Henke

Very nice indeed and welcome to MSW! I have a recollection building this kit as a child (mid seventies?) but it did not come out as nicely as yours, Racedees. It is an old kit. According to Scalemates it dates back to 1960 but with latest boxing from 2017. That might explain the presence of flash. It is an old mould which has squeezed out a lot of Victories over the years. Regards Henrik.

Dear friends, It has been a while since last update. Have been off for some commissioning work in eastern Europe for a couple of weeks. Copper sheathing on starboard side is almost finished. Intuitively I made two gore lines aft and two at the bow. I think the result turned out quite well. It is at least good enough for me. I leave the gore lines as they are for the moment. I will try to replicate on port side before I fill them in. Regards Henrik

Just a short weekly update. One side almost finished. I will leave out to fill the gore lines until I have done port side. If I close my eyes I see copper plates! Kind regards Copper-Henrik

Time for a weekly update. First of all thanks for likes and supportive comments. Thanks to Stuglo for the tips about Longridge "The anatomy of Nelson's ships". I will order the book as soon as possible. Thanks also to Axel for the information about "The introduction and use of copper sheathing - a history" by Mark Staniforth. I will check that out as well. Copper sheathing is going well (I think). So far I have made two gore lines at stern and one at the bow. The bow now needs a gore line to straighten out the last rows of sheathing but that's for another day. For the moment I feel exhausted or "knackered" as they said in Cumbria (Northern England) when I lived there twenty years ago. Regards Henrik

Welcome to MSW Devildog. I like those clipper ships and there are not too many Termopylae build logs. Lets get started! Best regards Henrik

Have done a bit of coppering over the weekend. Coppering is new for me. I have no previous experience so progress is slow. As I have understood copper tiles have been laid out differently over time and in different countries. I have not found any good reference yet as to how it was done in Britain by the end of the 18th century. I will therefore use my artistic freedom since I am the captain (as Sjors said). What I am looking for are tiles running toward bow and stern at an angle of 20-30 degrees to the waterline and reasonably horizontal tiles mid ships all the way to the water line with smooth transitions. To get this I have started drawing some gore lines where one row of copper tiles changes direction not running parallel to the row below in order to better follow the shape of the hull. I will try to explain my idea in a later post but since I am in a bit of hurry just now I leave that out for today. Kind regards Henrik

Thanks BenD, Wahka_est and Sjors for comments and suggestions. Overlap it will be. I asked the Admiral. She said overlap definitely looked better. Captain does what the Admiral tells him 🙂! Started yesterday and did about 20 plates. It looks good. Will post pictures later./Henrik

First thanks to Edwardkenway och Sjors for their contribution to the etymology of the wale in English and Dutch. In English it is called what it looks like "a strip" on the hull and in Dutch (and Swedish) it called what it is there for to do (protect the hull from abrasive wear from a rock or something else). It is basically the same word in Dutch and Swedish (berghout and berghult). Now to another question. I am starting to plan the coppering. I know there are modelers who do not like the Caldercraft copper plates for different reasons but I am not a picky builder so I will use them anyhow. This morning I read through Mobbsie's excellent Agamemnon build log (only the section about coppering 🙂) and learned about gore lines and other aspects of coppering. I also noted that Mobbsie wrote after he had finished the coppering that "I have learned one lesson though, when I next plate a ship I will be overlapping slightly, Caldercraft plates have rounded corners and as you can imagine these leave an unsightly gap. " I went to the garage and opened one of the copperplate bags and yes, they have slightly rounded corners. I started arranging three copper plates in a brick pattern as instructions say. My question is: Should not the plates overlap over the first and last row of rivets? Have a look at the pictures below! Copper plates not overlapping and as result rivets "jumping around" and a tiny but visible hole in the corner. Overlapping the first and last vertical row of rivets of the two lower plates and as result rivets in straight lines both vertically and horizontally and no visible corner hole. The overlap is about 1 mm the plate is 0.1 mm thick. Personally I think the latter overlapping pattern, as Mobbsie suggested, looks better. What do you think? Instructions do not say anything about overlapping, only "Start coppering the hull from the keel upwards working from stern to bow." Best regards Henrik

It is looking good Ooglee, I used 12 cm long planks as standard for second planking on my Aggy. I also recommend to be 2 or 3 planks ahead midships rather than doing one complete row at a time. Together with shorter planks it gives better control for any need for tapering, stealers etc at bow and stern. Kind regards Henrik

