Fernando E

I managed to modify the mast caps that came with the kit to get a pretty good approximation of the spreader shown in Petersson p. 17-18. Also spent time “reverse engineering” the implications of omitting the topsail yard (i.e., blocks, holes, eyelets, belaying points not needed) before I start adding things to masts and spars.

 

And lastly:
 
As with other VM kits, this comes with an acrylic stand. This one is quite heavy too, with a gold/black nameplate.
 

 
 
 
Final hull pics:







 
 
And with that, I'm having a week or two abusing my PlayStation5 with Hogwarts Legacy and Call of Duty. Modern Warfare 2. 

Moving onto the forecastle...
 
The stove funnel is now fitted and the gratings installed either side of it.

 
 
 
The belfry is supplied as a 3d part. This is fitted with a gallows and the bell/bellcrank.


 
 
 
We have a couple of 12-pounders up front, and these are now built up and fitted, along with the rest of the carronades. The most forward ports are left unoccupied.



 
 
 
Now onto the hammock cranes and other ironwork on the gunwales.


 
 
 
Here you see the boat cradles in situ.

 
 
 
And here is an anchor, as if you needed to be told! 

Poop and quarterdeck:
 
First up are the flag lockers. The honeycomb core is made from photo etch, painted to resemble wood. This is enveloped in a pear case.
 


 
 
 
Next is the skylight. 


 
 
And then the bitts.

 
 
 
Moving onto the quarterdeck, I finally start to shed my shelf of all the parts I have, starting with this:

 
 
 
The capstan and stairway are now installed, followed by the hatchway doors which are posed open.


 
 
 
Bitts and gratings.

 
 
 
The carronades on the open decks are different to the others as they don't need to slide. These are now built and installed to the quarterdeck.



 
 
...followed by the ship's wheel....

 
 
 
...and the binnacle.

This is my penultimate update as the hull is now complete.
 
After this, it will masting and riggings, but I will be building Grecian before that. The last couple of weeks has been very intense with getting everything done to deadline for a late Feb release. It I hadn't been ill for a lot of last year, this would've been done about 3 months ago. 🤨
 
The deadeyes/strops/chainplates are now fitted. These are straightforward enough.
 

 
 
 
The shot garland and belaying pin racks are now fitted to the quarterdeck bulwarks, along with other paraphernalia. The racks are pinned for strength. 

 
 
Barricades are now fitted. All of the pillars are individual to their positions to cater to the change in camber of the deck.








 
 
 
I now get to fit all of the stuff I've previously built during the deck fit-out. 


 
More in a few minutes...
 
 
 

Completed the Spritsail Gammoning, shrouds and one of the horses not so easy getting them exactly the same lengths and knots in the same place. Next up will be the fore and after Bobstays which are fully served.  There are a number of different views on how these are put together but believe David Row has the correct one which agrees with James Lees book. Here is a coule of photos of my progress together with Dave Rows Bobstays.
 
 

I would like to thank David for using his photo as I believe this is the correct way for the Bobstays on the Endeavour

I have just fitted the main mast stay to the bowsprit and made temporary stays to see what sort of room I have between the boats and the stays. I have now decided after finding in Lees book a photograph a close up  of the main top clearly showing that the preventer is below the stay and there is good clearance between the preventer stay and the boats. I can now mark on the foremast the position of the  lower main stay collar .I am therefore assuming that the Lower fore preventer stay is also on the bottom on this particular ship. 

Here is my several attempts at one of the anchor buoys which didn't turn out too well. Moving onto the lower collars etc starting with the fore stay and fore preventer stay on th eth bowsprit together with the bobstays and bowsprit shrouds. A bit tricky and wish I had positioned the sets of thumb cleats further away from each other as it was a bit of a tight fit with bobstay,shroud and main collars between them. The fore stay collars also are doubled for this period. Collars are also served. I could have also made the thread a shade smaller than 0.75mm would have help too.



