Blue Ensign

Nicely done. I also intend to add the boat hook(if I can finally get this planking done!) 
Steve

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.
 

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.
 

A beautiful model Chuck, and a fine unique kit, I too will be looking forward to ordering one.
 
B.E.

Nice progress Mike, that  ebony finish is going to look great .
I too would take the higher copper line, and as for getting the Verdigris finish I understand urine is the way to go, who was it on MSW who made a great job using this method, having a senior moment, his name has slipped my mind.
Personally I quite like the old copper penny look. 
 
B.E.

A small diversion to play with the boat equipment.
The Grapnel
The grapnel as provided by the kit seems to have been rigged without the benefit of a ring, the line secured directly thro' the eye in the shank where the ring should be.

A grapnel as illustrated by Steel shows a ring fitted thro' the eye.
Steel gives a grapnel rope circ for ships boats as 3" - 3½" which equates to around 1mm diameter line at scale.

0946
This alone would not be possible without a ring, particularly as the classic hitch for small anchors is a Fisherman's Bend where the line passes twice thro' the ring.
 He also gives 35 fathoms as the length of the grapnel rope. which scales to 2667mm. This is 8.75ft at scale, where would all that fit in the boat!

0967(2)
I satisfied myself with a rope length of around 30' - 300mm which I figured would be long enough for what is essentially a harbour boat.
Boat Hook
This is shown on the plan but the makings are not included with the kit.
 

0950
Not too difficult an item to reproduce, I use a soft white metal strip (the arm from one of Mrs W's hair clips, cut and shaped with files, and inserted into a length of thin Walnut dowel.

0948

0964

0956
The Thole pins and chocks are also shown on these shots. Nothing much to say about the tholes except they are fiddly little things to make, parts very small, fingers too big.
I changed the style slightly from the plans, and left them unpainted as a contrast to the predominantly red  scheme.

0961
Just the Splashguards left to do now.
 
B.E.

Back from the fair county of Devonshire, William had a fine time on the Dart.

0720
Here performing his lookout duties as we cross from Dittisham to Greenway.
Back to the build and in relation to small boats I like to have a scale figure to check the  relevant proportions of any model I build, and here is George one of the oarsmen.

0922
Here you can see that with George in position the oar loom doesn't quite reach where the thole pins will fit.
Is this correct, should the loom fit between the thole pin centres? the plans would suggest that this width would allow the thicker section of the oar to pass thro'.

In this contemporary model the looms  appear to just catch the thole pins.
I was interested in the oar proportions and the relationship to the tholes.
There's a lot more to this oar and thole business than you might first think.
The Length of the oars has a direct relationship to the width of the boat, and whether it is single or double banked; the tholes to the distance from the aft edge of the thwart.
On our model the centre of the chocks scales to 13" from the relevant thwart edge which puts it about mid centre between thwarts.
Looking at boat plans this seems to generally be the case.
Our boat is scaled to a width of 5'11" The oars on our boat are 186mm length overall with a Loom length of 37mm. This gives a length of 14.6' and  a loom length of 2.9'.





0929
This is the link to the online reference tables by Steel.
https://www.thebigrow.com/?p=659
I must admit I couldn't make any sensible correlation  between the Steel figures and our model. Looking at his tables relating to Barge,Wherry,or Skiff  the oar lengths seemed much longer for an equivalent breadth to our Pinnace.
This of course is all academic as the oars as modelled look proportional to my eye, and resting along the thwarts there is no direct reference to the thole positions.
 
Need to fix the Thole pins and chocks now.
 
B.E.

Nice progress Mike, that  ebony finish is going to look great .
I too would take the higher copper line, and as for getting the Verdigris finish I understand urine is the way to go, who was it on MSW who made a great job using this method, having a senior moment, his name has slipped my mind.
Personally I quite like the old copper penny look. 
 
B.E.

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

Nice shots Doug, you must be feeling well satisfied with her. 
 
B.E.

