The Ship Model Forum

Bill,

You are the modeling equivelant of Sisyphus, and Tiger is your rock!

Your modeling is brilliant. Keep at it - I know you will prevail and get her back together again!

Thanks guys... Really nice to get some encouragement... Damn... what a day yesterday was... in more ways than one...

Anyway, got back and looked at the damage. The rear funnel is OK... just came off. The mainmast is bent, I got it back reasonably straight but really I should rebuild it... I'll have a look at it when I have replaced the main derrick... That was shattered and broke off flush with the deck.

Started repairs today... here is the progress for your amusement. When you think I had all but finished yesterday you can see how far back I have had to go... First picture, repairs underway, drilling out the hole for the main derrick... You can see the rear funnel is now missing - although the pipe that ran up the stern from it is still there!



Next was to make a new derrick/winch whatever its called... Decided to do the whole thing from scratch as I wasnt happy with the main pillar/tower anyway and the actual jib itself was broken and flew off somewhere, never to be found again. I used some brass tubing for the tower and some brass rod for the jib. I carved some bits of plastic for the bottom pivot point and used some plastic card for the brackets for the pulleys. I then found my Waldron hole punch and punched out a few discs from brass sheet to make the pulleys themselves. Finished with a couple of tiny rings round the jib to add some much needed detail. I think it looks a lot better than the kit supplied thing but is still not detailed enough to accurately represent the real thing. It'll do

Here are a couple of pictures...





Thanks again for your comments... much appreciated. I wish now I hadn't left it so long before I restarted this hobby again... With you guys out there its been a real pleasure coming back... although looking at my cock ups and frustrations with myself I am beginning to recall why I stopped in the first place...!!!!

Bill

Right... I have done most of the repairs... The main derrick has been replaced and the funnel is back in place plus a few other things damaged have been fixed. The main mast really needs replacing and re-rigged as although I have straightened it as best I can, there is still a slight bowing front to back although it is straight when viewed head on as you can use the tension in cage aerilas to adjust it, but it really needs to be rebuilt using tubing rather than rod as the yards are far less prone to bending and there is quite a lot of force applied to both the mast and each of the yards due to the amount of rigging... especially the cage aerials which need to be stretched pretty tight in order to sit properly. I have put it together reasonably quickly and will come back to it in a few weeks... I really cant face doing it all now and am desperate to get onto something else after all the dramas of this model!

Here are a couple of pictures with todays progress... First, the new crane has been painted and had a wash of burnt umber. It will get an airbrushed flatcoat and then some black and brown pastels done lightly to finish and then be mounted back on the ship



The mainmast is bent as you can see from this picture. The top yard is very bent and the cage aerials are slightly different spacing at the mounting point. This is easy to correct but requires a bit of fiddling and as I am going to replace the whole thing soon I didnt worry too much about it. At least the aerials will be kept safe for the moment!



I will carry on with the boat booms and maybe a number of crew manning the boats and around the decks, but I'll probably leave them until after it has been completed properly. Hate giving up... but this has really done my head in... and I am not giving up entirely. Just need a break and a change before I tackle it again

Bill

Decided to finish her now and move on... I will re-build the mainmast and do the boat booms, small boats in the water and crew, both in the boats and on deck at the same time at a later date. Maybe on completion of my next build. At the moment I have had enough and want to move on... Preferably to something with much less rigging!

Here she is... pretty much completed... for the moment anyway...


HMS Tiger, wearing her unusual camouflage of dark grey hull panel and white stripes on the funnels, this is after a photo in Burt's British Battleships of World War One showing her at anchor, just a few days after the Dogger Bank Action, on January 29, 1915,








Although badly out of focus, you can see the lean to starboard of the main mast. This is relatively easy to correct... just reduce the tension on the starboard cage aerial and increase it on the port. Not going to worry about it for the moment as it will all be re-build shortly anyway... A much bigger problem is the dramatic bend in the top yard supporting the cage aerials. I had no idea how much tension there would be using mono line on a set of cage aerials and then having to keep them tight in order for them to look right. I will rebuild this with tubing which will handle the stress a lot better (and hopefully, so will I!)


Final shot showing the replaced funnel and the scratchbuilt main derrick... with a matchstick to give some sense of scale...

