1/72 Mercantile Aircraft Carrier Rapana class HMS Macoma

[Skybert]

A bit of update for you guys.

Finished the hull with filler and yacht higloss varnish, to have a hard base for styrene structures and decks

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Bought styrene sheets 2x1 meter in a local industrial plastic webstore , for 15 euro each, Evergreen would have drained budget..

I have started building the command deck of the tanker that will later be overcast by the flightdeck



Via Kees Helder at Helderline.nl some unique images from macoma







I then laid out the diorama plan that is haunting me in my sleep on the dinner table .I have a fairly big dinner table, but it seems we need to be eating out a lot in the coming time.


My inspiration comes from Harbor images around the UK in wartime. My dio will have a long qay with oil, coal and refinery installations, some cranes and a railroad. Then on the short side a qay with warehouses, and city buildings. and another long qay with factories and the headoffice of the fictuous 'Empire Atlantic Passage Line'. I bought a second hand railroad station that looks fairly british, but may change the colour to either redder brick or grey basalt


The flowerclass corvettte is the matchbox/Revell kit whuih will be built OOB as there is plenty of stuff to do








some inspirational images off the net





Hope you like it.

[Skybert]

Back on the bench after 4 years of storage; MAC-ship HMS Macoma, of the Rapana class converted British and Dutch Shell tankers. Scale 1/72. Afterlong deliberation, I cutthe hull up in 3 parts. This solves space restrictions. I will connect the parts with magnets, so will be able to assemble for diorama photography. Little details exist of the MAC innerdetails. Therefore I will first build the decks in tanker layout, thenadd outer MAC structures and flight deck.

[JIM BAUMANN]

back--I shall be watching!

JIM B

[Fliger747]

Yes the Sangamon's were the most valued of the conversions as they had the two most desired resources aboard, aircraft an Oil! Tough ships as well, Santee off the Philippines took two Kamikazes as well as a torpedo, and didn't realize they had been torpedoed till in dry dock later. "We were what?"

Interesting project! Have Fun! Tom

[Skybert]

This is Rapana as she was built in 1935 in her tanker guise before MAC conversion.
https://modelbrouwers.nl/albums/photo/529844/
Can anyone explain the purpose of the overhead beams on the forecastle? Sunshades? but why? Wave breaker frame? Too flimsy. Guiderails for safety ropes when moving about? The Command bridge has a similar structure on the open top side decks

[DrPR]

Probably for awnings to provide shade from the sun in tropical waters.

Phil

[Fliger747]

In the colonial era such pipe rail canopies for awnings were quite common Empire vessels, even warships! Interesting era of great transition!

[Skybert]

Yes the Sangamon's were the most valued of the conversions as they had the two most desired resources aboard, aircraft an Oil! Tough ships as well, Santee off the Philippines took two Kamikazes as well as a torpedo, and didn't realize they had been torpedoed till in dry dock later. "We were what?"

Interesting project! Have Fun! Tom

Hi Tom, I never heard Sangamon referred to for the Rapana Class, I did find the classification Triple Twelve tankers.

[Skybert]

Progress of last week since picking up the project. Lots is created off a few grainy photographs and the blown up drawing to 72 scale. Images and drawing dont always match. Not looking for full 100% accuracy. I think she is getting right look, slowly



https://modelbrouwers.nl/albums/photo/530549

[Fliger747]

Sangamon was a USN escort carrier, very popular as they were built on twin screw high speed tanker hulls and were larger than other US escort carriers and retained a degree of their ability to refuel other ships. There would have been more of these except the basic tankers were deemed too essential to the fleet train.

Cheers: Tom

[Skybert]

Progress in HMS Macoma's sharp end. The only benefit of this lockdown is that this is the only chance i probably will find to get this thing done.
began detailing the forward tanker deck based on a batch of Glassnegative images of the Rapana from maritiemdigitaal.nl
It is so cluttered with details, that i lost orientations, so my piping layout is a petrochemical engineers nightmare, but looks good enough anyway.
The piping is a mix of styrene, insulated domestic elelctrical 220V wires and 3D printed valves, pumps and motors from shapeways.

[Skybert]

Progress!

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

VERY impressive, Skybert! Only the size is already much more than I could handle.

But I'm really looking forward to the conversion into a MAC ship!