Have been working on the port side wales the last couple of days. When you sit, or my case most of the time stand because I have back problem sitting down for too long, working for hours on your ship thoughts start flow freely. This one is more etymology than model building but since our mission is to "Advance Ship Modeling Through Research” I have to ask. Wale in Swedish is "berghult" where berg means rock and hult means wood or timber. Timber which protects from rocks. It sounds sensible. Hult is probably a very old word (medieval or older) since it nowadays is only found in names of locations. Hult probably comes from the German word holz. Now to my question. What is the term for "wale" in other languages and what is the etymology of the word "wale"? Best regards Henrik

First I am sorry for coming late on this post. Anyhow I feel it is of importance for me to post it. With interest I have read Landlubber Mike's hypothesis that Euromodel’s La Renommée is not depicting the 1744 La Renommée but a much later ship possibly the Swedish frigate Venus designed by the Swedish naval architect Fredrik Henrik Chapman. Venus was launched 1783. La Renommée is on my wish list and if the model is the Swedish frigate Venus it is even more interesting for me since I am a sixth-generation descendant of Venus’ last Swedish commander in 1789. I come back to the fate of Venus in end. I have concluded that the Euromodel La Renommée is not Venus but probably something close in shape and design which perhaps could be modified into Venus, but more about that later. I first want to say that my post is not intended as any criticism of Euromodel. Euromodel has produced a fantastic model. I am just questioning a couple of details in the background history of the model. If we start with what Euromodel says about La Renommée. I quote from their website: “Launched in 1744 at either Byrone or Brest, La Renommee was a one-off 40-gun ship designed by Antoine Groignard with 30 12-pounders and 10 8-pounder guns. She was captured by the British Navy (HMS Dover) 27 September, 1747 and converted into a 30-gun fifth-rate frigate as the HMS Renown and served until she was broken up in 1771. However, this type of frigate is very important in the evolution of ships of the British Navy because it inspired the development of a series of fifth-rate frigates equipped with only thirty guns of large “caliper”, all placed on the second deck. Details for this ship have relied on Chapman’s book, ‘Architectura Navalis Mercatoria’ Plan XXXI.” In these few sentences are a couple of statements which can be checked: 1. The 1744 La Renommée had 30 guns and was a Sirène-class frigate. It was a shorter ship. I think Landlubber Mike has commented on this already. 2. The naval architect is probably wrong. Antoine Groignard was born in 1727 and was only 17 years old in 1744. Unless he was the Mozart of naval design 😊 he is not the right designer. According to https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_crewman&id=23698 the Sirène-class was designed by Jacques-Luc Coulomb who was born in 1713. I have found sources saying that Antoine Groignard was the designer of a La Renommée launched in 1767 which was a one-off 40-gun design with 30 12-pounders on gun deck and 10 8-pounders on quarterdeck and forecastle. 3. Plate XXXI in Architectura Navalis Mercatoria depicts a 40 gun privateer frigate (28 18-pounders and 12 6-pounders. “Length between the per p:rs of Stem and Sternpost 156 1/3 feet". Assuming Chapman refers to a Swedish foot 156 1/3 feet is equivalent of 46.4 meter. A Swedish foot was slightly shorter than an Imperial foot. My conclusion is that Euromodel has produced an excellent model but the facts around its archetype is completely mixed up. I do not want to speculate what reasons Euromodel has had for their claims. The appearance seems to point towards a later design. Why not the 1767 La Renommée which in time matches well with Chapmans Architectura Navalis Mercatoria from 1768? What about the Swedish frigate Venus then? Venus was launched in 1783 and was the third frigate in a series of ten of the Bellona-class. The ships of the Bellona-class were 46.3 m length overall. The armament was 40 guns of which 26 was 26-pounders on gun deck. Frigates of the eighteenth century normally carried 30-40 guns of lower “caliber” than the Bellona-class. They were used for scouting and escort duties and was often equipped with slightly bigger guns than privateers which usually was their primary adversaries. During the last decades of the eighteenth century several navies started building heavy frigates equipped with 24-pound guns on gun deck. The idea with the frigates of the Bellona-class such as Venus, was to create a stable and fast sailor which could take fights with ships of the line (64 guns or more) which in hard weather sometimes had difficulties using the heaviest guns on the lower gun deck if the ship was heeling. The Bellona-class proved to be quite successful and several of them served in the Swedish navy for decades. There are models depicting Bellona and other ships of the Bellona -class at the Maritime Museum in Stockholm. Here are some pictures of a water line model of Bellona from 1782. The water line model is believed to depict the original engineering design of the any generic Bellona-class frigate. For instance, the stern has no ornamentation nor name plate. All pictures are from the Maritime Museum website. Stern and quarter galleries look different from the La Renommée model but maybe, with a little bit of research quarter galleries and stern can be modified to depict Venus or any frigate of the Bellona-class? Finally, what happened to Venus? In 1789 Sweden was in war with Russia. Venus was stationed in Gothenburg on west coast of Sweden. On June 1 1789 Venus was scouting the waters between Gothenburg and Skagen on the northern tip of Danish Jutland when Venus met a Russian fleet of ships which started hunting Venus. Venus tried to reach safe harbour on the Swedish west coast north of Gothenburg but winds where unfavorable and Venus sailed into the Oslofjord of Norway, which then belonged to Denmark. Facing a superior adversary Venus was forced to surrender to the Russians. My sixth-generation ancestor major Magnus Hanson was taken prisoner of war but was released the year later after when peace was settled. According to family tradition major Hanson was sentenced to death for cowardliness but was pardoned by the king after Magnus Hanson’s wife had visited the king and pleaded for her husband’s life. Family tradition is probably wrong because court records are preserved. He got no death sentence. The penalty was a fine equivalent of six month pay and a dishonorably discharge from the navy. “Major” Hanson in my ears sound like an odd rank for a navy officer. In my service days in the Swedish Marines (eighties) navy “majors” were addressed “örlogskapten” which is equivalent to a lieutenant commander in Royal Navy but research I have done shows that major was a perfectly valid rank for a Swedish navy officer in the end of eighteenth century. And now, by the end my post I want to say to Landlubber Mile aka Mike that if you feel I have kidnapped your build log ask a moderator to move this long winded post somewhere else or delete it. Best regards Henrik

