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[Bryan Young]

I suppose it’s stating the bleedin’ obvious that I had to build a jig to make the framework for the catwalk. It also horrified me how many lengths of various sizes of plasticard angle I needed. One bit of serendipity though….the deck camber over the length of the tank deck is more or less pretty consistent, so all the frames could be made the same and only a few needed a minor adjustment when it came to fitting them. These “adjustments” can be seen in the pic. Kind of draws the eye when looked at in isolation like this, but on the model the gaps aren’t noticeable …not much, anyway.
No double sided tape here. Superglues, Bostik, Epoxy and small pins were the order of the day(s) here. But when the main “trestles” were eventually assembled, lined up and fixed to the deck the cross bracing had to be done…and that’s when the pain came in. A very “worthwhile” job, but oh, how frustrating it all was. Painting it all was just as bad, even though I’d done a fair amount of that before the fitting of the trestles. Then, after the main structure was done and dusted there were even more angles to fit to support the timber planking and hand rails etc. This whole job was, while both necessary and worthwhile, I was mightily relieved when it was done. I seem to remember that it took me the best part of a fortnight to make it.
The long black thing on the catwalk is a length of hose.
The after end of the catwalk structure made for a different problem. How to get a very heavy hose to rise from catwalk level up to the next superstructure deck. The photo may explain most of the structure including the fitting of a sort of “monorail” with hose supports on trunnions to allow the hose to be hauled around. Much extra bracing required here. A real mental exercise that involved the cracking of many cans of the Laughing Cavalier.
And that’s the end of the front half of the model.

[Bryan Young]

Where to begin?
Start with a slightly fuzzy pic of the after end in profile. This is only to show that there are 4 decks that are 4 decks that were planked. Main, Boat, Bridge and Monkey Island. First job is to lay the cambered 1/16” ply underdeck …same method as used on the foredeck. Once that’s done the plan view of the main deck superstructure can be drawn and cut out. Again, so that the superstructure has a nice flat base to sit on. All “corners” including those for the door alcoves are rounded. The fore and aft bulkheads are easy enough as there isn’t any camber to think about. The most difficult part is the corners. I used ½” dia dowel, but had to mill 2 “flats” on each corner post to accept the bulkheads without leaving anything standing proud. The b’hd panels are all braced with ¼” sq ramin “judiciously” spaced (this includes the internal fore/aft length). If everything is square the individual b’d panels should be capable of free standing. Next came the marking out and drilling the scuttle apertures…following the sheer line. Now to make the athwartships bulkheads. Very carefully cutting the top edges to match the camber required at the relevant beam of the hull. Make a mistake here and the whole thing will finish up a bit skew-whiff. When all the sides have been epoxied  to the corner pieces we have a nice open topped box. Now to “plate” the structure. I used litho for this. The 1st layer is easy enough. Cut slightly oversize and lay on the ready taped bulkhead. Trim to fit. Mark off the approx. centre of each scuttle hole drill through the litho and cut/file to suit the hole. I found I got a cleaner hole this way rather than drilling through both the litho and ply inner. Then the second layer of litho. Second layer? Well, with a riveted b’d the plates are placed vertically with a single line of rivets visible down the vertical edges of the “outer” plates. Having a “full length” inner plate means that the outer plate sits flush without losing shape. The same principle as when plating the hull plug and foredeck. In fact, this whole exercise is easier to do than describe. The corner pieces being (to me) the most difficult. They are “outer” plated by the way…and litho is easy enough to bend to a curve. OK. Now the plating is done and the whole caboodle sits nice and square on the deck, it’s painting time. A couple of light sprays of matte white to give a key for the grey followed by a brush painted coat of satin grey. All that remains now is to push fit the port/scuttles whatever you want to call them. Only a very small (less than 1mm if you can manage it) bit of the rim left protruding. Handrails and anything else that needs to be fitted to the housing can be fitted now…things like wood or steel doors and so on. Job done. Epoxy the whole thing to the marked deck and be prepared for hours of deck planking.

[TugCowboy]

I am simply in awe of this model, can think of little else to say but its just....superb.

[Bryan Young]

I am simply in awe of this model, can think of little else to say but its just....superb.

Thanks a million for that. But it probably looks better in the photos than it does "in the flesh", as it were! It certainly needs a bit of cleaning and a few things putting to rights. Bryan.

