'Toy Story' from PeterD - Dorky Home Crafted Toy Ships

 

Definitely has the dorky home made charm to it.

For my entry in the Toy Story round I am going back to my teenage years when I attempted to carve  WW1 model warships out of balsa wood.  I have a home carve basswood model of the armoured cruiser SMS Kaiser and metal models of her German Asian squadron in 1898.  This squadron did not take part in the Spanish American War, but came close.  They anchored in Manilla Bay shortly after Dewey's victory and had a long staring match with the American navy.  I wanted to get ships to represent the possibility of a US-German battle, but appropriate models were not available in 1:2400.  Therefore I did some bodging, carving one ship from wood, converting an existing model of a different , and representing the three smaller cruisers with paint conversions of models of other ships.

Waterline view

Here is the home made ship, SMS Kaiser.  She was completed in 1875 as a fully rigged  central battery ironclad in Britain, designed by Sir Edward Reed a brilliant former chief constructor of the Royal Navy before he resigned after a political battle. By the 1890s many navies looked to update their older ironclad by refitting them, with varying degrees of success throwing good money after bad.  Kaiser kept her old main guns and machinery in place but had her full rig replaced with military masts and gained modern secondaries and light quick firers.  It must have worked ok because reclassified as armoured cruisers ( despite being very slow) both she and her sister served was flagships on the China station.

Kaiser as built left and in converted form right.

The problem was that I couldn't find a suitable model for Kaiser in her converted shape.  I spent quite some time looking for a suitable model of a similar ironclad as fudge, but no luck.  They were too big, too small, the wrong shape or fully rigged.  The closest I could find was a Tumbling Dice model of HMS Alexandra, which was bigger and had a different hull shape.  Even worse she came as a one piece casting fully rigged (see the photo below).  My fingers cringed thinking about going at it with an Xacto or Dremel.  

The basic hull shape is ok, but too big.  However cutting off all the top hamper would be a chore and would risk damaging either the hull or my fingers.

An in process shot shows how crude the construction is.

So I figured I could do as well myself and went back to my teenage years and bodged together a model.  The bull is basswood, with left over funnels from Tumbing Dice kits and brass wire masts.  I want to add 3D printed fighting tops but need to find a printer that will handle the file format the ones I have.  The model is deliberately rough and ready, but should suit the purpose until some manufacturer comes up with something better in 1:2400.  The bigger problem is that I had plans from vintage Brasseys' naval annual, but they had the gun battery with recessed gunport, while the ship actually had her battery sponsored out instead.  Oh well three feet of distance and 1:2400 scale hides many sins.

The going rate is 2 points for a 1:2400 ship, so I think I'll get the best leverage from the Theme Round Bonus.