First of all thanks for all likes and friendly comments and in to particular to Sjors who's Agamemnon build log a couple of years ago has been a great inspiration to me both in technique, but also Sjors' attitude to the hobby and the MSW community. I have now done the main and upper wales on starboard side. I could not resist giving the wales a of splash of black just to give Aggy a bit of colour. I also managed to tip the can of black colour and make the work bench very messy. After some nasty words not worthy to be reproduced at MSW it is all cleaned up now. The way the wales are related to the gun ports of the lower gun deck makes an optical illusion of mouth corners down. Please say it is an optical illusion 🙂? Regards Henrik

Axel, first planking has been done in parallel on both sides but second planking one side at the time. When first planking is done, the Aggy hull is very rigid. No risk for warping during second planking. The hull is perfectly straight. I have checked this afternoon. When you do the the first planking planks are fixed directly to the bulkheads and the the bending of the first planking planks may create a bending or torque moment on the false keel and hence warp but when second planking is done the hull is inherently much more rigid but the fact that the strips are much shorter (I typically used 12 cm strips), when glued in place (with glue all along the plank, not just at fixing points at the bulkheads) one at a time, the adjacent already fixed strip also creates a counter force preventing bending. Mobbsie did a nice stand for his Agamemnon which I think I will copy. The pictures below are from Mobbsies excellent MSW build log. Here's the finished base with a coat of Rosewood stain

Two months after I started second planking, port side is now also finished. The appearance of the planking on port side looks slightly better than on the starboard side. You gain experience as you plank on. No sanding done yet. I finished the day by tidying up the work bench. What has happened with the lining of the forth lower gun port from aft? It is not red. The answer is that I slipped with the scalpel and oups the lining disapeared into the hull. I had to prepare a new one and carefully insert it and glue it in place. I have not had time to paint it yet. Aggy has gained weight. Each walnut strip probably weighs 10-20 g I guess. I have used up 90 out of 120. That is 900-1800 g plus glue. I must say the quality of the walnut strips has been very good. Thumbs up for Caldercraft/Jotika! Kind regards Henrik

Per (Nirvana) and others, The last two month I have been focusing on the second planking of my other build, Agamemnon. There are only a couple of details left on Hood (and this diorama idea I have....). For some reason the last small details are often to me the most difficult things to finish. It will be finished, I promise. Regards Henrik

