Polish Destroyer ORP Piorun

[rgmarine]

A few weeks ago I decided to start a card modeling learning project to get me ready to build some of the warship card models on my build shelf. Having served on a WW2 destroyer during my time in the US Navy I wanted to build a Fletcher Class Destroyer (Modelik "USS Leutz"). But first I'll tackle a training project ORP Piorun by Maly.

The ship was built by John Brown & Company of Clydebank, Glasgow. She was laid down in July 1939, launched on 7 May 1940 and completed on 4 November 1940. Initially commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Nerissa, she was later transferred to the Polish Navy as a replacement for the destroyer ORP Grom, which had been lost off the Norwegian coast on 4 May 1940.
Piorun was based in Great Britain and commanded by Commander Eugeniusz Pławski. Between 13 and 15 March 1941, while undergoing repairs in John Brown's shipyard, she took part in the defence of Clydebank against air raids by the Luftwaffe. A memorial to the crew of the ship was later erected in Clydebank.
On 22 May 1941, Piorun, with ships of the British 4th Destroyer Flotilla (HMS Cossack, HMS Maori, HMS Sikh and HMS Zulu), commanded by Captain Philip Vian, provided additional escort to troop convoy WS8B en route from Glasgow to the Indian Ocean. On 25 May, Vian's destroyers (including Piorun) were detached from the convoy to join the search for the German battleship Bismarck.
Piorun took part, along with the British destroyers, in the search for the Bismarck (she was the first of the destroyers to spot the German ship). She joined in the shadowing of and torpedo attacks on the Bismarck during the night before Bismarck was sunk, and at one point Piorun charged at Bismarck by herself, exchanging fire for half an hour, although neither side scored any hits. According to one report (detailed at the Auschwitz I exhibition, Oświęcim, Poland), Pławski transmitted the message "I am a Pole" before commencing fire on the Bismarck. This manoeuvre and the subsequent withdrawal caused Piorun to lose contact with the Bismarck. Piorun was very low on fuel, so at 5 am, she was ordered home before she had used her torpedoes. Pławski was reluctant to leave the area and ignored Vian's order for an hour before returning to the UK.
She subsequently operated in the Mediterranean, taking part in Operation Halberd, one of the Malta convoys and Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. In 1944 she was transferred to the Home Fleet.
Piorun took part in Operation Deadlight, and took part in the sinking of the captured German Type XXI submarines U-2329, U-2334, U-2335, U-2337, U-2350 and U-2363.
She was returned to the Royal Navy in 1946, as HMS Noble and scrapped in 1955.

Although the instructions are in Polish ther are lots of detailed diagrams that show placement of parts. We will see during the build if they are enough. Parts pages are printed in crisp, vibrant colors with plenty of detail. Next post will cover the first building steps

[rgmarine]

First step was preparing the frames. Cutting out the frame pages they were glued to 1mm bristol board with 3M spray adhesive and then placed under weight for 24 hours. Then came the hard task of cutting out the individual pieces. I think I went through five blades in my exacto knife on this step. I decided to make a waterline model so that I could display the ship on a simulated sea. This required cutting frames off at the waterline. Fortunately, the model is made with a longitudinal stiffiner right at the waterline so one has only to cut on the dotted assembly lines to trim the vertical stiffiners to fit the waterline mode. I had to modify some of the frame slots so that there was enough meat in the vertical stiffener to give proper support and prevent hogging. I just transferred the amount of slot that was left in the vertical stiffener to the horizontal frames to keep the same fit.

The first photo shows the cut out frames. Next is a rough fitup of structural parts. Tomorrow we will start glueing the assemply together.

[rgmarine]

Photo 1 and 2
I made an assembly base by purchasing 8X16 inch piece of 16 guage steel from Home Depot. This was cleaned with MEK and then painted with two coats of spray Rustoleum matte white. When dry I drew guidelines on the steel plate with a marking pen. When working, I just cover the plate with wax paper held down by small magnets on the four corners (super glue will not stick to wax paper and you can see the guidelines through it). I also use both small and large magnets to hold parts in position during assembly.
Photo 3
Using larger rectangular magnets to maintain a 90 degree angle to verticals I tack glued frames in position with super glue. After parts were tacked in place I followed up with a generous fillet of UHU and Aleens on the joints to make everything solid and put aside the assembly to dry overnight.
Photo 4
After tacking and gluing reinforcing strips were added to the vertical stiffener.
Photo 5
When glue was set the edges of all stiffeners were painted black with a Sharpie permanent marker. Then edges were coated with a generous coating of super glue so that it would soak in and make the edges durable and sandable.
Photo 6 and 7
Now comes the experimental part. In Hiob's model of the Kursk he used expandable foam filler to stiffen the skeleton and provide a smooth surface for skinning the ship. This process looked interesting so I decided to try it. Using Hilti expandable foam in a can, I filled in the spaces between frames and allowed the foamed skeleton to cure for 24 hours. It ain't pretty and this stuff is hard to work with in an open space. My wife said it looked more like a dessert than a ship. I thought it looked like something more disgusting especially if it was painted brown. She said "How can you make a ship out of that mess?" I replied "It's simple. I'll just cut away everything that doesn't look like a ship." So next I'll hack away at the foam and see what we end up with.

