The President Cleveland was started in 1944 as the P2-SE2-R3 Navy transport Admiral D W Taylor, but was turned over to American President Lines and finished as the Cleveland . The sister ship was the President Wilson. They traded in the west coast, Honolulu and Far East routes all through the 50s and 60s. She was scrapped in 1974.
This is the old Life-Like kit, previously Pyro, subsequently Lindburg. The scale is 1/411.
It took a lot of work to get this half way presentable:
Carved off the molded-on accomodation ladders from the hull. (What were they thinking?)
Drilled out all the portholes.
Created all new decals as the kit ones were not only old and deteriorated, but were totally out of scale.
PE railing is 5 bar from Tom’s 1/400 Titanic set. I laid styrene strip along the top to model the wooden cap rails. Some photos show rails with canvas covers, so those were left with the molded on rails.
There are a lot of inaccuracies in the kit, especially around the after superstructure. Also, the stem and stern are too thick.
I know when you started with The President Cleveland as your new project Fred, that she´s going to turn at this beautiful ,i know you have the skill. My self i have to stopped my Benledi and J.L.Hanna project for a while, Have to do a special model to a company here in Sweden first. Can´t show what i am doing before delivery.
It´s great that you rebuild this ode ship, and so well. There are not many out there using this old plastic ship models that are so out of date, from what the plastic model company´s produced now. And of this kind of type, and are able to rebuild them to this great modern standard. What´s your next?
Thanks all. Yes, this is a dog of a kit, but I think we should start building some of these old ones before they start deteriorating. The plastic on this one seemed to be getting pretty brittle.
Hasse, I think my next one will be the Airfix 1/600 Mauretania. That is the ship my grandmother arrived in America in. It will be a treat to do a kit more or less out of the box for a change. (who am I kidding, there will end up being at least some PE railings)
Then, maybe next summer, the Liberty ship Frank O. Peterson. It was one of the Libertys built special as an aircraft transport. The hatches and cargo gear were different from a standard Liberty. I have the plans from the Smithsonian collection of Maritime Commission plans. Also, I have my father’s memory. He was Radio Officer on the Peterson, taking P-38s to Biak, in 1944. I have a Trumpeter Liberty kit and Tom’s 1/350 aircraft details are on the way.
I had emailed some pics of this build to friends and I just received this back from an old shipmate of mine. I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing it here. It’s cool what old sea stories our little hobby can recall to mind:
“Fred - Your latest model is a beauty. All the fine detail looks very professional. I have a certain fondness for that ship as I made the last 2 trips to the Far East before she was turned over to the Chinese. I shipped AB in Honolulu then 1st call Yokohama, the Deck Yeoman broke his leg & I got that job because I could “type”. I did the Deck Dept paperwork for the Mate & as a side deal, took care of passenger’s pets on “cargo rate” OT. Used to exercise the dogs on the stack deck. For tying up & letting go I was on the bridge operating the EOT plus bellbook…Very clean!!! The gambling (& drinking) on that ship was unbelievable. An MMP friend of mine used to meet the ship in Honolulu & called our living quarters the “Black Hole of Calcutta”. Had a lot of SUP allstars on there including ( names deleted to protect the guilty- Fred). I remember sailing from Manila at 2200. We were berthed at the end of a long dock. Singled up & ready to go, when a taxi comes racing down the dock & stops in front of the open sideport. The driver drags some guy dressed in tropical whites out of the back seat. Then he & a linehandler toss the guy into the sideport like a sack of potatoes…Classic. it was the third mate on the 12x4. This of course was observed by the passengers who were on deck three deep to throw confetti. All the best, Gary”
What a nice model! I have very fond memories of crossing the Pacific on her in 1966. It was a great time for a 9-year old, as they spent a lot of effort keeping us kids out of Mom and Dad’s hair on that ship. The best part was a locker (closet to you landlubbers) full to the top with plastic models that we could build just for the asking- what a way to pass 20 days at sea. If only I would have “liberated” more of those kits…It was really an adventure. Boarded at Manila and enjoyed it all the way to San Francisco. Hong Kong, Yokohama, and Honolulu in between. Saw Pearl Harbor, the lights and bustle of Tokyo, etc, etc. Pity to hear that she went to scrap in '74. Thanks for stirring the memories. I appreciate your hard work. And yes, they did give me a model just like the one you built to take with me. I actually held on to it for about three years after that and then it met a BB gun end. Too bad…
Thanks for the story. These kits seem to show up on eBay fairly regularly in the $30 to $60 range. It’s never too late to build another. I was tempted to do mine as a waterline model in a diorama, anchored in Hong Kong with sampans and junks all around. Then I could have avoided the chore of removing those darn molded-in accomodation ladders from the hull.
That would have been a very cool diorama- I distinctly remember Hong Kong harbor as being packed with other shipping as the time. Another memory was of some kids diving off of a small boat for coins thrown by passsengers from the ship- gave me a real appreciation for the plight of those less fortunate. Perhaps I will go check out e-Bay and other venues to see if I can pick one of those ships up- I did talk to a gentleman representing the reborn Hawk model company last year at the Hobby Expo in Chicago who said they had the molds for it and would be bringing it out “soon”. We’ll see about that, as well. Thanks for the trip down memory lane- I am still not sure if that voyage influenced me to join the Navy later in life. I have enough sea time now to last me for a while. It was a kick being the senior Golden Dragon (from 1966) on one of my submarines when we crossed the equator on one of my deployments. Thanks again.
Hopefully someone can help me. My father recently purchased an estate near Elbe, Wa. The previous owner passed away and left everything at the home. When my father went to inspect the property he found a large scale model of the ss President Cleveland in the living room and dining Rm. The model is 24 ft long with a 4 ft beam. He tells me it is an absolutly amazing piece of art. We know nothing about it and my father is also looking for some type of drawing or prints.A small portion of the stern still needs to be completed. Someone spent a lot of time and energy building this model and it seems ashame to just throw it out.
It sounds like this may be one of the famous “builders’ models,” built on commission from either the shipyard or the shipping line at the time the ship was built. If so, it’s not only a work of art but a tremendously valuable artifact. For heaven’s sake don’t let it get destroyed if you can possibly help it.
This is the sort of thing that responsible maritime museums are dying to get for their collections. If no local museum will take it, try such places as the San Francisco and San Diego Maritime Museums. Even the ones on the east coast (South Street Seaport in New York, the Peabody-Essex Museum in Massachusetts, Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, or the Smithsonian in Washington) ought to be interested in a genuine builder’s model of an American ocean liner - though the expense of transportation would present a formidable problem. But I do hope the model won’t get junked unless and until all options for saving it are exhausted.
The LOA of the President Cleveland was 623 ft. If this model is 24 ft long, that works out to be a scale of 1/26th? Always check my math[:)] Does that sound like a reasonable scale for one of these builder’s models?
If those are the dimensions of the model itself, it is indeed on an enormous scale for a builder’s model. The typical scale for those things seems to have been 1/48. There are, however, no hard and fast rules about such things. It’s entirely possible that the model was built to fit in a particular place in somebody’s office or showroom.
There’s a yellow light flashing in my head about those dimensions, though. If the model is 24 feet long and 4 feet wide, either the real ship was extremely fat for her length or the model’s proportions are distorted.
A web source that I checked ( http://www.apl.com/history/timeline/stat7.htm#pw2 ) gives her an overall length of 609’ 5 3/4" overall, and a beam of 75’6". Those dimensions don’t check with the stated dimensions of the model.
Maybe it isn’t a scale model - or is it possible that the dimensions include a display case? We really need some pictures in order to comment intelligently on this artifact.
