GALLEY ALLEY! ~~~~ The Oared Vessel in 1/700th Scale

[callen]

I knew I wanted to create a railing round the edge of the upper deck, and that later I would want to mount shields on that deck, as per the many contemporary depictions of these vessels. In the interests of a sure foundation for the railing uprights, I decided to lay a bit of rod down right along the edge of the deck. I used Plastruct 0.01 square rod for this, the smallest square rod commercially available.

Bow bulwarks.

Time to get serious about that stern. Here is a little wedge sanded down from some square rod 0.03 IIRC.

I intended initially to bend it into a recurve with the existing rod. But when I glued it into place, I found that it had made this lovely fin-like split, and this charmed me, so I left it in place.

I decided I wanted to make steering platforms on either quarter, and leave the stern deck for the commanders.

More work on the upper deck sub-assembly. Since it didn't perfectly fit with the lower hull subassembly, the work here was somewhat labored.

Trimmed to shape.

Now to add wales to the fishtail stern...

Preshaped and then glued in place. These were all 0.01 Plastruct square rod.

[callen]

With the upper deck completed, I could now begin to work on the railing. I used 0.01 Plastruct round rod for the uprights.

Railings complete and subassemblies 'dry fitted' for comparison. Also, I have a mast now! Tapered brass from commercial aftermarket. (I believe it was Master Models.)

Ok! The upper deck railings went well...let's try some stern deck railings...

This was a lot harder, as the rail had to curve in two directions...and then I had to make a mirror-copy for the other side and have a reasonable symmetry at the end.

Starting to look like something.

And now for the GREAT OAR EFFORT...

This was the big question mark hanging over both builds: Can I make oars in 700th Scale?

I described the method in my previous posts about the Khufu Sun Ship, but I actually cracked the problem while working on the Phoenician. Here you can see a lot of 0.01 round rod glued to a piece of glass (note the double-sided tape) and a single model oar completed.

I then glued more short rods to each long rod, one on each side. No measuring, I only had to be sure that the oar-blank blade when rough was longer than the completed model blade, and that the near end of the short rods lined up perfectly on the long rod.

[callen]

Penny for scale.

The oar blanks could then be trimmed in one go, rather than cutting and trimming each part before gluing. That would have killed me.

Note the long blanks. These will be the steering oars, mounted at an angle at the stern.

Rowing oars.

Slowly building a collection! I'd lose about 1 in 7 to either breakage or trimming too small. It wasn't easy to do these, but it wasn't impossible.

Steering oars. Penny for scale.

At last! Thirty-four oars! A complete suite! I think it took three days all together.

Taking a break from the Great Oar Effort, I realized I had yet another problem with the hull. There was really no way for people on the stern deck to access the upper deck. What I needed was a small bit of decking at the aft end of the upper deck sub assembly. Easily done. After a rough start, I kept getting lucky with this build, but it was very much ad-hoc learn as you go.

New piece.

[callen]

New deck piece glued in place.

Moment of truth! Gluing the oars in place! Exciting, but also scary. If the alignment of the oars was too wacky, that is, if I was not able to line them up reasonably well, the whole build would look ragged, and that would ruin the effort.

Alignment shot. Hold on to your butts...

Starting to look like something.

Now for the upper row of oars, which had to come down at a sharper angle, but intersect with the lower oars at blade-level. I used liquid cement to mount the lower row of oars, which passed between two rods I had glued to the hull sides, just wide enough for the oar haft to pass through. This helped stabilize them. But the upper row would rest on the upper rail, so for these I used CA.

[callen]

Alignment shot of the completed oars. There were some alignment issues, but the oars did respond to bending and correction. I've worked on them continually since they were mounted. The key is getting them the right length. Up or down, back or forth can be adjusted after gluing. In or out cannot.

I was amazed how robust the model was with the oars mounted. I had contemplated making oars from a combination of brass rod and styrene. I was so glad at this point I had trusted my build to a pure-styrene effort with the oars. The styrene oars sprung when touched, not brittle. Of course, one has to be careful, but I was pleased with the styrene oars resiliency. I think brass/CA construction would have been too brittle and resulted in breakage.

State of the build going into priming. In the end, I feel like this build came together. I was terribly excited to look down and see this little thing on my work bench.

