NMBROOK

Hi All,
 
Thankyou for all the like hits.
 
Just a quick update on the middle gun deck. This deck was where the galley was located, the kit supplied certain parts to build a stove which are shown in the plans in the first two photos.
 
I decided to improve on this basic model and add a few extras. The first being a hearth, this was made from 0.5mm card painted brick red and then lines were cut into it using a hobby knife revealing the white lines shown in the photos to resemble the grouting between the bricks

The next stage of the build was the middle gun deck. This deck was where the bowsprit heel was located and the galley.
 
The model has a hole in this deck through which the bowsprit is meant to pass and then terminate on the lower gun deck which it is not supposed to.
 
To over come this I made a heel and support so that the bowsprit terminates on this deck, the heel was made from 8mm X 19mm Tassie Oak and the support was made from 3mmX 2mm Walnut. The support fame was notched to fit under the beak head bulk head and the first crossbeam .
 
The first photo is an earlier construction photo showing the hole in the middle gun deck for the bowsprit to pass through to the lower gun deck. The next three show the construction of the heel and frame and the last three show it fitted to the model and painted 

Hi All,
 
Because the lower gun deck has been enclosed it will be impossible to fully rig all the cannons on this deck. The first two guns from the bow will only have the breech rope fitted, this will be a shortened rope with no eyebolts as these can't be seen when the other guns are installed and they would be very hard to fit to the hull if not impossible.
The other two guns will have fully rigged breech ropes and side and train tackle, however the side tackle will only be on the aft side of the gun
I'm sorry I don't have any photos of the rear guns at this stage of the build but you will be able to see them in future posts

Hi All,
 
After the roundhouses where fitted the beak head deck was left while I went back to complete the lower gun deck. the only thing left to be fitted to this deck was the cannons and I had left these off as I was afraid of breaking them off as they will stick out of the gunports.
 
I decided to make up all the cannon carriages and mount the barrels to them in one go. The carriages were assembled for three laser cut parts each and then painted. One thing to note is the lower deck of the carriage is a wedge shape and the wide part goes to the rear. The wheels are supplied as one piece and these where stuck down to a piece of paper and spray painted.
 
The wheels were glued to the carriages taking care to fix the wider wheels to the rear, as the difference is slight I did manage to glue the wider wheels to the front a couple of times  but caught the mistake in time to rectify it
 
After they were dry holes were drilled and eyebolts fitted for the gun tackle 

The roundhouses and the facia were then glued into place and another piece of  1mmX 4mm strip was glued below the facia between the roundhouses.
 
In the second photo you will notice the supplied part that is supposed to go on top of the roundhouses. I did not use this part I cut the ends off and glued them on top of the roundhouses and glued a piece of 1mm X1mm strip between them and glued some 0.5mm strip around the edge of the ply parts.
 
Then gave all the bare timber a coat of paint
 

Hi All,
 
The stage was to build the roundhouses on the beak head deck these were made from 2 half round pieces of dowel and 0.5mm ply etching which was bent around the dowel and glued. The ply was coloured gold and black so it had to be painted. I used the mantua yellow ochre and Tamiya sky blue, which I think is a pretty nice combination.
 
When the ply was fixed to the dowel with the top edge aligned with an edge of the dowel a 4mm gap was left at the other end this was filled with a 1mm X 4mm plank

Hi Slog and Antony,
 
Thank you both for your kind words
 
Welcome back to this log Captain Slog
 
Antony, I think with your skills you could build this model from scratch
 
Once the head rails were dry they were painted as the next lot of photos show.
 
I forgot to mention in the previous post that the drip mouldings over the gun ports were fitted the supplied parts were shaped brass strip which was epoxied onto the hull and then primed and painted black

The next lot of photos show the Head Rails being fitted. they where fitted one at a time and allowed to dry for 24 hours
 
That's all for now I will post some more soon

Hi All,
 
The last post shows the completion of the coppering it was a fairly straight forward process except for the fact that it was quite time consuming but I am quite pleased with the result
 
So on with the next stage of the build, and from here on I hope to keep it in sequence .
 
