Mary Rose "Your Noblest Shippe" 1545 scale 1/50

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Forecastle update.

The general form is ready, my own free interpretation.
Shields still need to be placed in the open sections on the center deck.

Current status

 

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A few extra holes have been made in accordance with those in the rearcastle.

And after measuring with the laser, it turned out that the entire forecastle was slightly tilted relative to the hull.

This problem has now been rectified. If only I didn't tell anyone about this, no one would have noticed

The forecastle is painted, but I didn't think the top part was really successful. Too high and too green.

The height was therefore adjusted.


And repainted.

Better, I think. The paintwork still needs some tidying up here and there.

 

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Time to start on the 2 cannons in the outer castle.
The 3D printed cannons come from Australia. (via MSW)

Making 2 carriages; little of these will be visible. So I put little time into the details.

Making wheels. Sawed thin pieces with the miter saw, so that you can then hammer out the wheels across the grain.

The barrels are only glued later.

Stairs on both sides are too much. In that case, the stairs to the upper deck must be in the middle. And that is just in front of the entrance (arrow).
Ladder(s) will occasionally switch places at a later stage)...

So a staircase leads from the lower deck to the starboard side. And a staircase leads to the upper deck to the port side.
(The patchwork in the deck planking will be invisible later)

Adder 1 for access to deck 2 has been placed

Deck 2 is planked and "nailed". Following 16th-century custom, short, long, wide, and narrow planks have been used.

Ladder 2 under construction

ready for assembly

Ladder 2 installed and deck 3 planked.
Work has now begun on the rear of the front castle.

And sawed material for the masts.
Pine wood with closely spaced grain is used for this.
Normally, this shouldn't warp anymore (it has been lying dry waiting "in the yard" for well over 25 years now).

 

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Continuing with the planking of the forecastle.
Among the remains of the rearcastle, part of a decorative "drain" was found. This likely served to drain water from the deck at the front of the castle to the sides of the hull. So why would there not be one at the forwardcastle?
This was made from a solid oak tree trunk, and on the model it is constructed from various layers of cherry wood and twisted iron wire (to be painted later).

The drain is in place and the boards have been installed. Gluing board by board and letting it dry took a while..

Sanded and further finishing is in progress.

The back is ready to be painted

And painted. Not entirely "to my liking" yet, but for now, it will stay like this.
The form is there, and after having worked on this piece for months. Something else for a change.
The next step will be the gun deck.

And this is where we stand now. (fore castle dry fit)

 

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Preparation of the gun deck.

Since there are no gratings in the deck above, little or nothing of the interior of this deck is visible.
The intention is to make the gun mounts as simple as possible, and only add the (half) gun barrels later.

The first attempt failed, luckily no photos.
The second attempt was with wooden blocks. Reasonably good, but the (large) blocks turn out to be too visible when sunlight shines on them.

On the third attempt, these blocks have now been reduced in size and painted completely black.
This method will be used for the bronze cannons.

The screw is indeed a bit too long for this setup.

View with the large block behind it

View with the reduced block behind it

Moving on to the "forged iron cannons" that will be placed on deck.
These consist partly of wood and the barrel will be made of plastic.
First, make the wooden parts.
For that, we are first moving temporarily to the garden shed. I get to make dust there....

The base: cherry cubes

Square in the drill stand

Boren

Sawing through

Back in the hobby room for the finishing touches.

one ready

 

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In the meantime, prepare the masts and yards.
During the previous holiday, the possible dimensions were drawn up.
All of this is largely guesswork.

Nice weather to work outside, so I set up the "lathe".
Custom construction, not a pretty thing. But it works.
View attachment 20250512_134804.mp4

All mast sections are "semi" finished. Together with the main yard.

 

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Continuing with the cannons
The forged iron cannons are constructed from polystyrene tubing, the inner and outer diameters of which always differ by 1 mm.
These are then glued onto the wooden part (gun carriage) and fitted with an iron pin.
They will be finished later.

So, it looks like this for now.
Standardization was not yet in fashion at this time...

In the meantime, also started on the "foundation" of the deck above.
And making stairs again.

Test setup (with bowsprit still too long)

 

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I requested and received information from the Mary Rose Museum.

