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

[Yuuki]

6 hours ago, Haze Gray said:

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?

Good arvo! Thanks for the reply again. (or good morning or evening depending on where you live haha :P)

 

I think I know someone with a resin printer, and he has decent modelling knowledge so he might be able to increase the thickness of the printed walls if you are happy with selling me the file :). (Totally fine if not, I know these models are hardwork)

 

Also, if you'd like have a 1/350 Massena, I could send you a copy of her once she's done (my friend says late Jan.)

 

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2020 by Yuuki

[Haze Gray]

On 12/20/2020 at 2:06 AM, Yuuki said:

 

Hi Yuuki,  after I'm done modeling the Charles Martel in 1/72 I should be able to go back scale most of the ship down to 1/350 - but I'll  probably make the model manifold instead of dealing with 150+ super tiny parts!   I already have Messina on my list and other French ships - I'm pretty close to finishing this French ship too:

On 12/20/2020 at 2:06 AM, Yuuki said:

 

 

 

[Yuuki]

28 minutes ago, Haze Gray said:

 

Very cool coastal ram!

these tumblehome and huge ram bows are what makes the French so French haha. I’d love to think what these rams would do to a unarmoured underwater section of a battleship.
 

Regarding scaling them down, take your time! I’m not in a rush and my friend here’s also interested in modeling the Charles Martel, so if you’re busy or wish to take time off French ships I could ask him to model it in 1/350 too.

 

[Haze Gray]

Update - I've been spending the last week or so getting the hull ready to actually print - I've been taking hull and and slicing it up and putting in provisions for stepper actuated turrets.  There's going to be 6 hull sections - the longest is the stern at 376mm (which is just shy of 15 inches) and  I'm estimating about 18 total days to print all hull sections.  While the hull in printing I'll finish up the deck work which is kind of the fun/extremely challenging part since there's really a gap in the plans on the details and will be mostly done by staring at photos for hours on end to get what details I can. 

Also, I'm including a link to a video as that might be interesting to some of you. 

https://youtu.be/xL65M7gmwas

 

[Haze Gray]

Thought I'd drop in with a short update - sections 1 & 2 completed.  3rd section is printing and should complete sometime on Wednesday... things are a bit behind schedule due to power outage (and I biff'ed on resuming the print properly). 

[Haze Gray]

Now have section 1-4 printed, just two more to go (about 8 days or so) - was able to use the dinner table when my wife wasn't looking 😃 

 

[Louie da fly]

That's amazing. I take my hat off to you sir.

 

Steven

[Haze Gray]

Another update here - after finishing printing all the hull sections yesterday I spent some time cleaning them up a bit.  Prior to permanently joining them all together I needed to put in some of the threaded inserts for stepper mounts and the arduino control board.  The "heat inserts" I use are from Mcmaster Carr: heat inserts | McMaster-Carr  and they come in a many different sizes.  I typically use 3mm inserts with 3mm machine screws, and there's several different types available even in just the 3mm size.  The row on the left are for 3mm and there's a 2mm example on the right side in this photo. 

 

Note I would recommend you spend the extra money on the heat inserts from Mcmaster Carr,  the cheap ones you can get off ebay are (in my opinion) garbage.   Easy to install a 3mm insert using a soldering iron with an adapter or thin tip: 

 

 

And here's what it looks like with most of them installed.  The aft most inserts are where the motor mounts get bolted to. 

 

Next I started gluing the section together - a thin layer of 5 min epoxy this time since I didn't have any 10 min lying around.  I find that 5 min epoxy is okay but sets quick and sometimes if there's some alignment issues your racing against the clock in a most uncomfortable way.  So I always check and recheck how things are fitting together before I mix up the glue.  I also take time to figure out which tabs will need more clamping pressure and have those handy.  You can kind of see the glue in this photo, keeping it to a thin layer means less ooze to wipe off.  

 

 

After gluing 3 pairs of two sections together I sent them aside for an hour or so to fully cure

 

 

And then I joined the three groups into complete hull.... (I forgot to take a photo but just imagine the whole boat with the bow on the floor and totally vertical teetering precariously against the work bench!)  Then once cured and when the Admiral wasn't looking I used the dinner table again for a photo of the completed hull:

 

 

The next step will be sanding the hull to get all the layer lines out and a smoother surface.  This can easily be done by hand although there's tricky area's that will need careful attention (more about that later).  For the most part a 2" air driven orbital sander will make quick work of most of the sanding.  I'll start that after work tomorrow. 

[GazzaS]

That hull is amazing!

[uncarina]

I am amazed as well! This is an awesome application of 3d printing.

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Haze Gray]

Thanks Gents,  that's very kind of you to say!   I really should provide an update - I've been sanding the hull and making the turrets, but I have 3 hulls in addition to the Charles Martel that I'm sanding and it's been kind of cold out in the garage so I've slowed down a bit.  maybe In another week or two I'll post that update. 

