Kevin-the-lubber

Italy - me too, twice this year, though not as far south as you went. Turin first, in the spring to visit a friend, then an interrail redux from Milan to Rome over a two week period, via Cinque Terre, Lucca, Florence, Perugia and Spoleto. I don't think I'll ever tire of Italy, though I'd take Turin or Perugia over Rome every time. I'll also do the train thing again, found it much less stressy than driving and ridiculously cheap. Nice work on this old boat. It looks like you did a pretty decent job first time round, and I love the note. It's a bit like finding old newspapers when you lift floorboards, or messages on walls when you strip very old wallpaper. I'm back to finishing off the stern on the Victory that I parked 3 years ago. As I'm sure you're finding with this project, everything's a little easier with a bit of added experience and I think I might make headway now. Happy Christmas to you too, I hope 2025 turns out well.

You may be on to something there, see below. There are also numerous plugged circular holes at each end of the counter as well as a few below it. Though none, including the one in this photo, that look big enough for the purpose. Mark, I accidentally deleted the important bit in my earlier post: what you're doing in wood and by hand is extraordinary and extraordinarily beautiful. While it's erroneous to think that CAD makes everything simple (I have spent many hundreds of hours on the Vic stern), it does reduce the task to solving a set of geometrical problems and then making the software do one's bidding; but while we converge in the design phase, when you have to turn the designs into shapes by hand, I do more or less get a free pass and only need to hit 'print'. Even though I can see the shapes in my mind and even on the screen, I'm not at all sure I could make these by hand. And also, it's really encouraging to see that you've been working on this for years and years! I mean that in a nice way of course, that it gives me a bit of belief that I will get there eventually.

There is a lovely bit of scrollwork at the base of the Victory's quarter galleries, as per the photos below, terminating in an inverted, 3-leaf, semi-circular 'thing' which doesn't seem to have any particular emblematic significance. I'm wondering now whether the 'thing' is actually an ornate pipe cover. Though the photos don't show this, I'm 80% sure it's hollowed, as this is how I subsequently replicated it, based on my first photo-visit, and I must have had a reason for that. I'm also fairly sure it's big enough to conceal a large diameter waste pipe (maybe 3" - 4") and is placed at the lowest point of the QG, so well situated to get a natural rinse from the sea from time to time 🙂. I'd have thought chamber pots would have been a risky business as the steward would have had to traipse through the day cabin (mind the rug please) within one of the 'rockiest' parts of the ship, all the way up to the heads, another bouncy bit of maritime real estate. Fine on a nice calm, sunny day off Malta but I wouldn't fancy my chances in the Bay of Biscay with a lively swell. By coincidence I'm (re)working my HMS Victory QG's, picking up where I left off two or three years back. Briefly, I'm using 3D modelling to make a better stern for the Heller 1:100 kit and the development process is very similar to yours, Mark, minus your meticulous research and model-making skills.

Beautifully done, John, and I hope you'll keep notifications switched on for when some of us want to ask questions.

Sorry but I have no idea how you’d do that.* If I wasn’t told otherwise, I’d assume the draughtsman for that picture had both the photo and a lines plan or similar, worked up the latter in CAD and married the two together for the picture. * long shot: if the Penguin was 3D scanned, the scan may have included skin photos and it is relatively straightforward to slice the scan output to get those station lines. But that doesn’t help you with your problem.

You might be thinking of lithophanes, where light and shade is sometimes used to confer depth to a photo. Have a look here https://lithophanemaker.com/. Otherwise, I think you could probably get a reasonably true side projection via trigonometry, although I’m struggling to remember how to do that!

Pretty amazing, well done.

I’m afraid I can’t offer much advice on this Bill. Funnily enough, the sequencing was giving me quite a headache on the Cutty Sark, and I still have to resolve this and finish her off. My gut feeling, applicable to both of us, is that you should go with a plan where breakages are least likely and/or least heart-sinking. I parked the CS partly because my heart did indeed sink when I broke a part for the second time which meant I would have to make a whole new set of that mast and yards. I think breakages when rigging are almost inevitable, when you consider there are so many small parts and lines all over the place. Especially when most of us probably now wear specs so don’t necessarily have everything in the field in focus. In answer to your comment about my SR, don’t hold your breath! Since ‘retiring’ in August my life has exploded into a festival of arty things I’ve always wanted to do, so my ‘making’ time is increasingly taken up with experimenting and learning different media - e.g. I spent much of yesterday learning how to soften and flatten wood veneers, as I want to have a go at basic marquetry, and next week I’ll be trying to apply and resin coat dried, beautiful autumnal-red and gold leaves onto a 3D printed vase. I’m also polishing up previously made objects to go on eBay as it’s nice to have a little trickle of beer money (or cider money in my case). And then I’m making a concentrated effort to progress on the Victory. I’ve almost completed a lovely set of deadeyes and blocks, even if I do say so myself, as per McKay but will be moving back to the hull shortly. But the SR is always on my mind and I’d like to start on this next year.

That’s quite an achievement Kurtis, it looks highly detailed and convincing. Is there a way to let people see it in 3D? You know, rotate, zoom, all that kind of thing.

That’s a clever way of dealing with the cap squares. It must have taken huge patience to get them all so regular and the results look very convincing. I also prefer it to the ‘all red’ effect. When I come to do my SR cannons, even though it is probably not historically correct I will most likely leave the trucks with a weathered wood colour. The rims at least must surely have become a dirty grey in no time, just through use.

Ahhh, you take me back a few years, to the utter frustration phase of printing 😄. Before you know it, it’ll all be second nature.

Thank you! I continue to work on the Victory when I get time but, alas, I always seem to have many more immediate priorities.

Yes, all iron as far as I know. I meant when I get to the SR!

Looks about right to me too. When I was working up the resin printed Victory cannons a while back, I did a weathering trial on a few, using Vallejo Model Air cockpit green (71.331) diluted even further with a bit of water. It came out okay, but no better than that. With the paint being so watery, it was very difficult to get it 'just so'; it would run and sit in the corners but run off the surfaces, and when I look at those test pieces now, I can see that the results varied from cannon to cannon. Yours looks much better and, when I come to it, I'll try that citadel paint.

Just to add to Ian’s wise words, I would fill and sand the gaps where the flats meet and also blend in the hex at the ends, so that it all looks like one piece of timber. If you look back at your Victory you’ll see that hex centre on the lower yards, and I think the distance across the hexagon is only very slightly larger than the diameter of the yard where it meets the hex.