Ian_Grant

Experienced husbands, upon completion of such a fine project, and with an eye to the future, would name her after their wife.

Chris, she looks great. As my father-in-law said when he saw the varnished interior of my cedar strip canoe, "You'll want to take your shoes off before you step into it". 😀

My two cents - paint the foredeck red and leave the thwarts natural. She will be stunning, whatever you decide, B.E.

We don't know; she didn't last long enough to see any severe weather 😁 How severe do you mean? As wind increased ships took in sail aloft. In a gale they might be hove to under a single staysail aft to keep her head to the wind. Are you setting her in a seascape in a storm? That would be cool!

Hello Bill, I bought Plate 3 "Channel Irons" and Plate 4 "Decks". Plate 3 provides the strops, chains and preventers for all the lower deadeyes and also the strops for the deadeyes in the tops and associated hooks for the futtock shrouds. Plate 4 provides all the hammock cranes with eyes (which you will be thankful for when you get to the hammock netting) as well as a much nicer binnacle and cabin skylight. Also a nice detail: boarding pikes and racks for the fore and main masts. I didn't use the gunlocks or stunsail irons myself. In my case there is no room to work on multiple builds. The first three years I only worked on her in the winter. After that I found myself becoming less tolerant of the heat and humidity (age?) so I started having sessions in the A/C when outside was ridiculous. I'm not a fanatic about daily progress and I might have spent some time maybe 3 or 4 days a week (guessing). Too bad Pete Coleman's "Victory" site is gone. Blue Ensign had his usual detailed build log from which I learned a lot. One warning, which will not affect you for some time: the numbering of the lower gun deck beams on sheet 6 is in the wrong order. I seem to recall the bowsprit bees port and starboard are also swapped. Looking forward to another Heller Vic build log!

I used a black Sharpie ultra fine point permanent marker between the stern balustrades then covered with matt varnish. Still looking good after several years anyway. Bill, I highly recommend you buy at least two of Dafi's etch sheets, namely those that provide the chainplates and the stanchions. You will be disappointed with those in the kit. Or, in the case of the chainplates and preventers, their absence. Be prepared also to buy after market deadeyes and blocks and thread; all those in the kit are useless. It's the finest plastic ship model around, but it is a bit of an ordeal at times. Took me five years.

I highly recommend "The Endurance" by Caroline Alexander for those interested in reading about Shackleton's greatest test.

Was interested, and came across this at Royal Museums Greenwich. Kind of pricey though. Maybe they have other drawings? https://prints.rmg.co.uk/products/lines-plan-of-ss-great-eastern-1858-j8703

She looks great, and a perfect crown! I guess we can add "hairstylist" to your long list of skills, B.E. 😄😉

She is looking great Chris! Reading here about roof straps etc I thought people might be interested in my personal history of roof topping canoes: 1978 Tercel Roof had rain gutters. Bought four foam pads shaped to fit round gunwales and two tie-down straps which hooked on gutters at Canadian Tire; total cost about $26. 1989 Accord Wagon By then car roofs had no gutters. Had to buy a set of Thule bars and four mounting "blocks" custom for the vehicle which clamped on above windows; total cost about $400. 2004 Sienna Van Bought in 2003. The base "CE" model came without roof rails and we were told that they could not be added as "the CE is structurally different from the LE" 🙄. Had to buy an "LE" just to be able to mount a canoe on top. Total extra cost about $4000. Just to rub salt in the wound, the very next year the CE had roof rails too. They must have lost some sales but too late for us. 😒 I can hardly wait for our next vehicle buy.

BrunelRussell, I'd love to see a build log for the Great Eastern; hope you start one!

My God!!! Cat bites are always potentially infecting but your cure looks much worse.....hope it heals quickly. A few years ago I just shaved the skin off the end of a finger tip on a table saw; it took years for the nerves to feel normal again. (Amazing how the fingerprint whorls regenerate!)

