Blue Ensign

Thank you Glenn (UK) glad you like it. @ Glenn (Texas) - hmmn, translucent Orange Ochre, I'll let that percolate for a while 🤔 😄 Post Seventy-seven Back to the Rail sets. The Sheer Rail patterns comprise three levels of attached delicate rail and volutes. 5615(2) As I look at them they seem to be saying ‘go on, have a go, see if you can clean us up as a set’. You must be joking thinks I, first to go will be the small top moulding attached only by its scroll, followed in short order by the long upper rail just begging to snap in two, and probably in the least convenient place to disguise an unofficial break. So, where to separate these devilish little beggars to achieve success. 5619(2) This was my judgement, divide the rail set into three parts as above. Not out of the woods yet, they still need delicate handling to clean off the Char, and impart a slight round to the forward edges. 5621 The cleaning was done with the sections secured in the rubber grips of the vice. Using bespoke sanding sticks with P320 paper. Nothing was left in a position where it could flex, and in the more delicate areas the minimum of area was exposed while sanding. 5622 The rails in place, I won this skirmish at least. The Sheer and Waist rail sections I think can be cleaned up without separation. The waist rail section has cut outs where it passes across the gun-ports. I think these are best removed before fitting, as the rail ends can be better cleaned up without risk of marking the gun-port linings. Just remember to mark on the back the correct way up taking the sheer into account. 5625 The one other small modification I made in this area was to rebate the back edge of the fenders to fit over the black strake rather than cut the strake. The final part of the mouldings are the six sections of the Waist rail that fit between the fenders and the Quarter Gallery. 5626(2) I again separated these into the individual sections to fit between the ports. It has taken two days of fairly constant work to clean and fit these sections, but I’m pleased with the result, and consider it well worth the effort. B.E. 09/02/22

You're taking the right approach with this one Glenn, by not giving ground on the preparation, or accepting major flaws. I would also do blind feel tests as you go along, the fingers often tell more than the eyes. B.E.

Those sheave representations in the Breast rail stanchions are way above and beyond at 1:64 I had to go next door to look at my Pegasus to remind myself how small those stanchions are. Great stuff Bug , your detailing is superb.👏 B.E.

Chris knows what's in my heart, I live in hope. I'm sure he will tell you.😀 B.E.

You're getting quite a fleet of these attractive little Fishing boats Jim, every house should have one.(or two, or three.) I got immense pleasure from building Fifie and Zulu, but now I'm holding out for the ultimate, which I'm keeping fingers crossed will come down the line at some point. B.E.

Post Seventy-Six The Headworks – Part Two I re-visited the Bow Cheeks and faced them with some fine 0.8 x 2mm Pear strip, scribed with a profile. Once the strip was scribed it was scraped down from the back side to a thickness of 0.4mm. The lower rail which slots into the notches on the timber heads is next fixed. This is a delicate finely made piece with an elegant sweep up to the head. The timber heads are covered by decorative boards, but even so the notches seem way over large for the rail which is only around 2mm deep, tapering to around 0.5mm. 5543 I imagine Chris has cut them this way to allow plenty of leeway to get the rails in place, but for me this is ugly and will niggle me forever if I let it stand. I won’t have any Bowsprit rigging to detract from the deficiencies in this area. Fitting the Lower rail is a tricky business, and I struggled a long time with it. The inner end is shown to fit against the hull on the inner side of the inner hawse hole. Coupled with the Ekeing rail ending abruptly at the outer side of the inner hawse hole this looks a little awkward and unfinished to me. I extended the Ekeing Rail to cover the inner hawse hole. Back to the Head rails, those large gaps will be apparent from head-on or Three-Quarter viewing points. The simplest approach will be to fit the rails and infill the excess mortise with small Pear blocks. Sanded and painted with the covering boards attached, the issue should hopefully disappear. 5546(2) I say simple but fitting those tiny infills took an afternoon, and repeat visits to my office floor to recover the pieces. 5585 5594(2) The Wash cants below the lower cheeks are yet to be fitted; I’m undecided whether to fit them at all. 5570 5568 At this point in the manual, work is suspended on the head pending completion of the Foc’sle deck and rails and I am happy to follow suit. I will leave the covering boards and completion of the Ekeing rail until I am ready to fit the Cathead and more importantly the Cathead supporter. The tail of this should have an angle that seamlessly fays into the curve of the Ekeing rail. 5606 To conclude I couldn’t resist trying the figure of Sphinx on the head, always useful to pre-check how it relates to the other stuff, decoration, rails, or even the stive of the Bowsprit. I will be using artists oils to paint the figure, and as they take an age to dry I’ll play around with ‘Sphinx’ off model as a change from the main build. B.E. 08/02/22

