Next up on this build was stanchions. And there were plenty. Most icebreakers, and the Wind class was no exception, used pipe rails welded to the stanchion uprights. It made for beating the ice build up off of them much easier. As such I chose to use ,032 dia brass wire for my rails. It happens to fit ball stanchion perfectly and I was able to 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 90 degree 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 and stanchions 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 some weight to it and also a nice texture to it. I tested a couple of samples by painting the various color on it as well as experimenting with the number of coats to seal it and still save some texture. I think I did OK. I then cut strips to install on the appropriate rails and, when dry, started painting them. I had never tried this before and was pleased with the result.
The next step was to work on rigging the mast. The picture show some slack wires and that is because the ringing must be disconnected to allow the superstructure to be removed. Simple little homemade brass hooks worked there. A like to use elastic thread for rigging, but I have found that it tends to lose it's elasticity fairly quickly and new rigging needs to be installed within a few years. Regular rigging thread seems to have just enough stretch 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,32 gauge, do the outside of the mast where they bundle with Nav light wires. Painted over they are hard to notice. The antenna is a SC, homemade of brass wire and bits and pieces of scrap PE. When I first installed my Nav lights and various other ones, they glowed even when off. I learned, from Model Mayhem, to put another resistor in line and they shut off completely, BUT before I did that , I painted over all the Nav lights and especially the white lights(not the spot lights). The result of doing this softened the lights considerably and I pat myself on the back for the superb foresight 😎.
So basically the beast is done. Saying that, I have found some wonderful servos that I a going to install to give her 270 degree rotation of her two 5" mounts. No, they are never really done. Besides, she is filthy and needs a good cleaning.

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

Now for some pictures.

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 that more 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 she has said.
So I'll continue with Eastwind's rather impressive suite of boats. She carried quite a few. The included 1x26 ft standard whaleboat, 1x36 ft Arctic Survey boat, 1x40 US navy motor launch, 1x26 ft US Navy motor launch, 2x26ft Monomoy US Life saving service ( US Coast Guard) surf pulling boats, and last but not least 6 sledges for hauling supplies 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 a bit of of a challenge, but research helped. The hull is that of a 36ft Coast Guard life boat, but it differed from the waterline up. I found an old plastic kit in 1/48th scale of the life boat and between a Dremel tool and styrene card stock, I made a new deck and cabin. Other bits and pieces came from the odds and ends box. I think that it turned out close. The 40ft Navy motor launch I found in 1/300 scale on Shapeways. Contacting the designer, he very graciously agreed to re-scale the model to 1/48th. What a chunk of plastic. Fortunately, Eastwind has no trouble tolerating a heavy load on deck. Both the 26ft motor launch and the Monomoy surf boats were created by Sasa Drobac (diStefan) on Shapeways. I sent Sasa plans for each and he had them done for me in no time. That saved me months of work. The pulling sledges I made by carving a plug from basswood that I covered in F/G resign. I then made a mold of the plug with F/G again. When that was dry/and hard, I waxed it a couple of times and proceeded to lay up 6 sledges using very, very light F/G cloth and resin. Each popped out of the mold without issues and was trimmed to shape. Some paint and I then stacked them upside down.
That may seem like the end of it, but I needed some place to put all these boats and they were stowed over each other. I did not have many good photos that showed how this was done, but I had enough. I needed to create six L shapes beams that would have been welded to the deck, allowing a boat to store underneath yet allowing outboard access while a second boat was mounted on top of it. I made these by making a master beam from styrene. These are really large 90 degree I beams with very thick webbing at the turn of the beam. With my master made, I made a silicon mold and proceeded to cast my beams. I think it took six tries, I don't remember, let me check with my wife...Anyhow, beams were made and I made some cradles for the boats that seem to look about right. Each boat was painted as per the MS 16 camouflage scheme.Lot's of small details yet to be added, not to mention a lot of painting.

A few more pictures to go with my last post.

