Assembly finished….Now for the painting

Sealed and ready to paint. The actual ship appeared to have a rather tall and quite slim funnel although this may have been a replacement after she was captured. The flagstaff I found in a spares box and was originally going to be used to fashion gun barrels from. Note the hole drilled for the flagstaff - the funnel is glued directly to the roof of the casemate. The ruler is so you can see how big she is.

After a quick half hour session in the man cave at lunchtime the C.S.S. Tennessee is now ready to be painted. I had some deck detail, cut a suitable length for the funnel and managed to find a piece of previously painted cocktail stick to use for the flagstaff - very much a case of ‘here’s one I prepared earlier!’ 

The whole thing was coated with a sealer which is now drying prior to undercoating and then the final paint job.

According to most of the pictures and plans I have seen of the actual ship itself there should be a pair of funnels forward and two pairs aft, along with the deck mounted chains leading to the rudder aft and he anchors on the bow. As I have not depicted either of these parts on any of my previous models it seemed fairly pointless starting now despite the actual ship becoming unmanageable due to having the steering chains  severed by gunfire during the fateful battle of Mobile Bay. I have instead opted for my default deck detail of hatch covers! 

Strictly speaking the hull should also have an angle leading to the waterline which I probably could have done using my Dremel but for the fact that by the time I had thought about this the models was more or less complete - especially the casemate.

Once again then we have a ‘purely representational’ or Hollywood ‘based upon’ style of model - a fact of which I offer no apologies for! ;-)

Fitting out

The business end - I was struck by the angular shape that seems to feature in more and more modern warship designs.

The view from the stern. Note the steering cover on the stern.

Two posts in one day?! I can’t remember the last time I managed that!

Further progress with the C.S.S. Tennessee. After having cleaned up the filled sections I then set about adding the gun port covers. These are not the right shape but hey ho - neither are the vast majority of all the others in the collection! I drilled out a hole for the flagstaff and added a piece of plastic card to the stern - this is the cover for the steering assembly. 

The next step will be to organise the funnel and the flagstaff. I always paint these before I fix them to the model as I find easier than having to paint around a circle! Once these have been sourced the whole lot can be sealed prior to undercoating.

She will be ready to join the rest of the collection by the weekend.

Now, about Mobile Bay….

More on C.S.S. Tennessee

A plan of the actual ship. Due to constraints of my available modelling material - I use a uniform hull template for most of the models I have built - the final model will be ‘based upon’ rather than an accurate depiction.

The view from the forward port quarter….

….and the same from the aft starboard quarter.

Finally an overhead view showing the distinctive pilot house. Note the ‘softer’ sweep of the stern - a big improvement on the rather dumpy version I have used for the rest of the collection. Ho hum…. I will certainly NOT be rebuilding the earlier models!

The new routine in have settled into seems to work quite well in that by spending the half an hour or so on hobby time - the practical side of it, that is - it is quite surprising what one can get done! The case in point is of course the current build of the Confederate ironclad the C.S.S. Tennessee.

Yesterday evening I was able to apply filler to the casemate angles as well as modelling the pilot house. The plan for today is to give the filler a final smooth over with some fine grade sandpaper (more likely an emery board!) and this evening I shall apply the gunports and the stern rudder housing. I shall also be thinking about the final and flagstaff. Assuming all this is completed satisfactorily then tomorrow will see the sealing taking place with a view to starting the painting on Thursday. In any event she will be ready either by or over the weekend.

More pictures will follow in due course.

Building and Boxing

I am feeling rather virtuous today as I not only made a major step forwards with Eric’s WW2 collection but I was also able to get some modelling in.

From the bow - the yawning gap you see will be filled.

The view from the stern. The pilot house will fully enclosed once I have decided how best to do that. Again, notice the yawning chasm of the casemate corner crying out for lashings of filler!

Eric's collection previously made use of a wide variety of box sizes as well as some wooden drawers - most of which were solidly built (meaning heavy) but had seen better days. The upshot of this rather haphazard system was that it took up a substantial amount of space. Eric was meticulous in respect of his organisation so every box and drawer clearly identified the contents so the random selection of storage worked well enough but I needed to be able to properly tidy things up so took the decision to decant the collection into boxes of a uniform size. I duly ordered a pack of 20 boxes from Amazon and somewhat naively thought that would be enough….

I have filled 19 of them - 9 British, 5 American and 5 German but the latter also have 2 box files and 8 Airfix series two boxes. The German collection is very ‘Eric’ in that the artillery component is prodigious along with an impressive amount of armour - no Tiger 1s or Panthers though which was a surprise. Mind you, the pair of Jagdtigers, a Sturmtiger and a trio of King Tigers made up for this shortfall. Did I mention the eleven 88mm guns?

Now that I have decanted this lot it will be a whole lot easier for me to tidy the whole lot up into some kind of order for disposal but that will be for another day. I can now organise each box full in a far more leisurely fashion and without battling precariously balanced piles of odd sized boxes - rather like playing Jenga with odd shaped blocks. At least doing this has reduced the footprint of the collection in the man cave!

