1930's Aberdeen Steam Trawler - Modified 1/48 Calder Craft Milford Star

[Guest]

Andy/Colin, thanks for your interest, much appreciated.

Have made a new back wall for the wheelhouse, and panelled this and the wheelhouse roof with 3 x 0.5mm Lime Wood strips. Strips were set 0.25mm apart and a triangular needle file was used to chamfer the edges.

The kit comes with the following white metal fittings: -

Wheel and Standard

1-Voice Pipe(a Trawler had two, will make my own)

Engine Room Telegraph

Binnacle

Not suppied, and will be scratch built: -

Echo Sounder Box

2-Doors for wheelhouse

Chart Table

Door for companionway in floor leading to the Skippers Cabin below the wheelhouse

Thought you might like to see a late 1950's photo of a Trawler, this one does not have a Verandah Deck at the Wheelhouse.

Cheers Derek

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[colin m]

One of the cable ships I worked on was just over 30 yrs old, spent most of it's life in the far east and had wood worm on the bridge !

Colin M.........

[Guest]

Hi All, spent quite a lot of time this week cleaning up the joint between the deck and hull, also the moulding imperfections on the GRP Hull. Marked off and drilled holes for the single and double ball handrail stanchions on the superstructure, see below. The two small blocks of wood you can see have been cut from a larger block supplied with the kit, these will be the water tanks above the engine room and behind the wheelhouse.

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There is an error in the kit in so much as Calder Craft have forgotten the steps from the deck onto the top of the engine room casing, this is situated just aft of the ladder base coming down from the Wheelhouse. There are usually two steps either chequer plate or round bar rungs U-shaped, I will be using the latter method. a gap has to be left on the handrail along the side of the casing for access to these rungs

Made up some safety bars by stripping the insulation off some old solid conductor telephone wire, and super glued them to each of the ten wash ports on the bulwarks.

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Have also stained the Wheelhouse roof and back wall panelling 'teak' (not as red as it looks in the photo).

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Next I am trying to get all the wooden bits finished so that I can apply sanding sealer to them and start adding the fittings and get started painting.

Cheers Derek

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[Guest]

This week I got the Bulwark Capping Rail Fitted.

The kit supplies some printed plywood sheets for the three Hatches on the model; comprising of coaming sides and a printed top sheet to represent the hatch cover, I have attached a photo of how the Hatch coamings were really constructed. I have made the Fish Room Hatch square rather than the rectangular one on the kit. I have modified the construction using the kit's coamings but fabricated the top from 3 x 0.5mm Lime wood strips. Will also plank in the hatch covers, rather than use the printed plywood sheet supplied.

Finally, have been cutting out the components for the four Trawl Gallows. I am not going to use the plywood strips for the I-section web of the Gallow's, but will use some 3 x 0.5mm Lime wood strips as I found the Plywood splintered during cutting.

Cheers Derek

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[Guest]

Hi all, this week I have made and fitted the bulwark stiffeners. The instructions says to fit 20/side, but I have used 28/side as I think this is more realistic. Used 3x0.5mm lime wood strips instead of the plywood suggested in the instructions.

The first photo below shows the rudder and white metal fixing provided in the kit. This is probably aimed at those wanting to sail the ship, but as I want it for a static display, I have traced the rudder post platework from the original ships drawings, and using scrap 1.5mm tk plywood, cut out two identical shapes and glued them together to make this area more factual.

Cheers Derek

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[Guest]

Hi there,

I became a member of this forum after I have found your very interesting building report. Searching the internet for a model suitable to run with a life steam engine (fiberglass hull, not too wide, beautiful lines, sufficient displacement, and not too big) I found the Milford Star.

Looking foward to see how your project continues. Regards, womblrup

[Guest]

Hi womblurb, thanks for your message and welcome to the forum. I am making my model a static display, and have no experience with model steam engines, but there are plenty in the forum who can help you if you need any advice etc, their a frendly bunch so don't be afraid to ask.

Progress this week is as follows.

Thought I would tackle the trawling gallows, a job I have been putting off as it's a bit fiddly. As mentioned earlier I substituted 3x0.5mm lime wood strip for the printed plywood supplied with the kit for the web of the I-beam which makes the gallows. I filled a cup with boiling water and dipped the lime wood strip centre section into the water to soften it up, and gently bent it round a 20mm diameter piece of scrap plastic from one of my old aircraft kits. I then soaked it again in the water for about a minute, and held it on a loop with a fold back clip. These strips were left overnight to dry with the clips in place. When gluing the strips to each of the flanges of the I-beam I coated both surfaces with PVA glue, left them for 5 minutes to dry before joinig them together (as you would with a contact adhesive). They were then left overnight for the glue to dry properly. The feet and stiffeners were added, so that the gallows were inclined at 70 Deg. from the horizontal.

Fitted all the wash pot doors, the platform coaming for the lifeboat and the breakwater; might add a flange to the top edge of the breakwater as I would guess that they would have used a bulb flat to stiffen the free edge.

