After enjoying building the Airfix 1/600 RMS Queen Elizabeth I purchased as many 1/600 Liners as I could find. The rarest one is the Airfix SS France which I finally found on ebay at a high but reasonable price. She is my current project but I have to be careful since messing her up and trying to replace her would not be easy.
So far she is in prime with the propeller shafts and stabilizers installed. I really would have preferred to leave them until near the end of the build but they needed a lot of filler which would have messed up the paint job. I’ll just have to watch out for them as they are very delicate. Once I get the hull painted and mounted on the stand they will be much less vulnerable to damage.
The holes for the shaft supports were just a mess and the hull had quite a bit of warp to it so I filled the support holes first from the inside with styreen sheet and then putty on the outside. I also glued in a brace of styrene sheet to help hold the two halves of the warped hull together. She needs a little more filler before paint.
Nice putty work and congrats on the hullfix. These old 1/600 liners are great kits. Glad you got a SS France. Keep an eye out for an SS Canberra if you have not already procured one.
It seems that the Q.E.2s warp over time. I don’t know why. If you can find a Canberra/Oriana go for it. There is a difference in the ships, But you can overcome it!
Thanks guys. I added a bit more filler and am in the process of painting the hull. Between coats I routed, drilled, and polyurethaned the display base.
I think the Canberra is the only liner I am missing. As you can see I have enough to keep me busy for some time!
Well I got the color on the hull of my 1/600 France. Now I need to put decals and a coat of flat clear on it. When that’s done I will try to figure out how I am going to paint all these tiny windows.
Yes Bill, all true. I am a bit partial to the earlier liners but these three you mention were the pinnacle of ocean liner technology IMO. Particularly The France was a beautiful ship. I could do without the funnel design of all three though. I think the United States funnels were a bit too large and the other two were just kind of odd. The United States could move pretty well, even in reverse! As I understand it a lot of the United States design was kept close to the vest for some time.
It just goes to show you how quickly situations can change. In the time that passes between the concept being drawn up and the completion of the ship they became mostly irrelevant. Just as with the US battle ships, the Montana class was found to be a thing of the past before being built. Airliners did in the ocean liners and carriers did in the battle ships. I’m a big fan of both battle ships and ocean liners and would loved to have seen a Montana come to be.
The last Captain of the SS United States, and Commodore of the United States Lines was a guy named Leroy Alexanderson. He was born to Swedish immigrant parents, in New York, in 1910.
He was commissioned in both the Merchant Marine and the USN (R) in 1930. I came across his name while reading a fascinating set of pages from a wartime diary kept by the father of one of our members. This father was assigned to a fleet oiler stationed in Iceland in 1942, in support of transatlantic convoys.
Alexanderson himself was in command of USS Melville AD-2, a WW1 vintage destroyer tender that was also in iceland servicing the large numbers of “cans” that came through in both directions. Our correspondent mentions Alexanderson as a straight up and respectable guy whom he enjoyed having dinner with while in port.
Alexanderson had several more commissions, on APAs in the Pacific. He was in command of USS Gage APA-168 landing elements of 6th Marine at Okinawa.
He returned to Merchant Service in 1947 and continued his career with the United States Lines. He died in 2004 and was buried with full military honors in his Commodore’s uniform.
We can discuss the significance of Gage and her enduring conributions to museum ships, another time.
Well I gave it my best effort to get all these tiny windows painted but unfortunately the results were disappointing. The scale, number, and irregularity of the frames is just beyond my ability as a painter. Time to move on.
Thanks Marcus. I’ve been dealing with my Mom’s health issues so I haven’t had time to work on my 1/600 France. Today I took a little break and did some painting. Not so sure about the color I chose but the ship had green decks. This color is a gray that has a green tint. I really don’t want to paint it a dark green so this is what’s going to be on there.
Here is a helpful suggestion for any and all building ship models.
The name of the ship and her home port of registry.
The name at the stern should be level with the water. The home port of registry parallel and horizontal to same.
And usually center registred.
Kit decals give it a guess, but usually might only be right if the distance above the waterline is the same as that of the location on the model.
The way to solve this is to mark a pair of baselines parallel to the waterline. Then cut the decal for each letter and apply the type on that line letter by letter.
