Subject: SMML VOL 2443
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 23:52:43 +1100

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MODELLERS INDEX

1 Re Card Models & Foam
2 Re Scottish Waterways
3 Scottish waterways and German Ship Models
4 Caledonian Canal
5 Kidd Class, DDG-993
6 German ship models "SMS Victoria Louise or "Siegfried"

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TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD INDEX

1 Rajen's List Last call for reviews

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MODELLERS

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1)
From Ives100@aol.com 
Subject Re Card Models & Foam

>> Be very careful with this expanding foam. It keeps expanding over some time, and can easily burst any weak confined space into which it's injected. Test beforehand on something expendable. <<

 I'm with Cap'n Randy on this one. The foam was used in some renovations in my house. It was placed around new replacement window casements, instead of the more traditional fiberglass batting. Several years later, we have had two window panes shatter due to the side pressure of the foam slowly continuing to expand. Use some other material for your models.

 Tom
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2)
From "David Griffith" <davidbgriffith@hotmail.com> 
Subject Re Scottish Waterways

 Dear Franklyn,

 At last, a question I can answer for someone!

 The Caledonian Canal is partly man-made and partly natural.  It basically runs the length of the Great Glen and by way of four stretches of canal joins the head of Loch Linnhe (which is a sea loch joining onto the Atlantic eventually) at Fort William to the Moray Firth and North Sea at Inverness. From south west to north east it goes through Loch Lochy, Loch Oich and Loch Ness. Looking at my road map, the final stretch may be river, rather than canal, but I'm not sure.

 I'm not sure, either, whether it was ever derelict and impassable, like so many of our canals, but it is certainly big enough to take a 110' sub chaser.

 It has now been regenerated as a holiday route for boats, as well as walking and cycling (these latter two being alongside, not in!!), and I mean to do it myself one day.

 Further south, the Forth and Clyde Canal starts near Clydebank on the outskirts of Glasgow, travels through the city, across the central belt and ends up somewhere in Edinburgh, but I don't know if it reaches or reached the Firth of Forth.

 But there is another canal, called the Union Canal, which started at Grangemouth on the Forth and joined up with the Forth and Clyde at Falkirk. The connection between the two used to be via a system of locks, but after the canals fell into disuse in the (approx) 1930s, they were filled in and built over. I suspect that this particular canal system would probably not have been big enough to have taken the vessel you describe, but again I may be wrong.

 In the last few years, a major Millennium project has rejoined the canals with a rotating boat lift called the Falkirk Wheel. I won't try to describe this remarkable engineering acheivement, there must be something about it on the Web; suffice it to say that it is so perfectly counterbalanced, that it can lift a boat using no more electricity than it takes to boil a kettle. Or so the promotional blurb goes!

 Regarding the question of whether these canals make northern Scotland into islands, this is a philosophical and political question that I, as an ex-pat sassenach, do not dare to get myself embroiled in!!!

 Regards,

 David Griffith,
 Glasgow
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3)
From "Millen, Alan R." <AMillen@seic.com> 
Subject Scottish waterways and German Ship Models

 Colin,

>> <SNIP>  Well technically yes I suppose, but if some of my more extreme countrymen had their way there would be an enormous ditch cutting Scotland off from the rest of the UK... <SNIP> <<

 Aye, Lad, and that's a problem?

 As to the Kaiserlichemarine models, are they fiberglass or plank-on-frame? And it looks like there are two version, far apart in price.

 Alan Roy Millen
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4)
From "Robert Lockie" <robertl@bloomsburyfp.co.uk> 
Subject Caledonian Canal

 Franklyn
 
 The Canal is a partly natural feature produced by a transverse fault across Scotland, called the Great Glen Fault. To my shame I forget the age but I have an idea that it is Palaeozoic (i.e. >200m years or so old) in origin. There are three main lochs which occupy most of the length, Ness, Oich and Lochy, with Linnhe at the south-western end.  There are man-made canals linking the lochs and the whole makes up the Caledonian Canal. I recollect that one our lecturers at the time when I was studying the subject was conducting a geochemical analysis of the compositions of two granite outcrops at Foyers and Strontian which are alleged to have been one outcrop which was split about 70km apart by the fault but as I was more interested in geophysics, which afforded the opportunity both to electrocute and blow up my fellow students with small explosive charges, I never bothered to ask him what he found.
 
 Too much information….
 
 Robert Lockie
 Lapsed geologist
 Swindon UK
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5)
From David Wells <dave.wells@worldnet.att.net> 
Subject Kidd Class, DDG-993

 Fellow SMMLlies

 I'm contemplating converting a Skywave Spruance class into a Kidd class DDG. I have the Mk 26 launchers from the kit, and some spare radars and directors for the correct electronics fit from my spare parts pile.

 The problem I'm having is figuring out the two extra superstructure pieces. There should be a low "box" structure above the bridge and below the forward mast, with the forward SPG-51 director on it, and a second, larger structure below the aft mast with the aft SPG-51 launcher on it. I don't have any good drawings which tell me the correct dimensions for these structures. Can anyone out there help? I'm using Potter's "Electronic Greyhounds" as my primary reference, but I also have Friedman's "Destroyers", (not too helpful in this case) and some old issues of
Janes.

 Ideally, I'd like to build this model as a "post-NTU" Kidd, and I understand that the forward structure was slightly enlarged during this conversion.

 Finally, if anyone has a DML/Dragon Spruance/Ticonderoga lower hull to sell, trade, or give away, please contact me off-list.

 David R. Wells

 "There seems to be something wrong | David R. Wells
 with our bloody ships today"       |
 Adm. D. Beatty, May 31, 1916       | http//home.att.net/~WellsBrothers/
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6)
From Ernst-Bernhard Kayser <ebk@po.cwru.edu> 
Subject German ship models "SMS Victoria Louise or "Siegfried"

>> I was wondering if anyone has had experience with this comepany as I was looking for hulls of the ships SMS Victoria Louise and "SMS Siegfried" and came across this site

 http//www.vora-modellbau.de/Kaiserlichemarine.html

>> I would prefer fibreglass hulls but if these kits (or is it completed hulls, my systranslator was not very clear) are good then I might go for these.  Or does anyone know a source of fibreglass ones? <<

 Hi John,

 I don't know whether anyone sells fiberglass hulls for these ships. I also do not have any experience with the company VORA. However, when it comes to translating I probably can do better than your systranslator.

 According to the website, the VORA kits come with a prefabricated hull balsa planked on bulkhead, sanded to shape and waterproofed with some non-specified coating. The deck is already fixed to the hull. You get roughed out parts (blanks) for the turrets, funnels, and boats too. Furthermore, the kits come with balsa, dowelrods, timber strips, and wire to build everything else above deck level. They also contain plans, an instruction booklet, and a set of flags.

 The bottommost picture on the webpage shows the kit parts for SMS Victoria Louise dryfitted. It gives you an impression what to expect.

 I hope this was of any help.

 Bernhard
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TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD

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1)
From David Wells <dave.wells@worldnet.att.net> 
Subject Rajen's List Last call for reviews

 Fellow SMMLlies

 I've put a deadline of March 1 for the issue of Version 6.3 of Rajen's List. If you are considering writing a review, now is the time. Please contact me off-list.

 "There seems to be something wrong | David R. Wells
 with our bloody ships today"       |
 Adm. D. Beatty, May 31, 1916       | http//home.att.net/~WellsBrothers/
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 Check out the SMML site for the List Rules, Backissues, Member's models & reference pictures at

 http//smmlonline.com

 Check out the APMA site for an index of ship articles in the Reference section at

 http//apma.org.au/
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End of Volume