USS MAINE Paper model --Finished--

Modeling Subjects Paper Models
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Starting to add ‘non-paper’ details: plastic bits for gun barrels and ventilators, and the manufacturer’s (supposedly) made-to-measure photo-etch sheet for delicate details like the catwalks over the main turrets and the railings.

The photo-etch is as ‘typically’ HMV as their kits are: i.e., a little ‘eccentric’ here and there. Some places where two parts are required only one is provided…many of the parts-specific railings don’t actually match the parts…and most structural parts like the main catwalks themselves (and all the ladders) are about 1/16 inch too short to fit where they’re supposed to. [Understand, the length of the photo-etch parts matches their paper counterparts perfectly; it’s those paper parts that are seemingly mis-measured. I’d be perfectly willing to chalk some of it up to my own poor workmanship…but since, say, the distance between the aft deckhouse and the center ‘island’ are clearly laid out on the one-piece deck section, a corresponding catwalk that misses connecting the two is a design flaw; even I couldn’t screw that up…] It’s easy enough to ‘tweak’ things a little…adding platform extensions and such…but one has come to expect a little more precision from good ol’ Teutonic engineering. [;)]

All silliness aside, I’m enjoying the build quite a bit. Here are some assorted details, so far:

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Hmmmm;

I feel so sorry for you. All that work and she’s BEAUTIFUL! ! Gottya! didn’t I

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Thanks, TB! [B]

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This morning I installed the last of the rigging…mounted the flagstaffs at the bow and stern…gave 'er a quick all-over shot of Vallejo Matt…and finally hoisted the colors at the mizzen. Resisting the ever-present urge to ‘fiddle’ endlessly, I’m calling her done and ready for sea. (As soon as the crew can manage to get the port-side accommodation ladder raised and secured…)

Not the slickest build I’ve ever done, but she was great fun nearly across the boards. (Only the seemingly-endless parade of ship’s whaleboats, gigs, launches and steam pinnaces – with their tiny and largely-uncooperative parts to be folded every-which-way – was the cause of some minor ‘nearing the finish-line’ frustration.)

The etch set was most convenient, perfect for things like railings, shrouds and catwalks…but less-so for items like anchors and davits that needed some real thickness; for those I used the ‘paper’ parts, or a combination of the two. Smaller-caliber guns were made up from wire and styrene rod, using the more-delicate etched mounts.

To give a little more rigidity, masts and yards were made with styrene rod – reinforced with wire, where necessary, to stand up to the pull of the rigging. The rigging itself was mostly easy-to-tension – and forgiving if accidentally ‘knocked’ – elastic EZ-Line…with a little stretched sprue here and there where called for.

Enjoy the shots!

All in all, a fun and very satisfying return to the ‘paper’ side of the hobby. And…as always…new ideas for potential projects are stacking up like cordwood.

As a for-instance…

In addition to the small squadron of the Maine’s various ship’s boats, the kit provides two 63’ steam torpedo launches, to be mounted on the flying bridge between the central and aft superstructures. Though I built and mounted one…it turns out this is something of a WHIF. This torpedo boat design was conceived to give both the Maine and her distaff ‘sister’ ship, the pre-dreadnought battleship Texas, an extra tactical ‘punch’ in action, each ship mounting a pair of the smaller craft, each of those fitted with a single bow-tube to fire the new 18" Whitehead torpedo. A single prototype was in fact built…and found to have a disappointing top speed of only 12 knots instead of the 18 knots expected. As a result the whole project was cancelled…and neither the Maine or the Texas ever mounted their ‘stinging mosquitos.’ The unloved prototype apparently lived out its days serving in a training and utility role at the Navy’s Newport Torpedo Station.

However, researching that ‘would-be’ torpedo boat – of which, incidentally, the HMV versions are pretty mediocre renditions – has given me the fire for what may yet be my next scratch-build project [though in paper, or more conventional materials, is yet to be determined]. At either 1/96 or 1/72 scale, it would be an entirely manageable size and project…and chock-full of the neat ‘old timey’ details of the steam-powered pre-dreadought era. I was able to find some excellent drawings…and a few photos of other builders’ models…so we shall see how things develop.

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Killer job on this beauty! Glad you posted over in ships so we’d find it. Would not have wanted to miss it.

26

Oh yeah!

That’s a very nice job - and the ship is pretty unusual, for me at least - I’m more accustomed to WWII designs. All that rigging and details add a lot to the visual interest of the model.

Thanks for sharing and have a nice day!

Paweł

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Harrumph!

Geez, ya dint get no ripples in the hull. Are you truthing here? Is she really paper? Nah, You did a great job. It shows what can be done in material other then Plastic. The " Mellum" is on my Beench and I’ll start her in a couple of days.The detail set is outrageous!

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Thanks TB and Pawel.

Good luck on 'er!

And remember…we want pictures. [:D]

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Great job! I’m with everyone else and can’t believe that it is a paper kit. Years ago, I bought a download of a paper model of a WWII US subchaser. My idea was to use it as a pattern to make parts out of sheet plastic, but maybe it is time to give the paper world a try.

Dave

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Now that you’re done do you coat it in varnish or something to keep the board from getting damp or dried out over time?

