Marine modelling international january 2016

FREE PLAN

of inside UK’s first nuclear submarine HMS Valiant - WORTH £11

JANUARY 2016

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TUG RUMANIA Review of a compact easy build kit

DOLLY ROCKER

An easy build vac form model

HMS VALIANT

Free plan of a model of the inside of the UK’s first nuclear submarine

Issue 346 £4.50•

Building a robust Tynemouth ketch

FIRE BOAT

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CONTENTS JANUARY 2016 – ISSUE 346

27

SCALE SCENE Hints and tips for you to get you in the building (or restoration) mood

28

WATERLINES The story of British Petroleum (Part 1)

COVER STORY

32

AIRWAVES Barrie discusses the use of relays and motors to make a powerful steering system

42

MEETING POINT Reports from shows held over the past few months

58

CHANDLERY Reviews of new martime books

70

COMING NEXT MONTH Some of the articles being planned for the February edition

Features 34

This month’s rather unusual FREE PLAN MAR 3746 is to build a mock-up of the internal workings of a nuclear submarine

54

46

COVER STORY TUG RUMANIA This detailed compact kit from Deans Marine is based on the tug Empire Susan completed in 1944 and saw service with the Ministry of War Transport at Newcastle. After the war she was used for ship towage but in 1956 she was involved with a ship recovery when she was grounded and became a total loss. The model is depicted in her civilian role but could easily be modified as a military tug with suitable armaments.

Regulars 7

The editor introduces this edition

48

54

BANISH THE BANANA Taking the wobble out of waterlines!

60

SY ENA Broadmeadows Model Boat Group has the opportunity to take a close look at this historic steam yacht in Australia

64

AVON FIRE BOAT Building and sailing the vac form Avon Fire Boat from Sarik Hobbies

Events for your 2016 diary

9

RUMANIA Allan describes the building of this compact tug from a kit

Maritime news

DIARY DATES

DOLLY ROCKER Building a Tynemouth Ketch, a robust yacht for heavy weather sailing

MASTHEAD

9

MMI VISITS JOHN WYATT A modeller with a keen interest in VERY large model craft

59

MESSAGE FROM THE BRIDGE

8

HMS/M VALIANT MOCK-UP

READERS EMAILS Feedback from readers

12

34

PLASTIC KIT SCENE Latest releases from various manufacturers from around the world

14

POWERPLUG Rick overviews some IC topics from his 2015 columns

18

VINTAGE CHATTER PT 29 Mike’s Tiny Toy! A clockwork RTR some 60 years old

22

LIVEWIRES Ian designs a new FE outrigger hydro, his first since 1999!

6

JANUARY 2016

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FREE PLAN

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MESSAGE FROM THE BRIDGE 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.

Have a good month

GREETINGS ALL! Firstly a happy and prosperous new year to all readers! Hopefully 2016 will be a good year for our hobby with plenty of new build projects and interest in the sea and shipping. As I write this overlooking the Bristol Channel and the Blue Anchor anchorage there are six full size ships sheltering from one of the newly named storms, ‘Barney’. If you scale these type of storms down to our modelling level it is not surprising that many of our outdoor events are very weather related. We have mentioned before what is the ideal size of lake for maritime modelling? A large lake is ideal in low wind conditions but a small lake is ideal for shelter from stronger winds, the other variable items is what model are we using the lake for?

With the modern improvements in lightweight cells and brushless motors the Fast Electric racers are needing an increase in size of lake, sometimes this will entail travelling further distances for suitable water. This can be the same for large yacht racing events, but let us not forget the hard working organisers of outdoor events who spend a lot of their own free time in arranging events which can easily be affected by nature.

To start off the new year our Free Plan this month is not of an operational model. It is very different being the inside of the UK’s first nuclear submarine without the outside pressure skin. It was originally built as a design/training full size model before the modern computer programs of virtual reality. We have some other good build projects including the tug kit Rumania review, the yacht Dolly

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 Robin Trott, Rick Eyrich, David Wiggins, Ian Williams, Kelvin Holmes, Clive Halliwell, Neville Wade, Allan Miller & John Parker CHAIRMAN Tony Stephenson

Rocker and another Sarik Hobbies Ltd model of a vac form kit. It is of a Fire Boat which comes with, for a limited period, a discount on the original price.

