A 1:700 scale 1944 Mare Island Navy Yard

[bgire]

That's just insane. Is that a champaign bottle breaking for the sub launch? Love the band.

Yes, you're right... As I warned above, this IS going crazy... but sooo funny!
Love the girls, too...

[simon b]

I'm doing some scratchbuilding myself in 350 scale but this is tooooooooooooooooooooo much.

[Avery Boyer]

[bgire]

It's us again
Still working on the prototype.
Now this is the submarine twin slips. Jean did the drawing, I did the etching and I'm now assembling the master from etched parts. This will be used to cast an RTV mold for production...

Some pictures of the assembly :







_Bruno

[nboyd383]

that water is so beautiful, It looks more real than real life

[Jefgte]

Bravo l'Artiste !!!



Jef

[Avery Boyer]

Simply......gorgeous.....unbelievable.....drool.......

[JIM BAUMANN]

Excellent work Bruno and Jean!
I can see how exploring what can be done next is actually FUN!!

making elegant ladies in 1/700 PE...--well thats a whole new discipline!!

Tres bon!!

Jim Baumann

[Tom-Tom]

Really you are making an amazing work, my jaw is on the floor. All the information given in this threads are very interesting and very inspiring. Can't wait to see more of your work.

Tom

[Guest]

What happened? Nothing new?

[arnobiz]

Congratulations Bruno and Jean, this work is definitely terrific.

Which software do you use to sketch your PE masters? When you have time it would be wonderful to have a little tutorial on that

Thanks and bravo,

Arnaud

[bgire]

Hello folks
Back on the air after a very busy month.
Our project is still on the way and reached a milestone these days with the making of masters for producing cast resin piers.
In the meantime Jean used the data supplied by Harry Dente to completely redesign the rail road stuff etched plate.

Here is a part of the the film for the new etched sheet :



On my side (Bruno) I began the assembly of a whole pier set which will be used as a master for resin casting.
First the etched brass sheets are glued on a plasticard background :



Then each part receives its wall (6mm height above water, corresponding to a mid to high tide) :



The Yard takes shape :



Now the twin inclined submarine slips. These were designed and drawn by Jean. Each slip is made of seven 0.2mm layers to carefully reproduce the complex supporting structures. I etched and assembled this complex part.



The slips are dry fitted into the pier for checking. This part will be cast separately, as it is 8mm deep (more than the height of pier above sea level) to allow for either submerged part or below sea level "dry part" when the gate is locked.





That's all for today !
Next steps should be : the making of RTV molds and the etching of the RR stuff (Bruno) and the assembly of buildings and scaffoldings around the submarine slips (Jean). More photos to come in a few days.

Jean and Bruno

[JIM BAUMANN]

as a part-time Railway buff...I can see the PE work on the consolidation is first--but really first rate work!

Bravo!

Jim Baumann

[Rui Matos]

All� Bruno

Congratulations on this MASSIVE project!
I can see a lot of potential items to be sold separately - but has you said, that is for later!
Please continue your impressive work and please, please keep us posted on your progresses.
Best regards from Lisboa,
Rui

[bgire]

Hello folks

Here's are the last news about our mammoth project.

I built the mold casings for the Yard's various piers. They'll be reproduced in resin to keep costs down. Note the masters are photo etched, as described earlier.
Here is my "stack" of molds... awaiting the RTV :



I etched the last two -fantastic- plates Jean designed for this project :
Plate one deals with the twin submarine assembly slips with all the necessary parts to assemble a framed Gato class sub-assembly, as shown on USN period pictures.
Courtesy NavSource, we found those pictures (and many more) :



and



We used an official plan of USS Gato (from Floating Drydock's excellent planbook) to design and draw the parts (keel, frame, bulkheads) needed.
Jean did the drawing and I etched it yesterday. Here is the result : (at this scale the Gato -and thus the frames- is about 13mm wide)



I began assembly of those tiny parts today... more pictures will come when it's finished

Plate one also included the "people" attending a christening ceremony.
People silhouettes are directly drawn from the real photos from NavSource... including the little girl.
Following is a part of the etched plate showing the US Flag which hangs one the sub bow... and the band ! (this part is about 27 x 25mm in REAL SIZE) :



Plate two deals with Rail Road stuff. We called it the "Harry Dente Collector", thanks to Harry who supplied invaluable info on MINSY period equipment.
Here is the Switcher section after etching. The area shown below is 98 x 45mm.



Frankly, when I received Jean's master films, I doubted all his fantastic detailing would really be fully reproduced. After etching, this proved beyond expectations. Below is a detail (42 x 24mm) cropped from above, which shows tiny details, including anti skid plates and rivets !



Now Jean will assemble this crazy stuff... pictures should follow in about a week.
As I told before, this is going really mad now... but soooooooo exciting !

Jean and Bruno

[johndon]

Excellent work...

So when can we expect the 1/350th versions

John

[Rui Matos]

Hi Bruno et Jean

I think that the Gato framing is excellent
and the details on the Harry Dente set too - One small detail that I appreciated was th ID number on the Locomotive - top notch job there!!!


Keep up,
Rui

[Guido]

Bruno-
You leave us deaf, dumb and blind!

Guido

[bgire]

Hello folks!

I DID IT !

I assembled the sub-section of a Gato class sub, as described in my earlier post !

I started with the previously photo-etched sheet, using those parts :



My bench : I used a micro-applicator for the glue, waxed tooth pic to handle the tiny parts. The sub section was built around a 6mm diameter bras tube which I sanded down to 5.92mm to fit into the frames.



The aim was to get this :



... and I got that :



The other end with an inner bulkhead and temporary cross stiffener:





This section is 23mm long at 1:700 scale:





Here is a drawing Jean made to help in the assembly :



More to come in a few days with a Gato main section

Bruno

[Aidan]

You guys are completely and utterly insane, total lunatics. That is the most incredible piece of modelling I've ever seen. It's so good that I'm sitting here, looking at your photo's and I'm green with envy. That has got to be THE diorama of the century, Magnificent work, and a brilliant idea, congratulations, I hate you