USS Spruance 1/200th

Finished keel plating

Hi All

Most of the rest of the plating went on quite well I wish I had decided on slightly thicker card after finishing the bow. Although I packed out the longer spaces between the formers it is still all too easy to get a dent into the plate. The good thing was that the plates fitted exactly to the stern plate with no trimming much to my surprise I was quite expecting to have to chop a bit off. It looks better in real life than in the flash pics but with 2 or 3 coats of paint and a bit of filling and sanding it should be OK.



This made me scratch head for a few minutes until I remembered the plate has to be cut in two to fit round the skeg.I added a couple of supports from scrap card to support the plating more or less worked would have been better with a full fill in of the space.



Plated skeg.



A rather unkind flash pic.
 
Spruance hull

Spent the evening making sure all the glued bits had taken there is a fair amount of spring in the hull and deck found the bits and reweighted them down into position.

The pic is just a check to make sure the upper hull plates will fit looks ok gives an idea of the colour (I think it said N5 on the swatch but I have lost it again). I did not want to waste time on the keel section if nothing else fitted. Looks like the black line was more hinderance than help just have to paint over it. The formers needed a little bit more scaling down for the wrap around of the card.



Thank you Paul for the encouragement
 
Great work Barry. She's really beginning to take shape now.

The hull plating to me is the trickiest part of the build, and you're doing a fine job. That bow bulb would give me fits!:mad:
 
wowwie wow wow, bazzer!:grin:

eibwarrier is right, she's taking on a very fine form! Did you find it difficult to fit the forward lower plates around the bulbous bow and then up the sides?
That's a very difficult fit, with some potential spots that might translate into a fit problem up along the water line joint with the upper plates; would it help any to break the bulbous plates from the hull plates (perhaps at the point the bulb meets the hull) to maybe make it a bit easier to line up the hull plates along the waterline joint? I suspect that might affect the nice flow you now have at that point where the bulb meets the hull, but just wondering how much.

You are making great strides, mate!

Really enjoying these updates!!

Cheers!
Jim
 
Keel finishing

Thanks lads it is not the easiest bow to do without support I need to invent or be told a way of using paper mache or similar as a filler I suppose balsa would be good but the model shops round here look at you as if you are mad if you ask for a scalpel, if it ain't plastic we do not sell it.

The real problem is the waisted look round the formers where it shrunk a bit from using pva to get the curves in, I can understand the use of plastic foam injection and I was sorely tempted. I don't know why I did not do it as I am not that much of a purist. I suppose I just wanted to try as is.

With hindsight I suppose a lot of half formers jammed in would work just as well maybe I will rebuild just the bow section to check. It would be very easy to cut a lot of sections using "knife" in metaseq and be more acceptable as card model. If I keep on designing modern warships I guess I will have to learn.

The pics are a bit on the generous side this time my filling is not so good and the paper is a bit thin. The fit of the upper hull is a bit close but then I did not allow that much overlap in the design.

So the comment is judge for yourselves





Two coats of acryllic so far on the bow.

regards
 
barry........... it turned out great. That is probably the worst thing on this ship to model...........

Heck with this done that ain't nothing left but the easy stuff................right?:twisted:

Well maybe not, but I know it's nothing you can't handle!

john
 
Wotcher, bazzer!

How about this...you know how you use paper strips along formers when putting on the skin on an airplane fuselage? How might that work to alleviate the affect of the pva along the former edges where you glue the hull skins? You could also glue the hull plates together with strips underneath the plates fitted along the former joints...then glue the assembled hull plate on each side. The strips under the joints might prevent the warp or sag along the joint from showing up on the outter skin.

Or, how about using a inner skin along the hull? Use some heavier stock to cover the hull formers and give you a shape that also covers between the formers, and then add the printed outter skin, which should be less reliant upon the pva along the formers, so you wouldn't get as much distortion along the formers? I know a lot of kits use this method on larger hulls, and the support the inner layer gives seems to reduce the warping on the outter skin along the former glue joints. Might be easier than using foam inserts between the formers.

It may be a matter of using a heavier underlayment to avoid the warping, maybe?

Just some thoughts....

Anyway, she is a beautiful hull, mate! I am loving this build thread!

Cheers!
Jim
 
A change of pace

I did not have a lot of time today so I was building large square blocks all of which need rebuilding for various reasons below the heli deck on the port side there is a large recess which appears to have the foam controls in it needs some more detailing on the hanger looks pretty plain as is (well it is actually). The obvious need is for doors and an interior got to get some practice in for that and a folded chopper inside.