I primed this model, along with the Khufu Sun Ship and Galley #3 last night. I'm going to start painting them now. More updates soon. Stay tuned for Galley #3!

[j.mahieux]

Hi Callen,
You need some galley slaves to shoot your oars, how are you doing?
Jean

[callen]

Hi Callen,
You need some galley slaves to shoot your oars, how are you doing?

Well, Jean, now you have found my secret. As you know I am an inveterate 700th Scale modeler, I generally have no interest in the bottom half of ships, and like to display them going through the water. But, as you see, these are full hull, and they are full hull precisely because I don't want to have to stuff 50 or 60 figures on them to work the oars. I just don't think it would look good. So, for that reason, I'm going to display them in the traditional way, raised up on finials on the model base.

At some point I'm going to tackle the dioramas you and I have talked about before, and at that point I WILL have to put some figures into my galleys. Galleys, after all, don't row themselves. But until then, I'm avoiding the problem with my current methods.

[j.mahieux]

Hello Callen,
A few years ago I visited the Naval Museum of Venice where you can see a fantastic galley model.
Each rower is individualized, for the scale, approximately 1/10 or 1/15.
Unfortunately I can not place these photos on the forum, they are too "heavy" apparently!
I try again later.
Jean

[reigels]

Any viking long boats in the future? That would be interesting as well.

[callen]

Any viking long boats in the future? That would be interesting as well.

Hello Reigels.

So...yes. Actually, I have reached the point where I believe I am capable of modeling any kind of oared vessel, from any period. A Viking ship would be a great addition to my collection. It's not a definite plan for the near future, but at some point. One of my daughters asked for one, so stay tuned.

[callen]

So, all of this narration about my efforts with the Sun Ship and the Phoenician Galley is to a purpose. At this point in the story, I felt very much that I was out of the weeds with both builds, but I had also (very belatedly) realized there might be an easier way to do some of the things I'd done. As it happened I got sick two weeks ago, and stuck at home, unable to work but not feeling really terrible I started to think about the possibility of a third galley that might incorporate some of these easier techniques that were bubbling in my head.

Part of me said: ARE YOU NUTS! DON'T START ANOTHER ONE! FINISH WHAT YOU HAVE!

But, well, I was too sick and it was too cold to go outside and prime the first two ships, so I gave in to the temptation to start another build.

Boy am I glad I did. Everything came together with this one.

This is what I want to share with you, gents. All of my struggles and wrangling with tiny bits of plastic eventually led to an easier, better way to do things. In particular, I wanted to find a way to minimize having to measure and cut. I hate having to measure and cut. It slows everything down. What you see in this first shot is a basic rod with some strips rough-cut and glued on top.

Adding strips. These will be the benches for the galley. I decided I wanted to build the Argo of Jason and the Argonauts fame. Many publications will tell you that the Argo was a 'Pentaconter,' that is, an early type of Greek Galley that used 50 rowers. This is one of those wonderful suppositions by the sort of historian that knows nothing whatever about ships. They reason, since a Pentaconter is rowed by 50 men, and the Argonautika lists a crew of 50 men, the Argo must have had a fifty-man crew, with one oar for each member.

The problem with this is that if everyone is at the oars, there is no one to man the tillers, no one at the bow, no one in command, and since all the rowers sit backwards, no one at all to even see where the ship is going. Ludicrous!

So, assuming the Argo had a crew of 50, it could _not_ have had 50 oars, but must have had substantially less than that. I decided my Argo would have 44 oars, that leaves 6 men left over to man the steering oars, the sails, and command. Seemed reasonable to me.

Next step, two bits of plastic strip double-sided taped together and shaped. This forms the waterline plate. This is still an essential part of the model for me. Even though I planned from the beginning to build a full-hull ship, a waterline plate simplifies construction for me, as you will see.

Note the curved rods inserted under the benches matching the lines of the waterline plate.

And then you simply trim them to shape. Up to this point I haven't measured _anything_.

Note the size of the model, 1 & 3/8ths inches, which gives us a length of about 80 ft. Just about right.

[callen]

Adding material for a bow and stern deck.

Time to flesh-out the hull sides. Except for checking the length of the hull with a ruler, I still have not measured _anything_.

Looking a bit like a slab-sided liner. If I ever need to build a super-tiny Aquitania, now I know how to do it.

Time to create the lower hull.

Building up the Ram-Bow.

