It may be a "shame" but it seems like a great idea to me, ahahahahahahah.

Hey Alessandro,
Shall I be honest? Then a great yes!
I've already done this at our pond . . . and it is really deep in places.
“Rope of shame” is simply an awesome name!
I will officially announce this in our club! 🤣🤣🤣
Your Michel-C.

Well done Mike, you are a great observer, you noticed the rope at the stern.
Jumpugly you did well, you can never be too careful.
Mike, are you just a great observer or have you used that rope in the past? ahahahahahah

You guys are the BEST!
And yes Michel, it is the lifeline, just in case she suddenly went to meet Davy Jones. At the Lake we call it the "rope of shame!"

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Aha JumpUgly!
What do I see at the stern? Is that a lifeline?

Bb Michel-C.

>> Rope of shame? I see it differently! It's only in the test phase!
But I like the name! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Hey Jumpugly,
The Captain should throw the First Mate overboard for loading her like that!🤣
Before you remove too much from her stern, try adding some ballast forward. That in and of itself will raise the stern.
She is looking really nice ( for a target😁)

Yes Jumpugly, on the trim it is exactly as you say, it is evident.
Logically it is an easily resolvable issue.
But in the water it is really beautiful, it has a fantastic effect.

Woops - but still looks good - with the bow that high looks as though she is ready to start planing!!!!!!

Well… after a long delay…
In the water she went and as you can all see I went over the top with the ballast in the stern. Dammit!

I will remove some of my ballast in the rear and add some upfront and sneak her back up to my boss’s pool sometime in the near future.

The good news is that she doesn’t leak and she’s nicely upright. But, I don’t dare put her in the Lake until I’ve got everything sorted out. Will not add the cranes and rigging until she’s just about perfect afloat.

Fortunately my new digital scale is being delivered today. 😂😂😂

Hey TD! Yes sir I did, a wonderful resource for sure. And thanks for posting this pic of an AJ5 riding high. It motivates me to find a good mid- point on my final draft adjustments.
👍

Hi Jump,
Have you looked at Navsource.org? Lot's of pictures of very similar ships. The Scout was a C2-S-AJ5, and a series of C2-S-AJ3, Most if not all were AKA's attack transports. Look on the Amphibious page for AKA and then around AKA 64 +_. This one example I found. Notice the difference between her loaded and light waterlines.
Also here is a MARAD web page concerning Scout.
https://www.maritime.dot.gov/multimedia/ss-american-scout
😊

Wolle! Thanks for this information. I will definitely keep that mind. It's certainly motivation to get my hull just right!
👍

Hello Jumpugly
Alessandro and Ronald are absolutely right.
I had the same problem with my Zwarte Zee. The screw was only 0.5 cm out of the water. Apart from the appearance, this is not a problem with the feed. But it is with reverse thrust.
Then the propeller sucks in air and water is sprayed up. And the driving and steering characteristics are no longer given.

Ronald! This is a huge help! I will go heavy and get in one more trip to the tub to do some final tweaking so I can get this gal done!

Please thank your friend for me and a heartfelt thanks to you for your efforts!
👍😊

I’m in full agreement with you too Alessandro. Thank you for joining in this chat. I figure if I am going all out for scale I might as well do my best to get it right!
😉

Hi Jumpugly, I think you are right to be accurate.
My opinion is that in merchant ships there is a big difference between full load and empty. This difference is remarkable and astonishing in oil tankers.
If I were you I would look for a perfect alignment keeping the propeller completely submerged.
However, you can show a red part of the hull but not too much, but the ideal is to reach the white line.
I envy your problem, usually we have the opposite problem.

I also thank Ron for researching the information and sharing it with us.

Got a lengthy reply and Shaun is a model builder too!

Yeah, people don't realize how much ballast a large ship model requires. A vessel with any part of the propeller out of the water is inefficient. If his model was loaded with cargo, the white boot top between the red and black would be the waterline. Sometimes, you just get what you get when you are building a model, though.

Also, a ship with no cargo in ballast condition is usually trimmed aft to get the propeller down. The ship wouldn't be 'flat' in that condition, but down by the stern. We just came up the St. Lawrence River with extra ballast aft so that the propeller would be deep enough that the ice we went through didn't go through it.

This should help

Many thanks Ron!!!! This is so cool!😊

I suspect that fully laden a 459 foot long cargo ship would ride closer to the water line? Well see.