Welcome to MSW. You have had a clean good-looking start of a model not very common on MSW. I will be watching. Regards Henrik

I really like the color variations and tone of the deck. Could you please explain to us all how you did proceed? Regards Henrik

Hello my friends, Started second planking four weeks ago and have now finished starboard side. It is the most comprehensive second planking I ever have done before but I did it. I have done some sanding today but I have decided to leave the final touches to when port side is done. I had some problems with a couple of gun ports but on the other side I am confident that port side will be much better as the builder now has more experience 🙂. Most of the planks are fixed with a combination of CA and wood resin glue. I have a feeling that wood glue is more reliable but CA has its advantages when planks are to be set in curved positions. Looking at my pictures below make me realize that flaws which are barely visible to my eyes when I work on Aggy becomes very prominent with the Iphone camera. Is there a flaw filter I can use before publishing🙂? This makes me realize that when some of you, dear fellow builders, publish close up pictures without any apparent gaps, bumps and cracks, there are some very skilled builders at MSW. I lift my hat! Regards and stay safe Henrik

Interesting kit you have found and welcome to MSW! Not that I really know what I am talking about but..... I would take a piece of scrap material from the same kit, a piece of runner for example and leave it for a couple of minutes in warm water. Start with 50 deg C (abut 120 F) and then try to form in a slightly different shape and leave it like that to cool down. Can you permanently change the shape of the runner? If not increase the temperature a little bit more etc. A totally (under 🙂) educated guess is that a temperature between 120 F and boiling point will be enough to soften the plastic enough to at least correct the worst warping. My feeling is that the temperature range between when the plastic becomes slightly softer and very soft is narrow so be careful in the beginning otherwise you may end up with a deck looking like the warped clocks in a Salvador Dali painting. Once you have found the correct temperature when the plastic in your kit starts to soften enough, try to only heat the warped section of the deck and not the rest thus preventing any "Dali" effects 🙂. Regards Henrik

I use Admiralty Paints and ordered an "Agamemnon" set from Cornwall Model Boats https://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/HMS-Victory-Paint-Set-APS9014W.html#SID=339. They have acrylic paint sets adopted for Caldercraft so there is a kit for Caldercraft's Victory also, which is a bigger ship than your Mamoli kit. The kit I am thinking of contains 10 colors in 14 jars. I do not if it is worth the money + shipping from Europe to US but the paint is good and diluted it can also be air brushed (I have tried, it worked). Regards Henrik

Hi Trent, I did same as you. I glued the main wale and cut out the affected gun port openings with a new and sharp blade. The result was ok. I have considered pre-cutting on the port side but I do not think the accuracy will be better. An off-set of two or three tenth of a mm will be seen on a 1 mm rim anyhow. You will be there with the scalpel anyhow risking damaging the lining of the gun ports ☹️. A steady hand and very sharp blade will do it 🙂. The idea of cutting 12 cm planks was something that that was suggested to by ETNZ a couple of months ago. Thanks for the tip ETNZ. Regards Henrik

First of all thanks for all likes. Started second planking this weekend. I use the method of planking from midship and outwards toward the bow and stern trying to be 2-3 rows of planks ahead at midship. By doing so I get a better feeling for the need for tapering towards bow and stern. All the work of getting av smooth surface from first planking is now paying dividend 🙂. Most the second planks are cut in 12 cm lengths which are glued with wood glue with two or three blobs of CA-glue. The only problem so far is a small tendency (very small) with a dimple just ahead of the first lower gun port. Regards Henrik

Hello Rob, The most difficult part is often the bow. We average builders do not get the first planking of the bow to the standard where no or very little filler is needed. We others have dimples and ridges which need to be handled with a lots of filler 🙂. You ask when am I done? Personally I think that is a question of ambition (What is good enough for me?). The result of the second planking will be much better if you get the end result of the first including the filler work, smooth, but most of us have a limit. You are working on a challenging project where this question of what is good enough for me will pop up now and then. At the stage you are now Rob I think you should focus on the bow and get that area to a standard which is good enough for you. The rest of the hull will probably require less work to get to the same standard. Kind regards Henrik

It has been a pleasure John following your build from start to end. Well done! I hope there will be a log of that build as well. Regards Henrik

Hello Trent, Welcome to the Aggie-club. Your build looks great. It feels good to have someone at MSW who is about at the stage as I am. I hope to start with the main wale this weekend. Regards Henrik