The Ship Model Forum

I have also started the tanks' top on the maindeck. Here again, th kit's part is barely usable considering the poor molding. I did a new one out of 1mm plastic card. The tubing on the deck is done with EG rod of diffrent diameters. Brelow are a few photos of the making of it...

Tha valves were added their reinforcement tringular brackets cut in heavy (160 gms/sqm) paper.

Next step will be to redo the handwheels for the deck valves. Even though I thickened the rims with paint as per Jim's advice, they still look a bit too flat for me.

That's about where I arrived on the original thread on the DF forum. More to come on this site.

Thank you all for your interest.

Hubert.

You've made a very impressive job of improving this ancient kit, especially the scratchbuilt hatch + piping detail. I definitely look forward to seeing more progress!

Is there any possibility you could post a photo of the entire Atlantic Models PE set? It looks like this might be a very useful source of parts for detailing the Shell Welder kit and others in a similar scale (such as the Frog Goodwin Lightship)

The old Frog Shell Welder was one of the few ship models I built as a kid (I mostly built 1/72 planes); I still have a few deck fittings + other bits from that old model in the spares box! I've now got another kit (Eastern Express reissue) which I'm intending to build with the help of a lot of scratchbuilding (like yours)

Hi,

Many thanks for the comments.

Here is the PE set. The missing bits are the portholes and the hatches for the foc'sle. As I wrote, this is a very fine set, but on thin brass (5 thousands of an inch / 0,13 mm). It looks buckled here as the set was in the box, and my cat decided the box made a nice basket... AS some parts wer probably hurting him though, he through out the bigger pieces ... I am not sure I have recovered all the parts thrown out across the room...When I said this was a scratchbuilding exercise ...I even get encouragments from the houshold master

Hubert.

Excellent detail work, Hubert.

GREAT to see the venerable shell welder here--and being built with such skill and determination!

I built mine 10 years ago--and nowhere near as beautifully as this!!

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

Looking forward to more of this inspirational and instructive work!



Jim Baumann

If you want to make concentric circles with a Punch & Die set and if you have a lathe, make them like this using sub-punches



Foeth

@ Kim and Jim

Thank you for the nice comments. Given both your masterful skills demonstrated time after time on this site, they do mean a lot to me !

@ Foeth

What a great idea ! Fantastic tip. I'll have look at the lather we have in my business.

Hubert.

Time passes by fast. I have not been completely idle on the Shell Welder, but have to admit I make progress at a snail's pace ... which is probably appropriate for a Frenchman !

The issue is that modelling is only possible for me on weekends, and that is after other tasks have taken precedence...and there are plenty of opprtunities nowadays to be preoccupied by something else, especially when the business you are running is dependant on industries like the automotive or the cosmetics ones, which have not demonstrated being the most dynamic business sectors in the past weeks ...

Still some work has been done...Like spending almost a full day getting my Paasche airbrush back to working condition, before spraying the hull red and white...

I have aslo redone the handwheels for the valves on the maindeck. Even with Jim Bauman's trick of building thickness with paint, I was not happy with the Atlantic Models PE ones, and the rods I had used for the new valves were too big for the PE ones anyway. The wheels are 3 mm dia and made of 5 parts : a center axis, cut from Contrail tube wose inside diameter has been enlarged with a 1 mm drill. then 4 hands, cut from 0,5 mm rod, and 0,6 mm long, and finally a rim made of 0,3 mm tin wire rolled around a drill bit. The assembly was done by drawing the wheels to size with a CAD sofware, printing them on paper then using calc paper to assemble the axis and hands using the paper drawing as template. The benefit of calc paper is that plastic glue does not adhere to it when assembling the hand tof the axis with a tiny tiny drop of Tamiya liquid cement. The rim is then added and CA glued to the hands using a very fine wire as glue dispenser...

I have also done the pipes that flank the sides of the maindeck. They are made of EverGreen 1,6 mm rod, cut to and bent to the proper length and shape. The original ship's pipes were assembled from fairly short pieces, bolted together. To reproduce the assembly, I glued 3 mm circles punched from thin card. The "bolts" have been reproduced with a pin in a vise, on the circumference of the discs. The pin pushes the plastic on one side of the thin card, which protrude on the other side with a fairly convincing bolt appearance...

The pipes are connected above the tank top bt a triplet of straight pipes, with valves. The handwheels on these pipes are staggered in height, as they would otherwise be too wide (the original's photos show this vertical staggering, with the longer ones at the rear). I have assembled these pipes. Bigger diameter rods, hollowed out to the proper diameter complet the picture...The pipes rest on the sides of the tank top/main deck on brackets, made of 0,15" x 0,6" EG strip, and 4 mm long.