[Bryan Young]

Unfortunately I can’t get my camera inbetween the main deck and the boat deck to give an idea of the fittings etc within that space. Sorry. Now if I had one of those gizmos doctors use to photograph peoples innards……; however, the exercise wasn’t totally fruitless as even the “unusable” results showed areas of damage that I hadn’t noticed before. But that’s for later.
So the best thing I can do is to move straight on to the boat deck. The planking principle is the same so no harm done there.
As has been my usual practise I’ve used Obeche for the planking. At 1:48 scale I reckoned that planks 5” long and 3/16” wide would look OK. So after selecting some Obeche sheet (comes in sheets about 4” x 30”) with as little visible grain as possible, I was ready to start the cutting business. I’ve explained my methods of cutting and laying a few times in the past (See “Norseman”, “Baroda” and “General Havelock” at 1:48 scale or the ferry “Northumbrian” at 1:24th scale). The only thing I should remind you of here is the use of “Margin Planks”. These are wider than the normal plank. I appreciate that all my deck planks etc. are a bit overwide for the scale, but to be honest I don’t think that detracts very much from the overall result. The margin planks surround every fixture that is permanently attached to the ships structure, plus the outboard plank of the deck where it forms the edge of the water “gutter”. This includes all ventilators, winches and sundry other stuff, but not items that are screwed or bolted down, lockers etc.).
I’ll post a general view of the boat deck now (to save you from reading fatigue) and do the layout and fitting next time.

[Bryan Young]

Oops. Made a bit of a blunder here! I forgot to mention that when I had the main deck laid (the one with the camber), I copied its shape on to another sheet of 1/16” ply. With that shape cut out and clipped over the main deck I was able to drill through both decks and into the main (flat) underdeck which gave me the locations for the side pillars (tall stanchions, if you wish). Then I could put the “raw” boat deck sheet to one side and continue fitting out the main deck. The main item on the poop were the mooring capstans. Just standard steam driven things as found on many ships of the era. Mark and drill the fixing holes for the many small cowl vents and sundry other fittings. Then it was time to make the bulwarks. Same method as used for the short lengths at the ford end of the tank deck, but with cutouts for the gangway stowages, freeing ports and mooring leads. The raised surrounds for the freeing ports are simple lengths of wire shaped to fit and epoxied around the hole, with the epoxy still “wet” the join was cleaned up to disguise the roundness of the wire. Similarly with the fairleads….except their surrounds are suitably sized rubber “O” rings. The sheer length of  the bulwark meant it had to be made and fitted in sections..the areas of the joints being with a hidden (inside the bulwark) piece of 1/64” ply). That more or less finished off the main deck. A multitude of coats of matte clear lacquer sealed the planking, and gave it a bit of “colour”.
For a bit of relief from all the “grey” work, I felt in the mood to tackle the gangways next. Before you eyeball the following photo, please remember that the distance between the decks is set at 8ft which is 2” in model size, and the bulwarks are 7/8ths” high, the ports are ¼” dia. So the photo is just a little (!) larger than “life”, therefore try to pay no attention to the flaws you spot.

[Bryan Young]

Gangways. Structure of. These gangways (for my convenience) are made with fixed treads. Some ships I’ve been in had gangways with the sort of treads that stay horizontal no matter the angle of the gangway. And they are a real pain to make at model size. Similarly, most gangways have gratings as end platforms. But I have seen them with solid platforms. I made gratings for the “Norseman”….never again! The “Y” shaped thing on the underside of the bottom platform drops down when the gangway is swung out and basically holds the gangway a little bit away from the ships side. There are many fiddly bits of details that could be added to the gangway…would make a model all by itself really….but lifes too short to do it on a working model. My opinion, anyway.
I used 1/16” thick teak (I think) for the side pieces. Made up a jig and cut the slots for the treads with a thin bladed tenon saw so the 1/32” treads would just slot into place. In real life the fixed tread sort of gangway can be a menace to life and limb. They are OK whenfitted to a ship that doesn’t change its draught very much but as the gangway has to reach a boat boarding level they can be very long, so at shallow inclinations the user can be walking on the tread edges. Bad enough when sober, but the return journey ….well, imagine for yourself. Which is why (in the RFA) when this occurs the unsteady returnee is put in a helicopter rescue strop….just in case. It doesn’t help matters that the hand lines get lower and lower the higher the gangway is hoisted!
       A mention about the tall pillars that run around between the decks. Years ago I found a plastic coated wire that comes in 2 sizes. The internal “wire” seems to be piano wire as it’s devilishly hard to cut without a proper wire cutter. The beauty of this stuff is that a short length of the plastic coating can be trimmed off, so forming a “land”. Fitted and superglued into a close fitting hole at both ends the pillars are almost indestructible.

