Scratch Building the Portuguese Carrack in 1/700th Scale

[AGord]

These are amazing and inspiring, callen.

I originally came here looking for images of carracks. Now I'm itching to try something like this myself!

[callen]

These are amazing and inspiring, callen.

Thank you sir. Most kind.... And great to see a Canuck on board! So far we've got Brits, French, Portuguese, German, Netherlander, and an American or two following this thread. It makes it fun that way.

I originally came here looking for images of carracks. Now I'm itching to try something like this myself!

My attitude is 'if I can do it, you can do it.' Dive in, the water is fine!

Oh, but be sure and start up a thread here so we can all follow your work.

[callen]

Ok Model Warship!
Time for an update.
I was very much hoping to have more for you, and the week-end is still young so there's still time, but I will post the activities of the past few weeks at any rate, just to get us up to date. Nothing really spectacular, but a modest amount of progress, at least.

Forecastle beams, etc. Tedious but worthwhile.

Flemish Carrack completed and ready for painting.

Large Carrack forecastle beaming.

I have a much easier time fitting first and trimming afterwards...

[callen]

This is a waterline plate for the English Carrack Mary Rose, which is on my list to create at some point. I was very surprised to find that my 'Large Carrack' based on the 'Fatty' hull was very nearly the same as the WL length of the Mary Rose, and probably more massive, although if you imagine a forecastle projection from the bows of the Mary Rose, she will be somewhat longer over all than the 'Large Carrack.' Notice the unusually fine lines of the Mary Rose hull, based on dimensions derived from her wreck. Her hull form looks closer to that of a Galleon than a Carrack/Nao of Iberian origins.

The Large Carrack next to the original 'Beja' build, which appears now quite petite in comparison.

Back to our 'Pseudo-Galleon...'

[callen]

You can see from the above pic that one of the gun port frames on the forecastle is out of alignment with the port beneath. This is because I made the port out of alignment with the other side. The frame is actually in the correct place. I will attempt to face the space between the ports to cover the mistake and widen the foremost port later.

That looks nice... but can I do the same thing on the other side?

Here goes...

All those vertical elements that I blithely glued in place on the port side must now be carefully matched on the right side, knowing, as always, it's never quite perfect...

Our Galleon 'Beak' is now widened by 0.060 inches with the addition of the detailing, and now seems rather bulky and ponderous. I might have done things differently had I known what the end result would be...Probably a bit too massive for a true Galleon, but I am going to finish her anyway, as I felt I had put too much work into it to abandon, and can always console myself that it's just remotely possible that somewhere at some time, perhaps during the early transitions from Carracks to Galleons that someone built a ship similar to this one... Anyway, as they say here in Oklahoma 'That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.'

Pseudo-Galleon is ready for priming and painting.

Beaming on Carrack 1 (Medium Carrack)

[ARH]

Hi Callen, Very nice scratchbuilding, and a credit to you.

[callen]

The horizontal spar projecting from the forecastle point is not a bowsprit, but some sort of projection evident on some period depictions, often decorated with wolf heads mounted on the end, perhaps an early form of figurehead? Or else a remnant of the old long-ship dragon head mounted to the bow? Often these projections were flanked with shorter ones on either side which will be added later.

Here is our Levantine Argosy ready for priming.

Concerning the Flemish Carrack forecastle deck which I had detailed with IJN perforated girder before casting, I neglected to properly back the girder on the master part, and as a result, although the part cast perfectly initially, since part of the brass strip protruded above the backing and was extremely thin it had a tendency to break away. I decided therefore to re-face the cast deck piece with brass, in order to improve the appearance.

Hulls of all the current ships primed and painted with MM Dark Tan.

Planking effect. One thing that attracted me to these ships was the fact that whenever I was building a 20th Century Battleship with wooden decks, I always enjoyed doing the planking detailing, because it involved a good deal of creative painting. I spent years trying to create super tiny plank decals by various methods, until I finally realized that simply painting the planks over a base of MM Sand and then going back over with the airbrush with more MM Sand would reduce the contrast and create a nice 'weathered' deck look. It's not even necessary to keep the painting perfectly within the bounds of the planking grooves, since the effect is somewhat randomized and indistinct. For this project I decided to apply the same concept to the hull sides of these ships, since I figured they would have weathered in a similar way. Prior to the final coat of paint they look pretty 'spotty' but hopefully they will emerge with the sort of subtle variations in shade that emulate the natural variation in color of actual wooden structures.

