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

[anyahajobuzi]

Very beautiful work! Nice to see ocean liners here once in a while, especially one that's not Titanic! Excellent detail, Jim!

[cplchanb]

Amazing Work!!!!

Just wondering, how do you paint the railings after theyve been installed....seems mind boggling to paint 1/700 rails with so many finished fittings surrounding it!

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you all for your encouraging words !

@ Pieter...
yes I have been adding more figures,
trouble is...

I have portrayed the ship working up to full speed -- so 30 knots heading into the south-Westerly at the southern end of the English channel makes those huge sweeping open decks a very windy place to be.... so I don't want to overdo the personell !!

@ anyahajobuzi a lot of extra detail indeed-- and every time I look at the photos of the real ship I see more--
but I cannot add it all... otherwise it will be overscale and the model will not appear as sleek as we see the real ship in photos

@ cplchanb-- railings ... aha ! -- on the real ship they were silver coloured.

see page 4 ==> link below...

viewtopic.php?f=59&t=168156&hilit=silve ... 60#p762449

the rails are made of Nickel-Silver-- not as bright silver coloured as stainless steel .
after cutting they dull down slightly ( oxidise)

I leave them for about 3 - 4 weeks for the cuts to dull down and then I have been matt varnishing as I go

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apropos rails...

I have had a very tiresome and frustrating time of doing the bow railings.
On the real ship there was no water way -- so the stanchions sprouted from welded sockets on the deck.

you will note there was a third rail very low down just above the deck.
I actually had some PE rail like this made,
==> but in 1/700 it looked too clunky
==> and the scale gap was almost lost.


The trouble is.... my PE designer-- with the best intentions....
added some feet to make this easier to apply without a bottom rail....

BUT they looked wrong and and clunkily over-scale
so I cut them off --individually --with a sharp blade

The railing is relief etched on one side-- so that seems to have set up some tension in it.
Once the railing was removed from the fret-- it inconveniently curled up...
being Nickel Silver rather than stainless steel ---its also very delicate!!!

The curl was straightened by turning it over and rolling a plastic ( Rotring ) barrel
back and forth along it very gently to 'neutralise ' the curl to straight.

The failure rate was epic !!

The docking bridges were made of brass PE fret scrap scissor cut and sanded to shape
they are attached to the ship with a small fillet of matt varnish to tack--
once the varnish was set -this was backfilled on the underside with some runny CA on the end of a cats whisker !

the braces on the underside were made of a piece of cut PE handrail
Bending the rail was done around a small drill-bit rolled on a post-it note pad.


overhead Bow view of the docking bridges and bow rails

Its quite a challenge to get this railing to strand up -- its attached by willpower ( mainly ) ...

attaching the railing was tricky --superglue is not very super in this application, matt varnish is not strong or grabby enough

I used white woodworking glue

white glue wood adhesive.jpg (10.03 KiB) Viewed 2078 times

BUT.... this was thinned down with distilled water to a consistency of somewhat thinner than skimmed milk (!!)
This was applied drop by drop to each stanchion base,
with a steady hand on the end of a lightly springy thin cats whisker -- in a pin-chuck ( for easy handling )

why cats whisker ..? so that -unlike copper wire--there is deflection in it that is softer than the wire or the PE
so that when my clumsy hand jitters/trembles slightly -the railing is not knocked off.

( Ha! ....--I did and it was-- numerous times..! )


All this accompanied by a stream of ( pretty awful !! ) muttered curses

It took more than 3 attempts for the 4 pieces of railing ahead of the breakwater and another few tries for the curved section on the bow ( !!! )

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The railing behind the breakwater...
this was 3 bar railing --

as per this image

I offered up some of my 3-bar railing-- but it looked too tall.
the reason for this - I think - is that the waterway ( or spurnwater) was relatively tall-- certainly higher than usual

In this unusual view the( alleged) cause can be seen

I then used some of my 4 bar railing and cut the the top rail off--stanchion by stanchion -with great loss of PE life (!)
and loss of nerves and patience ! as it buckled and bent etc etc

this however did restore the desired height and 'looked' in keeping so I persevered.

all is well that ends well;
however - the tapered pieces of railing without a bottom rail on the outer lower ends of the breakwater
are held on by sheer willpower and some very very thin white glue !

