L'Orenoque Mamoli 1:100 scale

[Peter Gutterman]

Great detective work.

 

[The Gavel]

Great detective work.

Pete! Thank you! It's fun trying to get to the "truth." Martin has been wonderfully helpful! I really wish the records of these ships was better, particularly the plans. The New Yorck/Darien plans are very helpful, but I find that I lose a lot of detail trying to make them larger so I can see the detail . I pray all is well in your world, m friend!

Blessings. Peace. Gratitude.
Chuck

 

[ROUGHLY MARTIN]

Martin! Thank you! These images are extremely helpful! The deck plan of the 450 steam frigate New Yorck and the illustration of the Darien's deck plus the other images we've found have confirmed that the very busy deck of the kit is pure fiction. Excellent! The idea of a large pilot house somehow got into the kit designer's head and he went with it. But it was never a part of this class of ships. Unfortunately, the kit is designed with a huge square hole in the middle of the deck which is meant to be covered by the pilot house. No problem - I'll get by


Here's another example I found of a ship resembling the Darien Class and below her a drawing of the Sphinx, corvette. Both show that the ships carried their boats aft, the smoke stack and main mast aft of the paddle wheel boxes and NO DECKHOUSE in the middle to clutter the decks.

View attachment 523273

View attachment 523274

Here are pics of Meteor -
View attachment 523275View attachment 523276View attachment 523277


On another note, I'm sure you noticed the handwritten "Darien" on the plan - that's because the New Yorck and the Darien are the same ship. New Yorck was initially the a part of the French steam ship line with service to the "new world" when she was launched in 1842. She was renamed Darien when she entered the French Navy in 1847.

What I really like about the Darien rendering is the bridge spanning the deck - no deck house. The view, however, is somewhat confusing. Neither the main mast nor the smoke stack in this class of ships was in line with the paddle wheel boxes. Moreover, the main mast was always well aft of the smoke stack and the fore mast was well forward of the paddle wheel boxes. I'm thinking that the artist was portraying a view from somewhere near the mizzen forward. I say this because the sterns of the ships boats are showing. BUT - I haven't seen a plan or other visual representation of this class of ships that showed them carrying their boats forward of the paddle wheel boxes. I imagine that the artist was primarily trying to capture the effect of the rough seas on the crew and so was not particularly careful with perspective (among other things). But I can't accept that he/she exercised their artistic license to remove a large deck house.

Blessings. Peace. Gratitude.
Chuck

I will put in my halfpenny... I am not sure that if you are building the Orenoque, that the deckhouse is incorrect. She was being used as a hospital ship, not a warship. The illustrations of the decks on her "sister" ships show major guncarriage works which show up a number of differences. Navypedia clearly marks them as being from different groups of fitting, and l'Orenoque would have been refitted for hospital work. Imagine pulling amputees in wheelchairs up flights of stairs ! Note that the deckhouse is directly over the section marked as the "batterie" which would also be a sector in disuse with no heavy armement.
As for the ships boats, here are a couple of plans, one of the Descartes/Gomer of this class, and a nice one of a contemprary russian sidewheeler, both showing overwheel stowage. Again , a hospital ship would probably carry extra boats. As usual when we delve into the past it is very difficult to be 100% sure, but in the end you must make her as you see fit, as we all do !



i presume you have this of l'Orenoque , which also shows the same setup.

sorry for making you scratch your head ! Martin.

 

[ROUGHLY MARTIN]

By the way , the ancient kit apparently came with cast metal paddle frames, not sure i wouldn't have prefered those if well cast !

 

[Namabiiru]

Whatever is that thing suspended from the foremast gaff on Sphinx?

 

[ROUGHLY MARTIN]

Whatever is that thing suspended from the foremast gaff on Sphinx?

Now theres a question ! Never noticed them before . Both ships have them. Look a bit like archaic funnel ventilators , that would be my guess with horses and a hot old steam engine below decks.

 

[Namabiiru]

Now theres a question ! Never noticed them before . Both ships have them. Look a bit like archaic funnel ventilators , that would be my guess with horses and a hot old steam engine below decks.