On the building front I was able to get some more work in on the C.S.S. Tennessee. As you can see the main parts of the casemate are not in place and the angles will be filled with filler. The plan is to tackle the pilot house tomorrow along with the filling so by the middle of the week she should be finished bar the painting. My building technique struggles with angles so it was quite a relief that this went relatively smoothly - I am crossing my fingers when I say that!

More on the Great Game

At last - back in the library! A secondhand hardback edition that set me back the princely sum of £7.45. What a bargain!

My copy of Peter Hopkirk’s magisterial book: The Great Game - On Secret Service in High Asia arrived this morning and so I am ready to plunge in to Pax Pamir and its head spinning subtlety and nuance filled gameplay.

The book is in pretty good condition with the dust jacket intact except for some slightly scuffed corners. It also has that ‘secondhand book from an indeterminate origin’ smell but nothing to be upset about.

The high regard in which this book is held in is best summed up by the comment on the rear of the dust jacket by no less a personage than Patrick Leigh Fermor, the famous travel writer and kidnapper of German Generals.

“The Great Game is absolutely marvellous, the best thing I’ve read for ages”.

High praise indeed!

A Great Game about….The Great Game!

Pax Pamir - a game of political skullduggery set in Afghanistan during the 19th century

The back of the box showing some of the components

I would not usually bother showing the inside of a box lid but this is really lovely to see

The ‘Great Game’ of course refers to the political shenanigans ‘twixt the British, the Russians and a whole host of Afghanistan and central Asian territories during the 19th century. The gist of it was that the British were wary of Russian plans and influence so close to India - and the Russians were wary of the proximity of the British to their own central Asian spheres of influence. For the locals it was a case of attempting to  trying to play both ends against the middle and either working with either of the great powers or attempting to form a viable coalition to be able to stand alone - an undertaking that would be a challenge given the regional propensity for double dealing, skullduggery and intrigue. This is a rude and very simplistic overview of what went on and so for more detail about the ‘Great Game’ click on the link. An essential read would be Peter Hopkirk’s excellent book ‘The Great Game’ - a copy of which I have winging its way to me courtesy of evil bay as my own sadly disappeared during the great missing box disaster of years gone by.

Pax Pamir is a game based on the situation in Afghanistan following the collapse of the Durrani Empire. Essentially players represent Afghan leaders, all of whom are attempting to forge a new state. It is a game of alliances, backstabbing, bribery, assassination, currying favour in one hand whilst wielding a knife in the other and all the while contending with the British and Russian ‘Ferengi’ (foreigners) - who can used or abused as required (usually the former). The game is designed for 1 to 5 players and events are driven by cards which interact and effect the course of affairs in many different ways. As a largely solo gamer having the ability to play this single handed against what looks like a quite challenging solo card deck is a real bonus although playing it with five people would be a blast. Sadly it would probably be too long for a club night but perhaps it will be something to think about going forwards.

A selection of the game components - note the use of period artwork

The map and more of the components - cards, coins and coalition blocks.

Production quality is quite frankly off the scale. The game cards (there are 142 split across three types) all feature coloured artwork and are beautiful to look at. Personalities from period along with troop types and special events also feature. All the playing pieces are top quality and the version I have contains the optional metal coins as well as the card counters included. The game map is actually printed on linen and has a kind of period feel to it - a nice touch.

Yup! Flashman makes an appearance!

I am really pleased to have gotten a copy of this game as the period is certainly an interesting one and is replete with gaming potential. A few year ago I flirted with a fictional NW Frontier setting - the Roghan Valley - and fought a couple of actions using my block armies. It was all good fun but for one reason or another I never really pursued it. Whilst Pax Pamir is not a Wargame as such I hope that by playing it I might dabble in some games set in the Roghan Valley once again.

We shall see!

Back in the Ship Building Groove

Back in the ship building groove indeed - and a cracker to start off with! Note the hull shape. This has rather more sweeping lines leading to her stern than my usual and rather blunt standard type.

A tentative restart but a welcome one for sure! I had a few hours in the man cave this afternoon - initially to sort some boxes out but that took me a lot less time than envisaged so I parked myself by the modelling table and got busy.

The first thing I noticed was that one of the hulls I had been working on would not be quite right for the model I had in mind so I set that to one side - I have an alternate idea for it so all was not lost - and so instead set to scratching an itch that has been itching for sometime now. I am referring of course to the Confederate ironclad the C.S.S. Tennessee of Mobile Bay fame. 

To be honest I was not looking forward to this as she has a rather unusual casemate with angled corners and with the pilot house built in rather than parked on the roof so to speak. I had all manner of problems making octagonal casemates previously as my usual building technique works best with right angles! I ended up using filler for the angled corners but don’t tell anybody….

The two previous octagonal casemate ironclads - C.S.S. Virginia II in the middle and for the life of me I cannot remember off the top of my head the name of the other!

Anyway, the picture you see at the top of this post is where I am at thus far. Once I have added the front and rear of the casemate I shall use a smaller piece of balsa wood to fill in the pilot house with filler applied in the angles. Although it can dent easily the balsa wood insert will be protected by the two raised casemate sides as well as lashings of sealer, paint and varnish so should be ok.

Depending on how it works out I may well build another copy of this ship except with a Union flag - I did the same for the Atlanta and both versions still need to have their spar torpedo apparatus added.

I have to say that it felt really good being back in the gluing, filing, painting and varnishing business!