Scratch Building the Portuguese Carrack in 1/700th Scale

[callen]

All four tops in place. Comparison shot with Flemish Carrack.

Fora, Beja and Flemish Carrack.

Time to get started on the Base!

Greens and Blues!

A little Glitter?

This is a dangerous commodity, but I intended the glitter to be very sparse, and mostly hidden under heavy waves of gel medium.

Time to make some waves...

They dried slowly...

[callen]

...very slowly. This was the base 18hrs later.

and 24 hrs later... I can remember coats of gel drying in 45 minutes, but I wanted to make substantial waves this time and the inside of the largest wave was refusing to go clear... potentially ruining the effect I was wanting. What to do?

Well... I didn't have time to wait to see if the water would dry, so I decided to paint the still opaque waves with MM Clear Blue... this was an adequate solution that somewhat compromised the original water effect I was trying to create... oh well...

After some 9 months of work on this Carrack, from the 'Fatty' Styrene Master, to the resin cast, painting, detailing, masting etc. I was finally ready to glue my ship model to its base!!! And not a moment too soon. At this point the trip to the IPMS Nationals was only a few days away...

She sure looked happy in her element at last!

Yards!

Mainsail Dryfit...

[callen]

If the placement of the Fora on the base looks a little odd, this is the reason, and the eventual plan.

Lateen yards...

I wanted to make some light screens for the somercastle, and settled on some meshed railing from the WEM USS North Carolina detail set.

Seemed to improve the appearance of the stern of the ship.

Shields on the tops, as mentioned above...

A simple way to create 3-D sails...

first cut slits in the sail edge, and then slightly overlap the two new inner edges, this creates a curve in that edge of the sail. complete the process on three sides of the sail and this results in a moderately dished sail shape. With careful shaping and a little flattening of the affected areas it looks reasonable and the cuts are not easy to see.

Dry fitting the lateen mizzen sail.

[callen]

You see the problem here? The decal is red on top but white underneath... While I can live with that for the square sails, it looks inconsistent on the mizzen sails. This required a double sided sail for the two lateeners...

Leaving that effort aside for the moment, I decided that I would need to do some wolding on the yard arms. Having made the decision to paint the black stripes representing the wolding, instead of actually winding thread around the masts encouraged me to press ahead with this. I worried about the borders between the black and tan being clean, but with practice was able to get reasonably good borders. With the riot of detail I knew the rigging of this ship would require, I felt that any imperfections in these painted woldings might go overlooked if I made an effort to get them reasonably clean up front.

Dremel styrene crumbs...

...into bow waves...

replacing a support beam that broke off during handling.

painting the anchors...

...and that unique piece of carrack deck equipment... the grappling hook.

1st grappling hook assembled. There were six provided in the set (God bless Bruno Gire!) but in the event I was only able to complete one for the bowsprit. I soon removed it though and thought about a better way to mount it. Notice the paint chipping away from bowsprit. This is because I did not prime any of the brass (and steel.) I would be doing many touch ups as a result of this decision.

[callen]

With the ship mounted on the water rigging the masts and sails would be almost impossible working with black thread against blue-green water. Also, I was creating finger-print impressions on the edges of my water as a result of handling... not good. So I decided to cover the water with a white cardboard mask. This had the double bonus of protecting the water and making the rigging visible.

Stays from unithread. Not easy to mount.

With the stays in place I could at last begin in earnest to mount the sails.

After a while I began to see the virtues of completely covering the water. This would enable me to work from both sides.

First try at a spritsail. This turned out to be too small. Later I realized that the spritsail yard itself should have been larger... one more correction to incorporate into a future build.

[callen]

creating more sails...

Very important that the thread be cut when the sails are dry in order to prevent the threads from pulling out of the sail sandwich. As it happened, I failed to cut two of the loops from the jig and pulled out several strands as a result.

Can you see where the threads pulled out?

Here are the offending threads. Fortunately I was able to cut the sails so that it was not too noticeable.

Brunos beautiful 'Renaissance Naval Decorative Triangles?' (desperately need some terminology here!) I had felt that there simply was no way to work any of this in with all of the elaborate architecture on the carrack, but as we got down to the wire I thought maybe I could cut one thin enough to fit. The question was, what color to use? Brown? Green? Red? or Blue? I asked my wife Becky which one she preferred. She said 'blue.' So blue it is!

[callen]

I didn't 'decal' these decals to the actual model, but instead mounted them on paper and then CA'd the paper to the model.

Time for the double sided Lateen. Above is the new single ply 'reverse cross.' Below is the new lateen sail...

The new ply is layered on top of the existing sail/decal/thread sandwich. Very important to line the crosses up so that they mask eachother...

What is that? A bit of unpainted brass down on the chainwale... It can't be paint flaking off, they are made of plastic...

It's a shield that broke off from the main top. More repair work... I'm only glad it fell into another part of the model or it would have been the judges at Nationals that noticed, not me...

