1/700 Bretagne-1855 scratch The largest wooden wall warship

[JIM BAUMANN]

@ wefalck thank you for your illustrations and description
as ever your uncompromising high quality approach shows excellent results

- not sure if I could translate it into something 7 x smaller..?!

Meanwhile....
I have been busy airbrushing coats of white, rubbing down, more painting, more rubbing down, more pai.., more rub..., more p...,more r.....
for a whole 10 days (!) trying to get density into my white as well as final fairing

whilst in the meantime measuring off the mast and spar sizes off large scale plans,
then doing the maths and offering the result up to a scaled 1/700 version of the plan.

In politics... they would call it an acceptable degree of error...

( ie I don't have the tools to measure the error! )

The lower mast are tube ( with another section of Tube glued inside as a laminate )
with the tapered sections cut out of appropriate size of 1.350 scale yardarms

The yards were cut out of 1/350 and 1/700 spars of suitable diameter

The spars will be reinforced midships to form an Octagon section

I plan to use a combination of paper and decal stripe etc to keep it thin but looking angular
The lower yards in addition carried retracted stun-sail booms ( not cut yet )
this all needs more work and thought!




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More bothersome and exercising of minutia in thiught ...........
has been the correct line of the underwater colour ...
-more precisely the copper plating-- which would appear as a dull light mid green


( I seek inspiration from Marjinns HMS Victory model )

viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167367&start=880#p1019524

except rather less saturation ( and plate detail!) on my ship model at more than half the scale !
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but even far more bothersome is the actual line of the waterline....?!

the only 'proper' photo of the ship in service is this ( captioned Brest 1860 )

which tonally is inconclusive / unhelpful except she is down at the stern a little...
contemporary engravings... suggest a slight up-sweep at the bow of varying degrees?

the ( superbly huge ( approx 2,3 metres loa !) and inspiring model of Valmy( Musee de Marine)

appears to suggests otherwise

The detail from another painting concurs with that ( but there is much other stuff wrong with that painting...
ergo is it a trustworthy source?

This photo dated 1884 --- its the " wrong kind " of Bretagne--
This is Borda renamed Bretagne as a training ship ( Borda had less sweeping sheer-line)

" My " Bretagne had been scrapped in 1880..... (!! )

but the image DOES I think ) show a slight up-sweep forward of the underwater colour ? )

I have been studying the photo images x 3 of her with no conclusive thought--other than
the same ' strake ' ( rubbing strake for boats?) appearing in all 3 images

so ... what do my peers think??


best wishes
Jim Baumann

[wefalck]

I think wooden ships were traditionally given painted/coppered waterlines that slightly sweep up at the ends. For two reasons: a) it makes the ship look 'faster', and b) more importantly it visually counteracts the inevitable 'hogging' of wooden ships with age.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Well--whilst pondering the waterline conundrum.........

I thought I would keep busy and thereby NOT loose the impetus..!

She is looking ship-like at last

there are a few gunport rectifications to do

I have counted 5 out of a 151 apertures which need a bit of work
is a fair score when model is built in old-school analogue way !


fortunately the gunport lids will also work like magic to even it out!


encs

[Iceman 29]

Looking very nice, very regular black lines!

[marijn van gils]

She is starting to look great Jim!
The black lines make such a huge difference.

And congrats on getting the gun ports so neat in the traditional way and in such a tiny scale. I found this challenging in 1/300, but 1/700 is another level!


As to the waterline:
There may have been a slight upsweep of the upper edge of the copper plates, but I have certainly never seen it to such an extent as those two engravings.
The coppering normally doesn't follow the lines of the sheer or lower whale, but really the horizontal and straight waterline.
But I have only been looking at images from late 18th to early 19th century vessels, not later 19th century, so I may be completely wrong. But I also see no apparent reason to change practices and copper higher up? It was not a decorative element, but a very practical (and expensive!) one...
If there was an upsweep, I would expect it to be near invisible in 1/700.

The painting and model are not really trustworthy sources for this kind of detail. But I think they do show the most likely hypothesis. At least as long as there is no other evidence.

I think the photos don't offer much clarity. The faint lines we see can be the edge of the coppering, dirt sticking to the hull at the waterline, a difference in the oxidation of the copper, the shadow of the lower whale, and of course those strakes... No way to be sure about most of it!
I agree that the only clear thing is the presence of those strakes. But I have no idea what their function was. I haven't seen anything alike on earlier ships.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thansk you all for waterline conundrum inputs,

I decided to solve it with a comprise between the two extremes, as well as still more erring towards caution rather than sweeping lines!

