Topic: Stril Barents- a Multi role vessel (Read 69751 times)

Brian60 · « **Reply #225 on:** July 21, 2018, 11:56:56 am »

OK lets have a bit more, first up the two main drives, rated to 1.75 horsepower, so almost 4 horsepower should be more than enough to push her along! There is an old 540 in the photo to give a idea of package size and power available, they are roughly mounted to a piece of aluminium here so I could take all the measurements I needed so that I can make up proper support that will both hold the motors and provide bearing housings for the ends of the shafts. The large pulleys will be spinning at 3800rpm at full throttle and that is a lot of weight to be subject to centrifugal force.

Brian60 · « **Reply #226 on:** July 21, 2018, 11:58:58 am »

Next up,I have spent quite a few hours recently building these two booms, small one goes port side and larger to the starboard. I have also finished the stern boom by adding the decals to it. All scratchbuilt from plasticard, and brass tubing, the decals printed on to decal paper on the printer.

Brian60 · « **Reply #227 on:** July 21, 2018, 12:04:57 pm »

I have also spent a lot of time tidying up the wiring of which so far there is miles and miles of (ok slight exaggeration) Also another 3 distribution boards for the bridge module, one board has 20 resistors just for the outside fluorescent lights, before we get to mast lights towing lights internal bridge lighting etc.
Also I have now got the main structure of the bridge complete, a total nightmare of intersecting compound mitres, which showed up another problem, in the second photo, you can see the deck it sits on has for some reason sagged! even though it has plenty of support underneath, you can see a big gap between deck and bridge.

Brian60 · « **Reply #228 on:** July 21, 2018, 12:13:38 pm »

SO as this part was more or less sorted, I turned back to the internal fittings, studying the photos, I realised I had left out a desk that also contained a sink unit, there was a coffee machine as well, but I left that out

One thing that the camera does show up especially as I use its macro facilty to get these close up is the unevenness of the paint, fortunately that really isn't visible with the naked eye and once the roof is one, you'll have to look closely through the windows to even see these details. Haing said that there are the internal frames to add with the glass so the roughness around the frames will dissapear behind that.

The roof which I am working on at the moment is another nightmare, it has compound angles as you would expect, but each of those 'wings' have a curved area from aft to front hmmmm! Again another problem was painting, its in primer on the outside, and not shown here, has its finished paint as well. I am having to paint in sections, I can't paint the outside if the glass is added, and I can't paint the outside if the roof is on because I can't put the glass in, So its going together piecemeal.
Well thats it for now, maybe just maybe the next update and the roof will be on.

ballastanksian · « **Reply #229 on:** July 21, 2018, 12:33:07 pm »

She gets better and better Brian. I love the cranes and the effort you have put into the bridge interior is consistent with the rest of your challenging build

Tafelspitz · « **Reply #230 on:** July 23, 2018, 06:41:43 am »

I second that. Awesome work, those cranes are a piece of art!

steve mahoney · « **Reply #231 on:** July 24, 2018, 07:36:17 am »

Great work on the cranes. I think you're getting the hang of it.

nmbrook · « **Reply #232 on:** July 29, 2018, 11:57:50 am »

Great build Brian,rather you than me,that bridge is a geometrical nightmare

Regards

Nigel

Brian60 · « **Reply #233 on:** August 02, 2018, 12:41:33 pm »

A short update this time around. Just to show the state of play with the bridge. First photograph, hmmmm! A total of 39 resistors on stripboard here, for a total of 39 individual led's required in and around the bridge and up the mast as well as navigation lights. Why so many? Simple, if a led or its resistor or even individual wire fails, it takes out one led. Once you start daisychaining leds in groups of 2/3 or 4, if one fails you lose the full chain of 2/3/4 lights. As the majority of these are all the same and all come on together in groups, there really is no need for individual wire colours - hence so many grey or green wires, green for 20 external fluorescents, grey for mast etc etc.
Now on to the nicer photos....

