Tugboat for a diorama

I'll post a couple pictures of my progress and the finished diorama for sure. I'm going to take pictures from start to finish. They'll be on my Fotki page. I have an idea for pictures outside when it's finished. If it works its going to be very cool, if not it will just be a picture.

Thanks for your interest!

Will you be able to show us a picture of the completed diorama? I sure would be interested in seeing it if possible.

Don

Hi Dave,

I really like the first two tugs you did. The third one is quite different. How are you displaying these boats, in the water or on a drydock?

 Don

Lindberg's generic wooden tugboat kit is a gem, but there are two things that have always irked me about it.

1) The steam winch is odd.   It is not scaled after any steam winch that I've ever seen, nor have I seen any American tugboats of this vintage with a large steam winch on the stern.   

2) The wheelhouse sides are planked over so the windows only face forward.  This is probably due to the limitations of injection molding.  A tug helmsman would certainly need a better port-starboard view. 

Otherwise, its a fine kit with very tug-like proportions. 

Sincerely,

Dave

www.vectorcut.com  

Hi Dave,

I found a PE railing set for HO scale tugs if you are interested? They are about $11.00 a set.

Don

Tug #2 is finished until I get it mounted on the base. Then I'll add a few more details like rope, chain and junk.

More pictures: http://public.fotki.com/DaveInTheHat/davetown/tugboat-project-no-2/ 

rcboater wrote:

IIRC,  The Despatch No.9 was an ex- US Army 86 foot long steel hulled tug-- quite a number were built during WW2, a a number ended up in other's hands later on.   This makes the model about 1/77 scale or so....

Interesting! I might try building my kit as a WW2 tug.

I found some more information on the Despatch 9 on the Model Expo page for the Model Shipways wooden kit ([url=http://www.modelexpo-online.com/cgi-bin/sgin0101.exe?FNM=00&T1=MS2011&UID=2007042107472980&UREQA=1&TRAN85=N&GENP=]link[/url). According to this, "There are some differences between the Army tug design and the Despatch, changes required by the owner no doubt. Primarily, the Despatch has a different towing winch and capstan, and some minor differences in the deck house compartments. The Army version also has railings on the pilot house top and two machine guns, and there is a lifeboat carried on the upper deck."

Sounds like a fairly straightforward conversion. I'm guessing the machine guns would have been water-cooled .50 cals.
Not sure what paint scheme would have been used on the Army tugs, but I assume overall grey.

Do you have any more information on the USCG Messenger? This sounds like another interesting conversion, as I'm currently building the Lindberg USCG patrol boat (95' Cape-class cutter) in almost the same scale. 

IIRC,  The Despatch No.9 was an ex- US Army 86 foot long steel hulled tug-- quite a number were built during WW2, a a number ended up in other's hands later on.   This makes the model about 1/77 scale or so....

Despatch No.9 was a Standard Oil Company tug, based in the San Fran area.  Somewhere along the way, Lindberg lost the association of the name with the model, but the stack still comes with the large "S" molded on.

As JTilley pointed out, the Diesel tug is the old Pyro mold.  The other tug you're building is smaller, about 10 inches LOA compared to the Diesle tug's 13.5 inches.  I think this was a Lindberg original-- I don't recall ever seeing it in anyone else's box.  In some of the old versions, it was sold as a motorized kit.  This little tug seems to be a generic harbor tug-- I don't know of any specific prototype it was modeled after.

I always found it ironic that Lindberg released the little tug in a box as "Coast Guard tug", when the Diesel tug was the one  that was legitmately in the USCG.  I built my Diesel tug as the USCGC Messenger-- she was stationed at the USCG Yard in Curtis Bay MD.   (There's a picture of Messenger in Dr Scheina's USCG Cutters and Craft book.)    I could find no evidence a tug like the little one was ever a USCG vessel.

I agree with your comments about the thick plastic.  When I built my tug as an RC model, I replaced some of the heavy palstic parts (decks, cabin parts) with much thinner sheet plastic, to reduce topside weight and improve stability. 

In any case, your work looks terrific. 

 -Bill

Thats a good question. I never thought about doing it wrong. I use a lot of 'eyeball engineering' when I do things. If I had gone too far when I was distressing the plastic and made a hole I would have put a patch over it and distressed that less then the area around it. The plastic on this kit is real thick, so there wasn't much chance of me scraping through it. I did think about using a Dremel tool and grinding a section of the haul out and replacing it with wood to make it look even more aged.

I can't really give you a solid answer. If you haven't done it before I would say just get a cheap kit or some scrap and give it a try till you get the feel of it. It isn't difficult and the idea is to make it look screwed up anyway. 

Hi Dave,

How do you know when you have distressed a model wrong? You used a few different items to create your distressed look. What I am afraid of is if I tried that I would end up ruining the kit. Once you go too far it is too late.

Don

Maybe this will help.

Rust and dirt:

http://journals.fotki.com/DaveInTheHat/

Pictures while I took while I was building:

http://public.fotki.com/DaveInTheHat/davetown/project-tugboat/

http://public.fotki.com/DaveInTheHat/davetown/tugboat-project-no-2/ 

These first two look great.

 How about you do a "how to weather" tutorial when you start the third tug boat.

Thanks Bob. I'll have to look out for that one. I'm almost finished my second tug. Probably by the time I get finished with the third one I won't want to build anymore for a while.

Here's about where I am so far.

Here's a picture of the waterfront four..

Make sure you post your completed centerpiece and dio.

even the tugboats make me salivating. Gorgeous. Wanna see some heavy rust on the tugs

Progress on tugboat number 2

The Lindberg "Diesel Tug" is a reissue of an extremely old, but basically sound, Pyro kit.  That one, in turn, was a copy of a Model Shipways solid-hull wood kit.  The kit in fact represents the tug Dispatch No. 9.  MS recently re-released it; it's available through the Model Expo website (www.modelexpoonline.com). 

Pyro, in the very early fifties, ripped off several kit designs from Model Shipways (Roger B. Taney, Harriet Lane, Dispatch No. 9, and a couple of fishing boats) and Marine Models (Gertrude L. Thebaud).  Twenty-five years later the two gentlemen who ran Model Shipways were still referring to Pyro as "Pirate Plastics."

I distressed the plastic with rough sand paper from a floor sander, a stiff wire brush, and a sawblade that I dragged sideways on the plastic. I primed the plastic with Floquil primer. Then brush painted it with Dr. Ben's Aged Driftwood. A quick wash with a mixture of ink and alcohol. I sprayed the upper and lower areas of the cabin with Floquil box car red. Then lightly dry brushed Folk Art barn red.

I pretty much just kinda winged it. I haven't done much with making plastic look like wood before. 

I made up a mold for new doors than what was in the kit. The "Four" was a River towboat, fireboat, tugboat and I believe a fishing boat. Hard to find now on E Bay.

Don

I changed out the railing stanchions and railings for some brass ones that looked to me more in scale. I haven't completley finished it yet but it is pretty well painted. I don't have it weathered though and honestly I doubt I could weather it to look anything like Daves. I will try to post some pictures in the next few days. The kit is based on a tug 85 ft long.

There also was a Carol Ann tug by lindburgh, motorized that I saw on  ebay.

 Don