print: uss eastwind 1/48th scale icebreaker

USS Eastwind 1/48th scaleicebreaker

by ToraDog

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30th Aug 2020USS Eastwind 1/48th scale icebreaker

This may ramble a bit as I am not that straight forward. I have always loved icebreakers and thought that they were avery under represented class of vessels in the modeling world. I remember building a plastic kit when I was around15. It may have been a "Wind" or the Glacier. Either way, at around 14" it was way too small. Around 5 years ago, Istumbled upon an advertisement for a 1/48th laser cut keel and rib set for a Wind class icebreaker. It was a one offthe gent was not going to produce it again. I grabbed it up. The "kit" consisted of the keel and a full set of ribs cutfrom a decent grade of aircraft plywood around 1/4" thick. The first thing I did was start my research. Which ship,what configurization, date, paint pattern, weapons, ect. There were seven ships built for the US Navy and CoastGuard combined, and one built for the Canadian Coast Guard. There were many variations, but two ships stood out.The USS Southwind and her sister the Eastwind. I chose the latter. Furthermore I chose to build her pretty much asbuilt and commissioned. This led to her carrying an impressive weapons suite and an aircraft, which just happened tobe available in a 1/48th kit form. There were many challenges to build this model, not the least of which was to getaccurate plans and photographs. The US Coast Guard Museum in Seattle, Washington was an immense help in thatregard. Next was that research indicated that all equipment on Polar rated ships had to be of larger, stronger sizesthan standard CG or Naval standards called for. Ie, lot's of masters and castings to be made in the future. Lastly wasthe weapons suite, which calle dfor large and unique fittings. Shapeways came to the rescue there. More of all of thisas I go along. These first pictures are of the kit set up, just to get a feel for it, on a build board. Followed by someplanks pictures. The shaft logs are unique. They taper for there entire length and the shaft runs through them, butNOT centered. The shaft centered on the outboard end, but off center on the inboard end. I had a local shop turnthese for me. WAY above my pay grade.

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30th Aug 2020Eastwind

Thank you for your kind comments. I need to back up for a moment and modifymy scale comment. eastwind is built to 1/48th stand off scale, ie 1/48th scale thatlook about right standing off about 15 feet. Nowto my build. Eastwind was plankedwith 1/8x 3/8" bass wood. Her bow and stern were filled with bass wood blocks forthe first and last couple of stations. After rough sanding the hull and shaping theblocks I used wood filler on the hull to fill in where needed. My plan was to thenfiber glass the hull, inside and out. Once the hull was glassed it was primed and Imoved on to installing the bow shaft and stuffing tube. A limited amount ofdecking was laid down to keep things aligned and give the hull more strength, butI still needed to install the stern shafts and stuffing boxes and they would requirea lot of access. Around this time I built the prominent bulkward on the bow, addedthe towing notch to the stern and the stern fender strips. While it may look like thisall went relatively quickly, it did not. I was about six months of steady work to getto this point. Next: a change of pace. Starting the superstructure.

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4th Sep 2020Eastwind

The stuffing tubes were fitted with copious amounts of a gelled F/G ptty filling the gaps. After againcopius amounts of sanding and faring the tubes were in place and the shaft logs were installed. Thelog are made over here and pretty standard stuff. I added grease tubes to them with hoses to allowremote filling. I use a Mercury Marine Teflon impregnated grease which is quite light, completelywaterproof and easily come by. With this step completed I finished planking the deck and covered itwith epoxy resin and clothe. Sanded fair the deck was ready for the superstructure. The superstructureof Eastwind was built of Sintra, a PCV foan product that loves CA, is paint ready and cuts with a hobbyknife. It is very machinable as well. With the basic structure built I cut the deck opening. Thesuperstructure lifts off as on unit giving a huge access area to the innards of the hull. At this point Istarted laying out the platform in the hull on which the batteries and motors would mount. To give andidea of the area I had to work with, the batteries powering Eastwind are two 28 amp/hr gel cellbatteries. Each battery weighs 20 lbs and the hull needs extra lead to hit her waterline and there is noissue fitting the batteries into her. I also made up her electronis tray which held her three ElectrolizeESC's, receiver, BEC, and various electronic switches for her lights. I added her main battery whichconsisted of two twin 5"/38 caliber dual purpose gun mounts. I added the small aft superstructurewhich mount the aft gun mount and enclosed her towing winch. Some bottom paint and grey primerand she was ready for initial trials. I have neglected to mention her props. These were built for me by agent over here. While they appear to be variable pitch props, they were not so. Instead, these propswere designed and built with removable, replaceable blades, with the expectation that the ice wouldbe hard on them. As it turned out, it was, especially for the bow prop which was eventually removedfrom all members of the class.

