[Michael Mash]

04 – Hull Plating

Hello Modelers,

The new photos here show the first layer of hull plates being completed from bow to stern.
All the arrows along the keel helped keep me from installing any of them backwards.
In images 22 and 23, behind the hull is the first prototypes for the deck sections to come later.

In image 25, one can see the balsa block filler I used in the tail of the underwater stern.
It was glued in rough, and then sanded to shape.

After all the plates (white) were glued down, I surveyed the hull and used additional plates (red) to compensate in the areas where the plates dipped between the cross members. That way I could maintain a more realistic curvature to the hull. Hull plates “dipping or sagging” between the cross members is a frequent challenge when building a card/paper hull.

In the final two photos (27 and 28), one can just begin to see the first line of plates (along the dark waterline) that will be the second layer. I added rivets to the outer plates to experiment with the appearance. We will see how it turns out. I’ll have close-up images of that next time.

I like the panorama of the Newport News Shipyard in the image from Navsource. They note this is the stern of either U.S.S. Minnesota or U.S.S. Louisiana.


Regards,
Mike