Glencoe SS France

This is definitely going to be an interesting build and thanks for posting it!  I have never seen this model and so far you've done a beautiful job on her.  I am looking forward to future posts.

Steve

The SS France was a beautiful ocean liner and ruled the world (as the biggest built) for many years. I remember it well from my younger years. It is wonderful that you are posting your built. I hope to see this beautiful ship again when you finish.

For modelers on the States side, Hobbylinc has this 1/450 scale Glencoe kit for $40.

Hi lads, thanks for your coments. This ship was definately one of the most beautiful ships ever built and a true evolutionary liner as you can clearly both past ship design and modern innovation which was replicated poorly in the qe2 due lack of funds, sadly. Her design also being replicated in the qm2 in a fassion. In the second last photo above i could not help seeing the normandie, might have the potential here. I wanted to do this build online because nobody has done this before for this kit and has received bad press which i think is undeserved. For a ship that nearly did not exist she went on to influence all ocean liners which is some claim to fame. When she became norway, she lost some of her best features such as the swimming pool on the fan tail and those fabulous cranes which were like sculptures. She also lost her balance when her funnel one was raised higher than her second when the appartments were installed. Its only a shame she did not have the same luck as the qe2.

Very interesting build. I can't wait to see the finished product!

Fred

Hi All,

I hope you are all well. We are getting into the gritty stuff now!. The first thing i wanted to do was to paint the superstructure walls which come in two pieces and join up with the whale back wall and the fan tail. I spotted a little problem with them though. The over hang of promenade deck A is far too excessive below the bridge for about one third of the way back. I had to split the join and move inwards and re-glue which corrected the problem. It was a relatively painless task as can be seen below.

Before:

i911.photobucket.com/.../WP_000337.jpg

After:

i911.photobucket.com/.../WP_000340.jpg

Next up was the super structure frontage\bridge area. As can be seen below the windows of the passenger area are far too large and are not in the right position. I glues a sheet of acetate behind the windows for support, filled and painted the pieces.

Before:

i911.photobucket.com/.../WP_000339.jpg

Middle:

i911.photobucket.com/.../WP_000341.jpg

After:

i911.photobucket.com/.../WP_000342.jpg

Next up was the beautiful radar mast. Glencoe has put indentations in the side of it for some strange reason, these required filling and painting.

Before:

i911.photobucket.com/.../WP_000338.jpg

After:

i911.photobucket.com/.../WP_000343.jpg

After this i finished the painting on the port hull. The exposure is a little bright on this one.

i911.photobucket.com/.../WP_000346.jpg

I started work on the superstructure on the boat deck by base coating it and have identified a few issues here. Before base coating i cut the symbolic rail out above the wheel house which came whol on the kit.

i911.photobucket.com/.../WP_000344.jpg

I also identified new base decks for the funnels need to be made as the ones supplied are too low. The cafe provencale needs to be completely scratch build and the skylight behind funnel number two has to be scratch built. I also need to examine in detail behind funnel number 1 as i think it might not be correct. The windows are represented very well though along the passenger areas of the boat deck.

The life preservers on the top of the house are molded to the wrong shape in between the funnels so i sanded do but not too low as i want to remember their positions for scratch built parts.

the superstructure repaired earlier will also require scratch built parts for the promenade windows as they are not included in this kit but will show you how this is done later which is tedious but simple to complete.

Here are a few more pics, alot of work done in four hours.

i911.photobucket.com/.../WP_000345.jpg

i911.photobucket.com/.../WP_000347.jpg

i911.photobucket.com/.../WP_000348.jpg

I hope you are all well.

Another good night for the build. A combination of going back over old stuff and new scratch build. I decided that i was not happy with both the rudder and the shafts so have decided to make my own. I ripped out the shafts and invert them in the hull to form foundations for filler. I also cut out the support for the new rudder from the existing keel which is correct.

Then i decided to correct the bases of the funnels and build the correct foundations. To do this i painted the tops of the existing bases  and imprinted on my favourite acetate sheet. I was able to cut and shape to the size i wanted for a nice effect.

I then painted the sections with base.

While waiting for paint and glue to dry i began to sand down my filler to the hull shape, i had also filled the huge injection mark at the bottom of the hull.

I then began to create my rudder which was made from multiple sections of acetate.

as you can tell, my paintwork has not faired well.

I then followed by creating the radar mast base and mounted over the existing mold. The radar mast also had a base attached so i kept it in form but sanded it down to the same shape as the mast itself.

I went back to my hull and base painted the newly sanded parts.

To finish i started to create the promenade deck windows by painting on acetate the devisions. Size is 1.9x.3 cm per the largest devision with 10 divisions in the glass itself. I fitted one just for effect. I used standard revell glue to fit as there are little fumes to damage the acetate. I inserted paint inwards to future proof.

