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A question about Lady Nelson by Amati


CharlieZardoz

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Hi everyone! Been doing some research on Amati's Lady Nelson, a beautiful kit in my opinion that I think will offer me some nice experience down the line.  My question is looking into the history of the Lady Nelson is seems that the kit is not based on the Australian vessel with two masts (that has a series of modern replica's) but is of an English cutter design.  The kit does look accurate as a cutter so was wondering if it was based on a plan of some sort (maybe something in one of Chapelle's books).

thanks!

 

Charlie

post-15936-0-05373300-1417994603_thumb.jpg

Build on hold: HM Sultana 1/64th scale

 

Current Build: 31 ton Doughty revenue cutter as USRC Active 1/64th scale (in progress)

 

Future Interests: Ballahoo, Diligence, Halifax and beyond...

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Greetings, 

 

I just decided to have a go at the Lady Nelson kit after the Jotika Pickle that I am building. I have to say the quality of the kit looks wonderful. 

 

I'm really looking forward to building the model. 

 

Just as a first look, I noticed the frame is built of MDF, not plywood. This means everything is absolutely flat and will not warp any time soon. I think that's a huge improvement over plywood. 

 

Regards, 

 

Rick

 

Montreal

Edited by rshousha

Rick Shousha

Montreal

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I'd be open to building her but would consider changing the name, hence why I'm curious what plan was used to design the kit.

Build on hold: HM Sultana 1/64th scale

 

Current Build: 31 ton Doughty revenue cutter as USRC Active 1/64th scale (in progress)

 

Future Interests: Ballahoo, Diligence, Halifax and beyond...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Based on the kit description from various sites, the Lady Nelson appears to be a "generic" representation of an 18th Century Cutter.

The source of plans is anyone's guess, but I suspect that there are plenty of un-named cutter plans at NMM that could have been used for this. 

 

The kit being a generic representation gives you an advantage since you could super-detail her using any of the reference books on 18th Century Cutters without being too concerned about very specific details such as how many sweep ports did she have, did her gun ports have lids or not, was she clinker or carvel planked, and other various details that would need a ship's log/builder's contract of the actual ship.

 

You could also get away with renaming her... HM Cutter Prince Zardoz seems to have a nice ring to it ;)

Best regards,

Aldo

Currently Building:
HMS Pegasus (Victory Models)-Mothballed to give priority to Triton

 

HMS Triton (first attempt at scratchbuilding)

 

 


Past build:
HM Brig Badger (Caldercraft), HM Brig Cruizer, HM Schooner Ballahoo

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The Lady Nelson looks like a really nice kit.  Even if it does not match a particular ship, as Aldo says, you could always find a cutter you like and modify the kit to build that cutter.  I found I got a lot more interested in this hobby when I moved from just building the kit out of the box like when I started my Badger, to researching ships and trying to improve their historical accuracy.  Good luck if you decide on this model - and post a build log :)

 

 

 

Just as a first look, I noticed the frame is built of MDF, not plywood. This means everything is absolutely flat and will not warp any time soon. I think that's a huge improvement over plywood. 

 

 

The Pegasus kit uses MDF as well - I think Amati really does builders a great service in moving the MDF for the keel and bulkheads, as the MDF (at least in my kit) was perfectly flat.  I had plywood keel issues with my Corel Unicorn kit, and even had a hard time sourcing perfectly flat 5mm plywood to replace it.  Hopefully more kit manufacturers move to MDF.

Mike

 

Current Wooden builds:  Amati/Victory Pegasus  MS Charles W. Morgan  Euromodel La Renommèe  

 

Plastic builds:    SB2U-1 Vindicator 1/48  Five Star Yaeyama 1/700  Pit Road Asashio and Akashi 1/700 diorama  Walrus 1/48 and Albatross 1/700  Special Hobby Buffalo 1/32  Eduard Sikorsky JRS-1 1/72  IJN Notoro 1/700  Akitsu Maru 1/700

 

Completed builds :  Caldercraft Brig Badger   Amati Hannah - Ship in Bottle  Pit Road Hatsuzakura 1/700   Hasegawa Shimakaze 1:350

F4B-4 and P-6E 1/72  Accurate Miniatures F3F-1/F3F-2 1/48  Tamiya F4F-4 Wildcat built as FM-1 1/48  Special Hobby Buffalo 1/48

Citroen 2CV 1/24 - Airfix and Tamiya  Entex Morgan 3-wheeler 1/16

 

Terminated build:  HMS Lyme (based on Corel Unicorn)  

 

On the shelf:  Euromodel Friedrich Wilhelm zu Pferde; Caldercraft Victory; too many plastic ship, plane and car kits

 

Future potential scratch builds:  HMS Lyme (from NMM plans); Le Gros Ventre (from Ancre monographs), Dutch ship from Ab Hoving book, HMS Sussex from McCardle book, Philadelphia gunboat (Smithsonian plans)

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Greetings, 

 

I am also planning on building the Lady Nelson shortly and was encouraged by the news that Pegasus also is made with MDF. Do you know if the big Vanguard has an MDF keel? 

 

Also, I am most interested in getting your impressions of working with the MDF. Have you built Pegasus? Is the MDF solid enough for large parts? i am considering moving my laser-cut frames from plywood to either MDF or high-density foam, like Renshape. Your input would be appreciated. 

 

Best Regards, 

 

Rick 

Rick Shousha

Montreal

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  • 2 years later...

Would this kit be acceptable for a first go? It's no Vanguard and certainly more involved than a ship's boat. Rigging that's not too complex (I've rigged a Cutty Sark but that was years ago) and not so simple as to be boring either. I would build her as Witch of Endor that Hornblower uses to escape the French in Flying Colours. I think this kit is about as close as one can get to the vessel described in the book. 10 gun cutter, sweeps. Leave out the swivel guns, maybe change the companionway hatch, move the holes for the sweeps forward a bit as the work described seems to be forward as described in the book. All easy changes to make to this kit. One could even build her with Bush at the tiller, Brown yelling at the freed galley slaves pulling on the oars and Hornblower and the French pilot manning the port side aft 6 pounder.

Any thoughts on it?

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3 hours ago, Sailor1234567890 said:

Would this kit be acceptable for a first go? It's no Vanguard and certainly more involved than a ship's boat. 

This seems like a really nice kit however I would definitely not under estimate the longboat. You can look through the logs here and see how complex that build actually is. 

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I'd say it's quite acceptable - check some of the other builds of this model for detail on the possible problems you may find. I finished a build of it recently but modified the rigging fairly extensively using L. Petersson's "Rigging Period Fore-and-aft Craft" as a guide as the kit is somewhat over simplified.

 

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  • 1 month later...

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