The Ship Model Forum

Most impressive. Shocking efficiency and scratchbuilding speed coupled with usual Baumann-esque perfection/cleverness. A pleasure to see, once again

Thank you sg1 for your kind words-though...-not quite justified--the innards are not elegant--but merely functional
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I have had e-mails and Pm 's... asking whats with the metal clamps
==> simples !
-- they provide me with the ability to set on bench and hold and reach some quite jazzy angles when working on ship
before mounting--lots of variety and gives unencumbered access-from all sides merely by attaching the second clamp
else where
but first portholes and eyebrows
the first attempt at portholes was ... too thin... and almost vanished in paint
all portholes and eyebrows are attached with thinned matt varnish enamel clear ( Humbrol matt-kote)

the eyebrows on the real ship are much thicker than the porthole surrounds

make the eye-brows like this
and installed it looks like

this !



now some tangible progress at last
The real ship has quite some oil canning a swell and dings and dents

it would look awful--on a model--if all of these were replicated...

BUT--I wanted to 'suggest' the vertical ' oil canning ' and general texture in a subtle but not ' obviou 's way

so I painted -- with a paintbrush and un-thinned paint -- vertical strokes to give the " feel "


the real thing has distinctive strakes on the hull
note that on the stb side there is NOT a big ' patch ' ( ?? ) like on Port
these ' strakes ' were made using a roll 0.3mm white ' fingernail ' art ' tape ' The strakes were overpainted to locate fix and secured for and aft with a droplet of CA

Then the black ' strakes ' were added using o.4mm "chart-pak" tape ( veeery nice !)

and 0.2 mmm ABC tape-- ==> not as nice

More soon-- it on the move now!
JIM B

Wow.. I mean wow.. you attention to detail is amaizing..

Agreed. Beautifully done.

Most illuminating!

Bravo, the port holes and strakes look spot-on!

I have to get me some of that tape too...

Jim,

You're already 'on the swing' with your Sagres! I'll never be able to replicate this level of detail with my models: but it's tremendously inspiring!

Maarten

Thank you gentlemen for your encouraging and kind words !

Some progress--big and small and some minutia !

the aft and fore deck paper decks were carefully cut out ( for deck in image )
The poop sub-deck went on and was overlaid with my printed paper decking;
it is a fraught business, as there is not much wiggletime....

I wanted to do some ' detail small stuff' rather than coarse construction,
so I made an assault of the aft bulkhead and engine room vent ' box'



As you can see the access door-sill is very high--to keep the water out , as when Sagres is in a rough sea sea the weather deck can often awash

there is also engine room venting there among other small details


I wanted to give the impression that the doors would be open,
so hunted in the PE stashes for a suitable size


here the door frames are being floated on to thinned varnish
using the tape as a spacer from the edges
The ' box' that sticks out fwd in the middle of the faceted bulkhead was made from a square solid block of styrene,
it needed wooden decking on top and and had added to it on the sides;

vent grilles -different sizes port to starboard, valve hand-wheels, handrails and the the glass fronted black surround access for the fire valves.


These were cut from various sizes of PE from the stash along with the 'understair curved edges boxes on the faceted face.
These had vents added inboard and access door x 2 on the out-sides
and I have started adding the belaying pin rail -made of cut down-on on-side angle section evergreen in sections





For the( plentiful! ) fire hoses I bought some of these;

Once cut down a bit they are quite effective in appearance


now I note that in some images the hoses appear yellow and some are red
and sometimes the same ones, are red or yellow in different photos

-any ideas,help advice comments on this ??

is it perhaps the hose material that fades ?

===> there are equal images of hose reels red or yellow <=== ( ?
at the moment mine are red-..............

but than still change!

and for fun---sometimes they are different shades of red


foredeck forward superstructure next ............

-any ideas,help advice comments on this ??

yes, check the colour in the lid on the tin first and select three (orange/red/dark red) that come closest, apply with brush! might be as simple as several suppliers used?

Thank you EJFoeth !

you are quite correct ( after a pile of research --there is a whole world of fire hoses and colours out there!

meanwhile--small but intensive joblets....

The aft steering gear and wheel ' house' is a wooden structure with a curved (brass strap hinged ) roof
.. .. .. ..
...




To simulate the curved strip wood I tried some paint effects .( they looked awful !)

I had a rummage and trawled through the PE stash revealed that I had 5 frets of this;

1/700 modern harbour diorama from Starling models
the dogs , bicycles and the bus etc etc are really quite fun but not for this project.

..



what I wanted out of that was the corrugated iron shed....



This was cut along the ( dotted ) lines ==> as below to extract the panels I wanted

I would need to use x 3 of the frets to obtain the panels needed !

..

The ends were added oversize , and then cut to shape
with my favourite for PE curved Fiskar scissors (embroidery)
..
..


The side pieces needed trimming to size to suit exactly the same size
--an easy way of measuring and marking things twice - reliably and quickly

I find is to use a variety of tape widths

..
..

the curved roof was rolled with a metal rod on a pad of post it notes !
( the post-it-note pads have a slight "give "when rolling on top of )

This roof also needed a trim
..

herewith fully assembled ;
..
and with the second coat of paint applied
..
more on this later !
====================================================================================

meanwhile the skylight on the engine room vent block was wanted.
I made 2 x variants-- but I was dissatisfied with both.

The original kit skylight--in contrast to the many other errors in the kit... was actually quite good !

But...- alas ......==> very attached...!!!--

..


My original deck was destroyed when I removed it to narrow the hull-- but I had 3 other kits...

some brutality with snips..........
..
..

and a blade and sandpaper ....( it still needs a bit of sharpening up )
..
..

more about that later too!

