el cid

YC,
 
Here is a blueprint for the "flag board" (also known as the flag bag) on a Cleveland class cruiser guided missile conversion in the 1950s. I suspect (but I am not certain) it is the same flag bag that was used on cruisers during WWII and was reused after the conversion. It is the same basic design shown in the photos Bob posted.

This shows the general shape and size of the flag bag, and is an example how it was arranged with respect to the signal mast and halyards.
 
This is a prettty large drawing showing the details clearly, but it looks like the Forum reduces it drastically. Contact me through this link and I'll send you the full sized drawing:
 
https://www.okieboat.com/Contact page.html
 
I might even find some more photos of cruiser flag bags.
 
 
 

I'm getting close to finishing up the rigging on my Yacht Mary, and  was exploring some technique for setting up the several tackle required.
I was wondering about the methods others may use.
 
I set up the final dimensions, and then hang it with some tension on it.  I then wet it down with very thin white glue.
It usually dries overnight before I fit it to the boat..
 

After over ten years of very intermittent work, I'm finally seeing the end of the tunnel..

Morning, 
It's going to be unusually hot and muggy this weekend......to the Shipyard it is!!!!!
Absolutely hate the heat, I'm a New England boy and prefer the cooler weather. 
A sure sign that summer is almost over...…..the New England Patriots report to camp next week! 
 
Update on the James Cannon.
The blackened chains were air dried for a day or two then installed. 

 

She's really filling in. 

A while back I bought some .080 brown rope from Syren…..I sure glad I did!
It looks pretty sweet compared to the "rope" that comes with the kit. 

A few touch ups are next. 

Hope to have this project wrapped up soon!

 
Tom E 
 
 

I tend to stick to one project at a time, but within a project it is necessary to plan ahead. You really need to be familiar with every step of the build before you start, otherwise you may find that you misunderstood how one of the later parts fits into the whole and find that you have to go back and reconstruct something. For me this is very frustrating!
 
In many cases I create my own plans for parts and assembly, even if it is a kit with plans. Kit plans often leave a lot to be desired! I read about how things worked on the real ships. That gives me a much better understanding of what it is I am building, and how it fits into the whole model.
 
For example, on my current build, while I was attaching the channels and chain plates to the hull I needed to know the angle of the shrouds from the mastheads to the channels in order to get the angles of the chain plates right. This required me to determine the heights on the masts where the shrouds attached, and that required a bit of study of the mast assemblies. I didn't actually construct the masts, but I learned how to do it.
 
Having said that, I am planning another 1:96 scratch build project of a guided missile cruiser. No plans existed for the ship so I worked 14 years to research and create a very accurate 3D CAD model to be used to create plans. After that I was pretty much burned out for a while on the cruiser project, so now I am "relaxing" with a revenue cutter kitbash build. But I started the kit build before I began working on the CAD model of the cruiser! One of these days I will restart the 1:96 scale project, and I suspect it will take several years to build it. I may alternate between the two builds in order to get a change of pace. Who knows which will be completed first?
 
The important thing is to enjoy what you are doing. If you lose your enthusiasm for one project, that is the time to put it on the shelf and work on something else. The first will keep, and will be there when you again have interest. Besides, in the interim you may discover something about the shelved project that will help you build a more satisfying model.
 

test
wx_camera_1556422027948.mp4

Because I still was reluctant to continue with gun rigging, I put the transom in place and started on its decoration. While trying to fit the flexible decoration part I found that it was too wide and would not fit around the quarter galleries stern windows. As it was already mutilated after scratching away the elephant I brought myself to cut it in half, taking out about 1,5 mm in the middle. (A similar operation had already worked for Pickles boat so I did it again.)
 
The now 3 parts were painted and glued onto the transom. After much re-gluing, light sanding, touching up again and again with the 4 colours used (black, yellow ochre, white and flesh) and mending Pegasus' broken wing I achieved an acceptable result which even for once looks better on the pictures than in reality. Using only 3 basic colours and just a little more on the central image of Bellerophon on Pegasus looks right to me - not pretentious but with a simple elegance. Again, less seems to be more.
 
After closing the side galleries I could see what benefit I gained from the extra work with hollowing out the gallery frames to give a view into the lower part of the side gallery: Well, not a big one, but I'm still glad I tried it. Next time I should radically cut away as much as possible of the part where it touches the hull.
 
