Todays Boating

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Ray. Plse write out 1000 times " I must read all wot Ashley has written regarding this build".

Yes….Hull is about 250g, bath test ballast works out at 1,8 Kg (4lbs). That's a lot of weight for something this titchy.

Although I will have the traditional thin white boot topping, I will probably ballast to less that the waterline to stop it getting swamped avery time a duck swims past.

​I am resisting the temptation to put it next to the Nelson until its finished. I think the visual impact of how small these battleships really were will be an eye opener.

Ashley (only kidding…make it 10,000)

[Trevor HollowayParticipant @trevorholloway99134]

Look forward to seeing it at "Show and Tell" tomorrow.

[Ian JopsonParticipant @ianjopson21383]

Back from Lithuania last night (3 am) and MrsJ still snoring so able to catch up on your build. Looking good. Thanks for all the build pictures and 'as you go' commentary.

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Ian, Thanks for that. A picture paints a thousand words but the commentary tells it as it is.

Stuck the deck cabins with their bits of ply on this morning, painted the rest of the deck. Was going to stick funnels on but of course one is wonky to some adjustment needed.

​The apertures and flaps for the side battery of 6 inch guns needs doing now. Horribly fiddly. I have decided to cut some strips 8×16, and then stick the door flaps to them… 8×4, in thin styrene. The guns will then be stuck on, styrene rod, trimmed to length and then the centre and guns painted matt black. The assembly will then be stuck on the sides. I realise that the gun embrasures should be indented but with the plug system this is not possible, and in any case from 6 foot away will not show. Getting those little bits nice and square will be taxing.

​The 6 inchers are not going to be long enough, either, as they stick out the hull and will all get snapped off the first time the boat comes in to the jetty.

​Ashley

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Not much done yesterday however I have put the ring at the stern that encompasses the rear 10 in gun (I think its 10 inch) in its open mount. A bit more cheating here. No one will notice.

After re-painting the hull (the black bit only) I will be tackling the vertical ends of those struts. THEN I will paint the deck for its final finish.

​Ashley

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Done as above. make a dinky little 10 in gun for the rear. Doing the ends of the boat deck supports was not as difficult as supposed.

​New snaps, This is a warts and all build (BUT I am not telling you all the cheaty bits). The bits look crude close up. The gun housing is about an inch long…pine and 0.8mm ply. It will look great when glossed.

​The black hull section above the waterline looks good, flat and smooth, after flatting down the first coat with wet`n`dry.

​Despite having twin 16.5 inch guns forward in an armoured turret, the rear gun was a 10 incher in an open unarmoured mount. There were 6 inch guns in armoured casements along the side, and a few 6 pounders (on the top deck.(57mm bore)
Ashley

 

Edited By ashley needham on 04/08/2017 20:45:22

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

The black bit of hull has dried nicely and I have applied thin white pinstripe tape, and just now varnished the whole thing with Hunbrol Satincote varnish.

Another daub of white undercoat has gone on the bits that needed it, and yesterday I re-made the funnel bases so now they sit square and upright.

Having fiddled about painting the deck I reaslise now I need to splash the white about in order to seal the new struts against water, so will have to re-touch the deck once the final gloss coat is on.

​Tasks today. Make gunports, have a think about the mast. This needs to be de-mountable to save space and precludes a lot of rigging unfortunately, but there we are. I cant make another dozen little Victorian ships if their box occupies too much space!!

Ashley

 

Edited By Colin Bishop, Website Editor on 05/08/2017 10:07:35

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Looking good, Ashley

Just had a great idea!

Have you tried Vinegar and Brown paper?

What's that?…….You have?……..I thought so

Only pulling your leg, Ash

Bob

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Bob. I am full of the old tricks!

Hull sides are now a nice satin finish. Fore deck scraped smooth with razor blade and first coat of light stone colour applied.

​Upper works glossed. Gun sanded and glossed. Funnel blocks glossed. Fiddled with the mast, undecided on how to make the fighting tops. HOWEVER, made the side gunports. Seemed to take forever, but they are done. I have no 2.5mm Styrene tube or the actual guns though. No rush.

Boating by bike tomorrow as the Mrs's mums cat has passed away and she has to go round to dispose of the body. Terrapin in a bag it will be for boating.

Ashley.

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

terrapin (by bike). Three others there, great morning…where are you all????

Bit of painting on the Sans today, not sure what the large circle is on the fore deck…must be for something, but it is there now anyway. Extra lines JUSTR visible are where I marked it out wrongly to start with….

​Used a compass with a fine felt pen, and filled out with matt black. Needs going over again as do bits of the deck,.

Ashley

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Hi Ashley

Was this a real ship in real life?

If so, can you post a photo please?

Bob

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

It's this one, isn't it..? **LINK**

[harry smith 1Participant @harrysmith1]

Hi All

Resized the pics!!!

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

Posted by harry smith 1 on 07/08/2017 08:41:26:

Hi All

Resized the pics!!!

 

Clicking in the link I provided will give you the same ones (from Wiki), only with a bigger and sharper image of the whole boat, I think….

 

Here is another, more detailed link…  http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/hms_sans_pareil.htm

And some deck plans…  https://northstarmodels.com//wp-content/uploads/2016/02/is70085_Sans_Pareil-1.jpg

 

Edited By Dodgy Geezer on 07/08/2017 09:02:37

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Thanks for that chaps. Bob, as you can see it was a real ship however improbable the layout appears to be.

​I am going to fiddle with the bridge area today. I have cut two pieces if styrene pipe for the actual armoured bits, and now need to cut the decks out. Then the walkways around the ships boats.

​Funnels painted but decided not to stick them on yet pending doing the lower bridge section.

