Ian_Grant

Got the bow skinned to waterline. Lots of pieces, lots of filling & sanding to come. First four pieces glued at stern. The stern will be pretty tedious as it's all compound curves so I may end up skinning each little framing space individually, or at best two adjacent. You can see where I plugged some old slots in the bulkheads after changing my mind about my method. And where I extended the bilge stringer to three more bulkheads. Oh, and my Conte Roman figures arrived. They're pretty nice. They're so detailed the guys with a foot off the ground even have the hobnails on their boot soles. 😲 I ordered a set in silver plastic figuring it would be easier to paint the armour on that base colour. Their web site showed they were in stock but that was in error, so Mr. Conte sent me the gold colour and kindly added an extra addendum set for free!! I have 25 guys, some of which have optional arms/heads/weapons to select and glue in place. I plan to learn about casting resin in silicon molds; I've seen videos where people sort of squeeze a casting out of the soft silicon mold which could not be removed from a solid mold unless it was two-piece. Unfortunately 23 of my men are holding a scutum (the classic legionnaire shield) but I do have one left arm with a hand on the end. Those holding a scutum have their left forearms terminating in a square slab, for want of a better word, at the back of the scutum. The only guys I want with a scutum are some marines standing with an optio addressing them. I also have two with the bearskin draped over their shoulders and heads; no use for them on a ship, but they're beautifully molded. More unfortunately, although advertised as 54mm they are actually nearly 60mm to helmet crest so they look a little big against my planned 1/32 scale bulwark height. I'd have a crew of 6ft-2in Roman giants! Sigh. Not sure whether to use them now but there are few other options and I am not capable of making my own men. This guy's pilum (spear) is bent. Conte advises dip in hot water then in cold while holding straight but a new brass one sounds better. I have no idea how they managed to mold his entire detailed body in one piece with the shield. Also no idea how I'm supposed to do detailed painting on his torso with the shield in the way! 😬 Probably will cut the shield off his not-detailed left hand. I'm not sure what type of glue to use on this plastic either. This guy can hold a gladius (Roman short sword) in each hand if desired. Wouldn't work out too well in a shield wall though; I would not want to be his neighbour! He has two right arms, two left arms, and two heads to pick from, one helmeted and one with a bandage wound round his head and over his left eye. Imaginative!

Beautiful work!! For what it's worth, I'd leave the top planking in natural. 🙂

Looking very nice! Those wood decks are beautiful, certainly a vast improvement on Revell's negatively-engraved deck.

Great work Daniel. I laughed at the shot of the tiny door to the seat of ease. We recently toured a WW2 submarine at Pearl Harbour and the watertight doors between compartments looked about that size compared to me (I'm 6'-4"). Getting through them was like limbo dancing. Crews must have been selected to be smaller men.

Phenomenal work at that tiny scale, Glen! That shot of the whole ship is amazing!

Looks very nice to me!

Glen that is looking fantastic!

Looking good. Does Revell provide any seats of ease for the beakhead gratings?

Bob, glad to hear you didn't die. 😀

I'm dying to go aboard Victory, but don't want to fly all the way across the big drink to see her dismasted. By the time they finish this 20-year refit I'll be 74. I have my daughter's promise that if needs must she will go with me to push my wheelchair. Hoping it won't come to that! 😆 I did see her in the early 80's but at that time the foremast was unrigged and the bow was enveloped in scaffolding and blue tarps. 😭

I too returned to the hobby after making several ships, including the CS, in the 70's. It has been a source of much satisfaction. To whet your appetite for the big Heller kit, here are a couple of in-progress shots of my Victory to show what can be done with plastic. I bought it in 1982 and it sat on a shelf for decades. There are several sheets of brass etch enhancements available now; I bought two of them. Most people take years for her, I took five working on and off. Bill97 built her very quickly, see his log.

Vitus, if you become hooked on ship models, you might like to try a Heller Victory which is hands down the best plastic sailing ship model extant. She is well worth the bother of serving shrouds and stays as appropriate.

Underhill's excellent book is entitled "Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier". It has many excellent diagrams of ironwork on yards and masts, and rigging details but is not specific to CS. I believe there is an AOTS Cutty Sark (may be wrong). There is also a little book by Noel Hackney on CS; I've never seen it but his book on Victory is very good, though under-rated in my opinion. By the way I see no one answered your question about the bars running along the tops of the yards (or did I miss it?). They're called jackstays and the head of the sail was attached to them, not the actual yard. Good luck with your build. She's a beautiful ship. This is the 1/96 scale model, correct?

