Styrene ship

This is a small update on the progress of the last few weeks. I haven't been able to put in as much time as I would have liked to. Below is the bow with the new decks made from sheet styrene as is everything else in the picture except the hull. All of the curved vertical surfaces are also scratch built from sheet styrene and are the correct shape according to plans I have. The brown material is just paper I am using to make templates for the wood decking. It might be a few more weeks before I get any more work done to the stern and the upper deck structures. I will also need to create windows, either by cutting out holes or making decals, depending on the size.

References

Just wanted to mention a couple of websites that have provided useful information / tools in this build so far.

I found a free 1/600 printable scale ruler from http://www.hungrylizardstudio.com/ The model is supposed to be in 1/570 scale, but word is that it is actually 1/596 scale, so I have used this ruler several times so far to come up with scale measurements.

This site has some information about the Queen Mary including deck plans which I have been using to rebuild the deck structures. http://www.sterling.rmplc.co.uk/

There are quite a few pictures on the internet of the Queen Mary. These are primarily of the current ship as she is today as a hotel in Long Beach. I'll be backdating the model a bit to the way she appeared in her 'glory days'.

Taking shape

It looks like I'll be using wooden deck veneer on this model. These are thin sheets of wood material from KA Models in Korea. From what I read about these types of decks, they will need to be glued down. (They are supposed to be self adhesive) To make the task of applying the decks easier, I have re-made all of the deck surfaces from sheet styrene. The are temporarily test fitted to the hull in the pictures below.

This picture shows the nuts in the bottom of the hull. A screw will come up from under the wooden base, through the brass pedestals into the nuts. The nuts are glued with CA and epoxy to make sure they are secure. I've also added a couple of braces made from spare plastic sprue from the kit. The hull itself was a little warped and this helps to keep the hull in the proper shape and it's easier to test fit the main deck without having it drop inside the hull. I'll probably add a couple more for strength as I'll be handling the hull more as I work on the decks and once the decks are glued on, I don't want any flexing in the hull that could weaken the glue joints.

It looks like I'll be scratchbuilding everything except for the hull on this kit. The picture below shows the bridge deck from the kit on top of a deck layout that I printed from plans on the internet. As you can see, the bridge deck is significantly 'flattened' and needs to be redone. This is also the case with a couple of the lower structures below the deck which should also be a more rounded shape.

The incorrect deck shapes, obstacles to laying down wooden decking and removal of molded on details like handrails and stairways are a few of the reasons I'll be doing a good amount of scratchbuilding on this model.

The next few steps will be to finish fitting the decks, adding more support underneath them and making templates for the wooden deck material.

It's a boat

Just a quick update. I finally managed to glue the two hull halves together with some difficulty due to the slightly warped parts. I'm currently working on smoothing out the seam with putty. I've drilled holes in the bottom of the hull and the base for the brass pedestals, and screwed everything together temporarily for now to see how it looks.

I'll be gluing some nuts inside the hull so I can put a machine screw through the base and the pedestals. I'll be spending the next week or two cleaning up the hull before priming. My next few steps after the hull will be figuring out how to correct the problems with the deck structures and how I'll be rebuilding them.

Still prepping

It doesn’t seem like I’ve gotten too much done on the ship since the last update, but there’s a lot of prep work to be done before the hull can be glued together. I’ve been working on the other half of the hull since the last update. I have been drilling the portholes and shaving off the rivets and molded on railings.

I have managed to scratchbuild new propeller shafts. The existing ones were totally wrong. I used several references and I am quite satisfied with the look of the corrected parts. The top picture is of the original shafts, and below that is the new correct layout.

The Queen now has a base to sit on. The wooden base is made of mahogany and I have had it around for quite a few years looking for something to mount on it. When it is finished it will be much darker. The brass stands are called lamp shade risers. These are meant to raise up a lamp shade if it hangs too low on the lamp. They were bought from an online lamp store and will work great.

Also coming in the mail recently was a few spools of fly tying thread. This is very fine and strong thread which is very close to the correct scale of lines and wires for the ship. This thread is normally used to make fishing flies. You know, those fuzzy fishing lures some people make when fly fishing. Where do you get such thread you may ask? Well, at FlyMart.ca of course.

Next up:

- Propeller shafts for the other half of the hull

- Clean up and sand both hull halves

- Join the hull halves and probably add some internal supports

What the hull?

Here's my first actual work in progress post. I've started to work on the hull and it might even be a few weeks before I can glue the two halves together because of all the work I need to do.

So far only worked on one half of the hull. Here's what I've done so far:

- drilled out all the portholes (nearly 500 per side) The Dremel rotary tool wasn't very accurate so I ended up using a pin vise and doing them by hand.

- opened up the windows on the main deck near the stern (tourist class promenade)

- cut off the railings molded onto the hull

- sanded off all the molded on rivets (these were way out of scale)

- removed the propeller shaft assemblies and filled the gaps with styrene and putty (these were totally wrong and will be rebuilt from styrene)

- filled all the windows on the promenade deck (I was thinking of just opening these up, but they are two part windows with a smaller upper section and there was no way to model that in an open position. I will make decals to simulate windows)

- smoothed out some dimples in the bottom of the hull with putty

My next steps will be to scratchbuild propeller shafts and make promenade deck decals. Of course I haven't even started to modify the other half of the hull yet.

Also on the to do list is how I'm going to mount the model. I have a nice mahogany base and need to find some brass stands or finials.