In the midst of all of this a package arrived from the Netherlands... two excellent casts of an extremely rare Netherlands Minelayer from WWII called the Douwe Aukes. My new friend Michel was kind enough to trade his handiwork for a sample of mine. We promised each other that we would each build the other's models this year and post them. That, to me is what modeling is all about!

[callen]

Current Paint Job...

Although the planking effect seems to have worked nicely for the deck, the hull planks seem a bit grubby and, well, 'rotten' looking. I have decided I will reduce the contrast further with a second pass of the airbrush, and, if that doesn't work, eliminate the variations of the hull planks all together and go with a wash effect instead.

Now I have arrived at the point where Masts are in order for these ships, but questions of the exact nature and scope of Bruno's PE are causing me to put a hold on these builds until I have his brass in hand and can actually begin to use it....

So, while I'm waiting for for Bruno's wonderful brass, the question arises... what to work on while I wait?

[Timmy C]

Jawdropping!


Although, I wonder how much wood planking colour variations would be noticeable when wet?

[callen]

I thought I would take a moment and share with you all some of my other 'stalled' projects, so that you can see just how bad 'completionitis' can get. Also to show everyone that I have the same interest in the same ships everyone else does...

Trumpeter Hood with LR superdetail set...

Trumpeter Bismarck with WEM superdetail set...My first airbrush build. Lots of problems with that...

Aoshima Fuso with Aoshima details

Trumpeter Richelieu with L'Arsenal/Niko details.

A very bad shot of the Classic Warships Emden, which I am hoping to replicate the hand-rails on the funnels, a daunting task that has kept this little ship unfinished for, I think four years now... You know how it is when you love a ship and have 'read the book' and want to get it right? Yeah. Me too.

Tamiya Shinano with Eduard details and the moderately traumatic IJN 25mm open triple mounts by that sadist Peter Hall of WEM. The first mount I was actually able to complete took me more than 4 hours to build, however, they started to get easier bit by bit. Lots of mistakes on this build, but I still plan to finish her.

Tamiya Indianapolis which was going to be the Portland, until I began to understand the difference between the two. She is now going to be completed as the Indy.

Tamiya Fletcher modified to a USS Howarth. Nothing wrong with this build. I lost one of the torpedo mounts. Then I bought a replacement part from a detail set... but never got back to the build...

Tamiya Yamato. Gotta have a Yamato. I mean, who doesn't have one? Yes I'm sick of seeing them. Yes it's been languishing for more than two years, but I AM going to finish her! GMM and Tom's Detail sets. The turrets are actually quite bad on this build, primarily due to botched muzzle boring. I may replace them and continue with the build. Spent a lot of time scratch building the hangar deck, but I won't bore you with the details now...

Trumpeter Minsk with the incredible GMM Russian Carrier details. Another problematic paint job that caused a stall in the build.

Some of these look fairly close to being done, but in fact none of them are. The reason you can't see any rigging is because there isn't any...

[callen]

Hi Callen, Very nice scratchbuilding, and a credit to you.

Thank you very much sir! Not nearly as complex as what I've seen you do here on this board. There are advantages to working in smaller scales...

Jawdropping!

Most kind. Thank you Tim.

Although, I wonder how much wood planking colour variations would be noticeable when wet?

That's a good question, which raises another... how much of the surface of the ship would be wet at any given time? Depending on the conditions... very little above the waterline (in a calm) or completely soaked (in a storm or a strong gale.) Does that mean one should put a gloss finish on the whole thing? I've adopted the convention of depicting models dry above the waterline for the sake of simplicity, although if I ever do a 'heavy seas' dio a la Guido Hopp or Rui Matos, I may need to rethink that.

[MartinJQuinn]

The carracks are exquisite - unreal work!

[JIM BAUMANN]

Beautifully creative and innovative work!

