Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War

[NevadaBlue]

What a great thread! Thanks for taking the time to show us your work and to provide the links and images.

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

Many thanks to elliott, Vermin King and NevadaBlue for your encouraging comments.

The rest of his post is an attempt to clear the computer cobwebs, as I haven't been able to post all day. Something to do with Security Tokens.

Hope to post later.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

Building the Baleares

This time around, I thought I’d try my hand at describing some of the steps I take to build a vintage paper model. The subject of this build will be the full-hull model of the Spanish Civil War cruiser Baleares, seen in the publisher’s photograph below. While I’ll try to use as many of the printed parts as possible to build the full-hull version, I can’t make any promises, as a look at the old drawing reveals a pretty iffy design below the waterline. (There’s only one flimsy hull former for the entire hull)! If things don’t work out as planned, the Baleares may turn out to be a waterline model, but, that’s OK, too. It’s all part of the challenge of these old, hand-drawn, paper models…can they be built at all?

Back in July, out of the blue, fellow Papermodelers member Tom Greensfelder sent me a three page scan of this rare model, see below. I had wanted a copy ever since I first saw a picture of a built-up Baleares in one of the Guerra Civil paper models exhibitions held in Spain over the past few years. Published by Construcciones Goliat, Tom received the model from the collection of our generous friend, Francesc d’A López Sala of Barcelona, Spain. Faithful visitors to this Vintage Models sub-forum should stop by Francesc’s blog, “Salaludica Imagery Since 1958” at https://salaludica1948.wordpress.com At the time Francesc sent the scan to Tom, Francesc mentioned that he didn’t know of anyone else who actually had a copy of this model. A rare model, indeed.

As the build continues, you might think you have seen a model of this ship before, and you’d be right. The Baleares was the sister ship to the cruiser Canarias, profiled in this thread on August 11th and seen again in my photograph below. The fate of the two sisters was quite different, and, as I hope to do with all these posts, I’ll try to bring a bit of history to the build.

As with any modeling project, there are a lot of questions to answer before construction begin. The first is, “Do I really want to build this model?” Personal taste, skill level, money, time…all these questions and more will quickly pass through our minds without us really noticing them. Of the hundreds of paper models we see each year, we only acquire and actually build a relative few. I knew immediately that I was going to build this cruiser, as the scarce model so perfectly fits into the premise of this thread. With the biggest decision made, I also decided to get a bit more mileage out of this project by documenting the model’s build. So, here we go…

Continued…

[Thumb Dog]

Pushing Pixels

All of the models I’ve built and described in this thread are nearly eighty years old, and many of them can be improved by a bit of computerized cleaning. This usually begins by removing accumulated dirt and the red-brown age spots known as foxing. See the picture of the Baleares’ problematic gun turrets below. Other steps might include color enhancement for faded models, correcting print-registration problems and patching and filling worn and missing images on the page. I am not a sophisticated computerist, so I plod along using the most basic tools and techniques available to fix the problems I see. I’m sure that many readers know of these simple hacks, and are even more knowledgeable than I about faster and easier ways to reach the same goals, but this stumbling around works for me.

My first stop is usually Windows Paint. Using the Color Picker and Pencil, I can eliminate small dirt spots, remove scars and folds and shift inaccurate registration. (Why is it always red that’s out of alignment)? Using the various Brushes with their varying width of line also helps with the facelift of these old images.

The rectangle and free-form shapes are used to copy larger areas of color and paste these swatches in where needed. Also, the ability to select part of a drawing, copy it and turn it into a mirror image of the original is most useful. Most of the things we model, whether they roll, fly or sail, are symmetrical. This symmetry allows us to grab a well-preserved part off the page, reverse it and use it to fill a damaged section of the drawing. Note the photo below that shows a page with a number of copied parts on a white background. Along with some restored gun turrets, it shows the intact starboard stern hull part that was copied and reversed, as the port side part was too damaged by age.

Many old models will have two hand-drawn parts that are meant to be glued back to back, but once cut out and glued together, they never seem to line up properly. Mirroring select parts and carefully gluing them to their original siblings makes for a cleaner and better looking model. These are just some of the basic techniques I use to clean up the drawings.

Back in the days of pen and ink card model design, designers would often leave connecting part-numbers on visible areas of their models. See the color shot of the tab-and-slot Armen Lighthouse below. I built this before I understood how remove all the numbers and slot-lines from the drawing. If I ever rebuild this historic model, the offending marks will be banned to pixel purgatory.