Ha! I didn’t even notice them in the picture above Sphinx because I was distracted by the horse in a sling being hoisted aboard (ashore?)

I think your surmise about ventilators is probably right, which is roughly what I was thinking, but I can’t discern any outlet/inlet anywhere at the top of any of them

 

[The Gavel]

I will put in my halfpenny... I am not sure that if you are building the Orenoque, that the deckhouse is incorrect. She was being used as a hospital ship, not a warship. The illustrations of the decks on her "sister" ships show major guncarriage works which show up a number of differences. Navypedia clearly marks them as being from different groups of fitting, and l'Orenoque would have been refitted for hospital work. Imagine pulling amputees in wheelchairs up flights of stairs ! Note that the deckhouse is directly over the section marked as the "batterie" which would also be a sector in disuse with no heavy armement.
As for the ships boats, here are a couple of plans, one of the Descartes/Gomer of this class, and a nice one of a contemprary russian sidewheeler, both showing overwheel stowage. Again , a hospital ship would probably carry extra boats. As usual when we delve into the past it is very difficult to be 100% sure, but in the end you must make her as you see fit, as we all do !

View attachment 523298View attachment 523299

i presume you have this of l'Orenoque , which also shows the same setup.View attachment 523300

sorry for making you scratch your head ! Martin.

Martin! Thank you for your input! None of my research, so far, shows she was a hospital ship. In any event, I'm not going to build her as one. As to the boat stowage, I'm talking about boats on davits in reference to the Darien picture. I know that the tops of the paddlewheel boxes were metal boats. The kit shows boats on davits. I plan to build her the way she was. I do have the L'Oronoque plans it would be funny if I didn't! Here is a copy of the plans for boat stowage over the paddle wheel.

 

[The Gavel]

By the way , the ancient kit apparently came with cast metal paddle frames, not sure i wouldn't have prefered those if well cast !

That's the problem, Martin! Most of the castings aren't particularly well done. I'm pretty sure we'll be ok with the wood this time

Blessings.
Chuck

 

[The Gavel]

Ha! I didn’t even notice them in the picture above Sphinx because I was distracted by the horse in a sling being hoisted aboard (ashore?)

I think your surmise about ventilators is probably right, which is roughly what I was thinking, but I can’t discern any outlet/inlet anywhere at the top of any of them

I think they are ventilators. On the Sphinx, I think the opening (air intake) isn't well called out in the drawing even though the flaps open toward the viewer. In the other image, the flaps open away from the viewer.

 

[ROUGHLY MARTIN]

Ha! I didn’t even notice them in the picture above Sphinx because I was distracted by the horse in a sling being hoisted aboard (ashore?)

I think your surmise about ventilators is probably right, which is roughly what I was thinking, but I can’t discern any outlet/inlet anywhere at the top of any of them

The triangular flaps remind me of teepee flaps. I have seen different vent setups on different models of the Sphinx which makes me think they were experimenting with these at the time. Here with and without funnel vents allthough they both have the oval midship engine cover vents.
.

 

[The Gavel]

The triangular flaps remind me of teepee flaps. I have seen different vent setups on different models of the Sphinx which makes me think they were experimenting with these at the time. Here with and without funnel vents allthough they both have the oval midship engine cover vents.
.View attachment 523309View attachment 523310

Nice models! It helps to see the decks. None of the images I got from the Maritime Museum showed the decks.

 

[ROUGHLY MARTIN]

the model on the right is a fantastic piece of work , 1/33 scratch, runs on a handmade steam engine and comes complete with the Louxsor barge used for transporting the obelisk. Have to admit i'm gobsmacked.

 

[The Gavel]

What ho, shipmates!

It should be an open secret by now that the build has begun. First steps - assembling the 3 part keel. I say keel rather than false keel because there is provision in the kit to apply a keel to a false keel - something I will address in due course. FYI the keel and the frames are 5mm plywood. On the whole the slots are just a tad too big so be warned.

