1/200 Missouri question

Kit props and shafts are almost never the right metal for leaving them unfinished.  Further, the color instructions are almost never correct for either.  Kits telling you battleship props were brass are legion, and all wrong.  This is an area where you really need to research, either finding photos of ship in drydock or finding sources that are reliable.

Don, I certainly agree with your basic point. But the museum where I used to work has a screw from the USS South Dakota, and I'd certainly describe its color as brass. (Maybe the material is actually bronze, but it sure looks like brass. Here's a link: http://www.marinersmuseum.org/sites/default/files/SouthDakotaProp.jpg )

On the other hand, apparently at least one of that ship's screws is in some other memorial, and seems (in photos at least) to have a more bronze color: http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/f1d414fbd43745c69d7ea73c1f2928e1/propeller-from-the-uss-southdakota-class-ship-b0w410.jpg .

I imagine part of the explanation has to do with the preservation treatments the two screws have gotten over the past several decades. As I recall, the one at the Mariners' Museum got polished by the guys at Newport News Shipbuilding - which probably explains the "swirl" pattern. But I drove past it five days a week for three years, and it sure looked brass to me. When we gave people directions to the museum, we always said "turn right at the big brass propeller."

Once in a while somebody would idly wonder what would happen if the propeller were to fall over and land on somebody's car. The oldest staff member (a WWII submariner) had a simple answer: "Wouldn't make any difference." Yeah, right - to the propeller.

Lord only knows what the things looked like when they were attached to the ship.

John, I'd say that screw looks painted.

As for the shafts, I usually paint them red. Just a WAG, but when a ship was in drydock and the bottom was serviced, I would assume the shafts got painted hull color.

And when they were replaced, they were spare part colored.

WWII boot topping was wider than in peacestime.  If memory serves (and it may not here) it was from 6' to 8' top-to-bottom, generally centered on the design load waterline.

(Yeah, I know, I just introduced yet another vriable that would require researching ship plans and the like, and interpolating them to the kit.)[quote user="uspsjuan"]Thank you for your input. I understand props are made of bronze and when they are finished machined they have the appearance of brass. However I was asking about the prop shafts. Bare metal or painted. I have been looking at pictures on the ol' interweb , but they were either in black & white or in the middle of refit and sandblasted so nothing was painted. Also as long as I have your attention, how do I determine where the boot stripe goes? At least the Fletcher had molded lines on the hull to guide me. Once again , thank you in advance for your help

Trying to get to the conclusion on the anti-bathtub ring on BB-39 or her sisters, I did also come up with about 6 feet.

The bronze-looking screw may well be painted. I can say for certain that the brassy one isn't. It has, however, received more than one coat of some sort of preservative, which may quite possibly have changed the overall color. And it's been coated with a special kind of clear laquer that's approved for artifact conservation.

In some cases the shafts run in a sleeve.  The sleeve would be painted.

Of course, both bronze and brass are alloys, so the exact color depends on the specific blend of the alloy, but most brasses are a gold color, or even slightly towards silver.  Bronzes, on the other hand, are usually darker, more of a copper color and with brownish tints.  However, bronze alloys for structural use may not be that close to those used in statues, but a statue is a good starting point.

There are some old props in Canal Park, near the Maritime Museum, in Duluth, and those old props do have an appearance very close to bronze statues.

Interesting photos here. http://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/the-construction-of-the-massive-battleship-mighty-mo-in-25-stunning-pictures.html

Based on the pictures you've linked it looks like the boot stripe at launch was in the neighborhood of 3' to 4'.

Just my calculation based on aged peepers.

http://www.warhistoryonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/decddffdb44f3bf9296c32ca7a48f478.jpg

When painting a waterline stripe, one thing needs to be born in mind. It's a slightly difficult point to make in writing, but actually quite simple.

Whatever the "height" of the stripe, it's painted so it appears to be that high from directly beside the ship. Depending on the hull shape, that may mean that the distance between one edge of the stripe and the other is constant all the way along the hull. But in lots of ships (the Missouri among them) the hull slopes sharply at the stern. In those cases the stripe's dimensions are changed to compensate.