That's all for the time being. More to come. Thank you for watching.

Hubert.

More photos...

I just realised my last psot was 4 weeks old...

Well, even though I have known faster paces, I am still plowing along on the Shell Welder.

I went through an important thereshold today. I have finished the main deck 'furnishing' ...Well almost, as I need to add the stairs and the spare anchor on the foc'sle bulkhead, and build the rear deck bulkhead, but still the piping and valves and various tidbits of the main deck were a bit tedious...

So here is where the Shell Welder stand today :
- finished all pipes and the all handwheels. I had 8 of those to make, and my first attempt, using the same technique as the previous 10, with coiled tin wire for the rim failed...probably beacuse my CA glue was already getting a bit old. So off to another set, but this time I used plastic rims, shaved from an Evergreen tube whose wall I had thinned down to 0,3 mm on my Unimat lathe. The network of pipes, with the 3 transverse pipes on girders was fairly complex, in the end, but I feel reasonably happy I have achieved a fair looking result...
- Built 4 bollards out of EG strips, rods and discs punched with the Punch'n'Die set;
- Built two ventilating cowls using the technique described in previous posts
- Built two derricks with EverGreen rod tapered by holding it in the mini-drill, and using sandpaper. The base of the derricks is is from Contrail tubing with thin strip girders cut to shape.
- Built the main mast. I scrapped my first attemps which was in the end too tapered. I just found this week on http://www.photoships.co.uk a new photo of the Shell Welder moored along a quay, taken from the bow, which shows that tha main mast was almost cylindrical in shape. The second attempt, built with 4mm EG tube filled with smaller diamter rod, was more satisfactory. The top of the mast was turned on the lathe, the navigation lights turned on the mini-drill from pieces of plastic rod... The ladder is from Alantic models PE set. The cargo boom is EG rod, resting on a pedestal from EG rod and tube..

That's about it for today. Since my previous post, I have added another 20 hours of work or so on the main deck...

The various components have been posed on the kit, but not glued yet...

More to come in the fothcoming weeks. Thanks for looking.

Hubert.

More photos ...

Great stuff there! Good to see some more colourful subjects nowadays. I love your eye for detail and the willingness to change stuff that is wrong on a model!
Nice progress!

Thanks for the comments Neptune. Very much appreciated...

I have always loved this little kit, but molds aging has played havoc with what it can offer...

As for colors, I have decided that, be it for ships or aircrafts, I was tired of greys and camos...So I am focused on merchant ships, and civil A/C (racers mostly)...or warships when they looked less lethal and efficient than in the last 80 yeras, i.e. pre-dreadnought and white-and-buff ones.

Ein frohliches Weinachten mein Freund !

Hubert.

Silly me ! A (too) quick glance led me to confuse the Belgian and the German flag !

Joyeux No�l et bonnes f�tes de fin d'ann�e, Neptune ! (if you are from the Flemish side of Belgium, sorry that my command of flemish is far too limited even for these wishes )

Hubert.

Oui, je suis flammand, mais aucune probl�me, je comprend l'Anglais, l'Allemand �t le Fran�ais.

I know the feeling of these grey ships, also one of the reasons why I'm building merchant ships. You can see mine in the scratchbuilding section. I'm happy to see more and more people build them. You can also have a look at Patrick Cammillieri's collection on the main page, he has some excellent merchant ship builds!

Great work! Again, you've made a very good job of improving the kit parts.

I'm currently working on another ex-Frog civil ship kit, the 1/100 scale South Goodwin lightship (Eastern Express re-issue). Unlike the Shell Welder (which I also have in an E.E. box) the moulds for this one seem to have survived better; the parts in my kit are quite crisply moulded with very little flash. I haven't needed to replace any parts with scratchbuilt ones so far; the only major additions I'll probably make to the kit will be PE railing stanchions and ladders, porthole eyebrows, anchor chains, and possibly brass wire upper masts.

Hi EP,

Many thanks for the nice comments...

The South Goodwin is another one of my old favorites. I have built it (and scrapped it) twice already...It is also on my "to do" list, but I wish I knew when I will really tackle it...