 

3 parts of the transom decoration ready to be glued on
 
 

the yellow ochre looks a bit more golden than in reality
 
 

the transplantation of Bellerophon was quite successful

Hello, everybody. Today, the winch assembly has been verified. It was originally a part cut by laser, but it was found that grinding is very difficult and the parts are very small. The processing technology has been improved. Laser and CNC are used to process. As you can see in the photos, we have pre-processed the angle and assembled it conveniently. We have changed the metal parts into wood parts for the pump assembly. You can see in the photos.

I found the following quite interesting and thought some of the members would as well.  
https://aeon.co/essays/how-european-sailors-learned-celestial-navigation
It follows:
In 1673, in a North Sea skirmish that killed nearly 150 men, the French privateer Jean-François Doublet took a bullet that tossed him from the forecastle and broke his arm in two places. How did the precocious young second lieutenant choose to spend his convalescence? Doublet repaired to the French port city of Dieppe, where he signed up for three months of navigation lessons. 
This might seem a strange decision; Doublet, who had gone to sea at the age of seven, already knew the ins and outs of navigation. Why would he bother paying for lessons? The school in Dieppe – the Royal School of Hydrography – was renowned for the calibre of its lectures, attracting passing tourists as well as naval trainees. Doublet was keen to learn some more advanced techniques from the teacher, Abbé Guillaume Denys. In his memoir, Doublet explains a practical motive too: if he got injured again, he would retire and open his own sailing school.
Bold adventurers had a chance to enjoy considerable profits at sea in the early modern period (the 16th to 18th centuries) but they also risked their lives on every voyage. For Doublet, it was important to have a backup career plan. He never ended up teaching – he would spend the next three decades traversing the Atlantic and hobnobbing with famous admirals before, as a retirement project, writing his memoir. It might seem surprising that Doublet felt that teaching navigation was on a par with privateering, which was essentially legal piracy, with handsome prize money. Clearly, in the late-17th century, even knowledgeable sailors sought out more education. Records of these early schools are scarce – but Doublet’s detailed account of his time in Denys’s classes offers a rare glimpse into the technical education that early modern European sailors might have received
       