[callen]

Sanding and shaping the bow. I think the pics show the techniques, which are pretty straight-forward.

Sanding and blending the whole.

Shaping the ram bow.

Family shot with the Phoenician Galley in the background. The Argo is slightly longer than the PG, but also narrower and lower.

The overall lines of my Argo model are basically a scaled-down version of a Greek Trireme. You can see in the profile shot here the slightly distended shape of the hull. This is one of the things I really love about these kinds of ships, these lines that add such a wonderful organic quality to the hull.

[callen]

Very tiny rods in little bins. Medium, short and very short. This is the sort of thing you have to do when building these very small ships. It can feel a little insane at times, working with tiny tiny bits of plastic, particularly when things aren't working...

Now it's time to create the side-railing/gunwales. This is important not only because it is authentic and adds detail, but it helps also with placing the oars and giving them support as they're curing.

As with the Phoenician, the pattern of benches gave me both a basis for support for the uprights, and a means to avoid having to measure for their placement.

Gunwale glued in place. vertical elements not trimmed. But, as you can see, the horizontal strip makes trimming easy.

Starboard railing/gunwale finished and trimmed.

Both rails finished.

Family shot. Bit blurry, sorry to say.

Time for a mast!

Refining the bow shape. Always good to build bulky and trim and sand carefully.

[callen]

Time to think about a centerline walkway. In considering the Argo, it occurred to me that a commander in the back would have a very difficult time clambering over rowers and benches in any effort to reach the bow. Much better to have a raised walkway. And such a walkway could definitely use some handrails, so that anyone walking on it didn't get pitched into the poor rowers by the motion of the ship. So, what we need is a raised walkway on supports, and a railing, making a kind of catwalk structure. If the railing verticals and the walkway supports are one and the same elements, this will facilitate construction considerably.

Brass Bob helping us out for scale.

Trimmed and shaped. Devilishly hard to get a decent shot of the catwalk amidst all those benches and the gunwale railings...

[callen]

Time to build up the stern. Square rod shaped.

And placed...

Note the way the rod is glued to the keel. This will need to be blended later.

In addition to modeling historic and prehistoric ships, I'm also a Science Fiction modeler. To that end I am always looking out for spaceship parts and have amassed an impressive collection of junk over the years.

Really. You should see how much junk I have.


At any rate, the junk hoarding paid off this day. I have this stuff from a company called 'Lisa Pavelka' available through Hobby Lobby. Basically it's old watch parts bagged and resold as materials for steam-punk earrings. No really. At any rate, among this stuff are some remarkably tiny tauri, which might make a perfect basis for the round 'fish-tail boss' we sometimes see on ships of this type.

Glued in place. And I've added another bit of fin.

More junk. This is jewelry making materials from Michael's craft stores. I think of it as a lifetime supply of 1/700th Scale cannon balls, etc. I think I got the whole thing on sale for about $5.

Progress.

[callen]

Brass Bob weighing in on the height of the stern bulwarks. It's important that the fishtail be neither too high, nor too low. Too low and it would interfere with the operation of the ship. Too high and it overbalances the profile of the whole. Based on the height of the figure I'd put the lower edge of the fishtail at about 9 ft.

Time to give some thought to the Bow bulwarks.

Bob says: 'Too high! Cut it down!'

Bob says: 'Better!'

Penny for scale.

Time to detail the stern command/steering deck.

...And the bow.

[callen]

Bow details trimmed. I thought about some kind of railing over the bow bulwark, but decided against it.

Leftover (too small) oars from the Sun Ship build! Honestly this was one of the main reasons I thought I might try another build.

Oars in place. Lovely Greek Galley lines.

State of the build prior to priming. From the first day to this point was a total of 4 days. An absolute record for me. The Sun Ship had been a WIP for several years, the Phoenician Galley had been a WIP since July...and then I get the Argo to this point in four days! I was getting really excited at this point. Smoothest scratch build I'd ever experienced.

At this point all three galleys were ready to prime. I have since primed them and begun their paint jobs. I'll be sharing that process soon. Until then, happy modeling!

[Silenoz]

pfieuw... nice scratchbuilding on a whole new level, and tinyness.... splendid work, and must admit, totally in awe for the result so far...

[Quincy]

Simply superb scratchbuilding, Callen! Its a real treat to watch your work!!




Bob Pink.