Greetings to all,
The funny thing is I can't remember how I came across the subject of this build, all I know is that I was fascinated by it, fascinated enough to put aside the refurbishment of a Sterling Models Chriscraft Corvette and suspend further work on my Zwarte Zee. It occurrs to me that the subject might have come up in a thread here about tugs and towing - not sure about that though.
I spent several weeks Googling the subject and trying to get as much information as I could. I did find a image of the general layout of the subject which helped immensely and a number of other websites where the subject was featured. Fortunately most of these websites and even Wikipedia all agreed on the basic measurements of the subject. I decided early on that I would not attempt to contact the builders or the owners for more information as I wasn't really sure how to go about it and didn't really want to wait. Besides, not having the detail allows for a certain freedom in the detail and if I get something wrong no one will care! So this is definitely a "modelled on" rather than a "replica" or exact scale copy.
I then had to decide on the scale. Out came the spreadsheet and various scales from 1:200 up to 1:400 were considered. Eventually I came to the decision that 1:300 was about right - the resulting model will fit on the workbench, in the car and still not be too small. I might even be able to launch it! 1:300 yields a model of 1.527 metres - that out to give some clues as to the subject. Points may be awarded for correct guesses - but prizes may not be forthcoming :) However that also meant that while the model would also be reasonably wide - about 230mm's - it's height, particularly of the hull was still not great 100mm for 90+% of the length of the hull and that's not a huge amount to work in.
I then set about up-scaling the general layout. I quickly discovered that what looks nicely defined on a printout at A4 paper size - and that means both plan and elevation views) does NOT look sharp at all when scaled up and printed out on 12 A3 sheets. As an IT guy you would think I would have realised that would happen... Some of the lines came out several mm's thick. Ah well, as I knew what the scale dimensions are supposed to be I figured it's not so much a problem at this point.
What I did find - or rather didn't - were any hull lines available for the subject. This has proved to be an interesting problem as it seems to me that the majority of tankers and bulk carriers tend to have a very square cross section. That is not the case here and that meant that the hull lines that can be found for tankers and bulk carriers couldn't be used. Lets not talk about Delft Ship either :). I consoled myself by hunting out as many photos from the web as I could to give an idea as to what the lines of the hull were. Then I needed to think about how I would shape them. The result, along with some consideration of creating a solid and inflexible hull came from a thread I started a few months ago about frame spacing (
http://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=16977.msg169002#msg169002). So I settled on building rectangular tub framed externally - I guess what I mean is that the sides and bottom of the hull are the supporting structure, apart from some frames across the width. This would be attached to a traditionally constructed (plank on frame with a keel frames) for the bow and stern sections.
My greatest challenge so far and it will continue to be, is my lack of experience. My previous models are:
- A Moonglow, built with my father some 20 years ago,
- A Cachalot, now collapsed due to using inappropriate materials,
- A Dumas PT 109 from the 1233 kit,
- part of a Billings Zwarte Zee, that had been partially started that I rescued from our local version of E-bay ( called TradeMe).
And that's it. Diving into a scratch build complete with doing my own plans is a bit of a step. I think it'll float. Maybe for a bit. Hopefully it will be on an even keel too :)
I think that's enough for one post - it's quite long.
I realise I haven't named the subject either - I'm somewhat reluctant to, probably because I don't want to be called on detail later on! So I probably won't be naming the model after the subject either - I'm considering calling it the Freya... Any Freddie Forsyth readers here?
Photos of progress in the next post, hopefully in a few hours.. ( I need to go do dinner now :)