Great and clean shape.
The rusty roof deserve more little and fine holes I think.
Cheers,

Alex.

ool cabin, looks really great.

Regarding the PE, again,you make me feel bad a bit and i am really thinking of giving it a try this winter.
But i am really afraid of all this stuff you made to get it going as i have two left hands for this kind of work.

Cheers
Claude

jba - I see, that makes sense. Just curious. It's nice to hear the build reasons behind the project.

Alex indeed the roof will need a rougher treatments, but then I did *only* the plastic

Claude if I can do it, you can. I'm just honest about this. just be prepared to spend a lot of time in false starts right at the beginning and then it's bliss. It lacks to your arsenal of techniques moreover!

Scott, model builders must be like chess players and think 2 or 3 steps in advance

well, a boring part today, the bit of the hull that won't be covered by either sea or sand:

first let's print the right cross-sections, print them down to paper, glue them on paper,



cut the pieces and glue them together



cover those with plaster -work the plaster until the shape is right, then sand it



fix the plaster master on the top of some can, take a bit of plasticard between a wood square and plug the heat gun..

here is the shape as vacuform, that's the first try, it's not perfect and I have been burning my fingers (the plastic was too thick and I broke the wooden frame around, so i had to vac form it with my bare hands, how stupid can I be..

Anyway, most of the shape is there and I only need to use a small part
so here it is while being further deformed with my Dremel


Now something more exciting, the side way,a ll done in soldered PE and brass rod, it IS strong

You can also see some of the stanchions I use/ will be using, actually I wonder whether the top cabin needs them.

that's what really cool with feeling "free" towards what i model in that i can sever this or that part for pure aesthetic reasons

This looks interesting so far!
Also thanks again for sharing some techniques and thoughts!

greetings...
Soeren

thanks Soeren,
well the techniques everybody is interested in them while nobody cares about the thoughts BUT I give the whole as a pack

Well, here are some details added to the anchor crane..

And then several other details i could make through from plans and the picture I showed earlier liken those 2 tiny chimneys as well as the T shaped thing whose purpose escapes me..

First let's roll the PE bit i did first over some suitable tubbing


then let's solder it and fix it on some plastic tubing of the right diameter..

Wow, your builds never cease to amaze me, and this one is certainly no exception from that!

zaltar

Jean

Maybe some of the Artillary types might be able to tell you if it could be an early form of range finder for gun laying.

It is high up on the bridge on the port side and the top fitting appears to have the word feu (french for fire). There are a series of numbers below that could be to signal to the gun layers the rough settings for the gun and bearings.

Is it possible there is another set on the opposite side of the bridge housing for when the spotter is looking out on the starboard side?

The large numbers 1 - 7 could be a rough indicator for the gun layers for quick ranging of the gun as the spotter is setting his sights on the target. The gun at the front of the ship has its limits of traverse from port to starboard and the angle settings might be marked on the range finder at the gun itself.

I am only guessing but it would be cool if I was right or even close.

Hope some arty types are able to confirm.

Nige

JBA, my friend ,
AWESOME progress so far on your build !!!! Looking forward to your next steps with bated breath . Cheers !
Kenneth .

Another two thumbs up Jean.
Love the way you do not buy kits but make them.

Maybe a long tutorial on making PE.

What do you say?

Will keep an eye on it as usual.

Cheers

Yo Jean,

Learning a lot here. Keep up.

Greetz Nico

thanks Zaltar, I should display a few "newer" tricks when I will start sea and sand

thanks for the great input Nige, i sense you are right about that. I know a specialist and will ask him, hopefully ui should have a very precise answer on monday..

Thanks as usual Kenneth friend

Jeff I know you're right and doing such SBS has been in my mind since a lot of time, now it's a question of time and well, i don't have any right now. In the meantime I always try to answer all kind of questions my best possible both here and on private mails.
Actually this kind of photoetch is really valuable for scratch-builders and I don't want the people thinking that using my cheap tricks they will end up getting Voyager like sets

Thank you Bill!

Well here is a "nice" soldering work, the sight for the guns
Then the "completed" thing for the anchor -there is actually a lot missing but i found a trick to get away with it.


