Sterling American Scout WWII Cargo Ship

[jscherb]

Yes, but there is no ridge around the outside of the porthole. I’ll try to post a photo later.

I may flatten the ridge, I haven't decided yet. It will be easy to do - drill a 1/8" hole in a piece of steel, insert the eyelet and a gentle tap with a hammer will flatten the ridge into a simple flange. The ridge isn't objectionable to me at this point in the project but I understand your point which I why I've already thought about flattening it if I decide it will look better that way. Thanks for the advice, it may push me towards flattening it .

 

[jscherb]

The instructions for the deckhouse in this kit are divided into four major steps, each of which involves a dozen or two parts. I've completed the first step at the new height. The new taller parts for the second step are on the bench behind the ship and those will get assembled next.

 

[Vfordyce]

I like your workshop.

 

[Vfordyce]

I think if you look at the finished model in the context of a C2 freighter and think "the deckhouse is too tall for a C2", you won't like it. On the other hand, I look at it as a "360' long ship that could be", much like Howard Lloyd's model pictured here which also has a deckhouse the height of which has about the same relationship to the length of the ship that my model will. For my purposes with the HO trains, I'm going for the impression of a cargo ship that "could be", not an exact scale rendering of any particular ship in the same way that Lloyd seems to have done.

View attachment 571461

Lloyd started out with a Dean's Marine "Melanie 2" kit in 1:96 scale, but if you look at the photos it appears that he may have made the deckhouse taller because the HO scale people on the upper part of the deckhouse don't seem out of scale.

I am considering making plank hatch covers like in the picture above.

 

[jscherb]

I am considering making plank hatch covers like in the picture above.

I like them too and may do the same.

I like your workshop.

Oh the challenges of a 200-year-old house... this workshop, which I call my hobby workshop, existed in the basement when we bought the house. It really isn't big enough to be a real workshop but it's almost perfect for hobby work like this ship project. Because of the 80's-installed forced air HVAC system, my 6'5" height is too much for much of the space, in fact I had to rebuild the workbench at left to be lower because sitting on a stool high enough for the original workbench my head would hit the duct above. But I'm very happy with how the space worked out, it's perfect for model building.



I also needed a "real workshop" because I need a space to do the many home renovation/restoration projects this house requires. Sometime between the 1920's and the 1950's a two-car attached garage was added to the back of the house. Unfortunately none of my Jeeps or my Grenadier will fit in it because the garage doors and ceiling are too low, so it became my real workshop. I do have to duck under the steel beams holding the roof up but other than occasionally banging my head when I forget to duck, it's a great work space. On the workbench in the foreground are frames for some raised panel doors I'm making for cabinets in the family room - built-ins were added in a number of rooms in the 70's and they've got plywood doors on them that in no way go with a 200-year old house. Many projects like this delay progress on my ship model .

 

[Vfordyce]

Thanks for the info, very helpful!

I've got these lights with LEDs that I may use in the few places on the deckhouse where floodlights might be used. I'll have to see if I can find HO scale cage lights, I don't think I've seen any before but maybe they exist. I'll also look for floodlights that might go on the cross trees.

View attachment 567315

I found these spotlights in HO scale from a number of sources, maybe these would be good on the cross trees?

View attachment 567316

Where did you find your lights, Jeff?

 

[GrantTyler]

Good morning Jeff. Mighty fine modelling indeed. Shaping up nicely. Cheers Grant

 

[jscherb]

Where did you find your lights, Jeff?

eBay.

The Floodlights I bought are these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/125820481815



I haven't bought the spotlights yet but these are the ones I will buy: https://www.ebay.com/itm/395917017195



Both images above are from the eBay listings.

There are many other variations that can be found in eBay.

 

[jscherb]

Good morning Jeff. Mighty fine modelling indeed. Shaping up nicely. Cheers Grant

Thank you very much. This is my first ship model and I'm trying to work to a standard that the experts on this forum will find acceptable. I hope I succeed.

 

[jscherb]

As I'm assembling the deckhouse, I'm working out the plan for lighting. Running lights, floodlights, spotlights, etc. and I'm collecting all of the components. My plan is to wire everything to a bank of switches that will be mounted under one of the cargo hatches and set things up so I can turn on/off like sets of lights with the switches - a switch for spotlights, one for running lights, etc. I will power everything through USB, the wire probably hidden in one of the lines tying the ship to the pier and I'll hide a USB port somewhere on the pier. All of this I've either got already or have ordered to arrive shortly:

 

[jscherb]

As I continue to build the deckhouse, I need to plan for mounting the guns. While I'm not building a Liberty Ship, I am using the armaments of a typical Liberty on my ship. My research indicates that Liberties commonly had four 20mm guns at each corner of the upper deck of the deckhouse. In this photo I've placed 20mm guns in those locations, although they'll go on higher decks than where they're posed. The shape of the kit deckhouse probably allows for gun tubs (typically 9-10' diameter) on the front corners but the upper deck doesn't go all the way to the side corners in the back so I'll need to do something custom with the upper deck in order to have gun tubs at the rear corners.



While not on the critical path of the project yet, I also plan to follow common Liberty practice on the fantail and the bow; it was common to have a 5" gun and two 20mm in the rear and a 3" gun at the bow, so I've posed those gun there in these photos for now. In both locations the guns were mounted on raised platforms with tubs surrounding to provide some protection for the gun crews so I'll need to add those features when I get to that point in the project but for now I'm focused providing for the deckhouse guns above.





