The Ship Model Forum

Just has a quick PM chat with Jim B... He had a couple of suggestions for making my own rings, much smaller and lighter, although the method I came up with is very similar to how he builds cage aerials in 350 scale..

He is absolutely right about the rings... prior to reading his last PM I had already fitted one of them to my Tiger and decided it was too heavy anyway... and with another three on there, it would just look daft... here is a picture... may as well show failures of execution, even if the method is fine... it IS a WIP after all!



Still, the method works, has been used before and I know what to do next time about fine rings... although having spent the best part of most of the afternoon on it, I think I will just put back a straight line when I re-rig her!

Bill

Wonderful! It really is very nice to have a lengthy and detailed photo description of making these complicated structures. No excuse not to try it on my future projects now!

Thanks TimmyC

As you can see, as you were writing your post, I have reposted saying it is a bit too heavy. However, the method is fine and apparently how Jim Baumann does his cage aerials in 350 scale... I will use this method again with some smaller and lighter rings I have made myself now that I know it isnt actually as difficult as I thought it would be... Thanks for your comments

Bill

Very clever how you used your fly fishing skills to translate into ship modeling! I agree they are a bit overscale, but your process is intriguing!

David Griffith had given a workshop on doing this at the IPMS/USA National convention in 2008. There are some pictures here, along with a short video, that might interest you.

Thanks for that link Martin... Couple of things to think about just looking at the pictures. Wish I had seen that before I started all this this afternoon... lol!...

Cant play the video though... No idea why. Checked on my 'activity' menu (I run an iMac, so stuff like that is easy...) and it just gives me the page address etc and says 'cancelled'... Bit of a bummer...

Food, I think... Then decide whether I want another go this evening or whether I am better off doing something sensible and watching TV

Bill

Bill you could have saved yourself a lot of work if you had looked at the IRON DUKE thread in scratch, yes its 1/96 but its the same principal, been there since March 2006, page 11

Mmmm... wish I had seen that before, might have saved me a day or two thinking about it all

Thanks for posting ARH. Damn... now thats what you call proper modelling... an interesting read.

I notice you have four lines on the cage array and a cross type spreader. My understanding is there were six lines and a round spreader on the tiger array... am I correct?

Thanks once more. I have bookmarked the page.

All the best, Bill

Bill I may have to hire you to rig my ships from now on.

Hmmm.. well, if you want another disaster on your hands then maybe... Still, I am learning, thanks to people like Jim, Dave Griffiths, ARH, Martin and a host of others on here... so tomorrow I am going to have another go... see if I can put some of their advice to good use.

Looking a bit heavy indeed, but no doubt about the excellent craftsmanship and steady hand.
Now, which PE maker will make arerial rings for us to avoid this heaviness? Sounds to me like a job for Atlantic models.
Jim you should start bugging Peter: He never say no, if YOU ask him!
Guido

Bill , the drawings show 4 lines with cross spreaders on ID , also on QUEEN MARY it shows 4 but in a square spreader.

I was thinking the same Guido... A set of various styles of spreader in a 700 scale, and a 350 scale set of the same, would be very interesting to quite a few modellers I would have thought... With the number of ships now available on the market where these could be used surely would mean they would be a really good seller... anyone buying any kind of PE fret for most of these ships would also buy a generic spreader set too... It could be a really good seller and help modellers produce better results, easier... Does Peter or John read this section? Maybe they realise there could be a very quick and easy way to make a few sales?

Thanks for the info ARH. Dont suppose you have plans for Tiger? The only ones I have are in Burt's Battleships and they seem to suggest round spreaders with six lines but it is far from clear.

Anyway, I am going to get on with having another go at doing this again, same method, but even finer. See if I can do this properly now I have learnt a bit more...

Bill

Bill,

Thanks for the comments on my build - appreciate it. Have you picked up a copy of David Griffith's book? He goes into great detail about how to make the cage aerials in it. An excellent book - well worth adding to the modeling library.

Here is a picture of Tiger shortly after completion. You can see the control top pretty clearly. The top has a slight overhang and I am going to take the top off the one I made and try to make it a little more accurate. Anyway, it also shows the rigging very clearly too, so this may be useful to Martin and anyone else who may be considering Tiger...



So, anyway, I decided to make myself a new control top (having already made a replacement of the kit part before I had actually thought about it)... So, bit of round styrene tube (two slices... so I could cut windows) and a bit of brass tube and some styrene sheet and some fine railings, I came up with a replacement...



Component parts from styrene and brass.



(Bloody Hell! That looks messy at this magnification!!!)

The kit part and the copied tub is on the right... my scratchbuilt version is on the left...(made once I had looked at a number of photo's saw what it actually looked like and then re-looked at the plans, and realised it was a round structure, not square, in the side elevation drawing!!!!!). I have since put it on top of the starfish (unpainted and unglued!) to check fit and see what it is like... and it really makes a huge difference to the way HMS Tiger looks...

Of course... once I had finished patting myself on the head over that little bit of fun, I looked back at my photo's only to see that the little platform immediately below the control top is not fitted at the time of Dogger Bank... So I will have to get rid of that now... and that is really well superglued in place and I really dont want to wreck my bridge assembly and the tripod mast trying to remove it.... Damn.... ! Just goes to show it would make sense to actually do the research before cutting or gluing...

Still... Its keeping me from the rigging and the aerial decision... so I will wait and see what Martin does on his build and maybe copy his method... although I am personally erring on the side of not even attempting them...

Ah well... Interesting day spent catching up and correcting things I had already done...I wonder how many other cock ups I have made...

Here's the book by David Griffith:
http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/bo ... eview.html

Thank you Timmy C

@ Guido and Bill

>>Now, which PE maker will make arerial rings for us to avoid this heaviness? Sounds to me like a job for Atlantic models.
Jim you should start bugging Peter: He never say no, if YOU ask him! <<<



Peter - in1999 or 2000 made me numerous frets of stars ,octagonals, Hexagonals circles etc etc years ago when I did the cage ariels on my HMS Dreadnought and Averoff --they were intended for 1/350--but the stars can be used with 1/700
I still own the photo tools...( and I still have some of the frets! )

so if enough interest is shown....


L'arsenal do actually make some very fine frets of circles of varying sizes from very very small upwards

it is part of their range of useful shapes--triangles, gussets , etc etc

JB

Hmmmm.... so where do we go from here Jim... ask you to send us a fret (:eyebrows:),or ask you to send the tools to someone... Peter Hall maybe... and see if they can produce them... In the meantime....

Got on with my rebuild of the mainmast and alterations to the starfish and remove the extra platform I had in by mistake... Plus of course, fitting my new control top. Feeling pleased with it now... Even if the cage aerials didnt quite work out the way I hoped, my accident meant I had a reason to redo the main mast and tripod accurately... Needs airbrushing and getting rid of the excess glue... but here you are at the moment...







OK... a bit of a tidy up and get some painting done I think

Bill

Very sharp, Bill!

Thanks Martin... Decided to tidy my office up a little bit, so no airbrush painting tonight... Tomorrow though. Hope to see an update on yours too... seeing you post every day got me over the trauma of my accident with my magnifier lamp when I managed to smash the mainmast and all my rigging... and it kept me going... a while ago it would have gone in the cupboard and left for a few months... or forever!... so thanks for keeping my motivation up...

So, rigging... How are you doing?