Finally I deviated from the model and made up my own Centre Fairleads, might add a few more stiffeners.

Still have a few small fiddly bits, them I will paint the wood with sanding sealer, and prime the GRP hull, so will post more when there is something significant to show. Cheers Derek

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[Guest]

Several people who have posted on his build have advised that they plan to make this model. Thought I would point out an error (one of many) on this kit. If you look at the first photo below you will see that the drawing supplied with the kit correctly shows the chevron rubbing strakes on the side of the ships hull aligned correctly with the gallows. If however you look at the moulding on the same photo you will see that these strakes have been moved aft a whole pitch. The photo of the box art below shows the error on the finished model. Its up to each modeller of course, but I am going the move the gallows to align with the strakes as they should be which means that the fore mast and reeving has also to move aft; don't fancy messing with the GRP moulding. Hope this helps. Cheers Derek

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[Guest]

Been doing all the final bits and pieces before I start using the sanding sealer and painting.

Have added the Fish Room and Stores Hatch Coaming to the Deck; a Reeving Sheeve and Post on the stbd and port bulwarks; on the Forecastle have drilled the holes for he Handrail Stanchions; a Seating for a Water Tank and added a flange to the Breakwater.

Have added the Navigation Lamp Holders on the roof of the Wheelhouse and two seatings for Water Tanks. An Access Hatch Coaming has been added to the Engine Room Casing.

Photos of similar vessels of the era show that the Wheelhouse Doors are panelled, also specifically for the 'Star' vessels the port side has no window and the stbd side has a window. To represent the panelling, have used some scrap 3 ply wood and carved off the outer ply on the inside and outside to represent panelling. For the door with a window have used two white metal frames supplied with the kit, and will sandwich the window between them later.

Have added the web stiffeners under the Verandah Deck using 8x0.5mm lime wood.

I noticed on the photo of an old Trawler I posted earlier that there was a box section and two Padeyes fitted on top of the Gallows, so have made up something to represent this. The box is made from 3x0.5mm lime wood strip and the Padeyes from scrap plastic.

I think I am now ready to apply the sanding sealer and smooth of everything ready for installing the fittings and painting. Cheers Derek

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[Ian M]

You are doing a great job here Derek. Its always good when you get to the point where you can start thinking paint.

Ian M

[Guest]

Thanks Ian, airbrushing this baby will be like painting the Forth Road Bridge with a tooth brush!!!

Anyway have now applied sanding sealer, sanded down and primed all the principal components with my usual Tamiya Primer aerosol. Have done the wheelhouse and roof white as the walls of the wheelhouse inside will be white, and the outside wall upper half and roof also white. Am now going to concentrate on finishing the wheelhouse. One point to note is when doing the mast fittings one of the bore sizes were way too small and in other cases too large; had to cut the ring to fit the mast diameter and used wooden fillers where there was a gap. Cheers Derek

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[Guest]

Have finished the Wheelhouse internals, and added a scrap piece of plastic to represent a roof light, have also used scrap wood to make up a fish finding echo sounder for the rear wall; these were fitted to trawlers after WWII and was based on the asdics used for detecting submarines.

The support for the wheel, duckboard and the chart and chart table were not supplied with the kit and had to be scratch built. The roof and rear wall have been roughed up slightly and some green mildew weathering powder added. Have also dirtied the floor

Have designed the lettering and funnel flag decals, and have them on order from 'Barry's Model Lettering', the lettering being in very thin white vinyl. As you will see I will be naming my Trawler the 'Star of Freedom', its pedigree is the same as the 'Star of Orkney' but I have found two photos one port one starboard of the vessel which is very helpful. Unfortunately when ownership of this vessel was transfered to the Milford Fisheries Ltd., and renamed the 'Robert Limbrick' it was lost with all hands (crew of 12) in February 1957 during a storm off the Isle of Mull. No distress signal was received, the wreck being discovered by a Fraserburgh Drifter. Cheers Derek

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[Ian M]

Looking very good that wheel house. Lived in.

I can recall if this is a stand model or an R/C, But if on the shelf or in the water its going to look great.

Ian M

[Ian M]

Ops just read the previous post.

Stand model it is then!

Ian M

[Guest]

A few shots of the Wheelhouse showing it masked off for final painting, windows glazed, rear panelled wall fitted and the emergency steering room added but still to be painted. The emergency steering room was a Navy thing when the Trawlers were used for mine sweeping duties.

I plan to leave the port side Wheelhouse door open, and the shots below are taken through this door frame after the inner Wheelhouse panelled roof was fitted.

Finally have been working on the roof of the Wheelhouse, the kit does not include the supports for the Vent and Morse Lamp, so made these out of cocktail sticks. For the lamps for the Navigation Lights and Morse Lamp, I used the plastic cover you get off of some paint brushes. The Water Tank overflow pipe is a paper clip.

Cheers Derek

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