Topic: HMS Broke (1914) Flotilla Leader - scratch build 1/96 scale (Read 14191 times)

ballastanksian · « **Reply #25 on:** May 03, 2020, 09:12:03 pm »

That's exactly the one! Spot on

So interesting what with the driers and all. An American couple building their own sailing boat on YouTube mentioned adding driers to the soup they paint on timbers. I didn't think they still made the stuff, but obviously any linseed oil based unction will need driers.

JohnG · « **Reply #26 on:** May 04, 2020, 10:39:44 am »

so continuing the paint colour discussion. in summary/TLDR: - i'm thinking of using vallejo premium grey for the main hull colour. hull https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/producto/hobby/premium-airbrush-color-hobby/grey-62019/

here's how i got there:

HMS Caroline's paint colours seem a good place to start. the 1914 grey is a close match - particularly the '1914' mockup on this page https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2015/may/29/150528-hms-caroline

https://www.nmrn.org.uk/news-events/nmrn-blog/revealed-true-colours-world-war-one-how-discovery-board-hms-caroline-helping

it's also pretty close to the 'grey' at the top if this aforementioned thread http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=154630

and in the same thread the extract from "British Warships 1914-1919" by FJ Dittmar & JJ Colledge Ian Allan Ltd 1972, Page 13 mentions falknor being painted 'grey' on 8/9/14 . she was a sister ship of broke launched in feb 1914 as almiralte simpson from samuel white's yard - broke was launched by the same yard in May 1914 - so it seems a reasonable assumption that she'd have received the same initial colour.

i've not found any info on later repaint colours. there would certainly have been some repainting after jutland ! https://www.flickr.com/photos/twm_news/27317142542
and again after the dover strait action in april 17.

in 1918 she was still a single colour - clearly a grey - can't tell how dark! - https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/broke-off-to-france-with-the-king-prince-of-wales-and-news-photo/591947784

when i view the caroline, shipmodels thread and vallejo greys alongside each other on screen they look pretty close (acknowledging that they come to the screen from different sources, so this is bound to be approximate - but it's the best i've found). Also the vallejo paint available in bigger size/better value than many.. so i'm planning to order some and see how it looks..

that still leaves the question of what colour below the waterline. there seems to be v little info online. in the 'repair after jutland' pic (and indeed in the the 'during launch' pics of sister ships) there's no distinguishable change in shade from the waterline downwards. Presumably black? Yet a number of models i've seen have a black band then red below. ideas anyone?

ballastanksian · « **Reply #27 on:** May 04, 2020, 11:18:35 pm »

A standard paint job on Royal navy ships (and that of many other nations as well) was the grey and/or dazzle scheme below which was the black 'Boot Topping' and then below that was red anti fouling paint. May modellers paint the entire hull bottom black as the red can show through the water unrealistically, but that is a personal thing and up to the modeller. Before a certain date, warships had a green anti fouling paint, but Broke would almost certainly be grey-black-red.

You can tell the range of grey she was painted with in that Getty image as the Sailors are wearing their dark blue uniforms and the boot topping, being black is as dark, so a lighter mid grey would be right. As to exact tone (warm grey or cold grey) have a look at model paint manufacturers and get the feel of their shades.

Some modellers agonise over the exact shade of Olive Drab, or sand, or indeed grey, but it is fair to say that every batch of dye, paint or stain was slightly different. Even today, modellers will buy a box of tinlets rather than buying one tin at a time, as you will run out of one and then find the second one you bought was slightly different. Then there is wear and tear and fading and the effects of nature 'moving in' on areas of hull often exposed to the water.

For HMS Ready, I sprayed my hull with a Halfords Art paint, which is a dark grey. It is grey slate perhaps, so not too brown or blue, nor even green. As she was an experiment and representative of the class, I painted her hull darker than she might have been, but painted her upper works in lighter greys.

JohnG · « **Reply #28 on:** May 04, 2020, 11:52:07 pm »

most helpful ballastanksian - thanks!

ballastanksian · « **Reply #29 on:** May 05, 2020, 11:39:42 pm »

What scale are you building her to? 1:96th/ 1:100th??

JohnG · « **Reply #30 on:** May 06, 2020, 09:44:48 am »

1: 96 (the clue's in the subject line

). very convenient for working from the plans which are 1/4 inch to the foot so can simply print the scans at half size. the level of detail on them is great - all hand drawn, and no sign of corrections.

