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

[mabmanu]

Beau , comme toujours ...

Very nice AS ALWAYS...

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you- & Merci!

the inner edges of the decks were a bit thin and ragged looking-- ( my own fault--my differential thickness hybrid wood and styrene decks! )

looking at some photos--the inside deck edges were quite substantial--

I lined the insides of the decks slowly and laboriously with thin styrene strip

Offering up PE hand railings -- I came to the conclusion that the bulwark heights as drawn on the plans-- and used by AM was a bit low--especially when I place d a 1/350 human on the bow and midships

study of photos lead me tio believe that this is the case-- confirmed( in my mind anyhow! ) when I offered up AM's as well as other handrails ( inc WEM Koenig )

--the top rail of the railing was around 0.3 -- 0.4 mm too high relative to bulkwarks

I scraped off the beading on the bow and added the strip (s) built up the bow and midships slightly using styrene strip so that the handrails intersected precisely

Now its onwards to marrying up the larger structures to the hull-- the deck camber inboard has already raised an issue...

more soon

Jim Baumann

[JIM BAUMANN]

Deck camber eh...!!

( also sometimes called deck-spring)


... plenty of unexpected issues cropped up...

( maybe scratch-building would make for a more planned approach by me...? )

the AM kit casting accurately reflects the substantial camber amidships--as borne out by plans and photos

I have annotated the deck camber with red and black lines as arrowed

My new deck followed the contours nicely including the double curvature fwd and aft

However.... the deck houses are cast flat--and as such tediously the tops would not be level


I had planned on sanding off the bottoms ( this makes them too low on the inboard face )

or to be adding a full wedge underneath

alas...==> forgot to do it before I glued down the deck house with varnish...( doh )


and then remembering after the varnish had set !!!!!! arghh

fortunately I was able to lift the outer edges without any real damage to deck and paint...( this is firmly bonded to hull--the inner edges are unsupported at the moment and are fragile...

So out came a often used "Baumann bodge" retro-fix technique...
I lifted the inner edges of the deckhouse, slipped in a strip of styrene and re-glued.

Then I wrapped it in over-wide vynil tape which was secured with a dot of glue at the fwd edge.

When set the excess was carved off using a sharp blade and the top flooded with CA glue

a successful result--albeit using a pretty bizarre methodology!

Of course the beautiful PE gantries also now had an issue--being mounted midships in the most pronounced area of the deck camber


The deck is angled and the gantry bottom alas is flat and square to the waterline.

I got around it by " digging" carefully a recess in the steel( styrene) sections of the deck--so that the in-board edges settled inset into the deck--

this will not really be noticeable once it has been sealed , painted and outlined.

whilst scraping the deck-recess and looking at photos of the area

-- I noticed that on the real ship the cowl vents inboard pass right through the deck...

I drilled appropriate size holes for grey painted styrene to pass through...

The cast cowl vents are not long enough for this

so -- will shortly cut off the ( previously carefully hollowed!) and now fragile ---... cowls from the cast resin shafts
and place them atop the styrene extended shafts

PHEW...

what's next!!!..?



Jim Baumann

[LE BOSCO]

Hello Jim

another demonstration of your know-how be able to correct from errors during assembly,requires to have steel nerves ,it seems that you to be equipped
cheers
Nicolas

[JIM BAUMANN]

It is a dangerous and infuriating thing... looking at old photos of old ships very intensively ... ...



you find all the things that you wish you had done a stage earlier!

case in point...

The edges of the inboard overhanging deck edge--on the real ship these were supported by triangular gussets. ( arrowed )

On a waterline model- one cannot get the eye down low enough to see them-

( take note full hull-with-mirror -builder DEVIN ! )


.... as yet I am still un-decided whether to add them though....


anyhow-- I digress..


The inboard edges of the two gantry towers sit on a overhanging section--the gussets alone would not be strong enough.

Looking at the only ( usable and available to me ) on-deck photo one can immediately see the columns underneath the gantry ( arrowed )

I added these, albeit with somewhat restricted access... now that deck and a gantry had been installed...( much easier to do this BEFORE the deck is installed!! Planning ahead ... ha!

The upper edges of the supports have a large bracing plate at the upper edge which I made of brass scrap.

