The Ship Model Forum

Tom,

One of these days, I'll get a few of the modelers over here and we'll watch GREYHOUND - maybe after Thanksgiving and in early December!

Well, thanks to Willie for pointing out to me a large mistake in my RADOME location on the after stack cap. I knew something was amiss, but until he pointed it out to me, I didn't see it. I had the RADOME located behind the yardarm when it is actually located directly above the yardarm. So, this morning I've gone in and made that correction as well as adding the diagonal bracing that I had not located due to rather vague info on the plans. Hopefully, this will produce a more accurate part in the long run. I also corrected the height of this RADOME as it was slightly too high above the yardarm. The BoGP (1968) only shows these parts in the side profile view and does not include the masting in any of the details or plan views. So, having limited references (plans/photos) makes this a rather difficult task when designing these parts. Of course, it helps to pay attention to where things are located.... - so, that's on me!!! Here are a few shots of the CORRECTED stack cap & yardarm assembly - I think the 3rd picture shows this better - compare with the similar pictures I posted a week or so ago and you'll see the differences.

The new stack cap assembly will finish printing around 6:30pm and then I'll need to make a couple new stacks, as well as perhaps a new after yardarm & instruments as I've made changes to that assembly just a day or so ago.

Since I'm still waiting on the proofs for the new hull draft marks/ number decals, I can't move fwd on the hull, so this little correctional deviation isn't all that problematic, just a bit irksome.

Hank,

Just how much of the original kit is left?

Rick E Davis wrote:Hank,
Just how much of the original kit is left?

Rick,
Well, a few things - the hull/main deck, 01 Level superstructure pieces here & there, and various other stuff - but I'll admit - it's beginning to look like a custom job for the most part. And...it almost has to be to get it right!!!

Some older 3D designed parts that I've had stashed away I'm now taking a fresh look at and will revise to make them better. This project is an evolution and hopefully will turn out well - or at least better than my original handmade attempts. Your help has been greatly appreciated throughout!!

Hank

With aircraft there is a thing called "Data Plate Restoration" where all the pieces except the manufactures data plate are replaced with approved parts. The round the world sailor Joshua Slocum reconstructed his boat "Spray" all but one board (Maybe the "starboard?").

You are getting closer to a scratch project, nothing wrong with that!

Cheers: Tom

Fliger747 wrote:With aircraft there is a thing called "Data Plate Restoration" where all the pieces except the manufactures data plate are replaced with approved parts. The round the world sailor Joshua Slocum reconstructed his boat "Spray" all but one board (Maybe the "starboard?").
You are getting closer to a scratch project, nothing wrong with that!
Cheers: Tom

Tom - That is very reminiscent of a chit I put in to the Division Officer (as a joke, mainly) for the shipyard to remove the brass plaque on the quarterdeck and replace the ship "et al" with one of the mothballed FLETCHER's that was basically unused and bolt the plaque back in place. Somehow this got to the XO (a Mustanger who was a Total Asshole) and he chewed my ass out for submitting it. Oh well, he's dead and I'm not, so there!!!! The division officer thought it was funny, so it accomplished something.

Have made a couple print runs on the stack parts and now have a couple of everything I need to assemble at least one good after stack (until I break or lose something!!!). Maybe get that actually done in the next day or two.

Hank

After a couple of weeks of steady rain in Halifax, I submitted a 2302 (Supply Demand - in Carbon paper triplicate) for a "Sunny Day" and passed it in to the supply office on the ship. They laughed, stamped it, and sent me ashore to the warehouse with it.

I showed up at the 'Walk through requirements' counter with it and we all had a good laugh about it.

The next day it was sunny though...so...y'never know.

I'm sure you've heard the rumours of Titanic and her sister ship having been swapped?

https://youtu.be/rt0id_LEyIY

There's the 'theory'. I'm not saying that it's true, but it's an interesting point of discussion.

Of note, my great great uncle went across to Europe during WW1 on the Olympic, arriving on the 8th of May 1916.

Dr Phil had a somewhat similar story about a CG Cutter based off Vietnam (for a very long time) which when repainted, the motto Semper Perattus was replaced with "Simply Forgotten".

There are good things about outliving the SOB's...

Impossible. For someone who knows a little bit about ships and their real history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIvn4NZjHxg

Sorry for the off-topic...

