GALLEY ALLEY! ~~~~ The Oared Vessel in 1/700th Scale

[callen]

Shaping these hoops for the barrel awning is no picnic. I used Plastruct 0.01 rod, the smallest commercially available rod [if you want smaller, just stretch some sprue). One does feel a bit insane at times, trying to get tiny bits of plastic to curl perfectly...

But eventually, one does make progress...

Can you see the imperfections here? The shadows give it away. Despite my best efforts the hoops are not uniform in height. What I did at that point was to gently sand the assembly...

And, magically, it started to work.

Lovely Venetian lines.

There is a satisfaction in scratch building that has no parallel with kits. It's not a 'better' but it is different, and pleasurable in its own unique way.

[callen]

One more for tonight...

After repeated very gentle sanding and some other small adjustments to elements that shifted as they cured, I declared myself satisfied with the barrel awning. Such a relief to have this part done. You may not realize this, but as near as I can tell, EVERY mediterranean war galley of the 16th Century had a barrel awning over its poop deck. If you can't make one of these structures, you don't have a war galley, and you'd best chuck the whole thing in the bin. I was really worried for a brief moment that the whole build was in jeopardy, but it worked out...

And that means it's time to move on!

I think the pics don't need much explanation, except to say that I chose this pattern for the 'Pavesate' (outrigger railing) resulted from a slight misinterpretation of my sources. I had thought that what was a broad board-like facing over the stanchions was, in fact, just cloth bunting with livery embroidery. But my mistake turned out to be fortuitous, because this middle rail, thick as it is, is ideal as a support for the oars which must pass through the railing structure in final assembly. All that to say, later I was quite glad of my error, though, I think there is some leeway in these kinds of details for these sorts of subjects. One comes to realize after a time that every depiction and model of these vessels is slightly different from every other depiction or model. And this means that 'accuracy' is a little bit more loosely defined in these sorts of subjects than with, say, WWII USN Destroyer modeling.

Note the turned-brass masts with their slight taper.

Look at this rudder! Have you ever seen anything like it? But this is what they used on these ships.

Checking mast alignment. Capitanas were more likely to sport two masts than ordinary galleys. Note that the foremast is offset to make room for the centerline cannon which will eventually be mounted in the forecastle.

[maxim]

The Capitana is really impressive

Do you know the museum in Venice? There are several nice models of Venetian galleys and some original parts from them:
http://www.modellmarine.de/index.php?op ... 8&Itemid=1

[Pieter]

The reason I'm asking is that North Star and 3D model parts are now making Carrier Crew figure sets and Heavy Weapon figure sets that have half standing /pushing figures of the type you describe as crew for these galleys. If you're not manning all the benches having at least one of these little guys to check alignment might be worth the effort. There are three of these on my Thames barge.

Excellent work. Will you be manning the oars?

Pieter, we would be looking at more than a hundred and fifty figures to man the oars. I thought that such a situation would be very tedious to build, as I have never attempted to pose that many figures so densely packed together. I also thought the figures might obscure the very interesting open structure of the vessel. For this reason, I decided to build it full hull and display in the traditional manner on finials.

[callen]

The Capitana is really impressive

Do you know the museum in Venice? There are several nice models of Venetian galleys and some original parts from them:
http://www.modellmarine.de/index.php?op ... 8&Itemid=1

Hello Maxim! Good to hear from you!

I have seen the Maltese Galia before. Pictures of her formed part of my source material for this build. However, there was much in those pics I had not seen before! Thank you very much for the links.

The reason I'm asking is that North Star and 3D model parts are now making Carrier Crew figure sets and Heavy Weapon figure sets that have half standing /pushing figures of the type you describe as crew for these galleys. If you're not manning all the benches having at least one of these little guys to check alignment might be worth the effort. There are three of these on my Thames barge.

Hello Pieter. I think the inclusion of a figure or two for reference is a good idea. I did actually use a figure as a scale reference during construction. One problem in this context with using North Star resin figures for the final model is the appropriate dress of the figures.

I am not familiar with your Thames Barge build. Do you have a link?

[callen]

Primed and ready for painting. You may see these masts and yards come and go in the following pictures. They broke off several times.

A Sewing Needle with the eye hole cut in half makes a nice cradle for the keel.

