VictoryGuy

Glad to help - if you need any photos of the Mantua plans or more specific images of the bulwarks and upper deck, just let me know.

It's looking great! All that patience and detail work is definitely paying off.

Thanks very much, I appreciate the feedback! I was a little concerned the changes might not look correct, but it's amazing how the little things help to make it look more scale.

While I slowly work through all the port side guns, I decided to mount the deck guns while I still had room to work around all the deck components. As I discovered back in December, I needed to remove all the cannon axles and lower the guns slightly to fit through the cannon ports. That involved cutting 64 wheels off the axles and gluing them on the sides to drop them about 2mm. It's just enough for them to fit in a way that looks correct. The kit tells you to use thread for all the tackle, and there wasn't any breech tackle. I thought it would be more realistic to make breech tackle so I found some spare twine that looked the part and wrapped it around the back of each cannon barrel, then used the kit thread for the train tackle. I attached the breech tackle to the hull with eyelets and the train tackle with a brass nail.

An outstanding build! Looking forward to following your progress. Cheers, Ken

I started work on the hull decorations this week including the "sea gangway" (stair rungs, side door entrance and hauling sides) and some of the brass side decorations. I'm pretty much done with the starboard side and moving on to the gunport frames/lids on the port side now. It took me a while to paint the lids, then drill all the holes for the ropes. The lids with the kit are not that well cast and need to have all the metal burrs and extra bits trimmed off with a knife or they don't fit the frames very well. Port side ready for the cannons!

You bet! Below are the davit plans from the kit. They called for a few things I changed (the brackets they suggest were tougher to make as a single piece, so I just made simple L brackets for each side of the davit). The davits pole is 4mm X 4mm walnut. I cut them to 5.2cm long and rounded the end at the brackets per the plans to allow them to move up and down easily (the plans said they should be 4cm long but that length would have placed the boat too close to the hull and not allowed extra length to sand the ends). Since the kit didn't come with any lifeboats it didn't provide guidance on rigging the lines to the boat itself. I would have liked to incorporate a block to make it more realistic but I couldn't get it quite right with the type of blocks the kit provided. Here's a link to the lifeboat kit I purchased from a company in the UK. You might be able to use them as a substitute or to add more boats? They provide 6 boats of various sizes. The hulls are molded plastic, but I think they look OK once you paint them. (https://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?WD=victory lifeboat&PN=36530-HMS-Victory-1-98-Plastic-Wood-Lifeboat-Set--36530.html#SID=91). I think they sell an all wood version but they're 2x the price (as it was the version I bought were around £30, so not cheap!). The L brackets I made are 7mm long X 4 mm wide. I drilled a hole just large enough to fit a brass nail for attaching to the hull, then put the brass wire through the brackets to hold the davit in place. Port side davits ready for the next boat....I have to finish the channels and gun ports on that side first.

I found some time this weekend to get back to the Victory and decided to keep working on the starboard side. A while back I bought the optional lifeboats for the kit, so I thought I'd take a shot at building/painting some of them. The davits proved a little harder then I thought. The kit makes you build the mounting brackets out of spare brass sheet metal. It took a bit of thinking to decide how to rig the lines and properly adjust the height of the davits and lifeboat itself (just this small piece of rigging makes me realize how tough it'll be to rig the rest of the ship someday!). I made the mounting brackets adjustable using brass wire as pins. If I need to get the lifeboat out of the way in the future they should be easy to remove.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the comments. It feels good to be making some progress on the starboard side (until I remember I have to do the port as well!), Cheers, Ken

I built the channels and shroud chain plates for the starboard side. I had to figure out how to get the deadeyes and chain plate links to sit properly on the channel, so I got creative and used small nails in grooves to hook the metal deadeye straps onto (kind of like a coat hook). Once I installed them I ran a plank along the front of the channel to hold the deadeye and chain link in place. I can still move the deadeyes from side to side a bit to provide some flexibility when I thread the shrouds (some day...). Here's the finished product once painted. I attached the chain plates to the hull with brass nails.

A little more progress on the cannons! I started the third deck but realized I need to build the channels before I can finish the upper cannons.

I spent some time over the holidays figuring out how I wanted to finish my gunports. To make them more "scale" and historically accurate I wanted to add 2 ropes to each port lid, however the bronze port lids with the kit are a bit problematic to drill holes through with the smaller, delicate drill bits, so I opted to only drill one hole in each lid and run a single rope. Not completely "scale" but I'm happy with how they're turning out. Now just 90 or so more to go! My high tech solution for holding the gunports in place while the glue dries.

Looking great! I really like the run of the planks at the stern. Looks like all that excellent prep work you did is paying off!

Thanks very much. Have a great holiday season and make sure you get back in the shipyard!

Finished planking, painting and installing the rudder and chains. Hope to make progress on the some of the deck features and gun ports over the holidays.