The main rails for the beak head deck are laser cut from 5mm plywood and although it looks like the deck has straight edges there is a slight curve that theses pieces have to be bent to follow, unfortunately I don't have any photos of the jig I made to bend these parts but I can briefly describe how I did it.
 
Firstly I placed the head rails in tub of hot water to soak for about 30 minutes then I traced a template of the deck on paper and transferred this onto a piece of 10mm plywood and hammered nails along one side of the line.
When the parts had finished soaking I placed them against the row of nails and hammered in another row of nails to hold the part in place along the line. The parts where left to dry overnight.
 
Once they had dried into shape they hade to notched out to fit over the top wale and the aft end of the deck as seen I the following pictures

As I had planked the keel and stem post the plates where not  wide enough to cover the edge of the keel so I had to lay the plates in the centre of the keel and then bend a plate on either side of the edge to cover it
 
I found it easier to pre bend the plates and adjust each one as needed before gluing them on
 
The first three photos show how I bent the plates
 
Which no matter what I try I can not get them in the order I want them sorry
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi All
 
The copper plating was now continued from the keel up the last line of plates laid.
 
The next two photos show the starboard side almost complete and the start of the plates along the keel on the port side. This process was fairly straight forward the hardest part being cutting the triangular shapes to fill the gaps.
 
The last Photo, hopefully if they come out in order, shows the coppering on the hull completed the next stage is to copper plate the keel and stem post
 
 
 
 

Here is another shot of the beak head deck fitted and some photos of the copper plates. The first photo of the copper plating shows the plates finished to the gore line. The next line of plates will come form the keel up to this line 

Hi All,
 
After completing all that could be done to the beak head deck off the model, including painting the underside black in between the frames, it was fitted to the model.
 
 
 
 
 

Hi All,
 
It has been a long time since I last posted on this site, I think around 18 months. I had a break from modelling and some personal issues to deal with plus my computer decided to up and die which involved a lot of mucking around to retrieve the data on the old hard drive. I now have an external hard drive that I save everything too.
I have managed to do some work on the model in the last 12 months and I have taken heaps of photos of the work completed. I will endeavour to add a few pictures each day on the work I have completed until you catch up to where I am currently with the build.
So here goes The first photos are of the painted Beak head frames and the upper ochre bands. The  colour I ended up choosing for the bands in between the wales was yellow ochre made by Mantua and supplied by Modellers Shipyard, I know some of you will think it is a bit dark but I think it contrasts really well with the black
 
 
 
I will post some more pictures soon. Please be patient as I have a new image resizer that I'm still getting used to

Hi All,
 
I have made some more progress over the last couple of days. The wales are complete and I am quite happy with how they turned out I was a bit worried about getting the lines to look right.
 

 

 

 

 

 
I have also drilled the hawse holes and fitted the stem supports which lie under the hawse hole blocks, these supports were laser cut ply and did not fit against the hull properly where the stem meets the bow planks so I glued some scrap 1.5 x 5mm strips to them and then filed them down to fit the shape of the hull
 

 

 

 
The first two frames for the beakhead deck have also been fitted
 

 
After the other two are fitted I will be some filling and sanding of the bow area where these parts have been fitted an then painting the area before fitting the beakhead deck as some areas will be hard to get to once it is fitted.

Hi All,
 
I have been lining the gunports over the last few days and I hope to finish them tomorrow. They will need a little bit of trimming and a light sand but overall Iam happy with them.
 
I lined the top and bottom of the ports first and then did the sides, I have 9 more ports to do to finnish them off. some pics follow
 

 

 

 

Hi All,
 
Another small update. I managed to get some more planking done over the last few days and the second layer is almost finished, there is only one plank left to make on the starbord side and five planks, includinng the two planks that fit into the drop plank, on the porrt side.  
 

