Christiania 1774 by TJM – approx. 1:67-1:64 – Danish Light Frigate based on Vanguard Models HMS Sphinx

[TJM]

Hello Everyone!

 

Welcome to my next project, which will be a Vanguard Models Sphinx build with a substantial Danish twist! 

 

I got into the model ship building hobby with the aim of building models of Danish ships – I am a Dane and being from a country with such a rich naval history as Denmark, I would very much like to twist my projects in that direction. 

 

Now my ship modelling experience is still not very great, and my first model, HMS Flirt, was a kind of test to see if I could achieve a result that was good enough for me and to see how I liked all the different elements of a build. Flirt passed on both accounts, and so I started looking into which project to do next. I considered various Vanguard, Amati and Caldercraft kits, but in the end, I settled on Sphinx for a few reasons: 

·      I know the manual is great (having done Flirt and read through the Spinx manual pdf) – I think I still need all the help I can get for the actual building, so this was the safest choice! 

·      I was hesitant to choose too big a ship as the next one (so many cannons, ect…) and I would like to stay with 1:64 scale as smaller would probably become too fiddly for my liking at this time.

·      Sphinx is a very nice-looking ship! 

 

I hope it is not considered sacrilege to kit-bash in this way! I have seen all kinds of modifications performed on kits to make them more historically accurate or change them into other ships of the same class, but this is a little different – though I think this will still be around 95% a kit build! In particular, I hope that Chris does not mind this kit-conversion!

 

So, my aim is to build a Danish ship – fortunately, the Danish National Library (Rigsarkivet) has one of the world’s most extensive and complete collections of original drawings of our ships, especially from around 1690 onwards when shipbuilding was nationalized (as opposed to being done by foreign shipwrights from the German states, England or the Netherlands). There are thousands of plans for hundreds of ships. Also, the shipbuilding fashion in Denmark turned progressively more and more in the English direction during the 1700’s (though there were French inspiration as well!) with Danish shipwrights studying in England and also drawing existing English ships as case studies – the archive is full of these as well. There are even some original English ship plans that were somehow procured during this time. This all means that it is not too difficult to find a Danish ship that very closely resembles the Sphinx. An additional criterion for me was that the stern decorations should be relatively simple, for me to have chance of modelling it more or less from scratch as a replacement for the Sphinx ones from the kit.

 

The historical sources: 

 

I therefore present to you, the Light Frigatte ‘Christiania’ from 1774 of 20 guns (8 pounders) – drawings from Rigsarkivet with translation of the headlines and main text:

G2624. Drawing of a frigate to be built in Frederiksværn carrying [8 pounder cannon_20 pieces ; 1 pounder falconettes_10(pcs)]

Length over the bow/stern: 115’, width on outer bulwark: 31’, width of stern/gallery:  19’4½”.

Nyeholm, September 13^th, 1771.

 

G2625. Drawing of the sails along with dimensions of masts and booms for the new frigate of 20 cannon and 115 feet of length that is being built in Frederiksværn. (The dimensions are given in the table, the main mast being 76’6” heigh). Nyeholm, July 26^th, 1772.

 

G2626. Drawing of ‘depth-cut’, plan of the decks and divisions in the hold so that supplies for 6 to 7 months for the frigate that will be built in Frederiksværn of 115 foot length. Nyeholm, November 16^th, 1771.

 

G2627. Drawing of middle spant and dimensions of lumber and armour for the frigate of 20 cannon that is to be built in Frederiksværn. Nyeholm, September 13^th, 1771.

 

G2901. Drawing of Stern, Gallery and Figurehead with and without imagery for the frigate which is being built in Frederiksværn. NB. The lion for the figuregead could be completed here and be sent up there. The war-armature on the stern and the Greek-like on the galleries will be painted and all the rest can be made by carpenters and woodworkers. Nyeholm, August 8^th, 1772.

 

G2926. Drawing of ornaments for the stern, galleries and figurehead for the frigate Christiania. Copenhagen, August 2^nd, 1779.

