Scratch Building the Portuguese Carrack in 1/700th Scale

[MartinJQuinn]

Beautiful craftsmanship Neal!

[callen]

You all are very kind.
I've been just itching to get one of these done so that I can submit it to the gallery, but I'm realizing now being able to share the process is even better.

Dave I knew I had heard your name a lot, and poking around the forum found your Kiev. My goodness! You are a real master. I feel like a kid with legos next to guys like you and Martin. I want you to know I deeply appreciate the encouragement. BTW I've been searching and searching through that Kiev thread for a shot of the whole build as it stands now, and couldn't find one (90-odd pages! that's a build!) Can you post a link to a profile shot or portrait view, etc.? I'd love to see it. Funny I have that same reference book. I started a Trumpeter Minsk a few years back with the GMM detail set. Beautiful brass. I screwed up the paint job though and haven't decided whether to try and salvage it or not. You know how it is... or maybe you don't. Anyway, I have a lot of builds in limbo.

Also I found the '650 ton Venetian Carrack' Build by a guy named Tom L. right here on this same forum. The last post is from 2009. It was while searching for carrack images and stumbling across pics of carrack models that I found the pics of Tom L.'s build. It was his build that gave me the idea to use strips for planking the hull. I don't know what's happened to him but I'd sure like to see him finish his work. Pieter, I noticed you had posted on his thread as well. Do you know what happened to him? I feel like the strange mental condition that causes people to want to build sailing ships in 1/700th scale from plastic ought to be encouraged as much as possible.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone for the encouragement. I will have more posts soon.

[bgire]

I am the "real" Bruno and I'd like to add my two cents (of euro, of course!) to this fantastic project.

First, following Neal's example, I presented "my" USS Vermont, with the same custom PE as his to a regional contest in South-West France.
Believe me, that was my first contest in 44 years of kit building... and I won a gold medal for best ship, a special "coup de coeur" trophy (best project) for the same build and a bottle of good Bordeaux wine!
Just for that pretty little ship...
Vermont has been a very lucky ship for me: I won, but first I -virtually- met with Neal, Bruce, Bob and Rob.

When Neal began talking of ancient ships, my heart suddenly started to beat faster.
I've always loved those sailing ships: from the age of 4 to 10 I drew zillions of ol'sailing ships, then I began to build some in plastic, then wood, only to give up later due to lack of space.
I build mainly 1:700 scale "gray" ships, so when Neal proposed scratching sailing ship at the same scale I jumped immediately into the project.

I had not much time to be involved into the masters and I wanted to let that part to Neal, as he's a true artist (don't believe him when he says he isn't).
I proposed to design the PE sets, an easy and funny task for me, after his masters and soon got the other idea to design the turned brass set of masting, yards and guns, to be made by the excellent Burkhardt Masch of BMK, Germany.
We both soon were joined by my close friend and partner Jean Mahieux, another "froggie" like me, who is close to a specialist with huge documentation... and another true artist, too.

On a picture posted above, you can see the early build of a Venetian galeass from the time of the battle of Lepanto...
I don't want to uncover a secret, but I suspect Neal is planning a whole list of famous sailing ships after the carracks...

On my side, I'll build at last two of Neal carracks, as Magellan's ships anchored in front of a glacier somewhere in the Magellan Strait... a nice diorama, isn't it?

I'm now working on the PE set, which includes ratlines, fittings, gun carriages, decorating panels, crow nests and a bunch of period crew... including both of us as on-board musicians (as we really are, but that's another story).

To conclude I'd like to say I find this project extremely funny and inspiring: Long Live to the Beja! ... and sequels !

_Bruno

[Tom L.]

Neal!

Tom Lindsay here.

These are just awesome, awesome, awesome. Having been there, I have some idea of what it is you've achieved, and all I can say is (again!), AWESOME!

Now, this is where it gets weird, or at least wierd-ish:
Years ago, when I first began thinking about ways to build a 1/700 scale carrack, I also let my imagination run wild and fantasized about producing a line of 1/700 sailing ships, ancient ships, and ironclads...your thread months ago asking about the interest level in a very similar product line left me scratching my head, and here you say you used my meager effort as a basis for using styrene strips...a strange coincidence, at least it is to me.



