Part IV
by Laurent Gontier-Versailles

The plating…

This is some kind of work , if you'd ask me…

I decided to give my Lucy the appearance of a builder's model , as can be seen in Maritime museums around the world …

When you observe these very good builder's models , it is obvious they utilized some criteria used at that time. The hull was built following the "bread-&-butter" method, the superstructures were built of plain wood, covered with paper which was painted on or which the doors & openings (windows) were drawn with China ink.
Most of the deck machinery, bollards, railings were built out of brass & were left bare, which gave a magnificent appearance but is not what I want to see on my model .
There is also no plating to see on these old models.

So, I decided my Lucy would have the "soul" of a builder's model but would conform to present modeling standards , built "plank on frames", with the plating represented & everything painted as on the actual ship …

It is an overwhelming task to represent the plating the right way, you have to have some knowledge about:
- Riveted hull construction
- Reading shipyard's plans & certainly the "Shell Expansion Plan" (SEP).

About the "Shell Expansion Plan" …

Don't panic, anything can be learned. If I can do it, anyone can do it too

This SEP from Lusitania still exists at the GUAS* and can be bought, which is what I did.

* GUAS : Glasgow university Archives Services
A SEP shows a lot of useful information, but not the real shape of the plating , as a lot of people think , but a diagrammatic view of the assembly ( riveting ) of the different plates with the surrounding other plates .

This SEP also shows to the novice strange shapes, surprising at the first glance, illustrating a kind of a heavy distortion in the height of the plates.

What they did to draw that SEP is as follows:
They first drew the keel line and developed the girth of each frame in the vertical plane, this is why this plan shows such strange shapes.

Each plate was then drawn on the actual place where they were intended to be, according their position on the frames & their correlation with the communicating plates.

The plates following a straight line from the front to the end of the ship are called strakes.
Each strake is alphabetically numbered, from the first garboard strake, called "A" to the last strake, at deck height, called "Y"

All openings in this plating were also drawn, as for instance: doors, portholes, refuse shoots, coal shoots & loading doors, sea water inlets and outlets, anchor recesses, hawse holes & mooring points

All the plates' thickness are also indicated, as the number of rivet rows (D.R.: double riveted, T.R.: triple riveted, etc…).

On Lucy's SEP , there is also some indications about the size of the rivets used & some views of the laps used .

What is important to notice before you draw your lines on the model's hull & particularity about the Lucy's SEP, is that it has been drawn at 1/96 in the length , but at 1/48 in the height

Another peculiarity of Lucy's plating is that it has been doubled on the middle portion of the hull for strengthening, as Lucy had to meet some Admiralty requirements (She was designed to be transformed into an auxiliary cruiser in case of war & had to bear 12 guns), some important Lloyd's requirements (sailing on the North Atlantic in the winter…) & the fact that it was common for the conceivers of the ship to build their liners that way…

For more explanations about the conception of Lucy's plating, I can refer to "the Engineer" 1907 edition, where everything is explained thoroughly about the hull construction

Some other oddities about the plating, is that the plates were indeed furnaced into shape but they were almost all straight plates, this is why counter sterns were in favor by the shipbuilders at that time, as the run was constructed with straight plates.

This was more difficult when Cruiser sterns became more common…

Most of the Clydeside & Northern Ireland shipbuilders plated their ships following the IN & OUT system , with the underside of the hull being plated in a clinker fashion , Lusitania was no exception to this rule ( Titanic , either…).

The dimensions of the plates available at that time varied, as some plating works could only deliver small plates, others bigger ones .

In case of the John Brown shipyard , the plates used on Lusitania measured 9,8 meters in length , being 1,5 meters broad.

It seems that the plates used on Mauretania were bigger in size, which allowed the builders to use less plates on the hull .

The picture of a shell expansion plan I've included below came from a section of a modeling book, edited by Conway Press, named " Scale Model Warships" (ISBN: 0 85177 070 X), in which we have an article written by the late Colonel Batchelor of the construction of a tin model of a Royal Navy sloop , the HMS Pheasant.

This SEP shows a relatively simple shape with 5 strakes, but on Lusitania there were many more of course…

(By the way, this above mentioned book has been my modeling Bible for the last 15 years…)

Which material is best to use?

The choice is large, you can use plastic (ABS or styrene sheets like "Evergreen") or metal (Aluminum or brass)…

I prefer to use cardboard, of the "Bristol" quality, the same type used for calling cards, available in the paper shops in A4 size. The thickness I needed of this Bristol card is 0.25mm, as the plating of Lucy, in the real life, was about an inch thick …

There were some variations of thicknesses used on the real ship, but we may assume that this will not be visible on the model …

Why do I use this material?