 

As can be seen from the last two pictures, the figurehead was changed from the classic lion (this motif was repeatedly used with only small variations on very many ships in the Danish fleet – the resemblance to the well-known Norske Løve from 1765 is striking) to a lady in Greek dress. This is a bit of a pity, as it would be much simpler to get a good lion figurehead! I will have to see what I can do about this. It is however interesting that the second drawing is from 1779 – 5 years after the ship was launched. Could it be that the ship underwent some repair at this time, and that the figurehead was changed only then? In that case, I could still go with the lion figurehead and present her as ‘at launch’. This would also give me a reason to keep the nice decorative patterns on the bulwark as it could be seen as ‘artistic license’ on part of a modeler presenting the model for the admiralty and/or king to approve. I am not decided on what to do on the figurehead front yet.

 

The name Christiania was then the name of Oslo, capital of Norway, which was then under the Danish Crown authority as the dual state of Denmark-Norway (Norway became independent from Denmark in 1814). After the medieval town of Oslo burned down in 1624, King Christian IV build a new city closer to the Akershus fortress and named it Christiania after himself. The city was renamed Oslo in 1925. The frigate Christiania was built in Frederiksvern, around 70 km south of the city Christiania – it was not common for ships to be built in this location, most were built at Nyholm (in Copenhagen) where this ship was also designed. The Design was made by Fabriksmester F.M. Krabbe (in office 1758-1772) as one of his last ships. See Wikipedia for a list of ships designed by Krabbe. 

 

The plan:

 

There are of course a number of differences between HMS Sphinx and Christiania and I will do my best to adapt the kit where I can – but I am not aiming for a perfect reproduction of Christiania (that would require a much more experienced modeler than I and probably a scratch build!). My aim is to make an attractive model that captures the main features of the ship, but also allows for some artistic license (I want to keep the decorations on the sides from the Sphinx kit among others). 

 

First, I will show some mock-ups detailing the similarities (and differences) between the two ships:

 

 

The overall structure is a very good fit – the nominal length of Christiania is given as 115’ (1 danish foot is 0.3139 m), and this seems to be from bow to stern (see G2624 above) but I can’t find an exactly comparable measurement for Sphinx: the keel is 89’7³/₈” and the gun deck is 108’. Christiania may be a bit longer, but based on the overlay above, it seems the two ships are very close in size. Bu scaling the ships visually (as above) and measuring, I arrive at a scale of around 1:67 for my Christiania, when based off of the 1:64 scale Sphinx – close enough to work! The gunports are placed slightly differently, but not by more than one gunport width/heigh and most often less. I will not change the location of the gunports, as the design of the Sphinx kit is not easy to modify here. 

 

A small difference is the 10 swivel guns on Christiania – I will add the posts on the quarterdeck for these and modify the rail accordingly. As for the main armament, Christiania carried 20 Danish 8 pounders, Sphix carried 20 British 9 pounders – but as the Danish pound was then 498 g, the weights are actually very close – 3.98 kg vs 4.08 kg!s

 

The width of the two ships at the middle spant are quite similar: 31’ (Danish) for Christiania (9.73 m) and 30’1” (English) for Sphinx (9.17 m). It seems Christiania was a bit wider at the waterline. I may be able to build out the bulkheads a bit to emulate this. Christiania is also a bit shallower at the gundeck, but I won’t be able to do anything about this – it is only by around 0.5 cm at this scale, so I am ok with that. The main difference lies in the profile closer to the stern, I will try to add material to the bulkheads here as well as the horizontal stern profile below the galleries.

 

It seems that F.M. Krabbe was inspired by hull lines from French ships, and this may be a more French looking hull – please correct me if I am wrong! I will only do modifications below (or just around) the waterline, to avoid messing up the structure and fit of the decks, etc. This will not be a perfect conversion to Christiania’s hull lines, but I will do what I think is feasible.

 

The main difference and modification I will have to make is the stern galleries. Apart from having to model the actual stern and side galleries more or less from scratch, I will have to modify the internal structure, as the spacing between the windows is significantly different and they will have to fit in between. I have some ideas on how to go about doing this, but it will be easier to determine with the actual model and a mock-up of the stern in hand, so that will not be completely planned out beforehand. 

