Thursday 11 February 2021

Back in the Building Groove


The first of the next batch of models - and not one I had planned to build but needs must when the Dremel drives....

 The revised order to Warbases is in and with what material I have work has resumed on the ship building front. By dint of improvisation my planned six models has grown to eight - I tried a little experiment that worked out rather well - which gives a little more weight to the respective fleets. I am now building a further four ironclads and four side wheelers with each type being split equally between the fleets. The Union will be getting a pair of city class gunboats and a pair of Ellet rams whilst the Confederates will be getting the C.S.S. Missouri, a couple of side wheelers and the ship that is the subject of this post - the C.S.S. Manassas.

As usual this is my ‘based upon’ or ‘purely representational’ interpretation rather than being an exact replica but I am rather pleased with the way she has turned out. Let’s be honest, she is not the most challenging of models to make but I was uncertain of how to get that curve to the hull. Enter stage, third left - my Christmas present of a Dremel 3000. By using one of the sanding heads I was able to get a pretty good curve effect to the hull which is made up of two layers of 3mm thick MDF. The gun hood forward came from a bamboo barbecue skewer, the deck detail was made from card, the funnel from dowel rod and the flagstaff from a wooden cocktail stick. 

The Dremel was really handy for this model and now that I can shape curves it means that some models that I would not have attempted are now feasible. French and Russian pre dreadnoughts spring to mind as well as some other, as yet unmentioned ideas....

The model has the wrong shape of hull, the curve is probably not enough and she is too large compared to the rest of the collection. She may also have sported two funnels rather than one. Having said all that she is close enough for my needs and besides, she does have that certain whimsical bonkers look about her! 

As far as the name is concerned I have decided that she will be commissioned as the C.S.S. Molasses.

2 comments:

Mad Padre said...

Simple and quite splendid! You and your Dremel did well!

David Crook said...

Hello there Mad Padre,

I am still a novice with the Dremel but am really pleased with how this came out. It means that I am able to better shape hulls to allow for any curves in the shape. It is very early days but I have a number of Dremel based ideas to experiment with - and mine is only the Dremel 3000 which I believe is an entry level model (it came with 15 accessories).

I am please with how the model turned out although she is too large. Still, as my nava games are invariably grid based the size does not really matter.

All the best,

DC