Let me see if I can pick up where I left off. The cranes were the last major items that needed construction, short of the mast and I procrastinated on it. I needed radar and lights and I wanted it to be strong. I like the idea of styrene for masts, but it must be supported, so instead I went with telescoping brass tubing. I dread using it because I go thru so many micro drill bits attaching ladders and the like. Oh well. I found some micro pile gear motors, originally from China, but now hard to find. They are very low voltage, 3v, but quite slow, 14-18 rpm. I used a step down voltage regulator to try to get them as slow as possible. The real antenna rotated at 4 rpm or less, just bi-directional( could sweep clockwise or counter) and could be held on a specific bearing. I just wanted slow rotation. The mast also require 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 various functions. what I did not know, but learned quickly, was the module do not make/break a circuit. rather there is still a tiny amount of current flowing, enough to make an LED glow dimly, but to enough to run a motor. My lights remained on all the time. I could not have that! I reached out of Model Mayhem, Robbe F-14 knowledge base over here is very limited, and learned to install an extra resistor into on of the leads to the module. don't remember, at the moment which 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. I finished the lighting with her nav lights and four 24" search lights, two mounted above the bridge and two on the aft house. They started as Shapeways lights which I drilled out and added LEDs and reflectors from AAA battery flashlights.
More details added were 20mm gun tubes from styrene, various lockers, everything was store in lockers if it was on deck, otherwise it would become ice encrusted in no time. I found it strange not to see fire hoses and the like, but they were all in lockers. Most lockers were also made from Renshape and detailed. I used the last of my John Haynes 20mm Oerlikon cannons, which I had ordered for this build. I miss John's fitting already. Eastwind carried a Hedgehog, anti submarine projector so of like a Squid, on her bow. That and a pair of 5'-38 practice loading machines came from Shapeways. Each piece is a jewel in itself. I'd have spent a year trying to make them and they would not have looked as nice. The anchor chain supports I mastered and cast copies of. stud link chain from Cornwall attached to the anchors and I found some chain stoppers on Shapeways that looked the part.
Eastwinds had large tow rails that ran both sides of their flanks. I made these of styrene. I warmed half round stock until I could contour it to a mold and let it cool. Support legs were added. The stern gets dressed up with a long pair, although not matched, of depth charge tracks, again Shapeways come thru.Meanwhile I also added her six K guns ready charges mounted on spoons. These came for a gent over here, Robert Thomas,aka QuarterMaster. Robert's castings measure up well to Shapeways and he has been around for many years. Shapeways provided the davits.
I guess that at this point I should admit that Eastwind is a SEMI-scratch built effort. Without QuarterMaster, Shapeways and all the other suppliers, I would have had a sorry looking build.

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

I think I left off working on the cranes and the aircraft. After that, well it sort of continued for a while, Just adding details took quite a bit. Again, every thing was custom sized for an icebreaker. I did make up my own 40mm quad mounts using twin 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 were replaced by even better units from Shapeways. I don't need to add too many more comments tonite, rather I will just post a number of photos that are pretty self explanatory.

Well Fall is here and I had to take some time to start getting "stuff" done, ie, mowing the field, cutting and dragging trees, ect. Now that I have made an apparent attempt to start that, I can continue on the Eastwind Blog.
For some reason, I am losing my narration after posting photos. So I'll be brief. Making masters for deck fittings, molds and casting of fitting was a piecemeal process. I do not have the discipline to do it straight thru. There were many directions 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 without them.
My funnel, which I chose not to make functional, was of sytrene with a detailed exhausts(9) inside. I also planned my lighting about this time, which included 4 24" search lites(Shapeways) butchered to accept LEDs with reflectors. To mount forward and two aft. I painted the deck with her camouflage pattern and later, after all fittings were mounted, spliced in the required colors where needed. There were so many minor major projects within this build,that I get lost sometimes. Eastwind carried a Grumman J2F amphibian which was lower into and out of the water by crane. The aircraft was fairly easy as it was available as a 1/48scale plastic kit, but the cranes were another matter. They were similar to cranes mounted on other USN ships, but I had no plans. They were scratch built of styrene and various castings, again home done. The booms were styrene angle stock and while not perfect are OK at 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 she once recorded a 70 degree roll. My stomach just did. BUT!! she was loaded to the gills. Her aramentwas, 4x 5"/38 dual pupose guns in twin mounts, 3 x 40mm quadruple Bofors canon mounts, 6 x 20mm Oerlikon machine canon mounts, two depth charge racks, 6 x K guns ( depth charge projectors, 1 x Hedgehog, and 1x J2F float plane. Quite the package. Until next time....

Well at this point it was time to start building, now that the tedious job of creating the hull was done. I added the lower bulkward on the bow and the breakwater aft of it. Both were worked out of styrene sheet. Oval eyelet were used for the hawser ports and the tow cable hole was bored. The bridge top carried a MK 51 director, a pair of sky lookouts and a pair of 24" search lights. The enclosure for the MK 51 was,agin, styrene and the fittings themselves were from diStefan's shop at Shapeways. I applied the first of several coats of paint to the deck to layout the camouflage pattern and began locating deck fittings. While I was at it I made the aft pair of 20mm Oerlikon shields and applied them. The Winds had a unoque winch cable roller bitt mount that was mounted aft of the aft house which contained the towing winch. I made this of styrene, turned bits of PVC and anything else handy. A pair of vents made of turned PVC rod and brass tubing, mounted outboard of the bitt assembly 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 sells beautiful, flawlessly cast resin 1/48 fittings, look up QuarterMaster, mostly for USN destroyers. But, many are applicable to other USN ships...except, icebreakers. It was at this point that I realized how many masters, molds, and castings of deck fittings I would need to make. Pause... Let's think about this... OK, how about a beer? Good Idea. I always think better when my eyes are closed.