In an ideal world I would have a hollow hull with glimpses of representation of the engine
to be seen through the open hatches...( in 1/96 perhaps...! )

To try and get the alignment of the hatches accurate--I used some tape in the hatch positions and drew a light pencil line alongside the tape to give a template of location of the hatch frames

I made the coaming frames for the hatches I cut from some hand railing

The lines proved to be invaluable!

Black substitutes for a view of the engine...

.

The hatches had small portholes-- set in echolong on each hatch

these were made by forming a " spring " of thin wire on a small drill bit

cutting these was quite tricky--as they tended to try and ' ping ' everywhere...

I solved this by cutting them on a post-it note--using the sticky edge to retain them !

These were placed on brass lids cut from PE fret surround ,
and stuck on with thinned matt enamel varnish

a light coat of matt varnish will cure all shiny bits!

The additional piece of raised superstructure ahead of the engine room skylight
( made from layers of solid styrene) was furnished with various venting skylights--large and small.

these had to be made , the larger one being formed using
some old ( 20 years plus!) stainless steel GMM PE,

Forming the ridge in the hard stainless metal PE meant I had to dust off
my folding tool for the first time in years!

Creating - neatly--the small triangle of the apex ends was accomplished
by spanning with white glue...(!) works for me !

================================================================
meanwhile...
study of the plans revealed that this vessel was fitted with--as is usual on Dutch tugs- the large Sampson post towing bollards; however-- in addition Schelde had an additional single Sampson post on each side
as well-- being braced to the side-wall coaming with " gussetts "

The single posts were made using Styrene Rod, the " supporting gussets" being made of wire--
later in-filled with while glue to create the ' plate ' as per the below excerpt from the plans

the bollards and their unfilled braces...

with the white glue drying nicely

the coal scuttles were added- note the asymmetric positions as per above plan

The Sampson post towing bollards was made using differing styrene rods,
again assembled on the sticky end of a post-it note to keep the rolling pieces in position !!

The funnels--previously cut from copper tubing had the very unobtrusive upper rim added ,
made of thin wire

Individually all these pieces look neither sharp or interesting, however the sum total is more attractive..!

apologies for poor quality low-light photos...

More soon..-- I hope!

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Sooo nice...

[Pieter]

Nice work. Those 'extra' sampson posts are safety posts, they prevent the towing cable from moving forward and cutting off the superstructure. British tugs of that era had steel triangles attached to the back of the superstructure for the same reason.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thanks gents!

Pieter wrote;
..... they prevent the towing cable from moving forward and cutting off the superstructure .....

AHA--!!

I did guess it may for that kind of purpose...
a bit of a bore of the tug finds itself at acute angle under load next to a big ship...
as the cable can slide up and over....?

eeek!

[wefalck]

Just catching up with your progress since late June

I tend to shape deckhouses etc. from blocks of Plexiglass, as it looks, when properly polished much like real glass.

[zs180]

Hi Jim,
these tugs are so nice and again, construction is full of ingenious solutions which can be useful to everyone.
I guess scratchbuilding is more fun than superdetailing existing kits!
The tugs are your real own creations, not just modified, commercially available items.