1930's Aberdeen Steam Trawler - Modified 1/48 Calder Craft Milford Star

[Caledonia]

Ole/Trey, thanks for your kind comments. Andy, if I wasn't so old, and I had more time to spare I would do the Billings Boats 'Danmark' it's the Danish Training Ship, see below. It would take you 3 years to build, I know as it took me three yours to build their Cutty Sark. An old friend of mine started building the 'Danmark' some some ago but he stalled. The 'Danmark' was in Aberdeen many years ago where I saw her, she's a beautiful ship.

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As for my Trawler, progress was a little slow this week as my Sister is back in hospital. I have been working on the Trawl Winch Baseframe (it's a generic Winch as I am using what bits I have to hand, whilst keeping it reasonably realistic), I haven't used the Kit Baseframe because its the wrong size since I modified the Drums last week. The Baseframe is made from scrap timber from the kit. I have added 1.6mm dia 'Evergreen' stripstyrene strip chopped up to represent the bolts. The kit's Winch, apart from being too small, also sits too low on the deck; the winch wire comes off the bottom of the drum and passes over the top of the deck hatches to the reeving arrangement at the foot of the f'w'd mast, so the Drum has to be raised. Still lots to do on the Winch so won't post any more until finished painted and weathered.

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Cheers Derek

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[Caledonia]

The kit only comes with one Gypsy either side of the Winch, which is as shown on the Hall Russell's drawing. However almost all Trawlers had a double Gypsy so I have made a second one from wooden dowel, see first photo below. The white strips in this same photo are plasticard to represent the Band on the Band Brake. I have used a pointed tool to press throgh the plastic to represent the rivets, see second photo below.

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As mentioned previously, I purchased separately 5 metres of 0.8mm galvanised wire rope for the two Winch Drums, this was a good length, it was very difficult to keep the wire on the Drum, and I had to resort to super gluing the top layer down.

Finally a couple shots of the finished Winch, it was originally airbrushed with Gunze H333 - Extra Dark Sea Gray, then stipled/dry brushed with Lifecolor UA 702 Rust. Trawl Wiches and Wires were very rusty in the days before HSE etc.

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Cheers Derek

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[mobear]

good god man thats an awesome job,look like the winches down at our harbour,)i think briggs marine are looking for two that were stolen)lol

mobear

 

[Caledonia]

Thanks for your support Ole, I am doing an early posting this week as I have now finished almost all of the detail parts, and plan to spend some time practicing with various weathering techniques I have been reading up on. The next stage is a major paint job, but as I do my painting in a utility room at the back of the garage which is north facing it is rather cold, and I don't paint when the temperature is below 10 Deg C (for the paint's sake not mine). I will be turning my attention to my Vietnam Super Sabre build as time has a habit of running out when you least expect it.

A few shots below of the Anchor Windlass construction and paint/weathering. The photos don't do the Lifecolor 'Rust' paint justice at it photos much redder than in real life, probably the flash.

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The last photo below shows the fwd mast in the back ground where I have added three platforms to support the navigation lights, the kit says to fix the lights directly to the mast which is wrong. The other two items are the Boom and foremast derrick.

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Cheers Derek

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[mobear]

you say its to red,well i kinda disagree,ive seen wet rust on many occasion and that paint job fits the bill,i will let you know if i think its wrong,lol

mobear

 

[Ian M]

Things are looking fantastic Derek, Can you say where you got those rivet decals from?

Ian M

 

[Sky Raider]

Stunning work Derek,

You did get me hooked lol, i brought the Happy Hunter to build.

Fantastic work so far mate, keep it up.

Andy

 

[treyzx10r]

Fantastic looking winches Derek,hope your Sister is doing better.cheers Trey

 

[Caledonia]

Things are looking fantastic Derek, Can you say where you got those rivet decals from?Ian M

Ian, here is the link for the rivets, Search Results - Micro-Mark

Ole/Andy/Trey, thanks for your comments, Trey, my Sister is back home for the moment!!!! appreciate your comments mate, its been a testing 18 months.

Working on my SIG Vietnam Super Sabre at the moment, but have been playing with oils/pastels and paint for the weathering of the Trawler and have come to the conclusion that I will be using all three mediums for the weathering - Trawlers in the 1930's were real rust buckets, so I am trying to replicate the conditions these poor guys worked with.