Next up 
Next up will be the lower collars for the main stay and main preventer stay but at the moment I am unsure which exactly is the position for them. Which one is on the top. I have seen a few builds where the fore preventer stay is on the bottom but the lower main preventer stay is on the top. Does this mean that the crows feet will on the fore stay rather than the usual fore preventer stay. I have not yet thought that the fore preventer stay could be on the bottom as it is on the Endeavour replica.

Got the anchor ropes in place and the cathead anchor tackle rigged. Will hold off before working out a final solution for securing the anchors to a bitt head. Now, time to turn to masts, spars, etc. Rick has pointed out a couple of issues with the kit: lack of decent placement for the spreader with the mast caps that come with the kit, and that the Mermaid does not seem to have had a topsail yard. From the cutter’s log, here are the spars and sails I find reference to:
 
Yards, Spars, etc:
Mast & topmast Bowsprit (reefing) Boom Squaresail yard Topmast studdingsail boom Flying jib boom  
Sails:
Squaresail 1st jib 2nd jib 3rd jib (infrequent) Storm jib Jib topsail Lower studdingsails Topmast studdingsails Flying topsail Gafftopsail Mainsail Trysail Foresail  
The main arguments for no topsail yard are:
As Rick points out, there is no topsail yard in any of King’s drawings The log refers only to a flying topsail and a gafftopsail (which also appears to be set flying in the cutaway drawing). Both are pictured (as flying) in one of King’s pencil sketches in the log There are no references to a topsail yard in the log “The squaresail” and “the squaresail yard” are always referred to in the singular in the log A couple of decent museum models also omit the upper yard.  
So here are my plans:
Custom mast caps and spreader in line with Lennarth Peterssen p. 17-18 Omit topsail yard Use topsail yard dowel to make simple studdingsail booms on the squaresail yard  
The actual shaping of the masts and spars went much quicker and easier than I expected. I gave them a light stain just to bring out a little wood grain.

Just been working on cleaning up the pic.
 

Just one pic until my last hull update. 
 
This one shows Indy with the channels/knees fitted and also the fenders and side steps. 
 
Ok, back to the cave...
 

Moving onto securing the boomkin guys/stays and according to Lees for this period only one stay is fitted with a single block on the end for the single tack rope. Then onto securing the forward anchors with the cat head tackle and fish tackle. This is accurate as I think possible and copied from 'Arming andFitting of English ships of war' by Brian levery  and includes the stopper  on the anchor ring in place for letting the anchor go. For the record I used black card from the kit  for around the ends of the cat heads. 
       

 





Next I will attempt to make the anchor buoys and hopefully Next iam making an attempt at making the buoys for the anchors and I hope they turn out ok.Then finally onto the standing rigging. 
 

Been finishing up some of the last details on the yawl. The big one was the grating that makes up the quarter deck. I glued some 1 x 1 mm sticks to a 3 x 1 mm stick using some 1 mm spacers. Then I cut them in half to double the amount of grating made, which could then be glued together. In only had a small amount to make, so this relatively inefficient process was still effective.




 
I’ve also done the thwart stanchions, mast steps and the tholes, which means that this one is basically done aside from boat gear, which I might combine with some of the other boats a bit later.
 

Evening!
 
I thought this a good time to do an update as the stern is more or less complete. I've just got to add the stern gunport eyebolts and hinges, plus the lanterns which are now under paint.
 
First job here is to fit the glazing panels which come pre-cut. These just pop into place and the PE window frames are painted and pushed into the recesses. These push in snugly, and a little varnish was run around them to 'glue' them into place. Note that you can have any stern window (except the quarter-rears) positioned either open or closed. I opted to leave two windows open.

 
 
 
The columns are now singled out for some ochre paint and these are then glued between the windows. Minimal trimming is needed with these.


 
 
 
Instead of PE for the quarter shingles, a small sheet of pre-cut Laser-Board is included. these are longer than they need to be and are just trimmed and glued into place with a few dits of CA gel. These will then be painted in black to make them uniform (not seen here).