During the 16th to 18th centuries, Europeans embarked on thousands of long-distance sea voyages around the world. These expeditions in the name of trade and colonisation had irreversible, often deadly, impacts on peoples around the globe. Heedless of those consequences, Europeans focused primarily on devising new techniques to make their voyages safer and faster. They could no longer sail along the coasts, taking their directional cues from prominent landmarks (as had been common in the preceding centuries). Nor did they have sophisticated knowledge of waves and currents, as did their counterparts in the Pacific. They had no choice but to figure out new methods of navigating across the open water. Instead of memorising the shoreline, they looked to the heavens, calculating time and position from the sun and the stars.
Celestial navigation was certainly feasible, but it required real technical skills as well as fairly advanced mathematics. Sailors needed to calculate the angle of a star’s elevation using a cross-staff or quadrant. They needed to track the direction of their ship’s course relative to magnetic north. Trigonometry and logarithms offered the best way to make these essential measurements: for these, a sailor needed to be adept at using dense numerical tables. All of a sudden, a navigator’s main skill wasn’t his memory – it was his mathematical ability.
To help the average sailor with these technical computations, maritime administrators and entrepreneurs opened schools in capital cities and port towns across Europe. Some were less formal arrangements, where small groups of men gathered in the teacher’s home, paying for a series of classes over the course of a winter when they were on shore.
Illustration of a small Dutch classroom from The Golden Light of Navigation (1697), by C H Gietermaker. Courtesy Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam In other instances, the crown set up official schools, usually footing the bill for young men who were expected to then serve in the nation’s navy. Many of these were modelled after the first official school, established by the Spanish crown in 1552 at the House of Trade (Casa de la Contratación) in Seville. It was counterintuitive to teach sailors in classrooms – most were barely literate – but educators chose to follow the pattern set by traditional universities: lectures, note-taking and formal examinations. Administrators devised ambitious, theory-heavy curricula, but they provided no instructions about how to teach this material.
In the 17th century, navies and trading companies began requiring their mariners to pass an examination if they wished to be promoted – to master, lieutenant, eventually even to captain. While sailors who were already competent navigators might not see the point of sitting through classes dedicated to theory, they were motivated by the prospect of upward career mobility. If you could read and had a head for numbers, you could climb the ladder quickly. A master or navigator (pilote in French, piloto in Spanish, stuurluy in Dutch) earned three times as much as an able seaman, and many would eventually secure commissions as captains. Sailors flocked to the classroom.
Sailors needed to learn the terms that would have been familiar to university students studying cosmography
The first schools in northwestern Europe popped up near the docks in Amsterdam, Le Havre and London. They were run by ambitious entrepreneurs who wore multiple hats: a number of them invented new instruments or wrote introductory textbooks, all of which they hoped to sell to their students. Some were mariners themselves, but most had virtually no experience at sea. Still, they harnessed the power of the printing press, and instruments galore, to help teach new mathematical concepts.
One teacher in Rotterdam, Jan van den Broucke, published a small textbook, Instruction about Navigation (1609). The humble volume was illustrated with the latest paper tools: tables, diagrams and moveable instruments. Van den Broucke offered keen sailors practical advice about how to get up to speed on astronomy. He reviewed basic definitions: what is a pole? Where is the equator? Sailors needed to learn the terms that would have been familiar to university students studying cosmography (the celestial parallel to geography). The Instruction included a list of 12 key concepts – from the signs of the zodiac to charts and compasses. Van den Broucke advised his readers to ‘hang the list over their bed [and] review it every evening for a year’. If they found such memorisation onerous, they could come take classes with him instead.
Van den Broucke taught readers and students a useful technique: how to use the Little Dipper to tell time. The handle of the dipper points at the North Star, and the bowl of the dipper rotates around it over the course of 24 hours. That means that when the two farthest ‘guard stars’ moved 15 degrees, one hour has passed. Once the constellation has rotated 90 degrees, six hours have passed. This functionality was so useful that most early textbooks included diagrams, often with volvelles, moveable discs that help the reader understand the concept.
A Volvelle (Dipper) from Instruction about Navigation (1609), by Jan van den Broucke. Courtesy Leiden University Library Van den Broucke’s Instruction also offered a more elaborate tool for mastering the heavens: the ‘zodiac song’. To help students remember the stars, the song rendered all the constellations in 12 rhyming verses. In the northern hemisphere in March, for instance, you first see Andromeda’s belt rising in the sky, pursued by Cetus the Whale, followed by the ear of Aries the ram. These verses were set to the tunes of familiar hymns. Devout sailors could sing along, or so seemed to be the intention. It is doubtful, however, that many sailors learned the constellations through music. Claas Gietermaker, author of the immensely successful nautical manual Golden Light of Navigation (1660), included two different songs in the first edition of his Dutch textbook. But Gietermaker left the songs out of subsequent printings. He did retain two volvelles, suggesting that sailors found the hands-on spinning discs more useful than the verse and tunes.
By the time Gietermaker published the Golden Light of Navigation half a century after Van den Broucke’s Instruction, nautical manuals had evolved. The definitions that had been so important – pole and equator, zenith and meridian – had become common knowledge, and sailors now focused on a different set of essential skills: addition and subtraction, multiplication and division. The volumes burst with the newest tables and equations. Teachers took their students outside to make observations along the shoreline. Other classes piled into small boats so that they could sketch the coastline, training their eye for estimating distance as well as for cartography. At larger institutions, pupils might get to practise working the rigging of real or model ships. More often, a small group of men would gather around a table with a blank workbook, a set of drawing compasses and a globe. Teachers usually had all of this equipment available for purchase (and might even rent out a storage drawer for a small fee).
The Kaatje training ship in the courtyard of Amsterdam’s Seminary for Navigation. Courtesy Rijksmuseum Classroom activities involved a fair amount of rote memorisation, and students were expected to copy out their teachers’ lectures verbatim. By the 18th century, teachers petitioned central administrators to ask that the students not waste time by copying out the textbooks – let them simply buy a copy!
Students owned manuscript workbooks where they copied out definitions of key concepts and answered questions. Some mariners spent more time on decorating their notebooks with calligraphy or doodles than on mathematics. But the manuscripts are invaluable: they let historians track which topics received the most attention, where students made the most mistakes, and what they did each day in class.
‘What course shall the man of warre shape to finde these pyrates?’ 
The most important textbook questions had to do with the boat’s course and position: ‘If your ship intends to sail west but is forced off-course by the wind … what is your true course and distance sailed?’ Straightforward trigonometry could give the answer. But sometimes a teacher would put more spin on the problem. Richard Norwood, in his Trigonometrie (1631), presented the following scenario:
What is the next step? Naturally to hunt down the pirates! Since the merchant had ‘sailed since at least 64 leagues betweene the south and west, what course shall the man of warre shape to finde these pyrates?’ For more than a century, variants on this ‘pirate question’ appeared in textbooks.