Because it is very cheap, easily available, and once it has been impregnated with a one component polyurethane resin , it will be strong and watertight …

I had done this before on my two former R/C sailing models , and there is no alteration visible even after four years of regular navigation on the local pond

Here are a few pic's of another model I plated in this fashion:

This resin impregnated cardboard can even be sanded, just as if you used Evergreen plastic…

This is the same material I will use to cover the plywood superstructures.

The glue you absolutely have to use on the "Bristol" is a D3 (EEC
Norms) polyvinyl white glue, D3 means it is watertight

Don't:

-Use translucent school glue your children use to make their paper botch-ups …
-Use a D4 quality; thinking it is better than D3 as it will swell during the curing process
(I know, I tried)

How to?

I say again: don't copy the shape of a plate on the SEP to put on your hull, you'd be completely wrong…

Instead of what I did on my former models, I applied on Lucy's sanded hull a layer of Bristol card board first as an under layer for the oncoming plating. This under layer will allow me to draw each first strake on the right place, followed by each plate into these strakes.

We have to begin at the bottom of the hull.

What I did is:
I drew a line in the middle of a A4 "Bristol" blade, in the proper length , and glued that blade with the middle line right on the keel line, in the middle of the hull.

Two A4 blades followed, one in the front, the other in the back. These are the only blades I was able to put on without any cutting.

The following portions have to be cut to shape, in strakes of 7 centimeters broad (A4 blade cut in three parts in the length) & glued in place.

Bristol has the advantage to become very soft once it is covered with glue, just be sure you've put enough glue on it, as it has to "spew" when you press the strake in place, then rub it down with a lint free rag.

Beware of rubbing too much, as the softened cardboard might split in layers.
If it happens, remove all the "Bristol" you damaged & begin again.

An other possibility I didn't try yet, is to impregnate the cardboard with resin, before I put it on the hull.

The first portion of the ship that will be plated is the one between the keel and the turn of the bilge area.

The broadest frame (n° 5 on my model) also indicates the main frame (frame 151 on the real Lucy), that main frame, drawn on the model's cardboard under layer, will be the starting point of all measurements to put each plate on the hull .

The keel plate strake was built in three layers on the original ship, however the only one you can see is the outer strake, which was plated without any noticeable lap or butt strap. In other words, the keel strake was completely flush to avoid any distortion of the hull while the ship was dry docked.

This next drawing, shows how I did this part of the plating .

In orange, the under layer, on which the center line has been drawn
In blue, the first garboard "A" strake, in one piece to fit both sides
In green, in the middle, the keel plates strake & on both sides, the two "B" strakes.

On the model:

View of the plating near the bow, the white center plate is the keel strake, the pink part is the double garboard "A" strake, on the left side, in green, the "B" strake & the following strakes.

Another pic, on the stern side:

You can see very well here the double garboard strake, made in one piece, on which has to come a keel plate.

As indicated before, the underside of the ship was clinker plated till the turn of the bilge

The assembly of the plate ends on these clinker strakes happened with inner & outer butt straps in the middle part of the ship & for about 4/5 of her length , the remaining of the assembly being ordinary laps ( more explanation of the laps later…).

Here is a drawing showing how these plates were longitudinally riveted together ( on the real ship )

In our case, we will only see the plating & the outer butt straps, which were about the same thickness as the plates (1 inch) and treble riveted, the inner strap being larger, thinner & quadruple riveted.

Picture of the butt straps:

You also may notice I alphabetically numbered the strakes, while I installed them, the blue line being the main frame

Now, about the laps:

The other manner of assembling plates together in the same strake was using laps, which on Lucy were mostly 12 inches, treble riveted laps & 16 inches quadruple riveted laps. Some other laps had different dimensions; this all is indicated on the SEP

Here under a drawing of a lap:

On the model:

This is actually not on the model, but on a piece of wood, where I tried the laps before applying them on the hull…

Other view:

These " lap prototypes" have not been measured , the dimensions on the model will be more accurate…

Sorry for the brightness of these pic's. I'm not a master in taking pictures…

This is as far as I went so far.

I just hope I will be able to finish the plating before the end of this year (2003…)

If you have any enquiries about this plating or the other building parts, don't hesitate to contact me through the TRMA message board , or through my personal e-mail :
laurent.gontier-versailles@skynet.be

I would prefer that your questions go through the message board, so other people can read the usual FAQ's you might ask…

Happy modeling…

Plating to be continued