 
 
 
Again, instead of PE, the stern decor is laser-engraved into a sheet of PolyBak. These are finer than PE and have much nicer fidelity. All parts are carefully removed, attached to some de-tacked tape and then airbrushed in yellow ochre paint. Each part is then applied to the relevant engraved area on the ship's stern. For the ship name, a waterslide decal is included.


 
 
Until later!

Weekend update.
 
The bow is now done. Please forgive some of the dust in these pictures. I did more or less remove it for the final figurehead pics.
 
Creating a 3D knee for the timberhead is done by means of using laminated pear parts, first soaked and then clamped into a custom jig until dry. These are then glued and clamped together until set and then the part is shaped for installation. 
 





 
 
 
 
It's now the turn of the bow grates to be installed.


 
 
 
 
I really don't know why these are called 'seats of ease'. The last thing I'd want to do at 3am is to go out to one of these with the seas lashing around my backside!

 
 
 
 
The largest bow timbers are now installed.

 
 
 
 
This kit is supplied with Polybak detail parts instead of photo-etch. not only are these made in-house at VM, but they look far nicer to my eye and are easier to paint. Here you see the decor installed on the prow. 


 
 
 
 
I don't advocate fitting the figurehead at this time, but Chris did want to see how it looked, so here it is!


 
 
 
Ok, I'll be starting the stern tomorrow. 

A confession:
 
I have to start this update with me being given a gentle nudge as to painting reminder about painting convention when it comes to the head timbers. I painted them in black, with ochre insets where the engraved areas were. Whoop! That should almost all have been inverted! I painted the original way because it seemed the logical way, but nope... Here are the newly painted timbers. You'll note that some are now entirely ochre. This is how it should be, if using those conventions. I used a 0.1mm black Edding pen for some details.
 

 
 
With Indy, the waterline marks are supplied as waterslide decals. I used a setting solution with these so that they help to conform to any surface details. First of all though, the application area was painted in gloss varnish. Remember...don't decal to a matt surface!
 

 
 
 
The catheads are now finished and installed to the model. A small section of rail below the cathead, is removed. One of the parts leading to the head timbers will slot under there, with the curved knee sat over the upper edge.




 
 
 
Lastly for now, the timberheads are installed to the gunwales. These are first shaped slightly.

 
 
 
Until later...
 
 

I ended up using the 2 part epoxy glue as this give me a bit more time to position the seats and floors etc. All made from 0.5x 3mm and 1 mm x 4mm Walsnut strips. I also managed to get hold of some rowlocks but there was only 1 pkt left (10) so didn,t have enough for all of the boats. The 65 mm oars have come from Vanguard  models which I think are much nicer than the brass oars which came with the kit.
        I secured the top and bottom boats using 0.25mm black thread and 3 mm deadeyes and securerd the spare top  masts using 0.1mm biege thread for securing the spare top masts. As my spare masts are actually longer than the Caldercraft ones they may or may not cause problems when belaying the running rigging to there pins as some of them are beneath the spare top masts. I got the idea of using the dead eyes from AOTS book although I am unsure how acurate these are but thought it would be a neat way of securing the boats. Perhaps I could have used blocks instead of deadeyes.

A
All in all I am not too happy with how the boats turned out from the kits, fortunately I will be using Vanguard ship models boats for my next ship the HMS Diana.
 

I’ve been busy on a final push to finish all the deck fittings and fixtures. Spent the week making bitts, cat heads, steps, pin rails, anchors, and more. The top pic is just a “dry fit” to start thinking about where exactly to place things. I still need to drill all the various holes and get the channels and bulwark pin rails in place to make sure nothing is going to interfere with rigging, belaying points, etc (a risk given how much I’ve customized my deck features).
 
