So, if I understand you correctly - which I think I do, I should represent the top of the hatch covers as canvas with, of course, the outlines of the beams visible under the canvas. That being the case all I have to do is paint over those “outlines” which I’d painted a metallic color so that the covers are entirely the canvas color I wish to represent. Is this correct?
I suppose I could use a wash of some darker shade to bring out the beams more but they’re already too thick for scale.
I’ve seen pictures of Liberty ships with aircraft on the hatch covers. Were there reinforcement beams of some kind placed under the canvas? I bought some 1/350 Douglas SBD-3’s to put on top of one of the hatches.
In any case thank you very much for the information! I haven’t progressed much farther in my build since I’ve been staring at a bunch of jeeps and trucks that I’ll have to paint soon with the idea of putting them on top of some hatches as well.
Not quite. The hatch beams were I beams with a thin vertical strip of steel welded to the top like say 1/4"x2". This acted as a guide as the hatch boards were slid in place. Therefore all you would see is the gray surface of the tarpaulin canvas hatch cover with out the beams telegraphing through.
As I said before you could have placed something fairly light like a jeep on the hatch cover if you could figure a way to tie it down. I suppose aircraft would qualify as something light or maybe extra dunnage was placed over the top of the hatch cover to spread the load.
OK, so I will file down the hatch covers as represented on the kit so they’re flat. I’ve read several variations on WWII canvas color. Some say the hatch cover canvas was brown, others - like yourself - suggest gray. Do you know definitively? I’m still at a stage where changes in this area are easily done.
Here is a picture of a hatch cover (without the canvas) on the Jeremiah O’Brien along with a link of the page I took it from. Please note the green looking canvas to the left. I’m also including a picture my search engine came up with of a Liberty Ship with aircraft on her hatch covers. That picture may be slightly deceiving though since I can’t really tell if they’ve put some dunnage on top of the hatch covers for the planes.
You are on the right track. You must remember that what you are looking at is the backside of a modern tarp folded back. I said gray only because the ones we had on our ship were gray (think Navy). I can’t tell you the proper color for WWII but gray would be appropriate. A bright brown or tan would stand out from the air.
Google liberty ship cargo loading and you will find several examples of cargo stowed on the hatches. In one they are tanker trailers and they definitely have dunnage over the canvas on the hatch. In the other planes are being loaded with special stands under the wings and some sort of framework over the hatch.
I may concoct a grayish olive drab kind of color for the canvas. It won’t stand out much from my combination of haze and ocean gray I’ve painted the rest of the ship. I’ll put some of what I would hope is reasonable bracing for aircraft over the hatch covers. No tanks on the hatch covers [:D].
Aircraft rode on a structure, the name of which escapes me right now. It spanned over the hatches but was supported on the deck. It was not the kind of thing you’d combine with other loads, but would be semi permanent on a ship dedicated to carrying aircraft.
As for the canvas, it was three layers, so nothing shows through it. I’ll stand bt my comment about steel bands, but in any case if there were, they looked nothing like the Trump bumps. Best to get rid of them. it would probably be easier to just make new covers.
On another type of ship, I made them with Sculpey.
Whoa! Hold off on sanding those thwartship bands off. Although they are too thick to be scale, there ARE steel bands, not beams, across the hatch covers on top of the canvas, These are to hold everything down, not to support any loads that may be stowed on top of the hatch.
To sum up, starting with an open hatch:
Steel beams fit into notches inside the hatch coaming.
Wooden hatch boards cover the opening, supported by an edge on the steel beams and an edge all along the inside of the hatch coaming.
Canvas over the wood
Steel bands over everything, hooked onto the edge of the hatch coaming.
Will look for some pictures to illustrate.
Fred
Note the steel bands over the canvas hatch cover. The canvas is probably dark green, but looks darker because it’s wet.
As for stowing aircraft on deck, here is another photo. The special structure that GM mentioned is probably a Meccano Deck, which was used on tankers to stow planes and boats over the cargo piping. On a frieghter you want to stow them as shown here:
Anything stowed on the hatch covers would be on a decking built of wooden dunnage, OVER the canvas. It would be tied down with wire or strapping to pad eyes on the steel deck alongside the hatches.