Combine this with earring stops painted to resemble miniature finials...

And we have a suitable mounting for a very small model.

First colors applied. My sources tell me these ships were painted black above the waterline, and white beneath, with striking red upperworks.

preshading the wood of the weather deck.

[Pieter]

It can be found here.
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=202865
A true all hands on deck situation -:)

I am not familiar with your Thames Barge build. Do you have a link?

[callen]

[j.mahieux]

In general macro photos are ruthless and make appear the least flaw, on your models, it looks good and there is not the slightest flaw! At 1/700, it's a real magic trick. . .
Good luck my friend, continue this fantastic tour of ancient vessels,
Jean

[wefalck]

Indeed, very impressive at this small scale. With my clumsy fingers I would have broken many of the delicate styrene parts many times

One thing I noticed with your photographs though, is that they are quite gloomy and the colour-balance does not seem to be correct. Do you have a picture-processing software ? If so, you might want to correct the white-balance and to lighten the shadows a bit - just a suggestion to do better justice to your superb little models.

[callen]

In general macro photos are ruthless and make appear the least flaw, on your models, it looks good and there is not the slightest flaw! At 1/700, it's a real magic trick. . .
Good luck my friend, continue this fantastic tour of ancient vessels,
Jean

Very kind of you, Jean. I'm not sure this will hold true to the end of the build, but we'll see. I find that paint is the great offender in these matters. My builds would be much cleaner if I didn't have to paint them. On the other hand, I'm not a fan of unpainted models, so there you go...

So, full confession, this build which I am blogging here was completed in June of this year. That's why these posts are coming in such quick succession. I hope I'm not breaking a rule by posting on the WIP board after the fact. I do consider the PROJECT ITSELF to be a WIP, as I have the intention of building a Galeazza, a Turkish Galley, and numerous others... so, even though the ship is done, the project isn't. I hope that's ok with everyone.

Indeed, very impressive at this small scale. With my clumsy fingers I would have broken many of the delicate styrene parts many times

One thing I noticed with your photographs though, I noticed, is that they are quite gloomy and the colour-balance does not seem to be correct. Do you have a picture-processing software ? If so, you might want to correct the white-balance and to lighten the shadows a bit - just a suggestion to do better justice to your superb little models.

You're quite right, Wefalk. I have a friend on Facebook, where I post a lot of my work and have my own galley. His name is Stalle Sannerud, and he's from Norway. He's taken me to task for my photography, and rightly so. I had the Photoshop suite for a long time but recently let my subscription lapse. It would be a big hassle to photoshop every pic anyway, but I may see what options my basic software has. One problem is that the depth of focus for my SLR + Macro is razor-thin. Often I have to take three or four shots of the same component before I have a passable one.

No promises though! My photography skills are limited.

[Timmy C]

If you have a stable surface for your camera (tripod or even just the desk surface), you can narrow your aperture to increase the depth of field, making it easier to capture more of the model in focus. But since the aperture is reduced, you'll need a longer exposure time (hence the need for a stable surface).

Personally I enjoy the yellow-brown hues of your photos - they add a certain vintage warmth to the project that gives it quite a distinct character.

[DrPR]

There are several tricks you can use to improve photos. Just remember the exposure is a combination of available light, photo element sensitivity (ISO), shutter speed and lens aperture opening (f stop).

The more light you have the easier it is to get a good photo.

To get a good depth of field you must "stop down" the opening in the lens diaphragm as much as possible - to f16, or f22. The larger the f number the smaller the opening, and the greater the depth of field.

But larger f stops allow less light to enter the camera. To get proper exposure you must increase the amount of time the shutter is open. This can mean fairly long periods that the shutter is open, and the camera or subject must not move during this time. A simple rule of thumb is that you cannot hand hold a camera and get an unblurred picture with a shutter speed longer than the focal length of the lens. So if you have a 50mm lens you must use a tripod for exposures longer than 1/50 of a second.

Another way to increase your odds of getting a good photo is to increase the sensitivity (ASA/ISO) of the photo element. Some digital cameras allow this, but there is some loss of picture quality with very large ISO values. Don't go over ISO 800 or you might start seeing unwanted effects in the photos.