I sent a copy of your post along with the picture to a Chief Engineer on a Great Lakes freighter to get his opinion. He may say the prop/screw/wheel needs to be submerged. We will see.

Hey Gang!
Well, my (last?) tub and water test went very well today; finally! The monster floated well fore and aft, with a really nice center of gravity, and self righted better than I expected. So, I'm happy with the balance, and even happier with NO LEAKS!

However, at 11 pounds she rides a bit high with the prop half out of the water, which does not seem right to me. See picture below. You'll notice the lower line is 11 pounds.
I added 3 pounds of weight throughout the hull and got her down to the upper line, which is 14 pounds! But the prop is just at the surface. Seems better, but not absolutely scale?

This begs the question, am I driving myself nuts about this? I've never quite built a ship quite this "scale" large before and am curious if you all think I'm taking this a bit too seriously as I'm not sure if scale running at 1:100 is even truly possible, other than speed.
Thoughts appreciated.
😉

I think you inspired me with the lifeboats Alessandro! But, he are my 60 year old lifeboat instruction page and a detail on my weathered lifeboats. I still have to weather the rest of my ship to match!
😂😂😂

Hi Jumpugly, your model is going great. I was intrigued by a detail.
The lifeboat cover is secured with a rope that passes under the hull, with a design similar to mine.
This gives me further confirmation, thanks.

Hello Gang, hit a slow patch in the details, especially with cleaning up the superstructure.
But, I wanted to share a 1959 ape winch made of white metal and a 2025 3D printed ape winch, both in 1:100 scale. I figured if I am going to go as scale as I possibly can, the decision was pretty easy. Besides I needed 16 of them!
😉

P.S. yes, I broke down and picked up Speedline Bluebird K-7 in the background. I am going to "scale" it out for grins. It will keep me motivated to go nuts and spend mountains of $$ for a large 1/8th scale build someday.
😂🤣

And a big shout out to ROY for the hinge idea for the booms. I used Dubro micro hinges and they worked just GREAT! Notice the base of the two booms on the first deck just forward of the superstructure. Rigging to follow soon! Still trial fitting just about everything so everything looks a bit loose. Cosmetic repairs still to come as well.
😉

Thank you Roy!!!
👍😊

We do what we can Jp
As do you - very well👍

Cheers, Doug😎

You guys are the best!!!
🙂

Only mistakes make a model unique
I think your ship is great.

What he said👍😀

😎

REALLY successful modeling depends a lot on how well you can disguise the mistakes it’s too late to correct. Important to remember since we all make those mistakes.😀😀

Amen to that RN!!!
👍😁

Hi Jp,
In the immortal words of my first Boss, ca 1970-
"If you've never made a mistake you've never made f*** all!"
Frank Dudley, an East Londoner Cockney I'll never forget. RIP Frank

😎

Thank you for your kind words Cash!

In hindsight I’ve made some mistakes with this old gal, but once I am done I will go back and make some corrections. And those corrections will be only cosmetic. I learned a few important lessons with this kit; especially the less than perfect matching of styrene and ancient balsa.

Also, your ballast notes are a huge help, and believe it or not, I have a pint of Crossman bb’s in my shop and an ancient Crossman 760! lol!
I will use them as needed for some final tweaking should the tiles not easily fit in some of the smaller hidden areas of the hull.
👍😊

Jump…JUMP! Dang it man that Scout’s looking good! I think you’re going to be pleased with her as well you should. You’ve done an exemplary job on her.
I feel your pain on ballast. The job you did with the tiles is ingenious, btw. I use either weight from leg weights, they’re either metal ingots or small 1 lb sand bags, small enough for a medium-up sized boat. The other is bb’s in bottles…pill, vape, etc. I make ballast bombs and then secure them when I’m happy with the way the boats sitting..oh, use Crosman, not Daisy. Cheaper😀
Again, the Scouts is great!! You got skills hoss..looking forward to her maiden.
Cash

Thanks Chum! My old floor tile days came in handy. When I was a kid I did the high ladder work for my Grandfather’s painting company so I was around all kinds of tradesmen. I remember some types of stone backsplash tiles being incredibly dense despite there small size.
They worked well in this long hull.
😉

I like your ballast material solution. Ingenious.👍👍

Starting to move on the little stuff for a while. The second tub test is upcoming, followed by rigging, I think, deck details (including deck edge repairs) and then a mountain of weathering. In other words, a lot to do. 😉

Good choice, I will keep it in mind next time I need ballast.
Those tiles may not look the best on a bathroom floor but make excellent ballast.
😎

Good Morning!
I thought long and hard about ballast and tire weights were at the top of my list, but I opted to go for 1" stone blocks from 1' bathroom tile squares. Each square weighs 4 pounds.

