Calling all British Black Battlefleet & French ironclad fans

[Pieter]

As I'm currently semi-scratchbuiling a Redoutable in 1/700 , officially the first steel warship but with some iron armour , you can count me in. The project started 2 weeks ago as a radical conversion of Pelayo but as it now stands I'm saving my Pelayo hull (read JB's article for some good reasons NOT to finish her as Pelayo) for a possible conversion to Marceau. I have just started to glue 1mm thick plate of styrene together using some drawings by John Batchelor as a reference.

[Edward Pinniger]

If anyone here is interested in modelling the 1860 Royal Navy ironclad frigate/battleship HMS Warrior, I have several dozen photos (mostly close-ups of fittings, armament etc., including the gun deck interior) which I took when I visited the ship at Portsmouth last month. As well as the real ship, I also photographed the 1/48 model on display in the museum lobby. If anyone's interested, let me know and I'll e-mail you the photos (or at least as many as my 56k connection allows...)

[kennylibben]

hey!

could you send me some? i doubt i'll be able to model it anytime soon but i have wanted to scratchbuild an ironclad and found that pics of US ones dont show much detail.

[Edward Pinniger]

Certainly if you're interested, however (I should have mentioned this before) the Warrior is nothing like a typical American Civil War ironclad/monitor in appearance. It's a large, ocean-going ship (with full sailing rig in addition to steam propulsion), constructed of iron with teak-backed iron armour around the gun deck.

More info on the ship can be found at http://www.hmswarrior.org/

[kennylibben]

Devin, i'm afraid im not much help. hopefully someone else here is.


EPinniger, thats quite alright! ironclads are ironclads to me. And i had a feeling Britain wouldn't have much of a taste for the riverine ironclads of ACW fame.

my email is kennylibben@yahoo.com if you dont mind.

[Edward Pinniger]

OK, I'll sort out the photos over the next few days and send them to you.

[Edward Pinniger]

I've put together a collection of photos of HMS Warrior (all have been resized to about half the size of my original photos, to reduce the file size and allow my 56k modem connection to cope). The total size of all the files (zipped) is about 6MB.

I'll upload the Zip file later today and post a link, so anyone who wants can download it.

[Edward Pinniger]

Here's the link to the zip file with the Warrior pics (109 in total) Anyone who's interested can download it.
The file is about 5.7MB, hope my webspace's bandwidth can cope! (if not, maybe someone could host it for me?)

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinni ... photos.zip

Note that I may have misidentified some of the items in the photographs. For example, I'm fairly certain the circular white hatches in the deck floor are for passing ammunition up from the magazine to the guns, but I'm not 100% sure.

From the readme in the zip:

This is a collection of .JPG photographs of the restored/preserved HMS Warrior at Portsmouth Dockyard, taken in August 2006.
Most are detail close-ups of fittings, armament, etc. All have been extensively resized + cropped to reduce the file size (due to my 56k modem connection) but should still be of use for modelling reference.
Included are 8 photographs of the 1/48 model on display in the museum entrance lobby. This is an entirely scratch-built, live steam-powered model.

[Pieter]

As the 'calling all ironclad fans' seem to concentrate on american civil war vessel I think one can add a thread on the iron and iron clad warships propelled by sail as well as steam which followed from FN Gloire and HMS Warrior. This includes the vessels of the the british battlefleet of 1870 (which was the subject of The Black Battlefleet by G.A. Ballard) as well as their rivals across the channel and the ships of all other nations of the period. This includes amongst others Prussia (later Germany), Russia, Spain, Denmark, The Netherlands, Chile and Brazil.
An interesting starting point is the website on Napoleon III's navy,
http://dossiersmarine.free.fr/k_t.html

[ZALADIS]

Hi there!!!

Im very interested in this period and in the past have built the entire SKYTREX 1/1200 scale Blackbattlefleet ironclad range,I have also modified models to represent others in the classes and added brass sails to them aswell to give an extra dimension. Here is a picky for your enjoyment (I hope)!!!

[Cadman]

That is so cool! More pictures please.

[ZALADIS]

Thank you !!

Here is HMS Minotaur and HMS Northumberland,hope you like them!!!

[Pieter]

This is really brilliant. Love those 5 masters. By coincindence have recently ordered two of these , Repulse (with a view to basing a 1/700 build on her) and Penelope. Can you comment on the quality of these miniatures? Looks like you have changed the masts and rigging?

[ZALADIS]

Hello Pieter

Thank you for your comments.
I take the basic Skytrex kit and paint it up as normal. The models are supplied with thier masts stepped down and to be honest they look too stumpy. My solution is to extend the mast using brass rod with extra cross tees added also. I then rig the model using very fine nylon and make the ratlines from very fine mesh available from http://www.rodlangton.com .
The skytrex kit is basic to be honest but with a little care and patience can build into something very satisfying after cleaning them up of course.
I have rigged many Langtons Naploeonic models so the rig I use on the skytrex modle is a compromise of Napoleonic and "Best views" I can find from photgraphs.

Here is La Gloire and Solferino hope you like them !!!!

[Pieter]

Thanks for the info and for the link. I'll wait and see what shows up in my mail box. The Rod Langton site does not seem to offer small thread anymore. As I'm planning to rig them using PE ratlines from another source and nylon fly tying line for the rest of the rigging this will not be major problem for me. Langton does have beautiful miniatures available, I'm severely tempted by the 1/300 Chebec.
About Solferino, Oliver Weiss of Walden Models (download paper kits) has announced he is working on one in 1/250. This will take some time to develop but having downloaded one of his other kits -Livadia- I'm sure it will be worth the wait.

[Pieter]

Just to add to that, one can also convert in 1/700. This is a quick and dirty conversion of the Kombrig Cerberus to Hydra in order to show what these ships must have been like in typical North Sea conditions. I forgot to add the -open- triple steering wheel setup and the weathering got out of hand but it does work as a way of showing how useful a breastwork could be. The Dutch built similar vessels without any casings or breastwork and lost one in 1888.

[ZALADIS]

Hello Pietre

Im very impressed with your Hydra ,the sea looks particularly impressive,I have a couple of Cerberus kits also but havent started them yet,its a crime the wreck has never been raised considering shes in such shallow water!!

Here is a conversion job I did on a Skytrex 1/1200 HMS Bellielse (spelling) .I modified her to represent her if she ever went under sail,it was VERY fiddly but worth it in the end as it is now one of my favorite models!! Hope you like it!!!

[ZALADIS]

Have you seen these before??? http://bayareayards.virtualscratchbuilder.com/

[Pieter]

Nice Belleisle, I've only seen pictures of her from her firing trials days but its nice to be reminded that she was also an active warship. I Sometimes wonder how it was to sail a vessel like that in North Sea weather.
Thanks a million for the link to virtual scatchbuilder. I lost that one in a computer crash some two years ago. The hints an tips on scratchbuiling and rigging are very useful.

[ZALADIS]

Hello Pieter

There is a book,published by Salamander " Battleships and Battlecruisers" by Tony Gibbons it is crammed with full colour artworks of ALL Battleship classes from HMS Warrior thru to the end if you havent got this book it would be well worth you considering it!!!