That's a fine looking model Richard and very nicely done. I suspect you have to develop a whole new skill set to make those card models, they always look tricky to me. Regards, B.E.

Look forward to seeing your progress Bob, what’s not to like about a Vanguard build. 👍 B.E.

Post Seventy-five The Headworks – Part One This area of a build is one of the most critical and complex. There should be an elegance about how the rails sweep up to the head. The three head timbers are concave in shape flaring upwards from the cheeks/Hairbracket to meet the Main rail. 1649 Look at the elegance of the Headworks on Victory, this is what I will have in mind and hope to replicate as I approach the job. The kit provides laser cut parts to make up the head timbers with a separate Gammoning knee and laser cut grating. The assembly then fits atop the knee of the head. The laser cutting and fit of these parts is good but the Gammoning knee needs a little fettling to get it to sit right down on the knee of the head. 5507 This comprises sanding by degrees the locating nubs on the bottom of the knee. 5508 The grating set needs a little fettling to get a good fit to the hull. 2640 Checking the level of the grating set. Before I fit this stuff into place I need to paint the head. 5521 I am following the Marshall painting scheme rather than the kit. 5519 Above the Lower Rail the knee is painted Blue. The Timber heads are also painted blue on their faces. 5524(2) The black paint of the wale is carried across to the stem and abuts the Blue of the head. 5510 The Hair Brackets are very delicate serpentine shaped fittings and the softest of handling is required if the char is to be removed. They fit into place with the minimal of tweaking. 2643 When it came to the Ekeing patterns ((79/80) 0.6mm sheet 1) there is a mismatch between the manual (Sect.288) and the actual parts. 2645 These appear to be much longer that the actual parts. According to the manual (section 288) these are supposed to run from the Cathead mortise down to around the outer hawse hole and fit over the forward rail pattern. In practice, I think the unmoulded upper part may be for the Cathead bracket, which makes sense, but the mismatch does cause some confusion, and I spent some time trying to find those elusive long rails, thinking perhaps that the part numbers were incorrect. The Bow Cheeks are nicely shaped but I thought they can be enhanced by scribing a profile on their outer edges. 5525 Unfortunately the way the kit Cheeks are cut means the scribing along the edge is across the grain, which doesn’t make for a nice clean line. 5528 Not happy with this result, I’ll try facing the cheeks with a moulding, or cut new ones with the grain going the right way. B.E. 06/02/22

Hope you resolve the vision issue soon Mark. B.E.

Post Seventy-four Fettlin’ the rails I will start with the forward section, and get that fixed into place first so I can proceed to the Headworks. 2609(2) I removed the Ekeing rail sections from below and above the lower rail. I left the middle and upper rails attached as I thought I could handle those without breakage, and I didn’t want to remove the tiny verticals between the two that form the connection for the channels support brackets. 2607(2) With the rails secured in the vice (with its rubber inserts in place) the char is very gently removed using sanding sticks with used paper on them. A slight round is also given to the top and lower edges of the rails. 2622 Very soft hands are required for this and I make bespoke sanding sticks for the purpose. 2613 The rails were soaked as per the blurb, and clamped in place to dry overnight. 2617(2) These are the bits left over, mostly unintended breakages, but they should fit into place once the main parts are secured on the hull. 2624(2) So far, so good, the necessary curve is retained. 05493(2) The rails were glued into place using PVA, I take the precaution of keeping a jar of clean water, and a small brush to hand, to remove any glue spread onto the ground. 05486 The bits that broke away went back without issue. 05498 05490(2) It is a slow and precise business fitting the rails, I’ve spent two days on the forward sections, but I think cleaning them up is worth the effort, for me at least. I will now move onto the Headworks. B.E. 04/02/22

