Mary Rose by Chidokan - cross-section

[Chidokan]

I have been chatting with John (tarbrush) about whether or not to do a scratch build log of the Mary Rose, which I fancied doing as a cross section.... so here goes... my first attempt at a blog.

 

A bit of background first. I saw MR towed in to dock after she was raised, and have been fascinated ever since. We get random tv programmes about how they found it etc, but what finally got me going was a volume on the MR weapons I found at Leeds armouries...'weapons of warre' which was closely followed by buying 'Mary Rose, Your Noblest Shippe'... (best £50 I ever spent on a ship book!) This has 15 sheets of 1:100 scale drawings as part of the volume along with numerous scaled illustrations... if anything I now have too much information...

 

I wanted to crew the model but struggled for anyone other than Henry 8th at first... since then I have found some border reivers (40mm tall, Perry miniatures) but finally hit on some nice 28mm figures from the assaultgroup.co.uk, which also includes gun crews. They have fixed the scale. (plastic, but you cant have everything! )

 I have just finished scaling up the plans from the book, deciding to go from just behind the forecastle to around the midway point. That area gives me an accurate piece to work on without making up/inventing the bits of ship they haven't found yet...

 

Once I work out how to size photos on here I will post up the keel etc. I don't get a lot of time to spend on model builds, so this is going to be a loooong blog time!

 

[AntonyUK]

Hi.

Will be nice to see another cross section on MSW.

The Mary Rose will a very nice model.

Got to see this one being built.

 

Regards Antony.

[Chidokan]

turns out the figures are white metal, not plastic. My apologies to the manufacturer! Just realised they have a Tudor Blackadder, Baldric and Percy as a set.... must... resist...

[tarbrush]

I am here on the front row my friend.

[harvey1847]

Is this book? I saw it on Amazon...

The "Mary Rose": Your Noblest Shippe: Anatomy of a Tudor Warship

2 Used from £984.37

 

Sure you have done the best investment for 50 quid!!

 

Looking forward to your cross-section . There is not so many from that period around... Best wishes!

 

 

Daniel.

[bear]

Greetings

 

I have all of the books you write about from the Trust plus others on the Tudor era navy and the Jotika/Caldercraft kit. Looking forward to seeing your crosssection build.

Do you know of any recient drawings on what they have found out about the Forecastle details since these books were published? I had heard that the new information showed that there were diferences in shape from the books reditions and drawings.

 

Keith

[bear]

Hi Harvey1847

 

Glade that I bought my books months ago. At that time they were around $79 each,sounds like they are OOP and the new stock is gone.

 

 As of minutes ago the US Amazon site has the books on the Weapons of the Mary Rose. They are listed at list price for now. Not the OOP premium prices  for now.

 

 

The only issue that I have with the books are that they do not have drawings of what they think represents what ship looked like above the discovered areas, which is what modlers want. But they only deal with what they have found in the recovery.

 

Keith

[geoff]

regarding the Blackadder figures. Resistance is futile, you must give in! All the best with your very interesting project, I will be watching with interest. Geoff

[Chidokan]

hi Keith, its the reason I am avoiding the forecastle, it seems a bit of guesswork is involved... a friend of mine dived on MR and still follows what goes on, so need to have a quick chat with him about it.

 

Anyone want to buy this book at the knockdown price of £800??  I could get a sovereign of the seas for that! unbelievable! glad I got it from the museum when I did... wonder if they have any left??

 

I had a quick look at the shop to see if they had anything new, and saw a poster that gives me a clue on the section size...if I go from the ladders to the ovens, I get ten cannon, some storerooms, and enough deck to get a few archers etc on. I am even tempted to do what the poster shows to be honest!

 

I wonder if I should display it at the tilt and blame Baldrick for the sinking?

Starting the frames today..

[Louie da fly]

Sounds like a great project. I look forward to seeing your progress.

 

Bear, have a look at the thread http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/4031-mary-rose-forecastle-more-info-on-its-shape/  There's actually quite a lot of contemporary pictorial info out there and if the Mary Rose's forecastle followed normal practice of the time, it was triangular, and very similar in profile to the depiction of her in the Anthony Roll.

[yvesvidal]

I love cross-sections. I will be following with a lot of interest.

