Charles Martel by Haze Gray - 1/72 scale - RADIO - 3D printed - French Battleship

[fnkershner]

Joe - I will echo CDW. I have recently retired after 44 years in the IT industry. So I do understand the technology side, and I enjoy it. I should also mention that my modeling skills are not what I would hope for. I often substitute power tools for skill. So spending time in front of the computer seems normal to me. (just ask my wife) . I have spent the last 4 months learning Fusion and 3D printing. I am very impressed with the opportunities this gives me. Now it is hard to say where I spend more time. We will see as I progress.

[Haze Gray]

To Joe and CDW,  I think what got me interested 3D printing boats was that I didn’t have a lot of time, tools, or experience building boats. So learning the software seemed like the best path forward and I could also afford to make mistakes because I could correct them in the software, or I could identify them more easily at least.  

 

The other thing is that designing the the boats in software would allow me to do is release the designs into the public domain when I no longer have use for them,  which in the end kinda good for everyone who wants to print a boat like the ones I work on. 

[CDW]

I applaud you for what you're doing, HG. The finished results of your work is very impressive and i am sure there are people like me who would buy your files once you are ready to do that. There's no reason you shouldn't earn something in return for all the hard work you are putting into making these a workable 3D printing project.

My friend has often mention the Thingyverse site you mentioned in another post. He's found many useful files there. The RC aircraft files he paid for. He said the finished models are a tad on the heavy side for RC flight, but doable.  

[fnkershner]

CDW - I suggest you friend also look at Shapeways.com. Cost is a bit higher but the quality is amazing.

[CDW]

19 minutes ago, fnkershner said:

CDW - I suggest you friend also look at Shapeways.com. Cost is a bit higher but the quality is amazing.

Yes, I have done that. But he is so tight with his money, he squeaks when he walks. Besides, I think because he is a computer engineer who works for a company who build complex component parts and systems, he enjoys playing around with his own 3D printing equipment and making improvements to it himself.  I am always kidding him about how much work he goes through with his RC flying models to just to keep the cost down a few bucks. 

[Haze Gray]

2 hours ago, fnkershner said:

CDW - I suggest you friend also look at Shapeways.com. Cost is a bit higher but the quality is amazing.

Interesting thing with shapeways, I uploaded a section of the hull from the USS Maine, one from the middle - lowest cost to print was over $1000, I guess size does matter above a certain threshold.  The Charles Martel hull is 20% wider than the Maine and the USS Brooklyn is even longer than the Martel.  

[CDW]

6 hours ago, Haze Gray said:

Interesting thing with shapeways, I uploaded a section of the hull from the USS Maine, one from the middle - lowest cost to print was over $1000, I guess size does matter above a certain threshold.  The Charles Martel hull is 20% wider than the Maine and the USS Brooklyn is even longer than the Martel.  

That's mucho incentive to do it yourself. 

[Haze Gray]

I should have an update with another section of the hull tonight. I’ve already come up with some ideas how to make things work better for printing large hulls and look forward to sharing.

[Haze Gray]

Started working on the guns - going well considering I only have photos to work from - still need to work in details on the back of the turrents (hatches) and other stuff, but not alot of great photos out there, some are good but....but I'll take what I can get - it's amazing that there are as many photos as there are considering it was about 120 years ago!

 

Oh by the way,  some learning from time spent working on the USS Maine:  Hull first, place all the guns and pivot points and gears, put in the motors, mounts, and shafts,  servo pockets and battery compartments, and then work out where you can put servo and linkages for the turret tramming!  (at least that's my current theory on the sequence)

 

Edited May 11, 2018 by Haze Gray
added some notes

[fnkershner]

This is the most complex Fusion drawing I have seen so far! Lots of great work.