Moving around the world there is an article on the full size Steam Yacht Ena, which can be seen in Melbourne, Australia. Our regular contributors have submitted their usual articles keeping the readers up to date with Plastic Kit Scene, Powerplug covering a mixed bag of items for the powerboat enthusiast, and Waterlines describes the British Petroleum tankers and what waterline models are available.

In our bi-monthly regular feature called Livewires we have a detailed build of a very fast electric new outrigger hydro. Delving into our Vintage Chatter column we find a small tug called Penguin, I must confess this was my first clockwork ready to run model I owned some 60 odd years ago! Finally, following a comment I made in Message From The Bridge last year of how many readers build really large models, it resulted in a modeller from South Wales contacting the editorial office, so Chris went to visit him, see MMI Visits… some stunning sizes!

MANAGING 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)

Barrie Stevens MMI

Seen at the International Model Boat Show a lone penguin, does anyone know anything about him (or her)?

Steve Dean the commentator said it smelt rather fishy!?

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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 2016 ISSN 1746-8590

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This month's

FREE PLAN

GREAT BRITAIN

Mock-up of the internal structure of HMS Valiant

AUTHOR: CLIVE HALLIWELL

HMS/M VALIANT MOCK-UP THIS MONTH’S RATHER UNUSUAL FREE PLAN MAR 3746 IS TO BUILD A MOCK-UP OF THE INTERNAL WORKINGS OF HMS VALIANT.

N

ot many people know this, but when Vickers Shipbuilding of Barrow-in-Furness were awarded the contract to build the Royal Navy’s first all British nuclear submarine, the Valiant, they constructed a mock-up in wood. I am not sure whether they took on extra staff, but this full sized model was a massive project for the Joinery Department. They went on to build an even larger mock-up of the Resolution class Polaris submarine, though because of the extra length of the missile launch compartment, it was constructed in two sections and folded back on itself.

These mock-ups, of course, were essential for the other ‘trades’, electrical, mechanical etc. to check that everything fitted.

Everything had its place and any arguments about whether the pipe fitter should put a bend in his 4 inch (100 mm) pipe, to go around the electrician’s 1 inch (25 mm) cable tray, could be resolved, before they came to blows!

A TRAINING MODULE A second big advantage was for the crew, who could wander around the quiet, clean and well-lit interior without getting in the way of the shipyard workers who were actually building the real boat!

I, along with a dozen or so other technical ratings, had arrived in Barrow one dark, wet January evening in 1965. Although Vickers had been building ships and submarines for the RN for many decades, it was not a ‘Naval’ town, no base or naval accommodation, and so we were billeted in civilian lodgings. Next morning, after breakfast, our landladies gave us the bus numbers that would take us to the shipyard and to a new phase in all our lives.

A couple of wooden huts had been allocated for offices and a classroom. We would spend a morning in the classroom, studying a particular system and in the afternoon in the mock-up, physically tracing the system, be it electrical, mechanical or whatever. There was a lot of ‘cross-training’ in submarines. I, as an electrician, could, and did find myself scrambling round the mock-up hunting for a valve chest on the bilge system or searching for the high pressure air valves that ‘blow’ the main ballast tanks or learning how to blow the sewage tank!

We spent almost eighteen months doing this, some officers and senior rates spending even longer, before final sea trials and then

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commissioning. Admittedly, we gradually moved away from the mock-up and on to the real thing! You cannot take a brand new submarine to sea without most of the crew knowing what they are doing!

THE VALIANT The new submarine was 285 feet (87 m) overall, with a beam of 33 feet (10.13 m) and a draft of 27 feet (8.2 m), so even on the surface a lot of the hull was underwater.