 

Yves

[firdajan]

Try to take a look here:

 

http://www.shipmodeling.ru/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7328

 

It´s a russian page, but you don´t need to understand the language, there is a lot  of pictures you need for creating the cross section of Mary Rose    

 

Jan

[Chidokan]

The figures arrived today... I have uploaded a few shots into my trincomalee photo album on here, (for some reason it wont let me load them up on this blog, I get a URL screen but it just sits there no matter how often I press the ok button.... ) I now feel comfortable that they will fit between decks and I have the scale right.

The demi cannon 'barrel' (from an arrow shaft ) is there to give a sense of scale on the usual 10mm square cutting mat. Cannon carriage is the start of  a copy of 81A3003. There is a lot of detail on the barrel, so am thinking of tapering this then adding filler and carving..

 

The keel is hexagonal over the section I am building... That has been.... interesting... to make.(i.e. 'messed it up five times') Next up is getting some frames and ribs. These seem extremely thin in section compared to what I expected, so may make a few in ply first to see how they look.

 

I have suggested to tarbrush we do a joint build blog...he is braver than me and doing a full hull!

[yvesvidal]

There is an interesting picture and a documentary on the Mary Rose:

 

http://www.ascensionearth2012.org/2014/10/secrets-of-dead-what-sank-mary-rose.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AscensionEarth2012+%28Ascension+Earth+2012%29

 

Yves

[tarbrush]

I plan on doing a build log for my Mary Rose, do you think it would be confusing if I added it here?  Should I start a separate build log?

[mtaylor]

John,

 

Please open your own build log.  That way you're not hijacking this log and it will be less confusing. 

[AntonyUK]

Hi John.

Just found this while browsing

In AbeBooks.co.uk. http://www.abebooks.co.uk/?cm_sp=TopNav-_-Results-_-Logo

Modelling Tudor Ships

R K Battson

 

Published by Model & Allied Publications, 1979

ISBN 10: 0852426925 / ISBN 13: 9780852426920

It might be of some use to you.

I have no idea on the contents.

 

Regards Antony.

[Louie da fly]

I wouldn't recommend the book. I have it myself, and unfortunately it isn't all that good. It's very basic, very short and dated. It was written in 1955 and is based around building an Elizabethan galleon for which the plans, drawn some time before 1942, were available in 1955, but probably aren't now.

 

The best book for the Mary Rose would be Mary Rose: Your Noblest Shippe, Anatomy of a Tudor warship, put out by the Mary Rose Trust, but it no longer appears to be in print. I'd like to get it myself, but it's hard to get hold of, and copies are very pricey.

[Chidokan]

I think I have worked out how to add pictures at last! These are a sample of the figures I am using. I will paint them up first, remove the bases and add wire through the legs in order to avoid spoiling the decks. What I did not realise is that there were laws on colours people were allowed to wear, depending on status, which limits the pallette a little. I am glad I bought an 'admiral/captain' figure to put on the top deck!

Next to do are some random objects like buckets, as I know if I start the hull I will forget about making this stuff until its too late to add it in...cross section starts at 8 and goes to 5,(scan below is from the book mentioned in the previous note) and works out around six inches long. The demi-cannon I have just started gives a rough idea of scale on the 10mm cutting mat. Barrel is from an arrow shaft I broke last week...I will be carving it down shortly.

 

[tarbrush]

the figures look great. can't wait to see them painted, they should look awesome on the cross section.  Is this the cannon that is to have the fancy twisted barrel?

looking good.

 

john

[Chidokan]

yes,thats the one! The carriage sides are just roughed out.. will finish them shortly. I tapered the barrel today, but messed up when I tried to get the fluting. If I had a CNC milling machine I know how I could do it, but rotating the drill chuck by hand while cutting with a dremel just didnt work. Looks like a long time using a file VERY carefully...Whilst typing this it occurred to me to try using some filler and flatten whilst hardening... I need some for the dolphins anyway, and it might make sense to have these done as part of the main barrel rather than trying to add very small lumps of filler and shaping it.

[Louie da fly]

Those figures are excellent. I was going to get into re-enacting this period and did quite a bit of reading and research on Henrician clothes, and I'm very impressed by the figures you have here.