The drawing-board artists were also “fold-line” happy, and they left their dashed lines all over their drawings. These unsightly additions were necessary at the time, because the written instructions included with the models were minimal at best. The language of part-numbers and fold-lines was understood by the builders of that era, and they accepted the unsightly marks on their finished models. Today’s designers try to conceal this graphic information, and modeler’s work hard to hide it as well. I use Paint to remove these marks as much as possible in an effort to bring a cleaner look to my vintage models. Below find two images of the Baleares’ oddly-shaped funnel, one showing the original fold-lines, and the other with the lines removed. I think this altering of the original drawing is perfectly acceptable. If I were building the model for display in a museum, I’d leave the original lines in, as they are part of the model’s history. But for my own collection, I’ll alter the drawing to present the model in a cleaner, smoother way.

Continued…

[Thumb Dog]

Changing Color, Changing Scale

My copy of the Baleares is nearly eighty years old, and it shows. Exposure to air, humidity and indifferent handling over the years have aged the paper into a yellowing dinge. I printed out a few color copies onto plain paper, and was disappointed in the look of the paper parts. Color, contrast and sharpness can be altered in my computer, and I have used the “came with the computer” apps to improve many of these historic models. But in the case of the Baleares, to go through the model and repair all the problems without the use of a more sophisticated app would simply take too long. Luckily, there was a quick fix to all this. As a steel naval ship of the 1920s and 30s, the ship was of course painted grey. I ran off a few paper copies using only black ink, and the look of the pages immediately improved. The model’s various tones were evened out, and the yellowing areas appeared as an acceptable shade of light grey, as seen in the comparison photograph below. So, there’s another decision made…I’ll print out the model in black ink only, and wind up with something that more closely resembles the model as it was published, eight decades ago.

This decision also allowed me to alter the scale of the model I was going to build. I’m not sure of the actual scale of the original, but judging from the few photographs I’ve seen, I think the scale was around 1:400. That would make the 636 foot long ship into a 19 inch model. I wanted to get close to that, as I remembered the trouble I had when building my 10 inch copy of the Canarias. When printed onto 8 ½ x 11 pages, it looked like the Baleares would be about 14 inches long. These hands of mine don’t do small the way they used to, and anything to give them a break seems like a good idea. I’m going to need a bigger boat.

Because I was only going to use black on the printout, I was saving money on colored ink. So, I felt justified in using more cardstock to enlarge the build. I have some 65 lb. card that I rarely use, and I decided to at least build the superstructure from that. To magnify the pages, I usually put them in my old Microsoft Photo Editor, as it has a few handy features I occasionally use. I enlarge a page to a practical percentage, move the oversized page around the screen until I frame the parts I want, save, and repeat until I have the parts from the whole page. Each of the three original pages for the Baleares took four screen shots to save them. I wound up with plenty of duplicate parts.

All this means I had to print out a lot more than the three original pages. I’ve already printed out 17 pages to get the parts I need, and there’s no doubt I’ll need more as I go. I don’t know the exact scale yet, but the finished model looks like it will measure about 21 inches. There’s the big boat I was looking for.

Admittedly, this has not been the most exciting post, so thanks for staying with me this far. I’ll start cutting card next time.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[SCEtoAUX]

Great explanation on some of the problems and some of the solutions to those problems when dealing with old prints and scans of old pages.

I often use manual color correction to remove the yellowing or other color casts. Some times it alters the colors of the parts but they seem to be more vibrant and do remind me of some of the old cereal box models I remember from my youth.

The magic wand selector is often useful to select the area outside of the parts to remove the majority of the yellowing. I do not like printing colors that are not needed, especially large areas of more or less uniform colors.

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

And thanks, SCEtoAUX…good tips.

I had hoped to add to this thread sometime last week, but this project was stalled by errors of judgment and a kick in the karma pants. Firstly, my choice of 65 lb. cardstock was too flimsy for the size of the model I wanted to build, so it’s back to 110 lb. card. And secondly, my frenemy printer became irreparably clogged with over-priced ink, and between trying to fix it and finding a suitable replacement, time slipped away.

But enough of my woes. I have made some progress, so let’s get to it.

The Deck

The original drawing presented the deck in two separate pieces. Because it was already split in half, I didn’t see any problem with enlarging the model so that the deck would be composed of three pieces. After printing out the needed parts on 110 lb. card, I started by gluing the deck pieces onto mat board. I rough cut them and trimmed the fore and aft edges to the join-lines. I found the center point at each end of each piece, and placed a small pencil dot at each end. I then cut out an oversized piece of mat board measuring 24” x 4” and drew a central pencil line on its white side running the length of the part. See the first photograph.

