USS MAINE Paper model --Finished--

Good luck with your build. I have a few fancier card kits, but have only dabbled so far, and stayed away from any that were really complex or had poor directions for now. Unfortunately, weak to non-existent directions are pretty common with these models. Overall, I can see the appeal, especially to those on a budget - you can get a large, and pretty detailed, model fairly cheaply if you're willing to do the work involved. And frequently subjects that are impractical for plastic kits can be more readily had, as well. 

MJames70

Good luck with your build. I have a few fancier card kits, but have only dabbled so far, and stayed away from any that were really complex or had poor directions for now. Unfortunately, weak to non-existent directions are pretty common with these models. Overall, I can see the appeal, especially to those on a budget - you can get a large, and pretty detailed, model fairly cheaply if you're willing to do the work involved. And frequently subjects that are impractical for plastic kits can be more readily had, as well. 

Many thanks.

Aside from the 'budget' angle...which is always a consideration...my first introduction to card models some three decades ago was the fact that there is such a dizzying variety of subjects available. For ship modelers, especially, there are hundreds of reasonable-quality offerings of all kinds of 'niche' subjects that would never be kitted by plastic manufacturers. Though pre-WW2 subjects are seeing more coverage these days with plastic companies like Zvezda and ICM, when I started out with paper models, they were virtually the only ones doing dreadnought- and pre-dreadnought vessels...as well as the scads of interesting civilian ships of all sorts available. Back in those days, plastic-builders would often use the paper kits as templates for scratchbuilds. Whatever works, eh?

Cheers

I haven't had the opportunity to start another kit yet with a variety of bad personal and world events underway, but did manage to get some of this glue to try - https://deluxematerials.co.uk/products/roket-card-glue 

These are the same guys that make Perfect Plastic Putty among many other hobby products. They're from the UK, but not impossible to find in the US. When I get a chance to use some, I'll report on it. 

Hi, Gregbale: Did you see the separate post to you yesterday?

    I truly don't know what happened there. Your post had no reply box. Anyway. I use the Card kits for patterns mostly. Occassionally, I will build the kit, enhancing with P.E. where useable. I find these kits a big advantage for modelers to at least try one.

     Why? well, think about it. Even if you choose to cheat and use other materials for masts and stuff it teaches the modeler about the Basic way at arriving at a shape and how to work with folding and laminating. 

   Both those skills are needed for P.E. right?

Tanker-Builder

Anyway. I use the Card kits for patterns mostly. Occassionally, I will build the kit, enhancing with P.E. where useable. I find these kits a big advantage for modelers to at least try one. Why? well, think about it. Even if you choose to cheat and use other materials for masts and stuff it teaches the modeler about the Basic way at arriving at a shape and how to work with folding and laminating. Both those skills are needed for P.E. right?

Couldn't agree more, TB.

A little progress so far: main deck parts on and more-or-less aligned correctly.

After laminating the paper parts to cardboard backing, my practice is usually to press them between two cutting mats to keep everything weighted and flat. Naturally, I messed up and forgot to check that the top mat's underside was clean...and got a little 'schmutz' on the first deck part. Ah, re-learning old lessons....

To fit on the A4 pages (I think) that the printer used, the two main deck sections were printed as 'L's' that fit together 'heel to toe,' so to speak. Managed to get the tiny visible deck-joins nearly lined up....

More re-learning of old 'tips and tricks'; if you back 'raised relief' parts like hatches and portholes with pre-colored card stock, you can save much of the trouble of going back over cut edges with Prismacolor or colored pencils.

And cutting thin 'trim strips' from left-over or 'edge' printed color sections helps disguise messy joints or not-quite- straight edges on parts...in addition to generally giving a more 3-dimensional and 'finished' look.

Probably the most useful tip to beginners is that thin paper parts backed with a thickness of cardboard lets you cut away many of the 'tabs' supplied as gluing surfaces. In addition to a sturdier build, that will give you much straighter lines and cleaner edges for most mating parts.
To assure correct positioning, scrap cardboard 'stops' or tabs can be glued on internal surfaces, just as with the older styrene or vac-form construction.

And the result: test-fitting the stern deckhouse structure. (The 'dotted line' effect underneath should disappear when the part is glued and clamped down firmly.)

It's always fun when it actually starts to look like something.

More later. Hope everybody's staying 'social distanced' and healthy!

Hi GregBale:

    I just got an interesting lesson about Paper( Card ) models! I bought Hamburger Modelbaubogen Verlag's version of the " Mellum". It's a version of the Kustwatch Oil Spill response vessel. Well, on the company's website they offer a detailing set that is all Lazer Cut material so you can do the Bridge/Wheelhouse and Crane control-house in full interior detail, plus all the usual stuff that on a plastic model would be P.E..

