Wow!

Ok, so it has been almost eleven months since I last updated. I (of course) never intended to go this long without updating, but life happens. I am ashamed to say that Savannah is sitting somewhat ignominiously in a drawer, because she can no longer fit inside her original box. I am even more ashamed to say that I have done almost no work on the project since I last posted. She remains in the state she was in July of last year.

Although I am currently engaged in another project (which I will share here upon completion) I hope to return to Savannah shortly. I will begin gathering resources once again in preparation for the restarting of the build. Stay tuned for more!

Daily Update-4/24/09-recap

Well, there haven’t been any updates on Savannah because there isn’t too much to look at. So far, I’ve mostly been doing what needs to be done in order to move on with further construction. I have filled the portholes, thinned down the bulwark on the bow, puttied sanded and puttied some more all over the place, in order to fill all the gaps in the hull and the deck seams. I don’t have photos worth posting, but stuff has been happening and I hope to get an update with pics posted over the weekend. It’s been pretty tedious so far, but I gotta do this stuff before more exciting things can happen.

4/16/09-Updates to resume.

Got the Apoxie Sculpt today and have had success on the experiments I have conducted so updates will continue full steam ahead tomorrow!

4/10/09-No update

No update, waiting for my order of Aves Apoxie Sculpt to arrive before continuing with deck modifications.

Daily Update-4/9/09

Today I began to add the decks. The kit decks, when compared with the plans I have, are shown to be utter fiction. All the cargo hatches are misplaced, a great deal of detail appears to be simply made up, and all the rest of it is just crude. So I figured it would be much easier to simply replace the decks outright instead of attempting to correct the kit parts. I cut off the mounting tabs and traced the decks onto scrap .040 Styrene sheets. I cut them out using a new X-acto knife blade, sanded the edges smooth and glued them to the hull. They fit fairly well, but there will be some filling and reshaping to do, particularly at the bow,  where the thick bulwark causes shape issues. More on this later.

Deck traced onto sheet plastic

Deck cut out and sanded smooth around the edges

Test fitting the new deck…

And both decks cut and glued into place

Daily Update-4/8/09

I have decided to try and make this blog as easy to understand as possible, so that non-model builders can understand it. Already I see I am doing a miserable job of explaining it all. If you have any questions, please ask, I will be more than happy to answer. I will also try to explain all the various modeling jargon and techniques as I go along. So far, it is all quite technical, as I don’t have the energy to explain what he promenade is, or why it needs to be replaced, or what removing molded on railings involve. It is my hope that the photos will speak for themselves (with a little help of course) and I will try to keep a better record of everything that is done. I am not used to this, so it will take some patience and getting used to, but I am determined to get this done and done right. With that in mind, I continue on…

Not much work done today, mostly cleaning up the cuts made to the hull. I removed the promenade area as well as all the molded on bulwarks, as they were way too thick and just looked wrong to my eyes. These will be replaced with Evergreen sheet styrene. I am still not sure what to do about the molded on bulwark around the bow, which is way too thick and oversimplified. I may try to thin it out after installing the new deck.

Deck detail!

Overscale portholes

Hull detail

The hull

4/7/09-No update

No update for today, I spent the day out of the house (which is a good thing!) so no work was done on Savannah. I do have pics uploaded and ready for posting tomorrow, however.

Daily update-the hull-4/6/09

As I mentioned before, the hull appears to be fairly accurate with the exception of some overscale open portholes and crude detail. I thought it prudent to begin by cutting away all the molded on rails, along with all the solid bulwarks(?) that could be easily replaced. So out came my Dremel and I began cutting. It went well, and within fifteen minutes I had them all off. Next, I began to sand away all the detail on the hull, with the occasional aid of a sharp X-acto knife. The portholes will be all filled and sanded, since they are overscale and most seem to be misplaced anyways. They will be  redrilled, where appropriate, later on in construction. Having removed all the rails and detail from the hull halves, I glued them together. This required a good deal of masking tape and the application of superglue, since the halves didn’t seem to want to align. There are still some small gaps, but nothing that can’t be filled with some superglue and putty.

Having set the hull aside to dry, I turned my attention to the deck. Using my plans as a guide, I realized that all the hatches were placed too far aft, and that none of the deck detail was usable. So I glued the two piece foredeck together, and traced both fore and aft decks onto a sheet of .040 styrene. I cut them out and sanded them to the correct shape. Looking at my plans, the deck is too pointed at the bow, but it is fairly minor and I figured it was not worth the trouble of correcting.

Oh God…

Looking at photos of the real thing, and comparing them with my kit, I have begun to realize just how wrong the Glencoe kit really is. For one thing, all the corners on the kit superstructure are sharp, while on the real thing, they were gently curved, giving the ship it’s distinctive futuristic look. Further, the bridge is completely off, with oversized bridge windows and a generally “wrong” appearance. Fortunately, while surfing the web, I came across a set of hi-res plans, which will aid me in the (suddenly much more extensive) reconstruction of this classic kit. I have also placed an order for a pound of Aves Apoxie sculpt, since it looks like I will be doing a lot of scuplting! Let’s put it this way: my “Box scale” Revell DC-7C looks a lot less intimidating than this kit at the moment!

Addendum: it turns out the kit is also slightly out of scale, about 1/355 instead of 1/350. Oh well, at least my 350 scale railing and ladders will still work…

The beginning

It was looking at me. It was on the top shelf with a price tag of $12, precisely half the cost of the same kit on the other side of the venders room. I was at MosquitoCon 2009, and the kit that was calling to me at that particular moment was the 1/350 Glencoe NS Savannah. I had heard horror stories about the kit, but after the Minicraft 727 I thought I could take on anything. And it WAS a good price. So I got the kit and brought it home. The only thing going for it is that it LOOKS reasonably accurate. The hull is two piece, slightly warped and poorly fitting, with massively overscale detail and a bizzare mount for the rudder, presumably because the kit was at one point sold motorized. As I had heard, all the detail was overscale, and molded on railings abound. And to compound the problem, good, hi-res photos of Savannah are hard to come by. My immediate reaction was to stick it back in the box and slide it into some corner of my stash and forget about it. But it was such a pretty shp…

The truth was, I had been wanting to build Savannah for quite some time, especially since they began the process of cleaning her last year. So I decided to grit my teeth and start on. My goal: have the most accurate Savannah possible ready for the IPMS Nationals in Columbus, Ohio. I realized that I have plenty of spare parts in 1/350, so getting a good start was not a problem. I have fourth months to finish, and being free from school in the summer gives me no excuse for not getting her done. However, realizing that I could easily procrastinate that time away, I decided to set aside a full hour ever day just for Savannah. Hopefully that will help keep me on track.

Instead of boring you (and myself) with this ship’s history, I will link to the Wikipedia article:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah

Coming up, I begin my battle with the hull…