Nantucket Lightship by Lindberg - 1:95 scale build

Bill - As a newbie to ship modeling. I still stumble over many of the nautical names of ship parts. I constantly go to Google to look up something. LOL

Now that you brought the white lights on masthead and stern to my attention, I do remember that my father-in-law had them on his 36' Yorktown sailboat when we'd go out to Catalina Island from Long Beach.

I was not aware of the running lights not being used along with the beacon lights, but I can understand the reasoning of that. Once the vessel was anchored and stationary, it only needed the beacons, foghorn or bell to warn ships of it's location.

Thanks again and, I'm always open to someone's input which will help me learn and move forward with modeling. Cheers on this one!!! 

rcboater

the red and green running lights would not be on at the same time the masthead beacon is flashing.

Hmmm.  That does not jibe with my understanding of the Rules of the Road for illumination.  At anchor, power vessels are meant to display R&G, a white masthead, and a white stern light (a white range light if over a specific LOA).  Those would be 3/5 mile lights; and not the 15/20 mile beacon, so, they'd only be visible close aboard.

But, maybe lightships have an exemption.  Which would explain why so many were run oer by transatlantic liners.  Maybe.  Perhaps.

Just checking here, especially since CG is the one enforcing light use in the maritime and inland waters.

CapnMac82 - It is really difficult to find a lot of the technical information regarding lightships. Once again, I'll repeat myself on my feelings about companies that only use a number system for the model parts. The person building the model learns nothing about what parts were on the vessel, nor any nautical terms to educate beginners like myself. It's pretty frustrating!

Because of my lack of knowledge with wiring, circuit boards etc., all of my lights will be working when they are turned on. This is my 5th model, so I'm just trying to give the appearance of what the ship would look like with lights, and not focusing on being historically correct. This is way out of my league. LOL 

I'm going to try and purchase a book about these ships for a referrence on Ebay. I also want to thank everyone for all of their input, feedback and helpful suggestions! 

Red and green sidelights are only used when underway- never while anchored.  using them when anchored would invite a collision, especially with a vessel under 50m.

Rather than scan the applicable page from my copy of the rules, I googled and found this handy study aid:

https://www.google.com/search?q=72+colregs+rules+of+the+road&client=safari&hl=en-us&prmd=isvn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXg5iP2tzdAhWpnuAKHfdtArAQ_AUIESgB&biw=768&bih=922#imgrc=NX9-Y4pduKl46M:

Regarding anchor lights— the rules require a 360 degree white anchor light for vessels under 50 meters long. Vessels over 50m are required to have two  such lights- one forward and one aft, and the aft one should be lower.   The LV-112 (Nantucket)  was 147’ LOA, so two lights aren’t required. But two lights are optional for shorter vessels, and I’m pretty sure Nantucket has two. One is on top of the jackstaff at the bow, and the other is on top of the flagstaff  at the stern.  (I don’t think the Lindberg includes these?)

I never served on a Lightship, but a Lightship sailor I know said they always had the proper lights and dayshapeMwhen anchored on station.  I sure that was done service-wide -  no CO would risk being found partially at fault for a collision bec his command wasn’t following the rules.

One reason lightships were hit or endured many close calls (esp. in the pre-radar days) was because ships would home in on the Lightship’s radio beacon in the fog, where lights didn’t really matter.

 -Bill

Bill - thanks for sharing all of this information on this post!

I haven't had a lot of time for any progress due to some home improvement projects and working weekends with Fright Fest as a scare actor !!!  I ordered my Evergreen .219" round tubing and they should arrive by this weekend. Once the styrene rods show up, I can finish working on the wiring that will run inside of the beacon towers and finish all connections thaat will lie inside of the ship's hull.

"Children of the night... what music they make". - Dracula 

HaPpY HaLLoWeeN !!!

Yeah ! 

 Dat Scary Day is shortly upon us aint it ? I used to do it up as Dracula's Dad ! I'm Old what do you expect ? I may do Zombie Modeler this time . A Zombie with a model boat ! Weird !

TankerBuilder - Go for it!!! LOL this was one of my characters at Six Flags Fright Fest. Here's a pic of my wife and I with "BELATRX", our vehicle for we use for those 'special' occassions. 

I'm a little concerned about the styrene tubing. I have a bunch of it, the Evergreen stuff is pretty flexible. Another choice would be brass, which is about as easy to work with and can have stuff glued to it with CA.

Just my two cents worth.

GMorrison - It finally arrived and I opened up the package to inspect them. I could see where they may begin to warp over time. Thanks for the insight on a possible problem.  I may be able to reinforce part of the inside with something that is solid for better bracing. The wiring that will run inside is 28G and pretty thin. One thing that I like is that the bottom ring on the solid mast fits perfect to the bottom of the tubing. I can drill a hole through it for the wiring. 

I also got some time to paint some of the funnels with the Spar and red paint. Sorry about the blue tint on the photos! 

Had some time from work to start adding some of the smaller parts to the superstructures. I also started work on my two beacon towers which is made from Evergreen .219" tubing, metal rings, very small strip of balsa wood, and a couple of cut-off parts from solid towers. 

your cruising along nicely on this build fright , looking good .