Beautiful work Glenn, I love your planking. B.E.

I like that idea of the Pearwood strips with the the brass etch profile cutter included, but that would up the cost of a kit and the line has to be drawn somewhere. The Sphinx laser cut rail sets are I think designed to be put into place without messing with them, that way if soaked and pre-bent they are not likely to become a problem. I've always made profile cutters from an old single edged safety razor blade, altho' cutting the profiles for a 2mm x 1mm strip would prove testy. I do have a set of micro scrapers made by Artesania Latina, but they are designed for larger profiles, the smallest is 1x3mm. Back to soft hands and gentle strokes. B.E.

I've been playing around all afternoon with these pieces with varying degrees of success. If they come out ok I'll probably use them, if not I do have the makings to create the rails, altho' some of those delicate volutes would be more problematical to reproduce. Hopefully I'll get there the end. Regards, B.E.

Cheers Guys, there comes a point in a build where the enjoyment level takes a sharp upward curve, I have now reached that point, with detailing taking over from the basic construction. Post Seventy three Painting the Topsides Just as I was thinking about moving onto the Headworks it struck me that I had better attend to painting the Topsides. 2592 Using 2mm Tamiya tape I covered the areas I didn’t want varnished or painted. Between the wale and the topsides w-o-p was applied by brush as rubbing it on with a rag risked getting the varnish where it wasn’t wanted. I used two brushes one in each hand, the first to apply the varnish, the second a dry brush, to immediately wipe off any excess. Three coats were applied. 2598(2) 2602(2) The Blue and Red grounds to the Topsides were done next, again three coats were applied, with a light sanding using old paper before the last coat. With a little reluctance I now need to look at those fragile rail patterns that run along the hull from bow to Qtr Gallery. The Forward Sheer and waist rail patterns include the hull section of the Eking Rail that runs up to the Cathead support and therefore has a link to the Headworks. 2595(2) Things didn’t start well, I swear Guvnor I barely touched it and bits fell off. I really don’t see how the char can be effectively removed whilst keeping the rail sets intact. This subject was raised in Jacek’s build, and I have decided to follow Chuck’s excellent advice on the subject. It is worth repeating Chuck’s advice here both as an aide memoire for me and for the benefit of those who may read this log. Chuck’s comments. But looking at the shape of those parts and the way they are cut, they lend themselves to breaking along the cross-grain. So, if it were me cleaning those, I would pre-emptively break those moldings in the most delicate spots such as the areas that broke for you. I would have carefully cut those cross-grain vertical pieces away so I could more easily hold the molding and sand them a little at a time individually down their length with some 420-grit sandpaper. I would cut the vertical pieces free right up against the fancy molding. Indicated by the red lines. But that’s just me. If you are really worried about placing the vertical elements back where they should be, you could also cut them free leaving a small nub against the fancy molding. But leave the break point as a clean break so the pieces will glue back without even ever seeing the seams. So this is the approach I will take, following Jacek’s lead who in my opinion has done a fine job in cleaning the rails, based on Chuck’s advice. This will be the next Job, getting the Sheer and Waist patterns fettled and applied so I can move onto the Headworks. B.E. 02/02/22

If you used ca to glue the etch it should come off with a thin blade worked beneath it. Just hold a finger over it, or perhaps a piece of tape to avoid it pinging away. If it is stubborn paint a little acetone around it. As you probably know by now the piece you have below the upper rail of the QG properly belongs to the lower finishing piece, and is the wrong way up. Remove it, I think you can make it look a lot better, may need a sanding and repaint, but worth the effort. B.E.