Ant thats a wrap

I look for your new post of built log every day and enjoy it very much. Thank you for sharing.

I do not have an ocean liner kit in my stash yet. The SS France may be the first one because of you post.

Hi Kellau,

I hope you are well. Thank you very much for your kind comments, im glad you feel inspired by my post. That means it's doing its job. The France model is a good model and easy to correct with time and patience. What do you normally build?

A good cross reference for this kit against actual pictures as they can be difficult to make out is on the link below. I have found this very useful.

www.dvomarinedesign.com/.../france3d-page3.htm

I will be posting my paints used and the alterations made as well as resources. Best of luck with your build and if you have any questions dont hesitate to ask.

James

Evening all.

Tonight i decided to concentrate on two specific passenger areas.

The first was easy which was the patio provencal which is in the center of the ship on the sundeck. You do get walls for this section which are quite  sufficient but should be taller, therefore i made my own from acetate. They were drawn out, painted and cut. The floor was also made seperately being slightly darker to emulate the parquet floor in this area.

Next up was a little more time consuming. The swimming pool dome on the fan tail supplied with the kit is quite good but unfortunately not accurate. You can only manipulate the divisions to a certain degree using paint but the fact is that the dome was raised off the deck which glencoe has not done. It took an hour to cut the existing dome which needs to come out in one piece to get the measurements.

Once the dome was removed i outlined the top onto my beloved acetate and cut out. I put under another acetate sheet and outlined and drew the rest out factoring in the raised roof. I sanded down the rough outline on the deck, then assembled the new dome. Once assembled i glued to the deck, filled and painted.

I will detail the windows along with the rest of the paint clean up later during assembly. All thats left to do now is to complete the promenade windows and i can then finally assembling the beast. Will have to wait until next weekend though for that.

Evening all,

Sorry i was away for a while, i was building a server and got a bit side tracked. Picking up where i left off i assembled some of the custom promenade windows into the port superstructure and attached to the hull. I wanted to do more progressive construction tonight as the details can be tedious.

I then started assembling the funnels. The black tops are actually in two halves. The instructions advise to stick a big stick thing attached down through the funnel but to be honest i did not bother because it ruins the alignment . I then painted the french line red.

There are some joint issues here which will require filling and sanding but nothing major here. One point to note here is that the model stops the port hole pattern just above the black line but on the real ship it continues into the black so will have to add more port holes.

On fitting the fan tail area i found that the port superstructure was longer on the port side than on the starboard. I just cut back about 2mm and the part fitted ok then

I did a dry fit of the parts to see what she would be like. I was kind of excited to be honest so here are a few pics.

Next is to fix the front superstructure over hang which is very excessive as you can tell.

Thank you for posting this build.

I was unaware of the Glencoe kit and am impressed by your photos of the basic kit and during assembly.

If the kit is ever re-released, I definitely intend to add it to my builds as my first ocean liner.

Would be nice if a kit of the Normandie was released.

She is looking amazing James.  Please keep posting, we do not see a lot of passenger ships around here.

Steve

Hello , I have been following this post also and bought this kit what I  would like to know is what colors you used to paint your ship. Regards, Bob

Hi Lads,

Thanks for your kind comments. You can actually buy this kit from amazon.com at the mo, so go mad and get it.

Here is the list of colors that i have used so far.

Revell 331- Dark red SM- Keel anti fouling paint

Citadel Wild Rider Red- Light red Matt-Water line below white boot line.

Revell 301- White SM- Boot line\ Under coat for super structure and details

Humbrol 85- Black Satin- Hull above white bootline\Tops of funnels

Revell 374- Light grey SM- Fore castle on front of whale back.

Revell 48- Green Matt- Passenger deck areas as in pics above

Humbroll 22- White Gloss- Will be coating superstructure and details.

Citadel Bleached Bone- decks on wedding cake tear decks at stern\Patio Provencal

Revell 9- Dark grey Matt- Windows...eg... Swimming pool dome\Squash court skylight.

Revell 52- Gloss Blue- Patio provencal doors.

Citadel evil sunz scarlet- French line red on the funnels

Hope these help. I will update this list as time goes on.

Thanks again

James

Sprue-ce Goose

Thank you for posting this build.

I was unaware of the Glencoe kit and am impressed by your photos of the basic kit and during assembly.

If the kit is ever re-released, I definitely intend to add it to my builds as my first ocean liner.

Hobbylinc list this kit as "In Stock". Why wait for a re-released one?

http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/glm/glm09302.htm

keilau

Sprue-ce Goose

Thank you for posting this build.

I was unaware of the Glencoe kit and am impressed by your photos of the basic kit and during assembly.

If the kit is ever re-released, I definitely intend to add it to my builds as my first ocean liner.

Hobbylinc list this kit as "In Stock". Why wait for a re-released one?

http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/glm/glm09302.htm