Mary Rose 1545 by tarbrush - Scale 1:72

[tarbrush]

 

This will be my first attempt at a build log, hope it comes out looking ok.

Mary Rose has been on my have to model list for a long time but recently Chidokan, on the forum, and I have talked each other into tackling this project.  Chidokan will be building a very accurate cross section, mine will be a whole hull model with short cuts for ease of modeling.

 

I will be using the plans set by David Meagher that I have enlarged to 1:72 scale.  What I have in mind is to build one side completely planked but leave the other side partially planked with some view holes cut into the side to see the interior.  I would like to include lighting and a crew as well.  As for the exterior finish, I love the painting on the cover of "Mary Rose, Your Nobelest Shippe".  If I can make decent sails, then, yeah those too. This is without doubt the most ambitious model I have ever tackled.  Prior to this I have my models have been mostly small workboats.

 

 

While looking on the internet for crew figures I stumbled across this site:

http://www.valdemarminiatures.com/default.asp?Site=Info&page=49

They have the best figures I have ever seen and will be perfect for the Mary Rose, just being able to use these figures will be a treat.  They are a bit on the pricey side though and I will wait to order them till I am sure that I can pull this build off.

 

 

 

The Plans:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My research material:

 

 

 

Also an article I downloaded from the internet with some very useful information on framing Mary Rose:  The structures of tAtlantic shipbuilding the the 16th century.  by Brad Loewen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Omega1234]

Hi John. I'm Looking forward to seeing your Mary Rose coming to life, complete with the figures and fully detailed interior. She will no doubt be a marvellous ship when finished.

 

Just out of interest, how long will your completed model be when finished?

 

All the best.

Edited October 26, 2014 by Omega1234

[tarbrush]

Hi Omega,

the hull will be 31 inches long with a beam of 7 inches.  thanks for your good wishes and watching, I hope not to disappoint.

 

take care,

john

[Omega1234]

Thanks John. A good sized model which would lend itself well to lots of detail.

 

All the best!

[Chidokan]

hi John, I've already started to paint up my figures as I thought I would probably need to install them as the cross section decks go in and they might be difficult to add in later. Just installed Mozilla in the hope I can add pictures.... good luck with the build!

[marktiedens]

Hello John,

I am looking forward to following your progress.One nice thing about this ship is there are no complicated galleries to build .I have seen some discussion on the shape of the forecastle - do you have any opinions about it?

 

Regards,Mark

[Louie da fly]

Looking forward to seeing this one. Mary Rose is a lovely ship, and those plans look really good.

[tarbrush]

Hi Mark,

The plans and the book Mary Rose your nobelest shippe seem to be the most up to date info so I am just going to go with that.  The rest of the focsle is scattered in pieces in the mud but I have heard they bringing up more of it.  There is a new Anatomy of the Ship book due out next spring, on Mary Rose.

I have already pre-ordered it.

[tarbrush]

thanks Louie, any idea when you will get back to working on your Henry Grace a Dieu?

[Louie da fly]

All depends on finishing the house renovations. The Admiral has made it very clear that this comes first, and who am I to refuse? Currently we expect to finish some time after Christmas if all goes well. Then maybe I can get onto the Great Harry. It'll be nice - after all the ill-treatment the model has received in my travels over the last decades, I feel I owe it to the poor thing to put it back together properly and put it in a place of honour on the shelf.

 

Then I can get onto starting the dromon!

[tarbrush]

Working on the keel stem & sternpost the shortcuts begin right off.

 

Quoting from Peter Marsden's book Mary Rose Your Noblest Shippe : "The cross section of the keel varies throughout it's length.  It's midship portion has an uneven hexagonal shape whereas fore and aft of this it becomes deeper and narrower with rebates for stealer planks cut into the upper part of it's sides".

 

hmmmmm.... ok, at the bow and stern it is rectangular as you move amidships it becomes hexagonal in shape that changes over the length of the keel.   Well,  Chidoken did it for his cross section.

 

I thought about it overnight.  Not whether I would try it, but if I should switch to something easier.  That made my eyes go crossed just reading the description.  I knew I didn't want to try that.

By the next morning I decided that as I am modeling the whole ship the keel shape isn't going to be that noticeable a detail for the amount of effort it was going to require and I made the keel assembly as would on any other model.

 

 

Next up are the frames.

 

Although there is a great deal of information on Mary Rose there are still many questions.  After reading through the information I had I am still not entirely sure of the framing arrangement.  So rather then display the framing by leaving one side unplanked I will just have viewing ports on one side to enable the interior to be seen and leave off strips of ceiling

so that the framing is an interesting bit of detail behind the ceiling planks. 

 

OK, to get started with the framing.