 

 

[Hubac's Historian]

will you show us a few pics of the other hulls, in process?  Just curious.

[Haze Gray]

4 hours ago, Hubac's Historian said:

will you show us a few pics of the other hulls, in process?  Just curious.

Sure here you go - 5 hulls but the one with the superstructure and funnels is the USS Main - that hull has been sanded and partially painted - I actually have a 6th hull printing that is not in the photo (for the USS Texas - the original one from the 1892)

[yvesvidal]

That display of hulls is amazing. Are you selling them?

 

Yves

[Hubac's Historian]

Oh my!  What are your plans for this battlefleet?

[Haze Gray]

2 hours ago, Hubac's Historian said:

Oh my!  What are your plans for this battlefleet?

Well my only plan really to to grow the fleet! - I have about 700 ships of the period that I would like to model - however, based on my calculations I am unlikely to live long enough to complete more than 350.  Granted I am much faster now than I was in the beginning and have about 25 designs that are pretty far along, but it would be hard to do more than 1 per month on average. 1/72 scale is kind of ideal for the typical ship of this period since it allows for a reasonable level of detail for the typical 3d printer that uses filament but the size of the printer needed typically is larger larger than what the more economical printers out there can support (both in build plate area and Z axis depth).  

[Haze Gray]

4 hours ago, yvesvidal said:

That display of hulls is amazing. Are you selling them?

 

Yves

I don't think I'm at the right point to sell them but my typical process is to get the design done, then print out the first draft of the parts and see how things fit together and if I need to make adjustments or changes (sometimes I forget to add something, etc). So through that draft process I finalize the design as much as I can and re-print anything that changed.  These things take up space so if you're interested in getting one of the finalized drafts I can probably make that happen provided you cover the shipping cost - bear in mind that these ships in 1/72 scale typically range between 1300mm to 1900mm from nose to tail.  

 

The one thing I would add is that most 3d printed parts will need some sanding and surfacing - it maybe plastic but it's not injection molded.  

Edited March 8, 2021 by Haze Gray
added some detail

[Hubac's Historian]

You have rendered me speechless.

Edited March 8, 2021 by Hubac's Historian

[sms_koenig_wilhelm]

This is one of the best CAD models of a french ship I have ever seen, I‘m planing to make a model of Charles Martel too, but couldn‘t find any draeings.

 

Could you please tell me where you got the drawings that you modeled the ship after?

You would do me a huge favour, I‘m on the verge of goving up my ambitions for this ship since there aren‘t any blueprints availabie that I could find.

[Haze Gray]

On 8/2/2021 at 2:34 PM, sms_koenig_wilhelm said:

This is one of the best CAD models of a french ship I have ever seen, I‘m planing to make a model of Charles Martel too, but couldn‘t find any draeings.

 

Could you please tell me where you got the drawings that you modeled the ship after?

You would do me a huge favour, I‘m on the verge of goving up my ambitions for this ship since there aren‘t any blueprints availabie that I could find.

 

Hello sms_koenig_wilhelm  sorry I didn't see your message until now - there's two books that would help:

ISBN 978-5-98830-060-8   (it's in russian)  but if you seach the internet you can probably find an on-line copy of it

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 2374680231 / ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-2374680231 - this one is in French and is also helpful

 

The drawings that I have found on the internet are pretty scant on details and there's a lot that are preliminary designs so you have to be careful and check the drawings across as many actual photographs as you can get on the Charles Martel. I Found that None of the designs actually match what was eventually built but there was enough there to get the envelop of the ship and selectively taking specific features from one drawing that were accurate and combining it with features from another drawing that has additional parts that are accurate (all along the way verifying against photographs).  Also There were changes to the design as the ship was built so I doubt there were any final "as built" plans....

 

if you compare these two drawings to the photo you can see there's notable differences across the board

Edited August 13, 2021 by Haze Gray
added a photo

[Haze Gray]

Small update here as I'm getting the hull ready for painting  - mostly just some sanding and filling in the layer lines to get as smooth as a surface as possible - maybe a little filler in a few areas will be needed. another week or two and I should have the hull painted - one hiccup is the hull colour below the waterline - which was likely Schweinfurt green (also known as "Paris green") which was  basically paint with a combination of copper and arsenic - it also have variations in the actual color but what's easily available to me at the moment is a green with a brown tinge to it, might still work for my purposes but we'll see- above the waterline I'm going to attempt to create the "lamp black" for the hull (which is a 'softer' black and not as harsh as the oxide black..so I think mixing in some brown will get the color in the right direction with some experimentation).  Above the deck will be a light buff (much lighter than the typical US Navy buff... maybe more like the white star lines buff) humm colors are hard!

