Dave's Tug-Boat Project #1

Crew-mate Dave Roehrle (DaveInTheHat) shares the first in a series of build storie, featuring three seperate tug builds.

Introduction

I came up with the idea of building ‘Davetown’ a few years ago. Not having the room or the finances to build a large layout all at once I decided to build a series of small dioramas that I could eventually put together into a large diorama. My original plan was to scratch build as much as possible to give everything a unique look. HO scale seemed to be the logical choice since so much is available and I like working in scale where I can create a large area in a small space.

While searching the Internet I came across pictures of the tugboat grave yards around Shooter’s Island and Staten Island, New York. I thought a diorama with a couple of partially sunken tugboats would be a good addition to my town.

A search for available tugboat kits in HO scale turned up very little. The available kits were ether out of my price range or lacking in detail. I settled on Lindberg kits that I found on Ebay at really good prices.

Building the tug. . .

One of the kits that I found on Ebay was partially built and some of the parts were painted. There were also parts missing. I decided to start with this one because I was planning to do several things that I’d never done before.






Measuring the kit with a scale ruler shows that its about 85 feet long which is typical for east coast tugboats. The hatchways measured a little over 5 feet and the man that came with the kit measured about 8 feet tall. So, the scale is not exactly HO. Positioning the deck and cabin together with an HO scale figure showed me that the boats would look ok if they were positioned the right way.






I started out by putting the parts that were glued together in the freezer overnight then carefully prying them apart. I went to work on the deck cutting the hatches open with a triangular shaped cutter that I made from piano wire.