 

 

 

 

 
The light at the end of the tunnel is becoming brighter  I hope to finnish the second planking tomorrow. I will post some more pictures when it is finnished
 
 

Hi All,
 
Another small update of the planking, I think it is progressing well and I have only about 8 planks left to close up the starboard side. I have also fitted the garboard planks.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Matt,
 
Thank you, I think I will go with the timber lining even though it is a bit fiddley because of the hull thickness.  
 
Yes I am going to build a full model of Victory, I actually have her sitting on my shelf, it is the Panhart 1:72 scale deluxe  kit, the full size version of this one but it will be a while before I tackle it as I am doing some reseach and planning on some modifcations I want to make to the kit and also I want to improve my skills some more before I attempt such a large project. So I intend to build a few more smaller models first. At least I should know how to plank the bow section of it
 

Hi All,
 
 Just a small update on the planking it has been slow progress but I want to get the second layer as smooth and as tight as possible so there will be minimal sanding and filling when it is completed.
 
As you can see by the following photos I have nearly reached the point where the planks start to curve under the hull. I will lay three more planks on each side below the last plank shown and then start to let the planks take their natural course, adding stealers and drop planks to fill the gaps.
 

 

 

 

Hi All,
 
Now it is time to begin the second layer of planking. The supplied timber for this is 1mm x 6mm walnut this will be the first time I have used 1mm thick planks for the second layer, my two other models used 0.5mm planks for the second layer, so we will see how it goes.
 
The first five planks were fairly straight forward to lay and I filed out the gunports to size as I went.
 

 

 

 

 

 
The next two planks were then fitted. I found that the planks bent to shape fairly easily with my plank nipper. They were both soaked, as with the first layer planks, and then clamped into postion to dry, any small adjustments were then made with fine sand paper and they were then glued into place.  Both of these planks were untapered
 

 

 
 

Hi All,
 
A quick footnote on the planking that I failed to mention in my last update, I did record how much and over what length each plank was tapered to make the second planking easier and to correct any mistakes that might and probably will be made
 
Before I planked any further dow the hull I decided I could add a couple of filler blocks at the bottom of the hull to try and keep a round shape to it. These will not be seen as they are in front of the first bulkhead.
 

 

 
I also had been toying with the idea of adding a mast step for the fore mast and decided to make one. It will be fitted over the keel and the third frame. Unfortunately I can not find a photo of it before it was fitted but I do have a pic of the drawing I made it from. Sorry if it's a bit on the light side
 

 
and the mast step fitted to the keel.
 

 

 

Now it came to the tricky part of shaping the planks around the bow and keeping their upper edge tight against the previous laid plank. To achieve this I soaked the planks in cold water for about 20 minutes and then shaped the curve around the bow with plank nippers I then pinned the plank to the frames and allowed it to dry. When it was dry I removed from the frames and made any small adjustments required and then glued it into position. 
 
I did not measure the frames or lay planking bands on this model as it only a section. I laid the planks by eye judging when and for how much of their length tapering was required. The first three planks around the bow are full width and then they taper slightly as they go down the hull. No plank is tapered to less than half of it's width. The supplied timber for the first planking is 6 x1.5 mm Walnut
 

 

 
Some of the planks required clamps to keep the edges together and to help keep them flat  so that minimal filling  and sanding will be reqiured for the second layer, I hope  
 

 

 
I think this type of model is difficult to plank because you only have the 4 frames and the support pattrens to fix the planks to so they tend to want buldge outwards especially in the bow area and it was hard to try and hold a good shape, filler blocks can't be used as they block out the decks, but with a bit effort I am fairly happy with the result so far  
 

 

 

 
I should also mention that I filled the nail holes with bamboo treenails to give the planks a bit of extra security

The Middle gun deck has been left unvarnished for now and it is the last deck that will permantly fixed in place until the outer hull is completed.
 
I temporarily fixed the foc'sle deck in place so that I could accuately fix on the first plank, the plastic wrap is to stop the plank sticking to the deck
 

 

 

 
The first plank was then laid
 

 

 
The next four planks were then laid down to the beakhead deck without any problems.
 

 

The last job to be done on this deck was to fit the stantions under the middle 2 frames