The Vladimir Monomakh in 1/700...

[Jack Ray]

Hi Jim,

Nice and very intact looking Renault Floride! Haven't most of those turned into red dust?

Best,

Jack

[JIM BAUMANN]

..............>>>Renault Floride! Haven't most of those turned into red dust?.........<<<


Ha!!-- you mock me sir.... ' tis not a mere Floride with a mere 845 cc.... and 34 bhp ( LOL!! )

THIS.... is a Caravelle- S - with 1108 cc and about 59 bhp....

S- means sport...==> twin choke carb.... -- uhh-huhh!

You are of course right--most have indeed rusted away-- ..

==> round here there are more Bugatti Veyron's than Caravelles....

Back to making the masts for the ship...

JB

[Jack Ray]

I take my hat off to you and your many fun projects!

Regards,

Jack Ray

[JIM BAUMANN]

There is some progress to report--albeit at a glacial pace....

A = the conning tower which was reshaped, lowered and had the windows made narrower using decals strips.

B = The anchor hawse-pipes with their lids sanded to shape of of brass PE fret scrap

C = Torpedo tube door--made of a piece of 1/350 PE stud chain link -then in-filled with white glue to level

D = The large gash shutes bith sides made of two strips of styrene-cut-to get over the rubbing strakes

E = Accommodation ladder door

F = Very fiddly,..... the top and bottom halves of the hatches--cut from 1/350 stair treads to gain repeatability and square





Taking a closer look...

The hatches aft on both sides took nearly four hours per side.... (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

They were cut with 50% wasted...

attached with matt varnish to tack on --and backfilled with CA glue afterwards for strength

meanwhile ....many fell off--ended up hanging crooked...

Frustrating stuff alas...!!

Onwards onto more small stuff!!�

JB

[aleccap]

Frustrating stuff alas...!!
It all looks well worth it - at the moment I am building a mostly ''black'' ship that I've decided to paint tank grey (don't ask) I've noticed your dark colours where you've managed to keep it uniform, no build up of paint, or loss of colour, the etch is also very fine, the last piece you gave me ended up across the other side of the room, great in straight lines, a bugger for bending, used rolling in large then smaller brush round handles, and still kinked.
The small hatch with even smaller looking windows, how did you manage to keep the paint out ?

[ARH]

Jim , I can not believe I missed your build, looking good,

[LE BOSCO]

Hello Jim

BLAM!!!!!Has the view of your work,it is the noise that made my jaw by falling!
kind regards
nicolas

[JIM BAUMANN]

Hello again all--!

Work on the model has been taking place--albeit intermittently-- in the main due to Business pressures,,...

(here is me procrastinating..) .... BUT ... also some fine weather ....

which meant it was :

a) too hot in the model room

therefore ....instead....

b) very nice to blat about in old convertible cars, car shows, beach etc etc!!

in the meantime ...

Still scratching a lot of small details...small gun carriages made of PE boat cradles, Fife (pin) rails around the masts ( made of heavy old PE ladders from model Railway sources) small searchlights, small compass platforms etc etc applying figures, interdeck struts, boat skid support stanchions, torpedo net booms.... the list is long!

.... all of which really does take a lot of time , partly to actually make and partially trying to figure out how to make it--it is all pretty tiny... But the masts are now made, spars are on and sails are furled--so soon will come the more fun part--making the rigging!!

meanwhile a picture tells a thousand words...

The many uses of the Pinchucks ...!

[JIM BAUMANN]

OK.. the plot is moving along now!!


The masts have been installed ( the photo is misleading due to wide-angle lens...
The masts ARE parallel to each other!!! )

and now has started the extraordinary tedium of making the foot-ropes.

I am using stretched sprue--mainly because it IS very thin....

Doing all the yards WILL take me some time I fear....


JIM B

[Rob 2]

Insane
Rob.

[jeroen zuiderduin]

Only people that are scale 1/700 can do that. This is serious skill that you are showing.

Cheers
Jeroen

[JIM BAUMANN]

After a series of eye-crossing evenings of rigging all the yards with footropes...

eventually they were all completed--with much self discipline needed to keep them in scale...

To that end I placed a 1/700 PE figure on the yards to ensure that he would be able to stand on the footrope and furl the sails with his waist in the correct pace...

There after for the ratlines I elected the path of good sense ........... and cowardice!!


I could have ( should have...?!! ) followed the good example of 'Callen' and handmade my ratlines....

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=68243&start=200




However...