==> startlingly impressive and fascinating to follow the methodology on these teeny weeny ships- makes my latest kit-building bludgeonry seem huge !!!!
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=74523

Just a personal observation--disregard at will!

I personally think in 1/700 colouring less is more ....

I would be inclined to homogenise the deck plank effect a little...- the tonal; differences are - in my view

a wee bit strong and are in danger of perhaps overpowering the finesse of the model a bit...


Ref stalled builds.....

are you and Tom L. twins separated at birth...?

see the evidence here....

viewtopic.php?f=59&t=45171&p=302947

I have gained great inspiration from you both--- apart from the skills and methods...

I also have gained self discipline-........

-I actually finish things!



Jim Baumann

[callen]

To reply to your comments, Jim, first I want to say thanks for the encouragement and helpful advice. I definitely think the contrast is too high on the hull planks on the side. Also the nature of the detail there does not allow for an effective depiction of planking there.

As far as the tinyness of the builds I must say, that little destroyer is GORGEOUS!!! I want one!!! I'm going to start looking for one today. I'm looking at those pics of your hands near the kit though, and I have to say, I think you would be surprised at the size of these ships. Although they are probably marginally shorter than that destroyer they are more substantial in every other dimension.

On the heading of stalled builds, I had no idea about Tom's thread! We do indeed seem to have a lot in common! I can't help but notice that many of his builds seem to be stalled roughly at the same stage of construction, right at, or right before 'main assembly' etc. Many of my builds are stalled at a specific step also, somewhere between final details and rigging, etc., which in some ways makes them even more pathetic... Since we're on the subject, and you have given me an excuse to bring it up again, I will go ahead and add the following...

Trumpeter USS Washington. Technically this is a completed build, it even won 2nd place at a local convention last year. But an unfortunate spell in a hot car tightened the rigging and permanently bent the mainmast. Prior to that the hull had begun separating from the base (actually happened at the model show, but fortunately after judging...) so it has lots of problems associated with it. This was an old rattle can build that I almost didn't finish, but was glad I did. I have detail parts and a kit for another Washington, which makes the repair of this one problematic.

The gorgeous Zvezda Varyag, my only 350th build to date. Suffers from uncertainty regarding rigging plan and a somewhat out-dated paint job (rattle can) I could finish her in a couple of days if I really gave it some effort. I need to also, because this is a very special build for me. I had lost one of the gun mounts and my friend Guido Hopp kindly sent me an extra from Germany.

I thought I'd throw this in. Tamiya KGV� actually she is complete! My first completed build as an adult modeler. Took me ten years. She's spent the last couple of years at a local hobby shop on display.

Another shot of the Georgie...

Ahh the beautiful Combrig Royal Sovereign! What can I say about this build? So many problems. Un-tapered masts (which now I have a solution for) problematic deck painting job, and a paint scheme that is out of date for her configuration. Desperately wanted to build her in Victorian Livery. Having the skills I have recently acquired, if I had begun her now I would have had the courage to scratch-build and back-date her to the appropriate configuration. C'est la vie...

Tamiya Tama. One of my favorite IJN kits, despite its age. No problems with her, just haven't finished yet.

Aoshima Yamashiro with the excellent Flyhawk aftermarket set. No real problems with this build, I just haven't finished...

Believe it or not I've only put up about half of my incomplete builds... but I'll stop now.

[Tom L.]

Ref stalled builds.....

are you and Tom L. twins separated at birth...?

see the evidence here....

viewtopic.php?f=59&t=45171&p=302947

You aren't the first to wonder if Neal and I were seperated at birth; aside from fascination with the ship type, he keeps saying things I find myself thinking...Neal, let's be friends.

I have gained great inspiration from you both--- apart from the skills and methods...

Humbling praise if there ever was such a thing!

I also have gained self discipline-........

-I actually finish things!



Jim Baumann

ZING!

With that, I cleaned off my workbench last night and have begun working again on the Venetian carrack...after nearly a year and a half.

[callen]

HOORAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!

Tom is back in the Fray!

Keep us posted, Mr. Lindsay.

