The Ship Model Forum

Thanks Tom.

I'm going to print some deck accessories today.

I'm going to stop drawing for the moment and continue with my other projects.

Some pictures from the beginning of the 20th century where the ship is more or less in its original configuration.

Thanks to my friend Roland for finding these photos in very good definition.

On this HD photo, I have the original shape of the anchor which has nothing to do with the current one.























3D printing of the deck equipment.

Testing the deck elements on the ship.

I have started a bit of painting. I made a yellow that roughly matches from an old can of Heller 9027 paint, which I lightened a bit with Revell 05 off-white.

Otherwise Revell SM 364 green. And three shades for the deck. Quite a lot of masking as everything is done in the air.

The matte antifouling Humbrol Matte 60 has been varnished with matte to stabilise it.

Nothing is glued. I'm painting the black hull tomorrow probably.

Always satisfying to see real world parts evolve into a scale ship!

Cheers: tom

As a fellow sufferer.... I mean user of Fusion 360, this is some absolute top notch workmanship and the prints are beautiful too.

Matt

Thanks Mat!

This software can be very temperamental, but after a year and a half of living together, almost every day, a calm climate has developed between us. We manage to get out of the hulls which is the most complicated thing.

Effectively Tom, at the end of a word we are happy to be back in the real world after many hours of virtual work.

I make a short pose on the Hydrograaf, I work on a tug boat the USS Nokomis for my friend Alain Nova73 who is going to make a part of one of his remarkable diorama. I'm only doing the hull. Not easy because I don't really have the plans of the hull, only partially.

So it will be far from perfect, but for waterline 1:350 it will be fine.

I'm a bit like a musician without a score.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B32-8Z ... zFGqjQ2rbA

Some progress on the paintwork.

At the beginning of his career the border was painted white, as for the name sometimes white, sometimes yellow.

I worked on several of the WWII vintage YT's, exactly like the one you show. We did a lot of interesting work from setting dry dock casings to towing barges and whatnot. On one such trip with a barge alongside, through the Hiram Chittenden Locks into Lake Washington, I spotted my dad's old ship tied up in Lake Union.

Good progress! Tom

Tks Tom!

One picture of this ship alongside during WW2:



I painted the yellow, there was a lot of masking to do. The rail will be painted black with a brush.

Wow, that's really looking good, Pascal! I'm now really on my toes how your deck will look when you're done painting it.

Thank you Marteen.

My frustration with wooden bridges is great, I'm trying to achieve what you can see in this photos, which is the color of wooden decks in general after a few months of service.

I am not happy with the wooden decks sold either, as this is not the true colors of teak aged by tons of sea water and rain.

Hi Pascal,

I also have my reservations with 'real wooden decks' on model ships. As I'm primarily a plastic model builder, I have spent some time in trying to find some ways of simulating a wooden deck on a plastic model. To me the trick is largely a base colour (Humbrol), and when thoroughly dry an applied wash of artist's oil paint, in my case Talens' Van Dyck very dark brown. The colour does more justice than black.

The base colour leaves room for variation, between wood sorts and degrees of weathering. I did a sample of several Humbrol colours, each with the dark brown 'caulking' applied. See below: For your intention of the decks of 'Hydrograaf' my choice would be Humbrol 196, this really is light grey, but with the brown wash this gets just the slightly beige teint you're looking for. If you look for a little more colour (like in the last close-up), then H121 or H103 would be my next choice.

As you see, I even experimented with no base colour at all, and I have even used this to good effect on some WW1 German cruisers.

I hope these suggestions are of some value to you.

Thanks Marteen.

I'll put some of this aside in my archives for a future ship.

I'm going to buy the H196 and H121, which look very good to me.

Quite a bit of paint work today and the original anchor design is quite different to the one now.

Pascal,

The decks in the photos are pretty clean. If not cleaned teak will turn a dirty dark brown. Looks like the decks on the Hydrograaf are being taken care of.

On the cruiser I was on the crew holystoned the deck with granite bricks, sand and some type of bleach - I'm not sure what they used for the bleaching agent. On the first minesweeper I was on the crew used oxalic acid and brooms to scrub the deck. Both ships were flagships and we wanted the ships to be "pretty."

In both cases the freshly scrubbed decks were a very light in color. Not white, but a very light tan or wood color. Maybe even a bit brighter than the decks in your pictures.

Phil

Getting this weathered (but maintained) look of decks is indeed not so easy, but there are some good suggestions for painting procedures around on the Internet - look also at what railways modellers do in order to obtain that weather-beaten look.

I am using mainly acrylics these days: Vallejo and others have something that is called 'light wood' and even 'weathered wood' that can be used as a base-coat. As it still tends to be to 'beige'. You then can seal this with some gloss varnish and let some dilute 'burnt umber' run into the seams to simulate the caulking. I tone all this down with light washes of dilute white. If the deck is still too glossy afterwards, apply a light coat of matt varnish. On top of that I might use some white pastel, but this depends on the state of weathering you want to show.

DrPR wrote:... holystoned the deck with granite bricks...Phil

Hi Phil, are you sure these were actually granite? Not pumice stone? The latter is perfect for the job, as it has gas bubbles which provide sharp edges doing the required abrasive work. Granite wouldn't do that. And granite would be awfully heavy, whereas pumice is about the same density as water, it can sometimes even float...

In the old (sailing) days, these stones were called 'bibles' as they looked a bit like large church bibles indeed. Hence the name 'holystoning' for this work...

... the other story for the origin of the term 'holystone' is that the RN obtained stones for that purpose from a ruined monastery on the Isle of Wight. These were actually sandstones.

Many navies eventually discouraged the process of holystoning by the end of the 19th century, as it was wearing decks thin quite quickly and thus increased maintenance costs. The other problem is that the abrasive sand is dispersed everywhere, in spite of liberal washing down, and interfers with modern sensitive mechanics (winches, gun mechanisms, etc.). In the days of sailing ships and muzzle-loaders this was not a concern.

Maarten,

I must have been having a teen-age moment! I do not know what material the stones were. They were a very light gray or white and marbled a bit, but that might have been due to the soap or bleach being used. Also, I do not recall that they actually added sand. The grit may have been from the worn stones themselves.

The sea tales I have heard said sailors from the British Navy used headstones from church graveyards, hence the name "holystoning." The material was especially suited for cleaning the decks.

In more modern times fire bricks were used. When boiler linings were replaced periodically some of the bricks were saved for holystoning.

I have attached a photo of holystoning the teak decks on the USS Oklahoma City CLG-5 in the early 1970s. The stones were about the size of half a brick. A hole was chipped into one side and the men were using broom handles inserted into the holes to move the stones.

Holystoning was tradition, and navys are typically tradition bound.* The practice ended only when there were no more wooden decks to clean. It may still be used on wooden minesweepers to this day.

Phil

* I had to carry a sword (full dress uniform) while serving on a ship armed with 6" and 5" guns, nuclear capable guided missiles, and a heavily armed Marine detachment. I guess I was supposed to use it to repel boarders if all else failed!