There were also more idiosyncratic problems: one Dutch student carefully drew a trapezoid to answer a question about four old ladies sewing – how far apart were they from each other, and how many yards of cloth did each stitch? One common classroom exercise required students to trace out hypothetical routes for vessels as they zigzagged through a day’s sail. To make this interesting, teachers designed fantastic courses – castles, anchors, hearts – that students constructed in their notebooks, connect-the-dots style.
From the navigation workbook of William Spink RN (c1697-1731). Courtesy National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London Such questions aimed to make technical material as memorable as possible. Textbook publishers, for their part, did not want to dedicate costly paper to these sizeable diagrams – they appear almost exclusively in manuscript workbooks. Here again, the discrepancy between published book and student work tells us which parts of the extensive curricula were truly important. These classroom records reveal the theoretical material that sailors actually used at sea. 
Thanks to the French privateer Doublet, we can get insight into the 17th-century ‘student experience’. We know from Denys’s own correspondence that he had been running a navigation school in his home since the 1650s. When Louis XIV’s main advisor Jean-Baptiste Colbert asked him to convert it to a royal college, Denys sunk money into renovations, for which he was never properly compensated. (Teachers, always underpaid, lodged many such complaints. They often supplemented their income with private tutoring on the side, but this could cause problems; their favourite students never failed the exams.) Denys’s school was on a noisy corner; he reported that it could be hard for the students to concentrate over the din of women selling their wares. Denys grumbled to Colbert about his feud with the merchant who sold the only magnets in town, obviously an important piece of equipment for mariners. Despite these issues, Denys’s hundreds of students evidently loved him, and he stood as godfather for several of their children.
Doublet tells us about Denys’s school itself. In 1673, he paid 50 livres a month for room, board, laundry and the necessary books. (These were almost certainly Denys’s own pioneering textbooks, which introduced trigonometry to French sailors.) Doublet notes that most students started with the basics – the tides, altitudes, and simple instruments such as Gunter’s scale and the sinical quadrant – but Doublet easily worked his way through spherical trigonometry and Euclid’s Elements. The young corsair turned out to be so proficient at the advanced mathematics of celestial navigation that Denys offered to foot the bill to keep him on in Dieppe as a teaching assistant. ‘You would oblige me infinitely by staying, for you would ease the puzzle of this [large] number of students, the majority of whom have heads as hard as stone.’
Denys made typical complaints about students. If some were bright and diligent, others stole school supplies or sold their textbooks for a profit. Absenteeism was a problem. French administrators experimented with paying senior naval officers to attend classes as role models – but that did not stop them from playing hooky. The navy then docked the wages of men who didn’t show up for class. At a Dutch school for officers in Batavia, the best student in class earned a sword.
Doublet needed no such coaxing. When his squadron leader ordered him back to sea after three months, Denys pushed back so that Doublet could stay in the classroom for three months more. Doublet was thrilled: he scored ‘six months of room and board for which I only paid three’.
After this stimulating scholarly interlude, the Franco-Dutch war (1672-78) continued to intensify so Doublet hurried back to sea to harry the enemy. But first, he did something that was increasingly obligatory for sailors: he took his navigator’s exam. (Denys covered the cost.) As was the custom, Doublet stood in front of a panel of ‘Four old captains and four pilots, who questioned me from all sides.’ The bright young corsair passed with flying colours. After a celebratory feast with Denys and his sister, Doublet finally headed back to his squadron.
Captain Dering, an overconfident young Brit, failed to correctly calculate the time of high tide at London Bridge
If Denys was unusually gifted at Euclidean geometry, many other average mariners followed him into the classroom to face the examiners. By the 18th century, sailors spent some portion of their training in a schoolroom. Navigation was no longer an art learned by apprenticeship – it was a science. Textbooks poured off the presses; sailors filled their workbooks with trigonometry. Although exams might not have been mandatory in every locale, mariners were keen to pass them. The Dutch author Gietermaker included a model exam paper in his Golden Light of Navigation. This simple two-page innovation made waves. Other authors quickly copied Gietermaker, and before long, most Dutch textbooks included a practice test.
Soon after this, mariners started cramming for exams. Instead of paying 36 florins for an entire winter of lessons, Amsterdam-based mariners paid just 6 florins for a crash course focused on the oral and written portions of the tests. Later manuscript workbooks confirm this strategy: students often focused on the questions they knew would be on their exam. Teachers at the close of the 17th century were already ‘teaching to the test’.
What were these exams like? Evidence is sparse, and Doublet is regrettably silent on his own experience. Admiralty records do preserve records of those who ran into difficulty: men who desperately wanted to earn their certificate, but repeatedly failed their examinations. Some flunked due to seemingly minor errors, while others persisted, and eventually earned their credential. For instance, Captain Dering, an overconfident young Brit who had ‘pretended to be a lieutenant after having been [on] one voyage to Wyborne’, failed to correctly calculate the time of high tide at London Bridge. This was one of the most straightforward and essential tasks – so he was summarily sent back to his ship, and told to reapply at a later date.
A practice exam in the navigation workbook of C. J. Boombaar (1727–32). Courtesy Het Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam. In the 1760s, a Dutchman, Frans van Ewijk, already held a position as a merchant captain. Unfortunately for him, the Dutch East India Company passed a rule making exams mandatory even for captains. In October 1768, Van Ewijk presented himself in Rotterdam for the exam – and promptly failed. He was deemed ‘very deficient in theory and practice’, and unqualified to serve as captain. He blamed his servants for distracting him with ‘much confusion and trouble’ at home, but the committee was not sympathetic. Undaunted, Van Ewijk showed up at an exam room in Amsterdam six weeks later. This time, he answered the questions satisfactorily. (Perhaps he had taken a crash course?) The following summer, Van Ewijk once again sailed as captain of a ship.
Another English candidate, Charles Hadsell, wished to get certified as a ship’s master in 1670. Just returned from the Caribbean, he had sailed for a decade with the notorious Captain Henry Morgan. In spite of more than 10 years at sea, he failed the master’s exam – twice! The panel of naval examiners found that ‘he could not give any Considerable answere to moderate questions in Navigation’. Even if he knew every cove and reef in the West Indies, they were clear: ‘We doubt of his Capacity in navigating a shipp on the greate Ocean.’ We cannot know if the Admiralty disliked Hadsell because he’d associated with the notorious pirate, but it seems clear: to please the examiners, he should have studied some practice questions. These mariners needed more than vessel-handling skills – definitions and theoretical concepts demonstrated your expertise to those around you.
In their quest for these credentials, maritime men sought out formal schooling. Pirates, privateers, merchants and navy hands did not just sail a boat from point A to point B; they needed to be able to track its position, to compute time and place. To do this, they needed mathematics.
Fortunately, in the 17th and 18th centuries, practical mathematics took off. For a reasonable fee, anyone who wished could acquire this bookish knowledge. Europeans felt the stakes were high, for their colonial fortunes rested on the shoulders of these navigators. In response, maritime educators developed an innovative hybrid form of training. Early modern navigation students memorised definitions and took notes but also got their hands on instruments, and answered many, many practice questions. Zodiac songs, creative diagrams, hands-on lessons along the beach – this combination of memory and mathematics caught the imagination of mariners, making it easier to grasp the technical skills needed on the high seas. Far from being drunken sailors, these men were clever mathematicians, using traditional approaches alongside the latest technologies to reach the far side of the globe.