HAHA!! It certainly does; haven't seen that stuff for forty years 😀 I take it you too are retired from the high tech industry 🤪

Plastic deadeye usefulness depends on their molding method. If they don't have the groove round the perimeter it is very very difficult to seize the shrouds onto them; just ask any Heller Victory builder 🙄. But it looks like your lower deadeyes did have the groove for the strop. Are you blocks a step above the Revell blocks with their molded loop for a strop? If you're happy with the colour of the plastic parts, just coat them with "matt varnish" Humbrol or such. Ship looks great BTW

It will look great Chris! Interlux is nice paint. I used it too, on my dinghy sailboat.

While waiting for my brass eyes and tubing to arrive, I decided to create a rigging spreadsheet to find out how many blocks I need. I just came up with 384 (Yikes!!!!). That is more than I used on the Heller Victory (310) and what's more they're all at the small end of the size range used on Victory. Thank God I already decided to omit the 126 buntlines. There is no "Longridge Equivalent" information for the Preussen as Underhill does not detail block sizes. I eyeballed blocks against the spars to try to keep them reasonable looking while not using too many tiny tiny ones. I ended up with about a hundred 2mm blocks mostly around the upper yards and jib halyards, about two hundred 3/32" blocks mostly around the topsail yards, and about a hundred 1/8" blocks mostly to do with the lower yards. The 1/8" equates to 18.75" which is over scale but hey, it saves me a hundred even tinier blocks. It seems a bit ambitious at this scale. I recall reading about just tying threads together, putting a blob of glue on, and painting the blob to look like a block. Anyone know a glue with high surface tension which would be good for that? I'd be interested to hear what the Heller Passat kit blocks are like, if anyone reading has built one. Model on!

Chuck and B.E., I'm sure if you make enquiries you could find someone to 3D-print some 1/24 scale oarsmen for you. And a queen and maybe a duke in attendance...........

As others have said, what you need to do is follow Longridge who is specific to Victory, instead of trying to cover all cases as in some other books. The 213 in the first picture would appear to be a standing lift and is bogus. Forget about it. In the case of the topgallant lifts, the four thimbles and two blocks cover both sides. Each side has a thimble in a strop round the mast which holds the standing end of the lift. The lift runs through a block tied to the yard, then back up through a thimble seized between the 1st and 2nd topgallant shrouds, then down to the mast top where it belays round a deadeye. This is described by Longridge on pg 249. See also Fig 178 on the next page. The topgallant "halyard" consists of a tye and the actual halyard. The tye clinches round the centre of the yard and runs through a sheave hole in the hounds of the topgallant mast to an 8" double block. The halliard consists of a whip rigged between this block and an 8" single block attached near the back of the mast top, with the fall belayed on the bitts abaft the mast. This is also described by Longridge pg 249. Longridge provides a rope-by-rope description of each line on each yard complete with rope and block sizes. I can't emphasize enough that you cannot do better than follow him. If you are not familiar with rigging in general, I recommend you obtain "Rigging Period Ship Models" by Petersson. This great book has almost no text, just line by line diagrams of each rigging component, one or two per page. Here is a sample page: DelF makes a good point about the limited depth of the cross section. There are many lines (braces, bowlines) which you must omit because they run to other masts. Finally, concerning your statement: "I have Longridge's book, and have removed the rigging diagrams for reference. They have yet another version of the above information (similar for Lifts, short Halyards, if indeed that is what they are stopping at the main topgallant yard. Again - added confusion." I gather you are looking at the large "Plan 7 Running Rigging" foldout. Those lines running from near the topgallant hounds to more or less the centres of the topgallant yard are the two topgallant buntlines. The large standing and running rigging diagrams, though impressive, are not that useful compared to the detailed descriptions in Chapters XV and XVI. Hope this helps.

