Author Topic: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917  (Read 14588 times)

Offline lone modeller

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #15 on: March 10, 2018, 05:16:47 AM »
Evening All,

Apologies for the long delay since the last post: my computer decided that it did not want to re-start after I had been away for a couple of days so I have been off-line while it was fixed. Never mind it gave me more time to get on with this project!

The first thing that I did since the last posting was to add the basswood sheet to the rear of the display. This has two purposes:

to act as the hangar floor area in the display;

to cover the space where the battery holder and switch for the turntable motor will be kept.

I constructed a frame to hold the basswood sheet - simply lengths of square section obechi to make sufficient support to hold the bass wood sheet. Lines were drawn on the sheet so that I could cut some wood strip to make the planking of the hangar floor:



I also finished the turntable platform:



Planking the hangar floor was straightforward if time consuming. I used 5mm x 1mm Tanganyka wood strip - the same material as I used for the turntable platform. The strips were added in two rows as shown the contemporary photographs. I also put in the posts for the platform in front of the hangar and the cross members which will support the planking in due course. The turntable platform is just rsesting in place at the moment as I need to use it to get levels for other parts of the display. In fact I have put all of the posts in their respective holes but not all are permanently fixed as I need to make sure that they are all at the correct heights before I finally glue them into place:







The post line in front of the turntable platform represents the start of the slipway to Lake Constance, the posts on one side represent some sort of parking area(?). Hopefully the layout and main features of the display are beginning to become clearer now.

Thanks for looking.

Stephen.

Offline RAGIII

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #16 on: March 10, 2018, 11:50:44 PM »
The base is really taking shape now! Looking forward to the next update!
RAGIII
"A man has to know his limitations": Harry Callahan

"Don't slop it on" Lynda Geisler

Offline lone modeller

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #17 on: March 14, 2018, 09:44:50 AM »
Evening All,

Thanks Rick for the kind comment: I really hope that now things will really become clearer because I will be adding units which will form parts of the final display.

I have decided to put in what I think may have existed under the turntable, namely a flat base which I have painted mid-grey to represent a metal base on which the turntable could revolve. I am not certain whether this is correct and I always have the option to remove it later if I change my mind - which may yet happen! The short ramp from the hangar to the turntable is more complicated than it looks at first sight. The half nearest to the hangar floor was level, but the half nearest to the turntable sloped downwards on the sides but had a second small ramp in the centre. The rails were supported by beams over the half nearest the turntable to keep them level. I hope that the photos which follow will make clearer what I am trying to describe. This is important because it determined how I constructed this part of the structure.

The half of the ramp nearest to the hangar floor was straightforward - simply lay a series of cut stripwood pieces to represent the planks: these were laid on obechi strip which represented the longitudinal bearers which were laid over the goalpost structures:



The ramp was checked for level with the hangar floor by laying rails between the latter and the turntable platform:





Now the slope of the ramp in the section nearest to the turntable platform can be clearly seen. Here the ramp planks sloped so that they were lower than the turntable platform where the two joined, but the rails were supported by beams which were level between the hangar floor and the turntable. To achieve this I followed what I think was the original method of construction: I laid stripwood crosswise over the obechi strips as a continuation of the ramp built so far. I then made two rail supporting beams from cook's matches which I filed and sanded to a taper and glued these to the sloping part of the ramp. The gap between the beams was in turn filled with short cross pieces of stripwood and this too had a slope at the hangar end. I also left a small cut-out for pulley wheels to be fixed later:





The new structure was tested for alignments by laying the rails over the newly constructed ramp:



The steps were made from stripwood too and have been placed in position just for effect at the moment. There will be steps there when the base is completed but as there is much more work to do these will now be put on one side until later.

Thanks for looking.