[treadhead1952]

Hi rgmarine,

It looks like you are off to a flying start on your destroyer trial run. I use balsa wood to fill in the sections of my hulls, a lot less work than whittling away at all that foam. But to each his own. Interesting to see how it comes out after you do your whittling.

[NimitzFan]

Personally, I don't try to fill in the spaces. I've found that if you choose the right glue, you need not worry about the hull "wrinkling." I've had bad experiences with ordinary white PVA. But for a while I used Wiccoll but they don't make it anymore. I've found that in my humid environment, Arlene's Tacky Glue used sparingly works ok.

[rgmarine]

Post Number 4 (17 September 2012)
Carving away the foam was surprisingly easy. I used a serrated butcher knife to do the rough trim and then used a serrated steak knife to do the final trimming. One issue is that the foam looked more like Swiss cheese (see photo 8 and 9) so I filled in the worst holes with another shot of foam and did a final trim as in photo 10. The foam when cured can be cut and sanded easily and as seen in photo 10 where you can see why I edged the frames with black to make them stand out when sanded.
Photo 11
I would have liked to have a more substantial surface to attach the decks and skins so I put on a coat of vinyl spackling compound with a putty knife.
Photo 12
The spackling compound sands very easily and it only took a few minutes to bring the surface down even with the frames. Next step is to spray on a couple coats of dark grey primer. In retrospect this method is probably no better or faster than putting balsa or florists foam between the frames but it was an interesting experiment.

[treadhead1952]

Hi rgmarine,

As you pointed out, it probably doesn't matter which method you try, they all require a certain amount of work to arrive at the end point; which is pretty much the same. But, experimenting around is the only way you can check out which one might work best for you.

Looking forward to see how it goes from here.

[rgmarine]

Photo 13
Decks went on with no problems as seen in Photo 13 and then I continued skinning the hull.

Photo 14
This is where a glitch occurred. As you can see in Photo 14 the hull side panels did not meet up.

Photo 15

Maly provides some parts to take care of hull gaps but they in their infinite wisdom decided to print numbers directly on the parts rendering them essentially useless.

Photo 16
So I cut some pieces to fill the gaps but as you can see there is a color mismatch. I hope to correct this by mixing some acrylic paint to match and fill in the cut lines so that they are not visible. You can also see that the Maly parts of the hull sides have a color mismatch.

[treadhead1952]

Bummer about the mis match on the hull parts. One of the reasons that I scan and print out kits if I can't get a download like GreMir Models offers with his ship and plane models. Makes fixing problems like this so much easier if and when they occur.

[rgmarine]

I needed a break from the hull so I started work on the deckhouses.
Photo 17
Working this model without English instructions (Polish instructions provided in model book) is not easy. You have to study the plans very carefully and closely examine and dry fit all parts many times before gluing. I tried using Google Translator to change the instructions to English with limited success. It takes a long time to type in the Polish words and because I am not familiar with Polish language I had to look at one letter at a time in entering the Polish text. Google translator works pretty good but the syntaxt is awkward and the instructions are sketchy to begin with. Photo 17 is the 01 level deckhouse.
Photo 18
Worked on repairing the mismatch in the hull skins and continued touchup work on the hull. Got some gouche colors from the art store that match the hull colors and filled in the joints of the filler pieces, then blended the colors with the existing printed colors. It still is not to my satisfaction so I will return to this repair later (see photo 16 in previous post). To close the gap in the bow skins and fair the bow I used vinyl spackling to mold a proper shape.
Photo 19
In this photo you can see my magnetic building board in action. It is a small piece of steel painted white with grid lines on it. I use small magnets to hold parts in position while gluing up the parts. It works pretty good for this task.