****

Having said all of this about using the camera, your photo editing software may also give you another very useful tool. It is called "photo stacking." Photoshop has had this feature since CS5 or earlier (Edit/Auto-Blend Layers) and many other programs have it. Use the auto-align feature (if your program has it) to get all photos aligned correctly before using photo stacking.

For this the camera MUST be mounted on a tripod and the subject MUST NOT move. You just take a series of photos, adjusting the focus at several points across the object being photographed, from the near side to the far side (or vice versa). Then all of the photos are loaded into the program, selected, aligned and the photo stacking function is started. It selects only the parts of each photo that have sharp (focused) edges, and blends all of the photos into one.

Here is an example of photo stacking. The distance from the near end of the bowsprit to the far end of the boat davits at the stern is about 24 inches. I took 12 photos, focusing on slightly more distant parts in each, from bow to stern. These 12 photos were blended into a single photo with a depth of field of 24 inches! Notice that you can clearly see the grain at the tip of the bowsprit, and if you look closely you can see tiny nails and eye bolts at the end of the boat davits.

[callen]

I need to take a slight u-turn and cover the oar-effort. I skipped over this, partly because my photo numbering system was slightly out of order. The oar-effort was, without doubt the most tedious and difficult sub-assembly of the whole project. And in fact, due to a problem during painting, the oars of this build have continued to plague the model long after 'completion' (always an arbitrary concept). But I wanted to show you my methods, in the hopes that these will be useful to you.

The oars for a Venetian Galley, or indeed, any Renaissance Era warship, whether Catholic or Muslim, differed considerably in shape from the oars used in subjects like the Greek pentaconter or the Phoenician trader/warship galley. Instead of a haft+paddle, what we have is an extremely elongated and very elegant wedge. The documentation I have for these oars indicates the oar was a continuous extremely fine wedge that began at or very near the working end of the haft. I don't have the precise engineering methods for these oars, but that seems to be the case. However, for the purposes of modeling, I decided to begin the wedge section about 60% down the haft. This creates a more discernible wedge that is easier to communicate to the eye in this scale, (and easier to model) and, in addition makes the haft-end of the oar thinner, for easier insertion into the rowing deck. Since the inner end of the oar is mostly obscured by the structure of the model, I felt justified in this approach.

I tried several different methods at the beginning, including taping a block of strips together in order to sand them en-masse in the interests of uniformity. But none of my other efforts worked. The method I finally hit on, similar to how I made the oars for the other galleys, involved shaping each oar individually and matching it against a prototype oar, making adjustments as necessary by eye and by hand. Time-consuming, but doable.

In the first photo above, you can see the initial blank which I created, which consists of a square rod @ 0.01 inches (Plastruct) and strip @ 0.02 X 0.o1 (Evergreen). Note that, although the wedge develops symmetrically from the center of the haft, I did not model it that way, instead adding material to one side. The next photo shows my sprue nippers having cut away the top end of the blade section, creating a rough wedge. Sanding one side only saves time, and the end result (with the edge of the oar trimmed to conform) is indistinguishable from a symmetrically prepared oar-blank. [Hope that makes sense. ]

Having sanded that end of the oar with a light grit sanding stick, we then have a reasonably wedge-shaped renaissance oar in 1/700th Scale. The problem is making more...

This ship would require 52 oars, which is without doubt, the most tedious process in this kind of modeling. I proceeded with the methods developed for the Phoenician Galley, that is, gluing a 'holotype' oar to a small piece of glass with plastic cement...resulting in a bond that can be easily broken later, and then adding a suite of oars next to the holotype one by one, using the holotype as a model for uniformity. As with the Phoenician, I made no measurements, but made sure to create the blank oversized, so that it could be trimmed after sanding. The idea is to trim the blade end very close to the end, to ensure full-width blades, and then trim the haft-end to match the holotype.

In the third photo you can see one oar which has been sanded, but not yet cut to length, being compared with the batch of finished oars. In the fourth photo you can see that that oar, now trimmed and added to the batch. To the far right you can see an oar that was sufficiently different from the others that I excluded it from the batch. But I wanted to save it for later and not discard it, depending on how discernible irregularities appeared once the oars were mounted.

And here you can see a problem with the oars that would persist through to the end of the build...warping. At the time, I thought bending them straight once they had cured would be a simple matter...

