The Ship Model Forum

Thought I'd share a couple of 1/700 Trumpeter Liberties:

SS John Milledge





SS Conrad Weiser





Working on a few more Liberty Ships at the moment, including a conversion to the Hospital Ship St. Olaf.

Great little kit. Lots of potential.

Beautiful job

Very nice and crisp.

Great models of often forgotten ships.
Thanks for posting.

Great job! Makes me want to build a Trumpeter Liberty kit myself!

Thanks for the kind words.

I'm pleased with the progress of my St. Olaf hospital ship conversion as well. There won't be a whole lot left from the original kit aside from the hull and deck, prop, engine room skylight and some vents.

Interestingly these ships were launched as normal freighters with standard deck houses and equipment etc, and then later cut down and rebuilt as hospital ships. Similar to many Liberty conversions, it was quicker to build them stock and modify them later than it would have been to build a custom ship on the ways and interrupt the mass production process.

Will need to make resin copies for all the life boats. Sheer of the deck house will improve when glued in place.

Neat series!

Jack

I still need to rig the cargo booms, and fuss with a few little things, but pleased that my 1/700 SS James Longstreet placed second in the annual ModelZona contest this weekend. Waves are the toilet paper and white glue technique. Kit is Trumpeter.

The ship beached in New Jersey during a storm in 1943. She was later refloated and is better known the target ship in Cape Cod where her rusted hull was visible for several decades after the war.

Nice looking Liberties. Well done.

I always wonder if those trucks and engines on the deck of Liberty should be always covered, or not? Or they are shown visible uncovered just to show off how they look, but would be covered otherwise?

Excellent! And some very welcome subjects we don't often see modeled.

pascalemod wrote:I always wonder if those trucks and engines on the deck of Liberty should be always covered, or not? Or they are shown visible uncovered just to show off how they look, but would be covered otherwise?

Generally tougher machinery like trucks and fighting vehicles seem to have been shipped uncovered, often with glass protected and accessories detached (2 1/2 ton trucks are frequently seen with a box in the bed containing mirrors, canvas tops and supports, etc.).

Aircraft were usually partially disassembled, wing panels, propellers and control surfaces removed and boxed, and the rest covered in protective wrap.

Locomotives seem to have been uncovered, glass and the control cab protected with wood, and the rest sprayed with oil to protect the steel mechanical parts.

There's a really good depiction of shipping locomotives at the 20 minute mark in the first video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78zu7hSXS-k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZdqd8rp8MI

I'm sure there were many exceptions depending on the route, weather, duration of the voyage, etc., so these are just my observations based on the photos and accounts I've seen. The only reference to fully covered vehicles I can recall was the liner Zamzam, sunk by the raider Atlantis, which had ambulances on the forward deck under canvas wraps, but I'm sure this happened many times as well.

A load of North American A-36A "Apache" (some sources call it "Invader") on a T2 Tanker, departing from the US to Europe in 1943. The aircraft in the foreground is #42-84052, which was lost in a crash on 13 March 1945.



Douglas A-20 Havoc twin-engine bombers.





Six Liberty ships, among other ships, were converted by the Air Force into floating aircraft repair depots in April 1944. Ivory Soap is the name of this top secret project. The ships were in the Pacific Theater and provided support to the B-29s bombers and the P-51s that protected them.

Similar to what I did with mine...the tanks are exposed but the boxes contain crated aircraft:

Thank you for the detailed reply!

Very impressive work on those liberty's

Thanks -

SS Samforth is nearly done as well. Still needs a few hours of final details and a proper sea base. The black cables around the large crates bug me, so I want to pop them off and replace with gray ones. This build has been a struggle all along, mostly due to loosing momentum frequently. Will be a case of "better finished than perfect" when done, although overall I'm happy.

Pleased to have wrapped up my 1/700 model of the wreck of the Liberty Ship SS James Longstreet. The Longstreet was damaged in WWII (See the build of her beached above) and ultimately taken to Cape Cod where she was grounded in shallow water and used as a target ship by the Navy for many years. I�ve depicted her as she looked in about 1979. I understand that at this point she is no longer visible above the water.

The kit is Trumpeter. Sailboat is scratchbuilt.













Photo is the actual ship.

Really atmospheric, love the wreck build!

Great stuff, and a wide variety! You've really been able to show the versatility of these ships. The wreck dio is very cool!