Nicely crafted rails Bug, a vast improvement on the over-scale kit versions. B.E.

Neat spot of gammoning there Ron.👍 B.E.

Post Seventy-two The Quarter Galleries. The first job is to glaze the lights. More careful gloved handling to reduce as far as possible any smearing of the acetate. I recall reading somewhere, the reference escapes me, that some of the lights, particularly the aftermost one, were false or only half lights, presumably to give an element of privacy. I have decided to fully glaze them not least for uniformity and aesthetic effect. 2543 With the frames in place the sense of depth and light as a result of opening up the Galleries achieves the natural look I was after. A word on the window frames These are handed left and right and fore to aft, there are I think subtle differences between the angles particularly the aftermost frame and the forward two. Follow the details on Plan 13. It then becomes an easy fit over the ‘glazing’. I again used Vallejo varnish to fix, applying dots on the outer framework using a toothpick. I allowed the varnish to slightly thicken before application, to improve grab and avoid any spread onto the glazing. Fitting the decorative columns between the windows gave me some pause for thought. Not as simple as for the stern gallery where there were clearly marked reference points. 2550 I removed the model from the Amati keel clamp where it had been for the fitting of the stern decoration, and set it back in its working stand. 2557 This gave me a better approach level for the task. At the correct height I can steady my elbows on the work bench while I apply these little parts. 2556 The trick is getting them all aligned at the right height and without getting any glue spread. The blurb indicates that the columns are placed evenly between the top and bottom of the window frames. Then there is the question of how to apply them without fat fingers getting the way and without marring the carefully painted surface. I used a toothpick shaped to fit in the centre recess of the column. Ideally a one shot attempt is best, I don’t really want to be sliding the part around spreading glue on the blue paintwork. 2560 Things will look better once the moulding strips are applied. Mouldings. These too I found tricky to fit, using ca gel. On the Starboard side the columns had to be removed as I couldn’t get the moulding to run cleanly to the stern; I think I had applied the aftermost column a fraction low. 2563 The trouble with removing etch is that there is a high risk of it pinging off into the ether, as one did, followed by a fraught ten minutes wrestling it from the carpet monster. 2566 On reflection I wonder if it is better to fit the mouldings before the columns. The joints with the stern rails were chamfered to represent mitre joints which give the neatest result at this scale. 2578 I used the discarded stern rails to make the two main gallery rails. For the decoration between the rails I went with the photo etch. Take note that the designated parts are PE 23AL AND 23AR, not as shown in the manual. Next came the shingle for the roof, cleverly designed in photo etch, these are applied one overlapping the other in four rows. They are primed and painted in Vallejo Black/Grey. 2586 The final and possibly the trickiest element is the decoration for the finishing piece. 2571 Two small separate pieces that need to fit in the space below the Berthing rail, and it is at this point whether you shaped the Finishing piece correctly all those weeks ago is revealed. As I had significantly messed about with the Qtr galleries I had my doubts. 2583(2) 2581(2) Still some fettlin’ to do on the stern but that’s it for the present, moving on in my opinion, to the most critical part of a build, the Headworks. What joy awaits. B.E. 31/01/22

Thank you everyone so much for your supportive comments, I am pleased with the way it has turned out, in no small way thanks to Chuck allowing me to use the ‘Winnie’ artwork and providing me with the bespoke lettering for the name. @ Tom - Painting the Tafferel decorations was a challenge I has to use high magnification specs with the optivisor on top. There was a lot of re-touching involved, and probably more to come. Cheers, B.E.

