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

[Chlo� Plattner]

Absolutely amazing what you are doing there Jim Pushing the limits of ship modeling to another dimension. Recalling that all begun with a piece of wood, the outcome is unbelievable. I so adore the consequence you are working on detail

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you Chloe!

Your submarine is amazingly delicate and beautiful!

meanwhile this is the most worthwhile 12 minutes of video I have ever watched

MOST EDUCATIONAL and a must watch if tou are at all interested in square riggers


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ1XUeeIttc&t=516s link for full size viewing

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ1XUeeIttc&t=516s[/youtube]

[JIM BAUMANN]

Onwards......!

The sails....

I am making these of paper.
The drawing of these caused some consternation with
a steep learning curve and occasionally crashed programs.....( arghh!)
Still..... this gave me the opportunity for plenty of practice .........

....when I had to do it all over again ( my poor family !

.... and my poor techie friend Steve Foulkes who rescued me on many occasion over the last week....


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In my biased view.... ( disclaimer )

Too many small scale sailing ship models can begin to look 'overdone' when the sails
have too much -over scale detail, rendering them looking too 'heavy'
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These sails shown below are from a large scale card model kit ..
- and though full of 'delicious ' detail....

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alas --in my view they look " 4-D " -- its just too much...!


end of biased opinions...

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I try and make my sailmaking to look feasible--and subtle for the small scale

The top-sails are just over half the size of my small fingers finger nail....

I started by creating the ' new' the sail paper lines in much higher res

and experimented with different colours an shades, the Ochre shades as good for old paintings and large scale models.

Keeping in mind the small size--I wanted the reef pennant ropes ( RPR ) to be capable of being handles by my 1/700 crew

This means they are only just visible when printed....

The reef bands and RPR have been drawn in as a series dots rather than lines
When printed it removes the ' weight ' of line to the observers eye

The RPR get longer on every reef row--as the RPR need s to be long enough on the 4 th Reef to
reach around the previous 3 furled ropes as well as tied around the spar

Getting the RPR level was achieved by the simple and quick means of having a piece of paper taped to the screen (!)

The only sail to cause me some extra thinking time ( ! ) was the spanker aft

The mizzen mast has considerable rake aft

and as such the drawing of the RPR had to accommodate this mast rake as well
as the 'boom lift 'when running off the wind
so that the RPR hang down vertically

Lastly....
The sail 'image ' had to be " flipped " so as the paper can be printed
back to back both sides so that the panel lines line

All in all it occupied a disproportionate amount of time,
I think the end effect of the subtle reef lines in 1/700 scale will be worth it !

I printed a lot of different types of paper (!)
and also readjusting the file sizes to give an exact print size to mach the templates
This print was NOT exact...!

I use an inkjet printer--which is very un-waterproof, but gives a more subtle result than
my fried laser printer
To counteract this both sides have varnish sprayed on both sides

the image shows the sail 'sheets' hanging to dry...

Once varnished both sides I can work into the sails with watercolour and enamel paints to create the reinforced outer corners
as well as the anti-chafe patches on the inside just above the lower platforms

[steviecee]

Those sails are the best I've ever seen

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

WOW!

[SG1]

Kudos!

[Rui Matos]

Ahoy there Jim!

Well, that is a tottaly different approach on making 1/700 scale sails!
Quite interesting and educative, as you know, I have a stawled project that will profit from your experiments!

Just out of curiosity:
- the brass curved "templates" you showed, they were cut from the same templates you are now working for the sails details?
- Were they annealed to make those smooth curves? Or did you use a metal working tool (english wheel or similar)?

Thank you and carry on making that beauty [out of a "bit of a log"]!