Working with the decals & mounting them on paper I got the idea that I could cut away some of the flags and make the coats of arms into livery shields for the poop deck. A bit of careful trimming with scissors and I had the Silves and Beja arms mounted on the taffrail. This had the added advantage of concealing some errors in alignment in the structure there. I imagine that shields of this sort might have been easily removable depending on who was on board or who had paid for a particular sortie, etc. Bruno had made some Beja related decals because at the time I was hard at work on the Beja carrack. He added the Silves decals of his own initiative. I have no idea if it is plausible to mount these arms on a 16th Century Carrack, but as Beja at least is closely related to the Royal House, I feel it's a reasonable supposition. Anyway they look cool.

[callen]

Royal Portuguese arms for the face of the somercastle. Why not?

Foretopsail mounted...

New spritsail...

completed suite of sails... now the rigging can begin in earnest.

Beginning what are called the 'leach lines' (?) or 'martnets' in the books...

They add a wonderful sense of authenticity to the ship, but they are not easy to do! Many errors, tear aways and repeats as I attempted to duplicate them for all of the sails.

These lines required that I create a drooping affect, which meant I had to find threads that already had the right curve to them. This actually is a lot easier than trying to create a curve in thread though.

Anchors mounted to port forecastle, where (to my eye at least) they seemed to promptly disappear.

[moomoon]

If you were living at the time of your carracks, you'd get burned for sorcery!

[Rui Matos]

I'll go and get the matches
Excellent job, Callen

Cheers
Rui

[callen]

If you were living at the time of your carracks, you'd get burned for sorcery!

Hey moomoon! Haven't heard from you in a while. What are you up to these days?

I'll go and get the matches
Excellent job, Callen

Cheers
Rui

Hey Rui! How is Sunny Lisboa today? Thanks for stopping by.

[bgire]

Hello
When I etched those microscopics grappling hooks I thought these were but impossible to cope with...
... and our Okie sorcerer did them...

As we say in France : "respect"
_Bruno

[callen]

So here was the build, as of Tuesday night, August 2nd. I was out of time and out of luck... the only option was to actually finish the model at the contest. I had never tried to do anything like that before, but after consulting some of my buddies in the club, some of them confessed to having done this themselves before... I figured, if anyone had sympathy or understanding for what I was trying to do it would be the guys there.

And so, I packed up my little unfinished carrack, several types of line, some paints, glues and tools and rode off to Omaha with my buddies Jim Root, Richard Fisher, Wayne Watts and Don Anderson of IPMS Metro. Didn't know if I would have time to finish the Sao Vicente de Fora and get it entered into the contest or not, but I was determined to try.

We arrived late Wednesday Night, very tired and lacking any energy except to meet, greet, and sleep. Thursday I woke up, spent the morning blowing 'great fripping wads of cash' (as Monty Python puts it) in the Vendor Rooms on some of the most beautiful resin and brass I've ever seen and got to meet a lot of great guys I had been corresponding with for over 3 years but had never met in person, including Bob Cicconi (pronounced Bob 'Sickownee') Keith Bender, Vlad Yakubov, Tony Bunch, Tim Dike, Pavel Vacata, John Iverson, Martin Quinn, Charles Scanlon, Joe Simon, Dai Nakabayashi, Gary Kingzitt, Carl Musselman, Ed Grune, Kevin Winks and many others too numerous to name; gentlemen and fabulous modelers to a man. They were both appreciative and supportive of my efforts, and many of them stopped by to cheer me on in the atrium of the hotel as I wrestled with little curved bits of barely visible thread. I had managed to remember everything I needed to actually finish the ship, although I forgot to bring paints for the additional figures I was going to add. In the event I was unable to do everything I had originally intended, and wound up making some hard decisions about what to do and what to leave off for the contest.

You will notice in the gallery that my little carrack is not present, or else buried deep in the back pages. There's a reason for that. I was told that the deadline for entries was 6pm Friday, but upon discussing it with the officials, they weren't actually clear on the deadline. I 'entered' (filled out my papers) starting around 5:45, and suddenly remembered I had forgotten a touch up on the rudder... ran back to the atrium, touched up the rudder, and wound up submitting it for judging at about 6:15 on Friday. This is why you can't see it in most of the photos. It wasn't there until the very last moment.

Once my little carrack was finally put to bed I could relax. The rest of Friday and Saturday I spent spending money, chatting, reading some new books and 'taking it easy' as we waited to see if the judges would smile on our efforts. Joe Simon, whom I met and got to know at the meet took one look at the completed carrack and said 'That will win Best Ship' but I wasn't sure I'd even place. There was an excellent 350th Scale Escort Carrier by a gentleman by the name of Rodney Mead that looked the equal, if not the superior of anything I had done, and even the relatively simple conversion entries that I shared the category with could arguably have been judged cleaner than my little Fora that I had sweated over these nine months. I had no idea if I would place or not. I did know that I had done everything I could to get it done. Having remembered the situation of the Beja at Soonercon I had no expectations about placing.

However...

As you can see, Bruno's excellent details were finally implemented, all together in a single build, Photo-Etch, Flags, Sails and Hull decals all in place. It was truly a thrill to work with these materials, and the results only confirmed to me that there is no substitute for great details.