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9th Feb 2021Eastwind

Next up on this build was stanchions. And there were plenty. Most icebreakers, and the Wind class was noexception, used pipe rails welded to the stanchion uprights. It made for beating the ice build up off of them mucheasier. As such I chose to use ,032 dia brass wire for my rails. It happens to fit ball stanchion perfectly and I was ableto order it in 3 ft long sections. K&S precious Metals supplied the rails.The stanchion came from Cornwall Models,one of my favorite suppliers. With the exception of a few longer runs, most rail had to be bent to shape, mostly 90degree turns, ect. Not difficult, just time consuming. Like some much of this build, rails were painted when installed.Working from midline to outboard with the install made the painting of the camouflage easier. With the rails andstanchions in place I needed to find a way to simulate canvas dodgers fore and aft. I tried Silkspan and tissue paper,but both seemed too light weight., so I headed down to the local fabric shop and found a weave that had someweight to it and also a nice texture to it. I tested a couple of samples by painting the various color on it as well asexperimenting with the number of coats to seal it and still save some texture. I think I did OK. I then cut strips toinstall on the appropriate rails and, when dry, started painting them. I had never tried this before and was pleasedwith the result. The next step was to work on rigging the mast. The picture show some slack wires and that isbecause the ringing must be disconnected to allow the superstructure to be removed. Simple little homemade brasshooks worked there. A like to use elastic thread for rigging, but I have found that it tends to lose it's elasticity fairlyquickly and new rigging needs to be installed within a few years. Regular rigging thread seems to have just enoughstretch to allow hooking it up and still appearing taut. A few disconnected notes. The radar motor is a tiny(0.20"diameter) planetary pile drive motor. I bought a handful for the Gizmo Zone years back and I wish I had bought more.GZ is gone now. Anyhow the motor sits atop the mast in a little housing I turned on my lathe. I ran the wires,32gauge, do the outside of the mast where they bundle with Nav light wires. Painted over they are hard to notice. Theantenna is a SC, homemade of brass wire and bits and pieces of scrap PE. When I first installed my Nav lights andvarious other ones, they glowed even when off. I learned, from Model Mayhem, to put another resistor in line andthey shut off completely, BUT before I did that , I painted over all the Nav lights and especially the white lights(not thespot lights). The result of doing this softened the lights considerably and I pat myself on the back for the superbforesight ?. So basically the beast is done. Saying that, I have found some wonderful servos that I a going to install togive her 270 degree rotation of her two 5" mounts. No, they are never really done. Besides, she is filthy and needs agood cleaning.



I ran out of time during my last to finish posting my pictures, so here are some of the propsand the interior arrangements. The motors are mounted on a piece of plexiglass. I am alittle out of sequence here, but after the shaft logs were installed and the battery tray wasfitted, the deck was finished off and covered in F/G. The access panel was cut andcoaming installed. The superstructure fi nicely so I moved on. I satisfied myself with herfinish after some coats of primer were laid down and sanded, so sea trials were around thecorner. Our former town has a nice kiddy pool that makes for a wonderful test facility so offI went. She floated, a tad bow down as the photos show, but did not leak. She wentforward and reverse at the appropriate times and even turned in the appropriate directionwhen commanded, so it was back home to play with paint. Because of the patterns I use,they are hand brushed. I figure that the slight variations in tone and color here and thereadd character. My plan is to lay down the initial paint pattern and then detail and touch upfrom there. I always liked the Western Approaches patterns of the RN and MS12 is asclose as a USN ship came to it. It does work well in hazy foggy light. She is a heavy model.With the batteries tipping 40 lbs, the hull in her finished state runs about 25-30 lbs. Gettingher into the water is not quite as bad as it seems. She floats high and is tippy until a batteryis installed then she is fine. I add the other one and the superstructure and she is ready togo. More to follow.