[callen]

Hello my friends!
I hope everyone is doing well.
As I am waiting on my good friend Bruno Gire's Photo Etch brass parts for the Resin Carrack Builds, I thought I would go ahead in the interval with the 'original' carrack, which I named Santo Amaro de Beja, 'Amaro' being a Medieval Saint unique to Portugal and was associated with (semi?) mythical tales of exploration.

Since I began this model I have learned so much about these ships that any thought of completing this as a reasonably accurate depiction of a hypothetical alleged Portuguese Carrack has gone right out the window. The problem lies primarily with the shape of the stern castle, which is both high and wide, overhanging the stern to a considerable extent. I have since learned that all cannon armed warships from the period in question had transom sterns, not the sort of stern which I modeled originally. In addition the shape of the fore-castle is consistent with a hypothetical transition type of ship, a 'near galleon,' of sorts, which would put the presumed date of the ship somewhere in the mid 1500s. Yet there are no gun-ports in the hull.... There are additional lapses in shape and detail, but I won't bore you with them now...

Suffice it to say all in all she is a bit of a mongrel, not really acceptable to me on the basis of what I have now learned. Normally I would simply abandon the build to the 'limbo shelf' where many of my abandoned kit builds are gathering dust, but, I have a special affection for this little ship, inaccuracies and all, because it was this build that got me involved in so many fruitful collaborations that I am now pursuing, so I have a sort of nostalgic affection for it. Also (and this is a big point) aside from the inaccuracies the build has gone well, there are no crippling defects in the construction or the paint-job.

So, all that to say, I decided to spend the interval when I would be waiting for Bruno's PE with finishing this little project. In addition to the above considerations, I could try out a lot of techniques on her that could be perfected before proceeding to the more 'serious' builds with the Resin Carracks. So, here is my progress up to today for your consideration. Comments and suggestions very much welcome.

Here is the Beja with lower masts in place. The wolding has been completed on all mast parts, a very tedious process. Next time I will install the wolding prior to installation, which will be much easier. (lesson learned ) The original brass rod yards have been removed in favor of an experimental replacement...

Hmm... straight pins have a reasonable taper. Could they be used to create yards? Let's see...

My original thought was to create a single-piece yard, but that would create a rather weak structure. Also, the 2-part 'overlapping' style of yardarm is perfectly appropriate for the era, and it would make a stronger component.

All yards for lower masts completed now, including bowsprit sail, and lateens for the mizzen and bonaventure-mizzen. The smaller yards look a bit 'chunky,' but on the other hand have a better taper shape than the longer yards. The problem is that a straight pin tapers only towards the tip, while a ship's yard-arm has a steady taper from the middle. I knew this going in of course, but the question is, what will the final appearance be? Only one way to find out. I was afraid the straight pins and needles I was using would be difficult to cut, because they were steel, but it wasn't too bad. This made me think of a joke too: 'Thinking about brass rod for masts has put me on pins and needles... Ok... not very funny I suppose...

I also realized that a perfect athwart-ship alignment to the sails was neither realistic nor ideal for sailing, even when sailing with the wind, so I was careful to align the yards angled slightly to port.

[callen]

Crows nests!
What to do?
I have the ambition of creating some original Science Fiction models at some point, and as a result have amassed a sizeable collection of 'greeble' for that purpose, including a lot of parts from abandoned or obsolete ship model kits. I knew I had some old round AA tubs from old first-generation IJN waterline kits, and I thought the smaller ones might just possibly make good crows nests.

On examination, the smallest one I could find looked like it might work for the largest crows' nest on the main mast, but for the others, something different would need to be found.

These are the remaining crows' nests, built from little bits from the greeble bag. Now, the next question, how to attach the shrouds to the crows' nest/masthead assembly? Here is my solution.

First, a hole for the mast.

Then a slot on either side for the shrouds to pass through. If the shrouds could be threaded through the crow's nest, they could be attached easily to the chain-plates on either side, and would give a strong and (hopefully) stable bond. One difficulty is that the slots had to be both small and symmetrical.

Not perfectly symmetrical, but hopefully this will not be noticeable with all of the final details in place.

[callen]

Here's a thought!
We could create a nice 'railing' round the crow's nest by gluing on trimmed bits of 700th railing turned vertically and then ringing it with a small wire. We could even fan each bit of railing out a little bit to give a nice basket shape!!!...

yeah... that didn't really work. Oh well. pressing on...