I made the aft deck house --using styrene sheet laminated to a wooden core block.
I used the aft face from the kit because I liked the near flush steel door but inverted the part to get the hinges the correct (port) side!

more of that later also !!

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and that-- for the moment is that! more soon JIM B

Always thinking out-of-the-box, Jim!

Excellent progress!
Still on the fire-hoses colours (did you read my email):
They need to be changed from time to time, so different batches (manufacturers?) may explain the different colours.
From the photos you have posted I can tell you that:
- The dark red ones are the oldests (I got some of those when I was aboard our navy ships)
- The fresh red and yellow ochre are the newest.

My advice and also it could add some more interest, is to depict them as you see in the photos!

Cheers,
Rui

Thank you all for your kind words and the watching;
Recent progress is mainly UN-documented due to the memory card in the workbench camera having failed !!

so most of the images that explain how I made stuff are non-existent

anyhow-- herewith a summary;


the fwd and aft capstans in the kit were quite a nice shape really
--but around 75% too large!

so I made new ones

and subsequently used white glue to curve all the shapes on the drum and the tops

The aft navigation deck house...( I should stop calling it wheel house--as there is no wheel in it!!--the 4 x wheels being fore and aft of it !

...so this deckouse has 2 x doors on port sode-- but 3 x doors on stb and one aft ( not as easy as one may think to discern this--photos proved invaluable!
....these doors have water deflecting eyebrows--being doors ,and square windows in heavy set frames --the eyebrows are square also.
These were made of stripped ' radio ear-piece ' cable




The doors on the real ship fit near flush--are wood panelled and round cornered ( aside form the aft door which is steel )


Some suitable 3 panel door PE was found in my stash--but the PE was too thick.--I could have recessed them but...

So some door decals were drawn up by ' my friend in France '





The deckhouse was furnished with paper wooden decking on roof, had eye brows all round, electrical cabling around the perimeter roof
-(-lightbulbs to follow)


the heavy set framed openable windows on all four sides
had all the frames cut from suitable ladderstock , I made fwd and aft vents , fitted handrails , fire hose, polished brass ladders and much additional detail that could be gleaned from photos.

The " foot-grip ledges" for when the capstans are use , were made of 1/700 rail longitudinals --floated on with thinned matt varnish

The capstan bars were stowed on stb aft face of deckhouse in a slotted rack
The aft steering gear 'house' had polished bright brass hinges --very prominent
These were made of ' cut -with-scalpel strips 0.1mm ( or so!) gold coloured decal

The distinctive seat benches were made of 1/600 ocean liner rail PE and furnished with arm rests at both ends end

The previously extracted skylight was furnished with port hole rings and then inked

I made the new big skylight for the midships superstructure deck, carved of solid styrene and furnished with 6 x lids and 12 x portholes


whilst at the midships superstructure deck, detail was added there also,



Thereafter I made new windlasses for the foredeck-- which was fraught business.! they are a work in progress, awaiting valves, levers hand wheels etc

The hand-wheels atop the windlass posed a problem--
but a solution was found in a PE in my stash... ( 1/700 Mikasa Toms modelworks ! )

so that is it for the moment.

In very close up...--it currently all looks a little rustic, -
-but with some matt vanish and all the additional on deck clutter it should pull together into a cohesive end result I hope!

Jim,

Welcome to the hell of making a Portuguese Navy ship scale model.
As with all models I have made of our Navy, there's always modifications to be made, either from upgrades, customized requests, or... so there's not a single model that does not involve a lot of work, just a out-of-the-box project!

Top work!
Carry on!

Cheers,
Rui

When you think it can´t get any better, Jim delivers. This is modeling at a serious level of genius, skill and uncompromising dedication.

Sorry, just need to recollect my jaw from the floor.

Frank

Fantastic work Jim! Incredibly Sharp!

And thanks for sharing the method behind the madness

As always, fantastic craftsmanship.

Bravo!

Hello WEillie et al;

herewith an update; mainly annotated photos;

everything for this projects has to be made;--being a ' modern ships -that is open to the public there are thousands of images to choose from on the internet , as well as screen-shotting various ' mobile phone ' travelogues on open days.==> videos that can be found on Youtube

almost too much information-!!!
- conflicted and complicated by the fact that between 1998 ( Oldest images online) and the present day,
all sorts of things change shape as well as colour !

here with the anchor windlass arrangements as in 2009-to now ( ish )

The small 'traffic cone' ( made of a sharpened bamboo cocktail stick )
finds a home as the support for the control box of the winches
EDIT

Ooop!!!s --I just noticed I need to elevate the' box-with-lid' onto a low pedestal!
still needs check chains and handles on the 2 brake levers

Making vents...--difficult to ascertain sizes sometimes--as the mobile phones of ship visitors on he videos with wide angle lenses do distort things !
The belaying pin rails around the fwd , main masts and mizzen masts



-making these and maintaining exact spacings of the belaying pins-- and drilling very small holes in very fine bits of metal.....

The belaying have brass polished tops is hard....



I chose innovation over skill !
( though there are correctly spaced

x 9 belaying pins on the longitudinal axis and x 5 on the athwart ships ...




the images are self explanatory I hope;
They still need more work to refine-

-but the reasoning and the principle are correct I think!

Though I reckon once they they are festooned with all the rope coils thy should look convincing.

==> after painting-- a light swipe with fine sandpaper should reveal the brass on the belaying pins

That's it for today-more soon

JB

Sublime, especially the U-shaped belayed rail forward of the wheelhouse. A Work of Genius. Very inspirational as always

Most clever use of PE scraps as usual!

I'm already looking forward to the rope coils on them (and of course the rest of the rigging!).