Brian60 · « **Reply #234 on:** August 02, 2018, 12:44:32 pm »

Beginning to populate the bridge with its furniture, control desks added etc etc. The conning position chairs were made from seating from the cars I destroyed many many posts ago!
Stairwell is in place along with other stuff that I only realised was there when I re-studied the photos I have. So far the kitchen sink and tap, a bookcase with books a couple more printers and a office chair

Brian60 · « **Reply #235 on:** August 02, 2018, 12:48:39 pm »

The two rear conning chair have large arms attached that contain the dp controls and also small monitor screens - these I was not stupid enough to try and illuminate, I settled fro fabricating the arms and adding facsimile screens.
So to finish with, and just to put these things into perspective, the last couple of photo's also have a cocktail stick/toothpick in the photo to show a sense of scale! Oh yes, all of this will only be seen by the eagle eyed viewer who peers through the windows once finished

The bridge roof is ready to be added but I need to add some crew in here, I'll be on that this weekend and then the mammoth task of adding all the lights to the ends of those wires.

Tafelspitz · « **Reply #236 on:** August 02, 2018, 01:19:43 pm »

That's just awesome! The toothpick looks like a giant sequoia tree next to that tiny chair

ballastanksian · « **Reply #237 on:** August 02, 2018, 07:37:43 pm »

Your detailing of the bridge is well above and beyond the call of duty. I love the quirky little details that show it has been lived in such as the dining chair

That is a lot of bridge for a ship with lots of stuff going on outside but I suppose some jobs require lots of admin and meetings etc.

Cool

Brian60 · « **Reply #238 on:** August 03, 2018, 08:03:32 am »

Above and beyond Ian

If you look at the large black laser printer (photo 8231) its got a ream of paper at the bottom, and those desks now have a couple of sheets of paper scattered on them to give that 'lived in' look you mention

I did try to make transparent decals for the monitor screens that light up, but the decals being 8mm by 6mm in size was ok but the dials etc on the decals were only about .3mm in size, so I never bothered - a couple spots of marker pen will suffice.

ballastanksian · « **Reply #239 on:** August 03, 2018, 09:27:32 pm »

I agree with setting a limit for detailing, as like you say, not everything will be seen. I reckon the stationary will show up though!

Brian60 · « **Reply #240 on:** August 19, 2018, 02:34:59 pm »

Lets start with the searchlights. Once again these were cast using waterclear resin with an led embedded. Simply made a mould with plasticene, pushed a piece of dowel of suitable diameter into it, then taking the led splayed out the legs and pushed down into the hollow - the led legs slice into the plasticene and stick out each side. Mix up the resin and pour then leave for 12 hours, when cured bending the legs around make a good facsimile of the searchlight bracket.
These are now affixed to the bridge roof and I'll post a photo on the next update.

Brian60 · « **Reply #241 on:** August 19, 2018, 02:39:24 pm »

The crew are now having a look around their potential new home. In the past I've used Airfix 1:72 figures but they always looked out of proportion. This time around I got hold of some Revell U boat crew to the same scale 1:72, they are actually 4 mm taller and more 'robust' I guess the airfix ones are really closer to 1:85 to match the OO railways stuff.
With a little scalpel work to remove hats / helmets and other stuff, these Revell figures although WW2 look at this scale like modern ship crew. But they do take some painting at this size!

Brian60 · « **Reply #242 on:** August 19, 2018, 02:46:30 pm »

The main focus of attention for the last 2 weeks and forseeable time to come is the main mast assembly, its about 1/3rd built in these photos and some of it is a nightmare. I've had to make a concession to reality and pushed a drive rod up through them to drive the radar assembly's but as the whole array is matt black when finished it should fade into the background. The drive for the radars has been made with gears from my parts bin, although not trouble free, I had it all assembled only for them to stop turning. Being a nylon/delrin material they cannot be glued to the shafts, usually a press fit, but they were too loose on my shafts and didn't stay attached. I had to cross drill the shafts and then add a dowel pin into a groove I cut in the gears.

