Lindberg USS Mattaponi AO-41

You have done a beautiful job on her. For such an old Model she certainly has some Character.....Cheers mark

One I have always wanted to do is converting the Revell Montrose/ Randall APA back into a Victory ship. Fred (Onyxman) did a nice one.

I think it was a popular model after the release of the movie version of Away All Boats.

Someone who sailed on aux ships said that it was a rite of passage to trip over horizontal cables 12" above the deck.

Nice photos, looks like the SF Bay Bridge there.

Thank you guys!

Compliments coming from you guys - wow. Following your builds gives me the impetus to keep trying to get better.

I build in starts and fits. There is always "one more thing" to do to make it better, so in my eye, nothing ever really gets done. In this case, it's gone, so it's done. There were a few things I still could have done, but, well, it's done.

I had a great time doing the build and doing some research. There really isn't much out there for these workhorses of the Navy. The fellow that sent me the pictures was a great help.

I know now why they call it "The Jungle". These were taken by him after the aft catwalk was removed and the raised wood platform deck was installed. Kinda like a full width catwalk. They used it to haul cargo and ammunition on it. Great idea - putting ammo on a floating bomb.

Now I just have to find another off beat old floaty kit I can do a makeover on. Any suggestions?

EJ

Beautiful!  I hope the two Lindbergs I am doing will look half as nice.

That's a beauty and certainly answered GMs question!

Congratulations, EJ. I think this is one of the very best gray navy models to be shown here in years.

I was wondering why I was the OP, it's been that long.

So I read from the beginning, and it became a good story with you and the kind thing that you did for your friend.

But it's kind of shocking to compare the OOB sprue shots you started with, to the finished model. If I didn't know better, I'd call BS.

Very well done, I'd have a hard time giving away a model like that.

I finally finished this up about a month ago, but neglected to post the last part of the build. I gave it to my friend that served aboard her on the early sixties for his 77th birthday.

Guns from 3DModels, rigging is some braided wire, some Infini Models lycra material, a few deck stuff - coated wire for spare hoses, crates. 

The old Lindberg - Round two repop had lots of issues, but was a fun build. My friend was really impressed with it. Said it looked just like it did coming out of the yards when it was recommissioned in 1962 I think? Anyway he loves it. His wife says he won't let her get anywhere near it.

Here's some pics of the final iteration.

EJ

I'll have to watch out for that stuff. I have various teeny diameters of solder that I use for doing PE and such, but I've tried blackening agent and it does not work. I tried permanent marker, but it comes out a kinda bluish color.In most cases I could paint it, but in this case I need to bend it about quite a bit and I'm sure I'd knock off a lot of the paint in the process.

Went out this morning to pick up my Expedition from the body shop and did a bit of shopping while I was out. There is a model place near me that deals mostly in train stuff, but calls itself "Hobby Recycling". Boy, do they have stuff. Told the guy what I was doing and showed him my painted sample. He dug out a box of wire and said - go to it. I dumped it out on the floor and dug around. This is what I came up with.

They are all plastic sheathed solid copper wire and the same as or near my sample. The top spool is telephone wire. The other spool is cable for digital stuff, the same wire in it as the telephone wire, but also has a fine twisted ground wire and a metal shielding wrap around the bundle. Should be able to use that somewhere. The others are just stuff similar to the bell wire. My sample piece is the short piece on the bottom. If I can't do what I want with this, well.... It all together cost me $2.00. The sheathing color is a kinda dull black and I should be able to bend and handle it without scuffing it all up.

Got some paint on the soldered up hose masts and booms. They look pretty good to me.

EJ

If you can find it, solder can almost be better for the hoses for having a softer texture.

However, the days of being able to find solder in various diameters (as was once used in the tinning and braising trade) is somewhat past us now; electrical solder pretty much only comes in the one diameter size, typically about 1.5mm.

Tin solder, used in the pewter and brittania metal trade is a great thing to find.  This, beacuse you can use Bluejacket's Blacken-It to oxidize it to a beautiful black rubber hue.

Hope that helps (rather than sending you off on a rabbit-hole of tinsmith supply houses)

scottrc

Great work EJ and very informative on how you are making the details on such a, pardon my expression, bland kit. this looks like a fun project.

