1/350 NRP SAGRES sail training ship (quite the challenge)

[JIM BAUMANN]

Hello all !

with the excitement / euphoria of the completion of the scratch built 1/700 scale 1875 -1906 paddle-teamer BEN MY Chree subsiding

link here below
viewtopic.php?t=401346

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


......I am now readying for the next model--
Portugese Navy Sail-Training Bark SAGRES( III)

so WHY the Sagres...? and not any other sail training ship such as Eagle ( USA )Mircea (Romania)Gorch Fock ( Germany ) and many more ?

Unlike most " all white ships with white sails..." The Sagres is indeed white--but has THE most distinctive sails.....

with Huge Red Crosses on every square sail--- which differentiate her in spectacular appearance from all others -

- But also because of her role as an "Ambassadorial " ship--she is incredibly well travelled .
==> all over the world and open to visitors in every port --and therefore is extremely well photographed!...
and-these days --'phone videofilmed ==> therefore to all be seen and inspected on Youtube etc

I have screen-shotted over 250 images from candid videos of every corner!
an example from the foredeck

and I therefore feel I have a pretty good idea of every aspect of the visible parts of the vessel,
what everything looks like, where it is and mostly what it does!

a concise history of her can be read here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRP_Sagres_(1937)

Now looking on-line .......it appears to be a rare thing to see a ' good' model of her ---in any scale....

( if you know otherwise do please post the images here--I would very much like to see them!

There are plenty of approximations and kits of the ship--in varying accuracy or scale fidelity ... and some kits of varying quality (!)

Japanese Bandai kit--I have never seen or heard of this kit-- maybe a Japanese speaker/ reader can work out what scale the kit is?

a wood and plastic kit by Constructo in 1/190 scale

and some scratchbuilt- handmade variants

and a surprisingly large but quite poor " decore" model that bears little resemblance to the real thing!

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


The Japanese modelkit manufacturer IMAI-- specifically for Operation Sail 1976 [/b ]produced 1/350 scale model kits
of many of the vessels participating in the spectacular tall ships parade

Operation Sail 1976 was a massive maritime celebration for the U.S. Bicentennial, featuring a grand parade of 16 tall ships from around the world sailing through New York Harbour on July 4, 1976 , attracting millions of spectators to witness this spectacular flotilla, symbolizing international goodwill and maritime history.

Sagres took part in this event and was well received.
==========================================================================================================================

I want to build a 1/350 scale model of this ship-- to match other vesels in my display toom

and have for some years had in the 'stash ( among all the others )(!! )

had 2 x kits of Sagres. easy-peasy was at the back of my mind..("""==> a quick easy build...<==...._ )
==> as the kits looked fine in the box.....

Alas the scale fidelity of 1976 model manufacture does match todays'( and my!) standards and expectations of dimensional and factual accuracy

So ...

The hull in side elevation and section of bow and stern is actually fairly OK -- but the loa is just over 2 mm short on IMAI original kit.
( but I have a cunning plan..............-more shortly! )

Surface Detail is lightly generic and abridged from the real thing..... but also the bean is somewhat too great... which is a hard cure.

so...Imperfect and a bit wrong...=> a challenge--just how I like it !!

To give myself a cushion to experiment I acquired another two kits ( )
so I have 4 x kits if 4 x different manufacturers --all of the same kit ...( errr ...-but not! )

the original first release of the Imai kit; as a waterline model

2 x reboxed but added full hull-- no names--(one of which is HYPA)

and a lightly reworked remould Academy Minicraft

Lest see how this all works out.....

more soon
JIM B

[JIM BAUMANN]

Back again!

firstly compare hulls...all identical at first sight...?

offering up the Imai kit with the Hypa and the other no-name showed this ;

so no big difference...

but the Imai and the Academy kit was somewhat bigger !

so going the right way!

The surface detail had me scratching my head....
there was a moulded anchor on stb side

but not on port.............

but the photos say yes...!

so the moulding was removed carefully

The figure head ' had ' potential--the Academy figure head was muuuuch better that the original Imai or the 2 x no name kits

but it was in the wrong place on the bow- compared to photo of the real ship

-the hat making near contact with the bowsprit

The long strake around the vessel will also have to go-- as the angle fwd is wrong
and.... the portholes should continue on in the plane of the tape and red dots below

and the strake on the hull does not intersect with the 'transom' stern kink !
etc etc

but more of that when I get there..

