The foto below
depicts the construstion kit of the"St.
Canute 700 " provided
by
Billing-Boats.
If one is familiar with the huge cardboards
deliverd by Graupner it appears difficult to imagine that this small
"puzzle box" might contain all the material that is needed to create
the model of a steam tug that was launched in 1931. A first
check of
the contents of the box gives the impression that all the
material
is of high quality.
The
instruction manual is only short but sufficient if one is able to read
technical drawings. In order to make the drawings more comprehensive
they are partly three dimensional, what goes along with the
disadvantage that it's not possible to take measures from these 3-d
pictures.
(19/11/2009)
The wooden parts are all laser cut what means that for the separation
of the single
parts instead of a saw a cutter knife is sufficient. This feature adds
some
fuel to the building process.
I read in books about the keel up method and the keel down method
but so far I didn't hear about the procedure for building the
hull
that is applied for this model:
As visible in the above and below shown pictures the hull is devided
into two halves which are planked on the building slip seperately and
finally glued.
Since the the hull shows relative small radiuses it was necessary to
put the planks for a while into water in order to avoid to destroy them
during fixing them at the ribs.
For stabilisation and in order to avoid that the hull gets deformed by
the tension of the planks the two halves of the main deck are
allready installed before the planking starts. This method of
manufacturing on the other hand goes along with the disadvantage that
parts of the bow and the stern are no longer accessible. In
order
to protect the inside of the hull from destruction by eventually
incomming water each single plank was coloured before it was installed.
The manufacturing of the hull took round about one month. Evening by
evening I installed one plank at each half of the hull. On weekends I
sometimes was able to install four planks a day what
illustrates once again that patience
is the most important property a model ship builder has to learn ...
On the other hand if the models would be errected too quickly my
storage capacity for ships would be exceeded too soon.
Thanks
to the laser cut parts the erection of the deck houses doesn't consume
too many time.
The
equipment
with rc - components on principal appears not too difficult since the
centre of the hull grants good access and is big enough, but an
additional budget needs to be negotiated with the financial board.
In
case the model actually shall be launched it is recommended to add a
lubrication pipe to the stern tube.
Since
I only
owned a gas soldering iron the soldering process seemed a little bit
tricky. There was a danger that the complete model of burning down. But
as
visible in the foto below, I luckily was successful :o).
The
bridge is planked with thin bars, that will not be coloured so it is
recommended to work as careful as possible.
Works
proceed
also on the working deck: Stair cases, winches and spills are
manufactured. As long as no Sweden flag is available the cheese stick
has to represent the mother country of the ice breaker.
The
foto below displays the manufacturing progress till
07/05/2010.
The
degree of details increases step by step. The following table depicts
different views of the structure (Stand
26/06/2010).
A difficulty that
is not
explained in the instruction manual is how to fasten the stair cases.
The glue areas are quite small what goes along with the risk, that they
burst off in case the structure is set on or off clumsy.
While comparing the model with the real ship it occurs that the
airiating pips defer from the original.
Further it shall be mentioned that these pipes are made of brass what
brings the centre of gravity up and therefore increases the risk of
capsizing.
The anchor winch could have been a little bit more detailed :( .
Due the windows in the bridge provide a good view inside it occured
reasonable to equipp it too. The accomodation is the same as that on
top of the bridge.
As visible at the
fotos depicted above the stern of the St.
Canute currently is fitted with the flag of Germany but this
item will be
replaced by the swedish ensign according to the real ship as soon as
possible.
(A click on the pictures allows to zoom into the fotos)
The
instruction manual is only short but sufficient if one is able to read
technical drawings. In order to make the drawings more comprehensive
they are partly three dimensional, what goes along with the
disadvantage that it's not possible to take measures from these 3-d
pictures.