The plans showed the frames to be fairly evenly sided and spaced.

 

 

But on drawing on page 105 of Mary Rose Your Noblest Shippe show something far different.  I will use this drawing as the basis for my frames sided dimensions and location,  of course forward and aft of the diagram will just be a guess.

 

 

Mary Rose's framing was unique for a vessel of her time.  An article I found online gave a good explanation of this.

The Structures of Atlantic Shipbuilding in the 16th Century, by Brad Lowen:

"In the case of the Mary Rose, the concept of tying each frame timber to a specific element in the frames design had become impracticable because the arcs were too long for the available timber supply.  In particular, long enough first futtocks could not be found to cover the bilge arc, the futtock arc and overlap with the clamps at the first deck.  The solution adopted by the builders was in some ways a precursor to the double-sawn frame.  Instead of overlapping the the floor timber and the first futtock, these pieces were laid end-to-end, and a second timber laid between the frames in order to reinforce the area of the end-to-end joint".

 

This illustration from Marsden's book shows this and the hexagonal keel.

 

 

So far I have sawn and sanded several of the midship frames and most of the frame blanks for the rest of the hull, haven't begun to glue any on yet though.

 

 

 

 

 

[NMBROOK]

This is a truly fascinating build John and I am keenly following along I actually found the link for the UK news article covering the forecastle find.Alas,this was a dead link,the Daily Mail newspaper must have removed it

Having visited the vessel prior to getting her new home,the one thing that surprised me was how small she actually was,maybe this is due to seeing Warrior and Victory at the same time.Conditions must have been incredibly cramped on board.

I look forward to seeing more of your great work and following the model's progress.

 

Kind Regards

 

Nigel

[tarbrush]

thanks Nigel, I hope to not disappoint.  I envy your home location, it would be so awesome to be able to go visit Mary Rose during the build.

[marktiedens]

That`s a lot of frames - looks like you really have your work "cut out" for you.Pun intended .What kind of wood are you using?

 

/Mark

[tarbrush]

Hi Mark, yeah it really is a pile of frames, I am using black walnut for the frames,  thinking of using english brown oak for the interior and planking.

[bear]

Hi

 

What figures in 1/72 have you have for your build? I am interested in the 1/72 figures that you have. 

 I will be starting a build of a 1/48 scale Mary Rose in the next week or so. Just the hull will be around  34 5/8" long,with a beam of around  9 1/2" I have the 1/80 Jotika Mary Rose kit and want to scale one up from this kit. Want it in 1/48 to match most of my other builds.

I ordered some 1/72 figures from Fredericus-Rex in Germany last week. Will let you know what they look like when I recieve them. They have already shipped. Will see just how big they are in 1/72. If they are to the short side of the scale,I will use them on my 1/80 Mary Rose build.

 

As for the 1/48 scale build,I will have to use figures from another time period and change them.

 

Keith

[tarbrush]

Hi Kieth,

well your post inspired me to order the ships crew and chess players  from Fredericus Rex today.  in hand I have "Age of Tudors" an inexpensive set of 1/72 scale figures.  They don't look any where near as good as the Valdemar figures I just ordered. 

Can't wait to get those, Fredericus Rex is a real candy store for figures, I could have spent a fortune there.  If only I had a fortune to spend.

 

Which set of figures did you order?  will be looking forward to your opinion when you get them!

 

Good luck with your 1/48 build!!  Please start a build log so I can follow along, it sounds like it will be a very impressive size.  It will be great to have 3 of us on the forum building Mary Rose! 

 

john

Edited November 3, 2014 by tarbrush

[Louie da fly]

I've put some detail views from the contemporary painting The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover of sailors on Henry VIII's ships on Chidokan's Mary Rose Cross Section thread, which mght be of help.

[tarbrush]

great pictures Louie!!  loved the giant size so you can see the detail,  I've downloaded them to my Mary Rose photo collection.

 

My wife had a digital picture frame that she got tired of and gave to me.  I download all my photos of Mary Rose that I get online and have them playing on the picture frame while I am out in the shop.  Everytime I stop working for a moment and glance up I am seeing a photo of a painting, sketch, model, or the real thing.  It's kind of fun and will help keep the goal in front of me.

 

Edited November 3, 2014 by tarbrush

[Louie da fly]

The Embarkation is a useful painting (it's on display in Hampton Court Palace, if anyone wants to see the original and take some photos). However, though I believe the costumes are to be relied on, I cant say the same for at least some of the details of the ships - square sails on the mizzen masts, and rectangular forecastles, which I just don't believe. I think the painter wasn't all that familiar with ships, and got some things wrong. So whether the running rigging (for example) is to be relied on, I just don't know. (It conflicts with that shown in the Anthony Roll, but perhaps that's wrong and the Embarkation is right - or maybe they're both right for different times the ship was seen)..

