USS Tracer (AGR 15)
Here it begins -

Ahoy Rick,

Welcome to MSW.
Looking forward to seeing the build.

PS ......I am the one who got two Revell type XXI from you last year.

Cheers,
Joe

Well, there's a setback. The Skywave Liberty ship kit is molded with very low freeboard, as if the cargo ship is loaded way down. Unfortunately, these AGRs rode pretty high.So my first step is going to need to be to shim the lower edge of the hull with .060" to .080" sheet plastic, just to get it up to a reasonable level.

Then, I had it in mind to add a bit of a wedge on one side to give the ship some roll at sea. A little red will show on one side and a little black boot-topping will be buried on the other side.



Joe,
I'm glad the sub kits worked out for you.
Rick

Hey all,

one day to go and the chaos starts mmmmhahahahaha!!!

Well I'll be. My father-in-law served on an ACR. The name escapes me right know.

That's gonna be a cool build.

Well... Still more demo required before assembly can get serious.

The good news is that the shim for the waterline is working out OK. I used three thicknesses of .040" plastic, glued it together tight, and then glued it to the ship and pegged it with 1/16" rod, so that it won't skate around when I whittle it down smooth. The last step will be to open up the middle, so that when I jam the finished ship into the "sea" artist's arcylic, it won't ALL squirt out to the sides.



The not-so-great-news is that these AGRs were made from a speacial variety of Liberty ship called Boxed Aircraft Transport (Z-EC2-S-C5). These had four hatches instead of the normal five (as provided in my Skywave kit) and three of the hatches were considerably bigger than the normal ones. So I need to take off all the hatches from the regular Liberty and just keep the main deckhouse (big whoopee) and the small deckhouse all the way aft. I even gave some thought to replacing the whole deck with sheet plastic, So far I've drawn out the corrected sizes and locations of the hatches and deckhouses. Once I start cutting things off, I'll know more about the desirability of just using sheet plastic instead...


Will also have to fill in the two deckedge openings for the boats on each side, as the single one on each side isn't in the same spot as the "normal" Liberty for either boat.
Rick

Ahoy Rick!
Your coming up against a few obstacles, mate, but you are hitting them with the perfect attitude! Keep up the good work, and keep the updates flowing!
Cheers,
~Gunny

Some progress. Finished the shim at the waterline and made the new main deck.

Will prime the hull and find out that it's not as good as I think. That's what putty & sandpaper are for.




Next steps this weekend will be to build the main deckhouse, then the hatches and gear on the fo'c'sle.
Rick

Rick,

The build is looking pretty good so far. Keep us posted on your progress.

Thats looking good Rick. Coming along nicely. I could take lessons from you on tidy modelling

Ahoy, Mr. Heinbaugh!

Good progress, mate, the addition of the shim looks to have brought the freeboard up to the desired level. . .keep up the good work, and the updates, as well!
Keep Modeling,
~Gunny

Wow, Rick!
Sounds like all you will be able to use from the original kit is the "plastic". But I am sure it will be worth it in the end. Looks like it is coming along nicely...

Looking good so far Rick. Keep up the good work.

Yeah, Lenny. I just came to grips with that concept this morning. I will need the hull shell, and the 3" gun and platform forward, and... uhhh back aft throw away the 5" and use another 3" gun, and replace all the masts, and the superstructure decks wil either make nice templates or I will scrape off all the 20mm gun settings.

Yup, not much left.

Rick

The primer was painful. It looked like a Ruffles potato chip. Turned out I was focusing the sanding area way too tight. Took a few minutes to review the basics and got out the old Pink Pearl eraser to act as a backing for the FlexiGrit (That's three trademark names so far, but I don't have the right character on the keyboard to acknowledge it, so please bear with me).

The second round of putty, primer and more careful sanding gave great results. And luckily I was able to fill in the breaks in the bulkead with .030" plastic strip, so that is on track nicely. Next I need to make the bulkhead cuts in the right place and then re-drill openings into the bulkhead.

The main deck replacement went well - .040" sheet plastic was hefty enough to be worked and fit tightly into the hull. Ready to start the deckhouse and hatches now.



-chuckle- That critter in the background is a Casablanca project that ran out of steam, so to speak, in about 1985. Guess it's old enough to vote now. It went DIW when I couldn't figure out how to portray the catapult. Then Skywave released a Bogue, and I figured I had been trumped. I certainly can't make it their way. It's kind of interesting that the two ships are about the same size.

Big hopes for the coming long weekend.
Rick

Ahoy, Rick!
She's starting to take shape, my friend, keep up the good work!
Cheers,
~Gunny

Looking good, can't wait to see more of her.

Nice looking build Rick and not something you see every day either.

Ciao
Luciano

My kind of ship.

Looking Good!

Making progress...




(didn't realize there was a special gallery where I was supposed to be posting the pictures until Bob got his posted there)
Rick

Very nice Rick. Awesome work.

Nice job so far! That's a whole lot of work!

Rick,
looking really good,can't wait to see more of your great build.

Glacial progress continues...






Rick

Lookin' real good, Rick...gonna make the deadline?
~Gunny