And then the gun cradle, first part. Actually i should have plan using photoetch for it, but didn't, I had to use some Evergreen sheets to do this part -there will be no gun actually, just a part of the cradle.

here is the gun platform as finished and trimmed and etc.


And now here are the completed pieces of the boat as will be shown in the diorama:




okay okay okay, let's *think* one minute.
I can't get away with it like this, it really looks like all my former dioramas if I stay things like that. I have to bring on something new!
So let's put a thin coat of over diluted plaster to roast in the sun

[quote]So let's put a thin coat of over diluted plaster to roast in the sun
quote]

And then?
You have a very porous material and i am wondering about what you will do with it!

Histoire à suivre... LOL

I think this is already now on of the most "technical" of your dios.

Salut

Claude

Hi Jean

Your home made bits look fab and take on a total reality from so little materials. You got me hooked on following this through to the end.

Any word on the purpose of the fittings?

Some wierd and wonderful techniques.

Nige

hehe Claude, I think that's just "inventing for the sake of it", but I also suppose you are like me in that you feel there is little interest of everytime using the same tips and tricks. technical diorama? maybe, in that I will also try to use some painting weathering that are not mine and then blend them with mine and see how it goes

Thanks for this Nige. Well the fittings have no other function than to occupy the space and give an opportunity for a guy to stand near them. The stanchions will probably end up being fixed on the cabin, but as they won't stand the heavy weathering process I usually impose to my stuff, I will fix them last..

Merci Juan, well there is not much aftermarket for what i model If there was any I think I would swap hobby
The point is indeed doing unique stuff, I don't want to feed the Chinese companies

Back to this plaster thing -indeed it's quite porous but i had the idea in a flash. Ever noticed how the rust tends to go in plaques on rusted boats? I think i first saw that some 20 years ago when I was visiting old bunkers on the Atlantic coast. Well, I wanted to create an effect of extreme rust, so .. i put some diluted white glue on my plastic parts, applied my very thin plaster on the curves -it broke of course but in the end it looks okay, but just okay.
So I had the idea of using some Tamiya mastic to blend some of the plaques with the hull / cabin so that they would look like they actually detach.

Another one for today uh?

okay, one thing I can do with metal that you can't do with plastic: deformation!

You know well what a heat gun can do to plastic!
Super-deformation ! LOL

Have a nice weekend

Claude

jba - tell me a bit more about the 'crumply' disstressed roof. Is it going to be some type of marine growth (coral?) or is it just rusty? To me, right now, it's a bit rough and lumpy for a rusty roof. I trust you have a plan, you always have in the past.

Well Claude the heat gun makes the plastic retract more like
have a great week-end too!

Nope Scott no further plans for now, that was a test really, I know it looks like the real thing because I have been seeing this with my eyes, but then maybe there's too much thickness at some point towards the tip of the rust, so maybe I will try to decrease that thickness at that special place with the Dremel from the underside.
The diorama will stay untouched for at least 6 weeks now, so if anything shocks me when i come back to the diorama, I will correct it.

Here comes the figure.
Scratchbuilt -everything except the arms. I explain.
So i started as usual with a MS lump that I "dressed" around brass sheets for the arms and legs

the trousers are being done -here they are HALFWAY done


Ah, left you can see a resin fig I bought 20 years ago at some modelling festival in Paris, the quality is typically French -not as "direct to the dustbin" U-models like, but more "really so so" MK 35 like. Anyway, the arms were good enough for my project

Good to see you back at it, JBA. It's always interesting to see your techniques and experiments.

Cheers!
Stefan

Thanks Stefan!

However this will be the last post for quite a few weeks, holidays etc..

but before I go here is the completed fig,
I am always designing heads in 4 steps,
1/ neck and just a small lump for the head
2/ dressing the head with gloabla shape + eyessocket
3/ more details (lips etc) like here

4/ hair and ears and eyes in Duro because the stuff holds its shape better than MS

I designed a tall strong guy on purpose, I am sick with 1.7m guys Dragon like, what about "weight impaired people", "height impaired people" (I have my manual for Anglo Saxon political correctness to read again)

err well, "completed".. after having sand it and primed it, still a lot more sanding is necessary!



Funny thing I read that the ship design for French boats by the end of the XIXth century included MORE capabilities for personnel onboard than British ones because British sailors were better trained and .. STRONGER

happy summer to all