Morgan

Allan, I think this fits what you are seeing. The inner pin locks the bottom two pieces together - I imagine there is some metalwork to accomplish this represented by the broken lines, and the slide pivots on the outer pin. RMG Ref: SLR2918. I think the metal bracket underneath is part of the locking mechanism, if that is removed the Carronade can be swung inboard and stowed along the ships side. The bottom baulk would be permanently fixed to the ships frames. Gary

Hi Keith, I agree, these are what I’m used to seeing around historic fortifications in the UK. It is Goodwin who terms them Garrison carriages, I’ll dig out the reference, but he basically says this was the pattern they had and copied as they didn’t have surviving examples of sea service carriages. He doesn’t say they were reused carriages. It could be that in using them as a pattern they knew the iron trucks were wrong and came up with their own version, or copies of a later version of composite trucks they had access to, perhaps off something like Warrior which I imagine needed a heavier truck for 68-Pounders. What Goodwin doesn’t do in saying this is when the carriages were made, it had to be no later than Edwardian based on photographic evidence. So possibly something of a chimera. You can certainly see that the carriage above from 2006 simply doesn’t fit the port, so something was wrong. Goodwin also mentions that during his tenure they were progressively retrofitting the carriages to make them more akin to sea carriages, which I can see when I look back at photos from different visits. Gary

I can answer my own question, photo below from 2017 showing 24-Pounders with single piece trucks. There was only 6 Cwt. Weight difference between a 24 and a 32-Pounder, so it seems the size of ordnance isn’t the driver for composite trucks and it comes down to them being land or sea going carriages, certainly in the early 19th century. Gary

I did wonder about that, and I also thought perhaps it relates to size of gun, but then I looked back at some photos I took in 2006 of the Upper Deck and some of the 12-Pounder garrison carriages, they also had composite trucks back then. You can see how low the gun is sat! I get the impression that the composite trucks are being swapped out gradually. I could do with some middle and lower deck pictures to see if this applies to the larger pieces. Gary

I think Druxey is correct, I have come to the same conclusion. Early 20th century photos of Victory show made-up trucks, but the carriages on Victory at this time were not sea service carriages, none of them actually centre the guns, they were modified garrison carriages. But, as with so many things Victory is taken as the ‘benchmark’, but many details are incorrect, but these errors perpetuate. Many of these carriages are still in Victory. Not all Victory’s guns have built-up trucks, below is a recent photo I took of a 12-Pounder, with single piece trucks. Also, a truck recovered from the wreck of the St. George, she went in for refit just after Victory, so a strict contemporary, is single piece (photo courtesy of Dafi). Also see the attached the drawing of the Venerable from 1799, again single piece trucks. I also visited the wreck of the Invincible exhibition at the NMRN Hartlepool recently and I’m certain there were single piece trucks, I need to download my camera. Gary

Allan, This is a truck from the Hazardous of 1706, the lack of concretion on the truck points to no boltwork within the truck. It also looks to be a single thickness which would be compatible with no boltwork. Gary

Done my bit, who’s next? 🙂

Hi Patrick, Have a look at the Flota nets micromaster.co.nz produce, they are well detailed and give you an idea of what you are aiming for. Or you could take a shortcut and just order some 😉 - I have no affiliation, I just like their products. Gary

Hi BE, Your planking is too good to be covered up. At this stage can you say the coppering would be better and that you will be as satisfied with it as the planking? DON’T DO IT! Having said that knowing when to leave it alone is a hard call, but it is yours to make. I also happen to think if you are presenting it in the Georgian model style without masts, minimal painting, etc. then again without copper works better. Gary

Hi Patrick, I have the Hood 1/200 and Pontos detail set in hand, if they are similar then there should be enough PE replacements to allow all moulded portholes and doors to be replaced. I’m afraid the instructions across their range aren’t great so you need to carefully plan each step in advance including dry fitting so as not to box yourself into a corner. Gary

On the subject of teeth, a common Victorian practice in the UK was for a brides father to pay for his daughters teeth to be extracted and replaced with dentures, even if her teeth were perfect. This wedding gift was to save the new groom the expense of dental upkeep over her lifetime! And if you couldn’t parcel your daughter off early it was also a perfectly acceptable 21st Birthday present! This practice continued into the 1950’s remaining particularly prevalent in Scotland. As I sit here and reflect on the cost of my Scottish wife’s dental bill over the length of our marriage I can’t help but feel my father in-law in not providing this service has left me with an otherwise avoidable financial burden that could have paid for several good holidays (or more model kits & bits)! Gary