Meanwhile, I’m grappling again with the bulwark height issue that we have touched on before. The instructions say to cut a 15mm lower portion of the catheads for the upper “arm” to clear the cap rail. Deck to top of the cap rail for me is 19mm. That’s 4mm high! I went back through the instructions and pics of my build and I can’t identify anything I did wrong. The bulwark pieces are meant to be fitted above a first hull plank that is .4mm down from the top of the frames. My earlier pics look fairly on target. The main implications right now relate to the bowsprit. I either need an extra deep notch for it to sit in, or the base needs to be anchored a little higher on deck. Otherwise, it will angle upward too much. I’ll probably try to split the difference between both, but raising the base of the bowsprit might make it a little trickier to use the windlass pin rail for lines coming off the bowsprit. I’ll probably keep the knight head pin rail from the instructions so I have a couple of extra belaying points. The other issue it causes is that I barely have much stem post clearance to drill three holes for the forestay, but I think I can make it work.

With the exception of the six 9 pounders guns and the rails, there is nothing else to be done on the decks.
 
I installed the two long ladders provided in the kit and the short 2 steps ladders that Tom designed for me: 
 

 

 
And now a few pictures to illustrate the work: 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Yves

Another smallish update but has taken some time. I fitted the stern-sheet bench and back, which took ages to make from scratch and sand to fit properly. I also added a few thwarts, the third one is the mast thwart and is only dry fit.

The mast helpers are made from 1 mm wide brass strips and painted back. I’ve used the kit nails to fit them in, they’re probably a bit too big but add some nice detail. Also made the windlass holders. I think I will make up a full windlass and strap that to the deck as part of the boat kit. I’ll probably also make up some oars, a grapnel, the rudder, masts and sails and chuck in a barrel. I’m drawing a lot from my experience on my first build: The Bounty’s Launch to make these little boats. I think my sheer clamp and thwart raisers are too wide, but I can live with them.
 

And finally, with all the thwarts in.



No pennies in Australia, but our 2-dollar coin is around the same size (I think)
 
Next steps are to make the grating for the quarter deck, do the mast steps, tholes and the thwart stanchions. Then I should be able to move on to fitting it into the main boat and building the 23 ft cutter. Feeling motivated and keen at the moment, so should be able to keep making progress (unless the gratings kill me).
 
 

Finally, the planking can be started.
 

 

 
As usual multiple coats of Wipe On Poly give that warm and nice finish to the maple floor.
 
To be as close as possible to the magnificent model of the Maritime Gallery, I added a small beam at the rear edge of the forecastle. This is done with a 3 x 2 mm strips, painted and glued in place under the subfloor. It finishes in a more realistic way, the edge of the deck. 
 

 
The Forecastle is equipped with two hatches, the box for the stack, a Belfry and some stanchions: 
 

 

 
The Belfry is a little kit in itself, quite delicate to put together and the bell can be actuated for real. No sound gets out of it....
 

 

 
Overall view of the Bellona model: 
 

 
Yves

Beyond just wanting to enjoy building the ship, I wanted to use this build as a bit of a learning experience. Which is to say, I want to step outside the instructions a little and add some extra details or move a little closer to the prototype. Not that I don't think that the kit wouldn't build a nice model, just that I can see places where I could do a little more and learn a bit from trying. The kit design obviously made some simplifications to put the kit in the price point and a build difficultly they were targeting, nothing wrong with that. In the end I don't expect to build a museum quality piece or match the prototype exactly (as can be seen in many places around this forum!), I just want to try my hand at doing a little bit more.
 
One thing I've learned from my previous build attempts, is that never having enough time to spend on your projects leads to rushed work and simply having to accept however it comes out on the first attempt. I finally have some time that I can spare for building, which means I can also spare a little time for exploring and testing (or redoing if it doesn't work out on the first attempt!).
 
Having said all that, in my wish list of possible items to adjust or add, I can see that some of them should be well within my reach, and a few might be more of a challenge for me. My intent is to give them a try, but if I bog down or I'm not happy with my results, I'm giving myself permission to fall back to the instructions as written if necessary. I would rather complete a nice ship as per the kit instructions, than a nicer ship sitting unfinished on the workbench that I've gotten frustrated with. I'm going to try to build any adjusted/refined/added components, rather than just buying replacement parts. Otherwise, I should have just spent the money on a more detailed kit ...and I'll lose the learning opportunity of trying to do it myself (I may yet relent on that condition, but we'll see).
 