For some light relief --I searched my PE stash scrap box for some suitable pulley blocks for the fwd cranes.

encouraged by the fun of not balancing rails on end...

I made the ariel spreaders on the sides of No2 funnel

using some pieces of PE strips glued together and butt glued on the sides...

Fiddly and fragile-but effective!

some more bits and bobs-- its all slowly heading for completion.... ( phew !! )

in next update soon

[Joe Simon]

Very nice!

[MartinJQuinn]

Fantastic work! The railings on the bow are superbly done!

[dafi]

The failure rate was epic !!

But the result was even more epic!!!!!!!!!!!!!

XXXDAn

[EJFoeth]

why cats whisker ..? so that -unlike copper wire--there is deflection in it that is softer than the wire or the PE
so that when my clumsy hand jitters/trembles slightly -the railing is not knocked off.

I assume the cat was detached from the whisker to avoid catastrophic damage to the model... But great work; and so very very delicate! I'd say one of your finest.

[marijn van gils]

A great example of hard work, perseverance and clever use of materials, with exceptional results! Bravo!!!

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you all for your encouraging words-- I think I am now on the finishing run...

I reckon another month or so.

I have been fiddling around with the really small stuff

The bridge roof--aside from the RDF ariel loop,

and apart from the mast (!) --is now completed

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I have been experimenting with the lantern post aft

( these splendidly art deco items )

Mine were 3-D printed ; I reckoned the fail rate would be high
so had plenty made to experiment and fail with

The 3-D printed poles are too short to insert in the deck and in any case are too fragile/ flexible.
I have experimented with how to balance the lamps on a metal post while the adhesive sets AND keeping it upright and square

- mostly unsuccessfully and un-repeatably.

the answer was to actually have the post mad eo wire secured in cross-action tweezers in a vertical plane
and then HANG the lamp from under the post -- and allow gravity to find the vertical whilst the glue sets.

I wanted to try and imply a colour differential between the shades and the lamp bulbs,
using the light grey of the print material

As a result-- I have been gently airbrushing from directly above with angles no more than about 20 degrees from vertical.

so far-- experiments seem to show this works.

these lamps are very small -- here is a photo of the
Mk 1 first prints form 2 years ago....
the new ones are quite a bit smaller, narrower and and finer

and this is a brutal enlargement of the painted items
- showing the natural contrast of bulb and shade after paint

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Other works are the continued painting of 3-D print and etches figures--
the figures are almost literally swallowed up on a large ship like the Normandie !!


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The Normandie had various deck sport markings on her decks--

in different photos.. .in various positions ....on various decks !!!

It ( edit--to me seemed to ) change from season to season !

and changed dramatically after her rebuild with a large wire enclosed full size tennis court

the kits decals were used--as they seemed fine enough--albeit the decals were quite thick
I did however cut and shut two of them to create ( what appeared to me to be) a 2 / 3 size tennis court between the vents

a colourised photo of the real thing;

similar angle of the same scene on my workbench ( with artificial ceiling lights !)

Overhead views

Just aft of funnel base No 1 there was a 6 seater children's swing frame ( undoubtedly used by adults also!)

I made on exactly the size it should have been
=> -and it looked silly ! -- and dominated the look of that deck in an unreasonable fashion.

I reduced the height by about 15% or so which made quite a difference to their impact

I made the 3 x A- frame side members of PE Yagi ariels ( RN WW2 1/350 WEM PE )
---the angle opened up a bit --

the A-frame cross-members of stretched sprue with thin copper wire for the the top rail

and so it goes on--lot of small bits and bobs--but I think I can foresee ....
with the next 10days the masts going up!

More soon

JIM B

Yiiihaaaaaa!

[wefalck]

Ein Herz f�r Kinder

[Triumph68]

very impressive, love your way of doing details as exact as scale permits ...and even more, my humble respect

[Dan K]

Outstanding work, Jim.

[marijn van gils]

Fantastic! I love the entertainment items, and those tiny floodlights.
The lamp posts are much better than the previous version, they look much more like lamps now. The colour differentiation between lamps and shades works very well!

But the overall impression is truly magnificent. Just look at the comparison photo's between the model and the (colourized) real thing. Wow!