Hey guys, I haven't been on much lately with a family vacation, setting up a fish tank for my kids, the warmer weather coming on which means my other hobby (bonsai) starts up and gets very busy, etc.  With this model being a heavy kit bash for me, it takes a lot of time just to plan out how I'm going to approach certain things.  This makes me lean towards starting up the La Renommee and build it straight from the box.  I don't know, we'll see.  Anyway, I'm at the point where I have free time again, so I've been trying to remember where I was with this build and my other builds.  
 
Last I worked on the ship, I had planked the bulwarks with yellowheart.  Interestingly on this kit, the inside of the planking serves as the inner bulwark planking, so you have to take your time and get it right as there is no other planking for the inner bulwarks.  It ended up coming out pretty nicely I think.  I've already pre-cut and curved the pieces for the log rail and topgallant rail, but I think I might wait to install those until the hull planking is completed as those two rails might be a bit fragile on the build (and I tend to be a lap modeler).  So, next up I have to start thinking about the outer hull ebony planking, which should be interesting.  There's a section of the outer hull near the stem where the run of planks goes from 6 to 10 strakes.  So, the planks will be very narrow, and hopefully bend ok.  
 
Here are a few pictures of where I am at the moment.  Thanks again for looking in.

Thanks Martin, both Mrs W and William are quite forgiving of my raiding of their respective possessions to serve in the shipyard.
Both Amati and Mantua do a range of period figures for 1:64 scale at around 25mm high. Artesania do a range of 27mm figures one of which I used to represent the ill fated Captain; Cmdr John Hamilton Gore on my Pegasus.
In the UK I use either Cornwall Model Boats, or the Model Dockyard, (both in Cornwall) but my 1:24 scale Pinnace figure I purchased from Dean's Marine.
Regards,
 
B.E.

Hi Doug -- You are moving along well, and your Fly is filling up with plenty of nice details.  I'm well behind you, but a few days ago wondered if I were nearing the halfway mark.  So I made a list, and realised I'm not even close -- but then again, I'm well behind you (I haven't even started the head work).  And the rigging will take a solid three or four months -- if you put in long hours.
 
Really, though, there are plenty of nice details in your build to look at and admire.
 
Cheers,
 
Martin

Hello - further steps forward. I feel as if I might be half way through the build - am I?
 
Gun port lids done with the bow ones closed.
 

 


 
Channels, deadeyes and chain plates all in place and secured.
 


 
Thank you S Coleman, Blue Ensign and Martin W for your comments - much appreciated. 
Martin - the fenders are kit supplied so not down to me.
 
The kit has supplied chain plates which have a nice way of overlapping which surprised me as this type of detail does not appear anywhere else in this kit.
 
Regards
 
Doug 
 
 
 

Beautiful work, B.E.! And thank you for all the research you are doing . . . this will come in very handy when I have to do the longboat of the Syren  Did you carve George the oarsman? He looks very good!
 
Thomas

Wow, BE!  You just keep doing it, and better and better!  And I'm always impressed at your ability to find materials ready to hand.
 
(Does Mrs W know you nicked one of her hairpins?  Did William forgive you for pulling out the bristle on his brush?)
 
Cheers,
 
Martin
 
PS -- As for those figures, I looked at various places and couldn't find any that would fit 1/64 scale -- are they still available somewhere?

I wish Thomas, no he was a modified bought figure (see my reply to Nils above.) 
 
Regards,
 
B.E.

A small diversion to play with the boat equipment.
The Grapnel
The grapnel as provided by the kit seems to have been rigged without the benefit of a ring, the line secured directly thro' the eye in the shank where the ring should be.

A grapnel as illustrated by Steel shows a ring fitted thro' the eye.
Steel gives a grapnel rope circ for ships boats as 3" - 3½" which equates to around 1mm diameter line at scale.

0946
This alone would not be possible without a ring, particularly as the classic hitch for small anchors is a Fisherman's Bend where the line passes twice thro' the ring.
 He also gives 35 fathoms as the length of the grapnel rope. which scales to 2667mm. This is 8.75ft at scale, where would all that fit in the boat!

