Marine modelling international december 2015

The modellers’ choice for more armchair reading and ideas for future projects

DECEMBER 2015

BOMMEL

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Building a model of a modern Dutch Workboat

BAT 1

Review of one of the latest model land based yachts!

THE PARROT MINIDRONE HYDROFOIL

Issue 345 £4.50•

A new flying drone takes to the water!

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CONTENTS DECEMBER 2015 – ISSUE 345

26 MEETING POINT Reports from shows and events during September

58 CHANDLERY Books of interest to the Maritime modeller

COVER STORY

70 COMING NEXT MONTH Details of some of the articles being planned for the January 2016 ediiton

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COVER STORY Following last month’s edition of MMI when a short article was featured on the full size modern Dutch workboat Bommel, this month we have a model build article on this same vessel. The model builder who is normally noted for his excellent model warships has made a slight diversion in building a modern workboat, whilst still utilising his normal method using balsa and ply. The high quality finish of the model and details makes it difficult to identify which pictures are of the full size ship and which are of the model!

Regulars 7

MESSAGE FROM THE ENGINE ROOM The assistant editor introduces this edition

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MASTHEAD

32 BAT 1 The editor puts a new Land Yacht through its paces

34 BOMMEL A DUTCH WORKBOAT Barrie tells us how he built his model from balsa and ply

40 HMS ROBERTS Robin describes his building and weathering of HMS Roberts

46 THE MALTESE FALCON Rick builds a 1/55th scale model of this modern Clipper Yacht

54 PARROT MINIDRONE HYDROFOIL

Maritime news

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Features

John’s model hydrofoil brings a new dimension to model boating

DIARY DATES Events for your 2016 diary

62 UPGUNNED IJN T.101 Enhancing Pit-Road’s 1/350 scale IJN 2nd class tank landing ship T.101

12 WATERLINES Kelvin surveys the world’s small carriers and related waterlines

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14 SCALE SCENE Ian takes another look at shipbuilding on the Wear and the SD 14 general cargo vessel

16 VINTAGE CHATTER PT 28 Eddie’s Little Terrier!

18 PLASTIC KIT SCENE Details of the final releases for this year, and possible Christmas presents!

20 POWERPLUG Petrol marine engines, a nitro boat exhaust upgrade and how to use salt when building your hull

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DECEMBER 2015

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MESSAGE FROM THE ENGINE ROOM EDITORIALCONTACT MMI generally publishes commissioned articles, but will consider other contributions including news items and factual articles. It is important that contact is made with the editor before any material is written, as duplication of items may result in articles being rejected.

Prospective contributors can email or write for a copy of the MMI Notes for Contributors via Traplet Publications Ltd. Any other Editorial queries can be made by telephone to 01749 347172 during normal office hours.

HELLO READERS Let me begin by wishing all of you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Both Barrie and I would also like to express our thanks and extend our good wishes to everyone who has contributed to the magazine over the last year and all the Traplet staff who are associated with producing this magazine.

If you are still thinking about Christmas presents then a couple of this month’s articles may give you some inspiration! How about a hydrofoil driven by a quadcopter? The Parrot Hydro article reviews just such a craft and the options of either sailing the hydrofoil or flying the drone make it a very challenging present!

Staying with the unusual, the article on the BAT 1 reviews a model land yacht available from Hobby King. Three versions are available ranging from the basic model without R/C, up to the almost ready to run. Although not strictly either a boat or car these craft are very exciting to control and attract enthusiasts from both branches of modelling.

I am sure that many of you will be considering the purchase of all kinds of tablets, phones and computing devices and so I thought it was a good time to nudge you in the direction of our website.

Back in the July MMI I mentioned that we had a downloadable PDF containing an index for every edition of the magazine from October/November 1985 up until July 2015. As this has proved to be slightly difficult to find I shall use its location as a general introduction to our website.

EDITOR Barrie Stevens mmi@traplet.com Tel: 01684 588604 Traplet Publications Ltd, Traplet House, Willow End Park, Blackmore Park Road, Welland, Malvern, WR13 6NN ASSISTANT EDITOR Chris Saunders chris.saunders@traplet.com CONTRIBUTORS Rick Eyrich, Barrie Griffin, Kelvin Holmes, Rick Mayes, John Stennard, Robin Trott, David Wiggins, Ian Williams, Mike Williams MANAGING DIRECTOR Tony Stephenson

OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Tom Stephenson PRODUCTION MANAGER Nick Powell DESIGN TEAM James Scott MARKETING Ally Alldritt, Abbey Morris, Samantha Minton ADVERTISING SALES Angela Price - 01684 588568 Email: advertising@traplet.com ADVERTISING COPY CONTROL Cindi Griffiths - 01684 588517 Email: adcopy@traplet.com PRINTER Warners plc NEWSSTAND DISTRIBUTION Seymour Distribution Ltd. (02074 294000) HOBBY TRADE DISTRIBUTION Traplet Publications Limited (01684 588568)

All of Traplet’s publications now have a common website called The Hobby Hub. Googling this name and selecting any of the links that lead to thehobbyhub.com will get you to the correct server. To the right of the title on every page are four icons, which are named Fire, Earth, Air and Water when you hover over them. Clearly our maritime interest is to do with Water and so click on this icon. You should now be on the MMI site.

