I've been interested in Liberty replacement vessels and civilian Liberties for a few years now. I tried to do a civ liberty from the rather awful Skywave kit and I've been doing some research for a possible series of scratchbuilds in the future.
After buying SD 14 The Full Story by John Lingwood I found that the drawings in it are quite problematic as they are spread over two hardcover pages. So I decided to make my own working drawings based on drawings and pictures I found on the internet and in a publication called The Motor Ship. I also did some drawings of the SD14's rather more advanced rival, the Freedom design, based on information on the website of Campbell associates who designed them. I'm still working on drawings of the SD15/Prinasa 121 and the Pri 26/15 which were also designed by Austin & Pickersgill.
As the SD14 fan website seems to have disappeared I have decided to to publish these working drawings here.
These should really be treated as basic information and you should spend some time on sites like shipspotting in order to find out the exact details of your subject. No SD14 was exactly the same and most went through at least four owners during their careers.
If any company is willing and able to commit themselves to resin and silicon rubber for an SD14 pm me and I can get you started with your research.
Before you do anything remember this: The winchhouse tops in early SD14s were Arizona Blue!
I have found some general arrangement plans of SD14 and of German Neo Liberty. I will try to post it here ( I need reduce the size of the files)...
I found these ships very interesting because they were the ships used by many new independent nations to create their own fleet... for example Vietnam.
The aesthethyc of these "rotten whales" is very suggestive for any intelligent modeller...
Some useful information regarding neo-Liberty FREEDOM class:
These were the main particulars of the first unit builded
Name: KHIAN CAPTAIN
IMO number: 6715035
Tons: 10086
DWT: 13871
Length overall: 141.8
LPP: 134.1
Beam: 19.8
Speed(kn):14.5
Builded by IHI Shipyards (Tokyo) for Greek owners in 1967. Sold to breakers in 1985.
Regarding german neolibertys:
This is the 36L serie <<Santiago del Estero>> builded in Germany for Argentina.
SHIPYARD: A. G. Wesser Seebeckwerf (Bremerhaven)
CALL SIGN: L. R. U. F.
Year:1976
grt: : 15.513
Length: 149,80
Beam: 21,00
Depth: 12,25
Draft: 9,07 metros.
Engine: Sulzer 6 RND 68; 2T SA; 6 cilindros (680 x 1.250 Mm.); 150 RPM. H. Cegielski, Poznan.
Speed: 16 knts.
Owner: E. L. M. A. Empresa L�neas Mar�timas Argentinas S. A. (Argentina).
Broken up Alang, India in 2000
I first brought a WW2 liberty ship thinking why oh why did I buy it, now I have built 2 and have a further in my stash, I believe strongly these were the backbone of WW2 and sadly there are so few to model, some resin kits are beautiful, and they have so much to offer a diorama, have a look at my gallery if you get a moment and seek out the liberty diorama, while most people are battleship, heavy cruiser this that and everything else, give me a nice liberty, cargo, oiler any day of the week.
The other thing of course is colour - Arizona Blue - buff red - so important for many to get the correct colour of a ship, working to scale drawings is still way beyond my skill level, so I try and copy actual photographs, but many times the photo has lost a lot of colour, and unless you actually know, its difficult to get the correct colour which is great when someone can guide you to that.
Maybe I should be more careful when doing in-jokes here. Early SD-14s did not have winch houses in order to keep the price down so their color was as elusive as Arizona-blue. Anyway, if you have more than one Liberty in your stash you might consider doing a civil one. Civil Liberties appeared in the weirdest of places after WW2 . For example there's a classic picture in the LIFE archives of a Soviet Liberty (Ivan Polzunov) carrying missiles away from Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Soviet Liberties were almost unchanged from when they were bought by the USSR in '43/44 and at the time she was followed by another mass production miracle, USS Vesole (DD 878). Vesole was likewise almost unchanged from her WW2 state. An as your skills are really getting there ( I like your Repulse for example) why don't you give it a try?
aleccap wrote:
The other thing of course is colour - Arizona Blue - buff red - so important for many to get the correct colour of a ship, working to scale drawings is still way beyond my skill level, so I try and copy actual photographs, but many times the photo has lost a lot of colour, and unless you actually know, its difficult to get the correct colour which is great when someone can guide you to that.
This is a sad problem I have got use to over the last few years. If you honestly want to build a good genuine ship, and as I said, those above are a great start, you have to scratch build, there are a few members here that make scratch building incredible. For myself, I am a kit buider, plastic model with a dash of ''slight'' scratch build to bring up the hidden detail, or adding detail, when I take a trip down to the coast you only have to look out to see cargo after cargo ship, I watch films and brought a lot of WW2 DVD's and I seriously wonder why someone somewhere can't produce more in plastic kits. The O'Brian, and Brown are basically a waste of money being basically the same model, the good thing (did you see my little diorama ?) you can litter the decks with just about anything, and many WW2 liberty ships were still in service long after WW2. http://www.flickr.com/photos/capalec/6354384053/
Above showing 2 liberty ships, produced in plastic, a few others apparently also in resin.
If you want to pay 350-ish euros for a monster kit like that, go for it.
The reason I posted these sketches is the fact that apart from these 1/70 paper kits theres are no SD-14 models available in any scale except the (very nice) Len Jordan/ Wirral kits in 1/1200.