[Haze Gray]

More work done last night - lots of tweaking required (and probably a little more to do) but thanks two key photos I was able to get some satisfactory work done on the mid-beam heavy gun turrets.  I'm struggling to find a photo good enough to properly guide the porthole placement but that will be coming after I get the last 4 turrets in.  Part of me is toying with the idea of motorizing (is that a word?) of the portholes to open and close - could be done but would need to likely use a flexible carbon fiber rod that could follow the contours of the hull - haven't quite worked it out but I have an idea of how it could be done,  just not refined enough. 

 

Anyways - included a picture of the "business end" of the Charles Martel along with a shot of the interior components - very motivating!

 

By the way, the small notches near the waterline under the most forward turrets on either side are ports for the torpedoes!  

[Haze Gray]

Thought I would provide an update - it's been about 3 weeks since I posted and mostly I've been working on three other ships since I needed to take a brake from the Charles Martel - so tonight I spent about 3 wonderful hours on the boat this evening and I can tell you this is one fun boat to build (and challenging too).  About 1.5 hours was spent on just examine photographs and double and triple checking the shape of the two main turrets.  Pretty much all the photos of models I have seen have all the turrets round - which is incorrect, main and the large secondary are oblong to accommodate the long breach of the french barrels - I was even able to track down some engineering drawings to confirm.

 

so, all the turrets are in, now according to my own notes I am supposed to work on the propulsion and the pulleys for the tramming of the turrets. not as sexy as working on the superstructure - but once I get the internals done it will be a relief to have that behind me and I can attack the desk and the superstructure with complete abandon.   I've even been considering putting in the spiral staircases in the fighting masts and that has me thinking about what it would take to fork off what I have thus far and make a version that's visual model with one side of the hull open and the various internal decks with details of boilers and the steam engines... I built over plastic 100 models when I was a kid and kind of still have that itch about internal details being an important and pleasing commodity.

 

Anyways, enjoy the pics.

[fnkershner]

I so wish I had your Fusion skills! Wow! I am about a year behind you. I am still struggling with projecting the frames onto the offset planes. From there the lofting is easy.

[Haze Gray]

11 hours ago, fnkershner said:

I so wish I had your Fusion skills! Wow! I am about a year behind you. I am still struggling with projecting the frames onto the offset planes. From there the lofting is easy.

Ha!  I think it's more like my Fusion luck!   I've done 3 hulls after the Martel and they are not anywhere as good and here I thought I was improving. Lofting in Fusion 360 is like some kind of mystical art - I've noticed that sometimes the success of lofting depends on the angle you're viewing the model from (crazy!).  I'm starting to take a look at the Deftship software and if I can import a model from Deftship into Fusion I might actually try that route.

 

Also, I went with my standard 5mm hull wall thickness on the Martel - and wish I had gone with 7mm as the hull is a really big shell with a much smaller deck that is far from the keel - I should be able to go back and adjust the offset of the frames but that's not really possible - maybe the way I'm doing it is wrong but when I do a hull when I get done I've forced more than a few errors and while the loft result is good - the "mold" that created the hull is more or less destroyed in the process. 

[fnkershner]

Have you tried Onscape. I was talking to one of our better 3D print guys today. He says he has gone from Fusion to Onscape. Most of what he told me was over my head but it is just an idea.

[Haze Gray]

9 hours ago, fnkershner said:

Have you tried Onscape. I was talking to one of our better 3D print guys today. He says he has gone from Fusion to Onscape. Most of what he told me was over my head but it is just an idea.

I’ve not heard or tried onshape, but I looked into it this a.m. seems there’s a lot of similarity with fusion 360 in terms of how one operates the program.  Watched a few videos comparing fusion and onshape- seems the recommendation for one or the other hinges on how invested you are in a platform.  

 

I plan plan to tinker with both onshape and deftship this weekend to see if they are easier to use and yield better results for hulls. 

[Haze Gray]

 

 

Whups wrong thread- deleted!

 

Edited June 15, 2018 by Haze Gray
Wrong thread-deleted

[yvesvidal]

Very impressive. Just put a motor, a RC set and you are good for the nearest lake.

 

This work is amazing. Now, you need to get the equipment to do photo-etching on brass, and you are all set.

