HMS Bellona 1760 by SJSoane - Scale 1:64 - English 74-gun - as designed

[Sailor1234567890]

That riot of sweeping curves sure is beautiful but I don't envy the shipwright who had to build it. Not you replicating it at a smaller scale. But I do look forward to seeing how you tackle this challenge and your results. 

[dvm27]

I can offer no help in this area Mark but isn't it humbling to know that some craftsman, over 250 years ago and under candle light, was able to form this precision detail with likely nothing more than a fretsaw and files?

[tlevine]

Have you considered photoetching thin sheet brass?

[SJSoane]

Thanks, everyone, for your comments.

 

Kevin, intriguing idea about 3-D printing, but I don't think I have the skill to work up a 3-D drawing of the double curved quarter gallery surface. It is no known regular geometrical shape, and would have to be built up in sections and faired like a hull. I may come back to this if I can't figure anything else out. And thanks for reminding me of Marc's fabrication techniques.

 

Marc, thanks for thinking about this. Your techniques could well provide a way to build these forms up, rather than attempting to pierce saw them out as a whole. My first experiments showed me some problems with attempting to cut these out of boxwood--grain runs across some of the thin pieces, doesn't have any flexibility--and so I may have to explore other materials if I go down this route. Or, maybe I just make up individual strands with the grain running the length of the piece, and then glue them together at the intersections. This would be more like a mesh that could settle onto the curved form behind, because it could slightly bend at each joint.

 

druxey, I greatly admire your fretwork on the Polyphemus. That is exactly the same kind of fine delicacy of inter-weaving lines that I need to produce. And your's is flawless! Did you fret saw those out of boxwood as individual strands, or pierce-sawed some of them as panels?

 

Sailor, thank you for your kind thoughts. I admit that this challenge slammed on the brakes for a bit, but I remind myself that I have always found a way forward when this happened in the past, particularly with help from this forum.

 

And Greg, like you, I sometimes reflect on the astonishing skill of the 17th and 18th century model builders, especially given their technological limitations relative to our age. Like the old saying about Ginger Rogers--that she did everything Fred Astair did, but backwards and in high heels--the original model builders often did more with less than we have.

 

One can hardly believe humans are capable of such fine work. I also find myself sometimes channeling the original shipwrights, when I am fashioning a piece and realize that a number of people did exactly this same thing two to three centuries ago. What a great hobby.

 

Mark

 

 

[Kenchington]

55 minutes ago, SJSoane said:

I don't think I have the skill to work up a 3-D drawing of the double curved quarter gallery surface.

 

 

Coming late to this discussion amongst model builders far more skilled than I will ever be but ...

 

Have you looked at Stalkart's 1787 "Naval Architecture" or, more likely, the 1991 facsimile reprint that John Roberts put out? By the 1780s, the (British) Navy Board's shipwrights were laying out most details on paper before cutting timber (rather than just trimming each piece until it fitted). Stalkart's text can be hard to follow and his plates do not show all of the lines that you would need. However, his text seems to explain how the various curves were draughted. You might make sense of his explanation while using it for your own drawing.

 

Trevor

[Der Boss]

Hello SJSoane I have just read the first few pages of your construction report and admired the pictures. I am deeply impressed by your work. Now I know why I don't dare to tackle a ship using frame construction. I simply couldn't do it. I wouldn't have the patience or the craftsmanship. I take my hat off to all the members here. My utmost respect. And I am glad that you have included here anyway. Thank you.

[garyshipwright]

Hi Trevor. Are you talking about the Facsimile reprint published by Jean Boudriot Publications.  Am not sure how much translation  David Roberts did, But he did help on the Facsimile but do believe that most of the set was  done by Jean Boudriot. It is a great set and also come with a great set of plates in Vol 2. Hope this helps. Gary

 

[druxey]

Mark: My fretwork was produced by using micro chisels, small drills and files. Each motif was a separate piece. I recall that I was grateful, as a couple of parts got messed up in process - it meant that the whole run wasn't ruined! The material was white butyrate plastic, I believe. (This model was made over 40 years ago, so I can't remember every detail!)