 

 

 

 

I have a Silhoutte Cameo cutting machine that I can use to cut templates and even some thinner materials like cardboard and then I have recently acquired a diode laser cutter (just a small 20W machine) to use for all kinds of projects. With this I can cut up to 4 mm MDF, so I will be able to cut modified parts designed in CAD as well. I am a CAD novice, but have been using QCAD recently and are having good success with that program. And I have successfully made some tests of converting original design drawings into simple cut files for the laser, so I think I will manage the design element of the structural modifications I need to make here. I am more worried about the decorative stuff! 

 

As a proof of concept, I have made some cutting templates and made a mock-up in thin craft cardstock and in 0.5 mm graybord:

 

 

 

 

This is just a rough first prototype with a lot of refinement left still, but based on this, I am pretty confident that I can get the stern gallery to work. I particularly wanted to see if the laser cutter could make the fine detail window frames, but It seems to work fine – this is just kraft cardstock – I am still wondering which material to use on the model.

 

 

A word on colour:

 

The colour sheme is an important part of the visual impression of a model. I really like the colour scheme on HMS Sphinx, but it seems that blue had fallen out of favour after the 1750’s in the Danish navy. The following is the best references I have for ships around the time that Cristiania was built:

Stern galleries of ‘Printz Friderich’ 1762.

 

The small Frigate ‘Søeridderen’, 1756 – from the atlas of King Frederik V. This was one of the very first ships designed by F.M. Krabbe after his return from tour of European ship building nations. It was slightly smaller than Christiania. 

 

Ships of the line ‘Neptunus’ and ‘Odin’, 1791.

 

Modern model of the Cutter (Danish: 'Hukkert') Amager, from 1760, also contructed by F.M Krabbe.

 

Based on the above drawings and paintings, it seems clear that the predominant colours used in this period was black and yellow with some red accents here and there, particularly the window frames! This may look a bit strange in a modern aesthetics view, but it seems to have been prevalent throughout most of the 1700’s. After 1801, and perhaps even more after 1807, red disappeared and Danish ships were using only black with yellow battery lines and stern decorations and later this was changed to black with white lines and decorations (as also seen on the frigate Jylland from the 1860’s, still in existence today). A small point of interest is that all through the 1600’s and 1700’s, the gun port lids often had Dannebrog (the Danish flag) painted on the inside. I will do so as well.

 

Nothing is completely set in stone yet, but I think I will do the following on my model: the parts that are blue in the manual will be black and the sheer and waist rail decorations will be yellow. On the stern, the background colour will be black with red window frames and yellow decorative details (perhaps some will be gold, but I am not sure about that). I may keep the inner bulwarks natural and use red sparingly for specific deck details, or the do the opposite and make the inner bulwarks red and the keep most of the deck fittings natural. Lastly, the Scandinavian navies used pine tar for the standing rigging, which results in a dark brown colour, as opposed to the (almost) black coal tar used by British and continental navies. So, I will replace the black rigging supplied with the kit with dark brown equivalents from Ropes of Scale. My hope is that this will result in a consistent colour palette and one that is realistic for the time period. Even though these changes are small, I also thing it will give a quite different impression compared to the standard kit colour scheme and help distinguish the ship as a different one that Sphinx. There are also other minor visual changes planned, like the wales (two thin wales on Christiania, as opposed to the think one on Sphinx) and a ‘cut-away’ of the bulwarks around the bowsprit.

 

So, with all my thoughts on the upcoming build as presented here, it is time to get started! The first part will be modifying the inner stern structure and the bulkheads, perhaps the modification I am least confident about! Good to get that going from the start then! 

 

I hope some of you will follow along on this journey I am about to embark on and bring with you all you good comments!

 

BR

TJM

[wvdhee]

Wow, good luck with that! I'll be following you 😉

[Blue Ensign]

An interesting project.

Danish sterns  had a very different look to those of British ships which should clearly mask the Sphinx origin. Replacement of the Sphinx figure, not the prettiest of features, is a bonus.

