On The Slipway

Two types if winches were present, the variable speed winch (VSM) and the electric winch (EW). These winches are scattered mainly around the barbettes and the forward boat deck area for the boat derricks.

The above image shows HMS Hood shortly after her construction with both types of winch clearly visible. There are two VSWs between the forward and aft turret pairs plus two more on the starboard quarterdeck . Two EWs are placed at B-barbette, two on either side on the conning tower, two near the boat derricks, and two against the quarterdeck bulkhead. The winches near the turrets aren’t positioned symmetrically, so not all winches are shown on the above photograph.

If you look very closely, you’ll notice that the rigging of the boat cranes was changes at the end of Hoods career. Two winches were placed on the structure between the funnels as indicated above (reconstructed winch shown). All (most?) references indicate these winches are the same winches as previously placed on deck level but changed position. But then there would be no winch to drive the derrick, only the hook, and the rigging scheme no longer makes sense: these have to be new winches to operate the derricks. Images showing both in a single shot weren’t found.

The evidence is really staring you in the face if you look closely at the above photograph from the official HMS Hood site of these two sailors posing in front of the boat derrick’s EW. The 16″dinghy stowed to the bulkhead and the 25″ fast motor boat indicate this picture was taken after the winches were placed between the funnels and yet a winch remains visible. So, the number of EWs was increased to ten, though only eight models are required.

The left half of the image shows how the rigging of the boat derricks was lead to these new winches. The right half of the image shows that the two EWs on the quarterdeck were later moved inside and only the drums remain visible. No small wonder, considering that Hoods quarterdeck was always flooded when underway. Having the winches inside isn’t new, all the Queen Elizabeth battleships have their winches inside.

After having done a thorough head counter the two types of winches were traced using a CAD program. Some perspective is always present but they should be reasonably accurate. The VSWs still remain a bit of a guess though.

The main difficulty in making the winches are the drums. I spent many hours trying the get the lathe to do what I wanted and made many failed attempts. The drum was made from brass stock. made flush and the center was marked. A 1.0mm hole was drilled in next. The lathe was set to make a tube with a wall thickness of 0.1mm. The lathe was set at its maximum rpm.

The tube was parted from the stock brass using a parting tool bought from MicroMark and ground to a 0.4mm width as visible top left. Note I use the drill to support to tube while parting. Although I broke a few drills while experimenting (parting tool not set at the correct height), there really was no way to get a good tube without supporting it, otherwise the lathe tears the tube from the rod. This exercise was repeated for the styrene insert, drilled in with a 0.4mm drill, cut to size and fitted with stock styrene rod.

The next part proved to be very troublesome: I wanted to have 5 holes in the drum, spaced out at 72 degrees. I initially glued the brass tube to stock styrene by Plastruct, but small deviations in its roundness made this a futile effort. The rod was simply not accurate enough and I spent many hours and breaking many drills getting the part right. When using rod made to size with the lathe, I had no such problems and the five holes could be drilled in. I set the drill press to a high rpm and mounted the drum on the divider (Proxxon). You have to be really careful here, as the drill can occasionally push the styrene our and you can also crush the drum with ease in the chuck. Of course, this happened a few times.

Eight drums are now sitting comfortably in the EWs. The winches are built from mainly lathed parts.

Here you can see the completed EWs, with the etched parts for the control box and the some hand wheels. A nice exercise in getting to know the lathe better.

Two paravanes were mounted just aft of the conning tower, stowed to a bulkhead. Two others were stored in the lockers in the forward breakwater. There are many pictures of paravanes at The Vickers Photographic Archive. The size was determined from several Anatomy of the Ship series and estimates from photographs.

I used a drawing from the Grand Prix Shuppan series as a starting point for the design of the etched parts. Most early Japanese warships had Royal Navy style equipment on board and this drawing is an excellent match.