So, here's my list of possible adjustments or additions (which will likely change as I progress! 🙂)...
The provided material for the deck boards is 5 mm, which would make them close to 12" wide at full scale. My understanding, and some course measurements from Marquart's Anatomy of the Ship, would suggest something closer to 8" would be more realistic (a little less than 3.5 mm at 1:60). So, I may cut the supplied deck boards down to 3.5 mm before installing. I also may cut the boards to realistic lengths before installing, rather than using pencil marks to indicate the end of the boards. The hope is that I will get a little better effect this way? Treenails ...to add or not? Well done treenails can be quite nice, but if they are overdone, they seem to detract from the model. In my (humble) opinion they should be a detail you see when you get close to the model but are not obvious from a distance. If I can do them subtly, then I'm happy to add them. If I can't do them subtly, then I plan to leave them out. I think a little testing will be involved here (and same with the use of the scale length planks as well). A lack of deck camber has been pointed out in a couple of the build logs (the deck in the kit is flat). I could adjust the frames to force a bit of a camber, but I am concerned that this may cause a domino sequence of additional issues and frustrations down the road in the build (all the components in the kit are designed to be installed with the assumption of a flat deck!). I think this is one I will leave alone. For the subtle gain in prototype accuracy, I may gain a whole lot of frustrations. The deck boards towards the bow on the prototype would have been joggled, which might be a bit finicky, but I think could be within my grasp to take a stab at. The addition of something to represent waterways along the edge of the decks might be a nice addition. I'll have to think a bit about how I would do that. The material for the hull planking is the same 5 mm width stuff, which again might be a bit wide (12" at full scale). So, once again, I may thin down the strips to around 4 mm (?) to bring them closer to about 10" at full scale. While on the topic of hull planking, I'm planning on trying to follow the articles/videos from David Antscherl and Chuck Passaro rather than the kit instruction's approach to planking. Cabin bulkhead planking again uses the same 5 mm material, which is likely out of scale. So, I'll try to thin it down a little to bring it closer to around 8" at full scale (3.5 mm?). The brass doors provided will either be painted or replaced with something I make from wood.  The brass windows will also be painted, and I want to try to provide some kind of "window" material behind the frame to reflect the presence of glass. In general, I'm not shooting for a brass and wood-stained finished model. Where appropriate a little brass may be present and certainly there will be places where there may be unpainted wood, but generally I'm working toward something that looks like the Beagle as it was in use.  The one exception to my avoidance of a vast expanse of stained wood might be in the coppering of the hull. I'm not sure I want to go through the effort to go with coppering the hull but will allow the stained sapelli (red brown) to represent the area of coppering, with the rest of the hull painted (which is probably the intent in the kit design anyway). What can I say, I like the look of stained wood ...I can have my cake and eat it to! 😁 The canons in their stowed positions could be improved with a little bit of additional detail, which I will attempt to provide. When I work on the ship's boats, there may be some opportunity to provide a little refinement. The parts look to be a little chunky for scale. But I'll have to wait to see how difficult this will be at those small sizes. There is only one size of blocks (both single and double) and a limited choice in rigging line sizes. I may try my hand at making blocks to give me at least one additional size, but this might also precipitate the need to also come up with another rigging line size. So, perhaps I'll look at building a simple rope walk and try to make some rigging lines? This one might cause me to want to replace all the line ...which might become a bit of a project? The ever so slightly oversized deadeyes I can probably live with. The significantly oversized belaying pins will need something done. I will try to adjust their size a little (bring them a little bit closer to an appropriate size ...at least make them less objectionable). This may be the one place I simply buy my way out of the problem and order replacement belaying pins. There are some plywood parts in the deck fittings that could be fairly easily replaced with hardwood components. I don't plan to replace all the plywood but may selectively replace key visual items. I have basswood and maple stock at hand, so replacement wood is not a problem. I have seen some minor additional detail added to things like the winches and capstan in some of the build logs that goes a long way to improving their look ...not bringing them to complete prototype accuracy, but just enough additional detail to make a big visual difference. The anchor stocks are cast with the anchor shafts. I may think about cutting off the stocks and replacing them with wood ...or just doing a nice detail paint job to make them look more like wood? [Correction …the anchor stocks are cast separately, I don’t have to cut them off! 🙄] The hammocks in the hammock rails ...not sure what to do here. I can see they don't look terribly realistic as they are, but not sure if I have a good idea how to make them better without digging myself into another serious project. I think I will do a little experimenting and then decide. The brass wire approach to the scroll work can look decent if done well. But I plan on trying my hand at making the scroll work in wood. This may be one of those items where I go back to the kit instructions in the end, but I'll give it a try. Wow, that list got long fast! 😬 We'll see how it all goes as I progress ...I'm sure there's other things I'll think of.
 
