H.M.S. Colossus, 1879

[Golden Bear]

We'll see which design gets finished first of the few that I have in the works. I've been working on this for a few weeks and it looks like it might be the one.

Colossus and Edinburgh were a pair of ships laid out along the lines of Inflexible, Ajax, Agamemnon and the Italian Duilio and Dandolo. Not actually intended to be cruise liners with guns, they followed an idea of mounting armament in the middle of the ship in order to minimize the area that needed belt armor - increasingly heavy armor to match increasingly large guns. In the case of Colossus and Edinburgh they had the advantage of breech loading guns (advantage to me as a modeler at least).

My sources are largely from photos but I've also found a blurry and confused image of RN plans for elevation and plan. I'll use my intuition to fill in some things that are not apparent from these sources - hidden behind the superstructure walls.

Here is an image demonstrating my progress up to this point.


Carl

[Golden Bear]

...however, since football season is on I want something to keep my hands busy while growing fat cells in front of the screen and I decided to build a later destroyer to serve as size comparison for my scratch built pre dreadnoughts. I picked up the 1:200 Answer Mutsuki kit from someone here in one of their sales and thought that it would serve the purpose nicely. Interesting, nice shape and not a lot of parts. I began by scanning the parts sheets and reducing them to 1:250. Since I'm lazy I did not bother to correct the color with the result that pieces are sort of washed out. The actual kit has very nice color.

I went ahead and used 1mm stock for the frames and just eyeballed the slots a little wide and trimmed the sections a little short to account for the extra 20% of height of the waterline piece. It all worked pretty nicely.

As a note for anybody else building this, the anchor ports are screwed up without a little modification - which I didn't figure out until too late. They are supposed to be relieved inside the hull side and would be very easy to attach before attaching the hull except for two things:
a) They aren't numbered along with the hull side so you don't have any clue except the "W" on cutouts (yes, I should be good enough to have followed that one up but, oh well);
b) There is a frame that sits right behind the cutouts that needs to be hacked out a little bit. Easier to do before rather than after.

Oh, and the sides are in three pieces (I should have PSPd them together) with joiners - the joiners fall right on top of frames which need to be cut out a little.

Anyway, things are fitting together pretty well for now.

Carl

[Royaloakmin]

I am surprised that you did not go for Inflexible. These two were the poor stepsisters. But a great choice nevertheless and I am very sure three or four of us will be watching intently.

best regards

[Golden Bear]

Hey Fred - well, I regard Inflexible as one of the great "wants" for model building. I don't have such good plans or photos of the ship - she was older than Colossus/Edinburgh. I would like to do her justice when and if I try her. The tricky part is the muzzle loading guns which loaded through a glacis in the deck. I would need clear imaging of that whole thing in order to attempt it. Some deck detail would be nice.

As a clarification to the non-pd crowd: Ajax/Agamemnon were the actual poor stepsisters, being too small and too shallow draft. They rolled horribly and had constant tweaks to their hull to improve things.


Carl

[barry]

Looking good already Carl

[Royaloakmin]

Carl, can you indicate where you have looked already for photos? I was looking around also. Never would I have expected anyone to do this ship, but it is absolutely great to see her. As I remember, she and Edinburgh had some differences, and different pilot houses. What bothers me is I know I've seen good pics of this class, but I cant remember where.

regards

[Golden Bear]

Burt, Brown, Beeler, Parkes and the various warship compendiums such as Conway publications. Burt and Beeler have the best stuff. There are some small differences between the two and I have not actually decided which I intend to model. I like the aft name scroll better for Edinburgh but have more photos of Colossus. Jim Baumann has also helped with a couple photos from a different book (author escapes me right now). As I say, it won't be a definitive model but in the absence of more complete information I feel justified in going ahead and doing my best. At least it will fulfill the "look" test by comparison with photos.


Carl

[Royaloakmin]

Carl, my only regret about Invincible is the aura created by that squinty eyed fella who was her first captain... The NMI site has photos of both ships and this site also HMS Colossus. I also checked some plans sites with no luck. You may have already seen these. Maybe the good colonel can check the library at Carlyle? I think your approach with Victoria will work just as well for Colossus. Most of the fittings and boats were standardized, anyway. Also, I think you once said you built the HMV Maine? She is quite similar. I wonder if the Brits shared the plans?

regards

[Golden Bear]

I don't see the differences in the pilot house, Fred - if you are referring to the bridge structure over the armored con. These ships morphed in detail quite a bit over time so it takes some sorting out to figure out what I want to do. As usual I am aiming for as early as possible. I find the retention of equipment for boarding nets to be interesting. I have not modeled them in previous builds but maybe I should for effect.

BTW, I assume that you mean Inflexible rather than Invincible for that squinty eyed admiral? That also draws me to the ship. As I said though, the muzzle loading system and lack of info on it keep me from thinking about it. That and the full ship rig that it was originally saddled with.


Carl

[Royaloakmin]

yep, Inflexible. Senior moment. I am going from memory on the pilot houses, so be warned. Don't think you want to try the full rig. Then you may as well tackle Captain....Anyways, full speed ahead with your design and stay away from Cape Finisterre..