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

[VinceM]

A couple more details.
First pic: Between the first and second funnels there was a large liquid tank (water or fuel or something) on the roof of a small cabin. On the metal restoration model, the tank was orange on a tan roof. The Cecelie model just has a black flat roof, no tank. I made the roof tan to match the others and fabricated a tank. To keep the warship effect I made the tank grey with black trim.
Second pic: Foremast. The crows nest is a bit different from most ships of her time, it was railing rather than a solid waist high wall. Also, there was a large raft tied onto the rigging on each side.

[VinceM]

OK, so here's a new question: The metal restoration model has an accomodation ladder on the port side, near the stern.Unfortunately, I don't have a starboard view of the restoration. I also don't have a good starboard stern view of the real ship. So what do you all think: would the real ship have an accomodation ladder on starboard as well as port? The original paper model doesn't have accomodation ladders at all (no surprise there).

[VinceM]

I've seen pics of Cecelie's sister ship, the Kaiser Wilhelm De Grosse, and it has accomodation ladders on both sides. So maybe Cecelie also had two?

[VinceM]

Pic 1: If this staircase went straight out from the roof like the others, it would land on the skylight. In the next pic you can't really see the staircase, but it looks like it might go down sideways. The roof has a red rectangle printed on it, don't know what it's supposed to represent, a skylight? Looks like a weird place for a hatch cover. The area represented by the red rectangle in Pic 2 looks like it might be a couple of vent funnels surrounded by a pile of life rafts. I have to think about what to do there.

Pics 2 and 3: The third mast has a watch tower platform, and a crane is attached to the aft end of the ship. The original model has two skylights in this area. I don't know if the crane was original to KPC or if it was added during the MV conversion. And what did the crane do? Closer examination of the photo shows only one lifeboat high on the stern, and the crane swings over them. There is one davit on the port side, but two davits on the starboard. And no vents on this deck. So I'm going to have to re-do that whole deck.

When I started this, I thought it would simply be recoloring the hull and adding some deck guns. Between correcting errors in the original model and adding details it's gotten to be a bear. I've been working on this almost every night for 5 months now, and the contest deadline is sneaking up fast.

Pic 4: My version of the watch tower. Looking back at the photograph, I think the upright supports should have been more splayed out, more eliptical. My version is straight vertical like a gazebo. I don't think I have time to correct this so there it is. Will probably paint the thing grey or light blue though.

[VinceM]

Answer to the accommodation ladders question, from posts 22 -23:
Looking closely at pics of Mount Vernon there are no accomodation ladders on either side. So apparently they were removed during the conversion from KPC to MV.

[Hanseat]

The odd brown square: . Kronprinz Wilhelm has a dome for the Second class Dining room in this place but the deck plans show that on Kaiser Wilhelm II this was the structure before the raised deck on your model. Anyhow, the deck is the Vienna Cafe with two square skylights at the front and one in the middle. The plan says, there is the Radio Shack in this place a bit aft "Wireless Telegraphy". So there is an antenna (but not in the centre). Besides, there is a fine model of Kaiser Wilhelm II at the Technical Museum at Munich, which I am going to visit in August.

[Hanseat]

this is the builder´s plan by Stettiner Vulcan of KWII, but should be identical on KC

[VinceM]

Refer to Post # 24, pic 3:

1) The KPC stern, the original model

2) Mount Vernon as I did it earlier

3) Mount Vernon, Stern rebuilt. I still have to put something on the two large grey pallets, there was some sort of tarps over them. Probably make packets of tissue paper.

[cbg]

hey vince,
am enjoying this thread. will also build as waterline model, so thanks for heads-up on problems you encountered. pretty ship for a pretty princess!
that said, i appreciate the odd, not-to-scale, incorrect-ness of these older models. . .gives them some charm, eh?
cbg

[VinceM]

Thanks cbg. if this wasn't a contest entry, I probably wouldn't worry so much about little details. Of course, if there wasn't a contest involved, I may have just given up on the Cecelie altogether. So I learned some things, and got in a little more experience in our hobby.