There are plenty of those old LVs lying around in Europe. A few years ago, there was one moored in Paris on the Seine enbaknments near the Bibliotheque Nationale. Maybe it is still there. I just have not been in this area for quite some time. Although converted to a restaurant, it was nevertheless one of the most authentic looking LVs I have seen, with most of the original features preserved (down to the boiler in the hold for producing electricity, as the LVs did not have srews). I did a lot of photographs then (the old times when I did not have a digital camera). Now, the next question is : where is this pile of paper prints ? I I can find it, I will be glad to help with scans of the photos I did...

I have been idle on the Shell Welder in the last two weeks, which have been devoted to Xmas and taking care of my elderly parents and in-laws...Back to the workbench soon ...

Hubert.

Nice work Herbert

Geez, you did this with eye strain and waiting to see an eye surgeon. Wow, imagine what you'll be able to produce when your fit again - good luck with the referral.

Bill Keough

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the kind comments. They are much appreciated.

Fact is I have new glasses since the beginnig of december, and they have improved my close vision a lot. As far as surgery is concerned, I have had my share of it, being one of the "rare" failures of laser operations some eight years ago, fortunately just for the right eye... Not ready to give it another try...

I have carried on with the Shell Welder, finishing detailing the main deck with the anchor support on the Foc'sle bulkhead, and adding a "box" on the Foc'sle deck, made out of a 6 mm square Evergrenn strip. I also added a box on the Foc'sle bulkhead, which looks like an old style mailbox...
Nest step were the stairs from the tank top to the main deck. I had a go at the Atlantic PE ones, but I am definitely not good at manimulating CA glue...I decided to go the plastic route, with 1 mm wide EG strips for the sides, and 1,5 mm wide strip for the steps. My first attempt (see below) was not perfectly square, and I did not like he slightly skewed look thay had when fitted to the tank sides. So I made new ones "in situ", which I feel much happier about.

The rear bulkhead needed also to be redone, as the old one was too narrow, now that I had thinned down the side bulwarks. It is actually a perfect 60� arc of a circle, with a radius equal to the breadth of the ship, i.e. 68 mm in this scale. I build a bracing structure against which I glued the bulkhead made of thin (0,5 mm) plastic card. The pipes on each side of the bulkhead have been shaped out of 0,75 mm rod, bent to shape with round ended pliers, and the retaining straps made out of 0,3 mm tin wire. The box in front of the bulhead was assembled with EG plastic card. There are 3 skilights on top, made with squares of thin (0,25 mm) 5 mm strip, and a punched porthole.

I strated shaping the rear deck, but soon stumbled on the big irregularity of the inside of the hull moulding, with plastic thicknesses that vary between 1 and 2,5 mm. Achieving the right shape was going to be a nightmare...
So I decided to go my usual route, i.e. start from scratch...With a razor saw, I sawed the hull abve the rubbing strake. I will then glue above the rubbing strake a new deck of the right shape...

And I have done some painting !

As Father Christmas was king enough to bring a new silent compressor and a Paasche Talon with it , I could inaugurate them. I have used Tamiya acrylics mostly. The tank deck has been sprayed with XF-14 JA grey. After studying the photos, I decied to paint the main pipes Tamiya Red-Brown. I am not 100% sure about the color, but it seemd to fir the blurred colors I could discern on the color photos I found on the net. And It also fit my idea of a "no-nonsense" color for this kind of hard-beaten workhorse, and with a bit of artistic licence
The smallerpipes were painted dark grey, just for the contrast, although they were likely to be the same colour as the deck on the original ship.
I painted the sides of the tank with Gunze "tire black" , which I felt was better for a wetaher-beaten base colour, ditto for the visit hatches of the tank. On a photo of a more recent Shell coastal tanker, I saw that the main valves wre different colours, namely red, blue, and yellow, probably to reflect the different contents of the tanks. I went for ths solution again, trying to find reassurance in my interpretation of the color photos of the Shell Welder, where the hand valves looked "colored".

The mast was sprayed Tamiya yellow.

The hull was resprayed with a mix of Tamiye red and red-brown (roughly two-to-one ratio) to achieve the desired "Hull red". As my Gunze "tire black" tin was a bit old, I bought a Tamiya "Nato Black" tin to spray the black hull It is similar to the the "tire black" with a dirty black look to it. The white parts have suffered somewhat of paint spill under the masking tape (not properly rubbed down , silly me), but as I will add some new plastici above the rear rubbing strake, and will need to harmonise colours again, this is not a big issue...

I have used faster drying and less fragile flat colours, but will spray the whole ship with 'Future" (in France it is called "Klir") before I start weathering the ship a bit...But this is still a long time from now...

That's all for the past weeks. I hope you enjoy.

Hubert.

Hi-res larger size pictures here :