JohnG · « **Reply #31 on:** May 07, 2020, 06:20:28 pm »

it's been interesting exploring the capabilities of the 3 d printer.

i reprinted the funnels having realised i could improve on the detail - partly inspired by the superb details in geoff's 'invincible too' thread - something to aspire to...

it took a little over 12 hours to produces 4 main funnels (3 plus a spare!) on a 'fine' setting

part of the reason i'm using abs as build material is the option to use 'acetone smoothing' to smooth out the printed items

it involves placing the items in acetone vapour for 20-30 minutes which then partially melts and smooths the surface.

the result is that the fine lines from the print head virtually disappear - leaving the part almost glazed. the part funnel shows 'pre smoothing' and the complete one is after - smoother and darker.

JohnG · « **Reply #32 on:** May 07, 2020, 07:15:27 pm »

i'd been pleasantly surprised to be able to model e.g. the searchlight fairly well, but when it came to the binnacle (approx 13 mm high) its disappointing.

i've ordered a 0.2 mm print nozzle (the current one's 0.4mm) - will see how that performs.

in passing, i went back to a dvd i had on the shelf: ' the empires shield' is a collection of official ww1 navy footage - and reel 4 covers a raid on zeebrugge in 1917 - mostly shot from the deck of the broke.
it's also now online too https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060023093 - reel 4 is the 4th 'frame' of the ones shown. at just on 2 minutes there's a shot of a faulknor class ship under way. it's probably hms botha (sister ship) from the funnel markings. the only such footage i know of. it's probably (hard to be 100% sure) also botha firing her guns later in the reel.

(and the grey does look like the lighter mid grey - thanks ballastanksian - definitely appears to confirm your comment in reply 27! )

anyway the point is that in re-watching the reel, i found a few invaluable detail shots too - like the one shown looking along the deck past the funnels. there are glimpses of the binnacle on the rangefinder deck too.

ballastanksian · « **Reply #33 on:** May 07, 2020, 09:25:01 pm »

Sorry John, I looked everywhere but the booming title! I really did look at the first few posts, but obviously you did not need to repeat it a second time!

One thing I have earnt about warships is that they are busy blighters for detail, oh, and they change regularly in all ways and ships within a class will have differences, which are exacerbated during service due to damage and refits etc.

I found that my M19 monitor was different to her sisters both because of the builder's 'interpretation' of the plans and because she suffered a gun explosion which destroyed her turret and deck furniture on the foredeck and around the quarter deck. Thus, she had a fine selection of vents including a squared one! I do not think that a model can be 100% accurate, but must be the creation of a snap shot in time. We can all point out a detail issue on one's model, and may indeed be right for a period in time. That may not be the period you have modelled your vessel in

JohnG · « **Reply #34 on:** May 08, 2020, 11:05:35 am »

yes, highly inconsiderate to modellers to keep changing the ships...

though there's a raised platform near the stern that's been removed by 1918 - so i'm going to assume it's gone by 1917 which is the year i'm aiming for - and that does make the modelling simpler.

btw i looked at the thread for your m19 build, but there don't seem to be any pics of the full model... ? do share if the pics are posted..
for interest i spotted there's what looks like a sister ship in the 'empires shield' video at around 7:24 in the zeebrugge reel. several were assigned to the dover patrol (specifically M.23, M.21, M.24, M.25, M26, M27 in 1917 - looked it up! ).

ballastanksian · « **Reply #35 on:** May 08, 2020, 09:01:49 pm »

I lost the mojo for a couple of years and am just returning to it again. I have just ordered some fittings to complete the deck and then will look at the derrick puzzle.

M19 spent her war in the Med, initially stonking the Turks and then giving the Aegean a once over near Salonika etc.

tghsmith · « **Reply #36 on:** May 09, 2020, 12:46:45 pm »

the rate of "tech" development was so fast in this period by the time some ships were launched they were obsolete, As for changes during building the USS Minneapolis and USS Columbia were to built as sister ships,, original plans called for 3 funnels,, the Minneapolis was built with 2 while the Columbia got 4.. they were under construction at the same time in the same ship yard..

JohnG · « **Reply #37 on:** May 23, 2020, 10:59:22 pm »

the plan to run model with a raspberry pi controlled with bluetooth is looking promising. my friend mark helped with the programming:

the green square on the phone acts like a joystick - controlling the 3 motors plus rudder as a mixer does.

in the pic/video clip it's running a virtual 'test boat' on the screen - a bar for each motor, green ahead and red astern, with the rudder angle a black line.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HdSoYlxWpCft2QflUuRngE6mutk62RRh/view?usp=sharing

it works for the 'virtual boat' - slowing and then reversing the inner motor as the turn gets sharper. we can tweak it if necessary for 'real life'.

a test in the bath worked ok with the motors running as they should and the rudder turning. rudder control was a little bit jumpy, but that should be fixable.

