SS Columbus (1924)

[Hanseat]

my new project: SS Columbus

[Hanseat]

Contrary to common belief the ship was not laid down as "Hindenburg" in 1912. The name was assigned to the ship only in 1917. The earliest mentioning of that name can be found in NDL´s annual journal 1916/17 (published in 1917). Before that no name was attached and the accounts only refer to the ship as "35,000 tonner". That makes sense historically as Fieldmarshall Hindenburg´s victory in East Prussia only happened in August 1914 and February 1915 and he became the hero as the "saviour of East-Prussia". Only then his name became famous and his rise in the ranks of the Gerrmany military began. Why should the Lloyd name one of his principal new liners after an unknown, retired military before August 1914? That makes absolutely no sense. Furtermore, Anglo-american authors simplify the transfer of the hull to Lloyd after the treaty of Trier in 1919. I will refer to that point later and clarify it historically correct.
Coming back to the model: it´s a kit by Walter Otten from Worpswede/ Germany. The kits offered by Otten are hand-drawn with their own, warm charme. But: they are not very accurate and need considerable re-construction. First, there is the problem of building stages with SS Columbus. As far as my research has shown there are the following stages:
a) completion in 1924
b) changes in promenade deck aft / cargo configuaration probably in 1927
c) after conversion to turbines in 1929
d) addition of pool and dancing platform, major changes aft in 1937
The general arrangement plans from Werft-Reederei-Hafen, of course, show version a). Only during my construction I realized that Otten´s model shows version b). The problem with the models shown in the museums in Bremerhaven is that none is accurate. So far there are enough problems to deter any model maker from building the kit. I dare it nonetheless.

[shipbuild]

I'm anxious to see your superb work again.

[Hanseat]

As the kit is not very accurate I adopted a very unconventional approach: I first built the stern and forepeak separatedly with all the details and only combined them with the middle part later. That offered the advantage to test if the most difficult parts in terms of hull shape could be built at all. Doing so I realised that I could construct satisfactory sections and could thus proceed with the entire ship. I felt a bit like a shipyard inserting a midship section.

[Hanseat]

If you want to build the ship I will advise you to avoid some of the traps in the kit.
Trap 1: The bulleyes in the hull. Make sure that the sheer of the bulleyes is accurate. Normally I super-dislike not using the hull of the kit. But this time I only took the rough shape from the kit but painted them black and stamped out millions of bulleyes. That had the advantage that a) I could make a new sheer line that was accurate. Using the hull parts of the ship the bulleyes are whereever they want to be, but never in line /sheerline and b) small mistakes of stains from glue can be corrected very easily.

Trap 2: The hull parts must be lengthened in some cases
Trap 3. Make sure that all decks have a slight camber, which is not included in the kit

[Hanseat]

here my try-outs

[Hanseat]

the final result plus the fore and aft protection

[Hanseat]

Trap 4: The welin davids and chocks must be altered considerably; Werft-Reederei-Hafen 1924 offers detailed sketches, though. Make sure that two types of davids are used (cf. WRH)

Trap 5: Construct the skylights anew; Mr Otten drew them by hand so they are very wobbly; I drew them in scale 4:1 in detail and then reduced the size on the copier so that they fit to the deck space.

[martyr366]

Your skill is outstanding. I am so wanting to learn to be a tenth as good.

[Tom Lapinski]

Amazing work, especially your attention to detail.