( I still need to add the diagonal bracing strips between the uprights )


The thru-deck vents are now being installed

and the numerous spidery ladders are now being prepared

I like my handrails and stairway handrails to be as unobtrusive as possible--I always offer up a 1/350 figure to gauge the degree of overscale that even my thinnest effprts will have

I try to minimise the clunkiness of material-limitations as much as possible ( its even more of a challenge is 1/700 !! )



I am combining various ladder PE parts from differing manufacturers to obtain the thinnest result


A is a stairway from the WEM Koenig set

B is the long ladder from the Alliance Modelworks Kit fret --with the thicker handrails cut off


C is a ladder from the Alliance Modelworks Kit fret--which I shall use - but cut away the handrails and replace with scratch rails

D when straightened (!) this will be the matching handrail from the WEM Koenig fret from the stairway pictured in A

More progress soon


Cheers

JIM B

[boomstick68]

Very fine work.

[Captain pugwash]

Fantastico work there Jim.

For ever the perfection for accurate builds.

Cheers Capt-P

[JIM BAUMANN]

Minute progress report--yet it seemed to take an absolute age to achieve...


The aforementioned diagonal braces for the gantry support columns have now been installed-- very, very fiddly due to poorly access -- handrail, the other hulkl and overhanging deck--resulted in much sharp intakeing of breath and a few utterances,,....

suggest the next builders do all this BEFORE the deck goes on...

The second gantry has now also been installed without any problems-- and the ship is starting look more appealing"!

Soon will come the time now to mount the ship solidly to its base--and thereby will incurr less handling damage!--

so now its onwards to finishing the boot-tooping .



Jim Baumann

[Channell]

You are the Man, Jim! Really amazing work!

[JIM BAUMANN]

Still working on small details and refining my own handiwork.

The strakes at the aft end were nicely rendered on the original casting--alas vanished once I sanded everything off and 'replated'

I added replacement strakes using Nickel- silver wire( being fairly soft I could retro-adjust them with a straight edge once glued.

I added the ' door;'(?!) near the bows --on the real ship if fits virtually flush

so as not to make the door overscale or visually intrusive ....I used some black decal strip--once painted it will give a sharp but flush outline

I have now installed the funnels and some of the vents--the ship is looking rather fun now.

the next hurdle to overcome is the longitudinal bracing twixt the gantries

( because the gantries have been moved apart - as per photos the original part no longer fits well- => being a wee bit too short

I understand from Alliance Modelworks that they are continually adding and revising the PE drawing to improve the kit

I will be making my own latticework bracing using brass strips-- as can be seen in the photo I have installed the fore and aft pieces made of brass strip

more soon

Jim Baumann

[wefalck]

I admire your progress - I tend to spend too much time in thinking ahead and apprehension, thus don't get things done �

wefalck

[JIM BAUMANN]

For some light relief I made the two large cable reels fwd.

I substituted aluminium tube for the "spindly" cast resin spindles--and wound thick black polyester thread around them to represent the wire cable wound on

I also made some smaller reels from a 1/700 PE fret --more of their location later....

some deck gear stowage boxes were also made ...

Soon it was time to tackle the gantry connecting pieces-I am scratch-building these as the gantries are now set further apart--ergo te kit part is now too short



Alliance Modelworks have intimated they will produce an update PE fret that will address the dimensional issue between the two gantries.

Alas I don't want my impetus and enthusiasm to suffer because of waiting for parts -

- and the build progress to stagnate in the interim of awaiting replacement parts....

.--so I simply forged ahead using narrow 0.5 mm brass strips cut from the separation pieces of the AM kit handrail.

The reinforcing gusset plates were made of paper attached with varnish



The catwalk walkway as I interpret it from photos was set just below the lower longitudinal of the twixt gantry frames.

The catwalk floor was cut using larger PE fret separation pieces--0.7 mm brass strip

The handrails of the catwalk are barely discernible in photos

--and following the maxim that 'less is more '

I elected to make them as single bar as I was unable to convincingly see a second rail in photos

The only ready source I have of this sufficiently thin for my liking was a number of WEM Koenig sets-- second quality- in places over-etched

specifically the parts were the crane boom handrails for the SMS Koenig German Battleship

There are only two of them per PE fret( as the Koenig only had 1 per crane boom !
( from my 1999-2000 build of the ICM Koenig)

on the fret they need careful removing

They are delightfully fine and thin -- but also fragile and prone to damage....