As to my own effort at scratchbuilding, I kinda sorta abandoned it.
My attempt at "rationalizing" the drawing I used as a basis flattened the gunwale sheerline and left the hull looking downright "wrong", the spacing of the frames at the bow was too great and has left flat spots in an area that should have been pure compound curves (that I know better than to leave that much space between frames is additionally irksome); it was an educational experience to say the least.

I do intend to try again, however, and this fantastic project has been high-powered inspiration.

I'm an AOL user, and the board software causes that ISP's rotating proxies to log me out frequently, and against my will; posting here can be a chore, but I lurk every day and will be following with avid interest!

[callen]

Tom Lindsay!

Good to finally get ahold of you here! There was/is a build of a ship called the HMS Rose on the forum here.(I have forgotten who was building it) That was the build that got me thinking about scratching age of sail ships, but I want you to know it was your build that pushed me over the edge and finally got me started. The thing I liked about it was that it (appeared to me) to be all styrene. I haven't had really good luck with putty, and I'm always unsure how to glue other components to it, etc. I feel like if I can create the whole structure out of one medium and one type of adhesive I'm better off for it, and styrene seems like the perfect choice for that. That's not typical of most model builders, but that's how I've had success so far, so I'm 'stickin' with it', as the saying goes, at least for the time being.

I do very much hope you don't abandon the Venetian Carrack. Or, if you have firmly decided to abandon it, I hope that you start another one. You know sheer is a very subjective thing, not to mention that there's no telling what kind of heterogenous or contrasting ship design philosophies existed back then. Heck, it might have been down to the whim of the guy ordering the ship... 'I know you built a curved deck for Lord Guido, but I want mine flat... and I want it done by June...' etc.

I have this long term goal of trying to grow the hobby out of its 20th Century focus to embrace the whole of Naval History, the way that the HO scale hobby has come to encompass the whole of Railroad History. Of course our task is a much bigger task� there's a lot more history to deal with, and there's a lack of documentation that can make any effort prior to the 18th Century or so something of a head-scratcher. But I want to encourage the idea that this very lack of sources gives scope for creativity and personal expression. So us carrack builders have to stick together! There needs to be more carracks in this hobby! That's one of the reasons I'm making my ships modular like I am, so that when it comes time to cast the various parts, I'll have choices, etc.

Building these ships has led me to a number of 'notions' about the way they were constructed that I'd like to discuss with whoever is interested. Frankly I'd like to know if these ideas even hold water or not. Feel free to shoot them down if you happen to know that they're wrong, but if you do, please let me know your source. This is all a learning game for me. Ok, here goes:

1. Carracks.
Carracks were developed in the Pre-Gunpower era of Ship Design, and were maximized hand-to-hand/boarding style fighting vessels. Essentially they were the naval equivalent of a siege tower, except it was a case of towers attacking other towers. A carrack could be made from a basic ship hull (should we call it a 'round ship' as some do?) that was maximized for cargo and/or transport. Depending on the size of the ship or the insistence of whoever was paying for it, an ordinary ship could be made into a carrack by adding one, two, or three deck (or more?) superstructures to the hull. You might have a situation of a one deck carrack having another added later as a means to increase its offensive capacity (number of soldiers, as well as their height above the water.) You might also have a case of a 'high' or 'heavy' carrack that is unsatisfactory being razed and cut down a deck or two. But you might also have the case of a 'ship in ordinary' being rebuilt into a carrack, and a carrack being returned to the form of an ordinary ship. From a modeling perspective this means that a superstructure without a hull is a perfectly acceptable option for configuring the model, as is a platform or superstructure only forward, or only aft, etc. In other words, I have the notion right now that the real carracks were modular just like these little models I'm building are. This may be a case of wishful thinking or confusing hobby and History, and of course I realize that there were specially constructed 'purpose built' carracks, but it seems to make sense to me, never the less. I think also there was a good deal of improvisation and adaptation going on as well. If anyone has definite knowledge that this was or was not the case, I'd be very interested in hearing about it, as it obviously bears on my efforts here.