0967(2)
I satisfied myself with a rope length of around 30' - 300mm which I figured would be long enough for what is essentially a harbour boat.
Boat Hook
This is shown on the plan but the makings are not included with the kit.
 

0950
Not too difficult an item to reproduce, I use a soft white metal strip (the arm from one of Mrs W's hair clips, cut and shaped with files, and inserted into a length of thin Walnut dowel.

0948

0964

0956
The Thole pins and chocks are also shown on these shots. Nothing much to say about the tholes except they are fiddly little things to make, parts very small, fingers too big.
I changed the style slightly from the plans, and left them unpainted as a contrast to the predominantly red  scheme.

0961
Just the Splashguards left to do now.
 
B.E.

Thank you Sailor and Nils.
@ Nils -  George is a Dean's Marine 1.24 scale figure, but he underwent some serious surgery. originally he was a Vietnam War period American soldier in Jungle gear. His arms were broken in two places, his uniform and jungle hat cut away and he was given some clothes from the slop chest. I was pleased that at a given 1:24 scale he fitted the boat spot on. 
 
B.E.
 

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.
 

A small diversion to play with the boat equipment.
The Grapnel
The grapnel as provided by the kit seems to have been rigged without the benefit of a ring, the line secured directly thro' the eye in the shank where the ring should be.

A grapnel as illustrated by Steel shows a ring fitted thro' the eye.
Steel gives a grapnel rope circ for ships boats as 3" - 3½" which equates to around 1mm diameter line at scale.

0946
This alone would not be possible without a ring, particularly as the classic hitch for small anchors is a Fisherman's Bend where the line passes twice thro' the ring.
 He also gives 35 fathoms as the length of the grapnel rope. which scales to 2667mm. This is 8.75ft at scale, where would all that fit in the boat!

0967(2)
I satisfied myself with a rope length of around 30' - 300mm which I figured would be long enough for what is essentially a harbour boat.
Boat Hook
This is shown on the plan but the makings are not included with the kit.
 

0950
Not too difficult an item to reproduce, I use a soft white metal strip (the arm from one of Mrs W's hair clips, cut and shaped with files, and inserted into a length of thin Walnut dowel.

0948

0964

0956
The Thole pins and chocks are also shown on these shots. Nothing much to say about the tholes except they are fiddly little things to make, parts very small, fingers too big.
I changed the style slightly from the plans, and left them unpainted as a contrast to the predominantly red  scheme.

0961
Just the Splashguards left to do now.
 
B.E.

A small diversion to play with the boat equipment.
The Grapnel
The grapnel as provided by the kit seems to have been rigged without the benefit of a ring, the line secured directly thro' the eye in the shank where the ring should be.

A grapnel as illustrated by Steel shows a ring fitted thro' the eye.
Steel gives a grapnel rope circ for ships boats as 3" - 3½" which equates to around 1mm diameter line at scale.

0946
This alone would not be possible without a ring, particularly as the classic hitch for small anchors is a Fisherman's Bend where the line passes twice thro' the ring.
 He also gives 35 fathoms as the length of the grapnel rope. which scales to 2667mm. This is 8.75ft at scale, where would all that fit in the boat!

0967(2)
I satisfied myself with a rope length of around 30' - 300mm which I figured would be long enough for what is essentially a harbour boat.
Boat Hook
This is shown on the plan but the makings are not included with the kit.
 

0950
Not too difficult an item to reproduce, I use a soft white metal strip (the arm from one of Mrs W's hair clips, cut and shaped with files, and inserted into a length of thin Walnut dowel.

0948

0964

0956
The Thole pins and chocks are also shown on these shots. Nothing much to say about the tholes except they are fiddly little things to make, parts very small, fingers too big.
I changed the style slightly from the plans, and left them unpainted as a contrast to the predominantly red  scheme.

0961
Just the Splashguards left to do now.
 
B.E.

A small diversion to play with the boat equipment.
The Grapnel
The grapnel as provided by the kit seems to have been rigged without the benefit of a ring, the line secured directly thro' the eye in the shank where the ring should be.

