NORMANDIE in 1/700 scale - a non-grey fleet ship !

[Dan K]

Truly a extraordinary build, Jim. She is magnificent, just like the original.

[pascalemod]

Thank you all for your kind words;

In answer to the water.... ....

....we are doing 30 knots on a grey day just off the southern tip of the British Isles
-en route for New York !!

still working at it, but its coming along;
Normandie's wake pattern was always very clean--thansk to her Yurkevich Bow ( early Bulbous type )

Normandie 38.jpg

Unlike here contemporaries, RMS Queen Mary et al-- she made relatively little water spray or white water

The boundary foam layer was also clean.


so here it goes in 1/700...


all I have to do now is to finish the other side !!!

P1080023 (1).jpg

How amazing this looks is hard to describe. It looks like the real thing.

[marijn van gils]

P1080022 (1).jpg

Fantastic!!!

[Frank Spahr]

Awesome to the n- th degree ...

[Willie]

Hi there Meister Baumannn and all,

Am I seeing wrong or the bloody thing has got loose again ?????

I know I may be speaking heresy, but --unless it is already too late-- have you considered cutting one of the windows away, or better shortening one of the gaps between two series of them ? I think this would solve the problem once and forever, and you would need Superman�s eyes to see the difference.

After all the effort involved in this fantastic construction, to see this piece of PE deciding on her own makes me almost faint --and hate PE and resin for the rest of my life.

I hope you can find a solution for this. I can still remember the time when you sprayed a finished model with a defective can of matt varnish to give iot a finish, and you got the scene covered with snow instead. As far as I can remember, you gave this an excellent solution and saved the model. I hope you can find a solution for this thing as well.

Nice going, and best regards from this side,

Willie.[/size]

[JIM BAUMANN]

Hi Willie!

well spotted and thank you for your concern !

but ...==> worry not.

when I am working on the ship I often temporarily take off the heating pad underneath-
-hence by the end of a work session the ship does actually shrink slightly--hence the buckle.

But when the ship is in its case and heated--

its all flat again==and all is well
phew!
=======================================================



I am away for a few days holiday but there is a new update coming upon our return !!

JIM B

[JIM BAUMANN]

Hello all again !

...back from Holiday (this year within the UK = a 'staycation' )
-- and progress is moving slowly onwards towards completion ( ish! )

I had spent quite a few hours completing the water
lots of small highlights with differing shades of white
etc etc
so needed some tangible works ... !
===========================================================================================



Masts and yards;

Having extensively ( maybe obsessively ! ) studied the photos,
I was not entirely happy with the shape of the kits brass masts,
as their taper was constant from its base and a exaggerated narrowing at the top .

I also felt they were too thick at the base--and in addition there was
-for my liking--insufficient ' tail ' to the mast ( to be installed into the solid resin cast superstructure )

to counteract the cumulative rigging tension .

Therefore I made my own - parallel for the first 1/3 of its length- with a lot of tail ! )

-using some Albion Alloys brass tubing,
with stainless steel wire cemented inside on the lower portion,
and a Master Models 1/350 Yard arm shortened and installed to give a more gradual shape to the the top taper .

The kit supplied brass yard arms - whilst the lengths scaled well-- they were alas rather too substantial when viewing photos
and were replaced with items from Master Models

The methodology of attaching the yard arms- according to the instructions--whilst structurally sound
alas bore no resemblance to the real thing

I was fortunate to have this photo which showed the bracing gussets on the lower fwd yard;

I made my gussets with strips of stretched sprue, which were then in-filled with CA glue

I assembled the aft mast with a finely tapered ensign gaff as per photos.

The fwd mast had a look-out on its fwd face --which in the early version of the ship was open with just a roof,

After the refit a more personnel-friendly fully enclosed version was installed


The kit supplied item was a good shape and quite well done ...

==> was post refit only !


As a result I made my own lookout using paper

The photos show an external ladder on each mast, however when scaled down this almost vanished from view,

so rather than attach a way over-scale ( even with my finest ) PE ladder to the mast ,
I attached a very thin copper wire to the relevant mast side,
-- which will have a gentle highlight/ shadow done to give the impression of the outer ladder vertical

======================================================================================

The Fore-deck cargo cranes were made using the cast kit parts,
which are pretty close in appearance and dimensions

The masts were cast from a 3-D print ( I think) --so they needed some work to remove all the printing steps to smooth.

The ' lamp shades ' are a bit over-scale -but pleasing to the eye.
I added my own lamps underneath made of white glue drop-lets
( also over-scale but ditto above...! )

I added a ( VERY ) small strip of stainless PE to the underside of eh crane booms to stabilise the resin and also create the impression of taper.