We offer news, events, test bench, features and what’s hot! Each of these links to material relevant to the different headings. If you were looking for the MMI magazine index, described above, then test bench is the place to go. You next need to select Plans Archive and now you will be offered the MMI Back Issue Article Index 1985 – July 2015 by clicking on ‘here’ and getting the full PDF to read or save.

The rest of this section is also well worth checking-out as there are a number of downloads for plans and a card fisherman’s cottage.

Going back up to the main Water page the ‘A Guide to Waterline Model Ships by Kelvin Holmes Update’ is also well worth a visit, as there are 18 downloads which revisit topics covered in our regular Waterlines articles.

Other articles in this edition include a scratch built model of a modern Dutch workboat called Bommel, Barrie Griffin describes how he built most of it from balsa and 1/32 ply. As well as his usual article, Plastic Kit Scene, Robin Trott also has an article on building and weathering the Trumpeter 1/350 scale plastic kit of HMS Roberts. Also in plastic Mike Williams describes the construction of the Pit-Road’s 1/350 scale IJN 2nd class tank landing ship, T.101.

For the sailing enthusiasts the article on the Maltese Falcon will be of interest. Rick Mayes describes how he built and sailed a 1/55th scale model of this modern clipper. All this together with the other regular articles of Scale Scene, Vintage Chatter and Powerplug make this magazine a great read.

May Santa bring you everything you wish for!

Chris Saunders MMI

US DISTRIBUTION Traplet Distribution USA Ltd, 806 Parkland Ct, Champaign, IL 61821, USA. Tel: 217-355-2970 Email info@traplet.com AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTION Traplet Publications & Hobbies, P.O.Box 501, Engadine, NSW 2233, Australia.

Tel: (02) 9520 0933 Fax: (02) 9520 0032 Email: sales@traplet.com.au SOUTH AFRICAN DISTRIBUTION P.O. Box 1067, Oudtshoorn, 6620, South Africa Tel/Fax: +27 44 272 5978 Email: southafrica@traplet.com PUBLISHED BY Traplet Publications Ltd, Traplet House, Willow End Park, Blackmore Park Road, Welland, Malvern, WR13 6NN. Fax: 01684 578558 Email: info@traplet.com

SUBSCRIPTIONS Ally Alldritt 1 Year subscription prices: UK £54.00 Europe £70.32 Worldwide £73.08 USA & Canada US $156.60 2 Years subscription prices: UK £108.00 Europe £140.64 Worldwide £146.16 USA & Canada US $313.20 BACK ISSUES UK £3.50 - £4.50/US $9.99 - $11.99 Order Hotline: 01684 588599 Online Ordering: www.trapletshop.com 2015 Traplet Publications Limited.

All rights reserved.

This magazine is sold subject to the following conditions: that it shall not without written consent of the publishers be lent, resold or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in excess of the recommended maximum retail price. All rights strictly reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any way without the prior agreement of the publisher.

All letters must be accompanied by the senders full name and address. The publisher cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited correspondence nor some of the opinions expressed.

All material and artwork originated by Traplet Publications Ltd., photographs, drawings, plans used in this magazine become the publishers copyright under Copyright law. Some photographs may have been digitally re-mastered. The Company reserves the right to suspend or refuse any advertisements without giving reasons. Whilst every care is taken to avoid mistakes, Traplet Publications Ltd. cannot be liable in any way for errors or omissions. Nor can the Publisher accept any responsibility for the bona fides of advertisers. © Traplet Publications Limited 2015 ISSN 1746-8590

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great britain

Bommel, a model of a Modern Dutch Workboat

author: Barrie Griffin

Dutch Workboat

Bommel H

aving built a number of warship types, which have a certain similarity, I was looking for something a little different, and preferably that had not been done before. So when I saw the Dutch ship Bommel – the original is described in a previous article, alongside the pier at Harwich I was immediately interested and set to taking photos and then looking up the website which was conveniently shown on the side of the ship’s wheelhouse.

Although I found line drawings of Bommel’s sister ship Baloe and later Bommel herself on the website and downloaded them they were a bit ‘sketchy’ and I was glad of the photographs of the building of Bommel which showed me the underwater section aft, which was designed for a shoal draft ship and provide protection for the props and rudders.

