The Ship Model Forum

Here!

==> viewtopic.php?f=47&t=47836

I wanted to keep my model butchery and the research thread side seperate

The interesting images of the real ship can be viewed at the thread posted above.

anyhow...

The Yumenatu Carnot kit is not without a number of problems.... ( compounded by no concrete plans being in existence...)

....but nothing much that sharp blade and endless staring at photos cannot go some way to alleviating...

Here is an image summary to date:

The stern is too wide in plan view, far too pointy and the superstructure aft is far too wide



Brutal stuff



The bottom of the open hull had a plate added to remove the hogging warp, the hatches were all removed, the cast on central turret barbettes were ripped off and the platform raised, hull reshaped to accentuate the tumblehome.Aft indents reshaped and the hollows above the aftermost turrets bridged and the deck made up.
Holes in deck filled and all deck structures removed or reshaped. Once faired it looked like this...



The cast on hatches now were all gone--and I wanted to depict most of the hatches open--as the ship both static and underway at speed is often depicted with them open...
The difficulty of cutting this vast number of square holes was quite simply beyond my methodology on a retro-fit kit-build...
So I cheated!

Black squares of decals strip were applied to represent the hole or void, once this has been complemented with the yop and bottom lids it should look fairly convincing....



...==> getting them all straight and in the correct place was done by steadying lies of adhesive tape and ...
mainly eyeball and judgement

Relative proportion is everything!



Once the armour belt( vinyl tape) had been added ( soaked on afterwards with CA)
the ship stared to vaguely(!) resemble the photos of the real thing...



Prior to mounting the ship on her base I started on the fwd bridge structure. From spar deck up all will now be scratchbuilt.

The fwd bridge levels have the distinctive pierced sides - these are made of thin PE strips- cut from a much larger PE structure gleaned from a L'Arsenal 1/350 PE set....( liberty ship )



Its a very fiddly pastime as each brass section is seperate...



The deck itself is made of paper - cut folded in half to give perfect symmetry, then pressed flat and infused with CA.

This gives a 'scale' thin deck....



Carnot had a massive blockhouse really quite a long way up the fwd structure; this required additional bracing through the deck levels to support.





These supporting columns appear from photos to square in section. The positioning of these was tricky- to obtain alignment the decks needed to be affixed firmly-==> however the mainmast - made of copper tube was already well embedded and installed. To obtain the correct positions was a process of trial and error- which meant the decks took a hammering...-These were made good by filling with white glue--with the second coat it self-levelled






I have cut in main deck stairways-positions of which are based on those of other similar contemporary French pre-dreads; inevitably as soon as my model is finished numerous photos of the deck will suddenly surface and prove me wrong!!!

The fwd bridge is making steady progress, the lower and upper circular platforms were of paper, infused with CA glue wrapped around a floor of thin PE brass scrap. The lower platform had the gun notches cut into the paper whilst a flat layout.







As of Christmas day it ( still ) looked like this:




The ship-model was becoming increasingly hard to work on--the screw/clamp handle on the base did not lend itself to being laid down.

Prior to mounting-I had to add the armoured 'shelf belt'

( there are photos of crew members walking along this ledge..!)

Thereafter I used the white styrene strip as the white water-line by virtue of adding a red boot-top

The model was screwed and glued into a pre-cut aperture in some artists watercolor paper

similar to the method I employ here:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37223
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37406
Carnot was to be shown with the hatches open- I had previously done this on my Massena build-

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/sh ... eview.html where I used paper to make the hatches.... however for a variety of reasons I wanted to try something different...



Madness prevailed-- and I decided to make the hatch lids--top and bottom of brass--more accurately-- I decided to cut pieces of 1/700 ladderstock into little squares-to get clean edges is harder than it sounds...!!

I used scissors to cut the squares, trimmed back whilst holding in tweezers- and then flattened each one in smooth face pliers to remove the curling caused by the cutting.....
The resulting voids ( the centre square of the ladderstock) was filled with thinned whiteglue.