2. Carrack/Nao/Galleon Superstructures.
These ships in general were not built for long voyages, despite the fact that beginning in the 15th Century they were used for precisely that. The attitude designers had towards superstructures was much the same as our attitude toward the construction of things like campers and RVs. They are smaller than an actual house for the purposes of weight savings, economy and scale, and are not intended as fully habitable long term structures the way that modern ships are. So that means you might have deck heights as low as five feet or less, even, since the crucial deck would have been the highest (open) deck anyway. For instance it might have been determined that the maximum height possible for a forecastle on a given ship undergoing conversion into a fighting carrack was, say 16 feet. If their accustomed deck height was, say, seven feet, that might mean they were limited to two decks and a height of 14 feet. But if the captain (or lord) in charge of the construction wanted the maximum height permissible for combat purposes he might have ordered a three deck forecastle with a deck height (subtracting deck planks and supporting beams) of less than five feet. He might even have specified two six foot decks and a 'between deck' that was, say three and a half feet or so. He might even have made gun ports in the between deck and instructed the gunners to crouch, etc.

Does that sound plausible? Or not? I would welcome anyone with insight into these questions. I figure if there's any place on the web to ask these questions, it's here.

Ok, that's all for now. All replies welcome!

[callen]

BTW Tom, in regards to your 'fantasy' I have exactly the same idea... but I don't want to talk too much about that yet.

[JIM BAUMANN]

to MW.com

I have to say this work is remarkable, sharp and precise...

pretty breathtaking work !

I am following avidly!


JIM BAUMANN

[mabmanu]

Very nice .

[maxim]

Your carrack is really superb! It is inspiration what is possible to do in this scale.

I have started to built the 24-gun ship HMS Rose - unfortunately she is still not finished. I have also built galeon Golden Hind (my first attempt)



the brigg-sloop HMS Grasshopper:



and the Russian Sloop Vostok:



Your Venetian galleass is fascinating. I am curious how you will do the booms for the oars.

[MichelB]

These ships look fantastic!

[callen]

to MW.com

I have to say this work is remarkable, sharp and precise...

pretty breathtaking work !

I am following avidly!


JIM BAUMANN

Most appreciated Jim. Of course you are one of the great inspirations for our hobby. I have been following your builds for a number of years and am always amazed. Thank you for your support sir!

Very nice .

Thank you!

These ships look fantastic!

Thank you Michel! Much appreciated! I have enjoyed seeing your builds here and elsewhere over the past few years. You're one of the Greats in my book.

I must tell you I have had a considerable degree of help and support from your compatriots Jean Mahieux and Bruno Gire. I don't know if you know them, but they are both of them true gentlemen in every respect, helpful, friendly, with a great collaborative spirit and much enthusiasm for the hobby. So much so that Bruno is my virtual partner in this effort, although most of what you've seen so far is my own work. I am making the 'cake' and he will be making the 'icing' if that makes sense. I asked Bruno and Jean (who live in two different cities and whom have never met each other, nor have I met either of them in person) if all French Ship Modelers are as sympatique (to use a French word?) as they are. They laughed, and said that France is full of 'characters' just like everywhere else, but I must say my friendship with them over the past two years has transformed the hobby for me. Not only are they enthusiastic and helpful, but they remain steadfastly so. They are the kind of guys you can 'count on,' as we would say here. I feel very fortunate to have made their acquaintance.

Your carrack is really superb! It is inspiration what is possible to do in this scale.

I have started to built the 24-gun ship HMS Rose - unfortunately she is still not finished. I have also built galeon Golden Hind (my first attempt)

Thank you Maxim!
When I saw your HMS Rose, I said to myself... 'This guy is doing what I want to do!' but I was still too scared to try it. I've always had bad luck with putty... But when I saw Tom Lindsay's Venetian Carrack I realized it might be possible to do the entire build in Styrene. Especially considering the scale. So, I would like to credit you and Tom for inspiring me to begin these ships.

I'm a great admirer of your work. I'm particularly inspired by the Golden Hind. I can't wait to get started on some Galleons when I get a chance!

I just want to say, you know, I'm not a 'wooden ship guy' to the exclusion of the more typical fare. I have a stash of WWI and WWII stuff, just like everyone else. But somehow I got drawn into this era of ships, and I'm having a lot of fun with it... You can really use your imagination.

Your Venetian galleass is fascinating. I am curious how you will do the booms for the oars.

