Part I
by Laurent Gontier-Versailles

Once upon a time there was …

All the classical fairy tales begin that way, don't they ?

So, once upon a time there was a friend from the modeling club where I belong in Brussels, aware that I mostly design my models myself , coming with two plans of Lusitania he bought years ago. These plans were the shell expansion plan and another plan showing seven frames with inside details. He also brought with him the Mark Warren re-edition of the 1907 Engineering about Lucy .

My friend's name is Didier Poncelet and his question was: "Laurent, on the hand of these documents, could you redraw a plan usable to make a model at the scale of 1/150?"

I was aware of the existence of the Lusitania , of course , but I was not particularly interested in that ship, being more a "cargo ship" lover …

And there the fairy tale begins: I fell in love with the lines of that ship…

And you could ask: "Why?"

Most of the people are fascinated by the Titanic, certainly since the Cameron movie came out, and the never ending stories around her.

I think that Lucy has something that other ships do not have: she was the first liner propelled by four Parson's turbines on four shafts, she was in my opinion the most handsome ship ever made, being built in the country where I would like to end my old days: Scotland !

And there is also no accurate commercial modeling plan available, as I’m more and more thinking to produce my own set of plans in a near or far future.

The design of the hull shape, on the hand of the plans supplied, seemed to be easy and I made a first draft at the scale 1/300, to see if I was right.

But the rest of the design, and drawing an accurate version of the rigging plan for instance, starting from the profile found in the Engineer, was way to difficult for me, because of the impossibility of taking right measurements on the Engineering version and being not sure if this drawing was accurate..

So, I decided to buy the plans .

But, after writing to the NMM , where they could not help me , I decided to ask the source of the plans on the TRMA board .

I got an answer: I should forwarded my question on the Debris Field message board .

I got very soon the answer: I had to ask at the Glasgow University Archives Service, which held the plans I needed.

So I did. These plans landed in my mail box in March 2002, for the amount of 103 £ (160 euros / US $), five sheets in all , with the rigging plan

(profile view), and three deck plans , the scale being 1/8" for 1 foot ( 1/96) and the hull lines at 1/4" for 1 foot (1/48).

Having bought these plans, I was able to compare my own drawings to those drawn by the John Brown shipyard’s architects: My hull design was not that bad, in exception of the stern part. But as the rest of my designs were absolutely inaccurate, I decided to keep them anyway as a souvenir , and use the correct stuff I paid for…

To be in accordance with my way of building models, and as I use the metrical system, I decided to size down the plans to 1/100, so Lucy could sail with my other models, and I could go to the Belgian Naviga Championship, knowing that in their rules, a model may not exceed the length of 250 centimeters. At 1/96, my Lucy would just be under that size.

First of all, I had to complete the hull lines plan, as there were frames only at the distance of 11,6 centimeters at the scale of 1/100. The superb lines plan had all the horizontal and vertical lines I needed to draw the missing frames. I achieved the drawing of the “ready to be put on my shipyard” frames at the beginning of October 2002.

About the size of the Lusitania at 1/100:

Length : 239 centimeters ( cm)

Breadth : 26,6 cm

Draught : 10,2 cm

Weight : about 35 kilograms

The building of the hull will be classic: planks on frames but the building will happen upside down, the frames being 6 millimeters (mm) thick and the planking 3 mm thick. The section of the keel will be 10 X 15 mm and the thickness of the deck: 2 mm

The whole superstructure will be an assembly of wood and cardboard and other scrap material.

She will be R/C controlled and electrically driven, with one 12 Volts motor on each shaft and two electronic speed controllers, one for each side. The reverse motion will be on the four shafts, instead of the real ship, where only the inner shafts were equipped with astern turbine. What I’ll try to do here is to be sure that my explanations are understandable and I would be glad if each modeler reading these lines will be “warm” enough to have the will to start his own scratch built hull, as I know from experience that most of the modelers don’t dare to start such a project, being afraid by the size of the undertaking, while it is for me the easiest part of scratch building a ship’s model.

