Oh wow, I'm in awe of ship models- the PE, rigging, etc that's incredible. Way too much work for little old me. And amazing job on the locomotive and cars- just lovely work!!! 

Thank you Gamera! Only worked with 1:35 thus far, I must say that this scale is quite challenging.

After a train I thought why not make a gantry steamcrane. Base was made with stryene H-beam, and top I used a transparant sheet where I printed the windows on. The walls are painted foil.

I could not find a cheap enough solution for the crane beams anywhere, so I etched those. I used the electric 1942 cranes form australian cockatoo island to calculate the size, and the 19th century Santander Crane Monument as reference.

Not the best etch. The photoresist was a bit sloppy so required a lot of cleanup but turned out alright.

And after some paint and assembly I had two cranes ready to go.

Around this time I made the base for the diorama. I decided to make a non-existing harbor. That gives a lot more freedom than trying to recreate a existing one.  (Everything has to be true to the timeperiod off course.) I Sadly did not take any pictures from the start so here it is after making the general size, harbor wall, and the resin pour. 

The reason there is a gap between ship and resin is I made a oversized gipsum mold of the ship, and used that for the resin pour. That way I can work on the diorama without accidentally knocking the smoke stack of the ship. 

With the prices of 3D resin printers being so low at the moment I bought a anycubic photon. 
First print I tried was a generic warehouse. 


That turned out ok. It's usable. Even the individual planks are visible. I tried putting it really to the test and printing a water tower bottom.

That was really impressive. My FDM printer can go bigger, but isn't very suitable for modelling. This resin printer can only print smaller prints, but can really do small details.
And after paint the tower looked like this:

Next up a wooden house.

It got the paint treatment. And added some 'hardware store' signs and window still plants. 

In the meantime I added the ground texture and decking to the diorama. Stareted with the railroad and placed the house.

Tried to make some trees with seafoom and flock. Turned out better then expected in this scale.

And after adding them:

Next post I'll continue with adding harbor stuff. Wagons, barrels, boxes, etc.

HMS Dreadnought is on my list to build too.

You've done excellent work so far, love and admire all the detail and eager to see the completed project. I'm impressed with the train and its cars but suprised you didn't 3D print them.

Did I read correctly, you can create your own photo etch?! That would be awesome!

PS: Welcome to the forum (I just joined too) and thanks for posting.

Thanks Tojo72!
JoeSMG: I didn't have a resin printer when I made the train. I bought it recently. I must admit it's very handy to have, and opens up a lot of possibilities. (Am thinking of making a star trek diorama next.)
I do indeed etch myself. With some PCB etching supplies it's quite doable. (And welcome to you too!)

After the trees made traffic signs and a semaphore. 

It should be accurate for around 1920 England.

The printer is great, but there are limits of what it can do. So I used a 3d Lenticular halloween decoration. It was way out of season so a couple of these cards where dirtcheap. The fine ribs of a lenticular lens are quite in scale for a 1:350 corrugated roof for the large warehous. Used cigarette roling paper for ridge flashing.

Printed 3 other buildings and after assembly and paint I had a general layout. The buildings are from thingyverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2768189  I modified them to my needs. The large warehouse is: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4328482 

Meanwhile started making a base. I would liked to either use better wood, or wood panel molding, but the country is in covid lockdown and all hardware stores are closed. So used some spruce I had laying around and routed and stained it with a mahony stain. Not entirely what I wanted, but close enough.

And of course my clear varnish was too old to be used. So used 6 layers of watered down acrylic medium gel to varnish it.

The printer opens a lot of possibilities. So printed some horses, wheel and a cart. All printed separately and assembled after printing. Cart 1:

And a wagon. The wagon was just made of some styrene.

Needs some goods:

Was never satisfied with the train wheels, but didn't have any other means. Now I did. So printed some wheels for it too. Quite nerve racking to rip the painstakingly hand made old wheels off, but turned out better than expected. 

Even the counterweights are visible. Way better! (and yeah, added a bell as well.)
Post is getting quite long, so will continue in another post.

All I can say is awesome work there!

Mike

Your Diarama is coming along beautifully, you're just nailing it with your printed embelishments! Your paint work on that tiny scale is amazing as are the details your printer is able to render. What model 3d printer are you using? I may have to upgrade :)

Hey ! Kwitcher Bitchin!

 Oh that's right yer not Bitchin, youse is tellin usn's how you got frum here to there. Well youse is bein AWESOME. Gonna follow ya to da finish!

I'm trying to post a update. But I keep getting a 403 error.
(For anyone interrested: Fixed by copying all text, pasting it as plaint text CTRL+SHIFT+V, and saving. After saving I edited my post by adding the images.) 

thnx all for compliments.

JoeSMG: I have a anycubic photon. A very inexpensive China printer. But the quality is way better than I expected. 