​Ashley

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Many thanks to the chaps for posting the hitherto unknown, to me, pictures of the Sans battleship

Were these ships ever used in anger?

Probably not……Did we have any enemies of quality in those days, to justify all this waste and expense?

I ask myself

Bob

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

No Bob, the idea of these ships was to act as a deterrent. Britannia really did rule the waves in those days

Sans Pareil's sister ship Victoria was lost in collision with HMS Camperdown in unusual circumstances. You can find a potted history in the link below – well worth a read. I imagine the Queen was not amused!

As a detail, John Jellicoe who commanded the Grand Fleet at Jutland was aboard at her sinking suffering from flu. It is interesting to speculate how things might have turned out in WW1 if he had gone down with the ship.

**LINK**

Colin

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately there were few armoured ship-ship actions of note during this sort of period involving British ships.

​The only battle was that of the battle of Pacoha, where The Chilean armoured turret vessel "Huascar" fought HMS Shah (an unarmoured frigate) and the Amethyst. Despite being hit 60 times by the Shah and the smaller Amethyst (Shah was an iron hulled/wooden sheathed vessel, the Amethyst was a wooden corvette) the Huascar was unpenetrated partly due to the British ships having no armour piercing shells. The Huascar survives to this day as a museum ship (it was British built).

​This is where the ramming bit comes in, as in the Monitor/Merrimack fight, it was thought that armoured ships fighting would not be able to do sufficient damage to each other and a ramming attack might do the job. This had caused damaged in the Battle of Lissa (1866) between mixed bag of armoured and unarmoured Austrian/Italian ships and was thus seen to be a valid tactic.

​Unfortunately these sorts of actions led to false conclusions, and were studied to death more often enough drawing the wrong conclusions.

​Interestingly the Huascar and Monitor suffered the same burden of not having their turret armament capability at 100 per cent effectiveness.

​The other issue was the ships were obsolescent as they left the slipway, having been made so by technical advances as they were building! The admiralty did not want to launch fleets of unbattleworthy ships and thus small and different batches were produced.

​Ashley

Edited By ashley needham on 07/08/2017 10:03:09

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Thanks Colin and Ashley

Being a Sailor in those days, seems to have been very hazardous!

Bob

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Made the boat walkways, currently hanging up to let the undercoat dry. I may paint parts of it a slightly different colour…ie a light brown, just to get some colour in there. It is 0.8mm ply. It has been stuck to the cutting board as the only way I could get it to stay still!!

Found tiny anchors and bollards but the 12mm plastic cowl vents elude me. I used same on the Titanic, they are a good size.

​Ships boats will be about the same as that fitted to the Nelson (after checking) as I did think the Nelson boats were much smaller, but apparently not!

The Titanic is about 1/200 scale. I shall have a trio of same scale (ish) boats to sail soon…

Ashley

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Made the boat walkways, currently hanging up to let the undercoat dry. I may paint parts of it a slightly different colour…ie a light brown, just to get some colour in there. It is 0.8mm ply. It has been stuck to the cutting board as the only way I could get it to stay still!!

Found tiny anchors and bollards but the 12mm plastic cowl vents elude me. I used same on the Titanic, they are a good size.

​Ships boats will be about the same as that fitted to the Nelson (after checking) as I did think the Nelson boats were much smaller, but apparently not!

The Titanic is about 1/200 scale. I shall have a trio of same scale (ish) boats to sail soon…

Ashley

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Unplanned tinker time today at the pond, trying out Trevor's new craft.

​Stunned really, after just some very minor adjustments it performed as per the label. Not only that, but at a very low speed (for the type). Well impressed. Built from plan so in theory it SHOULD have worked as advertised, but several mods have been made (electric motor, radio control) to make the thing useable in todays society so anything could have happened.

I can report it also works well upside down, as the wind caught it and hup she went. never mind, and following the mould of my projects F and H, which also work upside down, albeit with no steering.

Purchased 2.4mm styrene tube this afternoon for the side 6 inch guns, and I will use bits to support the walkways.
​Was going to use bits of dowel but difficult getting the ends square when they are 8mm tall!!

Finished splashing paint on the Sans box, just need to stick the foam in place. Boat is at a stage where I need somewhere secure to hold it in.

​Ashley

[Ian JopsonParticipant @ianjopson21383]

I noticed, last night, that there are a couple of decent photos of Brian King's 'Victoria' and her boat deck in his book on making Victorian warships.

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

I​an. Thanks for that. I think there are pictures on line to be had of |Brian`s boat. I have printed half a dozen to use in the workshop. One set appears to be a large card model! Details differ of course but the clarity on the modle is very useful.

​My ships boats will be about 65mm or so long and probably balsa, solid.

​The side walkways are at different levels, by a few steps, but mine will be all level as cutting supports at fractions of a mm is not going to work!!

Ashley

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Not much to report just yet. Been fiddling about with the boat walkway (painted) and decided after all to support the ends of it on poles, in this case some 2.4mm tube as purchased for the side 6 inch guns as per previous post. This has worked out ok, if a bit taxing on the eyes. Side covers and 6 inch guns made/painted, and the pole mast is coming along nicely.

​Pole mast is 5mm bamboo BBQ skewer (Thanks Trevor), which is actually much rounder than the same size wood dowel, and slices of larger dowel drilled centrally and stuck on at the appropriate places. A combing of 0.8mm ply has been applied and the cheaty bit is the method of support, so`s to speak. The platforms were conical in form, but this defeated my wood-lathe attempts being very small, so I am adding fore/aft side/side balsa supports which will give exactly the same profile when viewed at any angle, and this is of course DOWN, as the thing is very small!

Boating tomorrow is likely Titanic and a flying boat.

​Ashley

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