Carl's build thread or I'm not hiding my ball I'm building Charles Martel

[Golden Bear]

I have been reminded by a wonderful person about how short life is and about how transient are our impressions on the flow of time. I have been waiting until I had something worthy to share but have been pushed over the edge early out of the desire to share with people who have the same passion that I do for strange dinosaurs of our shared past.

In this case it is another example of French brilliance and art as expressed in a battleship. Through the 1800s the European influenced world experienced an uncontrollable change driven by its science and industry and engineering. So many wonderful pieces of art came into being that it would be futile to start listing them. In my case I focus on the points where different systems came into a conflict that led to a new synthesis.

Particulary, the mid 19th century saw a confusion in warship design. First, steam and iron caused confusion. Then improved metallurgy and science improved gunnery and explosives. The British fought through this with ships apparently designed mainly for service in the shallow home waters and for shore attack. The French, after a pause for reconsideration of the torpedo and sacrifice of inexpensive ships vs. large battlewagons, started a program with four ships to form the foundation of their battlefleet - Charles Martel, Carnot, Jauréguiberry (y Masséna) and Bouvet. Although similar, each of these four (five) ships were similar in origin and outline. They are worthy of study but I will not go further here.

Of these, I have always prized Charles Martel as the jewel. I just do, don't ask why. When the French Government made the wonderful decision to share their plans (as opposed to the penny pinching and much despised British Government/Admiralty... you make your own karma people, something always to bear in mind) we could all see the plans that existed. Well, nothing is there for Charles-Martel. But, Luc Féron had made an expedition into resources to write a series of articles in Marines magazine where he stated that ALL the existing plans of the ship were displayed. Unfortunately these turn out to be very few. Fortunately one of them is a set of sections - but without longitudinal guidelines.

In any case, I always have wanted to build this ship. With enormous assistance from Renaud Aimée I determined that I had all the existing plans and most of the existing photos (there are lots, thanks to the French postcard business and love of ships). Thus, I decided that I was in a position to do the best possible representation of C-M without waiting any further.

Anyway, I'm designing in Rhino to a scale of 1:250 relying on instinct, skill and knowledge to fill in details.

I began this project over a month ago. I was planning to reveal it when I have the hull sides on it but thanks to the inspiration from someone I'm springing things a little early.

I've gone throught two hull frame sets and multiple sets of hull sides to get to this point. Please bear in mind that it is not really easy to get frames, sides and five turrets (per side) to fit correctly.

As a start, I have decide to build with grey upperworks for the Norther Fleet as opposed to brown for the Med. More to come.


Carl

[Golden Bear]

I began with a thought of building a lighter frame - 0.5mm instead of 1.0mm. Here are a couple of early shots... one showing rev. 1 of hull side and the next showing how things will look with the ports cut out.

[Golden Bear]

OK, now, about 90% of the build is in getting the hull correct for this ship. BTW, if you are interested, then you must go out to find photos of this ship. A beautiful and interesting example of marine architecture.

Anyway, I'm building the side turrets as separate entities that can fit (perfectly I hope) into the shaped hull. This is a photo of rev. 1 of one of the small side turrets:

[Golden Bear]

Well, it has been weeks that I have been working on this model and it probably seems as if I have accomplished very little. However, I have been through several revs of hull sides to get things to fit correctly and then I redid the side turrets - and everything fits perfectly with photos now - and redid the sides and framing. Sooooo.... I redid the framing. This time I did things the old fashioned way with 1mm stock (2 layers of Bristol + 1 of HPBW) and a single long center former. Note the long side formers for attaching sides to.

Anyway, this time I also put in small side formers to keep things in shape and cutout holes for stair recesses. Here is a side-by-side of old vs. new. You might also note how I am coloring things inside to be black for the port cutouts.

[Golden Bear]

Last for now. Please do not forget to thank someone for my early posting if you like it. First, the edges of the ports are actually painted WHITE so don't criticize anyone for not coloring edges!!! Now, this is Rev. 2 of the framing and things are very solid and cut out correctly. I've begun building the side turrets... everything sort of needs to be done before gluing so that I know that it will fit. Since the upperworks are to be grey, the portions of the large side turrets that project above the upper deck are also painted grey. You cannot maybe tell from this photo but things are fitting better than good... just as planned. WHich is far beyond expectations. The cutouts fit seamlessly.

This is it for today. Not much apparently for you to see but weeks of work for me. Currently I am finishing the building of ALL the side turrets (10 in total) and I have decks ready to fit. When the turrets are done - oh, they all turn, d'you know? - I will glue down the sides and fit things together.

Then I can sleep for 8 hours without worrying...


Carl

[rickstef]

Carl,

Looks good, I am quite envious of your scratch building skills

This ship has some nice lines.

Rick

[Gil]

Hi Carl,

Thanks for the show. You've become quite good at surface fitting with dart cuts. The surface fit of the hull plate is something I love to look at. Just excellent, excellent! Sign me on as fan of the official build of the Charles Martel...,

Best respects,

+Gil

[GreMir]

Uffffffffff.........
There is hope for the world since everything is going back to the way it supposed to be - Carl + French battleship + DUCO cement :D

Carl - you have real talent to model those ships.

[dansls1]

Woot - I always enjoy seeing your beautiful ship builds!

[stone]

So the detail design from a photo, you dangled in front of our noses in "T&T" came from Charles Martel! We should have known you were up to supertricks again.Apart from being very enjoyable for us mere mortals ,this is certainly going to be most instructive even for the olympians amongst you hard card cutting Gentlemen !
Cheers,
Serge