 

Yves

Edited June 15, 2018 by yvesvidal

[Yuuki]

Wow,

Amazing model, is it possible in some form for me to purchase the model and make one myself? :)

[Roger Pellett]

If the cross section that you show for Charles Martel above reflects the actual ship she must have had serious stability problems.  The circular cross section below the waterline indicates low metacentric height as the center of buoyancy does not move off the centerline as the vessel heels.  Worse the extreme tumblehome means that she does not gain righting moment when heeling at larger angles.

 

Roger

Edited December 8, 2020 by Roger Pellett

[Haze Gray]

On 12/7/2020 at 4:31 PM, Yuuki said:

Wow,

Amazing model, is it possible in some form for me to purchase the model and make one myself?

Hi Yuuki, the model is designed at 1/72 scale and would be 1.6 meters long - are you looking for a project that big?

[Haze Gray]

On 12/7/2020 at 4:47 PM, Roger Pellett said:

If the cross section that you show for Charles Martel above reflects the actual ship she must have had serious stability problems.  The circular cross section below the waterline indicates low metacentric height as the center of buoyancy does not move off the centerline as the vessel heels.  Worse the extreme tumblehome means that she does not gain righting moment when heeling at larger angles.

 

Roger

Yes a lot of the French tumblehome designs suffered from a range of stability issues.  They added a couple of really tall, really heavy military masts which would have made for some real fun!

[Haze Gray]

I did some more work on the Charles Martel last night - good to get back to it.  I have a bunch of boats that I'm working on so they often compete for my time 😃

 

 

[lmagna]

You did that on purpose. You just wanted me to drool on my keyboard!

[reklein]

The Charles Martel has a real steam punk look to it.

Edited December 17, 2020 by reklein

[Haze Gray]

8 minutes ago, reklein said:

The Charles Martel has a real stem punk look to it.

Yeah a lot of the French ships have that steampunk flare to them (Pic is of the 'Devastation ')

[Haze Gray]

Thought I'd make a bit more progress before turning in 

[Haze Gray]

I'm starting to get into the part of the design where I have to lean more and more into what I can what I can understand based on the photos of the ship. There's really very little in the way of the original French designs for the structure above the main deck - sometimes I superimpose photos on the model to get a feel for how really was.  I stared at 5 different images for 2 hours looking at the superstructure from different perspectives - there no way I can be 100% sure I'm working in the right direction I just tweak details as I go along and check and double check as I move forward.  

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by Haze Gray

[Yuuki]

On 12/17/2020 at 5:52 PM, Haze Gray said:

I'm starting to get into the part of the design where I have to lean more and more into what I can what I can understand based on the photos of the ship. There's really very little in the way of the original French designs for the structure above the main deck - sometimes I superimpose photos on the model to get a feel for how really was.  I stared at 5 different images for 2 hours looking at the superstructure from different perspectives - there no way I can be 100% sure I'm working in the right direction I just tweak details as I go along and check and double check as I move forward.  

 

Love the superstructure, made her a little top heavy but even more beautiful.

 

I’m sorry I have 0 knowledge regarding modeling softwares, but is it possible to make it a tad smaller to around 1:350 scale? :P

I have a friend who’s making the Massena in 1:350,  if that’s possible having 2 French pre-dreadnoughts on my shelf will make me very very happy indeed :D.

 

[Haze Gray]

10 hours ago, Yuuki said:

Love the superstructure, made her a little top heavy but even more beautiful.

 

I’m sorry I have 0 knowledge regarding modeling softwares, but is it possible to make it a tad smaller to around 1:350 scale?

I have a friend who’s making the Massena in 1:350,  if that’s possible having 2 French pre-dreadnoughts on my shelf will make me very very happy indeed :D.

 

Hi Yuuki, I don’t think scaling it down to 1/350 would work well - some of the features are thin like 1mm so at 1/350 scale that becomes ~0.2mm.  It might be possible with a resin printer do you have one of those?