All of these guns are 1/87 scale so if I decide to crew them with HO scale sailors they're compatible.

 

[jscherb]

I finished the third of four steps building the deckhouse. So far it's built as per the kit instructions except that I added 1/4" to the height of the walls of each deck to make them appropriate for 1/87 scale. The top level will require some customization to add the gun tubs so I've got to figure those out before proceeding. The various deck assemblies are just setting in place in this photo, I'll do some final fitting and smoothing and perhaps painting and build the top level before putting them together.

 

[jscherb]

Working on the design for the deckhouse armaments...

A typical Liberty ship, there are two gun tubs on the front of the deckhouse and two on the back. Notice that the rear tubs are supported with legs to a deck below:



The kit upper deck starts out with these parts:



The front tubs won't be too difficult, I'll just cut new deck pieces with a radius to support the tubs:



To make the tubs I found a piece of steel tubing that scales to an appropriate diameter in my metal scrap bin and cut short sections from it.

The kit deck doesn't provide a good place to mount tubs in the rear. I borrowed this image from Vic's thread and drew gun tubs on it to show where I'll probably have to install the rear tubs:



The rear tubs will have to be supported with legs like in the earlier photo and like this one:



Have to figure out the finer details as I construct the top deck but I think this will work out fine and will be reasonable prototypical and approximately what might have been done back in WWII to convert a ship like this to war cargo duty.

 

[Vfordyce]

Working on the design for the deckhouse armaments...

A typical Liberty ship, there are two gun tubs on the front of the deckhouse and two on the back. Notice that the rear tubs are supported with legs to a deck below:

View attachment 576526

The kit upper deck starts out with these parts:

View attachment 576525

The front tubs won't be too difficult, I'll just cut new deck pieces with a radius to support the tubs:

View attachment 576527

To make the tubs I found a piece of steel tubing that scales to an appropriate diameter in my metal scrap bin and cut short sections from it.

The kit deck doesn't provide a good place to mount tubs in the rear. I borrowed this image from Vic's thread and drew gun tubs on it to show where I'll probably have to install the rear tubs:

View attachment 576529

The rear tubs will have to be supported with legs like in the earlier photo and like this one:

View attachment 576530

Have to figure out the finer details as I construct the top deck but I think this will work out fine and will be reasonable prototypical and approximately what might have been done back in WWII to convert a ship like this to war cargo duty.

How fun!

 

[jscherb]

Finally got the current home renovation projects to a point where I can get a few minutes to work on the ship. This morning I made the parts to adjust the top deck of the deckhouse to a height appropriate for HO scale. The new parts are made from the lighter color balsa. I made the four 20mm gun tubs and enlarged the deck to have space for the front tubs. The rear tubs will be supported with legs similar to the Liberty ship photo I posted earlier. Hopefully will get some time over the next few days to assemble these parts.

 

[jscherb]

Basic assembly of the main components of the deckhouse is almost complete. The ship is sitting directly in front of the plans so I can get an idea of the final proportions once the cranes and rigging will be in place. The overall proportions of the ship are different than the stock kit because my deckhouse is taller, being scaled for 1/87. But the overall proportions look fine to me since this ship will scale to about 360' rather than the 460' of the kit in its smaller scale and I don't think the deckhouse is too out of proportion for a 360' ship. I may also build the cranes taller than the stock kit height to better proportion them to the taller deckhouse.



An HO sailor for scale...





Lots of work left to do to perfect the deckhouse, smoothing joints, fitting the decks on top of each other perfectly, epoxying the gun tubs in place and filling any imperfections in the fit of those, some filler to smooth everything and hide the grain as much as possible...

The gun tubs are the proper scale height for HO scale; the gun is a little low but it will be mounted on a pedestal to raise it a bit.



I came across this photo in a book I'm reading of a Liberty Ship under construction as the prefabricated deckhouse is being lifted into place. Notice the gun tubs on the front of the top deck, pretty much as I've built mine. For this ship, the rear gun tubs are cantilevered out and I'll do mine roughly similar to that but that will happen after the deckhouse is fully assembled. And built this way, the rear tubs will clear the lifeboat on the lower deck.

 

[jscherb]

A little bit of filler work and the metal gun tubs are faired into the balsa structure. It'll take a little more work to perfect this level. And it will be a lot of work to fill and smooth all the balsa of the superstructure so it looks like metal instead of grainy balsa.

 

[Vfordyce]

A little bit of filler work and the metal gun tubs are faired into the balsa structure. It'll take a little more work to perfect this level. And it will be a lot of work to fill and smooth all the balsa of the superstructure so it looks like metal instead of grainy balsa.

View attachment 580739bb

The front is like a bay window. I spent hours on it and still didn’t get it right. So don’t look at mine in details

 

[jscherb]

The front is like a bay window. I spent hours on it and still didn’t get it right. So don’t look at mine in details

It does look like it would be a fiddly bit of construction. I promise I won't look at yours and I'll try my best to make it look ok.

 

[jscherb]

I was tired of working with balsa so I took a break and experimented with creating navigation lights. I think these have approximately the right look but I'm open to suggestions on how to improve them. Basically a piece of brass tubing with a domed lid made by a sheet metal hand punch and a T1 LED, a piece of copper wire wrapped around it to look like a guard for the lens.



If you're on a computer, these next photos will be larger than life size, the light assemblies are about 3/8" tall. Still a work in progress, these are a first prototype just to see how they might look and figure out how to improve on the basic idea.



Travel will prevent me from getting back to this project for about three weeks .