The Ship Model Forum

In spring of 2007 I went to a meeting of the german association of historic shipbuilding and saw that a comrade had made a good effort completing hull and the basic superstructure of a french cruiser 3rd class, the Galilée, built after the plans from the french ministry of defence. That lead me to the decision to build also a french ship from the second half of the 19th century. Seeing through the plans availiable there I opted for the Masséna.



The hull is quite simple without hull keels and plating (it certainly had a plating but this wasn’t made overlapping so the individual bands were invisible on the hull). There were only short docking keels between frame 31 and 44.

I wanted to make a fibreglass hull with the master made from 2 mm balsa-wood on frames from 4 mm and a keel of 8 mm plywood. The frames from the plan were first reduced by 2 mm and than cut from the plywood as was the keel. The openings for the outer propeller shafts were included in the frames so they would align perfectly.







Also included in the frames were the castell with the casemates for the turrets.



After a lot of filling, sanding and a coat of resin (and of corse sanding again) the hull was finally ready to take a negative form.





This proofed to be a desaster. Due to the complex form of the hull and the casemates and although I used masses of release agent the negative form was almost impossible to release from the master. It all ended up in an unusable negative form and lots of damage at the master. Such frustrated I stopped the project waiting for the experiences of some comrades who wanted to give the master of another ship to a form-builder in Poland.

As times went by the polish project didn’t really get along and the (albeit damaged) hull of the Masséna was smiling at me. The article about the french ironclad Redoutable in Model Shipwright No. 123 finally gave me the kick to start again on my Masséna. In this article the author described his ship being build split horizontally in the middle short above the waterline to get to the RC-interior. This I thought would be also a good idea for my Masséna. The only problem was, that the frames were left full (because the hull should only be a master) so the separation of upper and lower hull would mean that I would have to split them too. But no risk, no fun. I took a panel saw and sawed. Thus the hull was divided just along the top of the armour-belt. The operation wasn’t exactly what you would call a clean cut but finally the hull was split (and due to the damages in the formmaking-process I will have to fill and sand again anyhow).

The next problem was that I had to cut the inner part of the frames out, to leave space for the RC components, but the distance between the frames was only about 3 cm. The solution was a right angle attachment for my Dremel mini-drill and a shaper. With them I was able to cut the frames out perfectly.



As I hadn’t laminated a layer of fibreglass on the outside of the hull but feared that a simple wooden hull would be in danger of cracking, the next step was to laminate the fibreglass-layer on the inside.

To be continued ....

Looks very nice.

Looking extremely good - you've made a great job of building the hull, it looks like this is going to be another very impressive scratchbuilt.
I'd like to scratchbuild a French predreadnought one day - plans are certainly readily available - but the difficulty of building the complex hull shapes has always put me off. I'm gradually building up skill working with wood (see my 1/35 picket boat kit build) so maybe one day I'll attempt a plank-on-frame scratchbuilt full hull!

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French designs of the period where very different and it's good to see modellers taking up the challenge of building these type of warships. Your hull is superb . Perhaps one day an enterprising modeler will have a go in the larger scales, the likes of the Edgar Quinet or the Leon Gambetta.
please keep us all up dated .
Dave Wooley

As I had mentioned before, there was an awful lot of filling and sanding until the upper and lower half fit neatly together but I finally managed it. The next step was to install the screws, shafts and sterntubes. As I want to motorize only the two outer propellers I had only to install them. For the middle screw I just drilled a hole, glued a threaded rod in it and screwed the propeller on it. For the outer ones I used two normal 6 mm sterntubes with 4 mm shafts. For the sterntubes I turned conical ends from 6 mm brass rods and soldered them to the ends of the sterntubes. The supports at the end of the propeller shafts had to be very stable as they will have to resist to some centrifugal force, so I turned the upper pieces (where the shafts rest) from 8 mm brass rod. The beams got a core from 0,5 mm brass plate that was soldered to the upper pieces. After that it get on both sides two layers of 1 mm sheet styrene which I sanded to shape. The supports where then aligned to the shafts and glued in position with epoxy resin adhesive.



For propulsion I use two 6 V Igarashi SP 3650-65, which run rather slow (5600 rpm) but with a good output torque of up to 1,25 Ncm. We will soon see how they work in the water.



The rudder was somewhat tricky as the rudder shaft runs through the rudder and through rests on side of the hull. The easiest but not athentical way would have been to leave the rest and let the rudder swing free from the rudder trunk but who wants easy ways. The actual rudder was constructed as follows: The rudder blade was cut from 0,5 mm brass plate including the place where the shaft sits. Then a long 3 mm brass tube was placed in a shorter 4 mm brass tube and both together were cut lengthwise on a circular saw with a 0,5 mm blade leaving the overhanging part of the 3 mm tube unharmed. The halves of the 4 mm tube were than soldered to the rudder blade leaving a half-round tunnel for the shaft on both side of the blade in which the slit 3 mm tube fits neatly. Above the rudder a 4 mm tube is slipped over the 3 mm shaft to achieve a tight fit in the trunk. Than on each side of the blade were than glued two layers of 1 mm sheet styrene and the rudder sanded to shape.