I have the intention of starting a separate thread for the Galleass. Actually, I will be building and casting a number of representative ships from the Battle of Lepanto, as soon as I get these carracks out of the way. I'm wanting ultimately to do:
1. Venetian Galleass
2. Venetian Galley
3. Turkish Galley
4. Spanish Galley

for starters. Eventually I'd like to have a galley from each of the maritime city-states, Amalfi, Genoa, Piza, the Spanish, the Ottomans, and a Byzantine Dromon or two... but that's down the road.

To answer your question there were two options open to me. One was to scratch the oars from strip and/or rod, etc. In other words 'The Hard Way.' I was really worried about consistency with all of those oars. But I spoke with my friend Bruno about creating PE sets for the Galleys, and that is on our list of to-do projects. So the Galleass will eventually have turned brass armament, PE gallery structure, PE superstructure, and PE oars, including both stern post rudder and quarter rudders. That's part of the reason I haven't started a thread for it yet, because Bruno's input on that project will be quite substantial. We've got to get all of these Iberian ships out of the way first! Whew!

[callen]

This is an apology to Michel for confusing his country with France!!!!



Sorry Michel, I wasn't paying attention to the order of the colors. I saw red white and blue and saw that your name was Michel, and went from there. I'm sure you had a good laugh about that.




Bruno informed me of my error this morning. I promise I do know the difference between the Netherlands and France. I've actually been to both countries. At any rate, my apologies! I'll try to pay closer attention next time...

[MichelB]

Callen, don't worry! I'm actually a quarter French, so it's an easy mistake to make!

I'm more offended that you seem to lump me together with those Greats you mention. Must be a misprint in that 'book' of yours.

[callen]

Well Michel, just to be sure, since I had already confused your country, I thought I'd better make sure I hadn't confused your work as well, so I thought I would check out some of your builds, etc.

... All I can say is� no mistake!



Have a good week!

[callen]

Time for a new update my friends... The friendly and helpful response I have gotten on this board really inspired me to work hard at this little ship. I have to say, having an audience really puts you under the gun to keep things going...

I decided I wanted to share the things that haven't worked out so well, as well as the things that have worked out. I think it's good to get feedback and suggestions, etc. as well as the thought that maybe my failures might help someone else towards their success. I've been watching this show 'Connections' by James Burke from the 80's and he talks about how one inventor's non-success helped other inventors succeed. I feel like we scratch builders are all inventors in our own way... So, all that to say, I hope this helps.

Ok. First of all the scratch cannon effort.

I had these glue tips laying around that I had never done anything with. (I've never had luck with glue tips, my gluing methods don't work that way)

It suddenly occurred to me that the end of these tips (fortunately I bought the 'fine tip' size) are almost exactly the shape I need for a ship board muzzle-loading cannon of the 16th century. Could they be adapted?

Here are several potential cannon bodies cut and placed on double sided tape for preservation.

I sometimes haunt the local craft stores looking for strange little do-dads and bits that I can adapt for modeling in one way or another. This occasionally finds me in rather un-manly areas buying things like doll hair (my favorite rigging material, better known as nylon monofilament) or, in this case in the beading area... At our local Michael's store I found an odd package of glass beads that were extremely small, and immediately got to thinking about 1/700th scale cannon balls. This was fortunate, because the package cost around four dollars. Prior to that I had been searching for a source for extremely small spheres which might be adapted as cannon balls in this scale, and hadn't found anything small enough. Nothing seemed suitable, not buckshot or ball bearings or anything. They were all either too large, too expensive, or for some reason unobtainable. I had finally tracked down a company in Southern California that made custom spheres of various sizes for industrial use. They were a little bit skeptical when I told them what my application was. (why is it people are always surprised there are ship modelers out there?) I finally got a quote from them for something like ten balls at the appropriate size (I think I said 0.010 in diameter) for twenty dollars. I thought 'I can do better than that.' Talking with a jeweler friend he had suggested grains of sand and some kind of sifting/sorting equipment. I was just about to attempt this when I went to Michaels to snoop around once more. Needless to say, I was very happy to find these:

Well stocked with lifetime supply of what looked like potential 1/700th scale cannon balls, I set about constructing a cannon ball pyramid, like I had seen illustrations of from time to time in period illustrations. Several things are strange about these little balls. First of all, they seem to be statically charged. (they are made of glass) As I would approach one to nab it with my tweezers, they often would execute an 'escape maneuver' and dodge out of my grasp at the last minute! It made them very difficult to use. Also the smaller ones (they are not uniform in size, or even in shape, some are globular or 'double'� no help) always seemed the most difficult to grasp. However I was eventually able to start constructing a pyramid.