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12th Jan 2021Eastwind

I did forget, again, to mention that the davits were first made as a master fromstyrene and again poured a silicon model and cast the davits in resin. Next, wellmaybe stanchions.



I am backing up for a second here to give do where it belongs. My proops weremade, as I had said, by a gent over here, Keith Bender. he is an incrediblemodeler and specializing in making props. Here are his. Each consisted of a hub,blades and individually soldered nuts. I am also including a PDF of the Eastwind'sfirst cruise. It is enlightening and terrifying. I will continue with my build in my nextpost.

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Now for some pictures.



When I left off, I had sea trialed Eastwind, successfully. Now I am going to back a fill a bit.The shaft logs have grease tubes soldered into them with aircraft fuel hose fill linesextending to an accessible area. The rudder was built up from aircraft ply. Nothing sissyabout this beast. It hangs on three pintals and a foot and is 5/16 inches thick. The ruddershaft is 3/16 brass, cross drilled and tapped for brass machine screws, which lock the shaftinto the rudder, but allow the shaft to be removed and hence the rudder as well. I havebeen using extending double jointed u-joints made of Delrin nylon. I get them from StockDrive Products, but they are available quite readily. The rudder servo is mounted under theaft superstructure, and if the servo tray is removed, access is gained to the shaft lock setcollars and the u-joints set screws on the shafts. Back when I sealing my deck, I plannedmy rudder access. I wanted the deck to be watertight, but I also wanted to show the wooddecking that covered the steel deck on the full size ship. I F/g'd the deck and added matt. Ialso cut an access panel for the rudder shaft. The hack ended up being wood decked witha "steel" flange of styrene. From here I moved on the fitting the wood deck, using 1/32sawed Basswood decking that I got from BlueJacket Shipfitters, just down the road fromme. The wood decking extends to the sides of the ship leaving a waterway. The rudderaccess hatch received it's section of wood decking. Til next time.

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Well, I told a fib in my last post. I said that the cranes were the last major part of the build. I sort of forgot... I do thatmore often than I used to. My wife tells me that I do it a lot, but I don't listen to her. She doesn't remember what shehas said. So I'll continue with Eastwind's rather impressive suite of boats. She carried quite a few. The included 1x26ft standard whaleboat, 1x36 ft Arctic Survey boat, 1x40 US navy motor launch, 1x26 ft US Navy motor launch, 2x26ftMonomoy US Life saving service ( US Coast Guard) surf pulling boats, and last but not least 6 sledges for haulingsupplies of the ice and snow pack. The whaleboat was an easy find that came from QuarterMaster as a resin kit.quite a beautiful set of castings. I had used them on my 1/48th Fletcher class destroyer. The Arctic survey boat was abit of of a challenge, but research helped. The hull is that of a 36ft Coast Guard life boat, but it differed from thewaterline up. I found an old plastic kit in 1/48th scale of the life boat and between a Dremel tool and styrene cardstock, I made a new deck and cabin. Other bits and pieces came from the odds and ends box. I think that it turnedout close. The 40ft Navy motor launch I found in 1/300 scale on Shapeways. Contacting the designer, he verygraciously agreed to re-scale the model to 1/48th. What a chunk of plastic. Fortunately, Eastwind has no troubletolerating a heavy load on deck. Both the 26ft motor launch and the Monomoy surf boats were created by SasaDrobac (diStefan) on Shapeways. I sent Sasa plans for each and he had them done for me in no time. That savedme months of work. The pulling sledges I made by carving a plug from basswood that I covered in F/G resign. I thenmade a mold of the plug with F/G again. When that was dry/and hard, I waxed it a couple of times and proceeded tolay up 6 sledges using very, very light F/G cloth and resin. Each popped out of the mold without issues and wastrimmed to shape. Some paint and I then stacked them upside down. That may seem like the end of it, but I neededsome place to put all these boats and they were stowed over each other. I did not have many good photos thatshowed how this was done, but I had enough. I needed to create six L shapes beams that would have been weldedto the deck, allowing a boat to store underneath yet allowing outboard access while a second boat was mounted ontop of it. I made these by making a master beam from styrene. These are really large 90 degree I beams with verythick webbing at the turn of the beam. With my master made, I made a silicon mold and proceeded to cast mybeams. I think it took six tries, I don't remember, let me check with my wife...Anyhow, beams were made and I madesome cradles for the boats that seem to look about right. Each boat was painted as per the MS 16 camouflagescheme.Lot's of small details yet to be added, not to mention a lot of painting.



