The Shipyard ( Dry Dock ): Builds & Questions > Navy - Military - Battleships:
Deans Marine Motor Gun Boat 1/24 scale
Chris Preston:
Hi Greg,
Beautiful work. I have Deans BPB Co MTB 488 on the building board as well, and like you, am doing more than an out-of-the-box build. Keep the update coming - they're most useful.
Cheers,
Chris Preston
Victoria, BC
Canada
essexbill:
Thanks for your informative post, it is full helpful hints and tips.
SailorGreg:
Well, I said construction would be finished by the end of August, but I don’t think I said which year :D
It is mostly done, including the wood strips for spray rails and rubbing strakes. Although provided in the kit and covered in the instructions, Ron Dean did suggest leaving these off as they can be a bit delicate. Being a perverse old soanso I went ahead and fitted them anyway. The instructions suggest making a series of cuts part through the strips to allow them to bend to follow the hull, but I produced the curves around the shaft of a hot soldering iron. I clamped the soldering iron in the vice and drew a pattern of the curve of the forward part of the hull on a piece of paper so I would have a reference to check I had got the curve about right. You do need to keep the wood moving, as if you hesitate you will start to burn it, but constant movement and a steady light pressure will allow the wood to take on a curve, like this -
Once curved, I glued the pieces in place with CA, doing about 200mm at a time in the straight sections, and about half that when I did the curved bits. Once glued in place, I pinned the wood to the hull with 1.5mm brass rod as suggested in the instructions for extra security.
The hull is moulded with reinforcing pieces at the aft corners which are, I believe, for towing bitts. As far as I can see, these were only fitted to this hull when it was converted to an MTB, so I ground and sanded them off. It would have been better to mould the hull without these as they are easily added with plastic card, but a pain to remove!
Despite the weather breaking, there was still plenty of opportunity for painting, so I reckoned I had got far enough to pop on a coat of primer. This always makes the model look like a single piece rather than a collection of bits with filler and scrapes all over and gives me renewed enthusiasm to crack on.
The Battlecraft twin Oerlikon comes primed but needed the details painting and I also added a bit of weathering. I also replaced the sighting ring with a photo etched part from the kit, as the Battlecraft one was quite chunky.
And that’s it for this thrilling instalment. I keep finding little bits I had forgotten to stick on, but hopefully they will all be done soon and I can begin to do the final painting. I still haven’t finally decided on colour scheme or configuration on the deck, but I am tending towards representing the boat in an early stage of its evolution, such as shown in this picture –
This seems to have an overall light grey colour scheme (although is the superstructure white with the aft part much darker - ?) and has an early model smoke generator fitted on the port side aft, rather than the dustbin affair on the stern as provided in the kit. I will have to build a representation of that, but that shouldn’t be too tricky. There seem to be fewer lockers around the deck, and overall I will be happier following (as far as I can) a picture of the actual boat than the model configuration which appears to be a mixture of features from different times.
Happy modelling folks!
Greg
SailorGreg:
This rather stop-start build has had another spurt, mostly to do with painting. However, having decided to do an early version of the boat, I needed to make a different smoke generator from the one provided in the kit (and visible in the picture of MGB 77 in the last post, aft on the port side). I started with a short length of brass tube and glued a piece of balsa into one end. Then chucked in the drill, this was sanded to a dome shape.
I made a couple of brackets to hold the tube, two pieces taped together to make sure they were the same.
Then put together and a disc glued to the other end.
Then a piece of wood and some wire to make the control box and a length of aluminium rod to represent the outlet pipe.
And leaping ahead a little, here it is installed on the boat.
The close up makes it look a bit rough but it’s not too bad at normal viewing distance. The hull and superstructure was painted with a light grey on the sides and a dark grey on the deck and top surface of the superstructure.
