GeorgeKapas

Ares is possibly the most famous ship of the Greek revolution, but unlike the rest on the list, there are no plans of her. She actually survived till 1920s and many photos and paintings of her exist. Yet, with the exception of the dimensions and the number of guns, no more information survives. The models that apear in the various museums seem to be rather different from each other and are rather crude. There is also a wooden kit of her from "Navarino Models". After inspecting it, I was not satisfied, her lines bear little resemblance to the visual evidence, at least as far as I see it. A few years ago I found out about a project from National Technical Univercity of Athens, funded by Laskaridis foundation, to make a model of Ares and test it on a water tank. I saw the presentation, and in my disappointment, their design is also a conjecture. In fact, it was wildly off, both in shape and propotions, more so than the Navarino kit, which at least had an early 19th century brig design in mind. All I had were photos and paintings, books like "The history of the American Sailing navy" etc and some french brig designs (Ares was build in Venice, so not very helpful). With little experience in drawing plans, I drew lines on the pictures and paintings in layers, printed them, hand drew them again, assempled test hulls in paper, cut and sanded them, went back to the computer to drew the modifications etc. Rather brute force approach, with only the dimensions and number of guns as a known element, while for the rest it was matching the lines with the photos by eye. Even that was a problem, as 1890s Ares was significantly altered from her 1820s appearance, and the Roux painting of her was of limited use. I knew that she was a rather rounded brig, high sided, as she was a cargo vessel. Long story short, I ended up with a design that satisfied me, which was enough. It came out much different than other models of her, so in that sense, I feel it was worth the effort. This design will be properly published after I finish with the model, but hopefully in a more organized way. 

Good evening all! I have not posted for quite a while, not because of a lack of projects and modeling, but due to other issues, like moving house etc. That said, the new place has enabled me to set up a proper permament workshop. Although several plastic kits and some scratchbuilts are still unfinished, I decided to embark on a more holistic and focused project, after my experiences with the scratchbuilt Mahmudiye, that I finished back in 2022. The idea is to make a series of scratchbuilt models of Greek revolutionary ships and beyond (all dated between 1821-1899). These projects will all be at the same scale, that of 12 feet to the inch (1/144), a traditional scale, which felt comfortable to me, starting with:  

The brig Ares (1819)

The frigate Hellas (1826)

The steam sloop Karteria (1826)

The ship of the line Emmanuil (1824)

The corvette Loudovikos (1838)

Almost all these are at least at an initial stage of construction, Hellas being quite advanced, but I decided to finish the smaller Ares first. I'll post threads about all of them eventually, and have changed the links on the signature. 

Thank you all, and again, I have neglected to post updates in my threads, or even start new threads of completed models!  I'll plan to do that now, and perhaps continue with royal louis which is indeed a nice built. 

On 12/10/2022 at 7:02 PM, Ian_Grant said:

George, I didn't know there was a naval museum in Chania! Too bad we were so focused on hiking the Samaria gorge. Next time!

 

Our local Greek restaurant has a lovely framed poster of Chania harbour with the lighthouse and all the restaurants along the quay; fond memories!

I hoped you enjoyed the city Ian! Yes, the red building oposite the lighthouse at the harbour's entrance, on the Firka fortress.

Alas, I have diverted my attention on a small built of La Couronne, rather unwisely. But this too fell short, perhaps a move to bigger builts is needed, once bigger workspace is available 

Thank you all!!! Oh well, Karteria is well underway, but unfortunatelly rather stalled due to the lack of details of the Brent plans.... We'll see how it goes...The water is made by by applying tissue paper and woodglue into a few layers, and then form the waves with a brush. I found something similar done online and developed a method of my own based on that, to me it seems quite bizzare that not many do it like that.. anyway. The deck is simply a patern I drew on MS paint and printed it in black and white, then painted it with acrylics and sealed it with enamel clear coat. Nowdays I make another small model of the "La Couronne" (1636) mostly for my own pleasure, testing some new methods and materials, but in the general philisophy of these builts. I'll make a thread soon enough!

A photo the day I donated her. Once she is in display I'll post more pictures. My next project will be of the steamship Karteria, for the museum here in Chania

Last photos! Thank you all for your kind words! This was one of my first scratchbuilt ships, and I learned a lot while making it. I am very honored that a museum accept it. 😁

So this is it, the end result. From here on, are the finished pictures I took of the model 2 weeks ago. 

So here is the ship at 99% complete out of the water. These are the last photos I have of her as a full hull display, as she is not here anymore 😅

So here the ship is 99% complete. One can in theory remove her from the base and display the ship as full hull model. Since the previous post, some details were added and some changed, like the boats moved further aft etc. A few more pieces were still not added by this point, like boat rudders, etc, but I'll post more of the finished photos later. I added some flags that I printed and painted, the anchors were sourced from my parts heap but reduced in size a bit, the boats are also from parts and have been cut down to scale. 

5 hours ago, Seahawk1313 said:

Wonderful work, just one question, on what deck was the ship's wheel on a Turkish Ship of the Line?  - Hal

I put it in the typical position, top deck forward of the mizzen. The deck arrangement was not found so I followed the typical one,  simplified

Tomorow I'll short out the pictures of the near finished model, here a couple more during this stage of the built with me in for scale 

I made the base using tissue paper, woodglue and acrylic colours. Basically a papier mache with the woodglue and water that I shaped with a brush. I painted with acrylics then added another woodglue layer for gloss effect. I haven't made up my mind about the best combination of ingredients and methods for it, so each new base is slightly differently made. I went back after this stage and revised a few details on the ship even as late as this stage, but there is little point elaborating on it since I skiped taking photos on many of the stages to be honest. 

So here the rigging process is well underway, the yard lifters and most of the standing rigging is in place 😅😁😇 You can also now see the base with the water ready. I'll elaborate next on how I made it 

1 hour ago, Kevin said:

So glad I found this build, wonderful work, puts my kits to shame

Thank you for you kind words! Everyone's work here is magnificent and different, this is what makes it interesting!  

I also discovered that the footropes of the yards were a constant obstruction, but there was no way they could have been added after the fact. Being made out of melted plastic, they were constantly breaking. If the scale permits next time, I will make them out of 0.25mm thread instead..

A small parenthesis. I tried to rig most of the blocks before actually putting up the masts so it would make my job easier. I realized that I should also have threaded the running rigging on them as well, because it became very difficult after a while 

So there is a bit of a time gap here. Rigging was progressing faster in the beginning, but slowed down when more and more lines were begining to obstruct each other  

At this point I decided to make a sea base for the model, by making a box that would accomodate the full hull ship inside and making the sea on top of it. BTW I was also given very nice drawings of the real ship as well, as a guide for painting.

For the rigging, I ordered the smallest blocks I could find, 2,5mm and then cut them horizontally in half to reduce them further more and actually get 2 of them out of one. As for the deadeyes for the shrouds, this was a world of problems for me. In the end, after many tests, I found a design that was good enough and simple enough, so I could make hundreads of them quickly, and actually still looked recognizable to an observer a reasonable distance away. Once again made by melted sprue 

Some more photos during that phase. Afterwards I started the rigging process, and the diorama base 

So here the painting is almost complete. I was constantly correcting the color edges, the stern galleries are now painted and a token arabic script and some flower patern added according to the plans. 

So I made a few long guns and short guns for the top deck. Again, the carriage was scratch, the wheels and gun muzzles were beads, I actually sources some old guns and cut them down to scale. Some close ups of the quarter deck, with my painted deck clearly visible now. Notice I also printed and painted some windows for the galleries. Once again, the model is tiny and later on I took some photos with me near it for scale.