Thanks to everyone who has followed this thread and laughed at my mishaps and encouraged me when I was flagging. A special thanks to Jim and Guido for their help, particularly Jim off board with some great advice and not a little bit of help... And of course, Martin, also building HMS Tiger from the 700 scale kit from Combrig and writing a WIP in this section who was gracious enough to share his trials and tribulations with me on here. I always looked out for Martins posts for inspiration and for motivation and for his comments...

I just hope I am not at all like Sisyphus, although his punishment certainly felt as real and unending to me... Tiger truly was my rock!

Bill

Bill Livingston wrote:And of course, Martin, also building HMS Tiger from the 700 scale kit from Combrig and writing a WIP in this section who was gracious enough to share his trials and tribulations with me on here. I always looked out for Martins posts for inspiration and for motivation and for his comments...

And I did the same with this build - thanks for the motivation and encouragement you provided to me. It was fun! Glad you kept at it - she was definitely worth it!

Hi Bill,
i have been quietly watching this thread and was gutted when you damaged her, but i'm glad to see that you have decided to carry on and finish what is an outstanding model. BZ on that

Roy

Thank you Roy...

This turned out to be a painful experience for my first model after a long break but I learned a lot and it was worth it in the end. I would thoroughly recommend the Combrig kits. Superb castings at a reasonable price covering a large number of very interesting ships... Couldnt be faulted...

Bill

Congrats, mate!
It's good to have you back!
Again you are to be commended on your persistence! Well done! I know I would have been able to cope with the amount of set back you have suffered! Well done, indeed!

What's next?

Guido

Hi Bill,
Yes i have a number of their kits that i have done and still a few to do.
I hope you don't mind but i think if you get chance to purchase the Combrig WW1 Scharnhorst you will not be disappointed.
She is superb

Roy

I have been tempted Roy... When I get past my WEM Renown that may well be my next model... Very interesting subject and and stunningly beautiful ship and one I was looking to buy anyway... interesting that you thought of it... I was thinking of building a series of ships of that era centred around the Falklands... the whole South Atlantic thing is a compelling story. Spee going down with his ship during World War One in that area and then the ship named after him, the Graf Spee, being scuttled in Montivideo...

Guido, thanks... its good to be back. I have learnt a lot and I am very pleased with my cage aerials in the end, they were a real challenge to get to something I thought looked right... If nothing else, that was an experience that makes me feel a lot more confident about tackling things in the future.

Thanks all...

Now working on Renown... The main superstructure is not square which is a pain. I have glued it to a 40 thou plasticard and will sand it down square. If that fails I have a badly cast part which came in the original kit and WEM kindly offered me replacement. If I cant get this one right the original part may be recoverable...

HIi, Bill!

Just wanted to let you know that I demasted my Goeben this afternoon.
Obviously it's a bad season for BCs. ...

Guido

Bloody Hell Guido!!!! How did you manage that??? I saw your photo's you emailed to me yesterday and was writing a reply when this message came through...

She is a stunningly beautiful build too... it really is. Did it fall? Thats what happened to mine... I am sure you can repair her.... But its like Jutland all over again...

Hi, Bill!

I brushed across the masts with my sleeve while moving some stuff around in regular post-build clean-up. (Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!Stupid!).
The masts were capped off above the crows nests. I'll guess I'll be putting in 3-4 hours to fix it some time this week: Friday I'll be leaving for the PMC L�beck model show to meet with my club and some Danish ship modellers.

Chin up!
Guido

Thats psy-warfare! Man, you �re really undestroyable!
Thats what a good sales person is about, passion and persistence, aye?
These cage arials are to me what we in germany sometimes use to call a "Angstgegner"( Angst:Fear, Gegner:opponent), meaning one of the most diffucult things one can encounter.
My best wishes are with you and this project!

Very kind regards to all the people supporting Bill at his build!

Keep going, bro! You got it!

@Guido
Feel you bro...
A CD-sleeve fell on my HOOD some weeks ago, causing major damages at the forecastle.
She is about to be dry docked....
Stand your ground!

Thanks Molders... I was pleased with the way the cage aerials turned out... less pleased that the stress bent the yards. I will go back to the model in a while and rebuild the mast and yards with tube rather than rod... much less prone to bending...

Took a while to do them, and several attempts until I was happy they were in scale and looked 'right'..... but the results were worth it in the end