1/700 Regia nave Roma (no, not that one..) 1920

[Stefano Salesi]

Hi to you all,

after a long time i'm opening a new Wip, and i decided to go to something strange and "new"...
I'm still dreaming to build a sort of family tree for the italian ships of the line/battleship, and after my old (and long gone) scratchbuilt Regina Maria Pia and the more recent combrig Italia i decided to go all the way in with the Roma...20 years before Roma
The ship that i'm after is, indeed, the Regia Nave Roma of the Regina Elena Class, a sort of proto battle cruiser designed from that funny mustached genius of Vittorio Cuninberti.

The Regina Elena class consisted of 4 fast, well armoured albeit lightly armed battlesihp, with sleek lines and a more modern aspect of the various pre dreadnoughts that we are used to see around.
Roma and Napoli, in particular, had their funnels shortened quite a lot from the original build, and they gained a pretty aggressive aspect.
Armament was 2 single 12" turret, one fore and one aft; 6 twin 8"turrets and a -selfcensor-load of 3" guns in anti torpedoboats and, later, antiaircraft role.

A couple of pictures taken from the net, just to get aquainted with this little italian angry lady.









I initially started working on the old - but really accurate - Delphis Models resin kit, but after seeing some pictures of the lower hull i decided that i had to represent this ship ful hull, so gave it a try scratching it, but with a less than satisfactory result.

However since i had really good plans for the ship (i.e. the original blueprints...)



and i incidentally own a nautical 3d printing company...
Well, long story short, i had two guys of the technical department(a naval architect and a naval engineer) on the hull as a side(paid)job, and they came out with a fantastic hull for the Roma.





However, i'm going to use the hull as a master to cast a resin copy, as the resin copy will be waaaay more stable than the 3d printed one, and i'm going to add some details to the hull before making the mold. they were perfectly printable, but in case of too visible print lines some details would have interfered with the sanding process of the hull.

Here just a dry fit with the printed hull, scratch superstructures and the original Delphis kit turrets.(on the background the last attempt to scratch the lower hull...close enough but...meh...



Delphis superstructures were perfectly casted and detailed, but i came across some really high resolution pictures in the Montevideo (Uruguay) municipality archive that shared light on many obscure aspects of the ship, and it was easyer scratching a new superstructure than adding details to the kit ones.




the journey begins, stay tuned...

(Luca and Ismaele, the tech guys,are already working on a new side project but...let's keep it for the future )

[Rob]

Great start with her. I built the Delphis kit many years ago. They were very nice-looking ships

[JIM BAUMANN]

beautiful fluted scallops adjacent to foredeck!

I have Delphis kit in stash...

JB

[pascalemod]

Its a very cool subject to model. A very striking ship!

[MartinJQuinn]

... just to get aquainted with this little italian angry lady.

Aren't they ALL angry?

That's really look. Very interesting looking ship.

[Stefano Salesi]

Aren't they ALL angry?

they are, indeed, but i'll deny it even under the menace of torture

progresses are slow, just given a light coat of mr surfacer to check for blemishes and small imperfections on the hull.



Superstructures are being rebuilt in plasticard and various sizes of plastic tubes, the main elements are done, now i have to start building lockers, tubing, cable reels and all sort of stuff that i can extrapolate from the pictures of the Montevideo Archives
Obviously there is no dedicated detail sets for this ship, and the Delphis kit came with no pe (as all of theyr old releases), but the Infini Mikasa 1904 detail set is a good starting point, as you can use the main guns (and have two spares..) that are the same exact type, a good part of the masts and railings and, with only a few modifications, the funnel caps.
Watertight doors and portholes will be scavenged from various leftovers, while i'll have to design proper PE for platforms, skylights and grids/air intakes that have very distinctive features, almost art dec�.

However, while waiting for the primer to dry on the hull, here are some of the pictures (i resized them a lot to post here) found in the archive of Montevideo.









Here the link to the full size and full resolution images
https://cdf.montevideo.gub.uy/buscar/fo ... ado%20Roma

This archive is a gold mine. there are a lot of pictures of ships of various navies, and almost all of them are high resolution tiffs...

Cheers!

[JIM BAUMANN]

great razor-sharp images;

saved and filed

JIM B

[SG1]

Wow, Magnificent start! Great pics too Will stay tuned for the next updates

[Stefano Salesi]

Hi all. work continues on Roma, i'm adjusting some little details on the hull before sending it to a friend that will make the mold and cast process.

I attached coaling scuttles and some hatches on the deck, and started to open the anchor chain wells and all of the positions of winches and fairleads.







A couple days ago i received an original Launching Ceremony invitation Postcard for the ship, it will be a nice touch for the display of the ship; even at 118 years old the postard is perfect and simply gorgeous, with an Art Dec� touch.



Now, the planning/drawing phase.
i'm stuck on a detail that is driving me nuts, as i really want to include it in the model, but i'm afraid that i'll have to iper simplify it to have a chance of a decent result.
The culprit is this particular air grid:



At first, non considering AT ALL the scale, i simply thought to have it photoetched but...the single voids will be something close to a hundredth of millimiter. so the usual modeler dilemma: ignore the detail or simplify it?
it's way beyond any photo etch tolerances i'm afraid
The scale dimension are close to a mere .9 mm in height and 1.8 mm in lenght: i'm thinking to use maybe a crosshair sight for aa guns in 1:35 or 1.48, just to give a radial aspect to the grid.
Do someone have any advice/ideas?

have a nice day/night/whatever,

Stefano

[JIM BAUMANN]

You need a PE gun platform in 1/700 that you can cut down to give that effect

the JB Models eu PE fret were particularly fine

The bore is that you need x 2 ( I guess ?) bu you could have one side open and one with side-flaps closed

I " think " I have jbmodel eu fret from a model that may contain what I am alluding to.

If I find it I shall PM you AND post here!

Best wishes
JB


like this chopped down will give the impression of....

[Stefano Salesi]

Jim, thank you so much for the input! i searched my stash and i found a couple (yay!) of perfectly suitable gun platform (or radar dishes..) that will do the trick! they belong to an exausted fret, so i really do not know the provenance, as no hints of producer or scale/kit are on the remains of the fret.
I have, however, the Ulan/Smyrni kit, so as soon as i can dig out the kit from the stash i'll compare the two, and use the most suitable



cheers,

Stefano

[SG1]

Great catch!

[Dan K]

Very interesting subject and great work.

[Stefano Salesi]

Hi all,

after a long pause (work overload) i finally have time to get back on Roma.

My friend Stefano (yup, another one) casted some copies of the 3d printed and finished hull, a terrific quality work (it's soooooooo nice to have a professional caster as a friend..)

here a couple of shots of the resin hull





I already have some fun on the hulls, just fitted the propeller supports and dry fitted the screws themselves, designed accurately from the original drawings of the screw themselves that i found togheter with the blueprints





I also started to scratchbuild the railings, as they are a mixture of taller, curved and reinfroced awning supports and normal stanchions...



this is the first try, but i'm not that convinced.

Have fun,

Stefano

[ModelMonkey]

Amazing.

[pascalemod]

Love the detail! Cant wait to see how you paint her!