Well at this point it was time to start building, now that the tedious job of creating the hullwas done. I added the lower bulkward on the bow and the breakwater aft of it. Both wereworked out of styrene sheet. Oval eyelet were used for the hawser ports and the tow cablehole was bored. The bridge top carried a MK 51 director, a pair of sky lookouts and a pairof 24" search lights. The enclosure for the MK 51 was,agin, styrene and the fittingsthemselves were from diStefan's shop at Shapeways. I applied the first of several coats ofpaint to the deck to layout the camouflage pattern and began locating deck fittings. While Iwas at it I made the aft pair of 20mm Oerlikon shields and applied them. The Winds had aunoque winch cable roller bitt mount that was mounted aft of the aft house which containedthe towing winch. I made this of styrene, turned bits of PVC and anything else handy. Apair of vents made of turned PVC rod and brass tubing, mounted outboard of the bittassembly finished the install. AND NOW...... I confronted the error of my building choice.There is a wonderful gentleman over here by the name of Robert Thomas who sellsbeautiful, flawlessly cast resin 1/48 fittings, look up QuarterMaster, mostly for USNdestroyers. But, many are applicable to other USN ships...except, icebreakers. It was atthis point that I realized how many masters, molds, and castings of deck fittings I wouldneed to make. Pause... Let's think about this... OK, how about a beer? Good Idea. I alwaysthink better when my eyes are closed.

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21st Dec 2020Eastwind

A few more pictures to go with my last post.


2nd Oct 2020Eastwind

Well Fall is here and I had to take some time to start getting "stuff" done, ie, mowing the field, cutting and draggingtrees, ect. Now that I have made an apparent attempt to start that, I can continue on the Eastwind Blog. For somereason, I am losing my narration after posting photos. So I'll be brief. Making masters for deck fittings, molds andcasting of fitting was a piecemeal process. I do not have the discipline to do it straight thru. There were manydirections of this build and I took whichever one suited my fancy on a given day. I ordered 5'/38 twin mounts,quadruple 40mm Bofors mounts, Hedgehog and Mk51 gun directors from Shapeways. I'd still be struggling withoutthem. My funnel, which I chose not to make functional, was of sytrene with a detailed exhausts(9) inside. I alsoplanned my lighting about this time, which included 4 24" search lites(Shapeways) butchered to accept LEDs withreflectors. To mount forward and two aft. I painted the deck with her camouflage pattern and later, after all fittingswere mounted, spliced in the required colors where needed. There were so many minor major projects within thisbuild,that I get lost sometimes. Eastwind carried a Grumman J2F amphibian which was lower into and out of thewater by crane. The aircraft was fairly easy as it was available as a 1/48scale plastic kit, but the cranes were anothermatter. They were similar to cranes mounted on other USN ships, but I had no plans. They were scratch built ofstyrene and various castings, again home done. The booms were styrene angle stock and while not perfect are OKat stand off scale. At this point I want to say why this ship intrigued me. She was about the size of a destroyer,maybe a little short. Quite a bit slower, 16.5 knots with a tail wind and down swell, and she rolled a bit. I believe sheonce recorded a 70 degree roll. My stomach just did. BUT!! she was loaded to the gills. Her aramentwas, 4x 5"/38dual pupose guns in twin mounts, 3 x 40mm quadruple Bofors canon mounts, 6 x 20mm Oerlikon machine canonmounts, two depth charge racks, 6 x K guns ( depth charge projectors, 1 x Hedgehog, and 1x J2F float plane. Quitethe package. Until next time....

