Topic: HMS Illustrious.

[paul swainson]

Here is how I am planning to work out how the remaining planks are going to be fitted to the water line level.  Marked the water line from the deck and marked each bulkhead. Then placed a 10 mm plank to below the line and held in place while I check the any future planks placed will seat straight and should not require any major stealers to be fitted.  Once done placed a 5 mm plank above the 10 mm I had just placed and then pinned in place.   The under side of this plank will be the top of the water line.  Then using the clamps I placed a mixture of 5 mm and 10 mm planks in place held by clamps to work out how best to position the main planks and mark for were they need to be cut to fit into the next plank.   Once done I remove the planks one by one and place them on my work bench in order they came off ready to be fitted back in place once the final cuts have been worked out and cut.

[paul swainson]

Now she is planked to the water line and is now ready to be planked from the deck to the water line.  Also lower deck plate has been fitted.

[paul swainson]

The next part of the build before I finished off the planking from the deck down to the water line was to cut out the landing deck and position with all the spoon decks in place.  So my first idea was to find some place who could photo copy the ship lines and reproduce a full scale deck image and then I could get that printed out and transferred to to the planks of 1.5 mm beech marine ply.  No such luck, no one around me had a copier to cover the 8 foot plans.  So I tried joining together 7 sheets of tracing paper and then copied the deck straight from the NMM plans.  Worked out ok but felt there was too many possibilities of errors.  Any way tried it and then transferred the  copy to my wood with carbon paper and a 0.01mm marker.   The plan came out ok but made the one error that scuttled the drawing.  The mistake I made was to draw a centre line down the center of my ply and then started to transfer the drawing from the stern forward.   When I got to the area of the Island which as you all know is on the starboard side I found that I had no ply to transfer my overhang and gun deck overhangs in the area front and rear of the island.  So as I had two set of the ply for both ships I am building I measured the distance from the centre line on the ship plan to the extreme on the port side and found the distance was 150cm. So using the left side of the deck ply I measured 150cm and redraw my centre line using the very edge of the ply as the outer edge of the deck on the port side and thus saving some cutting time and leaving more space for the overhang on the starboard side.

I also cut out the four spoon decks and fitted them to the hull frames to ensure the deck lined up.   Once the deck had been cut I placed on the hull and checked.  Some slight adjustment required but on the whole it fitted fine.  So to check if the spoon deck were correct fitted the gun turrets to check if the height was correct.  Also fitted the island to give an impression of the hull deck. 

[colin]

She is definitely starting to look the part 

[paul swainson]

Thanks Colin, I have to agree with you now she is taking shape.

[minerva]

The beast takes shape ! a labour of love indeed.
Do you intend adding plating detail on the hull Paul.
I plated the hull of my HMS Shearwater with lead foil.
It worked well.
Incidently, what is a spoon deck ? Do you mean gun sponson ?
well done paul.

[Troy Tempest]

Taking shape indeed and a lovely shape she is too.
I attach links to two videos for your perusal Paul
Both concern Flight Deck Operations on British Carriers and although many years removed from HMS Illustrious' era there is some great footage showing Tractors and Cranes.
The first is aboard HMS Hermes in the 1960s illustrating the different equipment types for  Hangar a/c handling (powered dollies) and Flight Deck handling (Tractors)

It can be found here - http://forces.tv/89573406

The second is aboard HMS Ark Royal in the 70s and also shows Jumbo being used as well as the emergency barrier being deployed

That is here - http://forces.tv/08647806

They are both 25 minutes long and really fascinating even if not directly relevant to your project.  The second one even provides a glimpse of one of my old "O" boat fast fleet tankers
What might be useful is seeing the state of the paintwork showing both weathering and wear and tear
Enjoy!

[paul swainson]

As always the the senior service puts us right, yes is should be sponson decks, just thought that spoon deck which pokes out the side looks like a spoon! Ha.  I picked up the wording incorrectly  so sorry for that.  But she is coming along nicely  I am about to reach these sponson decks just now and trying to work out how best to do the planking so that they look and feel correct.  You can not bend wood to these angles so need to make a frame me thinks!

Try thanks for the links very interesting they were.   

[paul swainson]

Troy, there was some nice shots of Malta GC and the Grand harbour and Valletta.  You never know I may have been around when they film it in 1960.

[paul swainson]

Do you intend adding plating detail on the hull Paul.
I plated the hull of my HMS Shearwater with lead foil.
It worked well.

As a matter of interest Pauline, what thickness did you use for the inner plate and then for the outer plate.  Do you know how much weight it added to the your hull.

Thanks in advance
Paul.

[paul swainson]

I know I have been a bit quiet but have just about completed the planking in between the sponson gun decks and the stern is complete.  The bow and the flight deck sections are next so will post photos when I have worked out what I am going to do around the sponson decks. 

[minerva]

Morning Paul,
 The lead foil I used was 0.11 mm and 0.15 mm for the plating.
The weight was only a few grammes. Shearwater is only 29" by 3"
in 1/96 scale. The build was plank on frame and a thin resin top coat.
I would say that the final weight is comparable to a commercial produced
resin hull. I hope this helps .

[paul swainson]

Thanks Pauline for the information.  I was going to use plastic card 0.10 and 0.15 to line the hull after the gel coating has been applied.  As the hull is nearly 8 ft long and 13 inches wide and from the deck to the keel is 14 inches.  Thats a lot of rolls of lead the cost would make it uneconomical me thinks for my boat.

[paul swainson]

Photos as promised had to work out how the front 40" search light platforms would be fitted and how the bow would match up.  I think I have got there now.

[Dennis]

Wow Paul, looks amazing!! The hull is really starting to take shape.