JohnG · « **Reply #38 on:** May 23, 2020, 11:03:56 pm »

meantime there's been progress with the physical model too...

it's been interesting getting to use the new airbrush: lots of primer on hull and parts

JohnG · « **Reply #39 on:** May 23, 2020, 11:11:05 pm »

Marking the lines for the boot topping , and masking for painting.

(in passing the anchor mounting – think its called the hawse pipe – was tricky to fit. I 3d modelled it as one piece, printed a couple per side, and cut them in half to fit from top and bottom. It would have been much simpler to build it into the 3d print of the bow before printing the whole thing – I’ll know next time!)

JohnG · « **Reply #40 on:** May 23, 2020, 11:31:57 pm »

This is where she’s now got to – painted ‘light grey’.

even though everything's only placed for the photo - nothing glued down yet - it still feels a big step to see the final colour on the model at last.

i fixed on "Light Grey Vallejo Model Air 71.050" in the end. - on the screen it looked like what i wanted and i'm pleased with the result. Thanks again to ballastanksian for the helpful comments.

raflaunches · « **Reply #41 on:** May 23, 2020, 11:43:24 pm »

Looking stunning John. A proper ww1 destroyer.

JohnG · « **Reply #42 on:** May 24, 2020, 06:40:03 pm »

thanks raflaunches - encouragement appreciated (particularly having looked at what you've been doing on hms invincible - lovely to see)

ballastanksian · « **Reply #43 on:** May 25, 2020, 12:41:43 pm »

If she had a 3pdr HA gun then let me know

JohnG · « **Reply #44 on:** May 25, 2020, 06:53:50 pm »

the 4 forward guns are all "4 inch 40 calibre q.f. gun" built by armstrong whitworth and co.

initially there were 2 more on the stern but they were replaced at some point by a single gun - something heavier - haven't identified it - visible in the getty images pic noted earlier.

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/broke-off-to-france-with-the-king-prince-of-wales-and-news-photo/591947784

raflaunches · « **Reply #45 on:** May 25, 2020, 07:38:10 pm »

Quote from: JohnG on May 24, 2020, 06:40:03 pm

thanks raflaunches - encouragement appreciated (particularly having looked at what you've been doing on hms invincible - lovely to see)

Many thanks John, that’s three years of work though! Already got plans for future vessels to model, a majority of them being pre or WW1 warships.

JohnG · « **Reply #46 on:** June 12, 2020, 01:39:22 pm »

well, i tracked down the date of the upgrade to the stern gun (reply no 40 above) - which was changed in a refit in march 1918 at the same time the two forward guns were also exchanged for a single 4.7 inch.

so since i want her to look as in 1917, it will be the original 6 guns (including the raised stern gun platform which will be an extra challenge to model so it's removable)

meantime i've been busy painting: adding red to the hull and boot topping

JohnG · « **Reply #47 on:** June 12, 2020, 01:48:46 pm »

i want to be able to access under the deck - so have fixed the deck with mini magnets and a small bolt/nut (top be adjustable) on a mini bracket: magnet and bracket epoxied in place.

pleased to report that it works - 26 of them for the deck 4 deck sections. 3 that will be fixed most of the time, and the small one under the 3rd funnel to access on/off and charging. the pic shows brackets and magnets on base of deck section.

i realise it's not going to be waterproof, but the intention is for fair weather sailing only!

JohnG · « **Reply #48 on:** June 12, 2020, 01:57:26 pm »

i fitted the main electrics. a tighter fit than i anticipated, but all ok. really must remember to make a wiring diagram while i remember!

tested in the bath. she floats (that's a relief), runs forward/backward/turns on batteries and controlled from the android phone.

Also the waterline/ballasting is ok - i was concerned there might be too much weight at the stern, but it's ok. still high at the bow, and a slight list to port (i ran the wires along the port side) so that's easily corrected.

JohnG · « **Reply #49 on:** June 12, 2020, 02:02:00 pm »

so here's a current view - with the parts still only placed on the deck. bridge and funnels pretty much completed.

now to fix them...

still got the aft bridge, stern gun platform to work on.... good thing it's a wet day..

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Author Topic: HMS Broke (1914) Flotilla Leader - scratch build 1/96 scale (Read 14191 times)