[Bryan Young]

The boat deck:-
Lots to see, make and explain about this part of the ship.
The first thing to do is to actually fit the deck. No underdeck this time, just a single sheet of 1/16” ply. It sits quite neatly on the cambered tops of the superstructures on the main deck, and when the side pillars are inserted and the deck edges weighed down the stern end of the deck seems to find it’s own flattening of the deck camber.
Off with the lot and give the underside of the deck a coat of matte white and 2 coats of satin white. Sometimes a couple of the older RFAs I was in had the deckheads painted a very pale shade of green…a bit bilious on a model, but apart from protecting the ply, it does reflect light a little. Time to fix the deck in place. This time using slow setting epoxy as I’ll need some time to get the deck lined up and weighed down in place.
When all is set, firm and square I’m again confronted with a nice blank sheet of ply…albeit with a slight camber curve to it. Time to start marking off again. Apart from the main superstructure, the main areas not to plank are the lifeboat areas and the part of the deck that will hold the stern hose “chute/ramp”.
This time the deck planking will be done first. I find it easier that way as this decks superstructure is both more complicated and more difficult to line up square than that underneath.
But I always forget something. Now I have to cut out the template for the bridge/wheelhouse structure as the long pillars run up through the boatdeck to the wheelhouse deck. Same procedure as before, but when done the holes in the boatdeck have to be enlarged to the full dia of the pillars, not just the dia of the central wire.
As you can see from the previous full length general photo the actual superstructure is basically a “3Box” affair. So planking the deck is fairly straightforward although the number of “cut-outs” makes things a little “fiddly” and time consuming.
The next photo shows a lot of “stuff” that I’ll probably come to later, but is mainly concerned with the structure and plating etc. of the accommodation block. Although the front b’hd is curved it follows the same pattern of plating, and together with the after b’d had to have both the top and bottom edges carefully cut to fit the camber of the deck it’s sitting on and to allow the wheelhouse to sit square on the next(cambered) deck.
Notes on this photo follow next.

[Bryan Young]

Notes on the previous photo:-
The curved corners look much better than square ones…but again, not all ships had curved corners.
Doors. Teak veneer stuck to a bit of plasticard cut oversize to allow the doors to be fitted from the inside and to give a landing.
Door frames around all doors.
Hinges on all outer doors are at the for’d edge of the door…hence the door handles at the aft edge.
Outer door frames overhung with a water shield.
All plated outer bulkheads throughout the ship should have a “doubling plate”
Their bottom edge
Bulkhead plating projects upwards to just over the deck edge.
All outer doors to be fitted with a slightly projecting “step”.
All outer bulkheads fitted with a handrail….curved to fit the camber on athwartships b’hds.

[Bryan Young]

Boat Deck...stbd side.

Boxes 2 and 3 were built as one…but with a solid b’d between the two, to make construction simpler.
I’ll start with the photo taken from the stbd side/
There’s a lot of stuff on this part of the model. As you can see from the pipes and things sticking out of the funnel top, they were Motor Ships. B&W German engines powering British ships built after the start of WW2 (!). The short length of wire sticking up near the front of the funnel top is the R/C aerial.
I absolutely hate to see otherwise well made models going around with a wonky bit of wire dangling from somewhere or other …why don’t people hide the ruddy thing. As long as it’s insulated, the aerial can be part of the rigging or simply draped (fastened) around the inside of the hull. No need at all to make it unsightly.
The aerial on the Gold follows what I did for other models where the deck lifts off in one piece…..the bit of the aerial that’s visible sticking out of the funnel is fastened to an electrical “chocolate” connector with a strip of “springy” brass also connected and led to somehere close to the receiver. There it impinges on a brass tube (laid athwartships) which is in turn connected to the R/C receiver. Voila! Instant connect/disconnect with no plugs to clart around with. Having said all that….I now run my aerials around the inside of the hull just above the waterline and never seem to have loss of range…not as if you should anyway as most boaters don’t sail away as far as an R/C aircraft does.
Anyway, back to the ship.
The front part of the boxes is the main “fiddley-top” above the main engines. The second box is the bit that the funnel sits on…and the 3rd is the Galley. Galleys always seem to have bars over the windows…I wonder why.
I’ll post this, then have a look at the Port side.