A bit of kit bashing is right up my Strasse, and I wish you well with your endeavours.👍

 

B.E.

[TJM]

Thanks for the encouragement @wvdhee and @Blue Ensign, much appreciated! 

[cotrecerf]

This is a very challenging task, especially with view on the hull shapes and tumblehome differing considerably; you are right, Christiania imho is based on French design.

As you have researched a good technical basis with a lot of original drawings it will be interesting to see how much the kit conversion will speed up your built compared to a complete built from scratch. Good luck and I`'ll follow with keen curiosity.

Joachim

[TJM]

36 minutes ago, cotrecerf said:

This is a very challenging task, especially with view on the hull shapes and tumblehome differing considerably; you are right, Christiania imho is based on French design.

As you have researched a good technical basis with a lot of original drawings it will be interesting to see how much the kit conversion will speed up your built compared to a complete built from scratch. Good luck and I`'ll follow with keen curiosity.

Joachim

Thanks, I'm sure it would have been easier to design the hull from scratch, and I have had success with a few smaller prototype scratch designs i CAD, so I could probably have done a reasonable job of that (though no where near to Chris' design!), as the original drawings are very good and easy to work from. However, it is an order of magnitude harder to design the whole ship, with all the fittings, features, decorations, etc. This is why I went with the modification route. 

 

I will try to modify the hull below the waterline, but not above, so my model will not reflect the differences in the tumblehome completely.

 

BR

TJM

Edited Sunday at 10:03 AM by TJM

[Thukydides]

I think the bow shouldn’t be too hard to change provided you are planning on painting it. You could just build up additional material. The biggest challenge I imagine will be the redesign of the stern and quarter galleries. If you get those three things right then I suspect it will look very close to the Christinia.

 

For the gun ports I think they should be fairly easy to modify (just use the longitudinal pieces for the gun port framing, but place your own vertical pieces). Obviously this will necessitate you planking this area instead of using the laser cut pieces, but should be very doable.

 

Overall sounds like a very interesting project. I approve of your decision to try and push your boundaries a little and make this your own. I will be following along to see how this progresses.

[TJM]

1 hour ago, Thukydides said:

For the gun ports I think they should be fairly easy to modify (just use the longitudinal pieces for the gun port framing, but place your own vertical pieces). Obviously this will necessitate you planking this area instead of using the laser cut pieces, but should be very doable.

Thanks for comment! I considered this, and I could even cut new ply sides with changed gunport positions to mach quite easily. It might be possible, but it would definitely interfere with bulkheads, as these are carefully placed between the gunports in the Sphinx kit. I am also afraid of getting into trouble with other deck furniture, particularly within the cabin area. I think it will be too risky for me to make this modification, and the gain is too small (for me), considering that.

 

You are correct about the bow - it is quite fluted at the end on Christiania, and adapting for this will definitely help sell the conversion. I will see what I can do there - I will probably have to modify the laser cut sides a bit and add some planks at the top/end, but it should be doable.

 

 

Edited Sunday at 11:41 AM by TJM

[Ronald-V]

Cool and ambitious project! Will be interesting to see how this develops  

 

Have fun!

[Martes]

5 hours ago, TJM said:

It seems that F.M. Krabbe was inspired by hull lines from French ships, and this may be a more French looking hull – please correct me if I am wrong! I will only do modifications below (or just around) the waterline, to avoid messing up the structure and fit of the decks, etc. This will not be a perfect conversion to Christiania’s hull lines, but I will do what I think is feasible.

Oh, yes, the hull is decidedly French in style, and it would be very interesting to see how you are going to change the bulkheads.

[TJM]

6 hours ago, Martes said:

Oh, yes, the hull is decidedly French in style, and it would be very interesting to see how you are going to change the bulkheads.

I am in luck, as Christiania is wider than Sphinx at the water line, but shallower at the gun deck level. This means that I can make the Christiania bulkheads from the original drawings below the lower deck and between the lower and the gun deck - that is two sections of bulkhead on each side:

The labels refer to the Christiania plans.