Scott

 

Yeah, the kit is very plain for sure. If you look at the picks above, in reality, the deck was usually very "junked up". So, my attempt is to make her look as busy as I can. I'm finding it kinda hard to do what I have in my head though because of the scale. My old eyes and fingers aren't as nimble as they used to be.

EJ

Thanks for your comments everyone. CoChef - Questions -

 1. I am not going to do the raised deck. My buddy went aboard after attending recommissioning school on Norfolk. When he went aboard, the aft main deck still had the central catwalk. She went into the yards to get the catwalk removed and the raised cargo deck installed. He said it was a steel framework with wood decking. Since he served aboard in both configurations, I chose the easy way out and went with the kit catwalks.

 2. The hose and rigging will be wire. The hose is of course larger dia. and the cable used to rig them will be fine wire. I'm gonna try fabricating the hose and lift rigging to the booms before I install them to the deck. I've not yet thought about winches or auxiliary deck machinery yet. Good point though, thanks. The standing rigging will probably be music wire as it can be glued in place and stay strait. Running rigging if necessary will be EZ line.

 3. Haven't thought about ships boats either. need to find a picture with the boats in it.

 4. As I'm not doing the cargo deck, I won't be doing any cargo. I will probably put a few extra hoses and loose rigging on deck though.

 Thanks for the input. Gives me something to think about. I'll have to talk to my buddy when I get the standing rigging and hose booms done to see if there might be anything he might remember. Then, lastly, the guns. EJ

Great build thread.  Quite an effort and coming along nicely.  A real nice thing to do for your buddy.  I'm sure he will be amazed and grateful. 

Great work EJ and very informative on how you are making the details on such a, pardon my expression, bland kit. this looks like a fun project.

Scott

EJ ,
Your build so far looks fantastic!!

I have a some questions

1.How are you going to do the supports and deck on the raised deck?
2. Do you have a source for the winchs for the booms and the hose rigging?
3. Are you going to add the ships boats?
4. Do you have a source for the cargo on the deck ie. barrels.crates ect.?

I'm building the same kit, I'm doing a UNREP diorama with the Bonnie *** (CVA-31) in 64 or 65
Thank you 

Had a can of Tamiya primer for metals. Never used it before, so I thought I'd give it a try. Shook it for a couple minits. When I sprayed it, it came out clear, and boy, did that stuff stink! I'm glad I have a spray booth.

Then, searched through my wire stash. I think those hoses were about 8" in diameter. That's .02" or 24 guage at 1/525. I found some in the stash that was an insulated wire, but not nearly enough. But I did find these,in black.

From top to bottom -

20g (.032") parawire, black coated jewelry wire.

26g (.016") parawire black

28g (.012") black soft iron wire

and some really skinny wire from a teeny magnetic coil, .003" or about 1/128". This is copper color and has an electrical insulating coating so has to be lightly sanded then blackened.

26g looks really skimpy to me, so I think I'll go with 20g. I'm gonna do a mock up of both 20g and 22g (I will have to paint that black). The 28g might work for the cable rigging that holds up the hoses.

EJ

Looks like you are having fun. Coming along very nicely.

I think I remember someone using solid conductor with black insulation for fuel hoses.

Got em finished up with the base plate, top bearings, and a pin to mount them to the deck.

Next, the hoses. I'm looking through the junk pile for some solid copper electronics wire with black insulation. Geeze I miss Radio Shack.

EJ

Played with making the hose masts and booms from bits of brass rod & tube. Each has 9 pieces, four booms.

This is what I cut -

Got some soldering done.

Just gotta solder up the base rings and make a pin to fix them in the hole on the deck. I think I'll try bending up the hose and attaching it before I intall them to the deck though. Maybe tomorrow.

EJ

Ha! Sounds a lot like my first enlistment. “.... well all those slots are full for the year. But if you enlist for this, they’ll come looking for volunteers for that at the school....”

Yeah right....

Man this project puts a smile on my face. One, taking an old kit and adding some new goodies to bring it up to a much better standard. Two, it’s for a guy who served on board her once upon a time, and otherwise would have no such momento of his service. 

Nice to see this, EJ. I'm thrilled that the 3D sources can do that. Unrep ships, esp. in the Vietnam era, are really fascinating.