[Bryan Young]

The first noticeable difference between the P&S sides is the effect the offset funnel has…particularly with the positioning of the “tower” gun sponsons. The stbd one is mounted on the funnel deck…but the port one has to be taller and fitted on the boat deck.
The ventilators on the top of the E/Rm skylight are unusual nowadays, but were common during WW2. The construction of them allowed the area to be “darkened” but could still provide a degree of ventilation, probably to get rid of hot air rather rather than letting cold air in. Just as well that heat seeking cameras hadn’t yet been invented!
That’s really about it as far as the actual boat deck structures are concerned.
Perhaps a quick run-down of some of the fittings on the structure may be handy now. …but pic first.

[Bryan Young]

Starting at the for’d end of the fiddley deck.
There are 2 forced draught air blowers…not air-con, just air blown in from the outside and exiting into cabins through “Punka-Louvres” (Eyeball type things). I suppose some sort of steam heating must be incorporated somehere down the line.
The units are pretty basic things made from bits of a broomshank (Mrs Y didn’t really mind me lopping a foot or so off her newish broom as she isn’t all that tall anyway). Shank turned to two diameters…the electric motor part (the inboard bits) had various plasticard flanges and fins glued on to make the thing look a bit more realistic. The main impeller (the broad section) was coated with plasticard and the side panels simply cut to a “trunking” shape and the top simply welded on and wrapped around the visible part of the ex-broomshank (bostik this time. The side box (dunno what that does, but it has an inspection panel and so on attached just to make it look a little less bland.
The main skylight is almost entirely of plasicard construction with the closing clamps of brass and the top mounted vents  also of plasticard.
The main cowl vents are scratch-built using wooden “plugs” and formed in my home made and so very simple vac-forming machine as described in another post about a different model. Simply an air-tight box with a lid that can be closed over a sheet of plasticard and put under the kitchen grill. When the plasticard gets very soft and almost runny, the nozzle of the household “Hoover” is inserted into a hole in the side of the box, switched on and the soggy plasticard is drawn down over the 2 halves of the plug. Sounds simple, but some experimentation was needed before the results were deemed “satisfactory”. The smaller cowl vents are modified commercial plastic items. I have made them myself before, but it takes ages (see “Norseman”).
The funnel is also plasticard made around a former in the same manner as a model balsa aircraft fuselage …..but I’ve just noticed that I seem to have forgotten to fit a whistle(!). Ooops. The pipes sticking out of the funnel top are brass tubing.
The Lewis gun tubs started life as caps on the larger size of aerosol (de-icer sort of thing) but with various additions as can be seen. These additions had to be superglued in place as plasweld won’t even look at the stuff the aerosol caps are made of. The rest of the supporting structure is again from plastic angle etc.

[Bryan Young]

I was going to continue with the boats and davits etc….but came across these 2.
The first one showed me that I’ve lost a gun…that I hadn’t spotted earlier. Rats.
The 2nd is a more general view showing the deck clutter and made me wonder if the boat-fall reel at the after end of the dinghy has come adrift…I’m pretty sure it should be more in line with the deck planks. Ah well, another thing to put right.
Almost hidden behind the awning spars at the bottom right of the pic is a pipe termination c/w valve. Could be used as both an inlet or outlet, but it connects to that riser pipe at the stbd back end of the main deck.
I’m sure that you’ll realise that the pair of long black things sitting on rollers represent the fueling hose that will be payed out over the stern. In retrospect I should have made the hose that’s visible on the foredeck a lot longer, as the way I’ve presented it the hose wouldn’t go very far astern of the ship….and doing a stern RAS with the receiving ship only 20ft away is a bit of a no-no. Still, it’s done now, and I’m not inclined to start changing things.
So next time will be the boats and davits….if that’s OK with you.

[BarryM]

Bryan,

Were the hoses individually long enough for a RAS or were they coupled  and, if so, what sort of coupling was used?

