Jeeanne d'Arc-1/700 - croisier extraordinaire!

[JIM BAUMANN]

Progress is occurring--albeit not at the pace I would like--due to Business commitments--as well as fine weather causing me to enjoy the beach with daughter( 5) in an old convertible!...

The funnels in the kit were not quite correct-- I almost made all new funnels of copper tubing--but the upper cowls were so nicely rendered I elected to modify the resin items rather than risk damaging the finely cast cowls in removal.

I in-filled the cut out below the upper cowl with vinyl striping--ad the dribbled CA behind it on a piece of tungsten wire

( a fraught pastime - not without difficulties! ) and thereby narrowed the gap as well as increase the diameter of the funnel there to match the lower trunk

The distinctive vent towers were masterfully crisp and beautifully done in resin -

I do not believe I could have matched that finesse and sharpness from scratch in any way.

I painted them grey and the dribbled in in black watercolour paint with a tiny bit of soap in the water to break the surface tension.

the real thing is far more delicate--perhaps not replicable like that in 1/700...?

Now that bits are being glued and assembled the model is coming together satisfactorily in a pleasurable way !



Jim Baumann

[LE BOSCO]

hello Jim

the result on your vents and more than acceptable at 700 . good recovery on the funnels are more consistent with reality
bon courrage pour la suite
best regards
Nicolas

[JIM BAUMANN]

Hello all!

The next issue was the Conning-tower ( CT ) and its roof....


The kit casting has this as an integral part of the fwd structure deck...--I was going to remove it--but idleness intervened (!)
The fwd deck sits upon the superstructure block-and leaves an ugly seam to be fixed...

Alas the entire structure is cast as part of the deck, and whilst nicely rendered is not in the correct plane...

Furthermore the kit is designed to have the fwd deck to make the roof of the CT -which is not correct either
see image below

I rescued the CT by wrapping it in thin paper infused with CA--and made a new roof using brass PE scrap

The upper bridge houses were nicely supplied as a PE fold up structures

( Kit parts appear to be based on the model at the Musee de Marine in Paris - it has an open area between the two parts--actually these had doors and could be closed off...- which my model will also receive shortly!

see again the above photo

However the upper roof was of resin and far too thick--I made a new paper-infused with CA version.

Railings were covered with white glue dodgers--as per previous photo.

with the funnels installed the whole vessel starts to look more appealing to the eye!

More soon!

Jim Baumann

[moomoon]

Joli! The more funnels, the more I like them Hope I can start a WWI HMS Viking someday...
I admire the perfect fit of your railings

[JIM BAUMANN]

Jeanne had very long catwalks interconnecting the superstructure blocks.

The resin pieces supplied were faaaar to thick.

cut some replacements from PE fret surround scrap.

These were furnished carefully with WEM extra fine PE rails...

Care was taken to add them to the sides of the brass strip--so as to preserve the delicacy and ' thinness' of the catwalk.

A ridiculous 2 hours were spent getting these inter-deck struts cut and lined up ...

( macro shot shows further room for improvement! )

[MartinJQuinn]

A ridiculous 2 hours were spent getting these inter-deck struts line up ...

That's all? I'd still be working on the first one, with globs of glue all over the deck and a blue streak coming from my mouth!

As always, beautiful work Jim.

[Frank Spahr]

Same with me - my limitations are far below this level of work. Very well done, Jim, I admire your patience and the delicacy of your work.

Frank

[Neptune]

Great job there Jim! Don't really see much room for improvement, I think your ships are more perfect than the actual ships!
HOWEVER... Yours truly is still waiting for an update on that Hindenburg

[LE BOSCO]

we all know that the precision is Swiss !!!but, now she has a name "JIM BAUMANN"
a work of wonderful delicacy on the "�tui a cigarettes" (the nickname of jeanne)
"Chapeau bas l'artiste"
regards
Nicolas

[Neptune]

This one slipped to page 2, shouldn't happen! Otherwise Jim will forget to update it!

Any progress on any of your two builds Jim?

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you all for your patience and good wishes!

1/1 scale work and life has interfered somewhat with the modelboat production line...

I have made progress--and will illustrate my fraught trials and tribulations shortly!

Regards all

JB

[j.mahieux]

Hello Mister Jim,
Some of these olds post-card can help you?
It is my own collection on the subject.
Friendly,
Jean Mahieux

[Captain pugwash]

'Phew', I can see why you prefer the older ship type's Jim.

Lovely job, that resin looks the part.

The pictures here tell it all.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Jeann'Arc had an " arghhh!!!!! " moment....


The catwalks that had been made of brass strip ... rather infuriatingly buckled...