 The place I purchased it on Line promoted that feature. Well, when I got it, needless to say the Detail set was NOT included, even though the ad made you think so. I contacted the publisher( the above named company) and let them know their product was being mis-represented.  We'll see what that does. I told them the merchant's name and number on the sale site. Yes, it was on the " Evil - Bay" I usually don't have problems with they're vendors and have been about 99% satisfied with the product.

     Anyway, I am going to order the detailing set from the Publisher so I can finish her out right. That detail set is another ten pages too! I do a lot of what you are recommending on this build. I usually double or triple the frames and the so called keel and bottom plate to keep everything flat and straight. The suggestion of doublers in certain areas is an excellent one. In 1/250 I will use coffee stirrers ( the straw type) for the final part of the guns ( Main) with the Main base being paper wrapped around the straw to give that stepped apearance.

     Last thing. What type of glue do you use? I use Aleen's Copper bottle and it works well. Also for the edges , ( if I have to do it ) I use a artist's set of Prismacolor pencils. The set is about 20 years old as I use them for weathering on my regular stuff.

Hello Greg!

It's nice to see you building a paper ship! You're doing a great job, too! I like your tip with using coloured card as backing for some parts.

gregbale

I also like your idea with the "stops". Many models designed by other companies have a dedicated part for that, glued parallel to the deck.

I have to say when I look at the Hamburger models, they are a little annoying to me - like those glue tabs on parts that have to be reinforced. Those tabs should never be there in the first place and your best bet would be to cut them off right away. There's a trick to use - if you sand the "eggcrate" lightly on the edges, you get nice, smooth surfaces you can glue the outer skin to.

Many years ago I was regularly going to a modelling club where the instructor insisted that the parts that come in more than one piece, like the deck or the keel be glued to a single piece of cardboard before being cut out - this also helps with the construction a lot, making the hull stronger and straighter - of course the challenge is to find a piece of cardboard big enough to fit the parts. But if you can find them it pays off. Once I discovered an unexpected source - the decorative bricks we used to build my father's house came packed with spacers just the right size for a 1:300 ships deck. One pallet of bricks got me enough material for several ships, I haven't been able to use it up since then.

So, good luck with your build - I'll be watching! Thanks for sharing and have a nice day

Paweł

Tanker-Builder

Last thing. What type of glue do you use? I use Aleen's Copper bottle and it works well. Also for the edges , ( if I have to do it ) I use a artist's set of Prismacolor pencils. The set is about 20 years old as I use them for weathering on my regular stuff.

Currently using the purple-label Tacky-Glue seen in the photos...since it was what I had on hand. Seems to be working just fine. (I also use 3M spray adhesive for bonding the paper parts to cardboard sheets.

I've got a few Prismacolor pencils...light brown, gray and silver...that I use for most edges, plus a variety of regular colored pencils, pastels and such, plus a new AK weathering set, if needed.

Good luck with your Ebay challenge!

Pawel

So, good luck with your build - I'll be watching! Thanks for sharing and have a nice day Paweł

Thanks as always, Pawel, for your input and words of encouragement. It occurs to me that HMV are the only paper models I've actually built...so I'm not sure how other manufacturers handle the 'tabs'...but realizing I could basically lop most of them off to start should make things a bit easier and cleaaner.

And thanks for the sanding suggestion. Getting a nice smooth hull is always the challenge on these larger-scale models!

I’m glad to see somebody is making progress on their hobby stuff. I had to visit the laundromat today...welcome to 2020, risking your life to wash clothes. I finished a few game miniatures, but haven’t started anything else the last few days. The Maine is a great subject, and I hope the build proceeds well. You’ve probably seen it, but the Navsource website has a pretty extensive collection of photos, including the salvaging of the wreck. 

http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/maine1.htm

Hello Greg!

You should try one of the Maly Modelarz ships, or maybe some of the newer Polish kits, then you'd see what I mean. Those glue tabs on the HMV kits are plain annoying and unnecessary most of the time. And if you'd like another tip - should you really need a glue tab, then it should be a separate part. OK, it's a bit hard to explain without pics, but suppose you need something to join two edges to make a rectangular pipe. Instead of bending a glue tab you could cut off that glue tab and use an L-shaped piece of paper to join the edges - gives a much cleaner looking and stronger joint, try it!

Once again - good luck and have a nice day

Paweł

Pawel

OK, it's a bit hard to explain without pics, but suppose you need something to join two edges to make a rectangular pipe. Instead of bending a glue tab you could cut off that glue tab and use an L-shaped piece of paper to join the edges - gives a much cleaner looking and stronger joint, try it!

Not hard to follow at all! I've used Evergreen angle often enough while assembling styrene sheet corners, it's the same notion for paper.

