The Ship Model Forum

Hi Iceman

Thansk you--the Boatplans were helpful ( I have laid a selection of ( sailing masts ) Spars in the various boats

I tried to read the plans dimensions ( English/US plan ) for the whaler
but could not make out the length overall dimension

It looks --in my view... - beamy for a French whaler of the era--
according to images , paintings and the musee de marine model of that era

will post an example later ( we are just now off to watch the pre-1905 London Brighton veteran run !)

I had indeed changed the length/width ratio of the whaleboat, finding it too wide for a French model. I don't have a better definition of the whaleboat plan.
Some images at 1/200 scale:









I forgot to post this plan which might help you...

Clic 2 time to enlarge:



Excellent photo of the car, a F1 of the time, i'm kidding! Have a nice sunday!

I found this postcard

@Setori : I think is not Bretagne (1855), A three-deck vessel :

"In 1865, the vessel was converted into a barracks for novices and apprentice sailors, after which the engine was disembarked. In 1866, the Bretagne was struck from the fleet lists, to be used as aschool for novices and apprentice sailors in Brest harbor. The ship's artillery was modified in 1869 to suit her new purpose. The 30-gun corvette Galath�e served as her tender, after having been the Borda's tender. She was definitively scrapped at the end of 1879, then exchanged her name and equipment with the Ville de Bordeaux on January 28, 1880, before being towed to Land�vennec for demolition." Wiki.

"The seamanship training ship BRETAGNE was sold for demolition in Brest on November 10, 1892.
As the former VILLE DE BORDEAUX, she had replaced another BRETAGNE (exchange of names on January 28, 1880), and was herself replaced by the former FONTENOY."

Bertrand Magueur:
https://x.com/BertrandMagueur/status/18 ... 3577354701

EDIT--some of the images are duplicated in the wrong places ( ! )

and I cannot yet figure out how to remove them

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


Thank you @ Setori, alas there were a number of ' Breatgnes ' each being a rename of a previous ship that was decommisinned from a school ship
" My Bretgane " was broken up in 1879-- as Iceman explained.

Now Setori ....if you could find an image from above or an on deck image....

progress....

It was time to fit the remainder of the steam pipes to the fwd ( 3) and aft funnel (4)
these had a conical to shape I made them by pacing two small rings of copper wire ( one larger than the other)
and then in-filing the ' steps' with thinned white glue
these ships carried a variety of spare spars ( shown in the plans )
and though not on the plans.... Bretagne was ( along with her contemporaries...) such Napoleon , Solferino , Jylland, Warrior etc retro-fitted with a midships bridge-- which was all the rage at the time it seems
which extended slightly outboard of the Hammock stow;
My bridge base deck was thin PE fret material suitably shaped
All the stairwells had a railing around them-- these had not bottom rail of course....
and installed they look like this

the bridge platform had railing installed
But I was not happy with it and have so far made 3 bridges-none of which I am happy with....!!!


- have now found some GMM Gold plus superfine single bar rail
which will be in the next update !"

Meanwhile the ship requires crew--lots of them !!

the real ship carried a complement of almost 1200 men and officers
Of course the cannot ALL be on deck

My sailors are in Summer uniform- white
with officers in white trousers and dark navy 'reefer ' coats
senior officers will be all in dark Navy.

whilst I was littered with 400 odd figures
Black cat Models 3 D prints
these sailor fellows from Black Cat-( unlike some manufacturers somewhat overweight and ' round ' )

more closely resembled the fit and almost gaunt sailors in some old images (less obesity back then..)

Painting sailor in white is harder than dark uniforms


I based mine on my 1/350 sailors on my Bouvet--
using Pencil lines and graphite dust ( 4000 (!) grit sandpaper)
to give a sense of folds and demarcation from shadows
In 1/350 scale my matelots were quite sharp;
in half the size , unable to draw in things exactly--I merely wanted to suggest and impression that it was..!

overall and individually the little guys look pretty fine, being rather busy on deck tending the myriad of rope lines

that soon will be installed to the belaying pin rails midships and outboard on the coamings.