Very nice Shields 2.0 Glen! Regarding plastic rivet heads, I thought they might work for a Soleil Royal build with wale bolt heads but the smallest I found with a cursory look were 0.040" DIA probably too big for your SIB's.

Dave, if you want to see an impressive ship, check out "Royal Clipper" which is a modern 5-master inspired by Preussen, and which offers cruises in the Med or Caribbean. I mentioned early in this log that we took a week's cruise aboard her. Awesome!! (I have no association with Star Clippers).

Hi Dave; When I built my Revell Cutty Sark in the 70's as a naive teenager I just used model glue to attach all my "coils" to belaying pins. That hasn't failed either which is almost unbelievable to me! I used CA on my Heller Victory build too, even though I read some warnings on MSW about using CA on rigging. Some people are quite adamantly against it but my Victory seems ok so far. I sure would like to get on and finish this build (I know exactly where to display her). I've been seduced by another build, a Roman galley for radio control, after interrupting Preussen to experiment on oar drive mechanisms. I don't see a log for your Pamir, but I find the search engine a bit problematic; I'm sure it's just me. Do you have one....if not I'd love to see your work! Not too many windjammers hereabouts! Regards, Ian

Could double-sided tape have held the pre-severed and filed flat heads while you painted them?

Mon Dieu! Bravo mon ami!

As I start the bow skinning I have to use smaller pieces of ply to divide the compound curves into smaller, weird quadrilaterals and trapezoids. Spacing between framing members is also smaller so I can't fit clamps to the inside, therefore I started using small ply battens and air-nailing temporarily to the frame through the ply. I put masking tape on the battens so they wouldn't end up glued on. The first couple of pieces went ok but on the third most of the 23ga pin nails snapped when I tried to pry them back out. I've reverted to 18ga which won't snap, but could splinter bulkheads if I miss centre, sigh. Trying to shoot most of them into wales and stringers. It's not a pretty sight and it's too bad the resulting holes will be bigger than the 23ga, but I'm sure the filling/smoothing stage will hide all sins. Here's a piece I just added. It's slow going: template the next piece using clear vellum paper, bandsaw out, test fit and adjust, glue on, wait 25 minutes to remove the battens, pull any remaining 18ga brads, scrape off glue squeeze-out before it fully sets, then on to the next.

So cute! Looks like she didn't get the curly poodle fur; my wife loves Cavaliers but so far we've always had retrievers 😵. Which keep you going........we're older now so maybe a cavalier will be next.......hadn't heard of cavapoos but will ask my wife about them (she's a vet).

Glen, will you be able to cut the heads off without damaging that wonderful painting?

Or a Spitfire. (Supermarine I mean; not Triumph!) 😉

Marc has a rival!

LOL! It's 1/32" "bending plywood". It has a core and two face layers, with a preferred bending axis. A local specialist hardwood/plywood place sells it in 50" x 50" sheets, or half sheets one of which I bought. It's pretty thin, but firms up when in a bend. I plan to epoxy the inside, same as my old RC boats, which will strengthen and waterproof it. Still wondering about epoxying the outside; may depend on the weight after skinning/epoxying. Might just spar varnish the outside then sand before painting. Come to think of it may just spar varnish inside too to avoid the fumes.

Fairing completed, apart from a lingering wobble along the starboard stern bulwark which I will fix later. I added pieces of pine between bulkheads bow and stern, at deck level, before fairing. First two pieces of the ply skin glued in place, without a single cuss word 🤙. These were the easy two, wale-to-wale on the lower hull where the cross section is constant, requiring bending along only one axis. Plan is to do bow and stern in three bands: keel to wale, wale to deck level, bulwark. Horizontal seams will be covered by the outer wale, or trim pieces. Next pieces of ply midships will run from wale to outrigger bottom and contain holes for lower oars. Then I'll need to build the outriggers and a ventilation course above them. Not sure how to do that, yet. I wish now I hadn't made the keel quite so tall in section. Would have saved some weight and made more space. I expect many cuss words will be employed during bow and stern skinning.