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HMS Victory by Bazzg - Mantua - 1/200


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Hi- would love some help as i stated this is my First wooden Model i have started planking top half of Build now after looking on line i think i go from the bottom to the top now. But were do i start from do i start from the arrow's then down to meet the rest or from the green clip,s, ( They seem to miss this bit out it suddenly is planked so i can,t make out how it,s done from here ) the Manual is a waste of time its hopeless 

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Okay, what I am about to tell you, you may not want to hear, but trust me that I'm telling you this so that you will have long-term success in this hobby.

 

You are off to a bad start. You already have a couple of strikes against you because you are starting out on both a really difficult model to build and building it in a scale that is a real booger for beginners. To get an idea of what you are up against, please click on this link and read our cautionary tale for beginners.

 

Next -- put this model aside, for now at least. It is an excellent example of a "hobby killer." What you need is a suitable beginner's kit that will give you a reasonable chance of success. For some ideas on beginner's kits, have a look at this topic. Essentially, you should start off with less of everything: less planking, less rigging, less guns, etc. Everything except scale -- you want more of that, i.e. larger scale. I suggest something on the order of 1/64 scale or larger.

 

Third: read. An excellent book for beginners (I cut my modeling teeth on it) is Frank Mastini's Ship Modeling Simplified. You can probably get a copy through your local library.

 

Finally, browse through the kit build logs and look for two things. First, look for build log titles that include verbiage like "first build." These are modelers who are in the same figurative boat as you. Second, from those logs, have a look at the ones that say "FINISHED" in the title. Those are logs for models that beginners have successfully completed. Most of them will be for fairly simple kits, but the important thing is that they finished.

 

Again, I'm saying this because I have been in this hobby for 20 years and have witnessed many beginning modelers embark on their modeling adventure with a kit that is over their head. They usually get as far as planking the hull and then give up. You don't have to be one of them, but starting out with a simpler kit and a better idea of how to get started will go a long way towards making that happen.

 

Kind regards,

Chris Coyle
Greer, South Carolina

When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk.
- Tuco

Current builds: Brigantine Phoenix, Hawker Hurricane

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I agree whole heartedly and I will also add here, get yourself a pair of planking pliers to start you off on a good footing. Planking pliers will crimp the plank in several spots helping to make those seemingly impossible bends. Once you have started becoming better at planking usually your third model, you can lose those planking pliers and go to the traditional method of soak, steam, bend and break your planks.   

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I'm not sure that Victory kit is actually buildable, the plans are wildly in disagreement with each other and it will at least require a significant amount of kit-bashing to come out with something workable. I started it at one point, but found the plans so far out of agreement and fairly nonsensical that I ended up putting it back on the shelf. There are much better kits to start with for your first ship, from Model Shipways' long boat and pinnace to the various cutter kits available (Sherbourne from Caldercraft, Lady Nelson from Victory models, and the new Avos from Master Korabel). Besides the very poor plans, Victory is a three-masted full ship rig, pretty much as complex as it gets.

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I have built close to 40 ship model kits from various manufactures, various scales, various prices points and various skill levels and I have not yet found a NON-buildable ship model kit, if there were, the company would have folded a long time ago. The problem with most foreign made kits are the broken English that is used to translate. But I have found if you can half read plans and use the instructions as mainly a guide, you will fair a lot better at building any ship model. I must also stress RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH because without the research it will make a complex build that much harder. I will spend hours (more likely a hundred or more) hours researching the intended build. If I can't find info on the target ship model, I will use one quite similar to the one I'm building.

 

One of the best starter kits that I have seen is the Model Shipways Bluenose. No hard angles to the hull. The instructions are some of the best I have seen and they even show you how to plank and not only the hull, but also the deck as well. Now when I mention research, when I built a model of the HMS Bounty, I found VHS tapes of both versions of Mutiny on the Bounty and watched them both probably 10-15 times each just to get ideas and a feel for the model I was building at the time.      

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  • 1 year later...

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