Author Topic: Luftschiffmotorboot 1/144 (Read 9061 times)

Dirigible-Al · « **Reply #30 on:** July 22, 2024, 12:19:59 AM »

Thanks for your comments Dutch, RAGIII and Nigel, it helps hearing positive feedback when I get punished by my worst critic, myself. I was hoping to post this with more stuff done but things have not been moving fast on my workbench.

I decided to re do part of the funnels. On the plans it shows a lip near the top and widens slightly. I chopped off the bottoms, inserted a narrow sleaved wire into the hollow funnel and widened this to the desired amount. This was done by wrapping tin foil around the thinner bottom. I love using foil, it is super thin, can be sanded and usually leaves little or no line where it ends.

The deck was painted with Panzer grey and to my releaf it covered both deck and cockpit OK with no rips or creases. The armour around it was heat moulded .25mm plastic card which after 3 goes I was happy with the result. A bit of tidying up is now needed.

Engine room is just a solid piece of balsa. I could have had hatches open but that would have meant building it out of plastic card and would have taken much longer. There appears to be two large 'sunroof' style raised sections which I believe to have small struts or catches connecting them to the roof of the engine room. I used the thinnest fuse wire I have to replicate this, although I put these right through them you will not know that. The tops of these are paper cut from the plans as are the hatches that open. These had to be raised above the level of the vents (otherwise they wouldn't look like they could open!) which I did using plastic card.25mm. More detail will go on these. The 8 portholes are the same fuse wire wound round a drill bit and cut lengthwise to form circles. Since doing these I thought thin heat stretched sprue wound round a drill bit and heated would have been better, maybe next time. They will be filled with gunmetal grey and then high gloss.

I have just placed the engine room on the deck and will glue it when I have finished more of the details. I am somewhat relieved the main parts are nearly done even if not attached. I am now in that place where 90% is done and just have the other 90% to go!

Thanks for looking in, Alan.

Edit: I accidentally deleted the pictures on this post on Imgur. I hope now the correct ones are back.

RAGIII · « **Reply #31 on:** July 22, 2024, 12:33:20 AM »

Amazing! This is really taking shape now! Excellent techniques used to form the parts. Not too fancy but very effective!!
RAGIII

NigelR · « **Reply #32 on:** July 22, 2024, 06:12:42 PM »

Good to see you progressing with this. It will be worth the effort to have such a unique model of such an interesting subject.

AngryJazz · « **Reply #33 on:** July 29, 2024, 04:42:12 PM »

Excellent work!

macsporran · « **Reply #34 on:** July 29, 2024, 05:02:54 PM »

Great project
Sandy

Dirigible-Al · « **Reply #35 on:** July 30, 2024, 01:30:40 AM »

I deleted some rubbish off of Imgur and in doing so accidentally deleted some of the pictures to which there are links here. I think I got them all but in re posting them I somehow did another post, this one. I deleted all the text (which was basically all from the last post) and thought I may as well fill it with an update. Good job I don't do IT for a living!

Thanks for your comments Sandy, Angry Jazz, Nigel and RAGIII.

I have not made anything new but simply attached the built parts to the boat. It is now at a point where handling it is precarious and dropping it would undo a lot of work so I have now glued it to it's permanent home. Before I attached it to the base I masked then brush painted the anti fouling on the hull. I am not happy with the edge where the deck meets the sides so I will tidy that up a bit. I will then have all the finicky little details to add.

Thanks for looking in.
Alan

RAGIII · « **Reply #36 on:** July 30, 2024, 05:07:55 AM »

That is a great update...intentional or not

she really is looking the part, especially in it's natural environment!
RAGIII

Dutch522 · « **Reply #37 on:** July 30, 2024, 05:33:48 AM »

Great progress, she looks completely believable on that base. What an amazingly effective technique!

Dutch

NigelR · « **Reply #38 on:** July 30, 2024, 06:04:19 PM »

She's really looking like a boat now! I really like the different colours in the water, very effective. This is a really interesting build, I'm enjoying it very much

Dirigible-Al · « **Reply #39 on:** August 30, 2024, 03:47:46 AM »

Thanks for your comments RAGIII, Dutch and Nigel.

I am tackling the hardest things now which is why there's been a long time since my last post. I have been working on this to no lesser extent but I just have not been able to move this on as quick as I would have wanted to.