That's debatable. My small house is running extremely short of 50-100 cm potential display spaces -- at least ones that the Admiral would be okay with.

I have eleven ship models around the house in scales ranging from 1:150 - 1:24.
Different scales and subjects do allow for more display options, if I built everything I have in 1:48 scale I would have a wonderful collection of models - but no wife!
 
B.E.

Being able to 1:48 would be great but for room to display them.  A lot of us do 1:64 as it's a good compromise.

Personally,  I prefer to build everything in the same scale. I will probably stick with 1:64 now. To me it will takes tens of years before i run out of Cadercraft ships to do. So far they kind of have lots for everyone in the Nelson series:
100 guns, Victory
64 guns, Agememnon
38 guns, Diana
about 20 guns, Snake, Crusier, Mars, Jauluse
Bombvessels 
lots of smaller ships
 
What is missing from this lineup besides a 1:64 Victory ;-)?
 
Something that would be interesting would to add additional kits where you could turn your kit into a similar "sister ship". I am sure that with small changes you could actually build another as we seen various example of in this forum. 

I designed the majority before I handed in my notice in late 2001. I had nothing to do with the stern carvings or PE. I left before completing it.
 
I cannot comment on the differences, as there are quite a few years to separate the two, and it would not be cricket to talk about accuracy/detail between the two.