To attach the deck parts to the mat board, I used Elmer’s white glue. I have used this technique for years, and it works for me, but it is messy and if not done carefully, can easily ruin a printed part. I place the part face down onto typing paper and use small strips of masking tape to lightly tape the corners of the part to be glued. I apply the tape at the very corners, making as little contact with the part as possible. I squirt out the Elmer’s, and with my finger, I spread out a thin, even layer of glue on the back of the part, with the excess glue being pushed off the part and onto the typing paper. Once glued, I carefully pick up the part and pull it away from the lightly taped corners. If the part were not taped down, the water in the glue would cause the part to curl and pull away from the typing paper, creating an opportunity for glue to find its way onto the part’s printed side, ruining it. Working quickly, as the layer of glue will dry in a matter of seconds, I position the pencil dots onto the line on the mat board and after placing a clean sheet of typing paper atop the part, I rub it down. I then repeat this technique until the three parts of the deck are attached to the mat board, as in the second picture.

After the deck has dried, it will be warped both front to back, and side to side. A little judicious rubbing on the rounded edge of my grandfather’s library table will flatten the part. It's best to do this before the Elmer's dries hard. I don’t recommend this gluing technique to less experienced paper modelers, as it is messy and risky, but it works for me. Once cut to its final shape, the completed deck measures 20 ¾” x 2”.

The Deck Houses

It appeared that a series of simple boxes were next on the list, but they required more work than expected. Generally, the problems came down to tabs. Some of the parts didn’t have enough tabs in the right locations to insure secure connections to the deck or to each other. But, because I have the ability to reprint the parts, I can alter them by using my pencil to draw tabs on the paper parts that need them, even if this means drawing into a nearby part. This is the great advantage in building from scans rather than printed parts…the ability to reproduce parts to fit your own needs. Some of the photographs show my added tabs.

To give the deck houses more strength, I measured and cut pieces of mat board to be attached under the roof of each house. I used double sided tape for this, as I didn't want the roofs to warp.

The most difficult alteration was the angled part that forms the face of the conning tower. The original part was drawn so that its footprint didn’t cover the area drawn for it on the deck. Note the picture showing the original part and the larger alteration above it. The alteration was drawn oversized so I had room to cut and finesse the part to fit. As can be seen in another picture, I made a few attempts to correct this problem. The final version repaired the angle and the fit, but I didn’t try to straighten the small windows on the sides of the part, as I don’t know how to do that on the computer. I may come back and cover them with separate paper window parts.

Both the Baleares and her sister Canarias were built in Spain to the design of Great Britain’s Sir Phillip Watts. The two Canarias Class cruisers were based on the Royal Navy’s Country Class cruisers, and they were both laid down on August 15th, 1928. As is so often the case when a small navy overextends itself with such a large project, the twin ships took a long time to put into operation. The Baleares was finally commissioned on December 28th, 1936, three months after her sister. Much had changed since the ships were laid down during the reign of King Alfonso XIII. Both ships were launched within days of the April 1931 elections that brought the Second Republic into being. And just as the ships were ending their sea trials in 1936, they were seized by the Nationalist forces. It was under the Nationalist flag that the sisters did their part in the Spanish Civil war.

The attached photograph of the Baleares shows an identifying feature that distinguishes her from the Canarias, namely, the large, black, metal screen seen atop the fore part of her funnel. In American parlance, this would be referred to as an “Atlantic Cap” and was put in place to keep North Atlantic spray from entering the ship's overly large funnel opening.

That’s all for now. I hope the new printer spits out pages that match the tone and clarity of the old printer. We shall see.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[Tom Greensfelder]

Thumb Dog: thanks for all the detail on your build! It's great to see how you deal with all the issues that come with the older models.

One technique for gluing that you might try that I learned when I studied bookbinding is to use a bookbinders brush to spread your glue:
Brushes for Bookbinding
Or, if that's too expensive, a large oil-painting brush will do. Much less messy than using your fingers.

We usually brushed from the center out, with the paper being glued resting on a sheet of newsprint (less expensive than typing paper). Finally, after gluing we would use a book press or (as I do now) some heavy books on the glued part with another sheet of newsprint in between.

That way it dries flat, and no need for your grandfather's desk, or at least, not for that.

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

And hi, Tom, thanks again for the Baleares model.

I've put together a few Perfect Bound books over the years, and it preparation for the first project, I bought this beautiful copper-ferruled brush from Hollander's. Unfortunately, it was too big to use, so it decorates one of my tool boards.

Also pictured is the nearest thing I have to a book press. (The Three Stooges always seemed to have one handy...I wish I had one). It's a screw press that also belonged to my grandfather. He used it in his dental practice to apply pressure to various molds. I could use it to press handmade books for my wife's dollhouse, but if I mentioned that idea to her, I might have a new career.

The other photograph shows the collection of gears and wheels I just stripped out of my old HP 310 printer. Gears Rule!

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[wireandpaper]

Looking forward to see your Baleares completed