A couple of points here. Firstly, you might be wondering why the front windows have those odd scraps of card stuck behind them. This is because I made a mess of fitting the glazing (twice) so decided to present the model with the blackout blinds rolled down, thus saving my embarrassment. I used painted masking tape for the blinds, so needed something firm behind them to stop inquisitive fingers simply poking a hole in it. I imagine these blinds were used all the time when the boat was operating, as this was invariably at night and any stray light from the charthouse would be most unpopular. There is a photo on page 5 of “British Motor Gun Boat 1939-45” by Angus Konstam showing MGB 108 running in daylight with these blinds lowered.
Secondly, you can see that I have masked off the breakwater as this is the light grey rather than the dark grey of the deck. The tricky bit was the triangular support pieces which ideally would all have been individually masked as well. I couldn’t face that, so I hand painted the deck between these supports then masked off the whole structure. This didn’t work out brilliantly, as the paint I collected from the spray can for the brushing didn’t end up as smooth and consistent as the sprayed areas. In the spirit of full disclosure, the next picture shows the result but I couldn’t see any other way of doing it without driving myself potty. %%
Now was the time to start adding the detailed bits and pieces to the deck. I am wary of gluing to paint, so I scraped it off wherever I was adding things. Here is where the liferaft is going –
I made my own Sampson post from a piece of wood and short length of brass rod as the white metal version did not impress. The wood will be darkened a little.
Many of the photos of these boats show a mooring line fastened to an eye low down on the bow with the other end stowed on deck. The photos show what appears to be quite a large hard eye in the fastened end, so I made this by forming a thimble with a piece of wire and supergluing the line around it.
And here it is in place.
I have also added flag halyards to the mast. Again, these look less messy when viewed from a distance (I find about 100 yards to be sufficient :D )
Well, that’s it for the time being. I am into all those fussy little details that seem to be never ending. I think I’ve finished then realise there’s something else to be added. I still have to put the windscreen in place, and can’t see a way of doing a robust job of this. The kit just provides some clear plastic without a frame or any directions as to how to fit it. Any suggestions welcome!
Happy modelling folks.
Greg
SailorGreg:
A few details – the rigging for the mast needs to be detachable to allow me to store the mast in its protective cradle, so I made the rigging from shirring elastic and used little hooks to attach the rigging to eyes on the mast.
As for the crew, as previously mentioned I had bought a selection from Shapeways but I had never done any sort of figure painting before. Then the November Model Boats turns up with a full article on painting figures. How fortunate! :} I admit that I didn’t go the whole hog as advised in the Article, but it did give me a few steers when I set about my crew members. Although I had 5 figures, I ended up only using three of them.
A bit more painting and a few little bits stuck on – and all of a sudden (!!) she’s finished! OK, the crew aren’t there in these pictures, and I had already knocked my rather fragile windscreen off, {:-{ but here is the (very nearly) finished boat. It also shows my cradle/launcher with the storage cradle for the mast (which still needs a coat of paint). I also added a little bit of weathering, as photos show these boats often showed signs of their hard use.
Nothing else for it, but off to the lake for a proper maiden voyage. I did manage to snap off one of the twin Lewis mountings when putting the batteries in the boat, :(( and then knocked the gunsight ring off the twin Oerlikons when putting the lid back on, >:-o which will teach me to be a little more careful in future (and to replace the white metal Lewis supports with brass rod!) but I guess a little battle damage is acceptable for a boat like this. Crew now on board –
And some video evidence that everything worked as advertised. I have to say I am delighted with the on-water performance. Top speed is probably a little above scale, but even at that speed, handling is excellent. :-)) :-))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jprreEu__yo
Well, it’s taken a while – to put it mildly – but I am very happy with the final result. I confess I won’t be rushing back to white metal, resin castings and similar – it’s back to wood for my next project – but I am very satisfied with the end result. And we had a bit of a Dean’s Marine fest on maiden day, courtesy of Daleb’s two boats.
I hope that those who have been patient enough to follow this all the way have enjoyed the marathon. I have certainly learnt a few things along the way - that's all part of the fun of building models!
Happy modelling folks.
Greg
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