A recent rule change in MWC and Treaty has prompted me to start work on a ship that was already on the "To Do" list: the French Predreadnaught Verite. Other than the ship being French and never having been built for model warship combat; the Verite offers some nice combat features: 3 shafts, short length, some casements, and a stepped hull for a stringer. The ship should turn very well with a middle powered shaft and short fat hull. On with the build!
The center hull framed up. I went with a 3/8" subdeck this time around instead of my normal deck built up from 1/8" wood. The rear keel section gets the stuffing tube stuffed into it. heh
A stringer is installed for the step in the hull side. Although I could have made the stern solid from the subdeck down to the stringer (the gap is smaller than a BB), I wanted the ship to be perfectly legal above and beyond the rules. The rear casement has yet to be installed.
very nice work Mike. I'm considering a Bouvet or Suffren for Treaty but haven't found any plans with cross-sections. Where did you get the Verite palns? Bob
I downloaded a handful of plans from the French Defense web site before it went down to include the Verite and the Suffern. I'm pretty sure I posted a cleaned up set of Suffern plans here on RC Naval Combat. They should be in this folder: http://www.rcnavalcombat.com/Member...aspx EDIT: Looks like the files are corrupted. I'll replace them with good files after work today. EDIT 2: After lots of searching across computers and portable hard drives, I can't find the Suffern plan sets. Maybe Justin has a backup someplace?
Mike I am very excited to see one of the little French pre-dreads being built. Eventually, I want to build one as well, but that will not be anytime soon, as I am too busy just now. But I can't wait to see that thing on the water. Vive la France! Mikey
Very cool ship, would be nice to see her on the pond some day together with my Bretagne (when it is done). I have the plans for Verite from the SHD as well, but I'll probably want to do a Danton instead now eventually. --Chase
Fascinating. It looks like the center prop shaft runs completely beneath the aft turret. How much internal height does that leave for armament? I love predreadnoughts, and want to build one for Big Gun. This is a beautiful build, I look forward to seeing more.
I loaded pictures of French ship models to the Treaty pages. I visited the French Maritime Museum in Paris in September. My apologies for the pics that are out of focus. I had to take them thru plexiglass with marginal lighting. check out the pics for the Danton. The Le Lorraine looks very interesting also. Both would be good additions to a WW1 fleet.
I'm sure I have a set of the Danton plans tucked away too. Heh. There is plenty of room between the aft turret and the prop shaft for a pair of cannons. The motor will be located about 3 inches behind the aft turret. I may do some creative magazine bending, but at the moment straight mags should work fine. About the only thing that isn't planned yet is what batteries to use. I'm leaning towards Lipo at the moment to save weight and get capacity for a brushless pump motor. If all else fails, the ship will have a high capacity NiMH battery pack. Last night, the right side stringer was installed and the left front casement finished. Basswood blocks were glued to the bow for later shaping. After the stringers and casements are done, the plan is to install the rudder post and linkages, as well as test mount the cannons. I would like to try to get as much done inside the ship before glueing in the balsa hull bottom ... the inside of the ship is small!
Those are some very nice pictures CaptKonig. I'm building the Bretagne, same class as the Lorraine. I'm glad I now have a reference for painting her, I'm just not sure if the bottom of the hull is a dark green or a dark grey? And, what is that "fin" on the bow of the Lorraine? I can't find anything like that on the plans of the Lorraine or Bretagne that I have. Mike, I don't suppose you'd be willing to zip those Danton plans up (if they're the ones off the SHD site), and put them up on site or email me them? Thanks, Chase
Those bow fins were on a few French ships. I'm pretty sure the Bearn plans had one on it, and I know the Suffern plans had one as well. Chase, I'll load up the Danton files to my file folder here on RC Naval tonight and drop you an IM. The files are from the French web site and untouched ... haven't got around to cleaning them up yet. Last night, the right side stringers and bow casements were finished. Tonight, the plan is to finish the stern casements and shape the bow blocks.
I've got a copy of the Dupleix files (one of Suffern's sisters) from the French site. I'll see about uploading them later. Verite looks great. There's been some talk about building a couple more of her class that I've heard in the past couple of months. Edit: Going to have to get a hand from Justin on getting them uploaded. The File manager doesn't seem to like me atm.
The nose blocks are sanded into a fairly pleasing bow shape. Motor Mount glued in place. The drive shaft runs very free!
Rudder pieces. Rudder is made by stacking two outer plates on a center core plate then sanded to shape. Rough sanded rudder test fitted into place to check free mocement. After a good sanding with 220 grit, the rudder will get varnished with teh rest of the ship.
Looking very nice. I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of that ram bow. I can't wait to see what comes next.