Now, this is what she looks like now. The vents and masts are not glued in place.

The hose masts and booms, I don't like them

I want to show them as ready to deploy, with hose. Looking kinda like this.

The rigging and hose work will have to go together hand in hand.
I'm gonna make the masts and booms of brass rod soldered together for strength, otherwise I'll break them every time I get near one. I'm thinking of using very fine spring or music wire for the standing rigging, and fine eze line for the misc rigging.

Then, the guns. I've got a nice selection of gunnery for it.

From Shapeways and 3D models. One of them, I forget which, had what I wanted but in the wrong scale, so I e-mailed them and Lo and Behold, they came in my scale. I was pleased. The 3D stuff seems to be a tougher plastic than either kit plastic or resin too. I can bend the barrels around a bit without breaking them. They all look good.

Single 40's, not elevated

Single 40's, elevated

3" 50's open mounts

5" 38 open

5" 38 open with skirt

5" 38 no skirt

Twin 40's w/ positionable barrels

This should keep me busy until I get the aftermarket for my Missouri build.

EJ

Some stuff came for it.

Decals

PE

Cleaned up for Tamiya primer.

I didn't like the hawse holes so re configured them

Tried to get the rounded eased edges on the holes with streched spru. Found out I'm absolutly no good at stretching spru.

So, I made parts from fine copper wire, glued them on, then created a fillet with thich super glue. With a bit more filler and sanding, I think they'll look fine.

Now, some PE. Placed a bunch of WT doors and folded up enough inclined ladders. 4 had to be either shortened or lengthened.

Airbrushed a swath of black for the boot top. She had a wide boot as she sat very low or very high depending on the load she was carrying.

Then masked for the bottom edge of the boot and sprayed the Anti fouling red.

Then masked from the top of the boot and sprayed the upper hull.

Masked for spraying the deck grey.

Cleaned up some small parts for spraying as well.

Made sure everything fit ok, added some stuff to the fore super so the rails would fit.

The kit guns. There is a lot of different opinions of what gunnery was aboard in 1961. A Mattaponi crewman is sending me 75 or so pictures he took and I will go by what they show. Thanks for that.

Will be looking for some better guns.

Took the kit to the monthly club saturday show & do meeting with the intention of working on railings. I had done the rails on the main deck at home. It was very Cold that day, about 15 degrees or so. When I took the thing out of the box, the rails were all bent up and wavy. I usually attach the rails with a few small spots of CA glue to get them in place, then "paint the bottom edge with Gators glue for a firm hold. We concluded that the exposure to the extreme cold and the plastic to metal join had popped them loose. I've never, and none of the otther guys had seen this before.

After I got home, I put the box in the model room. The next day when I took it out, some of the "wavy" had gone away but not all of it. This was what it looked like then.

I took it all off, cleaned up the deck edge and re-applied it. I had done some testing with UV cured glue. SO, I made a skinny puddle of the glue on the glass worktop, about 1 1/2 inches long. By dipping the edge of the rail in the puddle I got a nice linear surface of glue on it. Placing one end where I wanted it, then exposing that spot with UV, I tacked it in place. By tweaking it in place along the run and exposing it every inch or so I got it nearly perfectly lined up, then exposed the whole length to UV to set it. Had to fill a very few spots with glue using a bit of wire. I think it worked well. This is what it looks like after.

Patched the catwalk up a bit for the next run of rails.

This is where it's at now. The masts and vents are not glued in yet.

EJ

To get caught up-

Installed backing and bolts for a base. Mounted it to a temporary "building" base.

Did some fitting for the main deck, and installed it. Took a bit of forced fit as the fit up was poor.

After, did a test fit on the prmanent base.

Worked on removing all the molded on railings and azteck ladders.

Then some filling and sanding. Removed all the rails from the superstructure parts too.

EJ

Gonna resurrect this thread. I've not finished the kit yet, but getting close. First, gonna get rid of all the Photobucket placeholders. My account was deleted, so the pics are gone from there. I'm gonna re post the pics using Imjur. I loaded all the pics from my hard drive to a "Mattaponi" folder there. Once that's done, then a post to get up to date.

I think it's worth the effort. A thread with placeholders instead of pictures isn't much to look at.

Got 4 builds on the bench and want to get things caught up. EJ