K63 HMS Picotee 1941 1/48 scale early short forecastle Flower Class Corvette

Probably my shortest post ever. Delighted to say I finally, after sixty four gazillion attempts, managed to get paint to stick to the hull. (Note to self after you scrub GRP surface, DO IT AGAIN!)

IMG_20241008_212659.jpgIMG_20241012_145548.jpgIMG_20241012_145607.jpg

Just sitting looking and hoping that the paint stays stuck.

Totally contented.

Cheers JJ..​
 
Rob444 said:
The Flower class corvette was always near to my heart after reading one of the best novels about WWII made called "The Cruel Sea" by Nicholas Monserrat. It is well worth finding and reading. There was also a good English film made in the 1950's by the same name which closely followed the novel. I of course will be watching you log!
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Monsarrat also wrote an entertaining and informative memoir called Three Corvettes about his wartime service. He served on corvettes (Guess how many?) and it's fascinating how much of The Cruel Sea was based on real experience.
 
Smithy said:
Monsarrat also wrote an entertaining and informative memoir called Three Corvettes about his wartime service. He served on corvettes (Guess how many?) and it's fascinating how much of The Cruel Sea was based on real experience.
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From reading Monsarrat's novels I feel he had no love for the sea. When you look into his naval career he seems to have been fortunate in his postings.

JJ..
 
Jack Jäger said:
From reading Monsarrat's novels I feel he had no love for the sea. When you look into his naval career he seems to have been fortunate in his postings.

JJ..
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That is very interesting. I shall read him again with that in mind. My impression was that he did not enjoy the war, but I thought he was quite fond of the sea.
 
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Marquinius said:
As I’m drawn to these corvettes, I looked around to see if there’s more about HMS Picotee.

I’m sure you have this photo …

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Hi Marco, Yea I have seen this pic. in fact I am not sure it is not a composite as it just looks wrong to me. I asked the question in another part of this forum ( Build logs and photography) but no one seemed interested in replying. Thanks for looking anyway. Cheers JJ..

​

 
Not a lot to write about, getting stuck into some of the mundane/ but have to do right/ bits of the bulwarks. The inside I have plated with 0.25mm styrene, adding rivets made by using a pointy roller normally used for diagnosing neurological conditions. I am trying to make the rivets more subtle on Picotee compared to the same scale Sir Kay. I have made the sub deck pieces but will not fit them until I get some more detail added and the bulwarks get their first coat of colour.
The fairleads and wash ports have to be opened on the inside and wash port lids made. They will be too thick to be to scale as on ship they where made out of 5/8 inch plate, the same as the bulwarks, but that works out at 0.31mm to scale and would be too flimsy. They are supported by little hinges attached to the sides and they are next to be made and sprayed along with the rest. As for colour I am looking at a dark iron/ greyish colour. A lot of the pics I have of other flowers do not have their inner bulwarks, or the steel deck, painted at all, seemingly just left to rust. Guess the flowers where not expected to bloom for long.
I have added a photograph of another flower HMS Heliotrope just before she followed the sun over to the US Navy. She was built about the same time as Picotee and in the pic. is riding light well out of the water. You can just see a strip of glossy black boot topping and lighter (near black) anti-foul, so I am happy keeping Picotee with a black bottom.
By my reckoning 66 little brackets to make, so of I go!

some photographs.

IMG_20241017_081632.jpgIMG_20241018_075602.jpgIMG_20241018_075615.jpgIMG_20241018_155247.jpgIMG_20241019_071808.jpgIMG_20241021_124850.jpgIMG_20241021_124901.jpgIMG_20241021_130141.jpg

HMS Heliotrope, a Flower Class corvette built by John Crow.jpg​

HMS Heliotrope, a Flower Class corvette built by John Crow.jpg
 
Jack Jäger said:
Not a lot to write about, getting stuck into some of the mundane/ but have to do right/ bits of the bulwarks. The inside I have plated with 0.25mm styrene, adding rivets made by using a pointy roller normally used for diagnosing neurological conditions. I am trying to make the rivets more subtle on Picotee compared to the same scale Sir Kay. I have made the sub deck pieces but will not fit them until I get some more detail added and the bulwarks get their first coat of colour.
The fairleads and wash ports have to be opened on the inside and wash port lids made. They will be too thick to be to scale as on ship they where made out of 5/8 inch plate, the same as the bulwarks, but that works out at 0.31mm to scale and would be too flimsy. They are supported by little hinges attached to the sides and they are next to be made and sprayed along with the rest. As for colour I am looking at a dark iron/ greyish colour. A lot of the pics I have of other flowers do not have their inner bulwarks, or the steel deck, painted at all, seemingly just left to rust. Guess the flowers where not expected to bloom for long.
I have added a photograph of another flower HMS Heliotrope just before she followed the sun over to the US Navy. She was built about the same time as Picotee and in the pic. is riding light well out of the water. You can just see a strip of glossy black boot topping and lighter (near black) anti-foul, so I am happy keeping Picotee with a black bottom.
By my reckoning 66 little brackets to make, so of I go!


