French Torpedoboat mothership Foudre: scratch

[MichelB]

Finally, a new scratchbuild! Since I have about a dozen or so under construction already, what's stopping me to add a new one? Nothing, that's what! This also sortof breaks a spell in which I haven't done any substantial modelling in two to three months.

The Foudre was built to carry small torpedoboat into harms way, support them and retrieve them. Commissioned in 1896, she was later converted into France's first seaplane tender.

Here's the build. Altered sandwich method: used vertical frames between the bread, then filled the void with magic sculp. Regular putty added after that, then sanding. Now proceeding with frcstle and aft deck.

[NukeMM]

Michel,

This looks really, really interesting! The layout drawings on the deck peaked my interest. Do you have any photos of her? I'd imagine so.

[Jack Ray]

Here is one that I found:

[Guido]

This sure sounds like an intersting project!
I'll be watching it closely!
Guido

[mike mccabe]

Very interesting project Michel, I'll keep an eye on this one

Mike

[MichelB]

Thanks, chaps, hope i wont disappoint. Here's the next stage: added the solid parts of the frcstle and the aft deck. The area in between will consist of two large wells, a middle part for the stacks, and all this hidden behind bulwarks with gun sponsons. You can see one sponson already forming at the forward part of the aft deck, where there's just deck overhanging.

For the eight torpedoboats, who are only a bit bigger then a WWI admiral's barge, I intent to purchache a beginner's set of pouring materials and cast my own. That should make for a nice experiment.

[moomoon]

The hull looks very nice
Here is a link with some datas and pics for those interested:

http://www.navires-14-18.com/admin/F.php?limite=70

[MichelB]

The hull looks very nice
Here is a link with some datas and pics for those interested:

http://www.navires-14-18.com/admin/F.php?limite=70

Wow, thanks, moomoon, there's some great photographs there!

[MichelB]

More progress via the repeat process of filler-sanding-primer. I discovered a mistake in the stern section: there is a perpendicular part just above the waterline, just before the curve starts. Luckily the magic sculp is very malleable with a sharp knife and coarse sanding paper. After that: the middle structure, basically the foundation for the stacks, and added some bulwarks.

[Gone Asiatic]

A French (predreadnough) torpedoboat mothership.....gotta be a first!

Will monitor progress with much interest!

[Quincy]

Looking good Michel!




bob pink.

[reigels]

Very nice! I always have a tough time getting counter sterns to look right. Good work.

[Neptune]

Nice, your skills are excellent. Hope you finish one of your ongoing projects. Although I have less of them, somehow they are still somewhere in my mind, eventhough I partially decided not to finish them, still they are a thorn in my eye! Finishing something, even the smallest of my ongoing ones, was a great progress! I hope you can do the same, finish one or two of them and then see what happens!
This subject is very rare and very interesting to see! Good luck on finishing this one.

[MichelB]

Thanks for the response, people. Here's some more progress: I added the sponsons, and the angular supports: also made with magic sculp and a sharp knife: not at all difficult, I must say.
The first gun was installed as a test, to see if things worked out proportion-wise. It's a gun from the Seals models set, but with a Voyager 5" gun barrel added.

[vladimir yakubov]

Michel,

Excellent work. I like that ship, and was thinking about doing it myself. Will be following your build with great interest.

Vladimir

[Filipe Ramires]

Interesting project you've got there Michel. I've always found that ship to be one of the most odd looking ones ever but taking into account the age where she was performing that job I guess it's quite common. Following this topic closely.
Good luck and good work.

Filipe

[MichelB]

To be quite honest, hull-wise it's one of the blandest ships ever! There is very little French predreadnoughtyness about it. Just a run of the mill 1890's hull with undercut stern and a little ram bow. But it's the superstructure and the itty bitty torpedoboats that made her interesting.

Here's progress: added square porthole covers (1x1mm paper) and some hull lines (1mm tamiya masking tape). The portholes look like *** but I can't bring myself to redo them. They will have to stay and hopefully disappear largely against the black hull. She now has that nifty 'resin hull from a kit - just add superstructure' -look.

[Pieter]

Very nice!

[Neptune]

I know the feeling of those hatches. You tried it once, just to see if you could do it. It works, so you know you can do it, but second time you don't care anymore. You just say it's ok, I can live with it! You actually have an idea how long it takes and how boring or annoying such a repetitive job can be, so you avoid it. I seem to remember having that all the time too, that's why I more or less quit with the small stuff for now. Anyway, nobody will notice or make a comment on that in the end. It'll just end up as being another extremely interesting and nice build in your collection!

[Jean-Paul Binot]

La Foudre was indeed a very interesting ship, although from a relatively flawed design as a torpedo boat cruiser. She served as a submarine transport too, by the way, before being converted for seaplane duty. She seems to have been much photographed. I performed a quick search of the web and here are a few interesting photographs of the beast in her original format.









And as converted.