Post Seventy-one Stern work – the final stage The next stage is to add the Upper counter rail which runs directly below the windows and the bottom edge of the Tafferel. This sits neatly below the columns and the bottom end of the Tafferel. I had no need of the ‘filling’ patterns to raise the Tafferel level. 2466 I did however hit a snag, the length of the kit moulding strips is barely sufficient to reach the edge of the stern facia, leaving no excess to form a neat join with the corresponding rails that run along the Qtr Gallery. As far as I can see on the prototype build the ends of the Quarter gallery mouldings simply meet the stern rails with a cut grain end. Not so bad if the rail is to be painted as the joint can be fudged, but leaving it as clean varnished wood presents a problem on this highly visible feature. I wasn’t confident that I could make a decent job of the moulding joints using the kit parts, so the other option is to make your own. These two photos of Chuck’s Winnie build demonstrate how the moulding joins should be. I hope to emulate this on Sphinx. 2464(2) I scribed replacement rails using some lengths of 0.8mm x 3mm Pearwood strip, The lower one in the above photo. The beauty of scribing your own is that you have endless goes to get it right, at least until your timber or patience runs out. 2533 The Upper rail in place extending beyond the counter to allow for meeting the adjoining rail. It is now time to fit the counter decoration, courtesy of Chuck who designed the name lettering. Tricky this because it has to be tweaked to fit the specifics of the Sphinx counter whilst ensuring that the lower rail of the counter does not obscure the lettering. Trial and error produced one of the correct proportions. 2535 With the print glued into place the lower moulding is added. 2537 So Sphinx at last is named. It is interesting to note that on the Marshall painting (1775) the name is not shown on the Upper counter. As we know the order for adding the names to the counter came in in 1772, is on the Admiralty Plan, and most importantly I like to see the names on the sterns of ships of this era. Onto the Quarter Galleries. B.E. 28/01/22

Post Seventy Stern work continues. The resin Tafferel is the significant feature of the stern. 3378(2) The decoration matches both the Admiralty plan (above) and the Marshall painting. An excellent job, cleanly engraved, and far ahead of the simple Brass etch supplied with the Pegasus kit. In reality the Quarter figures should really be angled slightly outwards, below and replacing the capping rail down to the counter. 3376 This detail from the Admiralty plan shows the arrangement. A tricky thing to achieve on a resin casting unless the Quarter figure was moulded separately. 1812 I modified the arrangement on my Pegasus build, but I have decided not to mess with the tafferel on Sphinx and leave it as is. I would hate to have to go to Chris and report that I have yet again messed up one of his nicely designed parts. The Resin piece is set up on a mini ‘easel’ and the painting begins with the ground.That’s the easy bit. To assist painting the raised designs, I make up a palette comparison to help me gauge the shadowing and highlights of the various Ochre shades. 2489(2) Various shades of Ochre against the blue ground. 2482(2) The Vallejo Ochre Brown is used for the base coat of the figures. 2493(2) Highlighting and shadowing is applied using a combination of the ochre shades combined with a little darker wash for the crevices. I think it is going to take a few attempts to get the lining around the frame right. 2500(2) Glued into place. My aim is to get the toning of the raised relief to be in keeping with the printed frieze work. 2524(2) Fixing the Cove design is a tricky business; very fine etch to be precisely positioned above the columns. For this I used Roket 10 second cyano glue gel, using pin prick spots on the Cove just above the columns and where the crowns sit. Above all I wanted to avoid the risk of glue spread from beneath the etch, marring the ground. There is really only one chance of getting the position right, the etch is delicate and the ca strong, trying to remove it would surely cause it to break. 2522(2) Onto the Upper Counter. B.E. 27/01/22

You could check with Hobbymill EU (A sponsor of MSW) they do advertise Hornbeam. I bought some supplementary Pearwood from them, it was good quality and a snag free transaction. B.E.

Thank you Thomas and Glenn. 'True Artist' Glenn, I wish , I just play around with the brush until I get something that suits my eye which with less than perfect vision is probably satisfied more easily than it should be. B.E.

Your work is of such consistent quality Rusty, a great example to follow. B.E.