So my approach here will start from the beginning: the studying of the plans. My opinion about modeling is that each modeler should be able to hold a pencil in his hand to conceive and draw the parts he will use on his model …

As I always represent the plating, the frames lines from the plan here under is in fact the outside of my planking, which means that I have to take off the thickness of the planking as the thickness of the deck.

It is easier to build a hull upside down, as you have access to the whole hull, leaving it on its baseboard till you have completed the representation of the plating.

Before the building commences, the modeler has to make some decisions about the model itself, certainly about super detailing or not. Working at this scale, I know I won't represent the rivets as I won't represent the interiors, in exception perhaps of the Verandah Café. My choice is made that way, owing to the fact that I give myself around five years to complete this project. If I begin to represent things, which absorb a lot of time, My Lucy will never be finished …

Let’s start with the hull lines. When you have the chance to get a plan from the builder, you’ll see that there are on this plan a lot of lines, the most important for the modeler being the lines showing the stations or frames. Generally, these lines show the frames as they are, the thickness of the plating is not represented on this plan .

Here under a view of the hull lines plan of the R.M.S. Lusitania:

Let’s start by the beginning:

As we will build our model upside down, a base line is to be traced on the top of the hull lines plan, parallel to the water line, a few centimeters above the highest frame (9 ¾ in the drawing above )

Each half-frame has to be drawn on a blade of paper. First of all, you have to draw your upper base line and the vertical middle line on that paper. Then, by transparency, draw your half frame on the right place.

You have to choose the dimensions of the keel, in section first, and then in length, according to the stem & stern pieces you’ll have to draw, and that will have the same breadth of the keel. Once the half frame and the keel section are drawn on the paper, take off the thickness of the hull planking

(3 mm’s in my case) and the thickness of the deck (2 mm’s). The deck curvature is taken from one of the plans I got from Didier, plan showing several frames of Lusitania, with interior & structural details. This deck curvature will remain constant on all the decks. It is important to notice that cambering was only used on the decks exposed to seawater, on the outside of the ship.

Once your half frame, with the different thickness taken off, is drawn, you have to reproduce the other side. There are two or three manners to do this. The most used is to cut a pattern of the half frame out of a sheet of cardboard, twist the pattern to draw the other side, either on paper or directly on the wood you will use.

The second manner, the one I use, is to draw with a compass the different points of one side to reproduce them on the other side , more time consuming but more precise ( for me though…)

The third method is working with computers, scanning a half frame and reproduce the other part by mirroring. I know it exists but I have never used it, some more information by a reader is welcome

Shown below is a drawing representing a “ready to be put on the shipyard” frame. Attention: This is an example of a frame I drew with Photo Paint, and is not real frame of Lucy :

My first frames drawings occurred in the middle of August 2002 to be ended by the beginning of October. The first frame has been sawed on 5 October, the last one on 15 November. The planking began at the end of November to be finished on 16 January 2003.

Here are a few pictures of the planking taken on 8 December 2002

Other pictures taken on 26 December

As you will notice, the model has been taken off its stand, but this is not recommended …

I just tried to move the stand while planking and the whole structure smashed on the ground, with twenty of the forty frames completely broken, it was just like a puzzle on the ground, the model looked as a ripped off (big) chicken, with his ribs broken. And yes, I looked like a (red headed) jackass…

I had the choice between throw the whole thing through the window, (if I was younger, I certainly would have done it) or to go upstairs in the living room, take a good booze (Belgian beer, of course…) and put my butt in an arm chair for a couple of hours…

My beloved girl friend heard Lucy hit the ground, followed by some F*** words (in French), and then saw me coming in the living room, taking the booze.

I remained quiet for a while. Wouldn’t you?

So, all the broken frames had to be glued on the right place, it took about two days to find where each broken piece had to go.

The last picture session happened on 08 January:

Most of the planking is done by now, I just have to finish the propeller shafts bossings and sand down the whole thing.