Say, for the moment, the stripe is supposed to look six feet high. Amidships, where the hull is almost vertical, you can paint a stripe that measures six feet from one edge to the other. But if you paint a stripe like that around the stern, it will look considerably narrower from the side. (From the side, you're looking almost at the edge of the stripe.)

So somebody with a better head for geometry than mine, and/or a good set of hull lines to work with, figures out just how wide the stripe needs to be in order to look the same width from the side - and project the same distances above and below the water. The stripe will be a lot wider at the stern than amidships.

The most obvious examples may be the Essex-class carriers. viewed from the side, their sterns enter the water at a hughly acute angle, whereas they're almost vertical amidships. So the stripe at the stern has to be much wider from edge to edge aft than amidships. (I've seen photos of them in drydock. The stripe seems to just about double in width between midships and the extreme stern.)

Sometimes the kit manufacturer is nice enough to engrave the edges of the stripe on the hull components. If you have to figure out the dimensions of the stripe yourself - good luck.

All this is a significant argument in favor of waterline models.

John,

Look at the picture that I culled from the site that sharkbait linked in his post. At the bow I calculate the width of the stripe to be less than the height of the men standing above and, based on the depth markings, around 4 feet.

Looks that way to me, too. Of course, there's no guarantee that the stripe has been the same width throughout the ship's life.

It's also noteworthy that in some of those pre-launching shots, the hull above the waterline looks considerably darker than the anti-fouling paint below. I once saw a Life Magazine wartime color photo of the Iowa in dry dock. The hull below the waterline was a dull, dark yellow. I swear. I know colors in magazines can shift over the years, but it's hard to believe that ink changed from red to yellow. I wouldn't recommend painting a model like that, but it's interesting.

Hi There !

   Color on Props . Depends what type and how long in the water and how long in water and not turning ! I have seen props almost a greenish black . Bronze ,polished bronze and steel . None of the older ships , to my knowledge ever had steel props .

    Now it has been mentioned that shafts were in sleeves . This may be true , But I have never seen them that way . All the shafts I've seen were machined / balanced steel with sacrificial anodes placed on them , and then the shaft was then re- balanced before installation .

    Of course the anodes were for anti corrosion efforts . Usually worked pretty fair too . A fresh prop just out of the water after much use , would be polished by salt water to a dull bright yellowish bronze color . When new , a lot of props are polished bronze with the polish pattern looking like machine turning .

      Note , fresh water affects props differently . Mostly it darkens the bronze to a dark greenish gold color with streaks of the original color showing through .  T.B.

John, your observation is true of draft markings too.

And, I've seen one instance, the Tsushima era Russian battleship Orel I think, where the characters of the draft markings, which were Roman numerals i.e. XXI etc, were painted on elongated as well.

Here's one for you .

  Take the carrier model and turn it upside down with the deck on it . No fittings or structures yet . Now go to the shop and get a dowel . Get a very sharp number two pencil . Get a small block of wood with a hole in it you can place the dowel in .

 Now place the dowel in the block . Fasten the pencil to the dowel with a Large alligator clip . Now , determine the highest edge of the Boot stripe . That would be from the deck to the point on the hull where the top of it would be . ( Midships )

  Draw a line the length of the ship starting at the bow . Now you will see the line change as you go aft .When you hit the stern then go back and re-adjust your pencil . Now draw the bottom line which , will be the higher line while upside down . 

 Wow , look at the difference back aft . Now look at the two lines from the side with the ship right side up .They will be parallel . Yup , even back aft ! No fancy math , just an old trick I learned from a sailboat modeler !

Juan,

Here are some of the same images that sharkbait's link contained with more resolution and, perhaps another helpful one. The site is Navsource.org.

http://navsource.org/archives/01/063/016319c.jpg

http://navsource.org/archives/01/063/016342.jpg

http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/016305a.jpg

http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/016304d.jpg

$ 8.99 at Model Expo.

Hey " G " ;

 Thanks . I forgot all about this neat little rig .  T.B.

I've meant to order that thing for a few years now and just keep forgetting to. I just ordered it. Thanks GM!