Switching gears for a moment, I shifted my efforts to the sails. These Venetian Galleys are often depicted with bright red and white striped sails, something I thought I could tackle and was keen to try. Actually, modeling a galley with striped sails was one of my main motivations for this project, as I had never attempted this before, and I thought the end result would be quite striking.]

What are we looking at here? It's watered down modge-podge applied to a plastic lid, and then overlaid with cut up squares of white paper napkins. The napkin squares, each about 5mm square became very soft and fragile the moment they hit the solution, and could be pushed around and overlapped to create the sail material.

Once it had dried, the sail material was so thin as to be translucent. So, I decided to paint it with some white and off-white acrylic.

Concurrent with this effort, I spent some time painting a bit of decal paper with acrylic red. I believe it is Ferrari Red. Note the uneven 'brush-stroke' irregularities in the paint. This is intended and desirable.

Once dried, the decal paper can be cut into stripes. The resulting stripe has an irregular quality to its color, which serves to weather the stripe and keep it from looking too much like a sticker.

The decal can then be applied to the sail material in the usual manner. Here you can see the first stripe applied to the sail material.

[callen]

Sail material finished and ready to be removed from its base. Note the red fields. These would be useful for flags and pennants, etc. The Modge Podge, added over the decals to seal them in created a rather gloopy texture that didn't please me, both rough and glossy...But perhaps it wouldn't look so bad when trimmed to the final sail shape. I could also add some acrylic dulcoat after trimming, since the decals were now safe beneath a layer of Modge Podge. Ok...let's make this thing work...

Hmmm...this isn't coming up very well... A tear developing, but it hasn't quite touched the stripes. Hours of work here...Maybe we can save this thing...

Carefull carefull...

ARRRGHH!!!!!!!!

DISASTER!

Parts of the sail material just didn't want to come up at all! Why did I use modge podge!



Of course the reason is what it is. The same impulse that makes you want to try new things also makes you want to _keep_ trying new things even when you're getting good results.

For the second try, I decided to go the other route and try something aliphatic but emphatically LESS TACKY...how about good old Elmers? Surely Elmers won't betray us! Not like the evil Modge-Podge!

Alrighty then... take two! Come on, Elmers. We got a lot of history, you and me. Remember grade school? Don't let me down...

Frustrated with the previous failure, I decided to do a smaller amount of sail material to test the methods, just in case I ran into the same problem again. Here you can see as I begin to remove it, coming up nicely.

[callen]

Came up like a dream! Beautiful! Elmers, I love you!

Sail material ready for trimming...

Hmmm...you know what I forgot? The back of the sail. It doesn't look the same on both sides...the backside is faded and blotchy, while the frontside is clear.

Ok...so the sail material will have to be doubled...and that means matching the stripes...

Hmmm...doesn't match so well...

But maybe it context it won't be so noticeable. Here you can see the foresail glued to the foremast yard.

It's then a question of bending the luff into shape, These sails were rather thick, given the decal effort and paint incorporated into the material, so it took some doing to get them bent. Careful tweezer work. One wants to shape the sail without breaking the mast from the hull or the yard from the mast. I can't remember if I had any breakage during this process or not.

At any rate, the 2nd Sail was a success! Now we can try again with the mainsail...

Elmers once again came through, and I finally had a workable mainsail.

Hey! Starting to look like something!

[callen]

The stripes of the foresail, being different on each side, betrayed their lack of symmetry when lit from behind, the sail material still partly translucent. But the mainsail is a much better result, as I was able to match the stripes on both sides.

[j.mahieux]

Hello Callen,
Beautiful job on these sails
Still many hours to contemplate your work!
Jean

[JIM BAUMANN]

great work, great tenacity!!

==> whenever I have made things that are translucent ( Greek flags, sails for Mary Rose / Winston Churchill etc

I have always taped the sail to a home made light-box ( or in the case of larger items-- to a window ! )

so that alignment stripes or pencil seam pencil seam lines etc is repeatable as you can see the edges on the " other " side.

HTH

JB

[wefalck]

Talking about light-boxes: our Chinese friends nowadays sell 'light-tablets' for about 15�. Not brilliant, but useable. They are essentially a sheet of acrylic glass that has a row of LEDs mounted along one edge (only, unfortunately). For those dark winter days, when you can't usefully put anything against your window ...