These pics btw weren't taken by yours truly, (who forgot his #*%@ camera) but by Carl Musselman, who was kind enough to do some (very needed) closeups at the table before I packed her away for the journey home. Amazingly there was no damage at any point, either by me or by passers by. This was my second Nats to compete in, my 1st to attend, and needless to say, a welcome shot in the arm for the Carrack Effort. I didn't get best ship, that went to the amazing and well deserving Flower Class Corvette by the amazing Kevin Wincks, but I felt happy and pleased to have placed at all at a national level. It was nice to make a little bit of a 'comeback' after walking home empty handed at Soonercon, but honestly and truly and with all sincerity the best thing about the Nats, and the best thing about this hobby in general is the opportunity to meet guys that have the same interest and passion for naval history that you do. I hope to go again, and would recommend the experience for anyone who hasn't yet made it. It was a wonderful time.

One comment I do want to make about rigging. I had been pleased by the fineness of the Black Nylon Monofilament Doll Hair I had been using, and though the brown and blond doll hair was finer, it was also harder to see. I was concerned (because of some comments Rusty White had made) that the judges might not even notice the rigging due to the fineness of the nylon, and decided to do all of it with black, which showed up best. However Dai Nakabayashi used fibers which he had extracted from dental floss on his two stunning 1/700th Scale entries, the Yukikaze and Fuyuzuki. This was the finest rigging I have ever seen, much finer than what I had used. I spoke with Dai at length about his rigging and his techniques and will be attempting to adapt them to my work if I can.

There were so many great builds there, it was really stunning to see. Speaking with Rick Jackson, a master ship modeler and fellow Oklahoman about the state of the hobby, the show this year really demonstrated that Ship Modeling is indeed in good shape for the time being, although of course there is a concern about whether the next generation will 'take up the torch.'

So that brings us up to date with the Carracks. I will be posting more detail shots of the Fora, for those who are interested in the rigging, and will be attempting to finish up the other incomplete carracks this fall, especially the Flemish Carrack, which I had hoped to complete in time. I will also be starting new threads for new casting masters in the near future. See you soon!

[callen]

Hello
When I etched those microscopics grappling hooks I thought these were but impossible to cope with...
... and our Okie sorcerer did them...

As we say in France : "respect"
_Bruno

Hey Bruno! I've been meaning to email you and give you the news! But I wanted to catch up the thread first. Thanks again for all your help with this thing. It's really been an adventure.

The grappling hooks are great!
You just can't touch them once you've built them. I plan on mounting all of them on the Fora once I get a chance. I'll be posting more detail pics of the rigging tonight, so stay tuned.

[callen]

Ok, a few more pics...

It's a funny thing rigging a 1/700th scale sailing ship. When you start out, every little line you add is exciting, and yet, when you get to the 'end' (whatever that is) and look at what you've done, it doesn't seem like enough...

For the square sails I was able to do the lifts (very basic: one line for each side of the yard, there simply wasn't time for more than that) the martnets, the sheets, braces and bowlines, but not the lines that run from the corner of the sail up to the middle of the yardarm diagonally (can't remember just now what' they're called.) There probably should be more forestays and, aside from the shrouds I was unable to do any kind of backstays before I ran out of time. The rigging for the lateens is very basic indeed, a lift for the high end, and a sheet for the corner. That's it. I may yet be able to do more, but, well... there is a certain inertia once you've stopped, entered something and placed with it to leave it alone, at least for the time being. There's also the never completely banished fear that you'll screw something up with a careless bump of a finger.

[callen]

an unusual shot looking up at the bonaventure mizzen...

Notice the knife-like prow cutting effortlessly through the water!...

Notice the boiling wake trailing far behind, the telltale sign of a swift and powerful passage through the churning sea!

Royal Arms of Portugal on the face of the Somercastle.

Detail of mainsail bowline.

There's that little hook, safe at last at the end of the bowsprit, ready at a moment's notice to drop down onto the deck of some unsuspecting tiny warship!

Livery shields on taffrail.

[callen]

hard to see but 'close in defense cannons' are installed, 3 out of the rear bulkhead of the forecastle, and three out of the forward bulkhead of the somercastle.

They're still arguing about something down there... I don't think they're going to get it worked out anytime soon...

That's all for now friends. I'm wanting to take a break from models at least for a couple of days... tried hard not to do anything with tiny ships today, but wound up taking these photos. As I sat here uploading, the rubber band on the case of the Fora snapped loudly on the shelf behind my computer... not sure what that means, but hoping I can keep it undamaged more or less indefinitely, unlike my poor Vermont... I wish you all great success in your builds.
Adelante!.

[j.mahieux]

Hi Neal,
Fantastic job, realy marvellous!!!!
Jean

[JP64]

Incredible !!
Jp

[Dave Wooley]

Callen I can only stand back and marvel at your ability and dexterity. I guess if I had just 1% of your amazing skill I would never finish a model . It's a great pleasure seeing such a model developed , and take the form it does. You sir are a master craftsman and artist combined.
Dave Wooley