The Hammock boxes exercised me-- inasfar as that the ' canvas' (Styrene rod) should begin at the 'outside' edge

I solved this by painting in a 50/50 mix of white glue into the ' step ', that self-leveled and blended, the meniscus of which at the outside
stopped just a fraction inboard of the channel edge.

The ship had a very fine white line all around the top edge of the bulwarks.I pondered white painted wire ?
stretched white sprue
( I could get that fine enough,.. and long enough and at consistent thickness

but... I could not get it clean white--more a white with beige ...

I then recalled my thin white waterlines on my 1/700 Victorian RN steel ships ( black hull, white line and red antifouling....

effected with white decal strip,

and then overlaid with dark red decal strip

same thing should work here?

Firstly a black strip to sharpen the line to hammock box, then a white decal, and then another black strip.

small snag is that I needed 0.8 mm wide strip for the main deck hammock boxes--I have ordered it ....
and tediously ... now I have to wait for that to arrive


but the quarter deck hammock boxes s have been done

>> Warning! <<<

Rather brutal x 7 enlargement shows the flaws!

The aft windows are being inserted....

everything still needs touch-up and adjustment ( scalpel! )

the little windows were very fiddly to handle---

I resorted to ' tune' the tweezers to need minimum pressure to close ....
but would still spring open when released .

overall the ship is looking more pleasing, once the guns and lids are installed --
Bretagne will have a more textured looking hull!

more soon

Jim Baumann

[Guest]

Just rediscoverd the project, what a feast

And what a beast as well

As for the warterline (if not too late): I just know them as beeing straight/flat/horizontal. Over the last strake of copper usually was in english ships nailed a batten to prtect the edge, but this wa usually less prominent.
Also look for the depth of the waterline, as most pictures show the ship in an emtpty state and not seagoing provisioned!

All the best, DAniel

[Joe Simon]

Very impressive Jim as usual!

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you gentlemen

I have had some PM's and e-mails --suggesting that "" my black vinyl stripes are inherently wrong because
they stick out and are ' proud' of the hull "" and it was not like that in real life, as they were planked flush....""

obviously I have to have an answer!

The vinyil is under 0.1 mm thick ( my sliding caliper cannot measure the thickness !)
and...

One may find that actually it is kind of so (--well Almost.... )
but not flush anyhow !

, ( cheers EF for the scans!) --as below

more model progress soon
JimB

[wefalck]

It seems that there is over the centuries a tendency to make hulls more flush, which required, of course, to give certain planks a trapezoidal cross-section. This extra planing work probably was invested in order to have fewer steps/ledges in which water would collect and that would stay humid longer and thus give rise to rot.

I know that you have been using vinyl strips before, but my concern would be the aging of the vinyl, resulting in its shrinking. Also, I think that vinyl has a relatively high thermal expansion coefficient. My choice probably would have been black decal strips ...

[JIM BAUMANN]

@ wefalck good point about the trapezaoid section of planks...

all good thoughts--and I am grateful to you and all others as the sounding board fro my errant thoughts !

ref Vinyl...

I have been using the Becc tapes for over 30 years--
and with my (glass cased )models have never seen any sign of movement on any of my models...
But--
I anchor the strips at each with glue and immediately (brush ) enamel varnish over them and the edges ) --
( as in pinstriping on 1;1 scale classic cars --they are laquered in )
-and in certain instances I also run ultra thin CA along the lower edges

Decal strip was my indeed my initial thought when I was wondering for last 5 years how to do all the bits on Bretagne.

In my view ...the trouble with decal strip is....
- fine for my offset red/white waterlines which in the main run broadly in
a horizontal and uniform plane ( can be tricky with undercut sterns )
But as decal strip over 1mm wide does not yield laterally even in in subtle curves it becomes and issue
On a wooden wall ship where there is curvature in 2 planes it is nigh impossible to make decal conform

anyhow--- its on now !

[JIM BAUMANN]

there has been some more progress on the ship,
the rubbing strake has been suggested in 0.3 tape

The Hammock box white line is now successfully and satisfactorily rendered

The ships had small ports near the waterline ( with a glass window( !!??)
as seen here on Valmy

and visible from quite some distance also !!

The Bretagne porst differed in design from those of Valmy with a set horizontal hinge straps as far as I could ascertain

anyhow--the bigger issue was how to render a suggestion of them---accurate or not that would not be just a round circle

My solution was as below

I will be away from the workbench for a few days more soon!

Jim Baumann

[SG1]

Ahh, a feast for the eyes! i admire your perfection with such a small scale. The juxtaposed tapes at the hammoks line are simply stunning. And the clever use of PEs cut to the most bizarre shapes never ceases to stupefy me

[marijn van gils]

In such a tiny scale indeed!
The pic with your hand included puts things nicely in perspective
Fantastic work!