Stephen.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2018, 09:50:57 AM by lone modeller »

Offline Manni

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #18 on: March 14, 2018, 04:21:59 PM »
Looks very promising. I'm curious what is coming up next.
Bye,Manni
"Ich hab' da mal was vorbereitet.": Jean Pütz
"Warum noch mehr Bausätze?!?": meine Frau

Offline RAGIII

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #19 on: March 15, 2018, 12:13:41 AM »
Your engineering of the ramp was very clever! Really coming together well now!
RAGIII
"A man has to know his limitations": Harry Callahan

"Don't slop it on" Lynda Geisler

Bughunter

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #20 on: March 15, 2018, 05:39:11 AM »
This is already now a very interesting diorama! And looks promising too, so I will follow.
Real wood is always nice 8)

Have fun!
Frank

Offline IanB

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #21 on: March 17, 2018, 09:14:14 AM »
This is looking very special indeed now. I had not imagined anything like this. I'm glad your imagination is better than mine!

Ian

Offline lone modeller

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #22 on: March 22, 2018, 09:14:13 AM »
Evening All,

Thank you all for the kind remarks: I am pleased that at last something like the original is beginning to take shape.

Ian this is based on original photos and not my imagination! When I saw the photos of the Dornier RsII and the other designs from that period and decided that I wanted to build one of them, this scene just seemed to be an obvious place to put it!


There was a wooden platform that was built in 1915 on the lake side of the hangar - which is why I have put a line of posts along there. The original posts that I put in were the same diameter as the others but I felt that because this platform was only for people to walk on, the originals were probably smaller, so I replaced mine with smaller dowels This necessitated some small filling jobs to be done and some more sand needed to be scattered to conceal the repairs - hence the delay in getting the platforms made.


My first intention was to lay the wood strips directly on to the cross beams as per the original structure but I was not sure whether I would be able to get a level and even surface if I did. So I decided to cut pieces of thin basswood sheet which were the same width as the upright posts and then cut small recesses in the sides of the basswood where each post would be. Planking was glued to the basswood as per the original i.e  lengths were cut to make it look as though they extended over two post bays. I then cut short pieces of obechi to represent the cross members between the posts which were the actual supports for the planks on the real platform: these were glued to the underside of the stripwood. When I turned the platform over I could glue the pieces of obechi to the tops of the posts and the structure looks as though it has complete cross pieces, and the basswood is not visible. The planking though is level and even. I repeated this method for the long section of platform on the left side of the ramp.


The large platform/ramp to the left of the turntable had longitudinal beams on each side and in the middle. To represent this I again used the basswood strip along the centre of the platform but added lengths of square obechi along each edge. At the end of the platform on the edge of the display I simply cut another recess in the basswood in the centre and put a short piece of obechi to sit on the end post: it represents the middle beam which would have run across the tops of the central line of posts. The curved pieces of planking which are in contact with the circular platform around the turntable were simply cut to fit and carefully glued into place on the ends of the longitudinal obechi strips.


Finally I added two planks at the corner of the walking platform and ramp to the turntable: these are clearly visible in contemporary photos and had been laid and fixed at some time when the structure was being used.





In the above the short section of platform to the right of the ramp is in place: the left section has been laid on the posts while some minor adjustments were being worked out. The following photos show the completed platforms, (and the old carpet in the room where I work!








The dark patches on the slope in front of the side platform are where I have added more sand which is a slightly different colour in order to break up the uniformity of the base. Some of this will be covered in grass flock later so that these areas will be less stark (I hope). The ridges which were caused by the joints in the plaster bandage and were visible before the platforms were put in place are now very much less prominent: even I have to look for them and there is still the shed and grass to add, so I think that they will ultimately "disappear".


Thanks for looking.

Stephen.

Offline Jeff K

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #23 on: March 22, 2018, 04:08:24 PM »
*starting* to grasp the implications of what you're up to here but only just. looking forward to seeing this fleshed out to the point where i really understand it!

Online lcarroll

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #24 on: March 22, 2018, 11:37:20 PM »
   It's really starting to come together Stephen; having all the decking in place and the sand filled in makes a huge difference and I now see where it's going. This is going to be a spectacular setting for your latest model, thing of beauty! 8) 8) 8) 8)
Cheers,
Lance

Offline lone modeller

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #25 on: March 27, 2018, 07:30:37 AM »
Evening All,

Thanks Jeff and Lance for your generous remarks. I am pleased that you are able at last to see where this is going - it certainly has been a long time in the making! I am hoping Lance that tis will give others an idea of the sheer scale of the flying boat and the infrastructure that had to be built to accommodate it.

