1:75 diving support vessel Well Enhancer

[tweety777]

Update:

As I decided that I won't sail with Well Enhancer before the wheelhouse has all it's panels, being filled, sanded and painted, and it must be able to hold the mast firmly.

The lower row of panels is applied, but before the sailing can start I want to have the wheelhouse filled, sanded and painted properly.

Starts to look like a wheelhouse now.

Today I modified the bottom of the mast to make it fit at the centreline rather then off the centreline as it did before.

Overall view of last friday.

The rear funnel has a sort of ventilation shaft mounted at the rear, but I build that covering the entire breadth of the funnel.
Today I decided to trim it the right size.
When that is done I will apply plastic sheets to cover the wooden base like I did with the superstructure.

I started to demolish the lot with a hobby-knife.

Placed the first 3 plastic panels.

In order to prevent the bridgedeck from bending when the mast is standing on top of it I decided to build some reinforcement inside the superstructure.

That's it for now.

Greetings Josse

[GTDEATH13]

Looking good... Have you finished work on the hull?

[tweety777]

Thanks.

The work on the hull is pretty much finished indeed.
When the RC-equipment is being build in I will need to make a few inlets in the hull and I still need to make some portholes.
Bulwarks are still on the to-do-list.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

More supports for the wheelhouse.



Put the crew in position for a photoshoot.

"Rotterdam sited captain".

Or maybe the Panama Canal, the mountains are quite a bit too close for Rotterdam....



I still haven't seen anyone cleaning the decks.....

Apart from the cleaners the rest of the crew is working pretty hard.

Pulling the platform in place.

Greetings Josse

[Ticonderoga]

Looking good Josse

Andrew

[tweety777]

Update:

Today I opened my can of metalprimer to protect my brass against the weather and to make sure that the coloured paint won't fall of easily.

Painted the crane-house both on the inside and on the outside, as this can dry while in it's normal position.
I started the painting so I can start painting the new platform, but I just realise I didn't take any pictures of that.

As I just was painting I decided I could paint the mast as well, but I couldn't paint the entire mast as that will gice trouble in future soldering work.

Also painted the crane-arm a bit, though not so much that putting it down somewhere would leave paint on the floor.

Besides the painting i've also started filling the wheelhouse, so maybe i'll start sanding that tomorrow.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

Today I tried to sand the wheelhouse, but the somewhat weak plastic panels made that very hard to do.
Therefore I decided it was time reinforce the wheelhouse.
Here i'm turning a square bar into a U-bar which will be placed in 1 of the nasty corners of the wheelhouse.

The first frames in the wheelhouse.

I placed the first frames vertical, but later on I found out that horizontal frames will take less material, so from then on I changed to horizontal framing.

Here the U-bar is finished.

Right now the front half of the wheelhouse has got it's frames.
The rear half will have to wait till I got new supplies.
I also added to brass bars to the casings to stop the deck laying on top of it from falling forwards or backwards.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

I made some adjustments on the searchlight to make it able to control elevation.
The + wire is now used to make the searchlight elevate, while the -wire is attached to the metal parts to remove it's wire, making it look far better now.

More reinforcements under the bridgedeck.

Bought some new supplies including a plastic flat bar of only 2mm wide and 0,5mm thick with which I will make the window supports which will hold the glass itself.
Placing these parts is pretty tough as these small parts easily get full of glue, making it hard te have them stick the wheelhouse rather then either my fingers or the tools that I use to put them in place.

Also bought some brass bars to finish the reinforcement of the wheelhouse.
While applying these bars I put some wait on the ends of the bridgedeck to make it flat again as it has bended upwards towards the ends.
The new bars and window supports will help to keep the bridgedeck in shape.

Greetings Josse

[Egberth]

I would really suggest to sand and fill (and sand and fill and sand and fill ...) the hull and the superstructure and to straighten the windows already now before further detailing. It will be hell to do it later, when all details tend to break off (or are in the way) while sanding.

[tweety777]

Hello Egberth,

Thanks for the advice.

The hull looks realistic to me.

The wheelhouse and superstructure needed to be reinforced to be able sand and fill it properly, but work on that will continu soon enough.
As long as details aren't placed on board there is no harm making them.
This searchlight is build over a year ago if i'm not mistaken.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

After having sanded and filled the lower row of panels I started building the upper row of panels.