Cheers,

Barry M

[Bryan Young]

Trust a clankie to ask such a thing.
You must realise that all this was made and operated when I was between zero and 5 years old. In those days the hoses themselves weren't buoyant...even when full of oil. And they were more rigid than the modern ones. I have no idea of their construction. The buoyant hoses didn't appear until some time after the "Altmark" was captured (or such is my belief). The Germans were ahead of the Allies in this respect.
The connections would be recognizable to anyone nowadays who has to deal with such things. A male screw into the female end of the next length...so they weren't the same at both ends.
This connection is still used when the "other ship" isn't fitted with any of the more modern connections....including the "probe" rig.
The other most common one in use is the NATO standard coupling which is basically a variation on the original.
Hose length would seem to have remained pretty well constant at 30ft....although smaller (dia) hoses can easily be 60ft. (I'm talking about the "full size" 6" hoses as compared to the 3" hoses used for Lub Oill and so forth. Thats why the RFAs I was used to had rigs with hoses fitted for simultaneous transfer of FFO, Deiso, Avcat, Water and Lub Oil. All on one rig......but not the same contents in each hose. Bryan.

[BarryM]

Bryan,

Just checking "the little grey cells" were still functioning. Carry on 

Barry M

[Bryan Young]

Boats and Davits.
As you’ll be able to tell (I hope) from the photos, the davits fitted to this ship are more or less a bit like the quadrantal davits as used on “Norseman”….the main difference being that there’s no “quadrant”…instead, the heel of the davit is on a simple hinge and the screw just pushes the davit outboard. The basic principle is the same in both cases, but this version would seem to be just as effective and much simpler (cheaper) to manufacture. That must have appealed to the shipowners! They were also much easier to make in model form…no quadrants to form. The rest of the davit is the same. A pretty straight forward casting or fabrication with a taper from the fat end (bottom) to the top thinner end, where it has an abrupt 90* inward bend. I cast these things in dental plastic.
Not having the quadrant to worry about, only one master had to be made. So the master could be a straight forward wooden “flat” thing with the curved top bend grafted on and the whole thing smoothed up and had a silicon mould made of it.
I recall that this process was more expensive than I would have liked….but according to James Lane (he of the stanchion manufacture), moulding “stuff” is one heck of a lot cheaper now than it was in days of yore. You lucky people.
The “base units” are again just fabricated from various plasticard sections, “right” and “left” handed depending on which end of the boat they’d be operating at.
Just a couple of thing to note about davit fittings. These davits are really quite simple affairs, especially if compared to the more modern Schat things with their rather complicated system of rigging. These davits are only a couple of steps up the evolutionary scale from the old Radial davits. Even so, there are 2 aspects which tend to be either omitted or done wrongly on many models. The “omission” part is the wire span between the heads of the pair of davits. My omission here was not to include the knotted boarding lines that hang from the span into the boats. Gosh, I seem to have missed out a lot! The “wrong” bit lies in the rigging of the lifeboat falls. The first thing that is a common fault is using double sheave blocks when triple sheave is correct (for lifeboats, anyway). If triples are fitted then I can almost guarantee that they will be reeved incorrectly. I’ve banged on about this in the past, but it will bear repeating. A triple sheave set-up always has the hauling part of the fall coming out of the top centre sheave. Always. Otherwise the block will “topple” with disastrous consequences. And the only way to rig these falls is to have the blocks at right angles to each other.

[Bryan Young]

