Building: HMS Edinburgh

New Destroyer Makes Waves
Article and Photography by Ed Diment

HMS Edinburgh (HM Royal Navy Type 42 Destroyer)

SPECIFICATIONS:
Actual ship
Length: 141.1m (462ft)
Beam: 14.9m (49ft)
Displacement: 4,675 tonnes
Launched: 1986
Berthed: Portsmouth, England
Weapons: Sea Dart air-to-air missile in twin launcher, Vickers 4.5”
Dual purpose gun, 2x Vulcan Phalanx CIWS, 2x Triple 21inch torpedo
tubes, 2 20mm cannon, 2x heavy machine guns, Westland Lyxn helicopter

Model
Length: 3.15m (10ft 4inches)
Beam: 33cm (13inches)
Weight: 33kg (72lbs)
Time to build: 2 years
Elements: Approximately 30,000

I finally settled on the Edinburgh around four years ago. My first attempt went reasonably well, but I lacked sufficient reference materials and made one fundamental mistake: I built the hull in one piece. Having a hull over 3m (10ft) in length made the model quite unmanageable. This is something I know Malle Hawking realized early on when he built the Harry S. Truman – BrickJournal Issue #5. So, that meant starting again, this time with a ship built in three parts.

I chose HMS Edinburgh because I have always liked the shape of the type 42 destroyer. It has a low slender profile that makes it look fast and aggressive, and since it’s powered by Rolls Royce Olympus engines (the same used on Concorde) it is fast. The main problem is that the ship has lots of curves and strange angles to try and reproduce, which also means a more interesting shape than more modern stealth technology ships. I concluded that the only way to go would be to build each of the main elements before I even moved on to the hull.

The main elements built first included: the 4.5” dual purpose gun, the Sea Dart missiles, the radar domes, the main (air search) radar, the masts, the funnel, the Vulcan Phalanx and the Lynx helicopter. I discovered the Lowell/Bram sphere around this time, which was a god-send for doing the radar domes and making them look so much better than my first prototypes. For anyone who hasn’t come across these, I highly recommend discovering them if you need to make anything ball shaped. (http://lego.bldesign.org/sphere/

The funnel was a real challenge and took two or three attempts to get right. The internal structure is a tightly knit web of Technic beams, plates and brackets holding it all together. Not long after I’d finished it, my fiancée decided we should get two kittens. I think you can guess what happened next! After another week or so of rebuilding the destroyed funnel, all the upper elements of the ship were complete. It had actually taken the first year of the project to do all the planning and build all the detail elements.

Having built the details, the entire hull and superstructure of the ship took another nine months to build. I decided early on that I would not use brick for the hull for three reasons: (1) to save on weight, (2) because it is not a technique that I have seen used for ship hulls, and (3) it allowed for a much better line through the bow. The skeleton of the ship is comprised of a spine of bricks to which are connected Technic beam ribs. The ribs are pinned together by Technic beams at right angles, which also allow the large grey plates to be attached to form the skin of the hull. Coincidentally, this is actually the way that such ships are really built. The bow section, of my scale version, was the most difficult and used a large number of hinges, turntables and brackets to hold the panels at unusual angles to form its shape. Another difficulty with this section on the real ship is that it slopes upward to the weather bow allowing the ship to cut through waves in heavy seas. This meant using long strips sloping up at an angle to the line of the hull and gradually stepping plates from the bridge forward to form a gently sloping deck.

I decided early on that the ship should have functionality and as a consequence the 4.5” gun, Sea Dart missile launcher, air search radar and surface search radar (on top of the main mast) are all motorized. I actually re-geared the large air search radar four or five times until I got it to turn at exactly the right speed. The hangar door on the helicopter deck also raises and lowers to allow the Lynx in and out of the hangar. This, of course, necessitated building the Lynx with folding rotors and tail, just like the real thing.

I have to give some credit to Ralph Savelsberg (builder of Vandy One – BrickJournal Issue #2) for coming up with the design for the folding netting around the helicopter pad, and for inspiring me to build the Lynx. I had built two or three Lynx helicopters previously and never been happy with them.

Much like Malle (when building the Truman), I had to place quite a few orders from Bricklink during the building of HMS Edinburgh and I think my local post office was probably beginning to wonder what all these parcels from strange places were all about. Hail to the power of the Internet! I actually had most of the grey plates and bricks I needed, but the quantity of grey slopes of various types and small clips, taps etc. was frightening.

Finally, drawing the ship together took some more Internet research to find as many pictures as possible from as many angles as I could track down. There were still a couple of details I could not resolve and was wondering what to do next when an amazing stroke of luck occurred. I found an old roll of film I had not developed for about five years, so I took it to be printed. When I got the photos back I was stunned. I had completely forgotten a visit I had paid to Portsmouth years ago to watch a parade of tall ships (squared-rigged sailing ships). Amazingly, leading out this great procession of ships, there was HMS Exeter; one of Edinburgh’s sister ships! I had snapped several good photos which captured just the sort of details I needed.