Once set and painted they have quite a pleasing bit of texture-



More soon....

Happy New Year

Jim Baumann

Wonderful work, as usual, Jim!

Just a question on making circular shields - how do you make them so that you don't have/need overlapping ends in order to provide a more secure integrity? What I mean is, I've been trying to make such things on my San Diego, but the strips (paper and styrene) will flex back apart if I don't overlap the ends when curving them into a circle.

Jim,

Another amazing Work in Progress, Sir!! I, too, would love to know how you were able to get the shields to set without them "popping open". I tried using paper and CA glue for the Crow's Nest on my Wyoming (BM-10) build. I finally gave up and used the best part I could find in the kit. I have all of ISW's Monitors, 3 of their Pre-Dreads, and 4 of their Protected/Armored Cruisers waiting in the stash and I'd LOVE to improve my technique in this area. The Nest's (Fighting Tops??) are visually quite prominent so I really need to get this worked out.

Thanks for another great build, your inspiration, and your generosity to the Community!!

Daniel "On the Left Coast" Chavez

Timmy and Daniel....

...when using paper to make splintershields etc--the trick is to pre-curl the paper using a rod of a much smaller diameter than the desired 'circle'.

This 'curling' needs to be done on a pad pf paper--such as post-it notes- until you get 'overcurl'...

Check the size and cut the strip of paper butt-to-butt--and offer up to your circle-If it is to large--easy-trim it off--if suddenly it is too small..(arghhh!) open it out flat and using you existing strip as a template cut it slightly longer on a new strip... ( it can be frustrating at times!)

-if it is right then I tack the two butt ends together using a droplet of thinned white glue==> quick tack.

Thereafter I tack the circle--which may not be perfectly circular--it is a soft medium paper-- in place at the join with a tiny droplet of thinned white glue.

When the tack has set- I work the edges along and over the 'floor'--be it plastic, card or brass.

Once this is satisfactory--I apply -carefully-so as not to dislodge it- thin CA0--which soaks into the paper and makes a continuous bead around the 'floor'-rendering it fine as well a strong.

The same technique can be used with brass strip ( PE fret surround) to make gun tubs and platform splintershields etc--the main advantage in this instance was that paper is easy to cut the gun-arc notches into symmetrically.

Jim,

Thank you for the help! (You make everything sound so easy, too!) I will remember that even YOU get "frustrated" at times, and patiently practice, practice, practice. If I can get these to look half as nice as yours, the effort will be worthwhile.

More importantly, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Best wishes,

Daniel "On the Left Coast" Chavez

For a moment i thought you were about to drill the side openings..only for a moment.

angeleyes wrote:For a moment i thought you were about to drill the side openings..only for a moment.

I'm pretty sure that JB will someday invent the drill bit for making squared openings ...

Great work, very inspiring!

About frustration, you should here the language when something suddenly jettisons from his extra-fine tweezers into the ever-hungry mouth of the carpet monster, quite an English lesson for German ears ...


Happy modelling ~ Olaf!

In my carpenter days we'd often use a square chisel mounted in a drill press, inside this hollow square sits a drill bit, these are actually used for drilling out 'square' holes ready for mortice joints, nothing this small yet for our little hobby.
Talking of small - I have a 1-700 destroyer, light cruiser and the like, why does your warship look so small ?

No doubt about you Jim, you can turn a 'pig-ugly' warship into a work of art.

Kym Knight wrote:No doubt about you Jim, you can turn a 'pig-ugly' warship into a work of art.

Agreed!






Bob Pink.

alec observed:

...>>>Talking of small - I have a 1-700 destroyer, light cruiser and the like, why does your warship look so small ?<<<

Ahhh...--warships virtually doubled in length within 25 years
Carnot was an 1896 - 1919 pre-dreadnought battleship--and was 12'000 tons on a length of 117 metres (384 ft )

Contemporary armoured cruisers were longer...!!

