Ronald-V

Before I glue the lasered main deck I wanted to do this little job at the stern cabin. These two patterns give the cabin a nice clean finish. Because the patterns are both a bit oversized due to individual building differences, I traced both pieces on some card, cut them out and tested them where they need to belong. Just removing a little bit every time until I had the right shape. That final card shape onto the wooden pieces....and well you know the rest. Happy with the clean result and placed some purchased furniture from Vanguard Models to see how it looks. I like it a lot! I have also a desk, but I think...with also the cannons in the cabin I think it would be a bit overkill...but that comes later.

Update: first the montage of the gundeck bulwark patterns. Went really well. The tin pieces bent nice, so no soaking. (pictures are a bit dark because of the sunblinders are down) Next step was to test fit the gundeck and chequer pattern. I found the gundeck quite a difficult part to get right. First I tried a bit intuïtif, but that to unclear where to sand the edges a bit off. Then I saw in Glenn-UK his Sphinx log that he used a card pattern for this. This was a good solution and gave me more steering about how much to trim the edges. The Chequer pattern looked a good fit so no trimming there. The gundeck pattern just lays at a very small angle on the false deck. Personally I don't think it will matter much and i'm not daring to sand anymore of the edges because then there would appear gaps between the deck and bullwark that are to big to hide with the spirketting strips. You can see the gap here in the lower picture. Don't know if other people noticed it too that the outlining of the lasered gundeck lays in a slight angle in comparison with the deck planks. Because I measured everything from the middle plank of the gundeck and with a triangle I saw the lines at the back of the deck and the little notches at the front were a bit in angle. Not a problem I think because the cabin bulkheads will cover this gap or I fill it up a bit with a scrap piece. I read in Glenn-UK his Indefatigable log about 3M spray mount so that thin pieces of wood wouldn't curl when you use PVA. At first I didn't really understand it why and how, until I smeared some PVA on the chequer pattern....wow that curled immediately! That was quite a panic situation right there . But with a lot of clamps I got the thing flat on the false deck. So after learning the hard way haha...need to have that 3M spray mount asap! Just for my information...will this curling happen with all the thin pieces of wood? Or is it with specific pieces? And has this glue a strong bond on wood? Some reviews on the internet say that it comes off after a week or so. (not sure if they use it on wood, because it's normally for paper?) I see that "Pattex" and "Bison" also have a glue spray. Most important quality is that it's not PVA I asume. Also painted the inner bulwarks with red ochre Admiralty paint. Thinned it down with some extra water so the details wouldn't get lost. So this is the state she is in now...I haven't glued the main deck yet, so that will be the next step. ( Big step!)

That's beautiful in the natural outside light!

Congratulations with finishing your Victory. A real masterpiece! Well done!

Your work so far looks really good! Very clean, I like it

I love these little interiors so much! It adds so much realism...it gives more sense of scale and you really get a grasp of how big these vessels were. You are doing a great job at it Glenn!

Chris is so very kind to send me a replacement of the main gundeck. That's topnotch service right there! I was planning to shop some figures and furniture for the ship so Chris can ship the replacement with it. Great stuff!

Couldn't sand away all the hairs, because the lasered details will fade away i'm afraid. The main gundeck was already a bit lighter lasered then the forecastle and quarterdeck patterns...so I hope some varnish will seal the hairs a bit and bring up the details a bit more, because they not that visible on this part.

Thanks James! I'll try both methods...first the parts you don't see well in the finished built

Thanks! I think that's the best way too...with less pressure on the blade then normal. I will experiment a bit

I took a look at the lasered maple gundeck and it is a bit 'hairy' on top, what would be the best way to get this surface smooth without loosing the lasered details? I asume scraping, or is sanding a better approach? Anyone some tips?

Lovely kit and review 👍

Next step was to sand the inside of the frames so the gundeck bulwark pattern can lay flat against it. Took quite a substantial time and my fingertips to sand all the char off But the result was nice and flat so the pattern could lay against it and glued on the backside with diluted PVA I looked a bit forward in the manual and saw that James when painting the inner bulwarks red, he first brushed some diluted varnish on the bulwarks and then the red? Never heared of that before...is that as a sort of primer for the color? I always painted the color on the bare wood so wondered where this was for. Or I just don't understand it properly

Lovely result! You can be proud of that!

Nice kit you bought there! Wish you all the fun with building this one!

Thanks James! Can't wait to go to the next step. It is such a fun way to build this one, a real pleasure

Today I installed the false gun deck. She begins to look more and more as a ship Cool little detail in the design were small cutouts at the base of the bulkhead tabs, where you could slide the deck in. This would hold the deck in place at the outside edge, so you only have to put some nails at the centerline of the deck to keep holding down and "paint" some glue underneath. In this way the curve of the deck is easily obtained. Bit difficult to see on the photo, but I hope you get the idea Next were the vertical gunport frames. Great care is needed to install these, because they have some thin parts that could break if you push to hard. And the fit in the slots were pretty tight. I used a scrap piece of strip wood to push them in the slots of the horizontal frames. This dispersed the forces a bit. This went without problems.

Only thing I would say to future builders of this ship...treat the stern frame spacer beam on top of the stern frame really careful and take your time. It's really delicate and at first I was a bit enthousiast to push it in the slots and heard a little crack, but stopt luckily in time before damaging it really. The plywood of the spacer was a bit thicker then the slots in the stern frame pieces. I needed to careful sand the thickness of the spacer so it went smooth in the slots afterwards.

Next step was fitting the gun deck support beams and the stern counter frame...everything was quite straightforward. If you just read and follow the manual carefully there can't go anything wrong. Oh yeah and first varnished the deck with the hatches etc.

Welcome and thank you! And everyone else for the likes

So with both sides of the gun port frames in place and glued, the next step was to place some coamings and gratings on the lower deck. Everything is laser-cut also the gratings and I must say I really love these lasered gratings. I prefer these over the gratings in older kits where you need to make them yourself. The details on these lasered ones are really beautiful.

So yesterday evening after the dry-fitting I secured everything with glue so it could dry overnight. So the Orlop and lower deck are now in position. This morning I glued the bow piece, bulkhead 12 and the sternpiece into place. And just now I "painted" the gun port frames into place. This "painting" with diluted PVA is a really nice and calm way to fix everything together. Great tip learned from the manual Previous ships it was a race against the clock to fix a false deck or something into place with clamps, nails etc. before the glue sets...this diluting of the glue and just brush it into the joints is such a nice non-stressed way I made a building slip for this phase of the build, not knowing it was really necesarry but it certainly can't hurt to keep her keel straight. Also how every piece clicks tight together is such a satisfying way to build, I can really appreciate the engineering behind this design.

Just a dry-fit (careful to not breaking the bulkhead taps) to see how everything lines up and to look at her size Love how tight the bulkheads slide in the false keel, everything fits real precise.

But I wasn't really satisfied about how much material I could shave off. I thought it was easier to see how the lines need to run when I used some scrap pieces between the stern fillers and bow fillers. So I took this extra step and it helped me better to visualise how the shape needed to be. Previous experience with other ships definitly helps with especially the stern piece to shape. I think they are not far of the final shape now. The final shaping will happen when it's glueed on the false keel with the rest of the bulkheads.

Okay, one of the first steps is roughly shaping the stern piece and bow piece. Doing the major shaping of these pieces while they are not glueed on the false keel makes life a bit easier. This is by the way suggested in the very clear instructions. I used a tip from Glenn-UK his log where he traces some lines on the filler pieces of the stern so that I had a global idea for the first attack with the Dremel