[Kenchington]

1 hour ago, garyshipwright said:

Hi Trevor. Are you talking about the Facsimile reprint published by Jean Boudriot Publications.  Am not sure how much translation  David Roberts did, But he did help on the Facsimile but do believe that most of the set was  done by Jean Boudriot. It is a great set and also come with a great set of plates in Vol 2. Hope this helps. Gary

 

That's the one! But there was no translation: Stalkart published in English.

 

David (and my apologies for calling him John!) translated and published Jean Boudriot's marvellous French historical works. He also translated and published at least one original French text: Blaise Ollivier's 1737 espionage report. But David also did a very nice line of facsimiles of English works: Sutherland's 1711 text, Blankley's "Naval Expositor", the anonymous 1788 "Shipbuilder's Repository", Steel's 1805 "Shipwright's Vade Mecum", Stalwart's text (with its plates) and maybe others.

 

Trevor

[garyshipwright]

Hi Trevor. He has done a lot of translated  and most of the ones you have mention are in my small library. I really like the one about Blaise espionage and filled in a lot of question on English ship building. You must also have a nice library which come's in hand when your  research for information.     Gary

[SJSoane]

Hi everyone,

 

Sorry for the long silence; other things going on!

 

To catch up. First, Der Boss, thank you for your kind comments. Slow and careful keeps me moving along!

 

Trevor, thanks for the reference to Roberts. I haven't seen that, but I do have the facsimile book and set of plates for Steel's Naval Architecture. I have used that to help with several questions of drafting, but could find nothing on the curved surface between the upper deck and quarter deck windows on the quarter galleries.

 

And Gary, good to hear from you! We old timers go back a long way on our 74s!

 

And druxey, thank you for your list of tools and materials you used. I did a little test fret-sawing boxwood, and if I find myself going down the route of fret sawing, I have determined that wood is too crude for the very thin cross grain pieces (see below). I can see plastic would be a much better material, no grain to deal with.

And once I saw that plastic might be the right material, I mocked up the curved surface in basswood to see just how sharp the compound curves would be. This would be to test whether glue would be enough to hold flat plastic against the curved surface.

 

And the surface turned out to be less curved than I thought. The front edge sweeps back at a good angle, but at any line drawn between the upper and lower moldings, the surface curve is gentle.

 

So for now, I will explore having these laser cut. I first need to reinstall everything with the final windows (coming from Chuck, thanks so much!), and then carve the final curved surface to measure and expand for a true elevation of the fretwork.

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

 

[SJSoane]

HI everyone,

A long time since my last post. I realized that I was getting to far ahead of myself, building up the stern with everything just pinned. I needed first to paint the lower and upper counters before I could actually start assembling things.

 

And learning how to paint the friezes was a major learning curve!

 

I greatly followed David Antscherl's advice on painting in the Fully Frame Model, vol. II section 7.26. It was exceptionally helpful for everything from paint and brushes to technique.

 

Alas, I discovered after a great deal of experimentation that hand painting alone did not work well for me. Particularly for the background Prussian blue and the letters "Bellona" on the stern, I needed a way to get things sharper and more even in tone. So, I turned to my airbrush. I masked everything but the counter and sprayed away.

 

 

I glued artist's frisk onto a print of the upper counter letters and frieze elements (a woman riding a sea monster, a man riding a galloping horse). I could then turn the frisk/print every which way on my light table, and very carefully cut the frisk with a scalpel. I then attached the frisk and sprayed everything that would be the yellow ochre base for all of the frieze work:

 

I then used white graphite transfer paper to trace the rest of the pattern onto the surfaces:

 

Then following David's advice of painting highlights and shadows on the basic forms, I eventually got to an imperfect copy of the original Bellona model:

 

I learned to admire those original model builders for their painting skill. Try as I might, I just could not get to the same level of skill. But as good as I can do! So, moving on to actually gluing together the stern!

 

I did learn a few good things that I will pass on for anyone else attempting these kinds of friezes.

 

First, after trying a number of airbrush and hand paint brands, I settled on Golden. They have the same colors in different densities, for airbrushing and hand painting; the colors match the historic colors I was looking for; they come in plastic bottles with ball bearing inside, for mixing. They spray without problems through my airbrush. And they are highly regarded in the artist community.