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you guys for the encouragement

Bretagne had 2 x stern walks--above each other.

the platforms of which cut out of 2.5 thou brass PE waste fret surround.
Cutting the outside shapes with Fiskar curved scissors is easy-- the inner radius rather less so...
I elected to glue the brass to my wooden drill block with 'Pritt ' paper glue

... using the Pillar drill make a series of holes

==> chain-drill the inside curves first and the use another drill bit as a ' milling machine to cut it clear.)

The railing for the platforms were close spaced verticals with a horizontal connecting rail above
as in this model of near sister sail-and-Steam 2-decker 'Napoleon'

I found it quite impossible to find suitable railing of anywhere near the right shape;
( maybe I was looking in the wrong places...-or not enough outside-of-the-box ? )

because MW chum Rui Matos found the solution for me at Starling Models...

The ' fence 'part of which, when cut down would make a fine rendition of the real thing...
as in image below

All I now have to do is bend the rail around the platform prior to installing... (!)
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The Bretagne on the main ' weather ' deck had guns and carronades,
each of which had ready-use-cannonballs in sets of 7 balls next to the gun-positions.

these munition racks were large pieces of timber at deck level with curved shapes hollowed out for the balls to sit in

The racks were fairly easy ( if small ) made of perforated Photo-etched strip stock ( L' Arsenal )

The balls to go in them were trickier ...

The ship has 14 racks per side -- so 24 in total @ 7 balls each was some 196 balls

Thanks to Marijn van Gils for pointing me in the right direction....
I bought some o.20 mm solder balls ( electronics repairs )

these come on packs of 25,000 (!) balls so the losses to get 196 balls were fortunately covered (!)


colouring the cannon balls was the next challenge-- I used a ' Pentel ' Permanent black marker on a post-it note,
the paper absorbing the ink and the balls not ' clagging '

the pre-painted racks were placed onto the sticky part of the Post-it notes for assembly

( keeps rack in place while placing cannon balls on to thinned matt varnish.)

the balls were manipulated with a wetted cocktail stick and placing on the pre-varnish applied receiving hole

alas... nevertheless ..the losses of racks and balls were epic...!!

but the effect is worth the while

more shortly

JIM B

[MartinJQuinn]

Wow - you've taken this to another level with the detail! Brilliant work.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you Martin !

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....well I promised more so here it is.

while awaiting the 3-D prints of gun barrels, Gunport lids and other bits....

I started tackling the groundworks of the rig

The bow-sprit was built of 3 pieces ,

then the 'Dolphin striker ' ( vertical ) and the ' net-spreaders' were added
of stainless steel stiff-but-thin Photo-etched ex 'pulley sets'

The masts were built and test-fitted for rake , heights and position
and eye checked against a drawing on screen

back in 2018 ( !! ) --while planning this project,
I had the shrouds and ratlines designed and made of relief etched stainless steel PE by a French master designer....

At last, unpacked now....

where there are shrouds.... there need to be channels...
( these are the' ledge platforms 'which provide a wider staying base,
to provide a ' stronger ' more acute angle for the shrouds going the the first platform

these were made of chopped up 1/350 WEM PE torpedo net shelving --originally destined for 1/350 Borodino pre-Dreadnought Battleship
( fine example of that ship by Nick Dogger here link below )

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

But I digress....

So far so good--my dimensions match the plans and everything seems harmonious.


and yes... the lower masts were disconcertingly MASSIVE

[SG1]

Finesse and elegance. Most clever solution for the inner radius of the stern walk. Something i will bear in mind for the future. Great work with masts (a propos, are the components CA glued?) and cannonball racks. 0.2mm solder spheres put one's patience to the test. I used one to craft the tampion of a U-boat 88 gun once and still recall the experience
Looking forward to the next step!

[pascalemod]

Everytime i tackles scratch building Turenne bits like the ratlines using paper, and think this is hard - I see Jim's work and understand here I am playing checkers next to chess grand master. OK.

The ball solution is fantastic! I think it will really be one of those wonderful details that stands out. Masts work is super also, I too realized on older sailing ships they were a lot thicker than metal ones - and this is hard to adjust to at first after years building modern ships and trying to cut down sizes from plastic kits. Instead one has to go up in size here.

[wefalck]

As always, brilliant solutions at such minute scale.

I think have not been aware of those solder beads. They are probably much easier to get than the shot-gun pellets for bird-hunting that I suggested in our email-conversation.