I'm busy adding eyebolts all over the place on the masts and spars of a Heller Preussen. I bought a fair amount of 42lpi chain (finest I could find) for the chain sheets which I planned to rig on the three lower yards at least. Upper spars are too fine to add eyes large enough for even this chain which is a bit large for the scale. Anyway my question is this: I'm rigging without sails. In the case of upper topsail and upper topgallant, there are no clewlines since the respective yards are lowered to take in the sail as opposed to hauling the sail up to the yard. But this leaves me with nothing to attach the chain sheet after it comes out of the sheave in the yard below. Is there a customary way to handle this or must I omit these sheets? For example, in the case of HMS Victory I also rigged without sails but I included the bowlines which were hitched along the yards about where they would be were there a furled sail. Thanks for any suggestions!

I agree that hobby shops are scarce on the ground now compared to the 70's - 80's. I am lucky in that I have two excellent hobby shops within 5km here in west Ottawa, and another downtown. One specializes in RC, mainly planes but some power boats, with lots of stock of electronics. The other specializes in plastic models, lots of cars, planes, tanks, and a few boats. Downtown has trains and plastic models. I try to buy from the two nearby when possible - paint, glue, evergreen, brass extrusions. But model ships are a niche, model sailing ships are an even narrower niche. None of these stores carry ship fittings. There are probably ten people in town who would need them. Regrettably, modeling is a dying hobby. One store owner told me that his customers are all my age (60's) getting back into the hobby now that the kids have left. The kids never got interested in models. I tried with my son but no dice. We're lucky to have the internet to reach out to wherever the excellent shops carrying ship stuff are located.

I have bought here in the past and like them very much. I cannot understand why shipping something from the UK to Canada is often far cheaper than from the USA to Canada. I've experienced this with model parts, books, and kits (not all from CMB!). I also liked The Model Dockyard but Nick recently retired...

Thank you Vic and Cirdan! I wanted to move on to the topgallant mast fittings but I am now out of etched brass eyes. Waiting for an order to arrive. Not sure what to do on the ship in the meantime.... Oh, and I finally got a COVID shot - Pfizer - yesterday. My arm's a bit sore today but I'm happy!

I take back what I said last post about the "many ladders". There would not be that many under the bridge deck; I now think many of these "boxes" are skylights elevated above the deck in case water is sloshing around, that can be propped open for ventilation. Would be nice to tour one of the museum ships and find out! Latest update is that I finally made some brass yard trusses. Given my poor soldering results in the past, I tried two new steps in the process: washed the brass parts in vinegar then rinsed in water, and applied flux where they join before soldering. Also touched only with tweezers after rinsing to avoid skin oils. Results were good. I just used the same flux I've used for years when sweating copper water pipe and fittings. Here is a shot of a lower yard with its truss, and a lower topsail yard with its truss unconnected. The lower yard truss is made of two brass rods, one bent into a "C" shape, joined with a short section of tubing. The tubing was notched across one end so as to partially contain the "C" rod thus lending strength to the joint. The lower topsail truss is an "L" brass rod, with again a short length of tubing, and a copper eyelet shaped suitably. This truss goes into two holes in the mast placed just below and just above the lower mast cap (notional in these one-piece steel masts). It enters the yard's centre band at the top of the yard. Just for fun here is a shot of a yard as supplied by Heller, which I showed very early in this log. Here is a figure from Underhill showing what I'm trying to emulate, or at least sort-of represent. The two trusses in place on a mast. And lastly the ship with all lower yards crossed. Finally looks like a ship! The upper topsail yard joins the mast with a simple straight piece of rod drilled in yard and mast to represent a sliding parral. Luckily Heller molded a band I could use for the "parral". Excuse the odd angles - rigging will straighten out the yard alignment. The upper topgallant and royal will be joined this way too but the lower topgallant has a truss like a scaled-down lower topsail yard. Not sure what I will do as the topgallant yards and masts are significantly more slender.

Hello gak They're actually hatches with portholes for skylights. There must be a mass of ladders under the bridge deck! Here's a shot of some on the "Passat":

Hello, I believe the galley chimneys could be rotated by the crew to point them downwind. That's why you see many models on MSW with handles on the chimney, like "ears". Keep up the great work!