Hi all,

having some time on my hands due to the fact that my Surprise is still awaiting the first installment and I'll probably need a few more installments before I can get started with it (the deck would be a mere minimum), I decided to have a look in my old shoebox and see what I had collected in the past.

And there it was, a lovely and rare model of a Dutch light cruiser from WW II, the Hr.Ms. De Ruyter, which was laid down in 1933, commissioned in October 1936 and sunk in February 1942 during the first Battle of the Java Sea whilst being the flagship of the ABDA-fleet (ABDA stands for the countries that had contributed ships to the fleet, namely America, Britain, the Netherlands (Dutch) and Australia). About 90% of this fleet was sunk during this battle or in the immediate aftermath of the battle.

The De Ruyter was a lightly built light cruiser of about 6500 long tons, whose size and weight was kept down during design to make it as cheap as possible. The ship carried 7 5.9" guns (3x2 + 1x1) with 10 40 mm Bofros anti-aircraft guns plus a number of machine guns as armament. She did not caryy any torpedo tubes to keep the weight down. She did, however, carry an excellent fire control system.

But what reduced her effectiveness even further was the fact that the fleet had had little chance to train and work together before the battle started.

The De Ruyter sank after being hit by a single Type 93 torpedo fired by the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro and she sank three hours later with the loss of 345 men out of 435, the fleet admiral Karel Doorman included.

The model I will be building is a 1:250 cardboard scale model with some additions to improve the overall look of her.

The model is supplied (as most cardboard models) in book form, which contains 10 A4 sheet of cardboard with the parts printed on it and 4 A4 paper sheets with instructions and drawings.

Below are some sample pictures of the starting point.



Book front



Assembly drawings and railing templates



Hull formers



Hull Panels



Superstructure parts



Book back with aircraft and flags

I kept the pictures deliberately vague and incomplete to reduce the chance of illegal copying. During building the photo's will be of much better quality. (well, that is the intention ).

I will do a build report of her on here, as long as people understand that this is a secundary model and as soon as I can get cracking with the Surprise, that ship will take precedence.

Hope y'all gonna like it.

Adrie.

Hi Adrie
Card models are at times challenging good luck with her and keep the updates coming
regards
Andy

Many thanks for looking in and dropping a line, Alan, Andy and Mark.

It's going to be a fun build, I'm sure.

But, as with all modelling, it won't be too much of a hassle as long as you remember to take plenty of time and not rush it. Of course, there will be small bits which will be taxing, but as long as you score and bend the parts carefully, nothing is un-doable.

Of course you do need the right tools, a sturdy modelling knife with plenty of spare blades (NOT the one shown in the picture, that one is to help me score the parts), tweezers, a sturdy ruler to assist with scoring and bending and a small awl as well as the right glues. I tend to use UHU for large sections, tacky PVA for the smaller sections and parts and CA glue for the metal bits.

Anyway, time to get cracking again.

I started with the hull formers and the 'backbone'. This model uses a triangular section to act as the back bone.





The triangular centre is built up from two parts and a connector.

Once constructed and set aside to dry, 13 hull formers were cut out, scored and bent and slid over the backbone but not yet glued. This will be done later when the waterline formers have been added.





This was followed by cutting the bow formers, which were scored, bent and glued together.





And that's where I got to so far. Next one up is the stern former section and the waterline formers.

Which will mean more cutting, scoring and bending.

See you all till next time!

Adrie

P.S. Oh and Mark? What'ya mean, patience??? Consider the two hours it will take me to get the hull in place compared to the two to three months to plank a wooden hull? This is the easy way, m8!

Thanks for your kind words, Andy.

And having done my chores, I was allowed another couple of hours of building. So here goes .....

I continued with the stern formers, which were cut out, scored, bent and glued together.



I put that aside and started on the waterline formers, cutting them out then scoring and bending them.





Then with the four tabs the formers were glued together. The Bow former section was then placed on the front of the waterline former and checked that the tabs fell withing the tabs of the waterline former. A little extra cutting was needed to make it fit snugly, after which the bow former was glued into its place and pressed down to make good contact. The triangular backbone was slid over the bow former backtab and glued in place.



This was followed by sliding the backtab of the stern former into the back end of the triangular backbone and glueing it in place after which the stern former was glued down on the waterline former.



All the hull formers are still unglued. Once the above former set has dried under weight to keep it flat, they will be glued as well. But that will be tomorrow.

That is, if "'Ur 'oo shall be oobeyed at all times" allows it.

Wish me luck....

Adrie.

Very nice Adrie, never even considered a card model but may have a go one day.
Steve

I'm honoured, Mr. T. Just wish I knew what it was for. .

But I promise I won't let it go to my head!

Alan, Steve, I must admit that the choice for this build was partly because I hoped I could introduce others to this type of modelling. So, PLEASE, stay with me and I hope it will stay interesting enough for you all.

There are so many different cardboard models to chose from that there is definitely a model that suits your wishes. There are even a load of free models that you can download for a bit of a taster.

But I will not digress any longer for fear of overselling it.

So let's get cracking again.

It's time to glue the hull formers to the waterline formers which is done by placing a drop of UHU glue onto the marked positions and pushing the hull former down.



It is important to make sure that the bottom tab of the hull former lies in line with the tabs of the waterline fomers. Both will be used to glue the sides against so they should be flush to one another. Since I used a drop of UHU I have about a minute to get the position spot on because it will allow some movement during that time. Once the former is in the right position I use a tweezer to push the bottom tab of the hull former squarely down onto the waterline former.

I started doing this with hull former 10, the one in the middle of the model because if there is a misallignment it is likely to be the worst in the middle. So middle former first, then take the next one to the front, the next one to the back, front, back, front, back etcetera untill all hull formers have been glued to to bottom.

Leave it to dry for about ten minutes with weights on the triangular centre to keep it flat.





Note that the hull formers are still free from the triangular centre. You take it one step at a time and make sure that is all done correctly before moving on to the next step.

I was pleased with the result, so I put another blob of UHU glue onto the card and transferred a drop to the small triangular tabs at the back of the hull formers. I started with No 10 again.

With the glue in place I used two paint containers to ensure the former is upright. (One reason I am happy with the Revell acrylic paints is the square bottle it come in. Mind you its also my favourite brushing paint.) Anyway, with the former lined up correctly, I pressed down the two triangular tabs with my fingers, re-checked the position and a final pinch before going on to the next former.



If there is insufficient space for a paint bottle, go for something else that is smaller and still square ...... like .....



I've even used CD cases before, whatever is available.

Once the hull formers were glued in place, I placed the 'weights' back on and left it alone for final drying.

Note that although the formers are glued in place now, there is still quite a bit of give in the formers as can be seen in the next picture.



But if there is no bend in the material, it will spring back nicely.



Try doing that with a wooden model!!!!

But put an unwanted bend in there and it will cause a lot of grief so make sure that when handling parts to do it softly but resolute.

Which incidentely is my take on married life!

(I wish ).

Anyway, next step is working the decks so it starts resembling an actual ship.

More about that later!

Adrie.

Looking good

Hi Adrie
Nice work on the deck and have a peek at my L 48 card Zeppelin build here

http://forum.model-space...aspx?g=posts&t=9276

If you havent already spotted it that is
regards
Andy

Hey Andy!



Wow, wow and double wow!

To be honest I did see the listing of a zeppelin but I thought it was a plastic model so I didn't look at it any closer .

Thanks for alerting me to this and well done!!!!!

A great model!

Adrie.

Looking great Adrie, she is certainly growing at a pace.... .. You still got my interest and am sure that will continue.... .. Keep the pics coming...

Regards

Alan