*My* Renown Build

Hi Just a few photos of what I have been working on.


Here are the projects: from left to right
1.Evstafy - a Russian predreadnought. 3.5 units This one is almost ready for sealing. I am just fiddling with the shape around the stern.

2.Radetsky - an Austrian predreadnouught. 3.5 units. This one is almost ready for sealing too. There will be a couple of 'rib-bumps', but I have decided to accept this, since the hull will be sheeted anyway.

3.Furataka - a Japanese heavy cruiser. 3.0 units. This one has just been sanded down from it's first plaster coat. It will need several more cycles before it is smooth. The lines along the bottom are the edges of the bulges - I have cut them out to make sure I don't lose their positions with the next coat of plaster.

4.Iron Duke - A British 'Super-Dreadnought'. 5.0 units. This one hasn't been plastered yet.

5.Renown - A British Balltercruiser. 4.5 units. This has been plastered and sanded down once. The surface is still very bumpy and rough and will need several cycles of filling and sanding before it is smooth enough for the fine sanding.

 

The renown -- looking from the stern towards the bow. The edge of the bulges can be made out. I glued in a 1/8in stringer where the bulge meets the bottom.

Again -- very bumpy and lumpy.

 

Not the greatest image -- but you can see the stringer that marks the top edge of the bulge. On the real ship the bulge edge joined the hull with a bevel -- on this hull it will be 90deg. This will make it easier to sheet.

Again -- very bumpy and lumpy. I have to tkae care not to sand too much on the first pass or I will start to take off the edge of the exposed forms. Sand only until the forms are exposed and then replaster to fill and depressions and sand it agian.

 

The Renown bow on. The hull becomes very narrow at the bow, with a big flare at the deck.

 

Good work. Both the renown and Iron duke seem to be coming along nicely.

 

The Iron Duke before foam. This is actually my first attempt. One side of the deck was pushed up by the expanding foam so that sides of the hull had up to 5mm difference in height.

I was very disappointed since it was going so very nicely up to that point.

 

The pre-dreadnoughts before foaming.
The Radetsky is 1/8in plywood keel and sections with a masonite deck.
The Evstafy is all masonite.

The white sections on the Radetsky are where I left on the paper shapes after I cut them out. They caused a little trouble during the early stages of sanding and plastering since they separated from the wood and caused a gap. It taught me to remove the paper from the wood before I assemble the pieces.

On both hulls you can see that the deck is in two pieces and help keep the keel straight. The deck also has little slots along the edges for aligning the sections and making sure the deck is sitting at the proper height. The sections are cut-down 1/8in except for a small tab that goes into the slot at the edge of the deck. The tabs sit flush with top edge of the deck.

 

A shot better showing the 'slots and tabs'

 

Very nice Rob. Keep it going and keep the pics coming.

 

Well done Rob. Your getting better with age..lol...no seriously it looks great.

 

Rob
You get extra points for coolness.
A very interesting choice of ships.
Well done.
And extra thanks for posting the photos of your progress.
I want to try my hand at building plugs, and these posts will help a lot.
Mikey

 

Hi,
I have to say - five is too many to build at once. I usually have a higher attrition rate. I expected to get maybe 2 hulls from the 5, but this time the only one (so far) that has encountered a trash-bin-sized-problem was my first Iron Duke. Usually I would have just let it at that, but there was a lot of rain and I couldn't proceed with the others, and heck..that was the one I really wanted -- so I started again.

Not to say they've been problem free -- but nothing that couldn't be fixed. And I don't have really high standards.

And they are not out the door yet. I have at least two failures at the molding stage. One one the gel-coat didn't harden, and the other I had used syrofoam (to prevent the expanding foam from warping the plug) which melted when exposed to the FG resin. I thought it was safe behind the plaster, sealant, and wax. Not so.

Anyway -- today I sanded the Renown and Furataka again, and gave the Iron Duke its second plaster coat.

 

Hi,
An update on my progress. The two presdreadnoughts are more or less ready. This means the plugs are not perfect, but I am putting in as many flawas as I as am taking out -- so it is time to stop.
They have been sealed will some shellac and are waiting for flanges and more sealing.

The Renown, Iron Duke, and Furataka are all proceeding - all have their little problems but so far nothing serious. All of these have had 4 coats of plaster and 4 sandings.
The last coat put on the Furatake was crack filler rather than plaster. Crack filler is what I use when I am coming to the end and only small blemishes are being filled. The Furataka isn't at the stage yet, but beacuse of the the small hull it is easier to use than plaster.


This is the Renown from the starboard quarter. The surface is much
less bumpy but still not smooth. The top edge of the bulge is quite noticable as is the curve around the bilges. At this point I am try to build the plaster back up so that it just covers the edges of the forms.