Again, I appreciate the input. And I'll keep an eye out for the Maly Modelarz offerings once I make some headway on this old beast.

Pawel:

    You get him started on Maly Modelarz and he will be hooked!

Hi Gregbale!

     Listen, Pawel has good advice and He's helped me a lot. Now here's a tip I found by accident. When you go to the Burger joint you like best, look at their straws. Then go to Wally World( Wal-Mart) and get the different sized packs for papermodeling. A quarter straw makes a great rounded corner and the tiny thin ones can be used for masts.

      I took three sizes and slid them together to make a stepped gun barrel too. There"s probably many more ideas out there. For instance you can take the medium paper straws and flatten them and then open them back up and then flatten them again to make square tubing for a project.

      As far as sanding the build. I always put doubler strips on the edges of frames in the "Eggcrate" This goes for larger ships especially. Then sanding gently with a long board that I made, I get the sides close to perfectly square. I also double under the edge where another structure goes on top. This gives a nice level surface instead of waves in the deck.

A little progress to report.

What I at first assumed (due to the somewhat imprecise rendering in the instructional drawings) to be 'boxes' meant to be mounted through the fore and aft decks, turned out to be some nifty companionway areas recessed below their surface.

Fore and aft deckhouses attached and squared up, and the fiddly casemate structures for bow and stern guns laid in. (I didn't have the guts to open the hatches and show the gun compartments...maybe next time.)

Following Pawel's advice, I made the decision to cut all the troublesome gluing tabs from the hull sides, since the cardboard-reinforced main deck and baseplate should provide ample surfaces for gluing. As Tankerbuilder suggested, I spent some time methodically sanding the hull side formers to even out bumps and get clean straight contours for attaching the hull sides.

Starting to 'skin' the hull. I backed the relatively thin-paper kit hull parts with 65 lb. card stock: still thin, but stiff enough to resist buckling and bubbling. I'm still using a PVA adhesive, but by gluing only the deck and waterline edges...and leaving the formers just for 'structure,' without any glue...the first bit seems to have gone on nice and smooth. Here's hope that trend continues.

More later.

Hello!

Funny thing, looks like the replies to your posts are locked - might be a reason for less comments than there should be...

From the photos it's clear you know what you're doing! I like the additional details a lot.

Once I was building the "Halny" - a Polish rescue/fire/tug from "Maly Modelarz", a very cool model by the way. It had white hull top and superstructure, but the paper it was printed on got yellow with age and that left me with no choice as to repaint the whole model. Was a lot of work, but paid off, the model turned out nice - got to snap some photos of it for you. Anyhow I remember recreating printed on detail that would otherwise get painted over - like the electric lines on the bridge.

I also think the concept of the Maine is mighty funny - those offset turrets are kinda unnatural...

Thanks for sharing and good luck with your build, have a nice day

Paweł

Ah; Pawel:

        Remember her era. Many Ironclad or Dreadnaught designs had weird gun placement designs. Like the British one with two main turrets offset from each other slightly and located Mid-Ships! The Maine and her sisters were also a compromise on that kind of thinking.

Starting to look semi-recognizable: main turrets on and able to rotate (no guns yet), secondary turrets installed on center 'island,' funnels up and straight, and starting to add a few deck details like skylights and vents.









Rather than simply 'rolling' the funnels, I like to use cardboard to make a little sturdier structure.



I ran into an odd situation with the kit's main gun turret positions. The two circular turrets are mounted over half-sponsons which project from the hull sides -- with one sponson a little larger, so the respective parts are easy to tell apart. But both the sponsons provided on the sheets turned out to be too large and the wrong diameter to match the turret positions marked on the main deck. Trimming those parts was easy enough to do...but since the sponsons have an angled bottom plate, making the sponsons themselves smaller moved the join-line between that angled plate and the hull side farther up on the hull.

The fix probably isn't precisely plans-accurate, but was close enough for my purposes. I just made another bottom plate and fixed it back at the correct level with a spacer. Then I used spare paper stock to 'skin' the revised sponson contours. Here's the before and after.





Much of the center 'island' structure will end up obscured under some fairly-extensive racks for the ship's boats. Having only a limited patience for constructing such fiddly bits from paper, I opted for the manufacturer's matching photo-etch set for the boat racks, stairs and railings, and assorted fine details...so there should be some PE in the next set of photos I manage to post.

Starting to add 'non-paper' details: plastic bits for gun barrels and ventilators, and the manufacturer's (supposedly) made-to-measure photo-etch sheet for delicate details like the catwalks over the main turrets and the railings.

