1/350 HMAS Melbourne R21 (1982)

[Bonobo_Atho]

Today's progress. Hull skin applied to the major flat sections of the hull. I'm now starting to work into the curved sections. I am dreading the bow and stern areas . Have also found I have a little twist in the hull. Found it when looking down the length of the flight deck admiring my handy work. Admiration was short lived. Now hoping for a hot day when I can leave the ship weighted upside down on a flat surface in hope that the styrene relaxes enough to remove most of the twist. Not confident though as there is a fair bit of strength in the box section formed by the flight deck and hanger.

[Bonobo_Atho]

I certainly do have a hair dryer. I stole the wife's .

The hull skin is all 0.5mm. It follows the gentle curve easy enough but I have started using the hair dryer to try and bend some of the tighter radius pieces. For the most part though I'm just gluing the skin on it small bits and coercing to the shape of the hull and holding it in place with tape until the glue cures. I did leave the ship in the sun today to help the plastic warm up and relax a little. It is slowly coming together.

[Bonobo_Atho]

Very slow progress

[Pieter]

This looks really nice so far. I do have a suggestion however. By filling in the space between the sections with soft wood (I'm using balsa on my scratchbuilds) and sanding it into shape you create a stronger hull and you give the plating more surface to be glued on. You will also have less chance of the hull surface 'dishing' when the temperature changes.

[Bonobo_Atho]

I get what you're saying. That is a really good idea. Now to work out how to do it retrospectively:~
And you're right there has been a bit of dishing.

I was just thinking; if you use balsa to fill int he hull you could use thin (0.25mm) squares/rectangles of sheet styrene in small enough sizes to replicate the real hull fabrication technique. Now that would be some detail! I think I might try that on the next build

[Bonobo_Atho]

So progress has been slow and the result somewhat underwhelming. I can see a future of filling and sanding ahead of me. Any suggestions for a descent filler?

[Bonobo_Atho]

Ok so the hull skin is too thin:~
Lesson for the next build. I guess the good news is that the at least the hull skin at decks 2 and 3 is pretty flat so it won't look too bad when I cut the openings. As for the rest of the hull, I have soooo much work ahead of me

For those wondering about the Sherman turret, I'm working on that at the same time. It is a model from my youth which I thought I might try and rebuild with more detail. Yeah, and I'm also working on an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate, and the Yamato, and the Bismark, and an F-35. Oh yeah, and let's not forget the Latina Artisania HMS Endeavour. I'll finish them all one day

If taken at scale that Sherman gun would equal a 30in gun!

[Bonobo_Atho]

Soooo......it was with much embarrassment that I must confess that I have screwed up the scale of my ship. It's longer than it should be by about 25mm:-? So the decision now is to start again and take the opportunity to learn from all of my mistakes and incorporate the wise advice I've received so far or forge ahead and make this an entirely learning based build, and then do the ship again properly afterwards. I really like the idea of using balsa to fill in the hull and provide something substantial to form the hull skin over which will still allow me to still use 0.5mm for the skin (Cheers Pieter). What do you recommend for gluing the balsa to the styrene? I also like the idea of using a minimum of 1mm thick bulkheads to provide more substance to glue the skin to (Cheers David). Though it wasn't so much that the styrene didn't stick together well but more that the bulkhead softened due to the glue and the skin sunk into it especially in areas where I had to apply pressure to get the skin to take the shape of the hull curves. This will be alleviated by the balsa infill. So what do you reckon gents? Thumbs up to starting again? You've never done a job right until you've done it at least 3 times......right????

[Pieter]

I am using gel type superglue. Scroll down to my Straat Clarence build to see how it works. Maarten Schnfeld who taught me this technique used very thin plastic glue which seems to work also. Try on a smaller hull first. Maybe Melbourne needs a harbor tug in attendance.

I really like the idea of using balsa to fill in the hull and provide something substantial to form the hull skin over which will still allow me to still use 0.5mm for the skin (Cheers Pieter). What do you recommend for gluing the balsa to the styrene? I

[Bonobo_Atho]

Thanks for the tip Pieter. I'll give it a try.
Nice build by the way. I love the inclusion of the AT-AT:)

[Bonobo_Atho]

So, some progress has been made. I committed to starting the build again and demolished the previous model to salvage as much styrene sheet as possible. I managed to recycle most of the bulkheads and the anger deck but haven't got to the flight deck yet.

The new approach I'm taking is to adopt the DavidP's suggestion of filling the hull with balsa and sanding to profile. I am still using the 0.5mm styrene for the bulkheads as I can't get any 1.0mm due to lockdown and am too impatient to order it by mail. I have elected to build from deck 3 (hanger deck) to keel first and then build the rest of the structure up to the flight deck and then the island. This should give me a nice sturdy base to work from while creating the detail on the 3rd deck, which I can install before the flight deck goes on. I should also make it easier to work on the various sponsons and structures on the flight deck. Well that's the plan anyway .