The trunk was made from 6 mm brass tube and reaches down to the rest with two third of the tube cut away between the hull and the rest. This way the trunk forms the trunk itself, the backing for the rudder and the rest-ring. The rudder could then be placed between the hull and the rest and the shaft plugged from the inside of the hull, through the trunk, through the tunnel in the rudder and through the rest so that the rudder is fixed.



The last thing to finish the hull were the dock keels. The Masséna had no bilge keels to prevent rolling in a seaway but two docking keels to take pressure from the keel and hull when in dry dock. These keels were shorter but much wider and of a rather rectangular shape than the normally V-shaped bilge keels. Their hight is aligned with the keel so that the ship can stand flat on the keel and docking keels. For these keels I used 5 mm perspex sheets, cut them to shape and glued them on the hull. Attention was layed on the hight of the docking keels to match the hight of the hull’s keel so that also the model can stand flat on all three keels.



Now it was time for paint spraying the hull for that I used „Vincent Profi Decklack“ on a water base that dries very fast and has a very good opacity. After a little research I decided to paint the underwater hull green as the french navy would have used most likely the so called „Schweinfuth-green“ as anti-fouling paint. For the hull above the waterline are a lot of pictures that show a black colour, so no problem there. The things I am still thinking of ist the waterline itself: Just a thin white line or a thin white line followed by a thin red line? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Another question is the colour of the bridge and funnels: grey or buff? I remember someone told me that in the french navy at the turn of the century the colour of the superstructure depends on if the ship was stationed on the channel-coast or on the coast of the mediterranian. Any ideas?







To be continued ...

Ahhhh, French pre-dreadnought! Positively mouthwatering! I am looking very much forward to see this project. Thanks for sharing Egberth

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"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." H. L. Mencken

Good to see you back on the tracks. I admire you taking the risks of a split hull. I hope life, time and water won't ruin this construction. In any case I will love to see it on the lake. Tell me the date of launch, then I will come to greet you in your virtual mediterranian see with the Italien flagship Dandolo.
Schmidt

Egberth!

I it a fantastic project of yours! I love French ships and greatly admire your effort! WIll be watching with interest.

Can you explain a little bit how you fasten the upper part of the hull to the lower one: screws, bolts, anything else?

Yevgeniy

nice building on model.
this type of ship is a challenger too.

@ schmidt: Tomorrow (a little bit depending on the weather). Today I purchased the lead to bring the ship to the waterline. I found a diving shop which sells used lead for diving belts at very reasonable prices. As I needed at least 5 kg my usual way of purchasing lead at the scap yard and cast it in forms seems to time-consuming.

@ Yevgeniy: Until now the upper part is just fastend with a single bolt in front of the opening and apart from that sits tight on the coaming. In the future there should be two screws under the main guns.

Cheers

Dirk

Thank you for that information on fastening hull parts. I am going to approach scratchbuilding RC ships in future (French also) and the issue of providing access to motors and battery is frightening me a little bit. So I am learning on such projects as yours.

Yevgeniy

O.K. as announced yesterday today was the first trip out in the water. The result was not bad at all. Of corse I traditionally lost a screw (but had a replacement screw) and the coupling between the shaft and the motor was loose (I need a longer grub screw), but the motorization proofed sufficient and the ship quite seaworthy and exceedingly stable. But the one thing I had to learn was, that she is f.....g heavy. The launching and carrying device I improvised (two slings with a stick between them) was insufficent as well in launching (the slings were lighter than water and could not be brought away from under the hull) as in carrying (the slings swing to much and are to long). I really need to build something with wheels to carry it.

Here are some impressions from the water:







To be continued ...

Hi Egberth my congratulations on a successful launch
Dave Wooley

Great. I'm so sorry I missed it (caught a cold). In think, one can already image the unique silhouette of this "art deco"-piece of technique.
Schmidt

One of the most inspiring stuff I have seen in years. Bravo

Oh and I forgot: As you might see on the pictures I opted for the "thin white line over twice as large red line"-option in the case of the waterline coloring.

Cheers

Dirk

REALLY glad to see the Massena making progress!!

A ship close to my heart--looking forward to seeing progress on her!

JIM B

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Would you happen to have more pictures of the planking process for the ram bow? It's not a very commonly documented part, as it is a feature that's not on many of the ships built on this board.

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De quoi s'agit-il?

Unfortunately not. But the process was quite simple. I just filed the keel at the bow to a sharp triangular shape and pulled the planks (5 mm wiide and 2 mm thick) through to the bow. Because of the triangular shape the keel in the bow section gave a good rest to glue the planks on. The rest was filling and sanding.

@ Jim: I try to do my best. Thanks again for the kind support (the high-res pictures You mailed me have proofed quite valuable). Right now I am working on the funnels, the barbettes and the turrets.

Dirk

Build looks fantastic!!! Can't wait to see more!!
GOOD JOB!!

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Reid, PIO of the 48th Fleet
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