Scalescenes Cargo Freighter

[CNR Glen]

After finishing the Freebie Warehouse kit from Scalescenes:
http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27423
I figured I'd try something a bit more challenging, their cargo ship:
http://www.scalescenes.com/products/T030-Cargo-Ship
I'll be calling it my Coastal Freighter. The kit cost about 10$ and it's a download from their website.
It's comprised of 19 printed sheet of paper and 14 pages of instructions. It comes in OO scale (1/72) but I did manage to shrink it to 1/87 scale without much difficulty. It measures out to just under 2 feet long according to my estimates.
After printing the pages out I had to laminate about half of them to different widths of card. I made most of the card by cutting and glueing posterboard sheets together. 2 sheets for the medium card, 4 sheets for the thick card. I used some 220 gsm (135lb.) heavyweight paper for the light card. Everything was laminated together with Elmer's spray adhiesive.

I sprayed all the sheets later with a clear matte finish to seal the colors of the paper.

Since there are 14 pages of instructions I put them all in a binder for safekeeping.

One good thing about the kit is the ability to name the ship and the home port. I decided on Northern Venture with a home port of Prince Rupert.

 

[Rico]

I've been sitting on the fence on these kits for a while so I'll be watching to see how it turns out!

 

[CNR Glen]

Thanks Rico, This is considerably more challenging that the warehouse kit so I'm hoping it turns out well.
I did start assembly tonight. I managed to turn this:

Into this:

This is the bow structure. It doesn't look like much but this took about an hour and a half due to having to cut all the parts out of 2mm thick card. I have a feeling I'll be needing more knife blades......

 

[Larry]

About 2 years ago in Palmetto, Fl. at the Annual Train Show there was a dealer there trying to sell one of those cardboard ships for $250.00. His was about 4ft. long. He had added about 3 or 4 mid sections to the ship & added a ton of parts to the inside of the hull. It was really a nice ship & it was HO scale. That was the only thing he had FS on his table. He told me it took him about 6 months of spare time to put it together. His was an Oil Tanker.
He added a bunch of people to the deck & added LED's for lighting. He also had a sound module of a ship sitting at the docks. So, $250.00 wasn't a bad price. I wish I had gotten a picture of it.

 

[CNR Glen]

That's intresting Larry. I'm not sure if I'll ever put lighting on this one but I do plan to add the crew.

I completed the stern structure last night.

All the parts slide together with slots for easy assembly. There's an open door in the lower deck of the stern so there's some detail printed on the inside.
To pass the time while cutting all these parts out I've started to watch a movies or TV. It seems to make the tedium of the job pass a bit better.

Now I've come to a small problem. My printer didn't want to print solid green so my decks are a faded look to them:

I'm thinking of leaving them as is and calling it 'computer printer weathering'

 

[Gary B]

I can't tell if that suppose to be a wood deck but the ship modelers use real wood decking materials that might be an idea to improve your kit. (And avoid your printing issue)

 

[CNR Glen]

Actually I the main cargo deck would be steel with a green epoxy/non-slip paint coating. I didn't really like the way my printer did those sheets so today I took the plans to a print shop and ran everything off that had that deck on. It looks much better now. I'll show more pictures when I make some more progress.

 

[CNR Glen]

A bit more progress tonight. I cut the midship section out and glued it to the stern.

The bow is just sitting there loose to give you an idea of how big the ship is. It measures out to just over 20 inches long.
I also added the interior deck to the stern. This is the new floor printout

I'm pretty impressed by the detail in the kit. The switchbox on the wall is a seperate part to give a bit more of a 3-d effect.
As mentioned before I printed off all the green deck parts on a better printer. Here's the comparison:

Next it looks like I'll be working on the holds and midship structure

 

[CNR Glen]

I completed the holds on the ship today. Again it's alot of cutting and building of layers to form the proper shapes.
Here's the the two holds assembled

Here's a close up of the #1 hold, it's built so it angles down from the Bow of the ship

The decks are cut out and fit around the holds. This was a tricky part since they are a tight fit

 

[CNR Glen]

I placed the holds on the ship this afternoon. I had to trim a bit of the deck length to make them fit but better to have too much than too little.

The bow also was glued on at this point, it's starting to look like a ship now.

I did find that there was a joint showing in the bottom of hold #1. But that;s not a big worry, I'm planning on covering that hold and leaving the other open for some visual intrest.

Now on to some detail work on the lower bulkheads.

 

[CNR Glen]

I did some of the fiddly detail parts yesterday and today, assembling the life rings and fire hose lockers. First, both the core and cover layers are cut out:

Then the covers layers and glued and wraped around the core:

There are 9 life rings and 3 hose lockers to assemble. I'm only using 1 of each on the front bulkhead but it's better to assemble all of them now. Here's the front bulkhead with the life ring, locker and door attached.

