Wagoneer81 Posted March 1, 2011 Share Posted March 1, 2011 (edited) Back around the first of December, I was asked by my girlfriends cousin ( A fellow Titanic and passenger liner enthusiest) if I knew of any ship builders that would and could build a 1/350 Titanic model for him. The very night before, I had been thinking hard about digging my Minicraft Deluxe kit out of storage and starting on it so I said, "Sure, I'll build it forya!" I finished it on 2-20 and delivered it to him the following day. This was a very fun, very challenging build considering the molds are 35+ years old and do show their age... These are the old Entex molds from around 1975, Minicraft bought them, I believe, in the '80's and then updated them in the 1990's after expeditions to the wreck site showed them that there were several detail related errors in the kit. Well, I jokingly told Dylan that I would make all the mistakes on his, that way my future build would be perfect... It was a learning experience... Especially considering that I want to build three more of these kits for my own collection; I want all three Olympic class ships... HMS Titanic, an HMS Olympic in her 1916 Dazzle Camo/Troopship fit and the last of the three sisters, the hospital ship HMHS Britannic as lost in the Kea Channel in 1916. This is the Deluxe kit built box stock, everything seen, PE and such, is in the kit. The most difficult part of the build was giving it up to its new owner but he appreciates what went in to her just as much as I do. Isn't that a pretty face? I took close to a hundred pictures before giving her up. If anybody wants to see more, just ask. Edited March 1, 2011 by Wagoneer81 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent G Posted March 1, 2011 Share Posted March 1, 2011 Nice! Very nice, indeed. You did a marvelous job on this oldie. I wouldn't have wanted to give her up either. What color did you use for the funnels? G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wagoneer81 Posted March 1, 2011 Author Share Posted March 1, 2011 Nice! Very nice, indeed. You did a marvelous job on this oldie. I wouldn't have wanted to give her up either. What color did you use for the funnels? G G, thanks for the compliments! 'White Star Buff' is the color on the funnels and it was custom mixed according to the instructions provided in the deluxe kit. Using Testors 1/4oz. paints, it's mixed as follows: 7 drops 1145 white 3 drops 1170 light tan 1 drop 1167 tan 1 drop 1114 yellow 3 drops 1166 brown. Minicraft worked with maritime artist Ken Marschall and gave us builders a pretty extensive and accurate painting guide for this kit. Even if someone is building one of the older versions, I highly recommend obtaining a set of instructions from the Deluxe Reissue. On the rest of the ship, I used Floquil engine black for the hull and funnel caps, the red anti-fouling paint is Floquil Boxcar Red. That or Tuscan Red make for the best anti-fouling paints, IMHO. Floquil also makes a retarder that you mix into the paint to slow its curing time, this allows it to flow out nicely and no brushmarks show. (That's another little secret about this build, I don't have an airbrush. This model was entirely handpainted.) I started using Humbrol white and finished using Testors flat white because the Humbrol didn't cover worth a darn. I originally painted the deck with Testors 'Wood' but as that turned out to be a VERY close match to the buff on the funnels (yeah, after all that mixing, go figure... ) I mixed a thin light wash of pale yellow, white and tan and quickly went over the decks to lighten them. Much to my suprise, it worked and simulated the natural pine deck quite well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter31a Posted March 1, 2011 Share Posted March 1, 2011 What - No Decaprio and Winslet standing on the railing at the bow? Great build Chris! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted March 1, 2011 Share Posted March 1, 2011 I have this model waiting to be built. Yours turned out well. The kit is pretty nice, and having the PE parts that replace the plastic molded parts is a nice option (you can use either the plastic molded parts or their PE replacement, the kit supplies both). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCat Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 That's a beautiful build Chris. LOVE the details you put into this build. I also have this kit and the Lusitania as well. I haven't build them yet. Mainly because I don't really have room to display them. Again, CONGRATS on this awesome build Chris. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el Presidente Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 Fantastic job. That is a thing of beauty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 Titanic trivia: Did you know that only three of the four funnels are "real?" The designers added the fourth one because they thought the ship looked cooler with four, and they thought people would be more impressed with a ship that had four funnels instead of only three. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wagoneer81 Posted March 3, 2011 Author Share Posted March 3, 2011 Titanic trivia: Did you know that only three of the four funnels are "real?" The designers added the fourth one because they thought the ship looked cooler with four, and they thought people would be more impressed with a ship that had four funnels instead of only three. Yeah, I get a chuckle when I see CGI images of Titanic and there's smoke rolling from all four funnels... The fourth funnel really did even out the look of the ship. That and rival Cunard liner Lusitania had four funnels, so... While the fourth funnel wasn't a 'boiler uptake casing' like the first three, it did house several engine room vents AND ladders because of its position directly over the engine room. Here's a unique view, from Olympics #4 funnel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent G Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 Didn't they store deck chairs in funnel #4? More trivia: Titanic sailed with a fire smoldering in one of her coal bunkers. It started early on, and short of emptying the entire bunker it could not be extinguished. G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 Maybe the most ironic bit of trivia about the Titanic: On the night it sank, D.W. Griffith's 1911 movie "The Poseidon Adventure" (about a sinking ocean liner!) was the movie being shown in the second class dining room! True! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wagoneer81 Posted March 4, 2011 Author Share Posted March 4, 2011 Didn't they store deck chairs in funnel #4? More trivia: Titanic sailed with a fire smoldering in one of her coal bunkers. It started early on, and short of emptying the entire bunker it could not be extinguished. G I'm not sure about the deck chairs, though I have heard that... it would be an interesting point to research though. I looked hard the other night but couldnb't find it; I had a picture of Titanic in port with a man, visible from the waist up, standing in the top of #4 funnel on the port side. It was an engine room crewman who climbed up an access ladder from below, to "have a look about". I did know about the bunker fire. It was in the forward bunker of boiler room #5 which put it directly amidship. It was reported after they departed Southampton, before they even arrived at Cherbourg. Reports were that they did slowly flood the bunker with water after it was reported and thought they had it out but it rekindled less than 24 hours later and they worked on putting it out with hoses through one of the upper access hatches. According to inquery reports, they (the surviving 'black-gang' boiler room crew) were pretty sure that they had it extinguished before she met the 'berg. Another bit of trivia, speaking of coal; Due to a strike by Welsh coal miners, while at Southhampton, White Star Line had to appropriate coal from the bunkers of their liners Mystic and Oceanic to have enough coal for Titanic's Trans-Atlantic voyage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wagoneer81 Posted March 4, 2011 Author Share Posted March 4, 2011 Maybe the most ironic bit of trivia about the Titanic: On the night it sank, D.W. Griffith's 1911 movie "The Poseidon Adventure" (about a sinking ocean liner!) was the movie being shown in the second class dining room! True! That is pretty ironic... That'd be kinda like showing one of the old 'Airport' series disaster movies on a trans-Atlantic flight, dontcha think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I'm not sure about the deck chairs, though I have heard that... it would be an interesting point to research though. I looked hard the other night but couldnb't find it; I had a picture of Titanic in port with a man, visible from the waist up, standing in the top of #4 funnel on the port side. It was an engine room crewman who climbed up an access ladder from below, to "have a look about". From what I've read, the fourth funnel contained air vents for the first class smoking room, the engine and boiler rooms and the galley, and a ladder (ladder from what, I don't know. Or why there was a ladder in there in the first place and what was the point of climbing up inside the funnel?). So on a cold day you would see a bit of steam coming out of the fourth funnel, but not thick black smoke like the other three, which were the actual engine exhaust stacks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 Another interesting fact about Titanic: Even though the Titanic carried more than 2,200 people (passengers and crew combined), there were only 20 lifeboats (16 wooden boats and 4 collapsible ones) with a total capacity of about 1,100 people. In the best-case scenario, even if all the lifeboats had been filled to capacity, at least half of the people on board were doomed to die. But because of the chaos and confusion, most of the lifeboats were actually launched with only a few people on board, far below their capacity. Originally the Titanic was to be fitted with 64 wooden lifeboats, giving a lifeboat capacity of about 4,000... more than enough to accommodate the ship's maximum capacity of 3,600 people (passengers and crew combined). But the ship's owners felt that all those lifeboats would make the decks look too cluttered. And existing law at the time only required a ship like Titanic to have a total lifeboat capacity of about 1,100 (16 lifeboats) anyway. So in fact, even though Titanic's lifeboat capacity (16 wooden boats plus the 4 collapsibles) was only enough to accommodate roughly half the people on board, the lifeboat capacity actually exceeded the minimum requirements of the time! And most people who died didn't drown... they froze to death, because the water was so cold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jairus Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 Maybe the most ironic bit of trivia about the Titanic: On the night it sank, D.W. Griffith's 1911 movie "The Poseidon Adventure" (about a sinking ocean liner!) was the movie being shown in the second class dining room! True! That is a wives tale. There was no movie theater and showing movies (silent then) was a specialized affair. Where are you getting your facts and trivia Harry? Try this site as it is the greatest collection of Titanic engineers and historians I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Titanic-Titanic.com. I have been a member for 2.5 years and never heard that story be confirmed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 That is a wives tale. There was no movie theater and showing movies (silent then) was a specialized affair. Where are you getting your facts and trivia Harry? http://www.snopes.com/lost/poseidon.asp And many other sources. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 Hmmmm... several other sources say it's not true. I'm going to have to dig into this a little more... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 Jairus, looks like you are right! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jairus Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 (edited) Like most wives tales, there may be an element of fact in your post though. Back in 1898 Morgan Robertson published a novella called "Futility" about a fictional ocean liner by the name of "Titan" which foundered in the North Atlantic. Although the story was written before the Olympic-class Titanic had even been designed, there are some remarkable similarities between the fictional and real-life counterparts. Like the Titanic, the fictional ship sank in April in the North Atlantic, and there were not enough lifeboats for the passengers. There are also similarities between the size (800 ft long for Titan versus 882 ft 9 in long for the Titanic), speed (25 knots for Titan, 21 knots for Titanic) and life-saving equipment. I read it a number of years ago while doing some research about the great liner and found it to be a sad poignant tale. It might be the ironic suggestion that this book may have been included in the 1st class liberary, is where the suggestion of the movie show in 2nd class dining room sprang from? Just a thought. Edit: by the way, it's a short read and the complete 1912 signature edition is posted here on line. "Futility" Edited March 4, 2011 by Jairus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Gibbons Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Chris, that is a magnificent job! It makes me want to build one. If I really wanted to lose what's left of my mind, I'd like to light it up with fiber optics and LEDs. That'd be a lot of portholes to drill out. Back in the early '80s, I built the Dover Books Alan Rose waterline paper model of the Titanic. I really would like to find another. I did all the rigging with carpet thread, and it was an impressive model that was at least three feet long, if not more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wagoneer81 Posted March 15, 2011 Author Share Posted March 15, 2011 Chris, that is a magnificent job! It makes me want to build one. If I really wanted to lose what's left of my mind, I'd like to light it up with fiber optics and LEDs. That'd be a lot of portholes to drill out. Back in the early '80s, I built the Dover Books Alan Rose waterline paper model of the Titanic. I really would like to find another. I did all the rigging with carpet thread, and it was an impressive model that was at least three feet long, if not more. Thanks for the compliments, everybody! Well, Jim, I lost what was left of my mind years ago... It's not really evident in the pictures, but really stands out when you see the model in person, I DID drill out all the portholes... took me about an hour and a half per side with my little pinvise. I do that on all my ship builds, regardless of scale. I think it adds a little more depth to the look of the finished model. I do have a fiber-optics lighting kit in my stash but didn't use it on this build because I wasn't going to be keeping it for myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Custom Hearse Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 That is a great build! I have the kit waiting to be built as well. I just hope it turns out as nice as yours! More Titanic trivia... There actually was a passenger by the name of Jack Dawson on board the Titanic who died... The Titanic was the first ship ever to use the emergency call sign SOS... Charles Joughin was the only person to survive the ice cold waters of the Atlantic. He was reportedly drunk-as-a-skunk as the Titanic sank, and the amount of whiskey in his body seemed to serve as a type of anti-freeze, protecting him from the frigid temperatures of the ocean water. The character in the movie Titanic, who is seen peering at Rose while gripping the railing of the vertical stern with one hand and his flask with the other as the ship goes down, is based on Joghin’s real life persona... The Titanic was the first ship to ever have a heated swimming pool... The Titanic almost did not make it out of the harbor at the start of it's voyage. The suction from it's propellers was so great, that it sucked the R.M.S. New York away from it's pier, snapping the ropes holding it to the pier. The two ships were mere feet from collision when Captain E.J. Smith ordered the engines stopped. The R.M.S. New York was then towed back to the pier. If they had collided, the White Star Line would have had to delay the maiden voyage, and the Titanic would not have hit the iceberg and sunk... Morgan Robertson the author of Futility (as mentioned on another post), also wrote a book about Japanese flying machines attacking an island in the Pacific on a December day in the early 1940's... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 More Titanic trivia... The Titanic was the first ship ever to use the emergency call sign SOS... Not really. "SOS" was used by German ships prior to Titanic. From " 'SOS,' 'CQD' and the History of Maritime Distress Calls" by Neal McEwen: Popular accounts of the origin of "SOS" fail to mention that the Germans had (already) used "SOS" for a distress signal. They adopted the signal "SOS" for distress as well as "SOE" for inquiry on April 1, 1905, a year before the Berlin conference (where "SOS" was officially adopted). The Electrician, May 5, 1905 published "German Regulations for the Control of Spark Telegraphy" which stated: "...---..., "Distress" signal (Notzeichen). This is to be repeated by a ship in distress until all other stations have stopped working." After hitting the iceberg, Titanic initially sent out the older "CQD" distress signal (originated in 1904 by the Marconi Company) which was still popular among British ships... but Titanic's junior radio operator Harold Miles suggested to radio first officer Jack Phillips to also try the new "SOS" signal, so Titanic alternated between "CQD" and "SOS" distress signals. Weird trivia bit: Marconi himself was in New York when Titanic sank. He was waiting to make the return trip to Europe... on the Titanic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Custom Hearse Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 (edited) Okay Harry... I believe ya! I had always read that it was the first, but I bow to your knowledge. Thanks for the information! Here's an interesting story about a woman who survived... http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20040321/ai_n12889982/ Edited April 30, 2011 by Custom Hearse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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