The one thing I'll have to remember is that I've given myself permission to fall back to the kit instructions before I get frustrated with the build. Try some new stuff, push my skills a bit, but more importantly have fun with the build even if I don't achieve all the items on my improvements list!
 
Now on to the actual construction...
 
Rob
 
 

Why HMS Beagle? Primarily it was the subject matter, I like the idea of building a ship of exploration. I already have an old AL Harvey kit on the go (or has actually been on hold!) for some time. I was looking for a kit with some semblance of good instructions and a prototype reference to guide me when I got stuck, but still left me some latitude to improve on things a bit. This kit build is really about learning for me, before I go back to the Harvey and seriously kit-bash the thing ...unless another ship catches my eye before then! 🙂 I still wanted a kit that would build a nice ship model, if I had to return to the kit instructions. I also wanted a kit that had some building activity already going on in the forum (past and current) to help me figure things out, get ideas to improve on what's there, or to just commiserate with over problems. 
 
I won't do a kit review, James H has already covered that, as well as in the build logs by Penfold and The Gimps Chimp. One thing I will point out, is that the "walnut" sheet in my kit is definitely hardwood, not walnut-stained plywood. And some build logs or comments talk to having plastic belaying pins, deadeyes and blocks, which in my version of the kit are all wood. So, I guess there may have been some changes to the parts in different production runs of the kit?

I like the parts bin provided in the kit, but the first day while looking through all the kit material, I caught the edge of the open parts bin and almost slid it off the desk! After visualizing myself having to crawl around on the floor trying to find all the little parts, I decided to sort the parts out into small craft ziplock bags and store them in a plastic bin that I think was intended for card collections (baseball, pokemon, etc.). I'll still use the supplied parts bin for sorting parts for specific stages of construction, but now there is no chance of me dumping all of the parts in one go! 


First step for me was to absorb myself in the instructions, parts lists (and other build logs) to really get myself oriented with what was what and where does it get used. It also allowed me to do thorough parts inventory ...possibly a little to thorough?? 😯 It took a bit of time, but I actually enjoyed the time getting to know the kit.

All the parts are present and there appears to be enough material to complete the build except perhaps if I use the amounts of 1 mm brass rod noted in the parts list, I then will run a bit short. Most of the dimensional wood and dowels should be sufficient, a couple may be close but should be enough as long as I am careful about how cut it up or don't make any major errors.
 
I did notice a small handful of typos in the parts list which could confuse things or cause you to run out of certain material unnecessarily ...I've noted those in my parts list and on the instructions to keep myself out of trouble later!
 
Now I need to go collect my thoughts about what I may want to change or add...
 
Rob

...continued:
 
Gun port lids. Very straightforward.
 


 
 
 
The channels are made up from three layers, so look more realistic. The edges of these were rounded/chamfered as per the real thing.



 
 
 
The reworked figurehead is complete!

 
 
 
And here is my work so far on the 24' cutter, which is still ongoing. Many are already familiar with the construction of these little boats. 






 
 
Until next time.
 

I'll do a proper update this weekend, but here's a quick phone photo of the coppered and trimmed hull.
 
Other work I've been doing is finishing up the 24' cutter, painting the timberhead rails and building channels...as well as many other things. She will come together pretty quickly, but I do need to protect this copper from tarnishing.