After assembling all of these details it did occur to me that one could use them outside of the ship kit, either on a dock or on another ship like the tugboat I scratchbuilt a couple years ago. You can just run more off on the printer

 

[CNR Glen]

I finished off the holds last night. I first glued the finished bulkhead covers on the bow and stern, then tackled the hold coverings

Each hold gets 4 trusses that span it widthwise. I decided that one of my holds was going to be completly covered and the other was in the process of being uncovered/loaded/unloaded so it will be partly covered.

On the side that is partly uncovered I left one of the trusses in place and pushed the rest to the end
[ATTACH=full]90516[/ATTACH]
The cover boards go on next. On the completly covered hold I cut them out as a complete block. You score down the middle to create the bend. The edges and the scoremark is colored using a brown marker. For the partly covered hold I cut out 1 course of the cover boards and did the same.
[ATTACH=full]90517[/ATTACH]
You can cut the rest of the cover boards out seperatly and stack then on the deck or dockside later
Finally this is where the project stands now:
[ATTACH=full]90518[/ATTACH]

 

[Rico]

That's really taking shape, can't wait to see the hull go on!

 

[CNR Glen]

Well Rico, that will be awhile since other parts have to be assembled before the hull plates are added.

I glued the bow and stern decks on this morning. They are both of thick card with the green deck covering. I used the ones with the printed templates that show the placement of the deck details but there are also blank cover sheets for custom deck layouts as well.

The view towards the stern lower deck doorway.

This puts me at the end of page 4 of 14 in the instructions
Next I put this assembly aside and start work on the cabin and bridge assembly.

 

[CNR Glen]

Thank you everyone. I'm enjoying the challenge of working in a non-conventional medium and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will turn out in the end.
I managed to get a bit of headway on the cabins/bridgework.
The stairs to the bridge are made by stacking card on top of each other. This can be a tricky step to keep them level and hopefully at the right height at the end.

The lower cabin assembly starts with sliding parts together in slots, then adding the rear cabin wall and door

Next the bridge deck goes on on top of it all

This is where I ran into a bit of trouble. My stairs turned out to be one step too high so I had to cut the top step off, then glue the bridge deck on, then I cut the treads off the step I just removed and re-glued them on the top step again, hopefully covering up any flaws.

I'll probably weather this area when the model is completed anyway.

 

[silverbackman]

Wow!

Wow! That's looking great Glen!
I'll I can say is...hurry up!
Seriously though, I can't wait to see the finished product.
You mentioned you might do a little extra weathering and I'd just like to remind you to use a sealer on the original printed image before you do, just to help eliminate the chances of the printer ink running.
Keep the photo's coming

 

[CNR Glen]

Thank you. I was hoping to go a bit faster on this project but it's better to take your time on something like this than to make a mistake you'll regret later.
I did get a bit more done this week, the lower cabins are almost finished now.
I assembled the outer cabin walls

I used some clear plastic for the windows.
I then attached them to the cabin assembly

If you were to look through the small cabin windows you would see the wood panelling of the cabin interior. It's a nice touch that the visible interior has some detial in it.
You can see how the outside walls also form the outside of the stairway. The cabin front will go on later.

My final bit tonight was to glue the raised bridge floor in.

The bridge has a fully detailed interior, which is what I'll be working on next.

 

[otiscnj]

CNR,
Thanks for the info! I'm anxious to see your final results. It looks like a waterline model. The link has lots of useful kits!

I'm looking for a an HO scale container ship that isn't to big, or cost $$$$. Never really considered paper models, but I have a friend that has made a number of paper plane kits over the years.

 

[CNR Glen]

It is a waterline model, but it isn't designed as a container ship, more like eight a small bulk freighter. The instrucions suggest a coal or gravel load but I'll be adding acrates and barrels to the open hold. I'm not an expert but maybe you could kitbash and add a third hold?


I completed the interior of the bridge. As I mentioned before the model has a detailed bridge interior.
First you start with the map chest, it's core made of 4 pieces of thick card glued together

Then you wrap it with the chest covering around the sides and glue it to the bridge floor, adding the rear bridge wall for proper alignment.

adding the map chest top

Next comes the side walls

and finally the control panel nad ships wheel.

The control panel is made of a lower part and the upper part that is folded around the whel structure.
The next steps are the outside bride overlays but I'm waiting for some feedback for scalescences for their window choices. Their instructions call for 'clear film' but I'm not sure it that is clear styrene or something else.

As a side note I when to the copy store and re-printed off the hull parts on their laser printer. they do look alot better than what my ink-jet at home can do. Looking back I probably should have spent the extra money and printed the entire kit out on the laser printer.

 

[Jim 68cuda]

Great job on the ship. Alot more detail than I expected. Now, before the hull sides go on, would be the time to drill holes down through the decks to wire lighting for the detailed bridge and other rooms. Even if you don't intend to hook up lighting, it would be good to wire in some lights just in case you change your mind later. But, with all that paper and glue, are there any lighting options that wouldn't be a fire hazard?