One of the harder parts. The aerials. This was way to fine to etch myself so I used a Photoetch from whiteensignmodels for the spreaders.

It was 'only' a question of threading 0,06mm wire trough the holes. Only 32 spreaders of 8 holes each meant approximately a rethink-your-live-decisions amount of threading.

The effect is quite nice. But not gonna do that again very soon.

After this I made a bit of a mistake. I thought there was a smaller aerial from the bridge to the main aerial. So I made one. 

Wrapping copper wire around a needle, cutting them and soldering gave me 1mm rings. 

And after glueing threads in them and painting I got the smaller aerial installed.

The mistake is that apparantly these where installed in 1910, and in that same refit the booms I've added next to the bridge where removed. So they were never both installed together. yeah, I'm not ripping them off so.... there goes the historical accuracy. 

The flags were a bit of an experiment. I wanted to make my own ones. First I tried painting aluminium. (Aluminum for all the ex-colonists. ) And print on that paint layer.

And after cutting and bending:

But I didn't like the texture. It was a bit too polished/smooth. And drying time was a tad long.

I quit smoking last year, but because I handrolled my cigarettes, I hade some packages of rolling paper left.

I taped a rolling paper to a sheet of printer paper and printed on that.

Way better. Rolling paper is thin enough for the paint to bleed through to the other side. And after a few coats of very thinly applied matt varnish you can't see the difference between the printed side and the back. I really like the effect.

I was not really content with the provided whalers. The sides were quite thick. around 1mm, and on that scale it would be 35 cm, more than a foot, thick. So I ripped them off and replaced them with printed versions. It was a tad fiddly cutting and glueing the thwarts evenly in place.  

Camera didn't focus correctly. But below the whaler from the kit on the bottom, the upper one is the printed one. Not perfect, but better than the original.

Painted the waves from the picket boat.

And around this time I glued the boat in place. Using a syringe I placed a small bead of gloss medium in the gap between the boat and resin.

It is getting quite far now. Must say, I cant wait to finish this.

WOW! Incredibly beautiful work. Simply magnificent. Can't wait for the finished diorama.

Awesome craftsmanship Anton.

Oh gawd those spreaders make my head hurt to look at them!!! 

Amazing work you're doing here!!! 

Ye Gads!

 Youse is makin me get crosseyed with dem dere Spreader tingies. But it's looking good I tink. Now how do I uncross dis left eye? I keep seein two of dem dere chips and boats ! I can only look with amazement upon this work. This is audacious and beautifully detailed. And I thought I was overdoing it with Super-Detailing a 1/250 Andrea Doria Paper model. I can't touch this! Last ship Dio 40 years ago!

I'll be following this thread.  I built my Trumpeter Dreadnought with nets deployed, tetherd to an anchor bouy further out in the harbor.  Very nice kit- loved it.

Very very very impressive. Thanks for sharing. 

Inspiring build! I received this same 1907 Dreadnaught kit as a Xmas gift with the goal of just building a nice pedestal mounted version. I would be happy to have an outcome 1/10 as nice as what you're doing with yours. You are a very talented modeler! Please keep posting!

WOW!!! That is one super impressive build. You have amazing modeling abilities.

Anton your attention to detail is mind blowing, I couldn't have done those spreaders even if my eyes would have let me, never mind soldering 1mm wire loops!!! I'm impressed by your rate of progress too given the level of detail your putting into this project. Thank you for the printer information, I've not looked into the Anycubic Photon but I will now. And thank you for updating us with your posts, very inspirational.

Edited to mention how much I like the idea of using rolling paper to print flags! I will definitely try that :)

Don Stauffer

I've seen other versions with nets deployed, And I must say that looks spectacular. I look in awe the the model build by user "RGL". But did not want to make it too hard on myself because I never build anything in this scale. It would not be the first time not finishing something.
(I just looked your build up from 2012. Very impressive!)

Tanker-Builder

Paper build? I never build a model from paper. Isn't it hard to make multi curves like on the bow? Andrea Doria: Nice looking ship. I would love to see that model.

JoeSMG

To be clear. I started way before with this build. Only after a certain point I thought of starting a thread. So at starting post I was quite far already. But I hate threads that never finish on forums, So I wanted to be sure I was quite far already before posting anything.

I do not always have time to build, and for instance 3d printing can I only do in weekends, so progress is actually quite slow.  Best guess I started somewhere in august (?) last year. 

Hi Anton;

 Actually it's not as hard to get those curves as some think. On the " Doria" for instance you can get a laser cut detail frame set. Then you assemble everything according to the instructions. DO NOT Deviate! Next thing you know you get those beautiful Yacht like curves.Oh, Both ships come as one kit!

      I am trying to get used to a new Camera. As soon as I get the hang of it I will post some photos, I promise! On one point I want to make mention of something important. Many builders, even in this scale category forget part of the hardware on the forward deck. You did think of it. Chain Stoppers are a part of every Naval ship's forward deck hardware.It ( the Stoppers) takes the strain OFF the Anchor Windlass and it's brakes.