There are at least two aircraft in the photo. The near one is mid air being hoisted, while another one behind it is resting on the trestles set up for the main landing gear. Neither have a tail. There’s a sort of V strut attached to the fuselage behind the cockpit.
One thing for sure, they are resting on the deck, not hatch cover.
Eduard I know includes hatch cover bands in their Liberty PE set. I don’t know about GMM, theirs is in a box somewhere with my unfinished JOB.
OK guys, I’ve already sanded down the oversized straps/beams/whatever on the hatch covers but I’ve left enough to represent thin, metal straps which I will, again, paint metallic gray. I’ve darkened the canvas to a deep greenish brown. That’s the way I’ll end up depicting it. As to the aircraft… well, I’ll make some sort of platform from evergreen which will cover the canvas and straps and which I’ll show strapped down to the deck somehow. Its color will be either brown or the same gray as the rest of the ship. At least this is my tentative plan. I’m not so sure the S.S. Stephen Hopkins would have carried aircraft on her maiden voyage. If she did, I’m not sure they would have included Douglas SBD-3’s. I don’t think my friend would mind too much if I made that sort of mistake…I’m not sure any records of her cargo on her way out exist. Anyway you all have given me more insight into the hatch cover question … my thanks to you.
Also a good overhead Liberty shot, Mike. See how those aircraft are stowed- the landing gear which is all the weight on account of the engine, are resting on those same little trestles as in Fred’s photo, on the deck. The tails, which a group of guys could probably pick up, are over the hatches.
As for the color of the canvas, as in most things I’m no expert and judging from the photos of the era is a little difficult. But there’s only so much available in the paint locker, and it’s an exercise in maintenance, not esthetics, in particular in a merchant ship.
On a Navy ship, my assumption is that everything fabric gets painted a fabric paint of a particular color, usually something close to the deck color for camouflage. Boat covers, gun covers, navigation equipment covers, all the other stuff that gets covered when not at battle stations.
On a Liberty, again I would make the assumption that they were delivered from the yard with a set of canvas hatch covers, and I would also assume that most yards would see fit to paint them with a fabric paint close to the deck color.
I came across an archive document reprinted in a magazine article, stating that on her outbound journey from San Francisco to Bora Bora, she carried a mixed deck and hold cargo of airplanes, trucks and cargo. I’d take that as a license to do as you plan and set up some aircraft. The armament is listed as one 4 inch gun at the stern, plus the 20s.
I think the Brown/ O’Brien has a 5" in the stern and a 3" in the bow, correct? Definitely a different outcome if Hopkins had been armed that heavily.
The book Liberty Ships by John Gorley Bunker has a number of pictures of a model of a liberty ship the Zebulon B. Vance photographed at the Mariner’s Museum, Newport News, VA. These show a 5"38 on the stern, what is probably a 3" gun on the bow and four 20MM at the corners of the main deck house. Not definitive by any means but at least an indication of what was intended.
As for the bands over the hatches I prefaced my remarksd by what was Navy practice at least on the APA I was on. There were no bands used over the hatches on this ship nor any provision for them that I am aware of.
Thats correct, on the later fits. The Hopkins had the one 4" at the stern, as it’s referred to extensively in the action report. In that fit, there was a single 20mm at the bow, on a sort of open platform, not a tub. If I were modeling her, I’d make the effort because it’s a key part of the story.
The correct listing for the armament on S.S. Stephen Hopkins is listed in the article I referenced earlier in this thread. I include here both the article and the section of that piece which refers to her armament.
That is great. No 20mm’s, just 50 cal machine guns. The two 1.5" cannons are also something not seen on Liberty ship models. Notice just to the left of what you circled a general description of her cargo.
Correct. Now looking for 37 mm cannons on ships- they seem to look like big daddy 20mms.
I know some guys on the JOB. Everything there now is more in line with beg-borrow-steal than anything original. One guy was showing me the big lathe in the machine shop onboard, with a bubble level on the bed. Right…
I’ll bet those 50’s were the water cooled variety too. Could be a very interesting model.
I bought both the Alliance Modelworks 1/350 scale 40mm Bofors twin mounted guns as well as Master Model’s Oerlikon 20mm USN guns. Not sure which I’ll use. There are no 1/350 37mm guns around that I know of. The kit supplies machine guns or what look like resonable facsimilies.