Now finally I was in a position to start looking at armament. Guns and carriages etc. would need to be dealt with first, and then mast tops, then anti-boarding scaffolding, and then, and only then could I start on actually rigging the ship... whew! Let's get started...

Here are some bits from the armament box. In Iberian ships of this era the cannons were not given 'trucks' (unique gun carriages specially designed for ship-board use.) Instead the cannons were wheeled aboard in regular wheeled carriages designed for land combat. The gun carriage was an English invention and at this point in history had not been adopted by either the Spanish or the Portuguese. So, clearly the task was to create a reasonable looking 700th scale 2-wheeled gun carriage for my tiny resin cannons...

This would need styrene strip of various types already painted to color, as it would be too difficult and potentially ruinous to paint the completed assembly. Even air-brushing a completed cannon with carriage would run the risk of having the tiny assembly blow off and be lost forever on the floor of the garage where I do my airbrushing.

While painting up the styrene strip I noticed an old parts tree from a Trumpeter North Carolina that I never completed. I was going to use these for a build of the USS Washington, but as it turned out, never got around to it. Look at these quad 40s... I know it's a little blurry, but as it happens, the Trumpeter Quad 40s had a very nice taper, as well as a delicate flange at the end. The 20s turned out to have a nice taper as well... Now I agree with most of the reviews that say these parts are too heavy and clunky to represent what they are supposed to represent, but it turns out that, while too thick for proper 20th century AA armament, the gun barrels themselves are just about the perfect size and shape for 16th century shipboard cannon...! So I painted the tree a dark grey and took it in to be used on the Beja.

At the same time I primed and painted up the crows' nest bases. Here they are installed on the lower mast elements. They look oddly like buttons, come to think of it. Wish I'd realized that when I was making them... That will be useful for the future though...

The question is, what to do about the carriage wheels?
Well... one sometimes sees Medieval hay carts with solid wheels... I could simply cut or find some small disks... But spokes would be an awfully nice detail. As it turned out I had a PE fret of WEM's shipboard cable reels. (I love everything Peter Hall does.) The wheels for the IJN reels had six nice spokes, rather than a ring of lightening holes or a complicated spoke pattern of the other nationalities. I realized these IJN cable reel wheels were the perfect size and shape for cannon carriages.

Attaching a small bit of painted styrene rod to the first wheel using CA. This was very difficult to do, as one had to aim the super-glue armed rod for the center of the wheel. Took me several tries to get it right, and sometimes I was forced to break and re-set because the wheel was crooked.

[callen]

Now we have a pair of wheels and an axle. After this we would need to mount the cannon on the axle and then attach that thingy that sticks out behind the carriage and braces the whole assembly for the recoil. Any of you military experts feel free to fill me in on the lingo here...

These are a little blurry. Sorry.

Completed gun carriage prior to mounting. This was the smallest carriage I made, using the smaller sized cannon from the resin casts of my BMK cannons which Bruno had made for me. Too small, as it turned out. There were two sizes of IJN cable reel wheels, so I used the smaller size for this caliber, as a result, the cannon did not have the height to peek over the gunwale... Still looking for a way to mount this little guy on the ship. The others you will see in the shots below are using the larger size cannon/wheel combo.

1st cannon mounted.

Each one took about ten to fifteen minutes to make, depending on mistakes and corrections. Fortunately I never ruined or lost any wheels or cannons. :woo_hoo:Forgot to mention I also painted and placed the hold grating during this period. For the grating I used some old HO scale PE grills I had bought years ago for 'general grating.'

Penny for scale.

Now mounting the breech-loaders in the stern castle ports. I attempted to drill out the muzzles of each gun using a dentists drill bit that my friend Bo Burris had given me. I was only successful about 40% of the time, but eventually had enough muzzle-loaders to mount in the stern. The problem was, while I was (sometimes) able to create a muzzle on the end of these cannon pieces, I couldn't really see it when I was done... These muzzle loaders did not have carriages made for them, as the carriages would have been completely obscured within the superstructure, so I didn't bother about them. They would have at any rate cost me more of my precious wheels...