Note that the paravanes are not stored flat to the bulkhead, but at an angle. There’s a lifting eye on the superstructure and a hoist on the paravane that is off center so this was probably the easiest way to store it.

The part itself is made up from a tapered tube (lathe) and a series of etched parts. The cradles are already fixed to the models. The hoists aren’t in the same spot, but these parts are very very small and also not well visible when fixed to the model.

There isn’t really much else to say, except that they are very small and took about five hours to assemble.

The large 44″ searchlights of HMS Hood were one of the last items of which I did not have good information except for a few pictures. Fortunately, John Lambert issued a series of drawings, L/O/162, although he mentions it’s the Mk VII of 1942-44, while Hood was sunk in 1941. I ordered them anyway and initially thought they were wrong as the frame didn’t match the photographs. However, I found out that nearly all pictures of the searchlights showed their port side and that I somehow thought the unit was symmetrical. On closer inspection it seems the drawing of the searchlights is as good a match as far as I can tell. This picture shows some of the best images of the searchlight. The images at left ware taken of HMS Onslow (top) and HMS Prince of Wales (bottom) with HMS Hood at right.

I intend to build the searchlights in two parts. The frame is mainly built in styrene (can’t see how to make a photoetch part that I can physically fold into the frame shape) and the projector itself mainly as a photoetched part.

I started with strips cut to shape for the frame and gluing them into the shape shown right. The front and rear should angle back about 8 degrees and this first attempt resulted in very uneven parts. It’s not so well visible in this particular picture but when continuing to add the rest of the frame, the part didn’t really work out. On to the Mk II miniature frame! This time, I spent some more time pondering and I eventually took a slightly different approach by cutting triangles first. At the bottom the mould for the chopper is shown. I use this approach a lot to cut angled parts to size. At right you can see a small template triangle in place to position the template. After a few sizes of triangle, you end up with the size you need (there’s always a slight difference in the template and copy size, usually about 0.1 mm.

Top left shows how to prepare large amounts of strip at an angle. Works pretty well, but right shows the easier approach; strips glued to the triangles. Now it’s just a matter of chopping the parts to size using another small mould. I always have large cheap styrene sheets laying nearby to spend on such actions. Two chops later and the front and rear base frames are cut to size much more consistently (and easier) than adding strips cut to size.

The next mould is a small plate angled forward 8 degrees and placeholder strips for the frame. The two blocks are for positioning what’s shown at right; two strips glued to a center block that acts as a spacer (and makes it easier to handle as well). Add a bit of glue and it’s fixed. Next, the part is cut to size and the same mould is used to glue the second frame. All parts were given some superglue in the corners. Now both the front and end plate are at the correct angle. Using a few moulds seems to be a lot of work but in the end the result was less work, resulted in less rejected parts and the parts more consistent in shape than when not using the moulds.

The top half of the frame was built from strip drilled in using my new drill press which I bought for the occasion. The side detail was built from a small ring, a small tube and some triangles.

This part was sanded to size and added to the frame. I made another ring for the searchlight bearing and checked if the part was nicely aligned. The hand wheel was then added, starting from a strip drilled in with a small 0.3 mm drill using the drill press. I start using thicker and slow-curing CA more frequently when bonding metals as the photoetch parts do not allow most of the other glues I have to stick.

The second hand wheel is being constructed from a small ring and strip. It barely survives the chopper! The end result is a small part to be added to the searchlight base.

Here’s the completed frame. The base part is made using my new lathe The lower base part has a conical shape and a 2mm gap so that it can be fitted easily on a disk on the model. The top part of the base is a small disk but with a very small 2mm extension so that it fits concentrically in the lower base part.

This is the design for the lantern which will be nearly all photoetch except for a small disk to close the part off. I couldn’t add all the required detail in a double-layer part, so I made three additional part to be glued onto the main part. The two parts for the side will be aligned using some rod, the top part will be aligned using the small square visible in the middle of the main part. Should be a nice folding exercise!

Go on to part II.