 

Second, I struggled with the acrylic paint drying too quickly on the palette when I was trying to mix colors. My son introduced me to the model gamers' favorite tool, the Army Painter Wet Palette. This tray holds a water saturated pad, upon which is placed a parchment sheet. Paint mixed on top of the parchment can stay wet and mixable for as long as 48 hours. A huge help!

 

A glass of wine tonight in celebration, and on to assembling the stern!

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

 

[Pirate adam]

Wow that looks amazing Mark!  Great work. Very impressive actually painting it on. 
 

Adam

[druxey]

A very convincing and impressive result, Mark. Well done!

[AnobiumPunctatum]

Really wonderful result, Allan. I thought a really long time how to do this my sloop Fly and you are showing me a possible solution. Thank you.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

What an impressive result. While the artists that painted the original are certainly to be admired, doing the same in miniature is itself quite an achievement. If you hadn’t explained the method I would have guessed you’d had a professional outfit make you a decal. And thanks for the tips. I had to look up artists frisk as I had no idea what that was, but it’s something I already have a use/need for on a non-ship project, and I think I’ll take out that second mortgage and try a bottle or two of Golden paint for airbrushing. I’ve mostly used Vallejo Model Air and, while they are affordable and often very good, most colours tend to clog my (good quality) airbrush such that I almost dread airbrush sessions. If Golden turn it into a pleasure I’ll gladly pay the three times the cost premium.

[ChrisLBren]

Wow - nice work !!!!

[Chuck]

Beautiful work.  A perfect match to the model work.  

[yvesvidal]

Mark, you did a fantastic job with these paintings. It looks terrific and I know how satisfying it feels when you get to that point of your Bellona build.

 

Yves

[scrubbyj427]

Incredible work Mark! That looks awesome!

 

JJ

[glbarlow]

Very impressive paint work, even more impressive is the research and finding of clever techniques to make it happen. 

[SJSoane]

Thanks so much, everyone. This was a major hurdle for me, thinking about it for many years, and now able to move forward.

 

A couple more thoughts, for those working on paintings like this.

 

1. Using frisk to lay down the base yellow ochre actually accomplished a couple of things. Not only did it allow a smooth application of airbrush paint, but it also solved part of the problem of getting the design transferred to the hull. Because the frisk is based on an accurate drawing, there is no need to worry about sketching in the design on the model itself, trying to keep faithful to proportions and sizes. It is as accurate as the drawing used to cut the frisk.

 

2. To get an accurate underlying drawing, I scanned photos of the painting on the original Bellona model, and imported them into my CAD software (HighDesign 9 for Mac). I then resized them to approximately the correct sizes and printed them. When I cut out each print and laid it onto the hull, I could see where the shape needed to be adjusted for more or less curve, a little wider or narrower. I would then make these adjustments to the CAD drawing, print again, adjust and so on until the CAD drawing was an accurate fit. Then I knew the frisk would fit well in its assigned space.

 

3. Regarding airbrush paint, I also started with Vallejo, which is highly regarded by many modelers online. But I also had problems with these clogging my airbrush (Harder and Steenbeck Evolution). Although I tried a number of suggestions for thinners seen on YouTube videos, nothing seemed to work reliably for me. It may be that I did not work out a good way of mixing the paint and thinner, or it may be that spraying on wood rather than plastic makes a difference. Golden High Flow paints worked without thinning, which does allow for a greater consistency in what is going to happen when you pull the trigger. And they match the Golden Fluid acrylics for hand painting.

 

4. As David Antscherl pointed out in his section on painting in the Fully Framed Model, the base layer of yellow ochre is a translucent paint, not opaque. So when spraying or hand brushing yellow over Prussian blue, the resulting color goes green. David's advice of mixing some white into the yellow ochre for hand brushing helps, while a number of layers of airbrushed yellow ochre eventually goes opaque. They dry so quickly that it is possible to get an opaque finish in one session of airbrushing.

 

I look back and wonder why it took me so long to work out this painting business; and now I remember the many experiments, dead ends, different products....

 

Mark

 

Edited 1 hour ago by SJSoane