I think the railings are really important because they give a proper idea of scale. I used the thinnest copper wire I dared, I couldn't use the thinnest I have because it would just be too flimsy. Using a cutout of the plans I put the verticals in place. The wire was straitened then sharpened at one end like a needle, this was then just stuck into the foam body and glued. When fixed I was able to bend them at the base to their correct angle. For the horizontals I tried a thinner wire on the top of but wasn't happy with it so mono went on. For the middle horizontal I tried mono again but struggled so used stretched sprue and that worked well. Although time consuming it didn't give me any real problems until I did the last bit, one of the diagonals on a corner and cut through something I shouldn't. This unfortunately put me into a rut where every time I put one piece on I broke another somewhere else. Other times it just refused to go in place, instead choosing to stick itself to something it shouldn't. I finally put the corner together, it doesn't look exactly like the others but I don't want to go back on myself and re build the whole side again besides which that may be impossible, although foam is great to build with it can have its drawbacks. If you glue something into it then take it out a large piece of foam usually accompanies it.

The MG08 machine gun was made from three small strips of .25mm plastic card with part of the handles cut into the ends of two. The middle has a notch cut out of it to house part of the barrel. The sides were sanded thinner after they were glued together. The barrel is a very thin piece of PVC electrical sleeving hollowed out then filled with one rod of copper. The copper rod protrudes out one end to slot into the notch in the middle piece of plastic card. Small, cut pieces of plastic, paper and stretched sprue went around the gun to detail it. Finally two very small pieces of stretched sprue finished off the rear handles. I ended up making three of these. Number one and two are missing somewhere in the carpet or god knows where. I did actually find the magazine from #2 so only made two of them, this was cut and shaped from a thick piece of plastic sprue. If this one decides to launch itself across the room I probably won't build another one.

Base of the MG is made almost entirely of copper wire glued together. There appears to be a barrel type part near the top, I heat stretched a pen refill and cut a little piece off. By doing this I was able to slide it down the piece of copper that attaches to the MG and works well both to stabilise and strengthen it.

Despite the issues which were all of my making I am happier it now looks like a speedboat with the railings on rather than a vessel that could be of any scale. I will now move onto the fiddly bits on the front.

FAf · « **Reply #40 on:** August 30, 2024, 03:53:21 AM »

That is really impressive work on something that must be very fiddly and delicate!
/Fredrik

NigelR · « **Reply #41 on:** August 30, 2024, 06:05:03 PM »

Amazing work and the end result is very effective. Well worth the effort!

All these 1/144 scratchbuilds are just convincing me to stick with gluing together big kits in 1/32!!

RAGIII · « **Reply #42 on:** September 01, 2024, 03:43:39 AM »

Quote from: NigelR on August 30, 2024, 06:05:03 PM

Amazing work and the end result is very effective. Well worth the effort!

All these 1/144 scratchbuilds are just convincing me to stick with gluing together big kits in 1/32!!

I have to agree with Nigel!
It was great following your processes during the build! Those railings are mind blowing when I think about just how Small they are in reality! Lovely results!!
RAGIII

Dirigible-Al · « **Reply #43 on:** September 03, 2024, 03:18:41 AM »

Thank you for your comments RAGIII, Nigel and Fredrik it can be fiddly, frustrating and very time consuming to put some of these things on but I do think they are worth the effort in the end.

I had a good session this morning, got stuck and so as not to spoil things quit while I was ahead.

There is a rectangular box which is part of the wireless aperatus and connects to the aerial. Rather than use a drill to fit the turnbuckle I found a strip of plastic already cut from 1mm plastic card and ran the point of a scalpel down the middle to make a groove. I then cut two small pieces off the end and glued them together with the turnbuckle in the grooves.

I did some of the work on the torpedo tube hatch. Two turnbuckles went into the tube. It took a few attempts to get the wire through them without bending it but I got there in the end. I initially heat moulded the tube cover on the end but it looked too clunky but in a moment of inspiration I folded the picture on the GA's over and cut through the two layers. Paper is like plastic when it is soaked in oil based paint or varnish so I did this and it is now set into it's shape.

The two masts are copper filed down to a taper and the bases are the pvc sleeving around the copper wire found in circuits. These were glued in place with a fair length going below the deck. I tried to make the aerial that runs between them them but despite them being quite deep in the hull the foam is not very forgiving and the two masts bend towards each other when under any kind of strain. This leaves mono and elastic out. There are actually two wires that run between them attached to the masts by two traingles. I started trying to do them with stretched sprue but had no luck then with copper wire. In both cases I couldn't glue them to the right shape or get them straight but thought it best to quit before I got flustered and accidentally broke something. Worst case scenario is if I can't do this I could run a single wire between them but I would prefer to do it the proper way.

Thanks for looking in, Alan.