Toddlea's free model contest #5 - USAT Mount Vernon

[VinceM]

Lots of greebles: 4 funnels, 44 lifeboats, 14 large vents, bollards. The vents have to be camo painted, probably battleship grey. And the funnels need detailing. So some weird reason, one of the funnels was painted a dark color on one side only. Part of the Dazzle effect.

Still to go: 8 rafts, 6 guns, anchors, a lot of railing around the lifeboats, small vents, skylights and hatches, cranes, and armored lookout platforms on the first and third masts. And only 2 months to go. I better step up the pace.

[Rubenandres77]

Looks like a huge task to correct the mistakes. But it will surely be a great kit when you finish it.

Just one note: "bogen" is the German word for "sheet of paper". The publisher of this kit was "J.F.Schreiber-Verlag" from 1910.

Regards.

[VinceM]

Originally Posted by Rubenandres77

Looks like a huge task to correct the mistakes. But it will surely be a great kit when you finish it.

Just one note: "bogen" is the German word for "sheet of paper". The publisher of this kit was "J.F.Schreiber-Verlag" from 1910.

Regards.

Thank you! I've learned my new thing for the day.

[VinceM]

The model includes lifeboats, and a template for a metal davit, but no brackets to hold the boats. There are pictures of brackets. I used AutoCAD to draw up brackets, printed and cut out. Maybe not historically perfect, but I think it works. Still have to make the metal davits.

The engine room skylights were simply glued to the deck on the KPC model. Also two small vents are depicted as flat black dots located foreward and aft of the center mast. On the real ship all of this is on a waist -high platform like the officer's quarters. I fabricated the platforms and the vents. Sorry about the fuzzy pic. This still needs railings, and two small funnel vents.

[David Hathaway]

I am interested in how you guessed which colours to use?

The reason for my question is that like you I have wanted to do a "repaint" of a model in dazzle camouflage. The model I would like to work on is the Wilhelmshaven/Moewe model of SS Praesident - she was interned and became USS Kittery (AK-2).

There are some pictures of her online but very frustratingly there are no pictures of the camouflage scheme for the port side. And they are black and white pictures! The original colour scheme specification may be lurking in a museum in the USA but being based in the UK this does not help me much.

David

[VinceM]

When I first started this project, I asked the guys on this site for their thoughts. And got a lot of help:

Color scheme for WW1 Troopship

I lucked out in that I've got port and starboard views of the scheme. Honestly, I don't have any idea how close to reality my colors are. All I can do is guess and use the shading in the B/W photos to go light or dark.

[VinceM]

Pic 1: The staircases are all one height, even though the decks are different heights. They are sized for the promenades and sun decks, but are too short for the forecastle and stern. I connected two staircases together and cut down to make the proper heights.

Pics 2 and 3: The boat decks were supposed to have a railing around them, but only the bow and stern have railing. I used reprints of the railings and strung them together for the boat decks. The painted vents were installed at this point also before the lifeboats trapped them in.

Pic 4: Port view of the lifeboats installed. KP Cecelie only had one boat in each davit, but they were stacked 2 high on Mt. Vernon.

[VinceM]

Deck gun. Five more to go. The base is a cut down section of an insulin needle cap (blue thing on the left) and the barrel is a cut down section of a paper clip. When all the guns are done they will be painted grey and black.

[VinceM]

Pic 1: Forepeak of the big restoration model
Pic 2: The original Cecelie model version. The bollards and hatches are just printed on.
Pic 3: my version on the Mt. Vernon. Still have to install deck guns near the back, on each side of the windlass. There's supposed to be five copper colored vents, but it already looks pretty crowded, so debating whether to include them. Probably will eventually.

[Rubenandres77]

This is looking really wonderful