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Nice plating and riveting, Jack. Very realistic.
Regards, Peter
 
Nice! And indeed always a hassle to find the middle ground regarding scale vs part thickness.

I never thought about this, but seeing Picotee next to Heliotrope: I need to look into the logic of the typical radar ‘lighthouse’ you see on most Flowers. Is there a logic? Short focs’l, flat stern, radar? And I read somewhere that the flat stern was developed for the Canadian ships?

The more I see your work, the more I think about starting a Flower … after my current and next build.
 
Marquinius said:
Nice! And indeed always a hassle to find the middle ground regarding scale vs part thickness.

I never thought about this, but seeing Picotee next to Heliotrope: I need to look into the logic of the typical radar ‘lighthouse’ you see on most Flowers. Is there a logic? Short focs’l, flat stern, radar? And I read somewhere that the flat stern was developed for the Canadian ships?

The more I see your work, the more I think about starting a Flower … after my current and next build.
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Some interesting thoughts Marco, you have been doing your homework.
I looked at removing the existing bulwark and replacing it with something around the correct thickness, but could not find any suitable material. Styrene being the most oblivious, but could only find either 0.25mm or 0.5mm, the former too flimsy the later had possibilities but would still be wrong and besides I am not sure I have enough skill to blend the new with the old.
Of over 290 flowers that saw ww2 action I doubt two where identical. The two most common factors seems to be the 'jam pot' radar enclosement and the fact they where built as cheaply as possible. I think that by the end of the war all surviving flowers had received their 'jam pots' Picotee was sunk before conversion to either radar or long forecastle. Heliotrope got radar when handed over to become USS Surprise.
I am still not certain about the shape of Picotee's stern, the port side photo looks like it is squared off, but she caries no m/s gear. I was in the way of thinking that the squared sterns where to accommodate mine sweeping. H&W built, among others, K185 Alisma, launched five month after Picotee, with a squared stern and she was a mine sweeper. According to Lambert there where 24 flowers so used yet he names only 18 all UK built. Without more photographs I cannot tell.

https://d.docs.live.net/efd0219a1e25f6cd/k45 stern.docx
HMS Convolvulus (K45).jpg picotee 4.jpg
https://d.docs.live.net/efd0219a1e25f6cd/k45 stern.docx
K45 Convolulus is a m/s flower, (you can see the Oropesa davits), with square stern and Picotee looks similar but no Oropesa davits. I will look forward to you building a flower. All the best JJ..
 
Jack Jäger said:
K63 HMS Picotee 1941

1/48 scale early short forecastle

Flower Class Corvette



​

Despite all their many faults Flower class corvettes where the back-bone of the allied convoy system during the Second World War. In various guises two hundred and ninety four where built and saw action between 1940 and 1945. They contributed to the sinking of over fifty U-Boats, thirty three where lost, twenty two of them to submarines. One of those lost to torpedo attack was HMS Picotee.




Which flower to pick? I live less than ten miles from Harland and Wolff’s Belfast ship yard and my family have long had connections with the ‘yard’ some dating back to and before the Titanic. In WW2 my great uncle Jackie drove the crane used to help build HMS Black Prince, a Dido class light cruiser, my uncle Jim was an electrical artificers on board her. H&W built thirty five Flowers including HMS Bryony who was ‘sunk’ by German bombers before launched! She was later re-floated and finished the war, before being sold and ending up as a Norwegian weather ship.

Scanning through the histories of the H&W boats my eye fell on the name of the commanding officer of HMS Picotee, Lt R.A. Harrison, RNR and the name Harrison sparked a memory of a bit of family lore. My recollection is a bit sketchy but as I remember it great grandmother was married twice, the first to a civil engineer from a Dublin family called Harrison. They decided to make a new life for themselves in South Africa, Harrison left first to take an arranged job and set up home near Port Elizabeth, his pregnant wife to follow two months later. By the time my great grandmother arrived her husband was dead, (don’t remember the cause), and she was alone and wanted to go back to Ireland. The good people of a PE church gathered up the cost of her fare and the company her husband was to work for gave her a not inconsiderable one hundred pounds and she set of home, my grandmother was born during the voyage back.