The clincher for me was the nylon netting holding the blocks together (within the square) so I could cut strips (or just single blocks) to fit to my needs and epoxy them down on the lower deck and (where needed) on top of each other. I was also able to distribute them evenly throughout the hull.
If you look closely, you can see a sample of the layout I went with and an unused square from the Home Depot (second photo). Netting on the back is in the third photo.

So...she's gained weight and is up to 11 pounds total (8.5 pounds of it is this stone ballast). I hope to get her back in the tub for round 2 in the next few days.
👍😊

Great idea CommodoreH!

Now that you have completed the weight test you can eat the soup.

My choice for weights is to visit then local tire shop and pick up all the discarded wheel balance weights. They can be cut up and placed in plastic bags. The same method works as source for weights I sometimes need during construction to hold parts in place temporarily.

Ciao Jumpugly.
It is very good that you have so much margin to be able to add weight.
Now think about all those electronic devices that you could put and that you would like to add.
But above all, take advantage of your spaces and the availability of the buoyancy to add all the batteries you want. You could get a huge autonomy.

Amen TD!!!!!!! 😆😆😆😆🤣🤣🤣

Arrrhg Me Maties
11 lbs doesn't even come close to weighing that of a small keg of Rum! You be gettin slack and weak in these days of indulgence....🤣🤣🤣🤣

Ron! Made my day with that one! But, may not be too far off the mark! 🤣🤣🤣

I am sure with your ingenuity the issue of getting your model from point A to point B and out again will be resolved efficiently. Using a engine block lift could be considered by using a counter-balance arm or crank to lift it up and lower it into the cradle or water.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/STARK-USA-500-LB-Pickup-Truck-Hydraulic-PWC-Dock-JIB-Engine-Hoist-Crane-Hitch-Mount-Lift-KIT56075/321051808

Well Gentlemen, I could not stand to wait and got brave enough to get the tub test done just now ahead of some heavy weather coming in today and tomorrow.

The boat as built comes in at 6.5 pounds (3kg) with only 3 pounds (1.36kg) of ballast contributing to that figure.
Thankfully, she floats nice and steady bow-to-stern. And evenly port and starboard as well. However, she floats way too high and no where near the waterline. Visions of capsizing raced through my head, as I broke into a sweat.

Now the fun begins...

So I slowly added exactly 3 pounds of test ballast in the form of multiple cans of unopened soda. That got me within one inch of the waterline all around. To my surprise, it took almost exactly another 2.5 pounds (of whatever soup cans I could find in the pantry) to get just below the water line and floating with a scale attitude. And yes, she looked like a container ship for Campbell's Soup and Coca Cola. LOL!

That would bring her up to about 12 pounds total, but I'm still not sure. So back to the shop to add the additional 5.5 pounds of correct (non-pantry supplies) of ballast and then back to the tank for some more tweaking.

Build blogs on this kit have ballast estimates running as high as 11 pounds of ballast so my initial 8.5 pounds isn't too far off the mark...I think.

Now for that drink...😉🤞

With the size and weight of some of these models, they are going to be towed to the water on a standard boat road trailer, and then winched down into the water, then winching back out. Is anyone on to build the biggest and heaviest model? Not me, with a knackered back who struggles to lift my 20lb models.😁😁😁😁

Toradog and Jumpugly you are building some magnificent beasts.
In the club of extra models I would also include JockScott with his tanker.
Well done all three.

You guys... It is easy to get the boat into the water... just drop it. Getting it back out is the real trick.
Jump, once you have succeeded, you can help me with Juneau... all 145pounds
😀😁😀😁
I'll supply the Xanax......

Lucky duck you have a cristal ball?!?!
After lifting my model i feel like Popeye without eating spinaze

Jumpugly a good day
I have done power lifting to put the Harro koebke in the water.
At the moment i look like mister universe………i hope my model too😂😂