Here is a view of the stern. Again, still needs some more sanding and filling. You can see the bulges tapering into the stern.


This is the Iron Duke. The first sandings take the plaster right down to forms -- so that all the forms are bare. Now I am adding plaster to just cover the edges of the forms -- add -- sand -- add sand. The sanding isn't as much as the first few times though.


Here is the side of the Iron Duke showing the casemates. I haven't even tried to sand these yet. Again you can see blemishes on the plaster. These will gradually go away as the hull is filled and sanded.


This is the Furataka fromt the stern. You can just make out the line of the bulges where it meets the bottom of the hull.


This is the Furataka from the starboard quarter. The edge of the bulge is visible, but needs more work to straigten it out and make it crisper. Except for the bulge this hull has been very easy to work on.

 

The hull plugs are looking good Rob. I know what you mean about getting to the point where you create as many minor defects as you eliminate. That's when to call it quits and proceed to molding preparation.

I reached that point with the HMS Furious plug last weekend trying to correct some minor (2-3mm) port/starboard asymmetries in the bow and stern areas. The plug has since had 4 coats of Zinsser primer/sealer and is ready for final sanding with wet and dry paper.

I'll be applying an extra thick layer of gelcoat in the mold to allow any remaining minor defects to be sanded out. This hull won't be up to my HMS Vanguard or Black Prince standards, but is good as I can make it working from the modified 12 year old HMS Courageous plug.

I hope to have the mold done in 2 weeks and will build two models: the WWI battlecruiser and WWI full carrier. The carrier is more powerful (5 combat units) under Treaty Combat rules and will have dual bow and stern guns. The BC will have two 1.5 unit sidemounts.

Bob

 

Hi,
Today I decided not to proceed with the Furataka. I just can't seem to get the curve of the bulge to align along the top. I'll keep the plug for a while in case I can think of something to try but I think the best bet for that one is start again.

I have now switched to fine sanding for the Renown and Iron Duke.
This just means I am addressing the smaller defects -- one by one -- and there are still quite a few in each hull. Maybe some pictures later this week.

 

Rob,
When do you think the plugs will be ready for molding? (I know you'll be away for a few weeks.) It will be a while before Ian finishes his Renown plug - he's trying to get Hood rearmed between trips to sea.

Furious is ready for molding - the mold should be finished by the end of June.

Bob

 

Hi Bob,
I think I will be putting the flanges on next week and then moulding the week after that.

The Renown plug is almost at the stage where I don't have the skills to make it better - there are still a few areas where the formers are exposed and will be visible on the final product and I can't seem to make them go away.

In general, the plug is turning out much better than I expected. The bulge looks good, the lines are symetrical. There is a slight dip on one deck edge at the quarterdeck - but I am seeing to that now. Right now I am addressing the transition areas -- where one hull feature meets another.

I fattened up the bow a little bit to help molding and one of the bulge steps is rounded to help sheeting, but not much else in the way of comprimises. Not to say it is perfect, but not bad.

The Iron Duke is also almost ready. I am just smoothing the bow and doing the casemates. Again, there will parts of ribs exposed, but not too bad.

I must thank you for the sponge idea. I found some sanding sponges made for dryway and they work great. One is even cut at angles to make it easier to samd edges. You still need the sanding screen for the early sanding, but the sponges are the way to go for the detail work.

Just had a thought -- I will have to measure them again to make sure the beam is still okay.

 

That's good news Rob. We should have our battlecruiser molds finished around the same time.

Like you, I widened the bow below the waterline. The Courageous plug, from which the Furious plug has been made/modified, produced a mold with a scale but narrow underwater ram bow. It was very difficult to lay-up fiberglass in the narrow gap left after the gelcoat was applied.

Over 12 years in storage, partly sitting outside with intention to be scrapped, the ram bow's plywood warped slightly to port. To make the ram symmetrical on the Furious plug the ram had to be widened by about 1/4", which will solve the lay-up problem.

If the weather is favourable the Furious mold should be finished by June 23. Glad the sponge idea was helpful. It really sped up the plug shaping process for me.

I was planning to do the hypothetical G3 Class battlecruiser hull next but haven't been able to get cross-sections. Looks like an R Class battleship hull mold will be the next project. Like the rest of my molds it will probably go to the US for hull production.

Bob

 

Hi
Renown and Iron Duke are basically done. I have actually deteriorated the finish on the Renown in the last few days -- so it is time to stop. One last sanding on the bow is all it's getting - because the sunlight reveals ripples.

The Iron Duke's casemates will be a little rough. Next time I do a ship with casemates I will leave them open at the top and not try to mold in the deck overhang.

 

Looks good. So when will you produce your first hull?