This is looking sharp!

Steve5 - thanks for taking a look and the kind words! October was really busy at work but I hope I can make some headway before work gets busy again with the holidays.

GMorrison - thanks for your advice and help with the two towers! Cheers!!!

Finished cutting and gluing all of the railings atop the structures. I added a tiny amount of weathering to the structures by using Testors CreateFX rust and weathering powders from Bragdon Enterprises.

I also did a test run on my two 3mm LED bright lights for my beacons. The picture show both lights on but each one has a slow flash. I will be using 1.8mm warm lights to illuminat the cabins and two Pico sized lights, red and green, for my port and starboard running lights. All of my LED lighting is from Evans Design. Side note: the gentleman at Evans is really helpful and even called me to go over my order! 

Nothing is glued down on the deck at this point. Next step is to complete all of my wiring and install the deck to the hull. Then I will add the rest of the deck fittings and move on to the diorama.

I finished working on the smokestack this week. The ship's whistle had snapped off from the smokestack so it needed to be glued back in place. Ladder was added and glued into place. I didn't like the way the smokestack's large opening allowed one to look down to the decking, so I decided to close up that void and add some interest as well. I cut out a small rectangular shape from a piece of styrene sheet and used a hole punch to open up the center. I took a piece of my round styrene tubing and glued it into the hole that I had punched out. I then used a file to round off the edges of the rectangle until it fit into the smokstack. I painted everything flat black and then glued into place inside of the smokestack. I like that it added some detail to an otherwise empty opening! 

That is a nice detail. I suppose there should be a pipe per boiler, don't know how many she had but it looks really good.

GMorrison - now there's another lesson I just learned about pipes and boilers! There are so few decent photos of this ship that I could find to use as a reference for me. It just did not seem right to me to leave it so open. I'm happy with my outcome. Thanks for taking a look and sharing your knowledge about the pipes and boilers. Much appreciated! Have yourself a warm Thanksging!!!

Robert, A really great build on your Nantucket & beautiful paint work too. I have had to over coat my dullcoat with gloss a lot. On masking, I believe it was Don Stauffer that reminded me to seal the masking tape edge with a color or gloss coat of paint I use Gloss coat & sometimes I put 2 coats on before I paint my final color.. I always did that years ago & forgot it.  It does stop any bleeding of the final color.

   I built the Nantucket when it first came out. I built most all of those old ship kits. On the decals,if they are old, you better put 1 or 2 coats of Microscale decal film for old decals. You can even brush it on. Dip your decal in warm water too when you apply them.

gene1 - thanks Gene for sharing the tip from Don Stauffer on using a clear coat to run a seal along the tape line. I used Tamiya's masking tape for curves for my paint lines and Scotch Blue masking tape for the large areas. I had no bleed issues.

As for the Lindberg kit, the two hull parts had a slight difference in shape. A lot of flash and pin marks on most of the parts with this kit. With all of that said, I still am enjoying working on this lightship! 

I have a bottle of Microscale decal film and I have used warm water for my decals on my past build. I'm just starting to connect up the lights and wiring for the beacons and for port and starboard running lights. I'm hoping I can finish this by the end of year.

With that said, I always appreciate your feedback and I wish you and loved ones a warm Thanksgiving for another years!!! 

This morning I was able to drill openings into my port and starboard Navigation lights in order to house my 1mm LED lights. I was able to install the green starboard LED into housing by using a little tacky glue with a dab of CA glue to hold light into place. Did a test run to make sure my light would still work. Wallah! 

Also installed my 3mm LED slow flashing light and crossbeam into my forward beacon tower. The three-legged tower top was badly warped, so I now have only two of the legs glued down to circular nest. One to go.

that's some very nice work fright .

Steve5 - thank you! This kit is my learning process in wiring lights, but I'm also trying to improve on a few things as I go along, to the best of my ability 

Robert,

I think you’re doing a great job with this kit- the best I‘ve seen!

Aren’t LEDs fun?  They are easy to work with, and will last 10-20 thousand hours before burning out!

Keep up the good work...

-Bill

Bill - I was surprised with how nice the running lights looked when lit up. Many thanks for your tips on the LED lighting. All of my lights and connectors came from Evan Design. I was a little intimidated in trying any type of circuit board for controlling lights at this point with my electrical skills LOL.

Your RC lightship is amazing and your current work that you are doing on the USCG Cutter is looking fantastic. Thanks again!!!

Forward cabin is finished. Port and starboard navigational lights are in place. Both beacon towers have slow flashing lights now installed. Forward tower shown in picture.

really enjoying your build robert , very clean work , I should learn from you . 

Steve - thanks for following along on this one   This is my 1st attempt with lighting and it's been a good learning experience for me with this lightship. Evan Design lights have made this very easy to install! I have to say that, if it were not for sites such as this, I would not be at this stage today with this kit.  

Hi,

I don’t mean to sidetrack this thread, but how difficult would it be to alter this kit to change it to the CHESAPEAKE lightship do you think? My wife is from Maryland, and I‘d love to build some of the ships that are in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.