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No, other than the Vallejo clear matt (which was essentially to hide shiny glue residue and ‘blend’ everything together), I leave them pretty much untouched.

I live in a relatively low-humidity environment…and because I do most of my rigging these days with elastic materials, I don’t have to worry much about ‘sagging’ from humidity changes, like in the old days. The acrylic clears I’ve used for the last decade or so seem stable and pretty resistent to darkening, browning or other color changes, so I’m content with that.

I have learned over the years to keep paper/card models especially away from direct sunlight as much as possible, to avoid bleaching and fading…but the same goes for plastic models. I do quite a few home-made decals, and every once in a while I’ve had odd color-changes on older projects, sometimes on single decals out of a whole set, that seemed linked to sunlight.

Cheers

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Beautifully done indeed. Paper in the right hands can be as good or better than any other medium. It’s also cheaper with more subjects than any other form of modelling.

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This is the first paper ship I recall seeing. Imagine me with a stupid look of amazement, becuase I have one.

That is really quite a model. Thanks so much for sharing the process and sorry I missed this whilst in the works. I finally understand TB’s posts over the years speaking of expanding ones horizons and trying a paper model.

[Y][Y][Y]

BTW, as if it’s not cool enough to begin with, the rigging truly sent it over the top.

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Thanks again, guys, for taking time to reply, and for the kind words.

Paper models are indeed a cool ‘niche’ more people should at least be aware of. There are so-o-o-o many models available…in a wide range of subjects, often including those ‘dream’ subjects that we modelers long for (but which plastic model companies have determined they could never make a buck on). The really good kits are shockingly inexpensive…but there are so many really neat kits available worldwide for absolutely free, that you could easily spend a modeling career happily doing nothing but, for little more than the cost of your inkjet printer cartridges, some good 60 and 100 pound paper, and the occasional bottle of Tacky-Glue.

Plus. there’s the fact that if something goes awry in the modeling process – and when does that ever happen? – you don’t have to wait three weeks to order replacement parts from Iowa or Europe or Japan…you just print them out, and have another go.

[Climbing down off soap-box, before I get a nosebleed…]

Thanks, Greg. As to the rigging…

First off, the photo-etch shrouds/ratlines make all the difference. I’ve scratch-built 'em over the years in many different ways…but the P-E is so much easier to work with. Just always…always…be prepared to ‘fiddle’ them a bit, to adjust heights, angles and such. (I had to ‘extend’ mine, to fit the kit for which they were supposedly purpose-made. It happens.) And – silly as it sounds – remember the obvious: never attach your delicate spider-web P-E shrouds until all your other rigging is on and tensioned (and preferably allowed to sit for a day or two, just in case.) Masts and yards can ‘wander’ in frustrating ways. The rule for P-E shrouds is ‘super-glue at the bottom, if you must…but only water-based (i.e., removable) glue at the top…just in case.’

The really frustrating thing about the rigging was that every single available photo of the Maine…and there were a surprising number, over a relatively short career…seems to show different rigging. Even things like the funnel stays seem to come and go (or move), so it was hard to ‘pin down’ some reasonable fit, even with the merely-representational ‘rigging lite’ version that I was doing. I finally just settled on what seemed obvious and reasonably workable.

But the one thing that still puzzles me for ships of this era in general…and this one in particular…is the matter of ships’ standing rigging around cranes. Some photos seem to clearly show lines and stays smack-dab in the middle of where cranes would be expected to deploy. Maybe some of those lines were removable. Or maybe those ‘old salts’ of the day just had the hand/eye coordination of brain surgeons, to ‘float’ their whaleboats and pinnaces through that forest of rigging to reach the briny over the side. Either way, it’s a wonder. [*-)]

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Excellent work! She’s a credit to papercraft. [:)]

Gary

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That is really cool. Nice work!

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That’s some amazing stuff! The use of PE makes sense, as well as your other mods and upgrades! Well done paper models just melt my brain, and keeps me firmly on the other side of the fence!

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Thanks, G!

I freely confess that my own plastic to paper ratio over my modeling history has been about 100:1…but it is nice to ‘flex’ one’s skills a bit now and then with something not-so-familiar, and which calls for different approaches to problem-solving.

Though I’ve got the usual backlog of plastic projects piling up…I figured that as long as the ‘paper madness’ was upon me, I’d go ahead and take a crack at scratchbuilding the 63’ steam torpedo launch that was slated to be deployed on the Maine and a sister ship of the era. The prototype was a dismal failure – never came close to its projected top speed, due to some serious weight and balance issues – but it’s such an elegant, Jules-Verne-looking design, I just couldn’t resist:

I’m doing her up in a manageable 1/72 scale, about 10.5 inches long:

I’ll post it when and if it turns into something post-worthy.

Cheers

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Hi Gregbale.

Gotta tell you. I thought the same when I reported aboard my first ship It was a Gearing and the Motor Whaleboate were tucked behind some stays. Guess what? They rotated the davits till the stern came out first, then the bow and lined them up square out the sides and secured the Davits in place.

The Bos’ns made it look like Childs play. Geez I am glad I was in Engineering Division.( Damage Control)

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I’ve seen videos of just that sort of operation. To me it looks like juggling and trying to play the violin simultaneously.

But I guess you learn to do what you gotta do.[;)]