Anyone in the mood to build a White Star Olympic class liner?

*peeks at dazzle scheme, realizes how frickin' small 1/1200 is, shudders*  

Chuck Most

Obvious course of action would be to build it OOB as the Titanic, BUT... I'm really leaning toward building it as the third Olympic sister ship, HMHS Britannic, as she appeared in service as a hospital ship in 1916. This would require a few modifcations to the base kit- the addition of more lifeboats and different davits, mostly, but I think it would look very nice with a bit of light weathering. Yes, the Olympic was 2' wider than Titanic, but I don't think that would be very noticable in 1:1200 scale!

I was also toying with finishing the hull in 'dazzle' paint, to depict the Olympic as she appeared while in service as a troop transport. That conversion might be a little bit easier, but dazzle paint on a hull this size may be a bit beyond my skill set at this time.

Ralph Currell's paper model page has a couple of mods to the Titanic as well as the Titanic herself.    Included is the Britannic as a hospital ship

http://www.currell.net/models/pdfs/hmhs_britannic_9nov2010_parts.pdf

and the Olympic in dazzle

http://www.currell.net/models/pdfs/olympic_1918_8nov2010_parts.pdf

These are supposed to be 1:1200 scale so they would fit nicely with the small Revell Titanic model.  Either will give you an idea as to the structural changes necessary to model (in scale) the changes for the subject.   The hospital ship paint job on the Britannic would be simple.    For the Olympic, either print the sides and skin the plastic with the printed dazzle pattern or use the printed sides as masks to paint the dazzle

i too amjust starting doing ships. focus is on modern and ww1 and earlier. working an awful alanger POTEMKIN to practice stack cables and pe before doing the same to BORODINO and KONIG. may knockout a PERRY FFG. just picked up cyberhobby LCS-1 and LCS-2.

No...

and lots of portholes to drill out. i have the gmm pe for LUSITANIA and a set of painted 1/350 people.

LOTS of lifeboats...

Yeah, there were quite a few more differences between the Britannic and the first two sisters besides being two feet wider! She also had a more powerful engine, though there would really be no way to replicate that. I've got quite a bit of written material on the Olympic class, and more than enough good websites to fill in the blanks as far as updated information goes.

The big reason I'm leaning toward Britannic is because her story isn't as well known. Obviously, EVERYBODY the world over knows the Titanic story, but the Britannic is mostly forgotten. Heck, even the Olympic has by and large been forgotten by many, even though she sailed for over two decades.

I'd like to model the Lusitania one of these days too, but I'm pretty much just starting out with ship models. I built a model of the Bismarck about 20 years ago, but let's just say my skills weren't quite up to snuff back then! My big project is to model the SS America wrecked at Fuerteventura, but again, I'm going to do a little walking before I run.

before doing anything research to see if BRITANNIC was a sister of TITANIC or OLYMPIC. given the modifications made to TITANIC after some problems i suspect she will be closer to TITANIC. OLYMPIC had a completely open A deck while TITANIS'S was enclosed aft to aroung the third stack. also the windoes on OLYMPIC on B deck regularly spaced while TITANIC'S were not. looks like the life boat davits on the hospital would be a a bear to recreate but i do like the color scheme. if you can't tell i just finished 2 books on TITANIC. i have a LUSITANIA in the stash.

Yeah... saw that wreck diorama, not sure if I should even bother after seeing that one!

I think the Britannic 1916 hospital ship livery is very sharp. I've seen a couple models of the Titanic wreck site, one of which includes a WIP: /forums/p/137530/1426139.aspx  You're definitely right, it is ambitious.

I've got the original Academy 1/350 Titanic release from 1998, and I bought all the Tom's Model Works/Gold Medal Models bells and whistles for it. It's one of my 'bucket list' builds, and I plan to do all the corrections spelled out here http://rivetcounter.txc.net.au/Rivet_Counter_Pages/Contents.html

Needless to say it's gonna be awhile....... 

That looks like a fun little build; an Olympic conversion would be interesting with her war paint scheme. I have latley planned on building a Titanic in that scale also, I am just trying to avoid buying any more kits as my stash is building up and i want to finish them before i buy another kit! so hard to resist sometimes. Currently im trying to finish my 1/350 Bismarck.