The Ship Model Forum

Norman Friedman, A.D. Baker III and the Naval Institute Press seem to have payed for more than one Queen's corgi for their Victorian Cruiser and Battleship books so I am mostly following Friedman.
The NMM is also slowly putting low quality scans of these drawings online at prints.rmg.co.uk and culturepics.org. The half block models at the NMM main site are really useful if you want to work out the waterline for the Friedman/Baker drawings.
I'm not doing many online builds currently (they seem never to get finished) but I will put any finished model at the complete models section of picture post.
[quote="callen"][quote="dafi"]:cool_1: :cool_1: :cool_1:


Oh goodness Pieter. Are we talking Victorian Ironclads? I'd kidnap the Queen's Corgis to get ahold of some of those plans. :cool_2: Feel free to share a link with me if you're actively blogging anything Victorian.

Happy Modeling!

:wave_1:[/quote][/quote]

Always good work!
It's impressive, :good_job:
Jean

[quote="dafi"]:cool_1: :cool_1: :cool_1:

Louvit!!!

XXXDAn[/quote]

Thank you!
:thumbs_up_1:

[quote="Pieter"]Nice work. And I'm taking not of 'Bob' for my next victorian cruiser builds.[/quote]

Oh goodness Pieter. Are we talking Victorian Ironclads? I'd kidnap the Queen's Corgis to get ahold of some of those plans. :cool_2: Feel free to share a link with me if you're actively blogging anything Victorian.

Happy Modeling!

:wave_1:

Nice work. And I'm taking not of 'Bob' for my next victorian cruiser builds.

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'Family shot' with the Phoenician Galley (check out that build on my thread 'Galley Alley') Also Brass Bob and the penny for scale. This is very much a Work In Progress. I am focusing on completing the galleys this week, but I hope to have the Mary Rose completed in March. Stay tuned! More coming!
:wave_1:

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My buddy Tom Lindsay over on Facebook told me he thought the figurehead was too long. I decided he was right.
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Note my little jig to help with spacing for the gunwale vertical elements.
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:cool_1: :cool_1: :cool_1:

Louvit!!!

XXXDAn

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The gunwales at the waist are actually too high.
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Also, they could be thinner. Lots of corrections going on with this build! Good thing I'm scratch-building. :big_grin:
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In order to check the placement of the shrouds on the main mast, it's necessary to dry fit the mainmast at this time.

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Looks ok. And the channels will add to the angle of the shrouds. Whew! Disaster averted!
:thumbs_up_1:

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Time to plank the hull! :woo_hoo:

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Many aspects of the Mary Rose's structure and appearance are necessarily conjectural. The placement of the gunports is _not_. I didn't realize this until after I had begun carving them. I knew that the roughed-out gunports could be regularized by the planking pieces during detailing, but the planks also can work to cover up one's errors. :thumbs_up_1:

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The offending gunport is gone!
:cool_1:

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At this point, I realized that my zeal to create as many hatches as possible in order to show the interior of the ship had caused me a major problem. Can you see it?
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I had thought 'the foreward part of the after-castle would be a great place to site the mainmast!' Without checking to see whether that was the case. In fact, it appears that nearly all carracks of all nations had their mainmast close to but forward of the front edge of the after castle. And I had made a hatch coaming right smack where the mainmast needed to be... :heh:

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Now we have a proper site for a mainmast on the main deck. In fact, with the extra backing on the new piece, it's stronger than before. Cosmetically it's not perfect, but the seams will likely not be noticeable on the completed model with all of the detail that will be in place in this area.

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As for the gundeck, it's not necessary to do any drastic surgery, simply filling in the coaming is sufficient, since this part of the deck will not be seen.

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Checking the size of the build with the case I have picked out for her. The bowsprit makes for a tight fit, but I think she'll manage.

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Pondering the issues of the mainmast and after castle, I suddenly had the horrible thought that the shroud/ratline parts would chafe against the aftercastle sides. Yikes! :heh: That's the sort of thing that can ruin a whole build, and, if I don't check and correct now, it may be too late to save the build after painting and construction. This PE is by Ocean Spirit, it matches almost exactly the shroud set that used to be offered by Battlefleet Models, but I haven't been able to find Battlefleet Models for some time. I think they may be defunct.

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Note how the back edge of the various decks and parts of the forecastle do not conform to the curve of the cubbridge arch. In the Anthony Roll the back face of the forecastle has a distinctive concave shape. Some trimming is required.

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I think this is much improved. The lower edge of the forecastle now conforms to the curve of the cubbridge arch.
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Dry-Fit of the various components so far.

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Alignment of the hatch coamings at the waist. The shape of these hatches has to be carefully considered. If they are too wide laterally, there will not be enough space for the cannons and their recoil.

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Brass Bob weighing in on scale. This was not a small ship.

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Bowsprit time!

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Stern chase-gun ports.
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My intent with this build is to make the most of the interior spaces of the hull. I plan on showing the ship with her hatches open, so that one may be able to see down into the various decks of the ship. Even if the view is not extensive, the sense of 'interiority' will, I think, add to the appeal of the model. Here you can see my efforts to make sure the hatch coamings of the after-castle line up reasonably well.

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Checking the transom shape as it is developing. Since we're dealing with three separate pieces here, I need to continually verify the way they are going to line up. Tudor Carracks had a very distinctive sort of transom stern, flat all the way to the waterline, with a gradual tumble-home, and a slight overhang. The back ends of the various pieces have not yet been faced, but they need to come together well.

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Hatch coamings faced for both the lower hull and the main deck piece. Really adds to the look of the parts.

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Adjusting the sheer of the forecastle upwards has created a problem. The final half-deck has a forward-facing bulkhead that was once vertical, but now inclines backwards slightly. Ideally this bulkhead should be vertical, making the angle where it meets the deck less than 90º. So, this will need to be adjusted.

