The Ship Model Forum

Brilliant! Fantastic build. Well done.

Feb 20 2015

Signal flags and sea surface complete. The second photo shows the whole base. A clear plexiglass cover fits over the whole thing, when it’s displayed.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/Vw0Av0o.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/kGvdSfy.jpg[/img]

I’m probably unusual in this regard, but I’m actually ambivalent about the virtues of creating a sea surface. I like a ‘museum’ look that highlights the ship itself, and I so far I haven’t used glossy sea surfaces because when I experimented the gloss distracted from the ship, I felt. If I could create amazingly realistic sea effects I might feel differently, but that’s an entire other skill set I’d have to master! I’m not yet retired so maybe when I have more time I’ll look into that. As it was, I had to be content here with what might be called a ‘placeholder’ sea experiment.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/zieUuMl.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/Niq7m02.jpg[/img]

In the future I may revisit this Frank Knox and add a few more details. It would be nice to add the securing straps and oars to the life rafts, and a couple other things, and maybe try an alternative sea surface. The ship is still removable because it’s only secured with the nut-and-bolt system, and the sea surface is painted onto watercolor paper that’s glued down with rubber cement, so that’s removable too. I kind of like the look of my previous photos - of the completed build on the plain black base. I might almost consider leaving the base black, just mounting an information plaque amidships on the plain black surface. I’m going to experiment on my next build and find my own approach for representing the sea surface, something that is highly abstract and yet complements the build. Next time!

My next build might be a Coast Guard cutter from the early 1960s. My father was the captain of the USCG cutter McCulloch, and I actually sailed on her in 1962 at age 10, as my father’s guest (I brought a friend; the first mate brought his son, too). We sailed from Boston to Bermuda, staying in Bermuda for several days. It was quite an adventure. Anyway, I recently learned that a company called Back-Aft Models sells conversion kits that transform Iron Shipwrights WWII sea plane and PT boat tenders into their post-war incarnations as Coast Guard cutters. I have reference photos of my father’s ship, too.

Thanks for all the kind comments! This website is great - I love checking out all the amazing work the other modelers are doing. Keep up the great work - you inspire me!

Perhaps a bit difficult to manage at this scale, note each halyard is two lines, an up and a down running over a pulley at the yard so as to be able to hoist the signal flags.

Ship is looking great and your build is progressing rapidly!

Cheers. Tom

Great work. Glad you could get that mast back into shape.

Feb 8 2015

My Frank Knox is finally done... except for flags, signal flags, and sea surface.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/WCJE7Sp.jpg[/img]

The whaleboat is not in a historically accurate location. From my references, I’ve deduced that the awkward arrangement for the whaleboat on Frank Knox accommodated changes to the rear stack area. I was reluctant to use a historically accurate arrangement that would look odd to casual observers, the primary audience for this build. Plus, I could not figure out a reliable way to suspend the whaleboat from the davits, and in this new location I could use 2 supports under the whaleboat, and just add the davits afterwards. I am kind of exhausted at this point... and glad to find any workable solutions that help me finish this up.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/YxA1C9Y.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/VOQOJN1.jpg[/img]

There’s a local model show this month, and I’m going to enter this, if I can finish it in time.

Last time I checked even these sources in Toronto had a high minimum order, or a high minimum postage, which came out to the same thing... check out the link to the discussion that I had with some other people. I think the art store might be a better bet, because you could add other paint supplies to it to make the high postage less onerous. Or, you might want to go in on an order with other people.

[quote="BillThePill123"]If the link works, here is a discussion I had about the source for mucilage. Both sources I found are in or near Toronto, Canada. An art supply store and a daycare supply store.

If you read the whole discussion you'll see that somebody (I think) bought a case and may be selling bottles via the Trading Post page.

http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=156132[/quote]

Thanks! I found some on Alibaba but sadly, you have to buy it by the ton...

If the link works, here is a discussion I had about the source for mucilage. Both sources I found are in or near Toronto, Canada. An art supply store and a daycare supply store.

If you read the whole discussion you'll see that somebody (I think) bought a case and may be selling bottles via the Trading Post page.

http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=156132

Great build!

Where'd you find the Mucilage?

Hi, Bill, she is really looking good. Now that details such as railings etc are going on. It looks like your 'work of art' is getting there.
Johnno

Great looking build. Your camo pattern is very nicely rendered. I'm glad your model survived being dropped and didn't turn into just being a practice build.