 

here's a few pics of the getting the hull ready for painting - getting rid of layer lines with a combination of sanding and some readily and commercially available coating that will get sanded down makes work fairly quick.  The flexible sanding pad (first image) works better then a "sanding sponge"  as I can use my fingers to press into areas in a way that matches the exact shape of the proper contour.  If you look at "image 2" and compare it to "image 3"  that show how the how the layer lines actually are filled in (coating is translucent so in 'image 2' you can see layer lines under the surface of the coating). 

[Marcus.K.]

That is amazing work!!! Really great!

 

I very much like what modern technology (CAD & 3D printing) is generating in our days - a new type of ship model building. And especially for the steel ships its a really great way to come to very impressive and beautiful models. Even more since you even may simulate the segmented builds of many of those ships. In a german forum someone is building U-boats in that segmented way - really cool.

 

In wooden sailing ships model builds that approach is starting to generate some very interesting details which may be hard or time consuming to do in wood. The "composite" builds done in that segment of model ship building - the combination of injection molded parts of kits, styren sheets and strips,, resin molds, classical wood and by now 3D printed parts is changing the way models are done.

 

Of course there will be always purists building very artistic and very beautiful pure wooden beauties. And those models are and will ever be high points of modelism. But as soon as painting and even ageing is required to gain another effect on your model 3D print is an addional effective way to get to the result.

 

Your ships here are - in my humble opinion - up to now another coronation of another, new segment of modelism.

Very cool ships - beautiful redesigned and build !

 

Did I miss photos of floated models? .. will check again the previous pages.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Marcus.K.

[Haze Gray]

I’ll be floating the first one pretty soon ((USS Maine). Just a photo of the painted hull attached but will have to update the thread on that build when I get back from vacation,

[yvesvidal]

Haze,

 

Superb work on that hull. Could you describe in more details, the type of coating you are using to fill up the gap lines of the printing?

I have used some generous coats of primer on my 3D printed Corvette and it turned out okay. However, for smaller scales such as 1/72, one need a smoother surface to make it look more realistic.

 

Yves

[Haze Gray]

Hi Yves,  I tried a lot of different things, some were combinations (my 12 y.o. daughter helped me by applying each to test hull sections and charging me for it too!)  but what seemed to work best for a single type of coating was Gesso (it’s also non toxic which is nice).   Be careful though, thick layers of gesso take a long time to cure and can be a nightmare to sand down if not fully cured.  A thick layer or glob of gesso can remain uncured for months and has to be peeled or cut off. Gesso applied in temperatures below 70f can take much longer to cure   I typically sand down the hull by hand or with a small orbital but that’s not necessary if you apply multiple light coats and sand in between.  I’ve started experimenting with some spray on options as well. I’d recommend you print out a hull section and test how the gesso works for you.  Another option is to use uv curing resin -  I’ve not tried that but should be viable in some circumstances depending on the resin properties.   

[lmagna]

Both ships are looking fantastic. You said that you will be floating the Main soon? Does that mean you are going to RC it?

 

I have done very little with my Oregon due too interference from other home duties, but your work is making me consider bumping the order of my projects and reconsidering how I build her, static or RC. 

[Kevin]

stunning work, would be lovely to see some of these fully finished one day

[MaxVityuk]

04.03.2021 в 05:36 Haze Grey сказал:

Конечно, вот вы идете - 5 корпусов, но один с надстройкой и воронками - это USS Main - этот корпус был отшлифован и частично окрашен - у меня действительно есть 6-й отпечаток корпуса, которого нет на фотографии (для USS Texas - оригинал один из 1892 г.)

Hi. I am delighted with the volume and quality of the work you have done! I have been doing 3D modeling for a long time, and often these were ships for computer games. But it was now that I turned my attention to 3D printing. This is cool. Thank you for your patience and skill.

[Haze Gray]

Hello Max, thank you for your kind words.  When you start working on a model to 3D print please start a topic and show us your progress. Which ship do you intend to choose first? 

 

Привет Макс, спасибо за добрые слова. Когда вы начнете работать над моделью для 3D-печати, начните тему и покажите нам свой прогресс. Какой корабль вы собираетесь выбрать первым?

[MaxVityuk]

On 03.10.2021 at 22:27, Haze Gray said:

Привет Макс, спасибо за добрые слова. Когда вы начнете работать над моделью для 3D-печати, начните тему и покажите нам свой прогресс. Какой корабль вы собираетесь выбрать первым? 

 

Привет Макс, спасибо за добрые слова. Когда вы начнете работать над моделью для 3D-печати, начните тему и покажите нам свой прогресс. Какой корабль вы собираетесь выбрать первым?

Hi. Not so fast for me. I'm afraid I will only be able to seriously do this when I retire  . So far, I can only afford to just enjoy the contemplation of your successes and improve in 3D modeling. I need to seriously raise the detail of my models to get even a little closer to your level. If you will allow me, I will try at this place in a month to place my version of the Charles Martel ship. And this will be off topic since I can only bring a render or a screenshot.