[This is a rebuild of my original posts]
Here is the start of my build log. Have not done anything like this before so please bear with me. Sometimes I have too much verbiage – what do I mean sometimes!
A short deviation: Back in ’83, no not 1883, I flew over the pond to visit the Victory as I had just finished a model of her. I brought a piece of the Victory back here to Canada (given to me) and decided that someday I would build another and put that real piece of the Victory into the next model. That time came last October/November 2009, (can it really be twenty-seven years). I started to look at my photos from ’83. Don’t know what possessed me to start but start I did.
After looking at my photos and digging out the slides and prints, I ended up scanning about 45 images that I had taken that wet soggy rainy day in October. I know most of you remember we didn't have digital cameras back then. (Do you think the young ones these days could survive without their instant digital images and have to wait a week or two for the pictures to get back after we mailed them to Kodak for processing?) Those pictures I took just weren't enough. And I don’t feel like booking a flight to London these days. So, how could I build a much better Victory with more real reference pictures of her in Portsmouth? The first challenge was more images and books. The internet is here now, I remember when it wasn't!
It took a while to figure out what kit to purchase but time and time again from MSW members and other forum sites this Caldercraft kit appears to be one of the best manufactured. I must admit the 1:64 model of Victory with complete details would have been my purchase if it was on the market from Chris Watton and Amati. I really wanted to do all the decks and will be fiddling the Jotika interior with some smoke and mirrors that I hope will work.
My quest for new knowledge of course started with the internet. I am amazed at how much info is buried in those bits and bytes throughout the world. Why wasn't this around when I built my first Victory? My internet surfing shows me there is lots of data on the Jotika / Caldercraft Victory and there are many builds of the Jotika kit with extensive photos etc. What is packed in the box and the contents is well documented. I see no advantage to repeating those excellent reviews.
As I haven’t built any models for almost thirty years it was like starting over. And where did I start this time-- I started with Google and typed in “HMS Victory”. After visiting many sites, the first one being the official site and clicking countless numbers of those crazy links I decided to buy some books .
Ordered these books:
1. HMS Victory Her Construction, Career and Restoration by Alan McGowan
2. The Anatomy of Nelson’s Ships by C Nepean Longridge
3. The Ship Model Builder’s Assistant by Charles G. Davis
4. Anatomy of the Ship The 100- Gun Ship Victory by John McKay
I dug out some books I had from way back:
1. Ship Models from Kits by Colin Riches
2. Trafalgar The Nelson Touch by David Howarth
3. Sailing Ships, A Rand McNally Color Illustrated Guide by Attilio Cucari
4. HMS Victory Souvenir Guide Book – bought in Portsmouth ‘83
And went to the library and found these books: (it would have been great to find more but I’m in a land locked city close to mountains. No oceans here so not much maritime information available at the library. Oh well, they got $12 out of me and I got my lifetime library card for these two books:
1. Ship Modelling from Stem to Stern by Milton Roth
2. Wooden Ship-Building by Charles Desmond
I can’t believe how much I've read about the Victory, Nelson and the Royal Navy in these past few months. I’m tempted to suggest that building the model is only part of the process. I am stoked to have discovered so much more about the Victory this time around. The internet is a wealth of knowledge and it would have been cool to have it around on the first go-around. Figure I haven’t done so much reading etc. since university!
My career path has taken me along the computer highway so I am no stranger to these machines and software. I decided early that I would use the computer to retain the data. I’m sure most of you do too.
One very useful internet tool for me has been Yahoo babel fish. This translates an internet page. It proved very useful because one can choose “all languages” in the search engines. When I found a page in a language I could not understand I used this link on a new tab: http://ca.babelfish.yahoo.com and copied the web address onto the babel fish page. Try it, the translation is not perfect but one can get a better gist of the page if you don’t understand the language.
This is turning into a book! Back to the pictures! I started to find pictures just with the Google search. By typing “HMS Victory” in the search box, letting it find the sites and then clicking up at the top on images… voila... Image after image. It is truly amazing how many photos are on the net. And what fun it is to go to every photo. There are videos as well. Clicking on the video option lists many videos. Strangely enough, not many individuals have posted a walking tour HD video of the Victory. I’ve only found one good one.
Here are the search engines that I use for general items and photos: Google, Bing, Yahoo, and sometimes Alta Vista. I found Truveo.com is great for videos as is YouTube. Just going to their home page and typing HMS Victory brought many videos to view. One of the best places to find photos is Flickr from Yahoo.
That took care of the pictures and books. I’ve now gone through the images and stored over 1400 to use on my build. My attention then turned on how to use the photos and catalogue them. My solution was to take the plans of the decks and scan into images along with a side view. I linked images to their points on the decks, masts, bow, stern, and sides using CorelDraw (Adobe Illustrator will do as well). Decided to colour code my links, green being a view “straight on at that point” and blue being looking up, red is a general view in a particular direction. Arrows indicate the direction of the view. I hope to be able to use this during the final phase of the rigging and deck detail. Here is a sample of the poop and quarter decks and masts. When I click on one of my links the image comes up in my case with the Microsoft Picture Viewer. I haven’t used all the images in this reference but enough that I can make a quick click and see any part of the outer hull or decks at just about any location. Of course the next was to order the kit. I decided to order from Rick Sousha, from The Modeler’s Workshop in Montreal. Rick is the official distributor of Jotika models for Canada and I have been totally satisfied with his service. He is a great person to deal with and I know he sends orders all over North America. Rick ordered the kit from Jotika and it took about six weeks to arrive. Jotika did not have any in stop so I had to wait until they built a few new kits. I was actually pleased with this because I knew that my kit was ‘fresh’ from the factory. The day it arrived the postal carrier was very pleased that I came out to help her carry it to the door. As everyone indicates on their reviews, it is a big and heavy package. I concluded from other accounts that counting the items was very important when the model arrived. It took a couple days and I did find one item missing from ‘extras’ that I had ordered. That was solved by a local supplier so I was off to the building stage. The kit is awesome and I am truly impressed. It goes together like the plans suggest. What I want to show you at this stage are the modifications I decided to build into the model before I mounted the gun patterns on the sides. I was a bit torn by the two lower gun decks being outfitted with cannon dummy barrels and decided to try to something different. Initially phoned Jotika and talked about putting guns in with carriages etc. but found out they do not produce the scaled carriages for the 24 and 12 pdr guns. The plans suggest painting the dummy barrel strips and the area inside a matte black. Not much will be seen once the gun port lids and openings have been completed so painting the area black made sense. But, not for me – no black paint. Decided to try to ‘fake’ the interior by mounting an image of a gun carriage and the inside of the gun deck onto the dummy barrel strips. As there will be very little of the interior showing it was full computer imaging ahead. I know all the purists will not be pleased with this but, what the heck. It’s my model and I’m really having a blast putting these extras into play. I also decided that the gun decks should have flickering LED lamps . I must also thank Pompey (another MSW member) for his assistance. You can see Pompey’s lighting solutions for HMS Victory on this build at http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/2415-hms-victory-by-pompey-caldercraft-172-1805/