A grapnel as illustrated by Steel shows a ring fitted thro' the eye.
Steel gives a grapnel rope circ for ships boats as 3" - 3½" which equates to around 1mm diameter line at scale.

0946
This alone would not be possible without a ring, particularly as the classic hitch for small anchors is a Fisherman's Bend where the line passes twice thro' the ring.
 He also gives 35 fathoms as the length of the grapnel rope. which scales to 2667mm. This is 8.75ft at scale, where would all that fit in the boat!

0967(2)
I satisfied myself with a rope length of around 30' - 300mm which I figured would be long enough for what is essentially a harbour boat.
Boat Hook
This is shown on the plan but the makings are not included with the kit.
 

0950
Not too difficult an item to reproduce, I use a soft white metal strip (the arm from one of Mrs W's hair clips, cut and shaped with files, and inserted into a length of thin Walnut dowel.

0948

0964

0956
The Thole pins and chocks are also shown on these shots. Nothing much to say about the tholes except they are fiddly little things to make, parts very small, fingers too big.
I changed the style slightly from the plans, and left them unpainted as a contrast to the predominantly red  scheme.

0961
Just the Splashguards left to do now.
 
B.E.

A small diversion to play with the boat equipment.
The Grapnel
The grapnel as provided by the kit seems to have been rigged without the benefit of a ring, the line secured directly thro' the eye in the shank where the ring should be.

A grapnel as illustrated by Steel shows a ring fitted thro' the eye.
Steel gives a grapnel rope circ for ships boats as 3" - 3½" which equates to around 1mm diameter line at scale.

0946
This alone would not be possible without a ring, particularly as the classic hitch for small anchors is a Fisherman's Bend where the line passes twice thro' the ring.
 He also gives 35 fathoms as the length of the grapnel rope. which scales to 2667mm. This is 8.75ft at scale, where would all that fit in the boat!

0967(2)
I satisfied myself with a rope length of around 30' - 300mm which I figured would be long enough for what is essentially a harbour boat.
Boat Hook
This is shown on the plan but the makings are not included with the kit.
 

0950
Not too difficult an item to reproduce, I use a soft white metal strip (the arm from one of Mrs W's hair clips, cut and shaped with files, and inserted into a length of thin Walnut dowel.

0948

0964

0956
The Thole pins and chocks are also shown on these shots. Nothing much to say about the tholes except they are fiddly little things to make, parts very small, fingers too big.
I changed the style slightly from the plans, and left them unpainted as a contrast to the predominantly red  scheme.

0961
Just the Splashguards left to do now.
 
B.E.

A small diversion to play with the boat equipment.
The Grapnel
The grapnel as provided by the kit seems to have been rigged without the benefit of a ring, the line secured directly thro' the eye in the shank where the ring should be.

A grapnel as illustrated by Steel shows a ring fitted thro' the eye.
Steel gives a grapnel rope circ for ships boats as 3" - 3½" which equates to around 1mm diameter line at scale.

0946
This alone would not be possible without a ring, particularly as the classic hitch for small anchors is a Fisherman's Bend where the line passes twice thro' the ring.
 He also gives 35 fathoms as the length of the grapnel rope. which scales to 2667mm. This is 8.75ft at scale, where would all that fit in the boat!

0967(2)
I satisfied myself with a rope length of around 30' - 300mm which I figured would be long enough for what is essentially a harbour boat.
Boat Hook
This is shown on the plan but the makings are not included with the kit.
 

0950
Not too difficult an item to reproduce, I use a soft white metal strip (the arm from one of Mrs W's hair clips, cut and shaped with files, and inserted into a length of thin Walnut dowel.

0948

0964

0956
The Thole pins and chocks are also shown on these shots. Nothing much to say about the tholes except they are fiddly little things to make, parts very small, fingers too big.
I changed the style slightly from the plans, and left them unpainted as a contrast to the predominantly red  scheme.

0961
Just the Splashguards left to do now.
 
B.E.