Methinks I see drop-keel slots 🤔

Jaager, I entirely echo your thoughts, even though it is uncomfortable in that it challenges the interpretation of the models many of us strive to build, but as you allude to, strongly opinionated personalities often dominate the debate on a given restoration programme, all in order to achieve a preconceived interpretation that they favour which masks a more accurate interpretation. One case I have looked into extensively is that of the Victory. The artist WL Wyllie was a leading figure in the drive to restore the Victory to her Trafalgar condition, he was an outspoken individual and in many respects a self-declared expert. In 1905 he exhibited his ‘Panorama of Trafalgar, of which Arthur Bugler in his ‘H.M.S. Victory: Building, restoration and repair’ was to say some 60 years later that “it is remarkable that the VICTORY of the painting was in the main faithfully portrayed as she was finally restored in 1929”. Somehow Wyllie was able to forecast the appearance of Victory 20 years prior to her restoration, how prescient! Yet, the investigations into what Victory looked like were not undertaken until 1923, by LG Carr Laughton, at the outset of the restoration, which spanned the years 1922 – 1928. Wyllie certainly took in Sir Philip Watts who had ‘been appointed by the Society for Nautical Research to act as chairman of a Sub-Committee to consider what steps shall be taken to preserve the ship and to restore her approximately to her condition at the Battle of Trafalgar’. Watts was to record in April 1923 in [The] Mariner’s Mirror in an article entitled ‘Notes on the Preservation of H.M.S. “Victory” and her Restoration to the Trafalgar Condition’ that “She had originally a most beautiful bow and stern, much admired and beloved by all marine artists (who would that be 😏) Some of the beauty still remains, but much has disappeared as the results of changes made from time to time. It is necessary that the original beauty of the bow and stern shall be restored, and this shall be one of the first works of restoration”. Wyllie had a vision and not a Time Machine, and he pushed it through, this was ostensibly to revert Victory to her 1765 appearance, which Watts dutifully echoed. Fortunately, the advisory technical committee could not ignore all the work of LG Carr Laughton and had to concede on matters such as the figurehead and stern, but much of Wyllie’s interpretation lingers in the present Victory despite evidence to the contrary. In part, even nowadays, many ‘respected’ historians, who are often cited in threads on this site, are guilty of pedalling and repeating incorrect facts, some of which are quite fundamental to interpreting certainly what the Victory and Trincomalee looked like. These ‘experts’ have demonstrably failed to check the primary sources for themselves. Having spent many hours at the UK’s National Archives, British Library, National Museum of the Royal Navy, etc. looking into the source documents leads me to very different descriptions drawn directly from primary sources, these sources don’t need interpretation, they are unequivocally clear. NAM Rodger in his ‘The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649 - 1815’, puts it as follows “The ultimate view of an indignant historian is profit .... It is not expected that he will consume his years in laborious researchers after truth. His subsistence depends on the immediate sale of his labours. Hence he complies in haste the errors and contradictions of former historians, and perpetuates error from want of time to investigate truth.” My advice to those who want authenticity in their models, even in respect of the subjects thought to be well documented, is go check the source documents for yourselves if you can, don’t rely on the ship as evidence if it still survives, or artists interpretations who cannot have seen the subject for themselves firsthand at the time at which it is said to have been portrayed. Gary

Hi Michael, The beams were jacked up to allow the columns to be removed, common practice when using the capstan or clearing for action. Gary

The definition at that scale isn’t great but they look like the mushroom vents that Hood had, later British ships had square vents. Gary

She’s had more refits and reconstructions than the real ship 😁 But nice work all the same. Gary

Hi Steve, One issue I had with Steven’s essay when I last looked at it is the chronology, he talks of Captain Elliot’s concentration of fire in Victory using sweep pieces, but Elliot commanded Victory in the 1820’s when she was a guard ship with very few guns, so some doubts as to attribution, but notwithstanding it points to a continuity of sweep pieces from the time of Colossus. In terms of deck storage of shot in my view it was confined to the shot racks around the coamings, in rough weather the hatches were covered in canvas and fixed with battens, these could easily have extended to cover the shot racks and pin the shot in place. The 16-hole shot holder from St Gorge was probably a temporary holder used in action. If you take Victory prior to Trafalgar she brought 3,000 shot up to the decks before the battle. These holders are what were deployed around the deck. It is not clear if they were stacked in tiers upon them. They would have been stored when in use wherever was convenient that did not interfere with the running of the ship. Shot were gotten out of the hold using woven baskets and hoisted to each deck from the hold. Gary

I note the above discussion ranges from the Hazardous to the St. George, given there is a century between these wrecks I doubt a comparison of shot storage and handling can be readily made. Things changed tremendously over the course of the 18th Century for the Royal Navy, it went from a gentleman officer class who left much to the warrant officers, to a meritocracy where officers involved themselves in many professional spheres such as ship design, cartography, gunnery, engineering, etc. But in many respects it was the small incremental changes over this century in particular, such as in shot storage and handling as an example that set it apart from its continental rivals. Daniel Pascoe’s work tries to address this development, but the fact that there is this debate shows he achieved no definitive answer. Gary