I also made the aft Bridge winglets, by making the rails FIRST and installed them.... and then spanning the bottom of the ( now painted ) railing with white glue--
this givers perfect colour demarcation as white -when dry glue is transparent--
after I had painted the UNDERSIDE of the platform dark beige wood !
I was also getting ready to get masts installed--much fiddling around to ensure the ratlines would fit
( the ratlines are the right size )--so the 'floating' mast heights were adjusted in 0.5mm steps

I scanned the PE--and over-layed the PE on the printed scan--so I could use the paper templates to chekck everything.
I made the furled tri-sails ( used only in very heavy weather) on the main and foremast

can be see here


and here
like this, using white glue applied with a brush
To ensure glue/ colour demarcation to the mast
I glued on first a small wire--making an easy sharp line
I moved back onto the sails, using this image below as my inspiration

The ship is French and a similar era, but importantly its on a broad reach in a decent breeze;
and well demonstrates French rigging practice.

it is rare to find photographs of ships of this era powering along under sail, usually they are standing still or drying their sails
now just to emulate all those ( furling ) bunt lines and clew-lines etc !!


I chose to reef the lower main course sail so that the ( raised) Funnels would not interfere with the sail and the smoke
( with raised funnels 'my 'ship is getting steam up to go upwind on the next leg of the course
--ergo ' motorsailing ')

Wow! That's quite the update. She's really rounding into shape. Great work, as always.

What a milestone! So many details to manage, well done Jim!

I gather the mid-ship bridges came into 'fashion', when steam-propulsion became more important and ships became ever longer with less sheer, so that it became difficult to see what was going on at the front and to relay orders from the traditional command position at the rear. Having the command position at the stern makes sense for a sailing ship, as one has to see, how the sails react to the wind.

And, of course ingenious solutions and masterful execution at such ridiculously small scale

How did you do the furled sails exactly? They vary so much based on various images, some have a lower center section sagging, whil eothers looks pretty uniformly rolled in. Did you furl a big sail or you preshaped it as furling an actual small sail will be too hard?

@ Pascal ( check you PM's ref Nomadic and e-mail me please jb yacht services @ gmail.com ) ( remove the gaps)

The furled sail was a hybrid!!

I cut the rough asymmetric shape ( they were rarely terribly neat if furled underway ) out of my pre-made sail so that the top row of reef lines would be visible, curled the bottom under, and crease it up a bit then set it with CA on the inside,
then cut a " back side " and curled it under and buttjoined it -the filled it with white glue
then painted the sagging crease shadows in back and front

still to be fitted with the bunt lines front and back that bisect the creases

cheers
JIM Baumann

Wow! what a build! and those details in such a scale is incredible! my hat is of to you!

Fantastic work again Jim!

The figures and spare spars look wonderful, and the decks are coming alive with them and all the other details. Beautiful!

The sails look fantastic too. I'm looking forward to see the leech- and buntlines attached to that furled sail!
How did you do the reinforcing patches on the topsails? Painted on, or was it printed like that?

Wow, Jim - this is such utterly mindbogglingly great work ...

Best regards

Frank

Thank you all for your encouragement !

installing the various control lines to the sails according to the builders plans but also
in PHOTOGRAPHED evidence of French practice around that time

as here below


and closer in I used stretched sprue, dark grey-- installed with matt enamel varnish applied with fine brush-
-which allowed subtle 3-D curves to be formed on a 3-D sail to be formed with ease--

the varnish also inhibits accidental damage or movement

and more string, the clew lines which would remain pretty slack when sailing
(and often these get sucked on to the sail)
It had to happen eventually....

Masts up! ...actually--

On larger models it works well putting all masts up together, then the big preventer stays ;

and work from inside to outside with the rigging process ....

alas --in small 1/700 scales...-- our hands and tweezers stay the same 1:1 scale--
and working-room is at a premium !


I elected to work from FWD to AFT.

These ships carried vast amount of string; and to emulate the weight of ropes.--
-- it not possible to just use thicker lines to give the feel of weight of lines--
...one has to put on as much as possible
including all the tails and up and down hauls--down to the belaying pin rails

I want my model to look like this
and this and this

-- most of the rigging work is 'aft of the sails--thereby working from fwd -to aft I stood a chance of adding the footropes, halyards lifts etc rigging ,
and ratlines without knocking anything off

its tricky--to keep everything thin

- the images below show mast up, ratlines being attached and a work in progress

A nice lesson!

The subtle weathering and shading of the ratlines + the exquisite sails, what a joy to see this build compete wtih marijn van gils diorama. thanks gents for such quality content lately.

Exquisite work! Getting better and better

Hi Jim

Excellent excellent, you're on one of your trademarks (sails and exquisite rigging)
Without being a pest, I will leave you a pic, before it's too late and should be an easy fix:

I know you'll get it
Cheers,
Rui

Ha!

assuming the red pommel on the cap to be 50 mm wide.... that means my sailors would have pommels 700 x smaller on their caps

that equates to 0.07 mm diameter--- I may--just to please you.. .. endeavour to pu ta tiny dot on SOME (only!) of the sailirs caps

eheehh!
JB