There were a few more corrections needed than I initially realised but have dealt with these and am pressing on slowly. Pic below shows the deckhouse construction. Portholes are disks punched from pinstripe tape, handrails are made by threading tiny slices of wire insulation representing supports onto thin brass wire. Doors are printed out from reduced scans of bigger scratch built doors made of 0.4mm play and mahogany stripwood. Door handles are small brass pins.

The trick is in getting the right degree of detail for the scale and within my building capabilities. Like all models it will be a compromise but I’m hoping it will look OK eventually. The 12 steam winches on around 10×10 mm baseplates will be fun although I did make a lot of these to this scale back in the 1980s for my Empress of India of the same period (see below) and still have a couple to use as references.

Colin

Looking at the shell (hull) doors today. The top half lifts vertically and the bottom half horizontally so good fun in trying to represent the hinges.

The more I get into the model the more detail issues arise – it’s almost fractal!

I thought I had 12 identical steam cargo winches but in fact a lot of them are handed with drums on one side and a couple have extended warping drums. Fortunately the basic construction seems to be the same.

Colin

That is a good method Bob, I used  Tamiya masking tape to set the porthole  levels and place the self adhesive disks resting on that.

The more I get into this model the more discrepancies I find between the Carpenter, Bowen and Maritime Museum plans, the builder’s model and the available photographs. Both the Carpenter and Bowen plans are inaccurate in some respects but sometimes one and sometimes the other so I am having to work out the best compromise. It is clear that the ship was not built strictly according to the plans and that the builders model is inaccurate in some respects, particularly the placing of the lifeboats.

Still, I don’t suppose anyone will notice on my model!

Colin

Yes, the QE2 was constantly altered both inside and out. Here she is, outbound from Southampton in July 2007. We kept well clear. I can’t quite believe it was 17 years ago! It was a shame when they removed the forward observation lounge to make room for a kitchen.

I want to represent Miltiades as completed as near as I can make it. Fortunately the discrepancies in the various records are of a minor nature.

Colin

Some of the skylights are now done. The more I get into the detail of this ship the more discrepancies I find within the drawings and between these, the Builders Model and the few available photographs. The skylights are a case in point there are a number scattered over the vessel which admit mainly light to the accommodation spaces below and two very large ones over the engine room which serve to exhaust air taken in from the many cowl vents. The number of windows in the accommodation skylights can vary depending on which drawing you are looking at although they all come from the builder while the Builder’s Model show all the skylights to the same design, including those over the engine room which seems unlikely when you look at other contemporary models of similar ships.

It does look like the plans were drawn up by the builder, but neither the ship nor the Builders Model depicted the actual vessel with total accuracy. I suppose this was to be expected as things change during construction, but is a bit frustrating in deciding what to put on my model. The skylights appear in the right places but the number of windows in the top can vary depending on which drawing you are looking at or the Builders Model.

On the plus side it does leave me with a bit of modeller’s licence in depicting these items and of course at 1:150 scale only a certain amount of detail can be shown anyway. Overall the model should look OK at the distance it is intended to be viewed from.

It is interesting that the 1:1200 miniature plans from John Bowen and R Carpenter both differ from each other and from the original plans although at that scale it is even less noticeable.

Colin

Having difficulty in figuring things out!

The model is 1:150 scale and I have built it to that. It is also supposed to be compatible with model railways, N gauge so I ordered some figures and deck seats to this scale. Some of the seats looked about right, others were too small. The figures I ordered to populate the ship were supposed to be N gauge, 1:150, but are actually too small at 10mm and about 5 feet 6 inches high to scale. I really need 1:144 or 12mm figures to fit the model.There are plenty of these on sale but 12mm is a wargaming scale so all that seems to be available are WW2 combat troops or ancient Greek heroes. The latter might tie in with the name of the ship but a warrior brandishing a spear on the bridge is not really what I am looking for.

Thanks for the suggestion Richard and I’ve had a look. There are in fact some period civilians which look nice in the illustrations but reducing them down to 1:148 would lose much of the detail and they are still very expensive when you have a 6,500 ton liner to populate!

Colin

Edit, I have found some figures on eBay which appear to be a bit larger. The have to come from China but it’s only £5 so I can afford to take a chance.