Interesting, albeit rather doubtful theories re. the Titanic, etc. I'm fairly confident at this point that the more recent metallurgical studies of her rivets as being suspect coupled with the ongoing coal bunker fire has certainly more validity within the actual scientific/shipbuilding community than do these silly notions of switching hulls. As Pascal notes, a physical, not to mention financial or logistical impossibility, which I also share.

Having reprinted the after stack and its various components, I'm now painting and getting ready to assemble - I have two good sets of everything in case I screw up and drop or break something!!!

Also revising the After Deckhouse 01 Level handrails and reprinting them - 3 pieces and they are proving to be a pain in the ass to print so orientation is the key here. The after piece came out fine, but the stbd/port pieces are a bit tricky.

Hank

After many months of revising, printing, and over again - I have two completed stacks - fwd. & aft. -
Here are the two together: Here are close ups of the fwd stack: And close ups of the after stack: I do have enough parts for a 2nd after stack if it indeed needs replacement but will hold them in reserve for now. Hopefully, new resin will arrive next week, and I can get some successful prints of the 01 Level After Deckhouse railings which don't seem to want to print well with the Rapid Black resin. So, I'm going back with the Model Gray resin and see if that doesn't work better. There aren't a lot of minute details on handrails, so this isn't an issue.

Hank:

The stacks look really good and emphasize that post war ships, lacking some wartime clutter are not simpler. The famous Desron 21 herald is especially nice!

Best regards: Tom

It continues to impress me what can be done with 3D printing. Just incredible.

Some modelers say it's not 'scratchbuilding' - I will disagree. You started with a blank screen, some plans diagrams and pictures, and here is the result.

Well done.

Tom, NavyShooter -

Thanks for the positive comments. It's obvious that you both understand what is involved in designing and building models - scaled plans, to begin with! A lot of work to get these stacks to this point and I may still do some further work on the DesRon 21 emblem as it's applied with spray adhesive so it can be removed, etc.

Hank

DavidP,

Having sailed on multiple ships of the same class in the RCN, I'll observe that at any point in time, no two ships were identical, and despite considerable effort at configuration management by our NAVARC and Engineering Management personnel, they did not all match the drawings. For example, one of them is almost a foot longer than the others.

The way we always put it in the fleet was: 'Sister ships, not twins.'

Between mission fits, mid-life refit progress, engineering changes implemented in varying ways and times, and on different ships first.

Example, I walked through our dockyard here 2 weeks ago, and found one ship with 3 offboard Chaff launchers mounted, rather than 2 as originally fit as the other ships have. One of the other ships has just returned from overseas, so it has a mission fit of a CBRN detection system on the Stbd bridge wing. Another ship has 2x Remote Weapons Stations on the aft bridge wings, but not the two that pierce the forward bridge wing (indicating that the Engineering Change isn't complete yet.)

To keep the drawings up to date, there would have to be an individual set of drawings for each of 12 Halifax Class ships, individually updated and maintained as updates were completed.

You're right though - what's shown in the photos reflects the reality at that point in time in which the picture was taken.

That said, what does right look like though in terms of what the modeler is wishing to present? What is the likelihood that a ship has been changed from the original drawings that are available as open-source to the modeling community? Almost 100%. In some cases, I can imagine that publicly released drawing are deliberately missing parts, or modified in such a way as to not be 'exactly' right out of considerations of military security of knowledge/information or company intellectual property.

Jumping back to modeling, building a "Halifax Class" ship is a fairly easy build. And from 5 feet away, a 1/350 scale Resin Shipyard model of it looks great.

But.

Building HMCS Fredericton as depicted on the 6th of June 2014 when the ship was sailing past Juno Beach would require a lot of extra detail work and research and would be very different looking than HMCS Charlottetown as seen sailing under the Confederation Bridge in July of 1997.

So. What does right look like?

In this case, I observe that the builder is creating, from scratch, a ship model that is representative of the USS Stoddard, to the best of his ability. I'll bet that any former crew of the ship looking at it would be hard pressed to say that the dome is too big, or too small. Who is to say that there isn't some distortion in the image that you've presented, and that the dome as modeled is actually correct, and the image is wrong? Was there water on the lens? Was there distortion in the development process? Was there a distortion in the scan?

I'm damn impressed with the work as presented by Hank - it exceeds some of the 'museum quality' models that I've seen on display here in Halifax.

