The Ship Model Forum

JIM BAUMANN wrote:Is the Mare Island dio on hold ...?

The Mare Island project had been on hold since last Spring but is regaining momentum as my partner Jean is successfully recovering from serious health trouble.
He just told me the definitive (corrected and improved) version of the Delta King paddle wheel auxiliary is being assembled. The ARD-11 and other stuff are in the queue for the end of the year. And possibly in November I'll start my OWN build of this huge dio.

This Minneapolis diorama is a one-people project (me). In fact this had been on hold for months to make place for Mare Island (I started it in late 2008): now this is well in course and should be finished by the end of October. My next posting, in about a dozen days, will include detailing the "torpedoed hull".

Bruno

Hello Folks

This small "intermission" before a more consistent post around the end of next week.
I almost finished "gardening" my Tulagi jungle.

235 trees to date (mangrove, eucalyptus, banyans and coconut trees).
All custom made: photo etched trunks and synthetic foliage (coloured with Gunze acrylics)









Trees are 8 to 26mm high

_Bruno

Hi Bruno .
Beautiful scenery .

Bonjour Bruno .
beau d�cor .

The main reason I haven't tackled this project in 1/350th scale yet is the foliage. It's good to see that it can be done, but it doesn't make me any more certain that I could pull it off! Fantastic work.

Hi bruno

great job ! very nice !!!
Nicolas

Love the jungle man!!! Question though, you said the foliage is synthetic, synthetic what? Did you get some model railroad product or did you make them from some sort of household material? They look really convincing and I'd like to know how to make my own. Top notch work on the dio man, can't wait to see it finished!

-Mike

Continued

Vegetation:

The shore is covered by dense tropical vegetation: mangrove, eucalyptus, palm trees and bush.
I discarded using real bonsais� too big for the scale, too much maintenance�

I designed another photo etched sheet full of trees. As tropical vegetation isn�t my cup of tea, I copied silhouettes in my CAD software after real trees from today�s Tulagi (found on the internet, of course):



After etching, I gave more thickness to the trunks with a mix of white glue and potato starch. When dry, this mixing shrinks a little, creating tiny wrinkles which perfectly match the real trunk texture.





Now comes the brown paint for the trunks. I used a light spray of Polly Scale �Aged Concrete�:



Separately, I wanted more colors for the foliage. I started from a light green hue. I prepared a mix of 10% acrylic paint (Gunze) and 90% thinner. I poured some foam flocking, mixed to get an even color and laid on absorbent paper to take out surplus thinner. Two hours drying and I was ready for the following.
Here are three shades: original (left) and two variations:



Now I�m ready to start the series (circa 5minutes for 10 trees):





Branches are arranged to give a 3D shape to the trees, then the upper part of these are dipped in white glue and again in a box full of green flocking:









I designed my own palm trees with three photo etched palm rings mounted on a brass wire trunk.

Assembly steps:





Some starch and glue mixing to do the coconuts� et voil�!



Then I shifted from modeler to gardener to plant all that stuff:







To be continued...

_Bruno

Amazing!

MichelB wrote:Amazing!

I'll second that!!




Bob Pink.

HOLY AWESOME!!!!

You ever think about marketing your custom PE sheets either by yourself or to one of the main companies? I'm sure they'd sell, especially the foliage one!

Very very impressive-- just like trees in railway modelling in in 1/76... ( OO ) or Ho 1/87


except you are doing it 9 x smaller!!!!!! arghh!!


JIM BAUMANN

Truly inspirational!

As previously stated, this is probably the best WIP so far! (I think it probably even beats the Mare Island diorama you and Jean are working on too!)

The foliage kind of makes me want to get back to repairing some of my old dioramas!

Continued...

Going back to the ships now...

Hull damages:

Here begins a fascinating part of this project (the very part which determined its choice, I must confess): this is entirely based on the so called �Damage Reports� the US Navy produced throughout the War for every damaged ship.
A large number of them are available on Web and they show real "autopsies" of every ship.
Thanks to Tracy White at:
http://researcheratlarge.com/Ships/
Also :
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/WDR/index.html

Along with report text, they include damage pictures and some very detailed plans of damages.

Minneapolis suffered two main damages this night:

1- Her entire bow, forward of capstans was demolished and bent downward to an angle of 70�.
Damage description:



After cutting-off the bow:



In dry-dock, showing the damaged section:





And � Minnie � underway for Mare Island with temporary steel plates bow:



2- A torpedo hit in the no2 boiler room vicinity :
The damages:



A spectacular opening to the Sea:





The opening is right under the armour belt (of which one full plate is missing). It will show easily through the diorama transparent resin.

Now the build:

Scribing the damaged areas:



� THE � frightening moment� was cutting out the bow:



Both halves are shortened up to the next undamaged bulkhead.
Those sections are then scanned to get the correct shape and dimensions to design a PE bulkhead section.





And there goes another custom PE!
First I designed the PE simply by directly CAD drawing on the original plans:
Same for boiler room area: (I�m using USN official plans of Tuscaloosa as a guide)





Building (!) the damaged areas (PE, plasticard and cyano glue bonded paper -thanks to Jim Baumann for this later trick)

First comes the #2 boiler room structure:







Digging the hole into the hull:





Dry fit:



Et voil� !



To be continued...
_Bruno

Mind blowing stuff

MartinJQuinn wrote:Mind blowing stuff

uuuummmmm...That's an understatement!

Truly fantastic work!




Bob Pink.

Hi Bruno .

Carry on!!
Cheers,
Rui

very very very good effect!!

Inspiring!

Jim Baumann

Once more the range of superlatives doesn't fit your work!

Guido