Cheers
Rui

[JIM BAUMANN]

@ Rui Matos

No....not quite ...

the sail templates are cut out from a 1/700 scaled pdf drawing paper printout

This was slightly enlarged by 3-4% so that sails have enough (over) size for me to create the ' belly' and fullness shape
( as when its a 3 D shape takes up length in each direction hence making it slightly bigger compensates for this
as well as the narrow but full return curve at the leeches (vertical sides) caused by the 'bolt-ropes
( rope sewn in around the edges of the sails )
being tighter than the fabric

I simulate the bolt-ropes with 0.05 tinned copper wire glued onto the butt edge of the paper while the sail is flat ( fiddly! )
=> I do this on ' baking ' paper as the CA glue does not sticky that!"...
Then the sail is shaped firstly by rolling a round headed large paint brush handle to stretch the paper on a Post it note pad ,
then a small round headed paintbrush handle to create the 3D effect at the leech

The the copper wired sail edges are formed between fingers--the wire makes it hold its shape perfectly

( You can see the messy glue on this experimental unvarnished paper sail )

It is the same as I did on my 1/400 Mary Rose model--except now its half the size !! ( x 5 optvisor! )


The Bretagne sails are not as ' billowy' as the Tudor sail 300 years earlier,

by 1860 they strapped the sheets down harder and flatter
to gain some windward ability--approx 65-70 degrees off the wind

cheers
JB

see Mary Rose link below

viewtopic.php?f=60&t=163736&start=60#p711283

[Iceman 29]

I hadn't been here for a long time, busy with my house and also my vintage cars. I can see that the damage to your Peugeot is progressing a little.

As for Bretagne, it's magnificent, with details that gradually emerge as the pages go by. A real pleasure to read.

[JIM BAUMANN]

@ Iceman wrote

....busy with my house and also my vintage cars. I can see that the damage to your Peugeot is progressing a little

Indeed me too--lots of time spent with old cars--Peugeot will now be restored to former beauty 8 -10 months or so--the Insurance co paid out!!
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meanwhile...

I have found a photo of a contemporary French sail steamer with sails set and actually sailing( and no reefing pennants.... )

ah well--mine has them now !!

( the sails seem to be flatter and set set tighter than the billowing sails of earlier in the 1800's...

I have made some progress--with all sails cut out and now starting the process of adding boltropes all round in 0.07 mm wire

It is quite a tedious process--but doing the gluing on grease-proof baking paper has simplified the arduos-but-almost -fun process....

The round ended plastic body of the old Parker fountain pen (with the spoon )
makes a good shaping tool when shaping sails on a post-it-note

With the pen I can apply point loadings to curl the paper slightly at the edges ( and not overdo it!)

Once all the sails have been wired and shaped
-- I will paint the boltropes-- and paint in the platform patches

and then attach them to their spars and yard arms in readiness for mounting and masting the ship to her sea-base !

[SG1]

Such a fine work! Great take-home techniques, thanks for sharing

[Iceman 29]

Good idea, the paper.

[Chris@Sea n' Sky]

Truly stunning job in 1/700 scale!

[maxim]

The techniques used by Jim are always fascinating and very convincing in the results.

[Rui Matos]

Jim...

One question: Does the spoon need to be silver?


[Excellent tutorial, as you usualy do when explaining your methods!!!!]

Cheers,
Rui

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you all--

I have been busy adding the wire to all the sails-- all 15 of them...

that is 57 edges....

more images shortly
regards
Jim Baumann

[JIM BAUMANN]

The sails have all bee wire edged-Phew
The 3 x head-sails had 0.05 wire added- to reduce otherwise clunkiness

The 'stays' for the 'hanked on' headsails are 0.047 Nitinol (memory ) wire ( remains straight and does not kink! )

I was quite the job to get all those thin wire glued to the edges of the sails (!)

all sails have now been shaped--asymmetrically -- fro a broad reach--which will induce around 5 degrees of heel to port .

The sails will now be worked on with paints for colouring the ( wire) bolt-ropes, reinforcing, corners, platform doubling and light shading...
as well as fine tuning things.
More soon

JB

[SG1]

An amazing set of sails! Brilliant idea to use that nitinol wire for the "stays". Any feedback on painting the nitinol wire? how does it react to enamels? Looking forward to see the final touches

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Really fantastic and realistic sails Jim - in 1:700, I must keep reminding myself!

[wefalck]

At this scale it is a good idea to fix the sail to the stay first and then the whole to the ship.

Ninitinol as a metal will not 'react' to any paint ...