1/700 Bretagne-1855 scratch The largest wooden wall warship

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Hi Jim,

The slow repetitive work has commenced! Wish you an awful lot of patience and a very steady hand.

BTW: I hope to come to SMW Telford in November. I really hope you will be bringing this little gem with you, as it is then?

Cheers, Maarten

[JIM BAUMANN]

Hi Maarten

I think that it will be impossible; to get this model finished before Telford...
there is still Sooooo much to do......


@ Maxim-- is there any further Bretagne information in your French Age of sail book ?
or indeed photos or plans of gun disposition...?

( tediously that Book had not appeared on my horizon alas ...)doh!

@ wefalck.... centre or not-?

- is it permissible to have slightly irregular elevations as per the aforementioned posted image of victory?

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Hi Jim,

Of course it's impossible to have it finished by November! Therefore I wrote 'as it is' -then! I.e. unfinished!

Hope to see you there anyway - with or without unfinished Bretagne!


Maarten

[Rui Matos]

Hi Jim

Excellent result on those 3D-printed parts!
And the progress you made so far with them really show that sometimes you need to think before acting and those gunports with the lip.. well... hats-off for thinking about that!

Carry on, please!
Cheers,
Rui

[maxim]

@ Maxim-- is there any further Bretagne information in your French Age of sail book ?
or indeed photos or plans of gun disposition...?

These information are included:

sail/rigging plan
technical data (dimensions, machinery, gun)
building data plus some additional data about her career
a few comments about her design

I.e. not much.

There is only a photo of Souverain included - but in 1876 with a very different armament (13 years after Bretagne was decommissioned).

There is a comment that she was decommissioned in 1863 to get new boilers, but this was not done, likely because of her disappointing seagoing qualities and the new ironclads. That could indicate that her armament was not modified much.

[Iceman 29]

Excellent job, Jim! Very tiny things..

[marijn van gils]

Wonderful work Jim!


I would be careful with using the current Victory as reference. I think I read somewhere that part of her carriages are not the correct pattern, but I don't remember where.

But when I check the drawings of Boudriot's 74 gun ship (French, but around 1780), the center of the barrels looks to be lower than center of the ports. Not quite at 1/3, but definitely lower than center.
I'm guessing quite some variation in the final look is possible, depending mostly on the elevation of the guns which would most likely never be exactly the same (contrary to most models!). And there may have been quite some variation on the patterns of carriages too, and their heights.

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Wonderful work Jim!


I would be careful with using the current Victory as reference. I think I read somewhere that part of her carriages are not the correct pattern, but I don't remember where.

But when I check the drawings of Boudriot's 74 gun ship (French, but around 1780), the center of the barrels looks to be lower than center of the ports. Not quite at 1/3, but definitely lower than center.
I'm guessing quite some variation in the final look is possible, depending mostly on the elevation of the guns which would most likely never be exactly the same (contrary to most models!). And there may have been quite some variation on the patterns of carriages too, and their heights.

I must second Marijn here: be careful!

Around 1830 changes in these ships were taking place very quickly, the guns and their carriages were one of those areas. For one, the wooden carriages were replaced by iron ones, the wheels by cast iron andsoforth.
Victory was about 70 years older, but went indeed through several updates during her active lifetime, and was partially restored to the original configuration in 1924 if I'm correct. So be very cautious with using Victory as a reference for anything!

As for the centre of the barrels being lower than the center of the ports is a good logical reason: the guns need more room for elevation than for depression, and the gun is sighted by looking over the top of it. So you need sufficient room over the gun for that, even at the max elevation.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank you all for your inputs....


apropos gun carriages.... the gun pivot height broadly remained the same whilst carriages evolved
-- but the rest changed somewhat,
( images courtesy of Wefalck )

Here are some interim workbench snapshots ( no depth of field! ) of recent works
it is surprisingly time consuming !

Following on from discussion here and also e-mail and offline--face to face (imagine that ! )

I pulled out every alternate 36 pdr gun in the bottom row
.....( a bit of a fraught job! )
so as to accommodate the shell guns,
(one can just about make out the stubbier and somewhat shorter barrels alternating with the 36pdrs )

and also installing the second row of 30 pdrs , again - alternating with shell guns
along with the upper row consisting entirely of 30 pdrs

with all the guns installed its looking busier-

-note ;.....so far only the lower row gunport lids have been installed

that's because .... the upper rows of gunports have split lids ( top and bottom half flaps )
( and the new improved 30% thinner lids are en route by post!!! )

the middle row had split lids with 2 semicircles to allow barrels to protrude

best illustrated by this fabulous period photo of the ship in build
note the upper row of split lids does NOT have the aforementioned semi-circles in edge of the lids

The fwd ports that have no guns in them ( though they could accommodate guns within them if needed )

have their split lid ports open ,

whilst the lower ones are shut .........( in deference to the especially leeward bow-wave )

The stern ports also had split lids--these will be added next...
this will add a bit of texture to Bretagne rather rounded rear end!
Thereafter, in readiness to mounting in the sea....
I shall add the rudder and the ( previously prepared ) 'balconey' decor railings

for reasons I shall allude to later-

it was a timely reminder to myself just how small this model is !