So I hate to bring this up, but if I don't your non-modelling tennis playing friends certainly will sooner or later: are you sure about the pattern of the tennis court markings?

In current tennis, the centre line is not at the outsides of the field, but at the net, like this:


It serves to separate the service courts (the area in which the first ball has to bounce), so having them at the outsides of the fields does not make sense for the game...

If I squint at the colourized photo, I think I also see the center service lines at the side of the nets on the real thing?

Also, the service lines (as in the drawing above) of the small courts seem to be very close to the nets. In practice it would be very hard to place the first ball in such a narrow area behind the net.

Also on the colourized photo's, the service lines seem to be a little further from the nets?

[JIM BAUMANN]

thansk you all for your continued support and encouragement

@ Marijinn!

Darn... a Tennis expert !


actually..-- looking at the relative sizes-- it may well not have been a tennis court per se-- it was guess on my part .
Here is a rather more useful view --which I had forgotten I had ( doh!!! )

below is the image I should have used... instead of squinting at the low res image that we both puzzled over

-- according to the Normandie movie footage on youtube I have seen, one of the games played--on the smaller deck markings,
involved what looked like a soft ring (rope?) that was thrown and caught from side eto side



Looks like definitely NOT big enough for a tennis court ( and it has no wire cage surround ! ==> balls overboard ... )

but what was the game ? -- anyhow my deck markings looks closer than than a real tennis court -- phew!

after the modification and refit a full size tennis court was installed in that same location and it occupied almost the entire area!

it really is a huge area occupied for a game court!!

[Daniele]

The one in the picture look like a badminton court.

Daniele

[wefalck]

I think they played ring-tennis. It�s a rubber or plastic ring of about 25 cm diameter, the ring being about 5 cm thick. We had one as kids. They probably lost fewer of those over board

[marijn van gils]

Phew, I'm very glad it checks out with the real thing, and there is no need to re-do anything!
Sometimes redoing stuff is necessary, but it is rarely the most fun part of a build...

Interesting to see the later tennis court with the wire cage around it. That would make for an interesting model too! But of course less elegant...

[Guest]

Hate to be a naysayer, but the markings for the smaller 'tennis courts' or whatever they are, are still wrong: if you look closely at the picture JB posted, the centre white lines are in the service box, not 'no man's land'.

Is it worth correcting? Can't answer that...

[JIM BAUMANN]

Good evening all deck sport fans !!

Deck tennis-- I managed to find a( poor res image ) of people on the Normandie playing the very game that Wefalck described...

@ Guest Naysayer!

Thank heavens you DID point out the wrong deck markings ;
- had someone -in say... a years time mentioned them...
=> I may have lost the will to live!

Of course entirely my own fault for lack of careful observation !!
( and blind trust in the wrong decals supplied! )

anyhow...--

obviously I now could not leave it alone ,

after some serious anti-fun and a few 'arghhh moments', I removed some of the figures
and with a long scalpel blade scraped away the erronous centre decal lines...

after layering up some varnish to get the same tone again, I cut some narrow decal stripes
with a blade ageist a steel PE edge and made the alteration;
==> whilst at it I added the secondary outer lines on the 'unknown ' sport court between the vents as well

of course it is all a bit overscale-- but also all very small -

@ 1: 1 scale viewing it looks pretty OK

This all had a few frustrating moments--but the overall result of the
rescue mission is quite passable,
--- though I may add another 'sporstman' or two to disguise the 'ghost line' on on the stb aft 'deck-tennis' court!!

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As a reward for that un-fun bit of modelling

I installed the aft stern lamps onto their metal columns

and added them to the deck using a height gauge tool

Nice as they are --alas I think they may be a bit over-scale --

which is why I glued with varnish only--
to make them easily removable --in the event I can get smaller versions printed

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How hard can it be to make 1 x small RDF loop...?

fairly!

I made quite a lot of them .... until I managed one that was good enough!
This , along with 1 x small vent stub - completed the bridge house roof

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The ship had a lot of lifebelt rings all over the vessel-- as such I needed to make quite a lot.

I used some previously white- painted thin wire --wound around a drill shank.

more shortly!

JIM B

[MartinJQuinn]

The revised courts and the lights look great. Especially the lights. I'm so glad I sold this kit - I'd never even attempt to build it, after seeing what you've done!