Cheers Derek

 

[makokillo]

Hello,

I write from Spain. I'm building this model. I liked the detail of the rivets. How many sheets of rivets you need in total for the whole model?

thanks

 

[Caledonia]

Hi Makokillo,

Welcome to the Forum, I expect to see some of your photos shortly - promise? To answer your question it took 4-Packs of the Micro-Mark Decals to rivet the entire ships Hull and Superstructure (one pack contains 2-Sheets) you need the O-scale rivet decals which = 1/48 scale

Here is the link: I have used this company a few times and usually have it delivered in 7 to 10 days. I very good company to deal with.

O scale decals with raised (3D) rivets and other surface details

Cheers Derek

 

[makokillo]

Hello,

Thanks for your quick response.

I just started to build the model and I have not yet done almost nothing.

The truth is that the model has disappointed me greatly. For the price it costs, the quality seems very little. It just has instructions and the few that have are poorly detailed. The metal parts are of very poor quality especially the winch and other machines. This is what I have seen so far but I'm sure when you are building it out more bugs.

I also hope you keep putting more pictures with the evolution of the building and so can continue learning from you.

regards

P.D. Sorry for my English. It is written with the google translator.

 

[Caledonia]

Hi Makokillo, Yes I agree that the kit is of a very disappointing quality with many errors, this is one of the reasons I have scratch built so much detail. As you say the instructions are also a big disappointment, they might as well have given us some more photos instead of all those words, they have also changed a lot of the items also without saying.

I am presently finishing off a group Build Vietnam F-100F Super Sabre so I hope to get back onto the Trawler sometime in the next 7/10 days.

Don't apologize for your English it is a 100% better than my Spanish. If you have any more query just post them and I or someone in the Forum will try to help you.

Cheers Derek

 

[steve244]

Hi Caledonia

Just joined the forum and saw this thread, wow what a fantastic job you are doing enjoyed reading this and found it to be a great read and an education as well. Im just starting out again after many years and if the rest of the threads are as informative as this one then i shall learn alot from coming here.

Im starting off my renewed interest with the Billings Boat model of the Mary Ann fishing smack and intend to make some changes to it and will be making it as a static model

keep up the good work

steve

 

[Caledonia]

Hi Steve and welcome to the Forum. Looks a nice model you have started, I like the plank on frame kits. Post some photos when you are ready, there is very little Ships posted on the forum. I've had a break from my Trawler to do an Vietnam F-100F and experiment with weathering techniques for the Trawler, but now thats finished I've started painting the superstructure, and will post some more photos in a week or two. Cheers Derek

 

[Caledonia]

Hi All, Started the big painting job on the Trawler. Started by giving the rivets a coat to help hide the black rivet heads. This was followed by a further two overall coats of the base clour. This was hand painted with Lifecolor UA 097 Sand.

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I should add that before I applied the overall coats I used a small piece of rough foam about 6mm square, lghtly coated it with PVA glue and dabbed this onto the model at random locations to try to duplicate the blistering effect of rust under the paint. See below for the finished effect.

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As mentioned earlier the Caldercraft kit does not come with any decals, so I drew what I wanted up and had 'Barry's Model Lettering' make up vinyl letters, see below for what was delivered.

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The first photo below shows the Funnel colour of my Trawlers Sister Ship the 'Star of the East', and the finished Funnel for the model - I still have to weather it.

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The Funnel top is gloss black, and the other colour is 90% Lifecolor UA 247 Blue Grey with 10% UA 303 Green.

Now for the hard bit, going to start post shading the superstructure with the base colour dluted with 30% white to give it a heavy weathered look, then I will attemp to rust it up - wish me luck never done it before. Cheers Derek

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[steve244]

hi derek

doing a grand job their mate looking really good and gl with the weathering be interesting to see how that turns out never tried anything like that myself before.

steve

 

[Caledonia]

Thanks Steve, I am taking the weathering nice and slow. I have now gone over the model with an airbrush free hand and added faded patches with the mix I mentioned in my last posting to represent fading by the sun and salt build up. I still have lots to do but I will be switching to artists oils for the rest, including the blistering paint on the plating. Have painted the portholes with Brass, the stove pipes black/grey 50/50 mix, and have roughly gone over all of the handrailes with Lifecolor UA 701 'Rust Dark Shadow'. Studying photos etc I note that the darkest shade of rust is the rusted bare metal which usually has a crearly defined outline. So I have roughly hand painted the rust on and will then add an off white, at which time I will try to make the rusted areas more realisting. Plan to then mark the white with a lighter rust colour to indicate small chips beginning to rust and do an oil wash to represent the white paint turning orange in the chipped area as you see on steel.

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Will post more photos when the superstructure is all rusted up. Cheers Derek

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[Sky Raider]

Stunning progress. Keep up the good work.

Andy

 

[treyzx10r]

Stunning progress. Keep up the good work.Andy

I agree top notch stuff Derek