Amen to that!

All my rowdy friends have settled down. 
Most are gone now, but never forgotten. I wouldn't trade those days for nothing, but I wouldn't want to relive them either.

Just had some of the Speedy prototype parts arrive. A lot more parts than Alert, and 15 bulkheads..
 
I had one PE sheet missing, so will take a pic of the brass sheets when I receive, but the copper sheets look fine. For the nail heads, I copied exactly a picture I have of an original Victory copper plate.
 
I have tried to make no compromises with this kit, and bought my own supply of 0.8mm ply for the more critical parts. below is not all of the laser sheets, I have the laser engraved deck too. I think I will separate the 1mm wood gunwale into two parts per side, to minimise the chance of it breaking.
 
I have since removed the holes around the rims of the lower tops, as for the period I am basing the model (1800-1802), crowsfeet would not have been rigged.
 
I have even included a few hatchets in the 0.4mm PE, as I know they used these to remove tangled rigging when in battle, and Speedy was in battle a lot!

Flagship Models is a mfg of (mainly) top notch resin civil war era ships and they are a former sponsor of this forum.  I forget who did up the master for the fighting top kit and the other two in that series but they got very favorable review when they were first released.  I have built a couple of the Civil War gunboat kits and they are great kits.  He's got a line of Civil War figures that can be used on any ships of that era.
 
Rusty White is the owner of Flagship and it looks like he's recently provided space for some other CDs to be sold.  The review above of the rigging CDs is what it is.  His own CDs are good as I have seen them and own two.
 
Kurt

1:64 H.M. Cutter Alert 1777
Vanguard Models
Catalogue # VM-01
Available from Vanguard Models for £180
 

 
 
The Alert, built in Dover by Henry Ladd and launched on 24th June 1777, was the largest class of cutter in the Royal Navy. Alert originally carried ten four-pounder carriage guns and six to twelve half-pounder swivel guns. She was one of fifteen cutters built for the Royal navy between 1777 and 1778. Smaller cutters were often purchased or built by private yards and then purchased by the Navy, but Alert was purpose built from the keel up.
 
In February 1778, Alert docked at Plymouth for an overhaul, to which some alterations were made to her hull and the ten four pounder carriage guns were replaced with twelve six pounder guns, raising her broadside weight by 30%. The guns were changed because six-pounder shot was more commonly available and, of course, they were more effective. Because of the increase in ordnance, the crew of the Alert was increased from sixty to eighty men, and recommissioned under a new commander, Lieutenant William George Fairfax. In May 1778, Fairfax was promoted to Commander and Alert was re-classed as a sloop to comply with Admiralty requirements. (Although always remained cutter rigged)
 
On 17th June 1778, the Alert, in company with the frigate Arethusa, spotted and intercepted the French frigate Belle Poule and the armed lugger Coureur, with the latter overhauled by the Alert and surrendered, returning to Spithead after the action with her prize. On 8th July of the same year, whilst on an independent deployment, searching for the enemy fleet, Alert was taken by surprise and captured by the French frigate Junon. Alert is reported as lost without trace on 15th December 1779. Alerts sister, Rattlesnake lasted a little longer, being wrecked on the island of Trinidad on 11th October 1781.

The model kit of the Alert is depicted after her refit with twelve six-pounder guns and a full complement of twelve half-pounder swivel guns, giving an ordnance total of twenty-four guns. Although not stated in the records when researching, it is possible that the upper bulwarks were fully planked, rather than having the open drift. The decoration that adorns the upper sides and stern is optional, as it is unlikely that the original vessel, when in service, would have had such decoration. This is inspired by the two paintings of the vessel by Joseph Marshall, which formed part of the George III collection of ship model paintings. It is possible the decoration would have been painted on during launch day, or if a prominent (Royal) figure visited to review the fleet.
 
The kit


H.M. Cutter Alert 1777 is the very first kit from Chris Watton’s own brand label, ‘Vanguard Models’. Of course, you will have heard of Chris’s name from kits released under the Amati (Victory Models) and Caldercraft/JoTika companies, as well as some magazine part-work stuff etc. I’ve bbeen watching this project come together both on and off Model Ship World, and the sort of effort that goes into producing a model kit. Vanguard’s new kit comes in a reasonably large box which is adorned with photos of the completed model, and some profile illustration too. Guess what? I got kit #001!! I’ll not claim any preferential treatment though! Lifting the lid and the first layer of bubble-wrap reveals a personalised customer letter and also a MASSIVE A3-size instruction manual which is spiral bound. We’ll look at this again a little later. 
 