I don’t think there is a single use for the upper ring bolts, they were in my view multi-functional as described in the various posts above. They were an alternate out-haul tackle position and back-up to the lower rings in case of eye bolt failure. They could in other circumstances be the primary out-haul tackle points when the lower rear eyes were used for lateral training. In other circumstances when an additional secondary or preventer breaching rope was used they elevated the outhaul tackle above the two breaching ropes to prevent them fouling one another. There is probably more unwritten about what sailors in those days could achieve with a few blocks and tackle than we will ever know, they were practical men and we shouldn’t underestimate the breadth of their solution based approach to such matters just because no one wrote it down. Gary

Hi Steve, I’ve been looking at the historic record on Victory for a decade now, I really need to get a different hobby! It is surprising as to how little there is published on Victory, literally just a hand full of books, some of them quite bad I’m afraid. In contrast with Nelson and Trafalgar you could fill a library, but I’m afraid 95% of it is the same. To understand how Victory has changed I would recommend starting with ‘H.M.S. VICTORY REPORT TO THE VICTORY TECHNICAL COMMITTEE OF A SEARCH AMONG THE ADMIRALTY RECORDS’ by LG Carr Laughton, published in the Marriner's Mirror, even though a hundred years old much of it is still relevant. Unfortunately there are no detailed records of Victory’s 1920’s restoration, it was a simple case of rip it out and re-build it, no thought for archaeological processes I’m afraid. Next on the list sequentially is Arthur Bugler in 1966 with his ‘HMS Victory; Building, restoration, and repair’. Quite a comprehensive work and it details some of the 1920’s work and brings it up to date for 1966. Next in line, chronologically, is Alan McGowan’s ‘HMS Victory; Her Construction, Career, and Restoration’. He brings the restoration story up to date in 1999. His restoration update is good, but his historical analysis is lacking in primary research. Next in line, is the HMS Victory Conservation Management plan, I see you have part 1, there is a Part 2. This brings the story up to date, but beware the Wessex Archaeology caveats, they have accepted the work of others historically as given. Taken together the last 3 publications detail the structural modifications, the primary reference is by ‘Station’, the stations are the individual frames running sequentially from Bow to Stern, and I believe there is enough information in the 3 volumes to plot the timeframe in which frames were replaced. If you attempt this it should keep you busy for a while. Gary

Most of the frames at this level in the structure are 20th Century, I would suggest the older looking frames are from the 1920’s restoration and the newer from c.1960 onwards. If you want to narrow it down I can point you as to where the raw information can be found, but you will need some spare time to collate it 😁. I’d have a go myself but the sun is out and lethargy has kicked in ☀️ 🌞 😎, I forecast it could last for a while (or at least until the Admiral issues new standing orders!). Gary

Hi Allan, I do mean the eyebolts you have marked ‘??’ . On the first photo in Post 39 you can see a secondary side tackle that leads away from the port, most likely to the eyebolt in question, and labelled as ‘9’ in post 43 at G 1/6, which I have called a training tackle, I accept terminology is variable. I think that training the gun using the elevating wedge and hand spikes for small guns, such as the 12-Pounders and below is probable, however, at the larger 24 & 32-Pounders, which are in excess of 50 cwt you may get only limited lateral movement, but if you want to train the gun further round this is where a further side tackle comes in to play which is set further out to gain the purchase on the rear of the carriage. This would tie in with Caruana showing the second eyebolts or loops on the larger guns, and not the smaller guns. Gary

Taking what Dr PR has identified then look at the wider context of one of Victory’s lower deck guns, as the photo below from McKay’s AOTS, you can see a training tackle eye bolt set away from the port - above the breach, behind the dockyard worker. The lower gun deck in Victory is at least 1814, so this is probably of equal age if not older. Gary

So one more reference I have just found, just to contradict my above post (all in the interests of providing clarity 😣). JD Moody in a 1956 Mariner’s Mirror article entitled ‘Old Naval Gun-carriages says “There are two [ring bolts] on each side for the outhauls , the upper pair being used in housing or securing the gun, so as not to obstruct the fitting of a second ‘preventer breaching’.” Unambiguous, but correct???? Gary

Caruana, probably the foremost expert on sea ordnance, is silent on this matter. No other author or contemporary publication I have, whilst showing the second eyebolt in illustrations does not mention in the text the second eye bolt, although the proper term is apparently ‘Loop’. It could be we are trying to ascribe a function for what is merely built-in redundancy, if one set of tackles or breaching fail on the carriage then there is a backup. Interestingly Caruana seems to show the second Loop being introduced on the 1732 sea carriage, but only for carriages for guns greater than 12-Pounders, 12-Pounders and below have only the one Loop. In my mind this would strongly suggest that it is the size of the gun is the determining factor for a second Loop per side. It could simply be that the larger gun sizes were more prone to metalwork failure due to the forces involved, probably in pulling the Loops out, or the eye for the breaching ring being drawn as well. I only have Caruana Volume II, it would be worthwhile examining what Volume I shows to see if any of this holds up for Pre 1715. Gary