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Now we've got the right angle. Incidentally, this matches well the style of forecastles seen in the Anthony Roll, as well as other contemporary illustrations.

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This was new territory for me. An interesting task, trying to carve a tiny gargoyle head. In reality this part would have been about three feet across, not including the horns/ears.

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At this point, I thought I'd enlist the help of a 1/700th Scale PE figure from my stock to help me gauge the scale and size of the various decks and components. I countersunk this figure into a piece of plastic, so the white base you see there does not, in fact, add to his height. In scale terms he's about 5ft 6". I call him 'Brass Bob.'
:thumbs_up_1:

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Brass Bob examining the headroom of the forecastle lower deck. He's a tight fit, but this is characteristic for ships of this era.

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Coamings for deck hatches...

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Building up the Transom.

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Adding some height to the bow. I realized, in pondering the angle of the forecastle that the Anthony Roll depicts a significant sheer to the angle of this structure. In considering the realism of this, I realized such a sheer would be very useful, as it would add height to the forward edge of the forecastle, facilitating its placement over the waist of an enemy carrack. This is the goal of carrack tactics, to place the forecastle over the waist of one's enemy. The forecastle then functions as a bridgehead for the invasion of the enemy ship, essentially land-based siege tactics adapted for sea warfare. Since this made the sheer of the forecastle a reasonable feature, I decided to adjust the model accordingly.

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Further widening the foundation of the forecastle, to better match the Anthony depiction. This feature, a sort of large moulding round the base of the triangular forecastle structure, also has a practical explanation, as such a feature would make it more difficult for enemy soldiers to grapple and scale the face of the Mary Rose's forecastle.

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Beginning work on the figurehead. Many of the specific component terms of a sailing warship actually date to the time of the Carracks. 'Gunwale' today means the uppermost edge of a wooden hull, but the uppermost wale in a Late Medieval carrack was actually the most logical placement for cannons prior to the invention of the gunport. The forecastle (today pronounced 'foc'sle') was, in the era of the carracks an actual castle-like structure. And the figurehead was actually a monstrous head mounted on the end of a projecting timber. This head, though not strictly utilitarian, would have been the first part of the attacking carrack to converge on the waist of a defending carrack. The soldiers there attempting to fire at the attacking carrack would have seen this gargoyle-like head thrusting towards them as their enemy drew close. It must have been a fairly alarming sight.

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Shaping the gargoyle-like figurehead.

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Now for a very characteristic detail: the Cubbridge Arch. This structure is present in the Anthony depiction of the Mary Rose, and in many many depictions of contemporary Carracks. The cubbridge arch stands astride the weather deck directly beneath the aft edge of the forecastle. I believe its purpose was to support the weight of the forecastle, and transfer that weight to the hull sides and frames/futtocks, while also giving access for the crew to the foremost part of the bow area. This structure was needed, as the weight of the forecastle was likely considerable. Very likely the windlass was located inside the partially enclosed area created by the cubbridge arch.
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For the transverse planking of the cubbridge arch, I used square rod 0.01 styrene from Plastruct, as Evergreen does not make a rod this small.

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Cubbridge arch installed.

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Like the forecastle, the after castle will have two decks. This is the lower one.
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The big question in all of this is: what did the [i]Mary Rose[/i] actually look like? Early modern illustration/reconstructions of the [i]Mary Rose's[/i] appearance differed greatly from the near-contemporary depiction in the Anthony Roll. However, as time has gone on and scholarship accumulated, the consensus seems to have hewed closer to the Anthony depiction. I decided for my build that I would hew as close as I can to the Anthony Roll illustration in overall shape and appearance, while incorporating the obvious imperatives of ship functionality, realistic rigging, and what we know from the wreck of the ship herself. In other words, the Anthony Roll illustration (see the first image in the first post) is the prototype for the over all style and shape I want to depict, but is obviously not a guide for important functional details like rigging, armament and fittings.

To this end, I wanted the forecastle to closely match the depiction on the roll. So, we're looking at a triangular structure, with a stepped upper deck that looks very much like a pilot house, but definitely is not.

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At this point our forecastle effort looks oddly like the head of one of those Japanese Anime robots...
:heh:

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Beginning the forecastle effort.
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Adding the bulwarks before the decking caused some unnecessary complications, as you can see in the previous post, but eventually I was able to build a deck piece that matched the curves of the hull.

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Aside from my first scratch-built carrack, the [i]Beja[/i], all of my succeeding builds had been based on the same two resin-cast hulls, which were made from originals of my own devising and cast in the resin studio of my friend and colleague Rusty White. But, truth be told, I don't like solid hulls. I like being able to see into the interior of a ship. So, for this build, I decided I would create a gun deck below the main deck, and then do everything I could to open it up and show the interior. In the event this will be limited to open centerline deck hatches, and a very tiny amount of space through the gunports, but I think this is an important feature. The human eye is hard to fool, it knows when it is looking at something solid, and when it is looking at something hollow.
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So here, you can see the deck I've worked on up to this point is actually the gun deck. The true weather deck will be, well...one deck above.
:big_grin:

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I worked very hard to create a deck piece that matched the lovely sheer of the lower gun deck. In the event it did tend to flatten out a bit, but was flexible and easily conformed to the upper surface of the lower hull bulwarks in dry fitting tests.

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Here's a shot that shows how the stern tumblehome progresses between the lower hull piece and the weather deck piece.

Ok! Here we go with the build! I began this model in 2010,

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but set aside the base plate almost immediately in the rush to progress on the other builds I've shown you. I began the build in earnest only two months ago, in December.

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I think you can see how the styrene had yellowed in the interval.

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