 

For clothing colours, you could look at the figures in the painting The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover (you can get it from Google image search). It depicts an event dated 1520, but the painting itself is thought to have been painted about 1545, so it's pretty much spot-on. However, note that most of the figures are higher status than common sailors. There are a few of those shown in the boats, however. Another painting The Field of the Cloth of Gold though it mostly shows upper status people, has a few of "the common sort" getting drunk at the wine fountain. Several of the figures you have may in fact be a little higher status than common sailors anyway, and perhaps belong on the quarter deck. The more complex slashed and puffed clothing would probably have been awkward to work in, and to portray sailors it might be best to concentrate on figures wearing the simpler styles.

 

There's also the Cowdray engraving at http://www.myoldmap.com/dominic/maryrose/ , a coloured 19th century copy of a contemporary representation of the sinking of the Mary Rose (now lost), which has a lot of people in it. As it's a copy, it has to be taken with a pinch of salt, but I beleive it's pretty close to the mark, too.

 

By the way, though sumptuary laws restricted the colours and types of fabric "the common sort" could wear, these laws were usually unsuccessful and often ignored. If you could afford it, you usually wore it. These laws were an attempt by the nobility to keep the rising merchant class in their place, and were rarely successfully enforced. 

Edited October 27, 2014 by Louie da fly

[Chidokan]

I was actually looking for a 'Wars of the Roses' model, as that is really the period I am interested in...  A lot of piracy going on in the channel around that time apparently, as well as the odd boarding battle. MR is the closest I could get that had some decent plans! I was originally going to make it as its initial build, rather than the final version that sank, but it is difficult to translate what is in the books to determine later additions, the notes are scattered randomly about what upgrades were carried out.

[Louie da fly]

For the Wars of the Roses, you'd be looking at a carrack. Woodrat has a very good build log at http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/4915-venetian-carrack-or-nave-tonda-by-woodrat/page-1 which is well worth a look. 

 

But the Mary Rose is well worth while in her own right - basically the ultimate development of the carrack -  to the point that they were overtaken by events - the high castles were unnecessary once cannons replaced boarding as the main mode of combat, and with the addition of guns, particularly on upper decks, they became unwieldy, and the lower, more seaworthy galleons pretty much took their place.

Edited October 30, 2014 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

Here are some detail views from the picture The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover I mentioned above, showing some of the sailors at work. Funnily enough, their clothes look very like those of Jack Tar in Nelson's navy - most wear long loose trousers and a plain jacket. So it may be easier to find figures for common sailors than it first appeared. But the two guys rowing the boat seem to be better and more fashionably dressed. And - look, mum! No footropes! I've noted, also, both from this painting and the Anthony Roll, most of the ships' boats are double-ended. 

 

The Embarkation should also serve as a guide for colours for the upper classes. 

 

By the way, on the Mary Rose they found quite a large number of leather jerkins , with decorative slashing. I'll see if I can find some photos from when I visited in 2009.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

I've just added some more pics of common sailors' clothing - this time to Tarbrush's build log for Mary Rose. You might find them of use. I'm following both these logs with great interest.

[Chidokan]

not come out too well with the camera in regards to actual colour... maybe I need daylight? (the background is actually white) I now see I have a little bit of touching up to do before I cut the bases off and add bow strings. I have decided to discard the supplied ramrods etc as a bit too thick on the shafts, and make my own from wood and filler.

 

A quick check showed my scale needs to change slightly in order to fit some of these below decks.Glad I caught this before I built the hull! I am now tempted to buy a few more to really fill up the top deck, and maybe get a couple of the chess players etc John found as more 'dressed down' crew. It would be nice to get one climbing rigging or pulling ropes etc...

[tarbrush]

Your figures came out great Tim!  I checked on my order from Fredericus-Rex and they have shipped.  here is a pic of one of the sets I ordered

[Louie da fly]

You've done a beautiful job of these figures, Tim. I take my hat off to you. The only thing I might suggest is that the archers' bows are a bit thick and might be better pared down somewhat. However, this might not be practical and if so, don't worry about it, as it's a very minor point.

 

Steven

[Chidokan]

I did spot that width wise they were oversize once the bows were painted...I was about to add the strings ( and no, I am NOT using flemish knots! ) and realised that the figures hold the bows incorrectly.... (as an archer, I would never hold a bow like that.... when strung it is impossible, and resting on it would mean the bow would have to be turned slightly unless it was unstrung). I think I will have the crew 'at ease' in preparation for battle , rather firing cannon etc. I plan on getting some halberdiers/pikemen to fill up the top deck so it looks crowded. John's chess group looks great, and they also do a little boat that looks like I could pressgang some more crew!