S.S. Rotterdam

[Bluenoser]

It has been a long time since I posted anything. Mostly that was because I was building a non-paper ship model for my brother. Now that it's finished, I thought I would get back into the paper.

I wanted to make something a little bigger than I typically make out of paper, so I decided on the S.S. Rotterdam. It's a 1:350 scale waterline cruiseship and will come in at about 25" or 64cm. I purchased this years ago and have been wanting to build this for quite some time.

So here goes....

[Bluenoser]

The hull starts easy enough. I added heavy reinforcement card to the forward-most and aft most formers inside the hull as there is a great deal of hull curvature going on here.

[Bluenoser]

The hull is long enough to acquire a curve lengthwise, particularly since there is no longitudinal stiffener (keel) running the length. So to eliminate this, I glued in some paint mixing sticks and recessed the lateral formers to go around. A few popsicle sticks were also inserted as required. The whole shooting match was glued and clamped and allowed to dry to ensure that it would remain straight.

This worked really well, but I still had a difficult time producing a smooth hull. It is evident where the formers are.

[Bluenoser]

Every deck that is placed into the model is going to be reinforced with a heavy card backer, and in this view a few popsicle sticks were also added.

[Bluenoser]

Here we can see a deck inserted into the model at the bow and one at the stern. Also installed here is the start of the super structure.
All the fitment is good.

[Bluenoser]

Here is the next higher deck being prepped for installation and already reinforced.

The numerical sequence would place the deck down first and then apply the cabin structures onto the installed deck. I preferred to place the cabin structures onto the deck before installing it. By doing it this way, I was able to apply greater pressure on the items going onto the deck without inducing a bend into it and having it dry in this condition. This preassembly further stiffened the deck too.

[Bluenoser]

Here is that deck now in it's intended position.

[Bluenoser]

...and the next deck above that one. The decks are quite long so the reinforcement of them with heavy card not only keeps them straight, but it greatly aids in gluing them onto the model.
Progress shows up quickly with each application of these big decks.

[billy.leliveld]

I live about a mile away from the real thing, they brought it back here to Rotterdam about a year ago and it's turned into a hotel/restaurant/congresscentre, It's just a beautifull sight everytime I drive by :D

[Bluenoser]

I didn't have a lot of free time available this past week and half and by working on the small boats I was able to put one or two together as time permitted. Pretty straight forward to put these little guys together.