I thought that adding window supports would be pretty tough on the upper panels, so I started adding the window supports before placing the panel.

Added window supports on the first panel.

In order to stop light to shine through the panels I applied some silver paint at the inside to stop the light.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

Because the panels at the sides of the wheelhouse don't have any windows I was able to build and place those without making it hard to place the other panels properly.

Put in the crew and interior to show what it will look like when the outside is finished.

As it takes a while for the paint to dry I started working on the panels that will come on the other side of the wheelhouse.
At this moment these panels have also been painted silver, but I forgot to make a picture of that.

As the paint still needs some 6 hours to dry I continued working on the rear funnel.

Starting to look like a funnel.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

In order to dryfit the crane arm properly I started working on the boomrest.
I made an edge on the end of the tube to help the solder to connect 2 tubes properly.

This boomrest is a pretty complex 1 as it has 2 legs which are bended over 2 of the ships axis, which makes it very hard to determine the angle at which the 2 parts come together.
Fortunatly that leaves 2 legs that are bended over only 1 axis, of which the angle is perfectly shown in the drawings.
First step is to build the 2 legs that are bended over 1 axis, and apply the supports that will later on be connected to the remaining 2 legs, but first the first 2 legs need to be connected.

As paper burns more easy then plywood I decided to make the drawing on a piece of plywood so I can build this complex construction properly.

This is one of my better pieces of soldering.

Also added the lower part of the second leg.

Placed the panels which I made this morning.

Seeing the crew you'd get the impression that Well Enhancer is about to set sail, but unfortunatly she isn't.



The roof of the wheelhouse fits a lot better now too.

That's it for today.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

Added another support.

This is where it will be placed.

Last one with even more supports fitted.
Only 1 to go here.

Greetings Josse

[GTDEATH13]

Looking good... I like the fact that you are revising things you have already built and improve them...

[tweety777]

Update:

Now that the first 2 legs are connected it was time to modify the base to continu working towards the other legs.

Simple yet effective: put a few nails through the wood, and place the tubes on those, then you can apply the supports.

Unfortunatly this piece didn't fit all too well.
Some sanding and filling will have to solve this problem.

Last panel for the wheelhouse has been build and painted.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

Build a small boomrest-factory in the livingroom to continu the work on the boomrest.
Later on in this update will be some photo's of the ship in action in a fake sea...

Made a support to help keeping the parts straight while attaching new parts.

Fixing the parts properly turned out to be one tough job.
The support is holding the leg straight that isn't being worked on, otherwise I don't have enough room to solder it together firmly.

Unfortunatly 1 leg turned out to be just a bit too short.
This photo makes it look like it's far from straight, but it isn't all that bad.

Put the crane-arm on top of the boomrest to show what it will look like.

As the topplate has now been installed the last 2 tubes can be modified to fit.

Inspection on it's way to the bowthruster.
Apparently the inspector didn't really care about the progress, but more about the fact that the bowthruster still hasn't been repaired.



"Let's see if any oil has dropped on the floor of the dock"...

And now the overall views.

As the ship is sailing pretty close to rocks (those blue and green things in the background) the crew is standing by to take measures to ensure the safety of the ship (no, it's not the Navy, this ship will simply drop an anchor to ensure it's safety...).

As soon as they find an anchor-bouy the crew can get into action to moor the ship to it.

While mechanics are fitting some more parts a group of sailors below is about to arrive with even more parts.
These kind of jobs need to be closely monitored by officers.

When sailing in waters as narrow as this it's not wise to steer the vessel whilst standing in the wheelhouse, so the crew at the bridge have stepped outside to steer her from the bridgewings.

At the bow are also crewmembers standing by to moor her when needed.

Even though this ship was build properly the lifeboats have to be checked out from time to time.

Crew standing by at the bow.

Geetings Josse

[tweety777]

After failing more then a month to get something to update, i'm finally back!!!
What mounting a dimmer for the lights in a room can achieve...

Placed a piece of deck.
I'll need to fill some spaces up on this part.

As filling and sanding the superstructure has priority at the moment I took some Milliput to fill some holes in the wheelhouse.
It went better then last time, but it still can be done way better.

Groetjes Josse

[Ticonderoga]

Good to see some progress Tweats...

Andrew

[ARH]

I thought the bird had gone to the grave yard in the sky, nice to see him back were he should be, nice up date by the way,