I love looking at the threads here that show the level of detailed research going into making a ship model as accurate as possible.

The thing is, there will always. ALWAYS be some kind of variation, flaw, deviation. And there will be some form of photographic proof of it.

Does that detract from the modeler's enjoyment of researching and building? I don't think so. We are our own worst critics already.

All that said, it seems that your area of expertise seems to be pointing out those deviations and flaws and then presenting them in such a way as to deflate the builder's success.

DavidP wrote:l'm no expert as I'm still learning from my mistakes. I had to do a Pennsylvania hull #2 do to the torpedo bulges being the wrong shape & the stern underneath not convex enough.

somebodies screwed up on that ship being a foot longer as doubt it was designed that way. did that in grade 9 sheet metal class in that we all had to each make an open top metal box & somehow mine was exactly 1" smaller in all dimensions. like I said above that I found 2 different customers' drawings that were wrong with 1 not noticed for years being incorrect.

was it not I that pointed out the mistakes you did to your bonnie island?

DavidP,

Yes, you excel at pointing out errors!

As for a 12" error in the span of 440 feet on a Frigate, well, with a large number of modules welded together, that's a difference of a 1/2" here and a 1/2" there times a few modules, plus a couple of dozen weld seams.

As a photographer one must when gauging relative sizes take into account the relative focal length and distances. Wide-angle lenses when used for close up photography (especially when pointed down) cause a very considerable distortion whereas a ship photo from some distance if nearly abeam will have a close relation to the sizes of various features. In photographing my own models I attempt to use a fairly long focus Canon L 100 mm Macro when I can. At some distance, a greater accuracy of relative sizes is achieved. The bad news for longer focus lenses is often I am taking a photo from 10 feet away, or more.

Those who advance our knowledge through their projects and techniques are much appreciated. Those who only critique and lurk without projects are not.

To whom it may concern:

Regarding the latest round of asinine posts on this and my other threads by the forum troll, I appreciate the support of Flinger747 and NavyShooter as they obviously see how this moron operates.

I for one, could care less about his physical afflictions, past employment history, blah, blah, blah - or any other damn thing associated with or about him - he builds nothing, shows nothing, and is simply a pest who criticizes other's work at every opportunity. He is nothing more than an asshole, period!!

NavyShooter - thanks for your kind remarks regarding my builds - I do appreciate honest criticism as it shows me areas where I need improvement - another forum modeler (Willie) also building a FLETCHER class model has provided to me the CORRECT type of criticism in ways that are a positive contribution, unlike we have seen here with the troll. And this has been reciprocal on my part with his build.

Tom - Once again, your support is always positive and well received. I think you know where WE stand, etc. without further commentary.

Hank

Hank,
Sorry to see this happen, but this guy does not know a thing about building ships and has never set foot in a shipyard. I have been in and out of them for 30 years and what I was doing there was metrology. For those not aware that is measurements. I have seen precise modules match up during the build to within 1/4" that was amazing. I have seen modules too long by 4-6 inches. They are still used and things get adjusted. Adjustments are torches, chains and come alongs, and nice big sledge hammers. Not all changes make it back to the engineers to update drawings. The hull of a ship does not have to be high precision so it is off by a foot it is not going to be scrapped or at least sink bahahaha.

Tell me how you measured it in the real world and what year was the ship built? Ships have been built with transits and chalk lines on the floor. Welders and framers were not robots. Today I can measure them to be a precise as you want I can use a transit or a laser scanner. Just tell me when to measure it. You have to realize the ship grows and shrinks due to the temperature of the day. One reason we install shafts at night to get alignments right. I haven't even talked about field changes or dry dock changes those never make it back to CAD drawings.....

Now I am rambling ugh......

It is just a model in the end, it "REPRESENTS'" the real thing. If it looks good then it is correct. End of story!!

Hank you keep doing what you are doing, I enjoy the hell out of watching your build posts!

Cheers,
Todd

Todd,
Well, fellow Tar Heel - I appreciate the support!!! And believe me, I don't intend to change anything I do...except improve perhaps....

In regard to the assembly of modules etc., I recall seeing a video of shipyard workers with sledges hammering the plates from one module to another in order to get the welder a "close" fit - not sure I'd want to be riding THAT tanker down the ways!!!!

And I appreciate your following my build - nice to know others share in the construction of this Tin Can model!!!

Hank