Fittings

A neat little labelled box contains all of the fittings for Alert, carefully kept in one place, and very professional-looking too. Cutting the tape tab reveals a series of labelled bags. Everything in this kit is also labelled in the same way and easily cross referenced against both the parts inventory and during construction. It really does appear to have been made as intuitive and easy to follow as humanly possible.

The fittings are generally a mix of either resin or white metal. In the first pack we have the large winch which is cast in resin. This was originally intended to be white metal, but the quality of the parts was poor, so a new part was 3D designed and cast in light grey resin. Only a little clean-up is required to push this into service on Alert. Also in resin is the smaller windlass for the topsail bitts. The anchors are cast in white metal, and these look great. Very little preparation will be needed before they can be used.

More white metal fittings are supplied for the twelve 6-pounder cannon and the twelve half-pounder swivel guns. I would give these a clean-up with a file and some steel wool. Another pouch is supplied for the cannon shot.

One of the next packs contain steel pins for assisting with the first layer of planking. These look very nicely made and are sharp, with nothing malformed. It could be an idea to pilot drill the plank before using these, so as not to split any of the MDF frames or the planks themselves. The next two packs contain deadeyes and deadeye sheaves. The quality of these is very good, and definitely some of the nicest I’ve seen recently.

Three more packets contain two sizes of single block and one size of double block. Again, quality is evident here.

In the last three packets in the fittings box, you’ll find triple blocks, parrel beads and also the mainstay ‘mouse’.

 
Rigging

A zip-lock wallet contains six spools of very high-quality rigging cord in natural and black colours, as well as a sleeve of thicker natural thread which I think is for the anchor cables. This latter is handmade by Syren in the US, so you can be assured of its standards. Also note how each spool is labelled and inventoried so you won’t accidentally use the wrong cord when rigging.


 
Timber strip
Onto the timber strip. This initial release of Alert contains boxwood for the deck planking and pearwood for the hull. This sort of timber isn’t normally found in kits, with the recent exception of Master Korabel’s Avos kit’s XS Edition. It certainly is very welcome to see, and the standard of timber is excellent. I do believe that Chris will be releasing a slightly cheaper version of Alert with Tanganyika instead of pearwood and boxwood. Chris hopes this will retail for around £155 and is actually the same as he used in the prototype model you can see on the box lid and the photos in this review. All timber strip is packed into thick, sealed plastic sleeves, and clearly labelled so you can cross reference with the inventory to make sure you are indeed using the correct wood for the specific task.










Timber standards are high with a nice uniform colour per batch, no coarse grain or split ends and fuzziness. 
 
Sail cloth is supplied too, just in case you do indeed want to display in this manner. The material is provided as sheet, and you will need to use the drawings to draw out the shapes on the cloth and cut/sew. Sails aren’t really for me, but the option is there, should you want to display her in all her sheets to the wind glory!


 
Sheet material

Now we come to the sheet material. There are two thick, clear sleeves containing laser-cut material. This first sleeve holds all of the main constructional elements plus something rather unusual for a kit like this, and that’s a clear acrylic display base! 


The base is a simple but attractive slot-together affair whose parts just need to be gently removed from the sheet. They are also covered in a protective film that makes it look dull in my photo. Rest assured that the material underneath is crystal clear. To assemble this, you could either use an acrylic cement such as Tensol, or an epoxy that will also dry clear. One such product that comes to mind is from HpH Models in the Czech Republic. You can of course use Cyano glue, but make sure it’s the odourless variety so it won’t cloud the clear plastic.






The constructional stuff here comes in two sheets of 3mm MDF and one sheet of 2mm timber, all nice and warp-free. On the MDF, you’ll find the false keel, bulkheads, inner and outer bow patterns, stern planking and securing patterns, and the ship’s stove flue. The timber sheet contains the lower deck pattern (constructional element), and stern frames (middle, inner, outer). Laser-cutting is nice and neat with almost no localised scorching. It wouldn’t really matter either way though as these parts will be either hidden or bevelled. 

Our second sleeve of parts are all laser-cut from timber, with no MDF. Here, we have a combination of 3mm, 1.5mm and 1mm sheet material, containing parts for absolutely everything else timber-related on Alert, from gun carriages, hatch coamings, keep parts, cap rails, transom rails, tiller arm, trestle trees etc. You name it, it’s here. There are a few parts on the 1mm sheet which are hanging by only a few tabs due to the relative fragility of the tabs on a thin sheet, but all parts are perfectly fine. This material isn’t too rigid either, so those parts that need to be curved, such as the transom, will do so without any problem whatsoever. 