I have tried to make the shed which probably housed a winch to pull the aircraft to and from the lakeside on the ramp system which forms the groundwork for this diorama. I do not know what the dimensions were because I do not have any drawings: I have had to guess them by looking at several photos and trying to work out sizes by comparison with objects of known size, such as planking etc. The construction is simple: make a frame from obechi strip and then add planks in the form of 3mm strip wood. The first attempt looks like this and I admit that I am not happy with it because I am certain that it is too small:





I thought that the shed was square but I am now of the opinion that it was rectangular, so I will make two new parts - front (with the gap for a door) and rear (blank face): both are on the left in the photos.

I have also been working on a screen which is visible in the photos and was somewhat crudely nailed to the pillars on the side of the turntable platform. I do not know what the function of this feature was - probably some form of windbreak. I glued small lengths of obechi into the base and rested the upper ends on the edge of the platform. Then I could glue strip wood to represent the planks that formed the screen - a bit rough to try to represent what is visible in the photographs. Finally I put in the low fence panels which ran at 90 degrees from the platform:







Thanks for looking.

Stephen.

Offline lone modeller

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #26 on: April 08, 2018, 07:06:37 AM »
Evening All,

I wrote earlier that I was not sure what the ground would have looked like under the turntable, so I had put in a plastic disc to represent some form of platform. I have since found out that in fact such a disc would not have been there in reality so I have removed it from my model and replaced it with sand.

I have also redesigned and rebuilt the shed with longer front and rear faces. The roof was made from plastic card and painted matt black and then given a three light washes of dark brown to tone the black down. I had bought some guttering and down pipes for an OO railway water tower, but when I looked at the gutters I saw that they had flat tops, whereas they should have had shallow grooves. I looked at some 80 thou rod and decided that if I filed it to a half section I could then file out my own shallow grooves to better represent the guttering, and I could drill holes to represent the drains. Down pipes were cut from the same sized rod, bent to shape and glued to the gutter sections. After the shed had been assembled I could put the roof on and then the gutters and pipes:







The hole in the front is for a door and on the side is a window and opening which probably was where winch cables passed. I have brushed the wood with a wash of dark brown acrylic. The drain pipes are slightly longer than the shed sides so that I can insert the ends into holes which I will drill into the base later.

I have also finished the short section of ramp which was on the lake side of the turntable. The ramp which the aircraft was launched on sloped to the lake: the rails which supported the carriage were laid on thick longitudinal beams which in turn were laid across transverse beams. The transverse beams rested on vertical posts which had been pile driven into the ground. There were two platforms, one on each side of the rails, so that ground crew could walk down the launch ramp to the lake. In the immediate vicinity of the turntable the crew platforms sloped at a steeper angle than the rails and had transverse beams to provide footholds: all of this detail is visible in the different photos in the DataFile although it took me some time to work it out! The large transverse beams which supported the rails were glued into place first: these were made from obechi strip. The longitudinal rail supports were also obechi strip. Under the crew platforms there was transverse planking as found on the other platforms and the turntable, but on top of these there had been laid supporting beams: these were continuations of the beams supporting the rails, but were thinner, so I used obechi for these too. The steeply sloping platforms were made from 3mm stripwood glued to the obechi underneath, and the footholds were from thin obechi strip:







The structure is now pretty much complete but I still have to make the trolley for the aircraft, weather the wood, put in some vegetation on the ground and make some pulleys for the ramps etc.

Thanks for looking.

Stephen.

Offline dr 1 ace

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #27 on: April 09, 2018, 06:10:50 AM »
Await more !!!

Ed
Life is short, enjoy it, nobody gets out alive.

Offline gbrivio

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #28 on: April 09, 2018, 06:31:25 AM »
This is going to be a wonderful display for your plane, and you already did a great work with all those planks.
Giuseppe

Bughunter

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Re: Seemoos, Lindau, Lake Constance, April 1917
« Reply #29 on: April 09, 2018, 06:35:38 AM »
You are doing a great base here! I was so curious, that I started to search for b/w pictures of that plane/base to get a impression of the final result ;)
Do you have plans add also some still water to the lower area?

Cheers,
Frank