Gear ratios were calculated to give as close as I could get to 30 rpm for one array and 40 rpm for the upper array The motor is rated at 5rpm.

Brian60 · « **Reply #243 on:** August 19, 2018, 02:50:40 pm »

Obviously still at a very rough stage at the moment, but I am having to add wiring in as I go and on the aft side of the mast you can already see 4 of the floodlights already in situ. The radar array drive motor and all that wiring can also be seen underneath. For now I have to add more framework and wiring to the outside for the towing light array and the actual pole mast with its mooring light at the top. Maybe next time this unit will be complete and totally wired into the bridge roof - hmmmm.

Netleyned · « **Reply #244 on:** August 19, 2018, 03:08:47 pm »

Great work Brian fiddly but worth it.
Sackable offence, leaning on guardrails
coming up T'umber

Ned

Brian60 · « **Reply #245 on:** August 28, 2018, 09:03:40 am »

A fresh update and it is a continuation of where the last left off, the structure above the bridge. The pictures tell the story,just loads of detailing added, Railings I have had to superglue rather than soft solder my preferred method. Superglued because they had to be done in situ and the heat would have melted the plastic

Towing lights have been added and not as per the real ship as I couldn't run the wiring inside that 'ladder' part and then attach the leds to it, so I made a framework to hold them. I'm not happy with the result but its the best I could achieve.
The exhaust pipes have been added, using brass tubing cut and soldered to give the correct angles. The heads of the radar arrays have been added and two ladders, one on the external rear of the structure, this is a brass etch one I had lying around, and inside the structure up to the first platform a plastic one.

Brian60 · « **Reply #246 on:** August 28, 2018, 09:11:12 am »

The actual mast has been added again in brass tube with a single led at the top, along with several leds which will actually be painted over and not used as leds on the top wing, I don't actually know what these items are on the real ship but the leds are the same shape and look authentic. I have added 6 aerials, 3 on each side of the first wing, these were made with piano wire obtained from a model shop 50 miles from my home ( I spent £60 that morning!)

So after the myriad of details it was in to primer, as can be seen. I've used tan primer because the main housing part of this is a tan colour, the mast legs and upwards are all black so that will cover the tan primer easy. This is the second coat of primer, rubbed back after the first to remove imperfections and sanding marks along with any bits of filler that I missed. There will be another sand back with 1200 wet and dry before a final primer coat and then on to finish coats. So next update will show the finished item before it gets all the wiring attached to the main bridge and bonded to its roof.......

Brian60 · « **Reply #247 on:** August 28, 2018, 09:19:42 am »

A final note on the paint. I now use Vallejo acrylics for everything I paint. However when done I cover it all in Vallejo satin polyurethane varnish, I give that 48 hours to fully cure and then the only time I use it now, a couple coats of Humbrol enamel satin cote clear to double make sure it is all waterproof. The only time I use Hunbrol enamels nowadays. In the photos can be seen the Vallejo paint, for thinning they suggest using water or their own proprietry thinner solution. After seeing a couple of Youtube videos on the subject and needle clogging with airbrushes, I followed their idea with success. I thin the primer 25/75 with their acrylic airbrush flow improver, This is actually only used one or two drops at a time as suggested by Vallejo, but Youtubers along with myself have found that it actually aids flow, stops clogging and reduces paint when used in larger quantities. It works for me, I can only suggest if you use Vallejo to try it for yourselves.

Netleyned · « **Reply #248 on:** August 28, 2018, 03:32:36 pm »

Hi Brian,
That mast is a model on its own

Fantastic details as everywhere on
The SB

Ned

Brian60 · « **Reply #249 on:** August 28, 2018, 06:53:24 pm »

Thanks for the compliments Ned, it takes some doing to add the detail but the end result is worth it.

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Author Topic: Stril Barents- a Multi role vessel (Read 69751 times)