A slight diversion to stave off incipient boredom:-
The Wheelhouse.
Otherwise known as “The Bridge” or “The Ivory Tower”.
The photo that should accompany this post somewhere or another is more or less typical of  a “Bridge” aboard a 1940s/50s cargo-liner. This one happens to be a “Blue Flue”, but could equally well be on a P&O, Ben Line, British India, Clan Line or anyone elses ships operating then.
But there are a few things to notice here……..
1.   The unpanelled deckhead. Not unusual as generally the deck over was wood sheathed.
2.   Many modern ships have sealed bridge windows, but before the advent of air-con getting some air into the wheelhouse was a “must have”. Early methods of opening these windows involved the use of a leather strap much as the railway carriages of the time used. The windows shown are probably about ¾” thick and so very heavy. They are held at the desired level by the polished brass clamps as shown in the pic. Also shown is one (of 2) “Kent Clear View” units. Just a simple spinning disc set into a window.
3.   The rudder indicator at the upper left and the Engine rev. counter at the upper right. The Engine Telegraph(s) are there but out of sight.
4.   You may well notice the absence of the traditional magnetic compass and it’s wooden binnacle. I can’t imagine why the practice of having 2 pretty expensive things fitted so close together was so common. The “Standard” compass would almost universally be mounted on the “Monkey Island”, directly above a similar unit within the wheelhouse. Shipowners were (and are) notoriously parsimonious, so why they were conned into having 2 of these things when one would do beats me. However, this particular owner has done the sensible thing and fitted a periscope compass. All this really means is that via an “upside-down” periscope projecting into a space visible to the helmsman the “standard” compass could also be used as a steering compass. Still fitted, even in these days of so-called infallible electronics.
5.   Then we must have a look at the sheer awkwardness of the steering gear. Personally I never saw a layout quite as poorly designed as this one…but it does show the various components. From the wheel (adorned with a mechanical rudder indicator) the brass rod passes through a casting whose sole job is to support a gyro compass repeater. The actual gyro compass could be anywhere within the ship. Early ones were pretty big things and often had a cabin to themselves….which is more than most of the crew had. But until the advent of the titchy little things we now have that can be placed just about anywhere (a small cupboard under the chart table comes to mind) such was the case.
           A slight sidebar to the above. The arrival of the gyro-compass gave, apart from steering and positioning accuracy, another boon to the navigator. The arrival of the Bridge Wing repeater compass. This was the long awaited end of the hated but indispensable “Pelorus”.
Using a pelorus……well, for a start, a Pelorus is not a compass, although at first glance it looks like one. But when mounted on a wing pedestal before taking a bearing the “heading point” has to be aligned pretty carefully to the ship fore and aft line. So that’s “fixed”. When taking a bearing of anything the helmsman would have to be ready to sing out his exact compass heading when the bearing taker yelled “mark”. The bearing taker would then know how much to add or subtract from his bearing to give him a compass bearing. And remember that these bearings were not in “degrees”, but in all likelihood in “quarter points”. Pretty long winded. Now, the bearing taker just nips outside, lines up the azimuth mirror and reads the bearing in degrees of the gyro compass card. Seemples.

[Bryan Young]

But back to the boats:-Back to the lifeboats.
During WW2 it was not uncommon for ships to be sent “in harms way” while still equipped with wooden boats. This included tankers and warships. Personally I consider this to be verging on the criminal. Another strange decision was for some owners to opt for aluminium boats. The more enlightened owners fitted steel boats. Admittedly, not perfect but at least steel boats wouldn’t burn or melt.
I came across a similar exercise in futility when I was a 2nd Officer aboard RFA “Tidereach”. She had aluminium lifeboats…but it was only during an early 1970s refit that the surveyor discovered that the aluminium plates were fastened with steel rivets. So the boats were really just held together by the years of paint that had been slathered on them. A great morale booster that was! Still, we got a new outfit of boats before we set off to do a long stint on the Beira Patrol.
There are a multitude of rules applying to Lifeboats. Then and now, but I’ll stick with the open “old fashioned” sort. One of the major rules covered the minimum equipment that must be carried in a lifeboat. So much “stuff” that I’m surprised there was any room left for “survivors”. Much of the gear was stowed in various lockers, but a lot was left in the open…albeit lashed to somewhere within the boat.
On a model at 1:48 scale and larger, if the boat(s) are to be shown open without covers then at least some of the gear should be shown. A personal choice, but I believe that boats without covers lend a lot more interest to the model as a whole…even though it’s a pretty time consuming exercise.
If anyone is interested I can post a list of what the old Min of Transport decreed the minimum of gear required.
However. Gold Ranger had steel boats. The hulls I made in the same way as the Petrol bowser. The rubbing strips and gunwhale cappings are simple strips of plasticard, grab-line handles are just beads from a “craft” shop.

[pugwash]

Bryan I'm really enjoying this thread - it is as much about ships of the period and their equipment as it is about
the building of Gold Ranger.

Geoff

[Bryan Young]

The final part about the Boat Deck.
Awning spars. Rather odd things to fit during the war, don’t you think? Not as if a grubby little RFA would have much time to host a cocktail party…especially in Murmansk or places cold and icy.
But fitted they were. The uprights are made from the previously mentioned plastic coated wire. Both ends stripped of a short length of the plastic coating and inserted into holes drilled into both the deck and the spars.Superglued in place.
The spars themselves are 1/16” thick spruce and 1/8” deep. I find spruce takes a paint finish better than obeche.
The funny looking “bottle” things in racks are smoke floats.
The little machine out on the port quarter is a Deep Sea Sounding Machine. As found on all ships of the era….but also on some ships well into the 1970s.
Finally, I come to the stern hose chute. It’s use can be easily seen from its construction. A pity about the near miss bomb attack, but that’s moderately easy to repair….I think. In fact, that’s the main bit of damage on the model.
Next time around I’ll move on the the bridge area, and that’ll be it.