However--

my friend Maarten S, my scale/ dimension mentor , pointed out that beam is also somewhat free-style....

the hull is too wide;--- by a not in-considerable 3.7 mm ( ca 10% ) which is a noticeable just over 4 ft feet excess beam

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

I considered scratch building a new hull;( might be simplest..!)
..............................................................................................................

I considered cutting the hull down the middle , extracting the excess and etc etc
..............................................................................................................

and -- so decided --unless more doubt appears...

to squash the hull !

this entailed removing everything with a motor driven cutting tool

after a while it looked like this....

The sides are now soft (and pliable to my will! ) as I also cut into the bow and stern deeply to get fair angles

checking the drawing suggests that the rounding increase in beam to midships fwd and the reduction to in beam to the bow
is a trifle to be exaggerated on the model...

( maybe IMAI did not have the stated beam of 12 meters to hand or access to the 1937 drawings ?)

well it was ' 76...

anyhow I plan to make wood blocks and styrene spacing control bulkheads and then compress the hull to the desired shape and beam
and ensure it fairs in a smooth plane and glue the whole lot up with epoxy!
as per the drawing above.

The compression at bow and stern of the hull does have the secondary benefit of the reducing beam 'transferring' into the length bring the hull loa length giving the desired scale ( ish!) length of 232mm.

more soon!

[JIM BAUMANN]

so briefly looking at the bigger picture and planning the remainder of the build...

as everything is being built new in -and -on the hull-
as a compensation -I can now have deck camber !

Also checking the locations of the masts versus the old Imai kit to eliminate a bit of doubt

so I had scaled 2 x drawings and 1 perfect square dead-side on photo to actual size in 1/350 as pdfs


this is the ' master ' photo-- ( I see it as the arbitrator! )

that distances of structures as well as rig could be taken off the photo

this is the builders sailplan drawing

this is the NRP Navy sailplan drawing from the Navy web-site

This showed that when overlaying drawing sail plan from the NRP Navy website with the builders sailplan
the mast locations varied nothing short of wildly....

when overlaying the builders plan with the photo they were more akin aligned

though still differences to be found !

so as you can see--in conclusion-= don't trust a kit, don't trust the drawings without double checking both !

I have plenty to do now to be going on with

will report in with news

Kind regard sto all fellow model makers

Jim Baumann

[Rui Matos]

What a start, Jim!

Good to see you tackling this project - and I will follow it with interest, for several reasons - eheheh!
Carry on
Cheers,
Rui

[wefalck]

I am curious, where this convoluted trajectory eventually will lead to ...

Have seen the SAGRES on various occasions, for instance during the Kiel Week in the late 1970s.

It is interesting to see, that she still retains much of her original rig design, when launched as ALBERT LEO SCHLAGETER, which harks back to the succesful Laeisz-barques with their double gaff-sails.

[JIM BAUMANN]

wefalck wrote....

I am curious, where this convoluted trajectory eventually will lead to ...

Me sort of... too -- though I do have a vision of how and what I am doing!


AND...... my plan of squashing and lengthening has all worked out ---
correct beam and outline according to the plan it got just exactly the right amount longer

The hull is now at the desired 232mm

Photos of all this in the next day or so

The hull is now solid--- having been filled with a high grade polyester automotive filler supplied by my classic car paint-shop
( as used on prize winning priceless old exotics........... as well as my humble scrap metal!

That solidity will give the ( to be made in all metal ) masts something to cantilever over the deck against the rigging loads--
which though are minimal with wire and sprue ....but nevertheless do become cumulative !!

JB

[marijn van gils]

Wonderful subject, that I 'm sure will be a pleasure to follow!

I'm glad the squashing has worked out! I would probably have not be so brave and scratchbuilt the hull instead. But the styrene hull will now have the benefit of easier gluing styrene to it (as opposed to a carved wooden hull, even if puttied). And I guess this approach saved quite some time too.

This thread is already so interesting! And we're not at the rigging yet...

[Frank Spahr]

Goodness me,

now I understand why you consider this build as demanding.

This brings your work to the next level, um, on so many levels, actually. The idea of squashing the hull is something special.

Curiously following

Frank

[maxim]

Here some old (therefore small photos) photo galleries of Sagres:

Sagres (2005)

Sagres (2009), part 1

Sagres (2009), part 2

[JIM BAUMANN]

Thanks Marijn and Maxim!