I've catched up to the progress thus far. So not much progress to tell. Last small bits are the most tedious. Added a lot of small ropes, planks, and other small things.

I painted more of the crew. Had painted some already, but needs a lot more to make it a bit lively. I used a Tamiya kit:
 
I was very dissapointed. These figures are all flat. Whats the point of injection molding if you make them flat? I printed some figures as well, and those are acceptable, but too much work cutting off all the supports. (Supports are wider than the limbs of the figures themselves.
Used some putty to give em some body, but it's quite hard on this scale. 

On the right a converted sailor into a female figure. It is 2021 after all. On the left a 'normal' figure. Here you can see how flat these are. 

Started on the nameplate. Made a text in inkscape and printed on a transparant.


I only had 0.1mm thick brass, so it required some attention getting something of a 3d effect while not etching through.

And after some coloring and varnish to keep it shiny. 


 I added it to the diorama.

Oh gee, if the injection-molded figures are that flat you might as well be using PE ones! Your work fattening them up and the sex change look good though. 

And really nice work on the nameplate! 

Geez;

   Thems is almost as bad as some railroad figure sets. I love that Name Plaque though!

I wanted to make a dustcover from 2mm acrylic. Bought cut, polished it, and.... failed miserably. The glue 'acrifix 920' was suppost to be water thin, but came in a tube and was just regular glue consistency. In the end it don't bond properly. (But that can be because of me.) After Glueing I removed the proteced wrapping and there where streaks in the plastic. Coul dnot polish them out, they where IN the plastic. Well that was a waste of time. 

Chloroform is not easily accessible here and expensive. (Due to the 'Don't breath this" characteristic of cholorform.) But Perhaps for next try, I try to buy that.

For the rest, I finished with the last people, random stuff, and searchlights. I should spread some more random crap around. But perhaps some other day. I want to continue with my Star Trek Diorama.

Well. Here it is.

Always drop your boat horizontally. 

I have no idea who she is, but she must be important to get such a welcome.

Crane 1

Never sail out without your barrels of grog.

Crane 2

Safety regulations were a lot different in those days.

Don't drop your bucket mate.

Just go to the hardware store to get a new bucket. If it isn't closed due to covid-19.

And just some random pics.

Let's go to the star trek diorama. :)

Hmmm;

 Chloroform? I have never heard of such a thing. Where are you in this world? If in the States you can contact a purveyor of Plastic for displays and they can probably sell you the right Glue. It is a liquid, It is NOT Chloroform either.

 Secondly all the edges of your case have to be polished to a very clear finish. That's so when the glue runs between the perfectly STRAIGHT and LEVEL pieces it dries clear and un-noticeable. To achieve this you NEED an 36" minimum straightedge to use in the shop. You cannot have any variations or it will not hold.

 Although inconvienent I use "TAP" plastics in California. At least those employees and staff don't have their head, - Well, You know. Here in TEXAS they don't even have enough smarts to automatically know, for an outside display, because of the Sun, you use NON-Glare surface Lexan!

  After seeing this at my Museum. When I was elected President I am very careful about buying Plastic Sheet.. Plastic sheet ain't cheap! Oh, Plastruct makes a good glue for that and so does Flexi-File Brand!

Tanker-Builder

Hmmm;

 Chloroform? I have never heard of such a thing. Where are you in this world? If in the States you can contact a purveyor of Plastic for displays and they can probably sell you the right Glue. It is a liquid, It is NOT Chloroform either.

 Secondly all the edges of your case have to be polished to a very clear finish. That's so when the glue runs between the perfectly STRAIGHT and LEVEL pieces it dries clear and un-noticeable. To achieve this you NEED an 36" minimum straightedge to use in the shop. You cannot have any variations or it will not hold.

 Although inconvienent I use "TAP" plastics in California. At least those employees and staff don't have their head, - Well, You know. Here in TEXAS they don't even have enough smarts to automatically know, for an outside display, because of the Sun, you use NON-Glare surface Lexan!

  After seeing this at my Museum. When I was elected President I am very careful about buying Plastic Sheet.. Plastic sheet ain't cheap! Oh, Plastruct makes a good glue for that and so does Flexi-File Brand!

 

Exceptional work, your skill and attention to detail has created a wonderful diorama.

A shame you've been ironically foiled by the seemingly simple task of creating an attractive enclosure! I can relate :)

I also have wasted time and money attempting to create an acrylic enclosure that doesn't look like garbage. And having them made is cost prohibitive...

If you accomplish this PLAESE document that process as well!

Occassionally, one wants to think outside the box.

Aquarium, particularly custom aquarium makers, can be very helpful for cases.

Alternately, there is the option to hide the joints by putting them is suitably milled hardwood frame.