Liberty Ship

Here is another attempt at a model warship combat ship a Libery Ship. Building steps

  1. Plans and templates came 1/144 scale from George (The Plans Master) Goff
  2. I wanted to build a wooden ship, and was not too sure if I could draft the templates from plans myself so I figured that to start out I'd try something smallish and not very complicated. Single rudder single prop seemed perfect. Also the real Liberty Ships where designed to be simple to build and modular sounded like a good place to start. This ship is also my testing ground or the DMK Ellison a Sharnhorst class battle cruiser I try a technique out on this ship once I perfect it then I impliment it on the battle cruiser.
  3. Here is what the ship looks like before cutting and then assembling:

  4. I learned a very useful technique from a gentleman building a Hindenburg combat ship, that was to build a jig to hold the ribs while the glue setup. His suggestion was to put a rail with the top edge at the water line and wide enough for the ship to fit between. With the jig I used the Aluminium L channel as a cross member to brace the ribs while the glue set. I used Gorilla glue, very strong, forgiving, and is gap filling. Not the gap filling can be annoying, but most of the time I like it. One thing I learned is that Gorilla glue will not stick to ClingWrap, so put that down below the ship and wrap your clamps in it to prevent them from getting glued to the ship.

  5. My over engineered rudder design:
  6. Finished hull, to smooth the side ribs out I used a long board with a sheet of sandpaper glued (and sometimes stapled on, but that causes catches on the staple). This was a major help thanks for the suggestion Ron. It allows you to get all the ribs sanded with a graceful smooth curve, takes a little patience, but works really well.

  7. Super structure completed and laying on the top deck. Initially I made it from really thin polystyrine, but it was suggested that I stiffen it up so I switched to stiffer plastic and at that time drilled the holes to look like portals