...further to the above verbal description...

herewith;
The hull being " squashed with the use of tape whilst the ' new' beam bulkheads set
and using a pencil as the leverage to tighten the tape

when the hull had set I made some rudimentary support for the deck support structure
for the new -to-be-installed decking

with the hull stable and strong I carefully and laboriously removed all of the wrong and over scale rubbing strakes

( de-straking! )

with it all removed a lot of cleaning up was done--paring with razor blade and scalpels

moving on to the next stage--

JIM B

[JIM BAUMANN]

I added 2 x styrene strips to follow the contours of he hull below the 'water-line',

as I wish to have my Sagres sailing on a beam reach--
wind slightly abaft of the beam-
-wind from stb with a nominal 5 degrees of heel




This --once the hill was filled with the aforementioned filler---

and once placed on the belt sander.......
to " level " the ship to chosen degree of heel resulted in this;

[zs180]

Most interesting subject and a great start.
I will follow this thread eager anticipation!

[Dino Carancini]

What a beautiful ship! Can't wait to see more!

[Rui Matos]

Hi Jim

I see that Sagres has already made first-blood
Ouch!

You have (this may sound ridiculous, but here it goes) as usual, used very out-of-the-ordinary ways to solve the problems of the kit!
This squashing of the hull is one "simple" example!
Also, with this, you managed to get rid of the deck fittings issues and can start with a clean one

The heeling on the hull looks very convincing, very much as my HMS Dragon on highturn (very minimum degrees, but they are there, but with the water and colouring making the full effect)!


Cheers,
Rui

[marijn van gils]

Crude and dirty work. I love it!

That heeling will be so important to the feel of the complete model! I wish more modellers would pay attention to the feel and not only the details...

[JIM BAUMANN]

still removing and destroying stuff!

albeit with a plan

the kits hull sides at the bow ( aside from wrong portholes, anchors, strakes etc )
in concept WAS intended to simulate reality ( but about in 1/100 scale ! )

the leading edge of the bow on the kit part was a scale 300 mm or so !!

I was happier with my knife edge

The curved breakwater originally was part of the kit foredeck--rendered waaaay overscale.
As I am making all new decks it was irrelevant anyhow

I made a paper pattern for the curved insert-and transferred this to 0.5mm styrene

and with a jig made of thread and a sliding calliper gauge-(!)
-it was immersed in near boiling water for 20 seconds and allowed to cool

and then installed to the model and faired in

I started making templates for all the decks.

The plank width on the ship was estimated this way;

so size 10 shoe in UK --overall length is ca 300 mm

divide by 2.5 = 120 mm ( width of plank )which is 4.75 inch in 1:1 scale

ergo divide 120 mm by 350

-= plank width in 1/350 = 0.35mm

120 mm divided by 350 gives approximately
0.343 mm.

( subsequently found out it seems the planking on Gorch Fock ( same builders ) is 120 mm wide)

I print this 19 mb jpg (!) file so that the planks scale out as above ( or so! )

so when my big file was printed sized to suit --
as can be seen the image was not long enough for the well deck



but some PC adjustment later ( took muuuch longer to work out what to do then actually do it!)

because --having studied images of crew heights and the bulkhead height--

-I reckoned the
bulwarks were a bit too high

I installed midships a ' sub-deck ' made of thin ,but dense paper-- and infused with CA to make strong

and impervious to moisture--it also glued it down !
so that when the proper ' printed deck is attached--the proportions should be right


I also bent the paper over a centre spine to create the deck camber-its barely there but is!

meanwhile the wrong portholes were addressed;
the port side was easy

as I had scaled a the dead side on photo--and the positions vertically was done using tape;

the Starbord side less .........so as it was totally different-I assumed (!) it would be a reverse of Port

so it was spaced out from known reference points

and all the old and wrong holes plugged

more soon--I am looking forward to do something constructive at last!!

Jim Baumann

[pascalemod]

"Figure head too low".. Yeah I read this and thought man, this is gonna be a masterclass in making a boat out of pile of plastic Looking forward!

[marijn van gils]

A lot of hard work, but necessary preparation work for the fun details later.

What do you glue the styrene plugs for the portholes with? Superglue or plastic glue? Do you use Evergreen rod, or the (stretched) plastic from the kit?

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Chiming in on this now, it's going very well I see! Keep it going.

Glad that I could help you on some of the ship's particulars Jim...

Happy Christmas to all!
Maarten

[Frank Spahr]

Goodness me, what a dedicated and meticulous and comprehensive effort and build - most enlightening to watch!