I followed the instructions which tell the builder to assemble the keep over the plans. Happily, I have 1/4 inch thick glass sheets and sandwiched the keel between them over the plans. The red arrows on the first pic highlight a mistake I already made. Here's the problem - the mast locations are given by holes in the false deck. There are no guides below the false deck to receive the lower ends of the masts. That's problem 1. Problem 2 is that the kit plans show that the masts had no rake. The plans for the ship also show the masts with no rake. So I will have to engineer sockets extending from the keel to receive the lower ends of the masts which would have been easier to mark and attach before I started gluing on the frames

Also, the kit instructions on the proper rake merely tell the builder to "tilt the foremast slightly forward." Of course, this could be right. On the other hand, I'm interested to know if it was actually a "thing" in French ship-masting of this period to have the masts perpendicular to the keel? I know you'll have the answers, shipmates!




The second pic includes a set of the actual L'Orenoque plans I had made. This is not the scale set as you can see.

Here is the keel with reinforcing plates covering the assembly joints.

 

[The Gavel]

Here are a couple of close-ups of L'Orenoque's sail plan and hull showing, IMHO, 0 degrees of rake.

 

[The Gavel]

the model on the right is a fantastic piece of work , 1/33 scratch, runs on a handmade steam engine and comes complete with the Louxsor barge used for transporting the obelisk. Have to admit i'm gobsmacked. View attachment 523369View attachment 523374
View attachment 523363View attachment 523364View attachment 523367View attachment 523368

That's AMAZING work! Thank you for sharing these pics, Martin!

 

[The Gavel]

So - comment 1 for future builders of this kit - consider the issue of mast rake and prepare some method of connecting the lower ends of the masts to the keel. Depending on what information I learn - I will probably give the masts some slight rake - even though all of the sail plans and drawings of these ships show all the the masts with no rake.

Here are some shots of the frames aboard with the stiffening beams and the axle for the paddlewheels, and the false deck. As I mentioned above, the laser cuts left the slots a little too wide - there is wiggle room on every frame. To make sure my frames are "square," I'm doing a couple at a time, inserting the stiffening beams and placing the false deck

NOTE: The stiffening beam is made of 3 parts. The hole for the axle is not centered. If the beam is attached one way, the axel will be higher than if one attached the beam the other way. The instructions say nothing about this - The plans, however, do show that the beam should be attached with the axel in the low position.

NOTE: The instructions say nothing about removing the char or sanding the tops of the frames where they support the false deck. Careful removing the char -the slots become, relatively speaking, huge. Make sure to sand the tops of the frames before assembly so you don't have to do it later .

NOTE: The false deck has nothing to rest on fore or aft. It just butts into the adjacent frame. I added support. This should be done before the frame is glued in. I forgot to do it on the forward frame. Happily, it wasn't hard to take the camber of the deck from the next frame aft and make the support. I'm glad I caught this mistake early because it would have been a difficult process on the aft frame - you'll see.



The red arrows indicate the support beams for the fore and aft ends of the false deck. It will be much easier to plank this way. You can also see that the support aft really would have been tricky if it was left until frame 13 was permanently attached or, , until all of the frames were glued in.

 

[ROUGHLY MARTIN]

well, you're getting proper stuck in !

Certainly does have a big hole in the deck !

Everything french i've got from that period has rake to the main and mizzen, at least. You can see clearly on the new york/descartes plans , and frankly i have never seen a ship without some rake on these masts. Maybe the fore could be 90°, galeons were raked forard on this mast, but i would be inclined to give it a degree or so.

 

[ROUGHLY MARTIN]

Martin! Thank you for your input! None of my research, so far, shows she was a hospital ship. In any event, I'm not going to build her as one. As to the boat stowage, I'm talking about boats on davits in reference to the Darien picture. I know that the tops of the paddlewheel boxes were metal boats. The kit shows boats on davits. I plan to build her the way she was. I do have the L'Oronoque plans it would be funny if I didn't! Here is a copy of the plans for boat stowage over the paddle wheel.

View attachment 523306

i had not seen these before. quite ingenious.

 

[ROUGHLY MARTIN]

sorry about the hospital stuff, my mistake, not sure where that came from. just troop transport and prisoners of war.