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Amati supply with a number of their kits (including HMS Vanguard, which is my current build) gun carriages which have what appear to be verticle straps running down the side of the carriages.

 

Does anyone know if these are historically accurate? I've not seen them in any contemporary images of our remaing warships (Victory and the like). Are they perhaps a foreign pattern.

 

And does anyone have any info on how they were painted – all over red ochre or yellow; or the straps picked out in black etc?

 

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 I don't recognise that as a feature of English gun carriages particularly in the era of your build.  Amati are notorious for providing otherwise good kits with generic out of scale fittings, are the gun carriages made of metal?  I seem to recall that they supplied their Fly kit with such items, and gun barrels even fitted with dolphins. at one point.

The Amati guns provided with my Pegasus kit looked superficially ok, but they were seriously over scale, and  not of a correct profile, particularly around the muzzle, and with the bore of a siege gun.

By the late 1790's  most inboard works were painted yellow; although Red Ochre was still the official colour many Captains requested Yellow, and were in the habit of having their gun carriages re-painted. Not until 1807 did the Navy Board  formalise the procedure by notifying Dockyards  to accede to Captains requests for a yellow scheme.

Vanguard was first commissioned in 1790 and had some re-fits before she fought at The Nile in 1798, by which time she may well have had the yellow scheme, she was the Flagship of Nelson at the battle.

Even so I think there is sufficient leeway to give her the Red scheme if you prefer that.

 

B.E.

 

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Hi B.E. I think we've 'spoken' whilst you've been making your Pegasus and I was making Fly (I was certainly following your excellent blog).

I discarded the carriages for Fly and used Caldercraft ones, which I'd previously used in my HMS Diana. Unfortunately Vanguard (I'm actually building her ar the 'Billy-Ruffin') is 1/72 scale and so the Caldercraft ones will be too big. Moreover there are 24 and 12lb cannons on the 74s and therefore two sizes of carriage.

I searched around for carriages from eslewhere without any luck, so I was going to 'put up with' the Amati ones but they do bother me.

I'm aware of the two colour schemes (red or yellow) for this era, but I've seen models where the trucks, axletrees and stool bed were unpainted (simulating bare wood) and the side walls only were painted red or yellow, then those vertical straps painted black. I doubt they'd go to that length on a real warship of the time.

I visited l'Hermione last year in Rochefort and her carrieages were identical to the English pattern – although there's no guarantee that these were acurate to the French pattern of the time.

Perhaps Chris Watton may priovide an insight – I'll try and contact him.

Thanks for yout input.

Cal

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I was checking this out when Dave beat me to it, the Caldercraft guns barrels  and carriages would be a great improvement on the Amati offering.

When searching for replacement items I tend to look at the scale actual size and match that to what's available regardless of scale. A small gun at 1:64 may well serve as a larger one at 1:72.

I would talk directly to Jotika, ask them what the actual size of the guns at 12 and 24 Ib are.

 

Cheers,

 

B.E.

 

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