The SH60 appears to be in the same scale as the ship requires a dunker to be designed to add a splash of yellow.





@Jim

You have raised some interesting points there mate it does have gluing strips on the formersbut I think they have helped create the ribby look in this case. You probably right I should ahve built it seperately from the hull but nothing ventured nothing gained.
 
Looking good sir! Sorry I haven't snooped in on this earlier, I guess i'm in aircraft mode and have cold shouldered the Nautical half. A look at a Master at work is satisfying that urge to return to the sea, but the Sirens are still calling! Good work sir, always instructive your builds are.
 
keel idiocy

No good I know Spruance hit a coral reef somewhere but I was not trying to model that so I ripped the after end of the plating off again. I replaced it using 200 gsm paper which gave a much better result to me anyway not too many gaps which will get filled as far as possible with pva mixed with acrylic and left at that. I will probably try an overlay at the bow and sonar section tomorrow using UHU instead of pva glue.



@CmdrTed

Thanks for the kind words.
 
Wotcher, bazzer!:)

That heavier stock seems to have worked nicely!
I'd say the gang in the drydock have worked their magic again, can scarcely tell she hit a reef!:wink:

My, but she has beautiful lines, even if all I see here is red.:grin:

Keep at it mate, she's beautiful!!

Cheers!
Jim
 
Hull sides

Well one side anyway the keel is not as good as I would like but then ..........Christoph I am not.

The hull side is glued only at top and bottom except for those surfaces which either flare or rool under. The bow is lined up with about 1/16" overhang hopefullt that and the sanding down of the stem will give a good close join having run glue over the formers with the bow flare and held in position I don' try to do the whole strip at once, next is to fit the hullsides to the deck forget the join at the keelleave the last couple of inches unglued. Offer up the next section and check for fit and join with a piece of scrap card.

Repeat until the aft hull is reached the printed part for the aft end is too long (deliberately) this way it's got to fit tack the aft portion in place on the hull break take a very sharp knife and score the joint line remove the piece trim it too size glue it properly and you should have a reasonable hull. Now you can glue the rest of the keel join using a cocktail stick to
apply the glue.

I coloured the edges with a soft black pencil just to take the white edge away it does not always show up on a flash pic but in real life it's fine.



Halfway there



The view most people see which is not bad. Shows the real lines now Jim.



You might as well see the warts as well.
 
Spruance superstructure

Looks really simple doesn't but that's wishful thinking building big rectangular blocks that all line suddenly feels like hard work luckily these are only test shots and need redoing. Unlike Norfolk there is nothing to turn your eyes away from the edges. I keep finding a few spots where the drawing is out of line with the blocks I shall definately chicken out on having white areas in the future just a black line I think. The other problem is that non of the sides will fit as a continuous strip on A4 so there are some strange joins in the structure Cmdr Ted would hate they are all on corners.



The ship did not balance where I originally intended to place the stand

That's the progress so far

Happy New Year

regards
 
Barry,

Although it's had it's "bumps" along the way, that's a very good start. I think the finished product so far has the cleanest lines possible. If I didn't know any better, you're starting to rival some mass-produced kits on quality. :-D

Keep up the good work, you're off to a very good start.
 
Bridge

Hi All

It's all just piled up with no glue at the moment I shall wait for the cold light of day to see what it really looks like. The bridge windows need an adjustment at the corners where the windows become vertical and meet the forward cant of the front windows.

I have come to the conclusion there is no such thing as a simple card model if you really want it to look right especially when you only have the length of 10.5 inches to play with. I was too careless with the white markings for the superstructure pieces so on this one they will need a couple of coats of touchup paint. New Years resolution think more clearly this year.

I think if it is possible a long strip to cover the joins could be a possibilty.





You can see the awkard window join here
 
more boxes

One thing about this class of ship it very soon takes on it's outline, both the funnel and the ventilator shaft need a tweak or two. Quite amazing for a couple of boxes really but I got the scale down factor for the lids wrong.

 
Bridge again

Did not like the bridge so I had another try at it, nearly but not quite, somewhere along the line of producing the parts I am losing a couple of millimetres damn nuisance really . Anyway it's another step forward rather than back. Stole one of Christophs techniques, the windows are glazed with selotape sticky side out works well. Usual heavy coating of PVA on the backof the parts the windows were cut from, lessens the stress factor and a brand new blade helps as well. Haven't been sober enough to try this before today.



ps HAPPY NEW YEAR

regards
 
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