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21st Dec 2020Eastwind

Let me see if I can pick up where I left off. The cranes were the last major items that needed construction, short ofthe mast and I procrastinated on it. I needed radar and lights and I wanted it to be strong. I like the idea of styrene formasts, but it must be supported, so instead I went with telescoping brass tubing. I dread using it because I go thru somany micro drill bits attaching ladders and the like. Oh well. I found some micro pile gear motors, originally fromChina, but now hard to find. They are very low voltage, 3v, but quite slow, 14-18 rpm. I used a step down voltageregulator to try to get them as slow as possible. The real antenna rotated at 4 rpm or less, just bi-directional( couldsweep clockwise or counter) and could be held on a specific bearing. I just wanted slow rotation. The mast alsorequire the standard white anchor/nav light, but also tow lights. I put every thing in place, wired it up and it worked,sort of. I was originally using a Robbe F-14 to control this beast and a multiplex module to switch on/off variousfunctions. what I did not know, but learned quickly, was the module do not make/break a circuit. rather there is still atiny amount of current flowing, enough to make an LED glow dimly, but to enough to run a motor. My lights remainedon all the time. I could not have that! I reached out of Model Mayhem, Robbe F-14 knowledge base over here is verylimited, and learned to install an extra resistor into on of the leads to the module. don't remember, at the momentwhich one or where, but I can dig the info up if anyone needs it. Anyhow, problem solved and I had a functional mast.I made up the crows nest, soldered and carved from Renshape( polyfoam block). Ladders came from ScaleLink. Ifinished the lighting with her nav lights and four 24" search lights, two mounted above the bridge and two on the afthouse. They started as Shapeways lights which I drilled out and added LEDs and reflectors from AAA batteryflashlights. More details added were 20mm gun tubes from styrene, various lockers, everything was store in lockers ifit was on deck, otherwise it would become ice encrusted in no time. I found it strange not to see fire hoses and thelike, but they were all in lockers. Most lockers were also made from Renshape and detailed. I used the last of myJohn Haynes 20mm Oerlikon cannons, which I had ordered for this build. I miss John's fitting already. Eastwindcarried a Hedgehog, anti submarine projector so of like a Squid, on her bow. That and a pair of 5'-38 practice loadingmachines came from Shapeways. Each piece is a jewel in itself. I'd have spent a year trying to make them and theywould not have looked as nice. The anchor chain supports I mastered and cast copies of. stud link chain fromCornwall attached to the anchors and I found some chain stoppers on Shapeways that looked the part. Eastwindshad large tow rails that ran both sides of their flanks. I made these of styrene. I warmed half round stock until I couldcontour it to a mold and let it cool. Support legs were added. The stern gets dressed up with a long pair, although notmatched, of depth charge tracks, again Shapeways come thru.Meanwhile I also added her six K guns ready chargesmounted on spoons. These came for a gent over here, Robert Thomas,aka QuarterMaster. Robert's castingsmeasure up well to Shapeways and he has been around for many years. Shapeways provided the davits. I guessthat at this point I should admit that Eastwind is a SEMI-scratch built effort. Without QuarterMaster, Shapeways andall the other suppliers, I would have had a sorry looking build.


3rd Oct 2020Eastwind

I think I left off working on the cranes and the aircraft. After that, well it sort ofcontinued for a while, Just adding details took quite a bit. Again, every thing wascustom sized for an icebreaker. I did make up my own 40mm quad mounts usingtwin 40's as a basis. These came from Robert Thomas, a master at resin casting.I made the shields from styrene. Alas, as I have already noted, mine werereplaced by even better units from Shapeways. I don't need to add too manymore comments tonite, rather I will just post a number of photos that are prettyself explanatory.

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6th Dec 2020Eastwind

Just to let you all know that I have not abandoned my blog, fall lean up andstorage followed by a new knee have interrupted my schedule. As soon as I canget back to my desk long enough to sit for a while I will continue the saga.

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print: uss eastwind 1/48th scale icebreaker

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