The real crane booms were actually an inverted hollow U shape
( making these would have been an ideal application for PE ... !)

When at rest, the booms were supported on a hinged centre post with hinged side-members and a aft support.

I made these with different thickness wires- glued in situ

The Builders plate was proudly ( and prominently !! ) fitted below the elongated centre bridge window

I made mine using an anonymous ( ie no idea here it came from ! ) aircraft instrument decal cut down to get the desired effect.

The supports for the large illuminated signs between the funnels

were made of thin stretched tinned copper wire

I had tried pre-painting the wire-
but it kept getting chipped when manipulating with tweezers;
so resorted to installing the wire and then painting.

More progress soon!

JIM B

[wefalck]

Incredibly fiddly ...

[Jabberwock]

Just shaking my head in disbelief!

Lovely Jim!

Cheers, Jabb

[Chuck Bauer]

"Disbelief" is a good word

[marijn van gils]

Fantastic microscopic detail work Jim!

Looking forward to the full view with finished seascape and masts in place.

[Goodwood]

I have it on good authority this man does not use tweezers when building models.

He straight-up uses the Force.

[zs180]

What an amazing model! Finished with unmatched skill and impeccable taste, unprecedented dedication and perseverance!!
It is so much fun to witness the birth of this miracle!

[Neptune]

Hi Jim,

great job up till now.

Hate to say it but I do think the crane booms were full box structures rather than inversed U-beams. I think the bottom plate of the profile is just in the shadow, making it appear hollow. That is of course only based on that one picture you posted, if you have more pictures indicating a U-profile, then I'm mistaken.
It would, from a technical point of view, a very strange decision to use a U-profile as it would give rise to buckling under relatively low loads without any supporting on the bottom of the profile.

That said, apart from the modeler himself, nobody would probably notice this detail.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you all for your kind comments and helpful input !

I have been a bit overwhelmed with 1:1 real business-- and it has been very tiring-- so evenings have been out of bounds for modelmaking
as sleep was more important!--
...and weekends were ( damnably !!??! ) sunny and warm in recent weeks
and as a result the ' easy ' option of pleasure was usually taken....

( even though on THAT occasion below..... it was raining lightly!! )

=====================================================================



But progress is afoot--the lifeboat rigging has been started...
more in depth shortly once some actual rigging is attached..! ( there is a lot of it and its complex to apply! )

anyhow

the source of turning blocks ...

and their locations

more soon

JIM B

[SovereignHobbies]

Stunning work as always Jim and the trip out in your Ford looks enjoyable despite the weather.

I'm sorry I won't be able to drop by at Telford this year, and enjoyed our chats last year very much. I think you may unintentionally have had some influence in me finally deciding to build a dinghy, which I have very recently started but has resulted in no modelling here for a couple of months. We can't do everything

[JIM BAUMANN]

Good evening all!

@ Jamie Duff-...- full size boat building is more science than art...
and will rob you of as much time as modelmaking!!

I have been busy pushing the project slowly towards its completion.

Lifeboat rigging...I set out to represent " seemingly " all of it

but leaving out some of of it off as cumulatively otherwise it starts to look over-scale

The lifeboat fall cables coming off the big winch drums span the vessel fwd and aft in all
sorts of differing ways , pending position of winches to davits to boat

The turning blocks I had previously fitted made of PE circles had their sheave box lids made of paper

The davit rigging consisted of rigging running over the pulleys both sides of the davits
I simulated this with pieces of black thin sprue running in lines between the pulleys as per photo of the real thing

The large motor launches had a long I section spreader bar between the falls --I guess to inhibit/ reduce fore and aft oscillation?

( note the bow in it !! )

I made a representation if it in thin brass ( PE rigging = square section )

The boat fall blocks which had long flat-sided cheeks
I deliberated how to give the impression of these without actually making them!!

what I needed was a repeatable source of flat sided section
so that I could make a paint effect of dark fwd aft and white on the out/inboard sides

aha!! ... ( WEM 1/350 Koenig railing waterway

There were also additional plates fitted in various areas for turning blocks
I have added most--but not all

I have completed both sides of the rigging and falls installation,
now I just need to add paint ,and touch up and tidy

before moving onto the next stage
hopefully less repetitive and mundane !

Overall the end effect belies the sheer amount of fiddly work
but I am happy that

( looking like!! ) less-- is more

[Pieter]

Nice work. Interesting to see some passengers hanging out on the boat deck. Are you adding more? I found with with my Victorious even a substantial number of figures can 'disappear' on a ship.

[marijn van gils]

This is coming together so beautifully! Fantastic work Jim! So incredibly sharp!

[Dan K]

I find the your lifeboat and davit execution simply astounding. Bravo, Jim.