Back to Picotee; Harrison had two younger brothers, both career seamen and RNR’s, both were killed during the second world war, one in submarines in the far east the other, as I remembered it, was lost with his destroyer that was supporting an Artic convoy. HMS Picotee was not part of an Artic convoy, but was in convoy with ships bound for Iceland. I do not know for sure if this is the same man and all of my relations that might have known have passed on but I suspect it is and that is enough for me to choose HMS Picotee as my subject. Picotee was sunk by U-568 and all hands were lost. U-568 was later sunk in the Mediterranean.

Now for my model, to build her I am using a mixture of various plans and photographs that I have gathered together over the last couple of months. The hull is made from GRP and was produced by Fleetscale and it is a real beauty. The majority of the build will be from scratch using mostly ply-wood and styrene sheet, parts like boats guns and rails may end up being bought in and modified.

To date I have made a working stand and started to prepare the hull. I will add more along with some photographs very soon.

Regards JJ..
You might be interested in a song by Canadian artist tim hus. He sings about flower class in the song “forgotten sailor “ . Hope this adds to your project. Bob








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Hi folks,
Things are rolling on nicely I have added the main sub-deck using 1.5mm Finn Board, suitably curved, and it seems stiff enough to support the superstructure, so I have started to add the deck plating. In keeping with 'Flower class' cheapo construction methods their working decks where riveted directly onto there cross beams,(and must have leaked like sieves!). From the limited photographic evidence that I can find the uncut plates where 12' x 9' X 5/8" and I have tried to replicate this. My 'plates' are made from 0.25mm styrene and scribed to look like having double lines of rivets. They are then attached to the sub deck with a clear glue. The deck has quite a few water tight hatches positioned along each side and I have made the first two. Not exactly 3D Printed but they look ok when painted.
A large area of this deck is also covered with wooden planking and that is next.

Some Pics.

DC Doors.jpgDC Doors2.jpgdeck1.jpgdeck2.jpgdeck4.jpghatch p2.jpg

Cheers JJ..​

deck3.jpg

hatch p1.jpg
 
Jack Jäger said:
Hi folks,
Things are rolling on nicely I have added the main sub-deck using 1.5mm Finn Board, suitably curved, and it seems stiff enough to support the superstructure, so I have started to add the deck plating. In keeping with 'Flower class' cheapo construction methods their working decks where riveted directly onto there cross beams,(and must have leaked like sieves!). From the limited photographic evidence that I can find the uncut plates where 12' x 9' X 5/8" and I have tried to replicate this. My 'plates' are made from 0.25mm styrene and scribed to look like having double lines of rivets. They are then attached to the sub deck with a clear glue. The deck has quite a few water tight hatches positioned along each side and I have made the first two. Not exactly 3D Printed but they look ok when painted.
A large area of this deck is also covered with wooden planking and that is next.


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Those riveted deck plates fits very nice, Jack. And a pair of very good looking hatches. No need to design them in 3D.
Regards, Peter
 
Jack Jäger said:
Marco don't know why this came up again. And yes, thankyou, I had seen the sovereignhobbies bumf before, they make a good effort to explain things but there are a lot of factors they don't take account of. The two most obvious are that if you add enamel resins to a flat grey (507a) you not only make the paint more glossy but you also lighten it. Secondly with so much zinc oxide in the mix any grey will lighten very quickly in sun light, conversely the samples kept from the 1940's will darken when kept in a closed book for years. These pre synthetic natural resins used back then varied massively. So take your own pick. Most RN ships did. Pardon the pun but the whole subject is a minefield. I don't think there is now a right or wrong, just whatever you think is right yourself.
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Well said, that man!
 
Nice, really nice! And I’m not even sure 3D printed would look better. The rivets perhaps, but those hatch locks … nope. And I love the square stern with those hatches.

About square or round, and just because it’s fun to see if we can reconstruct history, is there any logic in numbering vs square and round? I mean, she’s K63. Would K62 or K64 be similar? Or if numbers were assigned on set up date, would this wharf get more square tails to build?

I also read somewhere that it was mainly for the Canadians, those square tails.

Just rambling, as you should surely not stop or change the stern.
 
Peter Voogt said:
Those riveted deck plates fits very nice, Jack. And a pair of very good looking hatches. No need to design them in 3D.
Regards, Peter
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Thank you Peter, it all looks a bit of a mess at the minuet but hopefully when I add the edge angle pieces and start painting the plating will look better. What photos I have of the actual decking shows some real rough finishing so I am not sure how exact I want my 'plates' to look. Mind you I am not even sure what colour I want to paint them.
Cheers JJ..
 
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