Caused by the differential thermal linear expansion of brass and resin...

ie the plastic boat contracts more than the brass catwalks...

My mistake really--I know all about this thru experience with buckling hand rails-which are therefore attached in short lengths so to give "expansion" gaps

read here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37612


It being summer--even here in the UK --I applied the catwalks to the ship in an evening modelling session

warm modelroom at the end of a warm day..=> model expanded with warmth.


A few days later during a colder spell-- I picked up the model and the catwalk was shaped like a banana upwards.

The removal didn't go well...

New catwalks were made--about 0.5 mm shorter.--these were mounted on "steps" at each end made of white glue, and attached with matt varnish. this should give a flexible mounting-allowing the catwalks to expand and contract with no visible ill effect...

There have been some pretty hefty temperature fluctuations recently- and my flexibly mounted catwalks have been performing admirably--the rails also have a "matt varnish string" flexible joint at each end.


Other than that works carried out have been adding all the stairs with custom made thin copper wire handrails-much finer than PE in addition French ships stairway rails did not have intermediate supports along the length-and the angles were in places steeper than the usual PE offerings.--this seemed to take an age as most railings I made ended up airborne across the room from tweezer ping!

The large amount of inter-deck supporting struts have now also been added all around--a veritable game of patience to get them all upright and aligned in both planes

The bridges now has open doors and the canvas dodgers --as seen in photos for my chosen era of fit.

Numerous small details are now being made and added--these hammock stowage boxes with separate individual feet( for the lower bridge wings) took an age--the lids are curved brass strip and have an overhang and the feet were cut from 1/700 window stock

[Harry @ BFM]

JB, might give the new CA "Tire Glue" a try. Should help with the expansion problem, from what I have noticed it stays flexiable.

[JIM BAUMANN]

The model is progressing--albeit slowly...


A real test of patience are the nicely conceived and finely etched mounts( included in the kits PE !)
for the 3in Q/F guns.

The most successful method for assembling these very delicate and fragile items I have devised so far for these is to insert a sharpened a pushpin in the neatly etched counterpoint.

This is then pressed hard into a stack of post-it notes paper pad, then onto a cutting mat and lastly onto a foam backed sanding stick until all the legs form up evenly.- a tweak with fine tweezers and held breath is often required

This assembly is then removed form the pushpin very carefully with a very fine scalpel tip pressing on the root of the legs.

The failure rate is high and they certainly fly well--even when the removal operation was done in a plastic box...

The D-shaped-base parts are then placed on the deck with matt varnish as the adhesive and the spider mounts are then placed upon the also with matt varnish at the PE leg bases.

The end effect is quite pleasing

The fwd mast fighting-top deck was made of paper--cut folded in half for symmetry and the infused with CA

The splinter shield surround was used from the fine PE supplied.

The aft compass platform deck was also made of Paper infused with CA and had its supporting legs added of Brass strips from a discarded 1./350 handrail.

The open mount 5.4 in guns for the weather deck were supplied as solid on the back face.

I was going to make replacements of folded paper--but the castings were finely shaped and crisply rendered--seeing little point in making yet more work I simply set about hollowing these out using a drill and mill bit in a Dremel--fiddly and
prone to failure--I managed to hollow them all out successfully

That's it for now!!

Jim Baumann

[Captain pugwash]

She's a work of art and no mistake.
Nice to see how you fathom out the problems, from here it seems so easy.
But your the one thats fathomed them out.
She is looking good Jim B.

[LE BOSCO]

hello Jim

still impressive finesse it is very pleasant to watch
cheers
nicolas

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you all for your kind words

I am now building against the clock--Telford is looming...

Latest progress has been mainly smaller items.

The boat handling cranes-of unusual design- are comprised of an upright--contained within a strong 'socket--allowing the crane to rotate.
The real thing is surprisingly hard to see in photos.

My( near enough) interpretation was based on this image

The makings of were as illustrated below

Once the booms and tackles are on it should give a fair impression.

The hatches for the aft superstructure openings had a small porthole within--I replicated these by cutting some Voyager PE doors down--as as to gain the sharp hole

French ship companionways usually had a decorative awning frame over them

I made mine using stretched sprue

The masts were turned of brass rod in a mini drill using files and a notch in the bench to prevent wipping => snapping.--and are much finer than any commercially produced item
The ship overall is starting to come together

I made the platforms for the masts using thin brass discs and WEM ultrafine rails

more soon

[Frank Spahr]

Best of luck for the rest of this project - your workmanship is phenomenal and never ceases to amaze me.

I just showed Chrissie the image of the hammock stowing box thingy with those incredible caterpillar feet below and she said: "Well, it seems you need to try harder ..."

Welcome to my "Arrrgghh" moment for today

Frank