Jan 25 2015

Frank Knox is finally armed. I’ve also done half the railings. There hasn’t been much remarkable about the recent detailed work, so I’m just postings these photos of the whole ship.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/vbzNtPi.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/7sHl7B3.jpg[/img]
I wish I had a better camera. The zoom function only works on cloudy days when outdoor lighting is evenly diffused, and unfortunately (??) I live in southern California, where it’s sunny almost every day. Therefore photos like these are a little low-rez. I suppose one advantage is that my mistakes aren’t as easy to see this way.

One detail I can see in these photos that I am proud of is the antennas mounted to the rear stack. Even some seasoned modellers on this site used very out-of-scale material to represent these antennas, that I know from my Gearing e-book to be very thin indeed. After experimenting with wire, brass rod and styrene rod, I finally found that certain pieces of brass PE sprue were thin enough and stiff enough to represent the antennas. I mounted them to the stack with scrap PE, too, and the result fairly matches photos of the actual ship.

All that’s left now are the life rafts, the whaleboat, and some railing. I plan on adding some signal flags to the halyards, too, maybe some other flags, and will then create a simulation of water on the base....

Amen for miracles! It's a fine build and it is gut-wrenching to think of it falling onto the mast.

Johnno, 2 days ago I accidentally dropped the ship on my desk, bending the brass foremast yardarm into a pretzel, in the middle of all those lines that took me a week to rig, and breaking off parts of the tripod mast, too (the ship landed upside down). The yardarm is soldered to the brass mast, and the mast is embedded in a big hidden blob of body putty (I couldn't figure out any other way to securely attach the mast).

I almost did decide to shelve it, and just chalk this up as a practice model! I just wasn't sure I could go on - this build has been one of the longest, most difficult learning experiences I've ever encountered - college was easy, by comparison! Later, cooler heads prevailed, and I was able to carefully repair the damage - gently coaxing the brass yardarm back into shape, one millimeter at a time. The other broken parts only needed to be re-glued. Amazingly, I didn't have to re-rig the ship. All the lines survived intact! The ship looks the same as it did before I dropped it... some kind of miracle.

Hi, Bill, glad to see you are back at it. I thought you may have given up. Looking very good.

Love it!

Looking real good...you are right, the pe railings will look great and hide the seems...keep the updates coming.
Doug B

Experimented with the rigging a little. I attached the lines to the foremast before attaching the foremast to the ship. It seemed easier to do this and then transfer the whole assembly, keeping the lines in order with the blue-tac.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/KyH3N05.jpg[/img]

Everything in place, with rigging.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/FpJZJsG.jpg[/img]

Dec 29, 2014

Some more helpful hints to novice modellers like myself.

With the two masts, I’m combining scratch building, the kit’s plastic parts, and the GMM photo etch. The kit’s plastic foremast seemed too flimsy to rig, so I filed a brass rod to a taper and soldered the GMM yardarm to it. I cut the platforms off the plastic mast and glued them to the brass mast. This seemed easier than making all those platforms from scratch.

I used the kit’s plastic tripod mast, rather than venture into something scratchbuilt. I reasoned that the tripod mast didn’t need any structural strength because there wouldn’t be any rigging attached. I also learned it’s easier to use a methodical approach when glueing delicate, sometimes slightly warped parts like these. Drawing guidelines to help me keep everything aligned, and securing one part with blue-tac lets you glue a few contacts, then when those set you can glue the other contacts that aren’t aligning correctly.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/l8Kx0GS.jpg[/img]

(I realize experienced modellers may be groaning over how elementary this is, but this might save newbies like myself a few headaches.)

I combined PE and plastic on some of the tripod mast. The kit’s plastic base for the TDY-1 antenna was better than the GMM PE, and the kit had a better-looking PE part for the back of the antenna, but I used GMM PE for the rest of it. The GMM set didn’t include the antenna on the top platform, so I used the kit’s base and improvised the PE using a spare floater net basket.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/K06khHN.jpg[/img]

I’m trying to devise a rigging scheme that is simple enough for me to execute, that is also reasonably accurate. I’m handicapped by the fact that I’m a casual modeler, and not very knowledgable. Ironically, a relative who’s recently retired Navy hasn’t been able to help me much, because the modern ships he served on are so different from these WWII ones.

I’ve created a visual guide to help me sort things out. In this schematic, the red lines are mast stays, the blue lines are halyards, and the green lines are antenna wires. I haven’t shown an additional antenna wire, that apparently is strung high above the front stack between the two lines that go from each end of the yardarm to the rear stack. A trailing wire hangs down from this crossover wire, and the trailing wire falls all the way to the flag bags, or thereabouts.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/38KTup2.jpg?2[/img]