There are rather a lot of them--and I wanted to keep a sense of regularity and uniformity...
and was unsure if I would be able to achieve this ... in this scale, surrounding fragility and with that many ratlines on three levels...

and... ( my mitigation now! ) ..........

....period photos do show the shrouds to be rather heavy...

so..... I fell back on the excellent PE ratlines from Atlantic Models.( via WEM)

I am of course aware that the foot-ropes on the ratlines should be ( much!) thinner....

I am hoping to disguise this by painting the horizontal footropes a light grey form above => downwards ...

This should allow the shrouds to dominate...

time will tell if this will be convincing...

In any case it was hard enough to make a clean job of the ratlines using the short-cut-springing off point of PE ratlines--so my hat is off to Callen for doing it properly!!!

On previous models of transitional sail-steam era ships I have made my own ratlines...
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

albeit only to the lower levels of cut-down rigs

Massive digital image close-ups these days do alas tell the truth of my modelling limitations, then and now! c!!


Many halyards have already been rigged to the pinrails around the mast bases -- but more will be required.

Pin rails are currently being installed inboard of the shrouds also so as to have belaying points for the braces etc etc.

Herewith the status-quo of the model.

[Tom L.]

Glorious Jim, this build is exceptional even by your remarkable standards!6

[callen]

How did I miss this build?!?!?!?

Goodness gracious this is a fabulous project...

First of all, a central battery ironclad� nothing cooler in ship models IMHO. I am so desperate for plans of the great Victorians... Audacious, Minotaur, Alexandra, etc. etc. Beautiful stunning ships, plans are (based on what friends have told me) exorbitantly expensive or completely unavailable... *sigh*... But enough about that. Monomakh is of the same vintage, and a bit more exotic to boot, very cool subject. Can't believe I never picked up this kit.

Your use, re-use and creative re-imagining of materials... awesome. Every time I look at one of your threads I learn something. You are the man Jim! Those gun port flaps take the cake!

I've been wondering myself about the issue of furled and semi-furled sails. I may have to steal your approach to this. I'm also going to be making some serious investment into spare 350th scale parts. Almost everything I have to work with is 700th, but like you I never throw brass away... Never.... You just never know what you're going to need.

I must say, this whole build has got me thinking... It's all I can do from e-ordering the Monomakh this instant. I love these ships! The only thing is, I know what I'm up against this year...French ironclads, caravels, galleons... Heaven help me where am I going to find the time?

Re: ratlines... The link to my thread... that was so hard to do, and so frustrating... Seriously I will never do that again. Life is short...although I might attempt to create a jig of some sort. Have had my first success rigging a jig for sail creation, but I still haven't posted the pics yet. Looking forward to your next post.

[Guido]

... I know why my VM kit is still resting in my stash... I am just too afraid to tackle it.
After this blog I'll better sell it, methinks!
Excellent work, Jim! Breathtaking!
Guido

[sirpaul]

Excellent detail. it seems you got addicted to the build as time went on.

[mabmanu]

Hello .

Beautiful ...

[JIM BAUMANN]

Progress is now steady.... albeit in small increments...

The Bowsprit, always tricky to get a dolphin striker installed that is structurally sound...

new method this time around! it also allows for fine tuning the dolphin striker to exactly 90 deg to bowsprit
The photo should be self explanatory!

Just about all the halyards that I can manage to install in 1/700 have been lead to the pinrails around the base of the masts
The yard hoists ( all double purchase tackles) have been installed along with a few supports for the gaffs and boat hoist boom.

I am unable to install further shrouds or yard bracing tackles or similar until I have installed davits and boats.

The boats are straightforward--my spares box yielding a number of boats the correct size and shape; merely a large steam boat having to be scratch built.

The aft davits were of square girder type--thick PE strip solved that

however the midships davits were more challenging, being square in section , curved and tapered!!

Combrig had included in the kit some resin renderings--alas they were crude, fragile and brittle - and did not allow for tapering or re-sanding.

I made some identical formers of brass strip PE--and added some styrene strip, glued and sanded...

quite tiresome (!!) )--but the end effect is far more convincing--especially when the large pulley wheels have been added to the tops; the next challenge!

The

[Rob 2]

I'm green with envy Jim.
Beautiful work.
Rob.

[Stefano Salesi]

this_is_great.

fullstop. end of games. nothing to add.

Mr Baumann has, again, raised his skill to an unbeliavable level. this is not an opinion.
this is just a fact...