Yubari- was built in 1924 amnd served to WW2 was 2890 tons on a length of 139 metres ( 456 ft )
Although Varnot is 3 x the displacement- armour, bigger guns etc she was less than half the speed of Yubari

as an example--HMS Courageous - built 1916 (the Battlecruiser( that you held in your hand at Telford )

was 240 meters long-( 787 ft) more than twice as long as Carnot--on a displacement of 27'000 tons

USS MissourI 1940 WW2.... 270 metres.. 887 ft- and 45'000 tons....

USS Nimitz carrier... 1967 333 meters.... 1,092 feet and 103'000 tons....

They just got bigger and bigger and bigger....

My experience so far with opening out pre-dreadnought ports:

On my incomplete Combrig Maine here, I used a drill bit the same diameter as the width of the molded-on, closed square ports, and then squared the corners using a chisel I made out of an eyeglass repair kit's screwdriver with some sweaty-palmed file work.

Not exactly stellar results, nor stellar photography, but it worked better than it could have, I suppose...if you like hand cramps, that is.



I'd say that not only does Jim's approach show a more sound reasoning process (especially in the face of the workload due to the sheer number of ports involved!), but his results are downright lovely.

I am plotting the very same method that Tom suggests using for my
imminent 1/350 YS masterpieces Bouvet build--fortunately there are significantly LESS hatches...

However--I will at first source some ladder-stock or similar brass stock to make 'frames'--so that my cutting - which inevitably will be imperfect--I can then line the apertures and backfill....

this should give a good result and indication of depth...

we shall see...--onwards with the Carnot....!

JIM B

Thank you al for your kind word so far...

the proof of the pudding is in the (compl) eting.... ( arghhh!)

Jim - that's one of the many things I like about you, you're always thinking ahead, the question of paper that you double then lace with pa glue, would not photographic paper/card serve as well ?

I'm playing with the Bouvet right now. AWESOME model!! I drilled out the holes slightly oversize. Then I took a ball of Apoxy clay stuff it down each hole until it was overflowing. Next I stabbed each hole with a piece of wet square plastic stock. That cause some of the putty to overflow out around the hole. I cleaned it up, then one more time stuck the wet square rod into each hole concentrating on alignment with the other holes on either side. It took about 15 minutes to do 6 holes. After they dry, I will sand them flush and inspect for flaws. The corners are extreamly sharp and square.
Just another technique

>>> would not photographic paper/card serve as well ? <<<

it may well--but the glossy surface might either crinkle on the inside of the curl or delaminate ..?...

plus--it might be hard to get paint on it--longerterm durability is unlknown to me.

perhaps I should experiment more--then again--if existing material works well ... maybe I should not!!

More photos tomorrow-- starboard side has all hatch lids top and bottom installed, filled and painted.

port side is 1/4 started ... arghhhh!

and... I was unhappy with my pilot house-so pulled it off and am now rebuilding...

JIM B

Superb ...
Superbe

Excuse me for my poor vocabulary ...
Excuse moi pour mon pauvre vocabulaire ...

But where is the result or Following ??? (I am not familiar with the English word )
Mais ou est la suite ???

>>> ...But where is the result or Following ???.... <<< ( continuation ?)

...==> ICI ! ( Here!)

At long LAST-- it seemed to take FOREVER!!!-- but all the hatches are now complete and installed.!!

On the starboard side they were all brass-as made in previous posting

- on the Port side I reverted to Paper.

On balance - the paper is MUCH quicker--easier to control- and easier to glue on using m,att varnish.

Being white against a black hull the paper hatches ARE also much easier to see for control of alignment vertically and horizontally...!

I did use the remaining brass hatches for the upper row on the grey portion- simply because if the vessel is viewed from dead above--any discrepancy-- no matter how minor... would be IMMEDIATELY visible!

More progress soon!

Jim B

WOW

This is MADNESS!!