I drew a rough plan of the hull showing the sheer for’ard and with dotted lines the curved central piece aft. I also drew the curves for the sheets of solid balsa that would form the bow.

Fore end before shaping

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Aft end before covering

Barrie Griffin introduces his model of a Modern Dutch Workboat

Building the Hull I decided on my usual materials of balsa and 1/32 ply: I would use quite a lot of solid balsa particularly for the rounded bow, since I did not want to have to plank-on-frame it. With this model there was no problem with weight, since I calculated that I would need to ballast it with several pounds of lead.

As usual I started by making the central spine/keel that gave me the basic form of the boat. I then added 12 mm ply sheets either side of the central keel and topped the outsides of these with 75 mm strips of 9 mm balsa sheet which would effectively become the engine beds. Then I positioned the frames which with this hull were a fairly simple shape.

There were seven frames including the transom and I glued all these in place before fitting stringers and carlines and forming up the rather tricky after section. The central parts of frames two to four can eventually be removed.

Aft end showing tunnel for props and rudders

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Lastly, I fitted the 12 mm solid balsa planks for the bow section, with the curves marked off from the plan. All these then had to be shaped and finally given two coats of EZE-KOTE finishing resin (this incidentally is a substance that I have only just discovered and is indeed very clean and easy to use).

The sides and side decks were then covered with 1/32 ply. The lower after part of the sides were doubled up. The top of the balsa sheets covering the bow were covered in plywood to give them a smooth finish.

Wheelhouse roof fitted

Wheelhouse part built

Engines and Props etc At this point I decided to fit the engines, propshafts, props and rudders. The engines were two 540 motors geared down 6:1, the shafts M4 and initially the props four blade 35 mm Prop tube and shaft fitting steam-types, however, later tank testing showed that these were neither large enough nor had enough pitch. The ship sat in the bath and hummed gently without going anywhere. So, off to Prop Shop and three days later two four bladed 43 mm steam props arrived, with 65 mm of pitch. That worked. The rudders I made myself, since I did not think the commercial ones suitable. I thought it best to fit the machinery at this point, before too many fiddly bits were attached to the hull.

the window cut outs to them.

Bearing in mind the number of objects to fix to it I made the top from 6 mm balsa, edges sloped to take the edging trim.

The windows were glazed with clear acrylic sheet.

Fore end of cabin construction

Parts of cabin/wheelhouse

Top Hamper Since the details on drawings on the website were as I have said, a bit sketchy, I had to largely rely on my photos for details of the equipment on top of the wheelhouse. There was almost nothing except motors and electrics that can be bought commercially. I, therefore, had

The Deck I formed the deck in two pieces. The smaller part gave access to the steering gear, while the larger part covered the engine space and supported about two thirds of the wheelhouse. The deck was made from 1/32 ply with balsa supports underneath. It was partly covered with 6 mm by 1 mm lime strip and this extended to the fixed part of the deck aft.

Hull Trim, etc The rubbing strakes were made from 9 mm dowel split in half. I cut them halfway through at 18 mm intervals on the flat side so that they would mould to the curve.

The for’ard bulwark was awkward. It curved in two Gluing up rubbing strakes directions and I confess I had several goes at it. Finally, I noticed that the four for’ard bollards on the original were split at an angle so I did the same to some more 9 mm dowel and that helped to get the curve right.

The short piece of bulwark aft was fixed between a Bulwarks and locker aft 9 mm bollard and a 6 mm upright, but the curved railing on top was cut in one piece from obeche and shaped into a round.

The half round piece glued to the transom was cut from 12 mm balsa and shaped.

Winch, steps and other items fitted to slog away making rough sketches and making it up as I went along.

As a guide, it went as follows: the searchlights from 6 mm dowel, ply and balsa with card for the circular bit. The cabin and fan structures from 1/32 ply. The one exception to my former statement was the binnacle which was a kit. The stanchions were alloy tube with soft brass wire railings. The mast was set on a gantry cut from solid 6 mm obeche, and was made from 4 mm dowel and 3 mm crosstrees. The lights I made from dowel and clear plastic tube topped with 1/32 ply discs. The life raft was carved from two pieces of balsa with a sheet of 1/32 ply through the middle.

The Wheelhouse The wheelhouse was a fairly complicated structure. The top half of the solid part sloped inwards and the glazed upper part sloped outwards. Hmm! The bottom, therefore, became 6 mm balsa with the top 24 mm filed to a slope. The upper part was trickier, and in the end I made struts from 3 mm ply sloped appropriately at the top. Glued to the inside of the balsa bases I could then fix

Mast before fitting

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