The one illustrated below was bent beyond repair or recovery because I did not correctly cut through the brass-and it helicoptered across the bench ...

They were attached to the inboard and outboard edges of the catwalk to keep it thin and also to loose the bottom rail

I attached them using matt varnish ( good tack grab) -

When dry and hard I backed it up with some very fine beads of CA applied from the underside using a piece of ( voluntarily !! ) discarded cat whisker

(==> springy but strong and maintained a nice droplet f adhesive on the end )



I used ( wasted?!) three frets to obtain the four strips of rail I wanted...( !!! ) arghh!


Once these structures and handrails were painted they all pulled together well.

( still need to shade and outline--photo taken with wet-paint

[MartinJQuinn]

Great looking build, Jim.

[Devin]

Nice progress and great quality, as always!

[biggles2]

Will the Vulkan still build up into a semi-accurate and good looking model even without the extensive additions? I have this kit and have not touched it yet.

[AllianceModelWorks]

Will the Vulkan still build up into a semi-accurate and good looking model even without the extensive additions? I have this kit and have not touched it yet.

Yes and no.

Construction-wise, the main issue is that the platform between gentries was short. There is a temporary solution, as Jim had noted in earlier post. There was an additional platform piece in the set, and could be used to extend the other one slightly. This way both gentries could be aligned (centered) with their respective bulkhead section correctly.

However, there are some less visible problems. This ship went through quite a few modifications in the 10 years it was afloat (it was an experiment), and it is impossible to model its forms from different periods with just 1 kit. We had therefore decided to overhaul the kit to represent its mid-life form accurately, which meant quite a bit of changes to the etch, and substantial amount of testing.

If you had bought the kit, it can be built into a decent model without going through all the modifications Jim had demonstrated. If you haven't, and not in a hurry to build this, I'd suggest waiting for our revision. The changes are only to the photoetched frets, and previous customers can always obtain the updated frets free of charge.

The revised model will be slightly more complex and would required bit more work to build up. In comparison, current version was simplified.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Hi Biggles2

Do bear in mind that I am probably a bit sick in the head ,

in everything I do in life--be it business, ship models , sailing or classic cars I am completely obsessive about the minutia and I always seem to try and re-invent the wheel again as a circular shape !!

....when really I should just satisfied!!

In truth the model-kit will build out of the box into a nice looking model as is right now -albeit with a couple of issues

With the addition of the impending Improvement PE --it should be possible to build a model just like mine - but very much easier ! -- without all the scratchbuilding


AM wrote:

.....>>>> ...to the photo etched frets, and previous customers can always obtain the updated frets free of charge. ...<<<

cannot really say fairer than that!

I am hopeful that my build log will be of help to future builders of the SMS Vulkan





Jim Baumann

[biggles2]

In that case I'll wait. Lots of plastic kits to build in the meantime!

[mabmanu]

Superbe travail .

[JIM BAUMANN]

Merci !

meanwhiles...

Because I was not using the kit PE deck with the cutout--from which to suspend the hoist cables-- ( not entirely sure if there was a floor there-- photos of the real ship show daylight and " see-thru"

I added some rails for the hoist cables lift gear-- these are rather freelance (!!) but will virtually invisible but give somewhere tangible to add the hoist cables

I used the excellently shaped and relief etched pulley blocks and thick cables-- I used two of the etched blocks glued back to backl toadd some volume to the block--as tere were 4 included on the fret I guess that was what was intended anyhow!-- however I removed the etched hoist spread wired and added my own of copper wire

These were very firmly-if rather inelegantly !-- glued to my rails...

The gantry has -- I think anyhow .. after staring endlessly at photos -- and ( misled??!!) led also by 2 x larger scale models some cable reels dimensionally opposed for and aft on the diagonal axis

these need platforms as well as ladder access

I also installed a circular tank that can clearly be seen ( water? ) amd eof styrene rod

again--until the ultimate photos shows up( please --someone--anyone? ) to disprove I believe this is what it may have looked like

The upper bridge deck that is too short ( because the gantries have been moved for and aft ) -and in my opinion after looking at photos-- possibly also too narrow-- has been re-made in the wood deck

However to stabilise the unsupported timber I recycled the old brass deck as a support

More progress soon

Jim Baumann