 

I found a few more pics - another couple of oarsmen (I took this one myself at Hampton Court), and some detail photos of a reproduction leather jerkin based on one found on board the Mary Rose. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take an overall photo of the jerkin itself - I was more interested in how it was put together. Plus a chart of where leather jerkins of different styles were found. 

Edited November 4, 2014 by Louie da fly

[tarbrush]

Well I am making one step forward and two steps back lately.  I have been putting off gluing frames to the keel for fear that I had forgotten something to be done before adding frames.  I got several of the forward frames cut and sanded with their proper bevel.  This was an interesting point when I got the bevel sanded in I could really see the shape of the bow,  Mary Rose in not a bluff bowed ship, she really has quite a fine entrance.

 

 

Finally yesterday I got up the nerve to begin gluing frames on, got the first 6 glued and and discovered I had made a mistake in height location for either the first three or the last three.  Anyway wound up tearing them all off and will have to re-make them.  If you happened to notice a blue glow in the sky last night that wasn't the northern lights, it was the glow from all the bad language that accompanied tearing the frames off. 

 

 

 

All my previous models have been small workboats so Mary Rose is a new challenge to me.  I hope I am going about framing the forecastle correctly.  Any one have any suggestions?

[tarbrush]

ok, all the damage from before has been repaired and I am pretty much back to where I was a week ago.  Rather than start gluing the forward frames on again though I am going to get the stern pre-fit just in case something else goes wrong. 

 

 

 

 

Today I received my first order from Fredericus Max that I put in for figures and I am delighted with them!  The cast metal figures are very good but the resin chess player figures I ordered just blew me away,  They are a bit hard for me to photograph with my cheapo camera, the pics on Fredericus Max website are much better but I couldn't resist posting one.

 

 

Web site for Fredericus Max: http://www.fredericus-rex.de/Valdemar-Miniaturen/?XTCsid=cdascfi2hv8a40r4nubmr3o9t1

 

[NMBROOK]

Looking good John I think it is fairly safe to say,there really isn't any right or wrong approach to the forecastle.This area is very much unchartered waters.The only suggestion I could offer,although you have probably thought of this.If the forecastle is to be hollow,with internal decks,I would temporarily fit  the frames and brace at the top.These could then be faired.After fairing and stripping down,the inside profile of the frame thickness could be marked and then cut out before gluing permanently in position.

 

Kind Regards

 

Nigel

 

P.S. Thank you for the plethora of 'likes'

[tarbrush]

thanks Nigel I like that plan!

[Louie da fly]

John, that's a nice figure you've got from Fredericus Max, but could do with a bit of adjustment of it's to be mid-16th century. That hood with the "battlemented" lower border is a century or two too early for the Mary Rose, but if you just smoothed off the "battlements" it should look pretty good. 

 

Steven

[tarbrush]

wow, thanks Steven!   I would have missed that completely

 

It always amazes me the wealth of knowledge that is on the forum.

doing a build log really is helpful!

[Louie da fly]

I'm glad you're ok with it. I was a bit worried that I might have come across like some kind of fault-finding miseryguts, rather than trying to help.

 

When I was doing re-enactment there was a breed of person known popularly as an authenticity fascist. They would look at something someone else was very proud of and tear it to pieces. It took all the fun out of it. And funnily enough they were usually blind to faults in their own stuff . . .

 

Anyhow, my time in re-enactment has meant I can put my own experience and knowledge in things like costume to the service of my friends in ship modelling, just as others with more experience have been able to help me in things I'm a total newbie at .

 

And if there's anything I can help with, I'm very happy to do so. 

 

Steven

[tarbrush]

"I'm glad you're ok with it. I was a bit worried that I might have come across like some kind of fault-finding miseryguts, rather than trying to help."

 

LOL :D    I have never heard "miseryguts" before,  I love it, I am going to use that.

[Louie da fly]

Tarbrush, when you get to the stage of masts, sails and rigging, you might find the 1543 picture of Ships near Dover helpful - you can't get a picture on the Net without someone's logos all over it, but nonetheless I think it's got lots of worthwhile information. There are links to it here and here. Hope this is of use to you, as it's only 2 years away from the date Mary Rose sank, and depicts, if not English ships, at least ships in English waters.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Louie da fly

[tarbrush]

thanks for the links Steven, I've saved them to my Mary Rose file.  I really like the 2nd link to the British Library of Images online,  I have had a fun coffee time this morning looking at other images as well.  what a great resource!

Edited December 5, 2014 by tarbrush