 

The part between the decks will (supposedly...) make the planking transition smoothly between Christiania lines below the lower deck and Sphinx lines above the gun deck. I hope that makes sense! Otherwise, stay tuned as I will soon reach thst on the build. I have designed and cut the parts that are to be added for this.

Edited Sunday at 07:27 PM by TJM

[Martes]

I may be mistaken, the superimposition is very rough, but:

 

With a difference of .7m it seems that you can get the Christiania tumblehome without cutting the original upper works, just extending the sides under the gun deck either by over planking or changing the frame shape.

Edited Sunday at 08:26 PM by Martes

[TJM]

8 hours ago, Martes said:

With a difference of .7m it seems that you can get the Christiania tumblehome without cutting the original upper works, just extending the sides under the gun deck either by over planking or changing the frame shape

 

Thanks for taking the time to look into this! You are right, provided that the comparison is done at the same scale (which you normally would, of course!), but due to the difference in hull length between the two ships, I will be building a 1:67 scale for Christiania, to match the length of the Sphinx at 1:64. The overall proportions of the ships are very similar with Christiania only being slightly wider. I think the difference when comparing 1:67 Christiania to 1:64 Sphinx is only 3-4 mm at the widest part!

 

So my tumblehome will be a bit less pronounced. I will compensate a little by making the ship a few mm wider than it really should be at my scale - a compromise that I hope will result in a not quite metrically accurate but visually good representation of Christiania.

 

[TJM]

Log entry 1 - prepping, the first steps and starting the stern modification

 

I had been eyeing theS phinx kit since I first came across the build logs of @Blue Ensign and @hollowneck. But it was to big of a bite for a first build for sure! Halfway through my Flirt built, I decided to go for this modded Sphinx built as my next project. Probably a little bit over my head, but you only learn by doing, so here we go!

 

The kit arrived in early March and I did a quick check of the parts, while drooling over the magnificent design of the kit:

 

Flirt was great, but this is another level entirely. Cue the nerves when I think about modifying this!

 

I did a bit of (strictly 2D) CAD designing, getting into this, trying out adapting plans from the Danish National Archives, also getting to know the laser cutter.

 

A few days ago, I started assembling the first steps:

The fit is very tight, it takes a bit of force to seat the frames. So far so good, now the time has come for the first modification, the lines below the stern. 

 

I decided to remodel the last two frames with Christianias lines below the widest point and no changes above. Here you can see a comparison:

 

Original on the left, my modification on the right.

 

It was probably overkill to redo this part as the differences are small. I could probably just have sanded my way to the same result. But the more important thing to consider is the adaption of the stern post positions to work with Christianias window spacing!

 

After an initial rough sanding:

 

Here is my CAD drawing of the modification (I hope I am not violating any rules as this is base on a commercial kit and If I am, please let me know and I will remove the image ASAP!):

 

Here you see my modified last frame (red) with an overlay of Sphinx (yellow) and Christiania (magenta) stern patterns. The blue lines show where the original supports are located, the green show where I have added new slots for my need. Only 2mm wide, as the window frames are so slim!

 

I decided to keep the original structure as well, to avoid modifying more frames, and only add the new ones. I removed the vertical parts from the original ones.

 

 

Three different part sets of various thickness.

 

This was the really interesting moment: I have only modelled in 2D and now I had to see if everything fits 🫣.

 

But it actually did!

 

 

 

 

Nothing is glued in yet! Adding these come later, but I wanted to make sure it would fit before I glue in my modified rear bulkheads! With the cardboard template of the stern patterne lightly attached with nails, you can see how it will look down the line. I didn't get in on quite straight, but it shows the viability of the mod. The modifications to the inner structure seems to work and be correctly spaced for the new stern pattern. Phew! This was the design element I was most worried about. I think it will work and with this done it will be mostly building the kit according to the manual for a while. 

 

This log is now up to date and progress will be at a slower pace 😁.

 

BR

TJM

 

Edited yesterday at 06:08 AM by TJM

[Ronald-V]

You have nice toys!   and stern piece looks great!