 
Photo-etch

The inclusion of photo-etch in models these days is almost de rigueur, and Alert is no exception. Three frets are included in 0.2mm, 0,4mm, and 0.6mm bare brass, and all as good as any such material that I’ve used in any of my magazine and book work over the last 10yrs. As well as the obvious and intricate outer hull scrollwork embellishments, you’ll find metalwork here for the bowsprit and masting, cleats, windlass parts, stanchions, rudder gudgeon and pintle brace, eyebolt rings, deck grating, anchor ring, rigging components, and even a neat nameplate for the clear acrylic stand. All parts should be nice and easy to remove with them being held with thin, narrow tabs. A jeweller’s file will be needed to clean up any nibs remaining from the tabs. 










 
Instruction book

This is epic in size! Printed in colour on thick paper stock in A3 size, the manual us spiral-bound instead of just being stapled. This means it will be easy to turn pages over, and the size is good for the eyes for those of us of whose youth has long since slipped away. The manual is 56 pages and begins with a side and upper elevation drawing of Alert, followed by a history and building tips/suggested tools and materials list. A full inventory is then supplied, along with images of the various sheets and PE frets. As the timber elements aren’t numbered on the sheets, you are advised to number each yourself before removal from the sheet. 


 
 
Construction sequences are given in photographic form with crystal clear English explaining everything along the way. All illustrations are also clearly annotated where required. The photographs are interspersed with more drawings of the vessel in various profiles, clearly showing the task at hand. A good example of how comprehensive the instructions are is the inclusion of a deck plank showing the planking format and the shift between the planks.



 
When it comes to masting, drawings are supplied for this with accompanying dimensions and diameters. As I always find masting the most frustrating task, the drawings are a big help and clearly mark out the plan of attack. Excellent rigging illustrations are also supplied, showing everything clearly, including seizing, ratlines etc. A guide to exactly which rigging block to use is also provided. No guessing like on many of the legacy kits that got so many of us started in this hobby. As also mentioned, sail plans are supplied so you can make and add these from the cloth that’s provided.


 
Conclusion
What a great start to Chris’s new venture, Vanguard Models. He does keep telling me that he’s learnt so much from this that he will change in future releases, but he does sell himself short, dramatically. If you know of Chris’s work from his previous designs with Amati and Caldercraft, then you will know his own personal style comes through in attention to detail and design approach. This is a gorgeous kit that will present many hours of fulfilling bench time. Materials quality is what what we have come to expect from high-end kits. All in all, a fantastic package!

 

 
My sincere thanks to Chris Watton for getting this out so quickly for me to feature as a review here on Model Ship World. To purchase directly, click this link at the top of the article.
 

 
 
 

Mig 31 'Foxhound' 
 
 

Very beautiful picture

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate it!
 
I will be posting pictures of some of the wood to be sold next week over the weekend. All sales will be through the website. Emails are welcome, just please know that an immediate response may not be possible. Julia will be handling the orders as they come, and our son will be packaging them.
 
The pictures below are the whole crew. 

 

Arrived safely in Lancashire! I'll do a write up in the next days.
 

0618Update

Thanks guys
 
Of all the worries I had yesterday, damaged kits wasn't one of them. I was worried whether you guys would like the kit when you opened the box, never thought for a second they would arrive so beat up!
 
Also, it's mad that the US and Canadian guys receive their kits before the UK orders, I do not understand that!
 
I should be getting a quote for thick cardboard sleeves sometime today.
 
I did have some tiny boxes arrive today, for the figures, looks like these will be quite safe.
 
ETA - the Alert manual is a3 size, I chose this size because I knew I could just about fit the Alert 64th scale profiles on this size, so I could have everything, instruction and plans-wise all in one manual. Plus, I always hated how small the text kept getting in new kits, needing a microscope to read anything - I wanted to redress this...
 
Speedy will probably have an A4 manual and separate plan sheets for profiles and mast, yard and rigging, as that's a little bigger.

Been awhile, but a car accident left me unable to work on the ship for a while.
I've been working on the bulwarks, and decided to finish the canon.  I was very surprise at how rough the castings were.  Is this typical for kits?
I managed to file off the casting marks and the final product looks fine, but what a labor intensive job!