[BarryM]

Hello Bryan,

A wee question for you because I know you like me asking them.    Why put a sounding machine right over the rudders and props where there is the possibility of the sounding line getting caught up or cropped?

Just asking.

Barry M

[Bryan Young]

Ask away my Caledonian Clankie. Anything to prove to you that getting your head (and career) out of the dingy bowels will be good for your soul. As the sounding wire has a pretty heavy weight on the end of it, and assuming some clown doesn't put the engines into full astern then the weight will plummet downwards. I hasten to add that the ship will generally be "steaming" ahead during the sounding process. And it's no good you quoting hypoteneuse over vertical distance either....there's a little tube attached to the wire with an internal coating that cahnges colour with water pressure, correlate the pressure with discolouration and the depth is easily ascertained even by the most junior of the Ivory Tower incumbents. Satisfied now?

[Bryan Young]

Gold Ranger…the final chapter.
I’ll start off with a general photo of the Bridge front. Forget the “grey” bits.
The bridge and wheelhouse front are all separate planks from the same strips of thin teak..not quite veneer, but close to it. The foundation is again formed from 1/32” ply.  The differences in colour gradation I ensure by simply cutting as many “planks” as I think I’ll need (over long, but will be trimmed), put them all in a heap and give the heap a shuffle. Then while fitting and gluing I simply use the bit that comes to hand first. Totally random. I do the same with the deck planking, by the way. The capping is obeche (again). All lacquered before being fitted into place….I don’t think there’s any need to go into the actual structure of the superstructure again. Same procedure as all the rest of it.
The “Gun”….A commercial item. I haven’t a clue whether or not it’s accurate in any respect. But it seems to look OK….except that it seems to be designed and fitted to blow the top off the funnel. On the 1st photo I posted on this subject I hadn’t seen the height of the sponson above the deck….I only went by the builders plan. I’m not going to change it now. If the then Ministry of War could originally have it designed that way, who am I to argue.

[Bryan Young]

Oh dear....not my fault 'guv. The electronic machine has a mind of its own now and again. That 1st pic was supposed to appear later. Sorry.

[BarryM]

Ask away my Caledonian Clankie. Anything to prove to you that getting your head (and career) out of the dingy bowels will be good for your soul. As the sounding wire has a pretty heavy weight on the end of it, and assuming some clown doesn't put the engines into full astern then the weight will plummet downwards. I hasten to add that the ship will generally be "steaming" ahead during the sounding process. And it's no good you quoting hypoteneuse over vertical distance either....there's a little tube attached to the wire with an internal coating that cahnges colour with water pressure, correlate the pressure with discolouration and the depth is easily ascertained even by the most junior of the Ivory Tower incumbents. Satisfied now?

O Great Sky-Gazer and Knower of All Things,
What does the internal coating on the little tube consist of and why does it change colour?   

Barry M

[Colin Bishop]

A very enjoyable thread Bryan. Apart from the purely modelling aspects I am finding the insight into the construction and use of the various fittings very interesting. I think many of us model various details with little understanding of their significance and your postings are very educational!

Colin

[Bryan Young]

Internal coatings Barry? Well, it's a sort of rusty red stuff....a bit like the colour of the stuff you'll leak when I catch up with you.
I'm neither a chemist nor a fast moving skirt wearing hill runner....nor an inginere come to that. have another wee dram....Bryan.

[BarryM]

Sorry Bryan - I should have asked an Engineer   

Cheers,

Barry M

[pugwash]

Bryan I assume the winch for the depth sounder is similar to the winches which used to be on the quarterdecks of most warships
and in their case was used for lowering the bathythermograph over the stern and into the depths. But ours contained a small glass slide
which changed colour and indicated the temperatur layers in the sea and was  for the purpose of helping in submarine detection

Geoff

[Bryan Young]