[Fliger747]

My Alaska (1:192) which is a much larger ship was built using fairly thin styrene plating over a styrene frame. However I built secured to a stable board and filled many of the compartments with a non expanding foam which added tremendous rigidity. On my current APA project I had to add a 7" plug to lengthen the hull which I had originally built some 55 years ago. There I used blue foam to add rigidity to the spaces between the frames which were plated with thin plywood and basswood strips and sanded to match the original contour. You can't imagine the sense of commitment sawing the original ship in half on the bandsaw!

Good luck!

[Bonobo_Atho]

My apologies David, you are correct.

[Bonobo_Atho]

So the majority of the hull has been filled with balsa. I used balsa blocks because I'm lazy and thought the balsa would easy to shape to the hulls profile with sand paper. Well I was wrong. it is remarkably resilient to sand paper, and my chisels which truth be told aren't the sharpest. The balsa is very responsive to being carved away by a sharp craft knife so I have spent the best part of the day carving the hull shape. I have gotten most of the easy curves but now I'm into the bow and stern it's a bit trickier. Very late today I remember that I have a sanding drum on my Dremel so I did a quick attack with that and it was very efficient at removing the balsa, maybe a little too efficient......and messy! Tomorrow I will try and skilfully shape the bow. Fingers crossed. I guess though the best thing about wood is you can always glue some more in if you take too much out.

I'm leaving the hull overnight in this makeshift jig to encourage it to remain as flat as possible. I did try this on some other surfaces in the house which I thought would be flat (kitchen bench, dinner table) but they all had small bows in them so I settle for what I know is straight. Hopefully when I put the hanger walls on it will stiffen up more, if not then when the flight deck goes on I know it will definitely be stiff.

[Steve Batcheldor]

I did something similar when building my HMAS Melbourne hull but I used a softwood rather than balsa. I went down the path of making a fibreglass mould then a thin fibreglass hull. Started many years ago but still a long way from being finished.

[Bonobo_Atho]

Very productive day today shaping the majority of the hull. It still has a small bow in it so I decided to install a keel of 1mm styrene strip, about 8mm in depth, in the hope that it will straighten the hull at least until I can start getting the skin on. Unfortunately skinning the hull won't be happening until Thursday when I can get to the hobby shop and buy some more supplies. Maybe in the meantime I might see if I can salvage the hanger walls from the old build and recycle them for the new build. That may add some stiffness help straighten the hull although I was trying to avoid this so that I can mount the hull upside down while I add the skin.

I sure do have a Dremel David and I've got to say I love it . I spent about 3 hours today sanding the hull to shape and it worked a treat. Had a few moments where I took off just a little too much material while I was getting used to using the tool but nothing unrecoverable. When I started filling the hull with balsa I was aware that sanding the end grain would be difficult I just didn't expect balsa to be that difficult. But, between the Dremel and my trusty course half round file the hull took shape quicker than I expected.

Steve those hulls look pretty damn good. Nice work. What scale are you building in? Looks like 1/350 but you know, you can never quite tell from a photo. What information did you use to get the profile of the HMAS Canberra hull? I have been toying with the idea of building a 1/350 version and have so far used what I can get from the web to build a 3D model in Autocad from which I will generate cross-sections. I'm currently stuck on getting the bow curves right especially where it intersects the vertical faces just ahead of amidship. Check out the following link for my HMAS Canberra story. Unfortunately there won't be much progress there until after I have made some significant progress on the Melbourne, and the Iwo Jima, and the Intrepid, and the HMAS Adelaide, and some armoured vehicles I've had lying around for ever (literally!). Truth be told I'm waiting for some detail parts to arrive in the mail

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=215594&p=812816#p812816

[Steve Batcheldor]

Bonobo_Atho

My HMAS Melbourne, the LHD and the AWD are all 1:350 scale. The hulls were all built in much the same way, ie a wooden hull then a fibreglass mould then a thin fibreglass hull.

[Fliger747]

One of the reasons the end grain Balsa is hard to form is the glue gets absorbed into the sheets and becomes hard. Such frustrations and the thinking that goes into solving them is ironically one of the joys of modeling. The challenges and solving them!

Kudos for tackling a full scratch build!

[Bonobo_Atho]

Thanks for the kudos Fliger747. Scratch building is certainly challenging and fun and I'm definitely learning a lot as I go. I really do love my Dremel though. It made short work of the balsa, with or without absorbed glue:).

Recent progress - stuffing boxes removed (thanks David), bow and stern filled in and hull sanded to shape. Keel partially added but won't be completed until I buy more supplies tomorrow. Once I have the supplies I can complete the keel and start skinning the hull.

What I'd like to do before installing the flight deck and skinning the hull right up to the flight deck is to get all the bollards, winches, doors etc installed where they can be seen. Do any of you know if the Majestic class carriers used equipment and fittings that were common fitment across UK vessels of the time?

[Fliger747]

Something I have used over Balsa and seems to "last" is the two piece "Bondo" auto body putty which sands easily (if with a lot of dust). It along with glazing putty, also an automotive putty can be wet sanded to a perfect final finish.

Sometimes by experimentation we come up with really good ways of doing things. Other times we have false starts, it's all the fun and challenge, working these things out.

Interestingly the hull is probably only 5-10% of the work! Keep posting!