Porter-Brookes Double Casemate Ironclad

[Knife]

To Don Boose, no problem with the diversion. I think anybody interested enough to look at this thread would be interested in the history of ironclads. I find research as fun as construction.

To CT Ertz, thanks for the link, it has a lot of history there. I've bookmarked it and will use it in future builds.

Here are tonight's photos of the construction. I tried to get a side shot so you can see how well the sides of the ship match up to the deck. The rest of the shots show the awning supports. I'm not going to use the awning in the photo. I chose to place the awning supports more outboard than shown in CT's instruction so I will have to stretch the actual awning to cover the wider expanse. The awning supports are four cardstock sheets thick. I used the cut out from the larger pieces to form the single-pole awning supports.

[Paperwarrior]

Corey, that is a great looking kit. I look forward to its release!

Knife, as always a great build and thanks for the review.

Jeff

[Knife]

Here's some more late photos. I used a necklace chain I found in a thrift store, darkened with brass black gun bluing, for the anchor chains. The links are way over scale, but the smaller link chain I tried didn't give a good look, looked too much like rope. Also note the rusting where the chain rubs on the plating.

I made up a canvas pattern using paint.net and printed it out on regular bond paper. I also tried printing it out on tissue paper. The bond paper looked better, so I went with that for the awnings. I rolled up the forward awning so you can see the forward casemate.

Tomorrow I will add the boats, railings, and anchors.

[ct ertz]

Pretty!
Had the South put more priority on some of these they may have been able to put up a bit more of a fight on the water. Originally this monster was to have 8 inches of armor, but was scaled back to six when the gun load was doubled. With working engines, this style of ironclad may have been a near match for a Monitor. Maybe. Those 7 inch guns would never of cracked the turret armor of a Monitor though.

I like the "living" look of the model, with all of the awnings and deck clutter. You are getting real good at bringing out those details in your builds. Looking good!

CT

[Knife]

Here's the final version of the vessel, so I can can get to work on the CSS Wilmington. Note the nice way the vessel sides fit to the deck. The last shot not only shows the size difference between the two double-casemate ironclads, but also the first and latest models by CTErtz.

[ct ertz]

Awesome work Knife. Thanks again. I hope to have a dang tinclad ready soon.
CT

[Knife]

One thing that I (and Corey) forgot was the gunport shutters. I borrowed the rounded shutters on Corey's CSS Wilmington model to outfit this ship. I would recommend to Corey to include these on the final model. I used chain I found in a model railroad hobby shop (the Whistle Stop in Portland, Oregon) to simulate the shutter chains. Other than adding the gunport shutters, and to darken the three white squares on the deck, I can't think of any changes to make prior to release of the model. Maybe also add a whistle stack behind the smoke stack like on the Wilmington?

[ct ertz]

Alright, Will do. The gun shutters look nice, I love the chain. I will add a whistle as an option as well. Thanks again Knife.
CT

[ct ertz]

Adjustments were made and the kit is now up at Paper Modelers. Thanks folks.
CT

[cgutzmer]

Sweet looking build! nice work