Geoff (and the irritating "wee-free").
The machine you used is a deep sea sounding machine. In fact we used the one fitted on RFA "Pearleaf" for the same reasons you did....dunking a bathythermograph.
Although the advent of echo-sounding made these things largely redundant, they had one advantage over the echo-sounder...they could get a sample of the sea bed. In standard form the sample was a very small one, being collected by being "stuck" on a wodge of tallow pressed into a hollow formed in the base of the sinker. I can't recall the actual weight of the sinker, but it must have been in the region of 20lb or so.
When I was with Cable & Wireless we used various systems. First there was the "Hand  Lead Line"...which is as its name implies. A lighter, shorter line for use in shallow waters (Read "Mark Twain"). Then there was the one we've just been talking about...went down to about 100fm. Very useful for judging when a ship  is crossing the edge of a continental shelf in the days before more modern aids to navigation were invented. Then we had the use of the bespoke Steam Sounding Machine. This, using a cannon ball (56lb) could go down to 3,000fms. Then came the standard echo-sounder...and lastly a variation on the latter which used a "Mufax" machine as a receiver. The Mufax was really intended to get faxed weather maps, but worked very well when a more detailed scan of the sea bed was needed. Now to expound on the machine we started off with....

[Bryan Young]

A rider to my previous post….for those unaware of it, all “Continental Shelves” in the world are delineated at the 100fm line.
Anyway, to continue:-
Patent sounding machines are based on the fact that the pressure of the water on an immersed object increases with the depth to which it is immersed.
Boyle and Marriotte’s Law is made use of in some of them, as follows:-
“The volume of any given mass of air or other gas, decreases in the same proportion as the pressure upon it increases”.
A glass tube, the bottom end being “open”, protected within a brass case is lowered to the sea bed…or any chosen depth. The inside of the tube is coated with Chromate Of Silver. The salt water discolours the Chromate, turning it into Chloride Of Silver, thus showing how far up the tube the water has reached. This distance measured against a scale shows the depth to which the tube has descended.
The machines in general are used at the manufacturers recommended max ships speed of 10 knots. Or any speed below that.
Happy now Barry?

[Bryan Young]

After the previous welter of “educational” stuff, I feel I should re-post the pic of the bridge and monkey island that I inadvertently posted yesterday.
Bridge doors…in my experience all the outside doors to the wheelhouse were of the sliding variety..so when modelling the wood “runners” should be shown.
Wind dodgers. Most modern ships have wind dodgers built in to the bridge wings…usually just a simple outwardly curved plate with a gap between it and the bridge wing front. Some are effective, some aren’t. But older ships had to make do with a bit of plank as shown. These were often more effective than the modern arrangement…but with the disadvantage that only one person could get the benefit at a time….and guess who that would be.
The “standard” compass. Generally sitting on a grating or within a shaped grating so it does fasten to the deck. I find making a compass like this reasonably easy….but as with all things fitted to a ship, it helps to have first hand knowledge of the things. Abaft the mast is the RDF aerial. A turned ally pillar with the top part filed or milled square to act as a mounting point for the 2 brass hoops and the central (brass) rod.The large locker arrangement could be either a flag locker or to contain some radio aerial connections. I really should have incorporated both…but I forgot (again).
Then the “odd ball” thingy between the mast and the compass.
It’s obviously some sort of mechanical semaphore device. HMS “Nelson” ( as built by Brian Chambers) has a very much larger version somewhere down aft. I believe that the big ones were to indicate course changes or something. For some obscure reason a course change in Naval parlance is called a “Corpen”, this word being followed by another such as “November” to indicate what sort of ship formation is required. I’ll need the advice of “Pugwash” on this one.
But back to the smaller version on the Ranger.
The principle is simple and easily seen on the model. I’m not sure if the unit was fixed or rotatable…I’d assume rotatable as a fixed one would be limited to sending messages only to ships on the beam. But of course, the thing could only be used in daylight. At night the ships would have to revert to using a red shielded Aldis lamp. A couple of things come to mind here. If the idea of using the semaphore machine was to prevent the enemy spotting the ship, it was a wasted exercise if it couldn’t be used at night. So you may as well just use the Aldis lamp during the day as well as at night. All very odd.

[Bryan Young]

At what appears to me to be many moons ago, I mentioned that the hole left vacant when the for’d cargo hatch was removed was my front-end lifting handle. I forgot (until now) to show you the handle for the after end.
This is a photo of it……..

[Bryan Young]

This is another one showing the handle ready for use.
Rather simple but well hidden brass tubing made telescopic with a couple of slots in the larger tube and a couple of holes through the smaller one with a pin going through the holes but able to slide up and down the slots. Both ends very firmly anchored.

And that is the end of the "Gold Ranger" saga. Thanks for reading. Bryan Young.