[marijn van gils]

I'm not surprised at all that this is time-consuming...

But the result looks fantastic!

The rudder, railings and port-lids will do a lot to the 'feel' of the stern too I'm sure.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thank You all !

recent achievements have been installing all the lids aft ( held on with willpower ...)

and....
despite much 'cussing and thye occasional shout of frustration

.........the railings for the ' Balconeys ' went on.
I had pre-shaped these railings back in the beginning of June

viewtopic.php?f=59&t=382477&start=80#p1046819

after a protracted quest to find suitable close spaced PE

viewtopic.php?f=59&t=382477&start=60#p1045388

I noted back then.... how soft the brass was (!!)
merely picking up with tweezers caused the curves to deform slightly

....==> anyhow with a bit of shouting..... they went on!! ( "" ... bent to my will..."" )

installing other previously made items was a joy....

made in beginning of March....

viewtopic.php?f=59&t=382477&start=40#p1041840

Further delving around in the 3-D box of fun !

and with some wonderment produced this....

and the main anchors--which may still need a wee bit of magic- we shall see

The mast platforms --are very fine and beautiful to behold ( wet paint! )

Next will be the installation of the split lids in gun deck 2 & 3....

next time...

[EJFoeth]

Great work so far Jim, and good to see more of the older ships on this forum

[pascalemod]

Jim, Bretagne was copper bottom or just green painted antifouling? Or you used green paint to simulate weathered copper bottom that is out of water so looks green?

[JIM BAUMANN]

yes-- it was coppered but copper goes off to pale green verdigris -

-its currently still too harsh & garish--- but will be washed and filtered
just before it gets mounted on its sea...!

cheers
JB

BTW-- answer from the 3 D man....--is no ..alas.

He is only doing mine because he intends doing a model of Bretagbe in 1/700

in full 3 D including the hull et al

I am kind of the ( very grateful!! ) practice pony!

JB

[bgire]

BTW-- answer from the 3 D man....--is no ..alas.
He is only doing mine because he intends doing a model of Bretagbe in 1/700
in full 3 D including the hull et al

I am kind of the ( very grateful!! ) practice pony!
JB

Well... after some reflexion... correction:
I'm the 3D-man.
I'm open to proposals if they are suitable to be included into my future projects.
3D design is very time consuming, so if I can combine for two projects, it's OK.
I'm doing only 1:700 and 1:350.
Contact via PM

_Bruno

[pascalemod]

yes-- it was coppered but copper goes off to pale green verdigris -

-its currently still too harsh & garish--- but will be washed and filtered
just before it gets mounted on its sea...!

cheers
JB

BTW-- answer from the 3 D man....--is no ..alas.

He is only doing mine because he intends doing a model of Bretagbe in 1/700

in full 3 D including the hull et al

I am kind of the ( very grateful!! ) practice pony!

JB

Jim, on verdigris - above waterline or below also? Or below its just dark brownish? Asking as building a french ship with coppered bottom, and weathered.

[zs180]

I have not checked this build for some time - I'm glad to see excellent progress and a host of very ingenious and educational 'Baumanesque' solutions!

[Pieter]

Lovely balcony railings. However as this is Bretagne your anvil needs a 3D printed Fulliautomatix.

Thank You all !

Further delving around in the 3-D box of fun !

and with some wonderment produced this....

P1040551.jpg

P1040552.jpg

[wefalck]

Apropos below the waterline: at that time antfouling paint was still under development and mainly for the new iron ships. The well-known red ochre antifouling paint by Rathjen didn't come onto the market until the second half of the 1860s. Wooden ships were better protected against Terredo navalis by sheathing.

There have been numerous discussions on fora about what colour copper sheathing really attained. Some modellers even undertook experiments with pieces of copper immersed in different types of water. Most likely it became dull brown, like an old penny. There may have been some verdigris near the waterline, but that depends on whether the ship was lying still for some length of time and in what kind of water.

[pascalemod]

Apropos below the waterline: at that time antfouling paint was still under development and mainly for the new iron ships. The well-known red ochre antifouling paint by Rathjen didn't come onto the market until the second half of the 1860s. Wooden ships were better protected against Terredo navalis by sheathing.

There have been numerous discussions on fora about what colour copper sheathing really attained. Some modellers even undertook experiments with pieces of copper immersed in different types of water. Most likely it became dull brown, like an old penny. There may have been some verdigris near the waterline, but that depends on whether the ship was lying still for some length of time and in what kind of water.

Thats what my research also shows.Can be dull brown below, but get it out of the water into a drydock, and it looks entirely different as it goes as green as those copper roofs on european churches and houses (like the one Im staring at out of the window as I write this).

Below are the images of wooden hulled ships with copper sheethed bottoms in various states, that I found when doing research for my Turenne build. May be of help as reference.