The Ship Model Forum

Hello Everybody,

I'd like to show you my recent project, which is a so called "Sub Boat" - a mass produced low cost Turbine Steamer of which 122 units were built at the "Submarine Boat Corporation", Newark from 1918 to 1921.

They were neither of outstanding quality nor a commercial success and most were layed up and scrapped before they reached the age of 10 years.
But in my opinion the design was rather advanced:
They had oil-burning watertube-boilers and geared turbines.
Their decks and bottoms were completely flat and they had only a moderate sheer in the forward quarter of the weather deck thus anticipating modern ship design.

I decided to build the "Point Montara" ex "Federal Bridge", which was yard No. 71 of the series.
Under this name she sailed from 1927 to 1937 for the Swayne & Hoyt Shipping Company of San Francisco and reached an outstanding age of 46 years before beeing delivered to the junk yard.

I'm building this special vessel because I found a color photo dated somewhere in the nineteen-thirties, showing a company vessel thus giving me a little reference for the colour scheme to use.

Here I found some plans:

http://shipscribe.com/shiprefs/USSB_1920/plans.html

and also in this book of 1918:







From the general arrangement plans included in the book I had to derive lines plans and a digital model:





As I started already one year ago, here is only a short review of my so far achievements:

Nice. Looks ready to go searching for King Kong. Is this build going to be R/C? The shaftway looks suspiciously sea-worthy.

DId you hand-cut those ribs?



Tangential, from your link to the list of plans.
3,000 D. W. ton cargo steamer (concrete), E. F. C. concrete design, No. 1, Atlantus, etc. 1040 Plan-66 Plan-67 --

That's a famous wreck that I remember watching decay over the years.
http://www.concreteships.org/ships/ww1/atlantus/

Capt Haddock,
Great new topic. This is a handsome subject and you've done a super job fairing and smoothing the model. There is a real classic beauty to the ships of the early 20th century, with vertical stems and overhanging counter sterns. Thanks also for the link for the plans at shipscribe.com. That's a treasure.

Capt.,

After planking what did you use to smooth the hull?

Phil

Hi,
that's a very neat and clean hull for sure... I'm impressed ! Please go on with your exciting work and excellent photos, thanks !
Stephane

... no it's not going to be RC-controled.
The hull is not that solid and watertight.

Just one layer of planking, tamiya spray primer, putty and a lot of fine sanding.

My intention is to complete that model like a contemporary shipyard-model.
Just tiny and shipshape without any weathering and not too detailed.
E.g. i didn't try to reproduce any hull plating or even rivets, as those yard-models normally had smooth hulls.

That - and the fact, that these vessels were constructed quite straight and simple - made modelling not too complicated.
On the other hand I did great effort to achieve best truth to scale.

Best regards
Stefan

By the way: That's the putty I used:

Stephan,
Great job, keep the pictures coming.

Stefan,

Thanks for the putty information. Your model looks very nice.

Phil

Hi, Stefan!
Looks great and beautiful.
Song Jung Gun.

Thanks everybody for your kind replies!

Here are my latest proceedings:
Hatches, wheelhouse, wireless-hut and engine room skylights.

Have a nice sunday!

All neat, crisp and straight as I like !
Can't wait to see the detailing steps : great expectations and pressure on you !
Thanks for the pleasure to see your progress anyway.

Just did some foto comparison to ensure model proportions:

Furthermore I did my first attempts in 3D-printing.
It was the only practicable way, to produce those lots of ventilators, the decks of my vessels are scattered with.
Unfortunately, the printing products are not ready to use but need a lot of sanding in order to remove the typical printing grooves on the surface.



And that's just the beginning:

Hi everybody,

my last update before shipbuilding production is suspended for christmas.
Not too much visible progress but a lot of smoothing and painting the hatches, hatchcovers and ventilators.

Happy holidays to everybody!

During the last weeks I had to do a rather annoying job:

As I had completed all the ventilators too bulky in my first approach, I had to redo them all.
Now they are of correct scale.

Brgds Stefan

The engine room gratings are 3d-printed as well.

An interesting subject! She is close cousin to my "Norse Lady", ex "Ashbee", which started life as a US "1012 class" freighter of the same period. The 1012s were designed for mass production just like yours but production was cut short after a small handful. "Ashbee" was rebuilt with diesels almost immediately after launch and soldiered on until the early nineteen sixties.

viewtopic.php?f=59&t=168279

The differences and similarities between the two ships are interesting, I find.

That is very lovely and a great example of crisp and sharp scratch building!!

very impressive

...>> Hut ab! <<....


JIm B

Great work so far! And thank you for posting the link to the plans. I have been searching for years for anything on the Atlantus. Born in Southern Jersey and spent many a day at Sunset Beach watching her slowly sink and crumble further.

Matt

Thanks a lot for your kind replies.
Very encouraging to read!

@Bouncy70: Very impressive project your "Ashbee" - would be far to tiny for my skills!

These EFC-freighters were indeed of rather similar design.
And due to the large quantity of ships built, there is plenty of valuable photo material available, which is not existent of other contemporary freighters.

This archive for example is a real treasure for my project:

https://catalog.archives.gov (search for "Ship Building - Steel - Newark Bay Shipyards")

Just completed masts and some ladders and stairs (3d printing).
The masts were originally of hinged design in order to keep the outline more inconspicuous,
thus reducing the danger of detection by Uboats.

Wow , what a crisp paint job !!

How do you plan to make the glass in the portholes ?