Cargo Ship Revisited Pt4…………….

I've finally finished the T030 Cargo Ship from Scalescenes . I've had to put it onto the back burner for a short while, as I've recently lost my Father. Modelling was the last thing on my mind whilst he was so ill. He’s in a better place now and out of all of his dreadful pain and things are slowly returning to normal.

Anyway back to the ship. I left showing you the hatches I'd fashioned from some mounting board wrapped in a green cover layer. That left me with a dilemma, do I leave the modified hold white or do I change it to green to match the ship. I decided to go with the green, so I used my hand held airbrush with my Promarker alcohol pens. I was very pleased with the result. 

     

All that was left to do was all of the little fiddly details. Some steps for access to the aft and fore decks. A length of fine florists wire makes an ideal handrail.

     

     

Then the winch on the fore deck. Cleverly made with the addition of a couple of push pins fashioned for the drums. A trip to the local pound shop for a cheap chain necklace to make an anchor chain. A quick coat of black paint and you have an ideal anchor chain.

     

     

On the original ship design, it comes with two life boats on the aft deck. The problem I had was, when I chopped off the stern it left me with very little room for the life boats, so I had to improvise. One would have to do. Very clever, but simple design makes a perfect life boat.

     

     

     

I was stuck to what cargo to put in the hold. I thought of coal, sand and even steel coils, but I opted for a cargo of urea. This product gets shipped into our port in this shipping companies vessels. I couldn't use actual urea as it is a hygroscopic substance. Not good when your model is made entirely of card. I would end up with a soggy mess. My wife Jak had a pack of a product called Artista Super Light, it is a moist paper based modelling product which is easily fashioned into shape, and once it's air dried, it's ideal as a bulk lightweight cargo.

     

And here it is in all of its glory. As my attempt at a bit of a kit bash, I'm quite pleased with my effort.

     

     

     

The gantry crane that moves the hatches, was kindly made for me by a work colleague Andrew. He is a very good scratch builder (as you can see) and he made this out of strips of Evergreen plastic. And it is very accurate to the original crane. He took photos from a sister ship in the port.

Until Next Time………

Cargo Ship Revisited Pt3…………….

Well a lot has happened since we last met. I sat down and deliberated, pondered and finally decided to radically change the design of the ship. As you may know, I’m building this ship for the second time. I loved the last one I built but, I really wanted to build it again but in a different colour. The colour I preferred, was a shade of green, which adorns a group of vessels that visit the port I work at. The next problem was how to change the colour. I contacted Scalescenes and John kindly sent me an editable version of the plans. My wife Jak works within the craft and design industry, and knows her way around an editing suite, so she got the job of changing the colour for me. The next problem was, the ship I had in mind is a lot more modern than the original from scalescenes, so here was where I had to make that radical decision. I chopped of the stern to make it square!

Before……..                                                                                                                     ……..after.

      

I know it doesn't look much, but for someone who normally only builds to the plan, a bit of kit bashing scares me a bit. Especially as I’d come this far. If it didn’t work, there were a lot of hours gone down the drain. I should of thought about this from the start. Anyway it worked and with a bit of work and the addition of a kit bashed hand rail, I was quite pleased with myself.

     

     

The next challenge was the holds. The original old style has two holds with hatch boards. These would have to be changed to a more modern large hatch covers.

I had to set to and make a re-designed hold. I wanted to totally wrap around the original holds with one large hold and level off the top, so that I could make some large hatch covers. I have a large collection of scalescenes kits, so I had a rake through some of them, and found within the T009 Modern Industrial Building, a section of the interior wall that looked a lot like the side of the holds I was trying to emulate. With the addition of some uprights to the side of the hold, I was pleased with the result.

     

     

Next came the hatch covers. My wife Jak  just happened to have some foam mount board. This worked really well as it was 5mm thick, and when I lapped the edges and wrapped them in the green hatch colour cover layer, it looked like the greased rubber seals on the modern ships.

     

     

Right, you’re up to date. I’m off to fit these hatches, and try to find how to make some sort of gantry crane to move them.

Until Next Time…………….