Question: Was there a capstan, and if so, where?
Answer.
There is no real evidence that there was one, but also no evidence that there wasn't one. And the most logical place is behind the main mast.

I also received a (free) PDF "cables and cablets of the Mary Rose" which contains a lot of info about the layout of the upper deck and the anchor cables.
This PDF has about 25 pages and is normally downloadable for around £47 .... I don't think it will sell well...

This results in the following layout (not a technical masterpiece but reasonably clear).

Start work on deck.

Construction of the knight . Given that it involves a really large sail, the only one with 3 sheaves

It turned out that the main mast is positioned too far aft.

Corrected position.

Knight and the base plates for the upper deck installed. With the layout roughly sketched.

And started planking. First the section on the starboard that still exists, and then comes the rest.
Time to puzzle...

 

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The puzzle is coming along pretty well.
The further back you go, the less attention has been paid to planking. once the rear castle is finished, you will see little of it.

And sanded down outside. Same story again: what remains visible gets the most attention.

The stairs are also being installed; an extra small beam is glued to the bottom and top steps.
This provides more surface area for gluing and will not be visible here later.

The stair openings are fitted all around with mitered battens.
Slanted grooves have been made here. The crossbars of the hatch fitted into these, allowing this opening to be closed off if desired.
(the clamp on the milling table is therefore placed at an angle)

The shutters in the middle are based on the same principle.

glueing

 

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Construction of the various hatches on this deck.

There are 8 small hatches, above each cannon standing on the deck below.
Not a single one is identical. Looks sloppy, but so be it...
These served (probably) for: ventilation, communication with colleagues to open/close the gunports, or???...

Hatches are also provided in the middle.
An anchor cable later "disappears" under one of them.
Underneath another, a ladder will remain partially visible.

Align the mast, straight across and leaning slightly backward along the length.

Capstan under construction

Further finishing of the upper deck.
First a layer of Danish oil and then "nails"

And the construction of the wall of the rear castle has begun.

The beam that goes above the 4 overlapping planks was quite a bit of routing and fiddling.

 

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Reconstruction of the rearcastle wall on the upper deck.
Drawing of what remains of it.

Result.
Originally, swivels may have been installed here. Therefore, two holes have been provided in the beam on each side.
Whether these were still present after the renovation..???

The supports in the middle are gueswork.

The drainage gutter from the deck above, once this is painted, you won't notice the wire anymore

 

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Continuing with the "arch" under the forecastle (typical of a carrack)
Contrary to what I previously thought, this did serve as access from the upper deck to the forward castle.

The construction took place step by step.


The carved/sanded arch. Ladder and staircase still need to be installed.
The curved beam is called a "catena" and served for the anchor cable. It is not yet glued in place.


Looks like it will work out.
The front castle is still separate, but currently seems to be leaning a bit, I just noticed in the photo.

 

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The space beneath the forecastle is somewhat more detailed (in a guesswork style), but later on, not much of it is visible anymore.
With the Catena in a dry fit and knees that, should they remain visible, could give the impression that the chest is really well supported.

With the bowsprit, dry fit.

And the holes for the anchor cable.

Now i make the shields that are still missing from the forecastle.
These are based on remains of shields found near the rear castle.

The start

One finished

Test

Serial work

These shields are finished; there are still about 40 to do for the rear castle.

The forecastle has been painted.
The painting scheme of the reverse side has been adjusted so that it looks more like the Anthony drawing.

And Mary went on a trip to Amsterdam (september 2025)

 

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This is from januari 2026, with started with demolition work.
I forgot to install the foresail halyard ...

And a sleeping supervisor (again)

So I made a knight (a simple version, will be virtually invisible later). An accompanying block, a rope, and a screw...

Blocks from the first half of the 16th century are quite "exotic" and therefore labor-intensive to make.

The servant firmly attached with the screw

Test, the entire mechanism is operable via the capstan.

Deck 1 rebuilt (with a narrower ladder this time)

Deck 2 also back in position

The foremast has a mast foot.

The forecastle is finally glued to the hull, and securely "bolted" in place.

Made a new "gutter", using the one from the rear castle as a model.

Once installed, it served as drainage to drain away all the water that collected in the outer castle.
Whether it was actually present, I have no idea.

status.