[callen]

Here is the Pyramid as constructed.
I thought about priming the finished product, but, on a whim decided to paint MM flat black over the balls without priming, just to see what the result would be. It gave them an interesting metallic effect.

The ball pyramid is overscale, particularly with the base which is thick and raises it higher, but since most of this will be at least partially hidden beneath anti-boarding scaffolding, I thought I would let it stand as is. I was kind of proud of it, anyway.

The next step was to attempt to scratch a cannon from the glue tube tip. I thought a few rounds near the muzzle would give it the propper flange typical of cannons of the era, and then a glass bead glued to the other end would help give the shape of the cannon as a whole. In order to accomplish this, I had to fix it to an aligator clip to do the tying of the monofilament,

and the result was that the clip smashed the breech end of the tube, forcing me to shorten it.

The result was something shorter than I had wanted, and, actually I did not remove all of the smashed part, so when I looked close I saw that the cannon was distorted in shape, lacking any visible conic cross section, and generally unsatisfactory...

[Cliffy B]

You missed your calling as a cardiac surgeon for fleas sir! What sort of optics do you use?

[callen]

In parallel with the cannon effort I decided to try my hand at making wolding for the masts from nylon monofilament. It worked surprisingly well, though at first it was very difficult. I deliberately started in an area I knew would be mostly obscured in the finished model. As you can see each one was an improvement on the last...

[callen]

A little disappointed by the cannon effort, I decided to try my hand at some home made decals for hull decoration.

Here's some blank decal sheet.

Which I hand painted MM Cobalt Blue and MM International Orange. Part of the appeal of this subject for me are the colors. I've been painting things gray for the past fifteen years. Carracks are a nice departure in that respect. Now to cut little triangles to fit in the superstructure panels, which I had repainted white (did not like the yellow from the earlier posts)

My wife and daughter have now started to help me document, since I work on my models in the living room while they watch television. That's how we can have the 'no hands' photography on some of these shots.

That Orange is just WRONG! Testors calls it 'International Orange.' I didn't realize they meant 'Safety Orange.' I decided I didn't want my model to look like a 'search and rescue carrack' so I removed the orange and made a decal of Green.

If you'll notice the hand-brushed decal is quite inconsistent in color, but I've found that you don't actually notice the variations when they are cut up. I also feel that slight variations actually add to the realism. I don't try to cut the triangles 'custom' to fit each individual panel (which vary in size,) I simply cut a range of sizes and pick the ones that fit the panels ad hoc. This is much easier and faster.

[callen]

Feeling better about the effort now, I decided to try my hand at sails. This was a big experiment and I'm still looking for a really workable system, but I will show you what I have so far.

How to make 1/700th scale sails? That's the $64 question.

I remember a while ago seeing one of Jim Bauman's builds where he infused CA into paper in order to fabricate parts. This gave me an idea about perhaps using some kind of tissue infused with wood glue to create something workable as a sail.

Many many depictions of ships of the era show these wonderful blossoming sails Here are some examples:

These sails actually seem to be stretching into a 3d shape. Something I have never seen a modeler been able to capture, at least not in this small a scale before. I had the idea to create a sail out of shredded bits of paper, but what I decided to do instead was to try infusing paper towel with titebond wood glue to see if that would create a workable material Here is how it started:

The paper towel seemed just the right consistency. It became very limp when wet, but did not disintegrate. The wood glue gave it a nice cream color and I began to realize I would not have to paint these sails. That got me thinking about decals... So I decided to do a test with some leftover detestable International Orange...

The question was, would it hold together when dry? Would it be impossible to remove from the cup?

Amazingly the wood glue helped it stick to the cup, gave it just the right amount of tackiness without forming a bond. The sail came off nicely in my hand and was undamaged. Since this was just an experiment, I decided to see what I could do with it...

What, for instance would happen if I crumpled it up?