Guy's, Other than Mike who will have a ship on the water this year ?? Also any Up-date on current build's / ship's Who's building what ?? Sharky
Work and studies have sort of interfered with my ship building plans. Working up a K-Class light cruiser for fast-gun at the moment. Still have the pre-dreadnought itch but have not decided on which of those beauties needs to be built for the big leagues. Have the oddest desire to go Russian. Or a monitor. Can't decide, but have a couple of weeks to think about it.
I won't this year. I'm prepping for the MWCI nats in July, then heading overseas in August for a 1 year assignment to South Korea. My goal is to build a Battlestations ship while in Korea so when I return in Aug 09, I'll be ready to play!
I'm kinda interested and am real close to Mike Deskin so we could battle but it's always more fun with a few more ships.. Anyone else out there with something under way ?? Sharky
Strasbourg will be ready for sure. I have also been working on the Mogador. I now have almost half of the ribs cut out, along with the bow, and stern profile. My plan is to have Mogador ready for combat by September or October. I am also making templates for all of the Mogador parts, so that I can build the Volta next year. Although at this time, I do not have plans to build a Le terrible for myself anytime soon, I do have some very nice plans for that class, and will be scaling them up, and then making a set of templates for her. Should be a really nice boat. I have two other local guys that are somewhat (a little) interested in building to 96th scale. So I plan to have some plans ready just in case they decide to make a move. My new shipyard will be ready in a couple of weeks. And I will have a drafting area for my plans (which is one of my favorite parts of the hobby). I have also been putting some thought into generating ports, and islands for one of the local battle sites, so that we can battle like the big-gun club (MBG) where it can be sortie type battles, or campaign style where it just runs all day, with convoys, and perhaps even shore bombardments. This can be as fun as we make it. By the first of March, my shipyard will be in full swing, working on 96th scale stuff. Ships, plans, islands, and ports, for the battle site. I have a dream. I am coming up with a plan, and before long I will have a small fleet. I already have a battle site. At this stage of the game, I just need to keep making whatever progress I can. When I find an hour or two to work on boats, then I just find something that I can finish in an hour or two, and get started. That way, when I walk out of the boat shop, I can take one more look, and see what I have just created. We all have a mountain to climb together. The trick is to not look ahead at the mountain itself. Just look at one step at a time. Carry on... Mikey
Yamato is ready for sea trials soon as the ice is gone. waiting on the turrets from Tug, and need to some plumbing and super structure work. The I-400 is ready to be assembled (all frames are cut) so that ship will be finished completely within a month or two, just in time for ice-out so that's two ships for me.
I'm going to try and get my Shimakaze done this year. Right now I need to cut out the rudder and mount it again. When I put it in, the kids bumped it after I left the garage and left my rudder canted at about a 20 degree angle. I didn't notice it until two days later, after the West Systems epoxy had totally cured... I'm already working on the design for my quintuple torpedo mounts and twin turrets, but haven't had time to start building them yet. I'm not sure how heavy they're going to be, and I'm tight on weight. I may have to give up some of my weapons to keep the weight right. If I had it to do over again, I'd definitely start with a CA or a BB rather than a DD. Mikey and Tugboat did it right -- starting big and then working smaller. Carl
Mikey, I can't wait to see your Strasbourg firing those quad turrets! Are you going to build a plug and do a mold for your hulls, or are you going to scratch-build both of them? I'd be interested in a Mogador hull if you're making a plug... Carl
Carl I have always thought about making a plug, and mold, and have read some write-ups on how to do it, but never got serious about actually trying to do it. So at this time,I am not planning to make a plug/mold, but will have the templates, and would be willing to share these. I hope to have the rest of the ribs done in a week or so, and will post some photos of the skeleton. I also hope to get back to work on finishing the Strasbourg after next weekend. As to the comments about starting too small.. As some of you might recall. I was planning to build a Gloire class light cruiser for my first ship, but when I laid out the drawings on the workbench and started laying my internal componants over the plans, it didn't take me long to realize that the light cruiser was going to be a tuff build, because I had already decided that I wanted to have all of the main cannons opperational, and have planty of CO2, and batteries. After brooding on it for a while, I rolled up the cruiser plans, and laid out the Strasbourg, which took up the entire workbench. So although I understood that building the hull, and superstructure for the battlecruiser would take three times as long as the light cruiser. I also knew that the hard part of the build is deciding what armaments to not install, when there is not enough room, or weight. So although the Strasbourg is so big that she is somewhat of a pain to transport to the pond, I can fully arm her, and have plenty of CO2 and ammo. I will carry enough batteries for half-a-day, and will have an extra set if I decide to change them out. I learned in big-gun, that some of the best small ship are only partially armed. Either cannons only, torpedoes only, or half of the cannons, and half of the torpedoes. So when I do arm up the Mogador, it will be only partially. Mikey
Mike I didn't know you were interested in the Battlestations. What ship do you think you will be building? Mikey
Mikey, It'll be a French BC, the Suffern. It'll come out a little longer than the 1/144th Richelieu, so transporting it shouldn't be too bad. It has half decent speed, twin rudders, three shafts, and will get a good number of 3/16th cannons for the main armament. It doesn't get much armor on the other hand. Heh.
All For some unknown reason, I have been in a hurry to have a Battlestations event, even though it would probably mean having a smallish turn-out. So not that I am giving up on having an event before Mike M. leaves for a year, but I am giving more thought to putting less thought into having an event asap, and more effort into getting some more boats on the water. So that being said.. Strasbourg will be battle ready by June. Mogador will be battle ready by June also. I will not be starting anymore construction projects till later on in the year. My question to you is this. What is the status of your construction. And more importantly.. Do you need help getting past a point in your project that is holding you up for one reason or another. I am going to have an event sometime between May-August here in the Dayton area. But after that it would be nice to know what ships will be coming on-line later in the year, and for next year. Mainly so that we can start a list of battle-ready ships. So that we will have an idea of what the teams look like for down-the-road.. Mikey
well after I complete the Yamato, Shinano, Musashi, Shimakaze, and the I-400 (might make a few of these until I'm happy with the final set-up) I'll take a break from building any more hulls for myself and just "improve" upon what I have like better systems and such. Also I'd also like to see what other ships are out there in the fleet before I take on anymore projects (try to keep repeats to a minimum and maintain some kind of balance.
Mikey, I think the main thing holding me up is trying to arm all my weapons and hold on to the weight. I might someday achieve that, but not anytime soon. So to try and get her on the water this summer, I'm only going to arm Shimakaze's X and Y turrets and 1-2 of the three torpedo launchers. I think that will help me get done by June. Carl
My Mogador will be lightly armed to begin with. Probably only 2 cannons. I will get her on the water with that, and then see what I can add later. If I don't feel like adding more cannons, then I may just run her with 2. The important thing is to get the ship on the water, and have some fun with it. Mikey
change of plan, I didn't realize Dietzer was building the Shimakaze, so I won't order the plans and build her. I'll just stick with building the I-400's and the Yamato's.