The photo-etch is as 'typically' HMV as their kits are: i.e., a little 'eccentric' here and there. Some places where two parts are required only one is provided...many of the parts-specific railings don't actually match the parts...and most structural parts like the main catwalks themselves (and all the ladders) are about 1/16 inch too short to fit where they're supposed to. [Understand, the length of the photo-etch parts matches their paper counterparts perfectly; it's those paper parts that are seemingly mis-measured. I'd be perfectly willing to chalk some of it up to my own poor workmanship...but since, say, the distance between the aft deckhouse and the center 'island' are clearly laid out on the one-piece deck section, a corresponding catwalk that misses connecting the two is a design flaw; even I couldn't screw that up....] It's easy enough to 'tweak' things a little...adding platform extensions and such...but one has come to expect a little more precision from good ol' Teutonic engineering.

All silliness aside, I'm enjoying the build quite a bit. Here are some assorted details, so far:

Hmmmm;

 I feel so sorry for you. All that work and she's BEAUTIFUL! ! Gottya! didn't I 

Tanker-Builder

Hmmmm;

 I feel so sorry for you. All that work and she's BEAUTIFUL! ! Gottya! didn't I 

Thanks, TB!

This morning I installed the last of the rigging...mounted the flagstaffs at the bow and stern...gave 'er a quick all-over shot of Vallejo Matt...and finally hoisted the colors at the mizzen. Resisting the ever-present urge to 'fiddle' endlessly, I'm calling her done and ready for sea. (As soon as the crew can manage to get the port-side accommodation ladder raised and secured....)

Not the slickest build I've ever done, but she was great fun nearly across the boards. (Only the seemingly-endless parade of ship's whaleboats, gigs, launches and steam pinnaces -- with their tiny and largely-uncooperative parts to be folded every-which-way -- was the cause of some minor 'nearing the finish-line' frustration.)

The etch set was most convenient, perfect for things like railings, shrouds and catwalks...but less-so for items like anchors and davits that needed some real thickness; for those I used the 'paper' parts, or a combination of the two. Smaller-caliber guns were made up from wire and styrene rod, using the more-delicate etched mounts.

To give a little more rigidity, masts and yards were made with styrene rod -- reinforced with wire, where necessary, to stand up to the pull of the rigging. The rigging itself was mostly easy-to-tension -- and forgiving if accidentally 'knocked' -- elastic EZ-Line...with a little stretched sprue here and there where called for.

Enjoy the shots!

All in all, a fun and very satisfying return to the 'paper' side of the hobby. And...as always...new ideas for potential projects are stacking up like cordwood.

As a for-instance...

In addition to the small squadron of the Maine's various ship's boats, the kit provides two 63' steam torpedo launches, to be mounted on the flying bridge between the central and aft superstructures. Though I built and mounted one...it turns out this is something of a WHIF. This torpedo boat design was conceived to give both the Maine and her distaff 'sister' ship, the pre-dreadnought battleship Texas, an extra tactical 'punch' in action, each ship mounting a pair of the smaller craft, each of those fitted with a single bow-tube to fire the new 18" Whitehead torpedo. A single prototype was in fact built...and found to have a disappointing top speed of only 12 knots instead of the 18 knots expected. As a result the whole project was cancelled...and neither the Maine or the Texas ever mounted their 'stinging mosquitos.' The unloved prototype apparently lived out its days serving in a training and utility role at the Navy's Newport Torpedo Station.

However, researching that 'would-be' torpedo boat -- of which, incidentally, the HMV versions are pretty mediocre renditions -- has given me the fire for what may yet be my next scratch-build project [though in paper, or more conventional materials, is yet to be determined]. At either 1/96 or 1/72 scale, it would be an entirely manageable size and project...and chock-full of the neat 'old timey' details of the steam-powered pre-dreadought era. I was able to find some excellent drawings...and a few photos of other builders' models...so we shall see how things develop.

Killer job on this beauty! Glad you posted over in ships so we'd find it. Would not have wanted to miss it.

Oh yeah!

That's a very nice job - and the ship is pretty unusual, for me at least - I'm more accustomed to WWII designs. All that rigging and details add a lot to the visual interest of the model.

Thanks for sharing and have a nice day!

Paweł

Harrumph!

 Geez, ya dint get no ripples in the hull. Are you truthing here? Is she really paper? Nah, You did a great job. It shows what can be done in material other then Plastic. The " Mellum" is on my Beench and I'll start her in a couple of days.The detail set is outrageous!

Thanks TB and Pawel.

Tanker-Builder

The " Mellum" is on my Beench and I'll start her in a couple of days.The detail set is outrageous!

Good luck on 'er!

And remember...we want pictures.

Great job!  I'm with everyone else and can't believe that it is a paper kit.   Years ago, I bought a download of a paper model of a WWII US subchaser.  My idea was to use it as a pattern to make parts out of sheet plastic, but maybe it is time to give the paper world a try.

Dave

Now that you're done do you coat it in varnish or something to keep the board from getting damp or dried out over time?