 

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Continuing with the rear castle
As previously discovered, the top is too wide and will obstruct the standing rigging.
The drawings used were incomplete, and I didn't notice it during the construction either.
Don't worry, there is a solution for everything. So this time with threaded rods.

So, tighten with the threaded rods to the desired width.

Gluing beams and reinforcements

And with a nail (bad photo)

In the meantime, continue working on the front.

And make 40 small shields for the swivels

of which several have already been in place

The front of the rear castle has been constructed. Still to be painted, openings made for cannons, etc.
Noticed in the photo that the plank on the top right is slightly wider (this has been resolved).

An oversized ladder from theforecastle could be placed here.

 

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Now, first make the rudder and the tiller.

Preparations. The 2 pieces have been sawn and milled.

Glue together.

Compared to a figure, the rudder is quite large.

The rudder and tiller are largely finished.

Recesses for the hinges have been milled.

So I don't use brass for the hinges. During the build of the Corel yacht, I realized once again that this doesn't suit me.
So, make polystyrene pieces and paint them.

The hinges are not neatly spaced evenly.
They are wider at the pivot point than at the rear of the rudder.
And goaround the rudder (unusual, but seen here and there)


These polystyrene hinges provide no rigidity, so the rudder is attached to the hull with copper wire.
Drilling holes in the rudder.

And in the hull

Rudder hinges have been installed and painted .

And just tap it into place with the hammer.


Now attach the hinge pieces to the hull.

Continued working on the hinge parts on the hull. These were painted black first before gluing them in place. This makes things easier, because holding the large hull at the correct painting angle and painting it is difficult..
Next, the "bolts" are glued on. The "bolts" are cut from 1mm round plastic strip.

And then there was a rudder.

 

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The rearcastle deck I am currently working on has 6 cannons. They need to be made first.
To make working easier, they are made together with the other cannons.
First the wrought iron pieces. The method is roughly the same as back then, just slightly smaller pieces and no danger of burning your fingers.

Rings are cut from plastic tubing and slid over the "cannon barrel". Once everything is in the right place, glue it.
It's not too bad

The dummies are largely assembled.
Pointing to the left: 2 so-called "sternchasers" in the stern.
The other 8 are called "port pieces".
Looked up on the internet, the term "portpiece" comes from a cannon that fires through a "port". In other words, a cannon that you fire through a gun port...

The 2 horizontal ones at the top end up in the rear castle. And remain only partially visible.
The other is called "slings".
The longest are slings, shorter ones demi-slings, and the shortest quarter-slings. In short: the longer the cannon, and consequently the gun barrel, the greater the range.
Work in progress

There was only one sling left, and it was found in the right place. So, at the time, it was really in everyone's way...

And then it turned out that the cannonports were too small. The one on the left has been adjusted.

 

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All dummies have been temporarily placed

And back to the rest (no two are the same)

The half dummy cannons have been painted.
First matte black
Wash with diluted metal paint
And then touched up a bit here and there with a pencil.

It is now the turn of the complete cannons.

With the dummies in the hull

And a cannon ready for painting

The entire battery (the 2 on the right go into the rear castle, and are therefore less detailed)

Painted

The 8 pieces for the middle deck

There will also be 2 on the upper deck of the aftcastle (one of them here, currently still "floating in the air")

 

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So, on to the bronze cannons.
The cannons 3D printed in Australia save me a lot of work and headaches.
The only thing that caused some problems was the bore. This had to be filled first and then bored out.

Re-drilled and painted

All cannons ready and painted

The 2 used "bronze paints".
The Revell was disappointing. Looks dark on the lid, and resulted in a sort of light red coppery color, just bad...
The Tamiya color wasn't too bad.
Method used:
The Revell bronze as a base coat, and over that a Tamiya layer diluted with IPA.

Result

 

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With the cannons largely ready, on to the rear castle.
The cannons present on the lowest deck have been mounted. Given that little of this will remain visible internally, the detailing is not excessive.

There is insufficient headroom to install deck beams with plywood above them; therefore, the plywood is recessed between the deck beams.

The basis for the next deck

View from the outside, little of the interior is visible.

And already an overview with 3 of the 4 masts

The tops of the mainmast and foremast still turn out a bit too thick, by eye.

Planking
The "one and only" remaining plank

The rest is in "free style"

The deck planking is ready