A single Rolls-Royce PWR (pressurised water reactor) provided the heat to produce steam to drive two English-Electric steam turbines; these in turn drove, via reduction gearing, a single shaft with a multi bladed propeller. A rather simplistic description, but more later…

Captain: Commander Peter Herbert (later Admiral Sir Peter Herbert KCB OBE) The 1st Lieutenant: Lieutenant Commander ‘Sandy’ Woodward (later Admiral Sir John “Sandy” Woodward CBE KCB)

THE MODEL AND THE MOCK-UP The mock-up was much shorter than the overall length because it only replicated the inside of the pressure hull.

My model was to be the same, though without the pressure hull, otherwise, nothing would be visible! However, replicating all the equipment and machinery posed another problem as no manufacturers produce no fittings 1/96th scale steam turbines, CO2 scrubbers, steam vacuum plants, electrolysers etc. So everything was going to have to be scratch built, literally!

I had initially considered trying to make everything from wood (strip, dowel etc.) but decided that some of the items were too complicated to carve, or even build up at this scale, so I decided to try to ‘recycle’ some of the many household items readily available.

For example, several items look quite ‘technical’, the tops of

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This month's

FREE PLAN sports water bottles, washing up liquid bottles and toothpaste tube tops are possibilities (more later). Card or styrene is also worth considering, especially, for small or narrow items, but I also decided to make sure quite a bit of ‘wood’ would be on show, mainly to explain to interested onlookers the story of the original.

THE HULL There is not really one ‘through deck’ that I could start off with, but the Reactor Compartment is quite central and certainly the heart of the boat, so I began there. There are solid watertight

bulkheads enclosing the compartment with a tunnel across the top to allow movement from for’d to aft, and vice-versa of course, with hydraulically operated WT doors at either end. The for’d door had a label designating it ‘Check Point Charlie’ because, although all the crew had been vetted, only those whose job required them to go aft were allowed to do so, the electrical and mechanical personnel, plus ‘Jack Dusty’ the stores rating whose stores were either side of the passage above the main turbine compartment.

REACTOR COMPARTMENT Back to the Reactor Compartment, sheet two of the plan shows the basic layout with the main items, and a schematic of primary and secondary pipe layout for those wishing to get into that amount of detail. The primary circuit is a closed loop, with water under pressure (allowing the ‘coolant’ to be heated to over 300º Fahrenheit) being pumped through the reactor and out to both steam generators in a continuous circuit. Sitting on the primary loop is the pressuriser vessel. The secondary side is the steam produced from the top of each generator with water fed, via pumps in the compartment aft, back in to the bottom of the two steam generators (‘Bendy’ drinking straws were utilised for the major pipework).

The tunnel has two viewing ports (thick leaded glass) looking down into the compartment and a heavy, circular access door leading to a small platform (a grating) with a ladder down to lower deck level.

NEXT COMPARTMENT AFT This compartment has the Manoeuvring Room on the upper level; here all the electrical and mechanical equipment is controlled and monitored plus the all-important control of the reactor itself.

I began with the reactor and two steam generators. The ‘tunnel’ is in the foreground

There are lots, and lots, of mini-projects within the overall build, best painted off the model The next level down is the Diesel Generator Room, containing the diesel generator, to port (used in emergencies only), the Main Switchboard and the three AC/DC motor generators. Under normal conditions the AC end drives the DC end, producing direct current to charge the main battery. In an emergency, i.e. reactor shut down, the main battery would drive the DC end, generating enough AC to maintain essential services. Also, to starboard, are the telemotor system (hydraulics) pumps and their oil return storage tank.

THE TG ROOM

The tunnel is in place and the pipework for the coolant water, plus pumps, and the main steam supply aft

Below the DG room is the Turbine generator space. The virtually limitless reactor power produces unlimited heat and, therefore, steam allowing nuclear submarines a hitherto impossible amount of electrical power. In the bilges are the two condensers, converting the spent steam, using seawater to condense it back to water that can be pumped back in to the system (see sheet 2 of the plan).

Right aft, between the generators is the High Pressure Bilge Pump and the Ballast or Trim Pump. In the two forward corners, at this level, are the Freon chilled water plants.

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