Kevin-the-lubber
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Everything posted by Kevin-the-lubber
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Out of interest, Ian, did you have to provide proof of purchase on the spare part request? I like the idea of copper instead of lead, it may not be true to history but it'll look nicer. -
Only one last little bit of making left now, the little bit of architrave on the corner of the counter, then lots and lots of fiddling with fitting grooves and pins. Quite a slow process at this stage, you need the patience of all the saints combined as, due to the complexity (and probably my poor workflow) Fusion 360 takes ages to compute each minor change.
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I'm sure this will be the star of the show, extraordinary detail. And enjoy the break!
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That’s just me learning how to use this site better and procrastinating rather than getting on with the job! If you don’t know the St Andrew’s area, it’s a lovely part of the world, though likely to be a bit wet and cold at this time of the year. At the very least I too will stick with yellow ochre but I love the colour and interest Marc has put into his SR. Part of the attraction of doing the Cutty Sark, at some point, is that this too is very easy for me to visit, but I’ll want to be a long way into Victory before I even start on that. The Beagle will probably go back on eBay, it’s such a poor kit.
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Mystery solved!
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I wouldn’t be so sure that the Heller model is totally accurate in this respect. From earlier work on the Admirals entrance I know the fore-to-aft positioning of the middle (I think) gunports is a little wrong. Likewise, from various photos and reinforced by yesterday’s ‘inspection’, Hellers’ laterally flat decks means the curvature of the stern windows is probably a bit less than in real life. Every deck has a very noticeable lateral curve, to let water run out, especially the lower gun deck as, apparently, Victory sat much lower in the water than was expected and shipped tons of water through the gun ports when in battle. The wales are very different on the real thing and barely protrude. I’d guess that the head rails absorb the difference, that their vertical dimensioning is fitted to the gunports so it all looks right despite being technically inaccurate. None of which is meant as a criticism of Hellers’ modellers, but a 1/16 here, a 1/32 there, all adds up without detracting from the overall look. Who’ll finish first? Well, I did only say ‘probably’!
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From the outside I think it would just be a little lip, but the difference in deck heights must be around 2 feet. I really wouldn’t worry about it, to make the model true to the ship you’d have to lower the entire gun deck by about 1/4”, and yours is as good a compromise as any other. All of my photos apart from one or two are detail shots, 99% from the outside or on the quarter or poop deck. I just went around a couple of times letting detail catch my eye and then shot it, for reference as I go along. Interior shots were tricky as you can’t use flash or a tripod, but if there’s an exterior detail you need, I might have a photo! I’ll be going back sooner or later, it’s only 50 miles away. It’s just a shame that I’ll have probably finished the model before they ever re-rig her.
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Kind of on the home straight with the stern section now. I have a few small details to model, some minor adjustments to make everything seamless, then prepare it all for printing. I guess it'll still be a few weeks before I'm ready to start printing again, as I want avoid making mistakes through too much haste. I spent today on the real Victory. She's looking a bit uninspiring right now. As you can see, they recently removed the main mast completely and from what I overheard, it'll be several years before it'll go back on. And they've re-painted the ochre (which at least hinted at a touch of bling) in that hideous pinky-fleshy colour. Not for the first time, it has me thinking that, if yellow ochre would be historically incorrect in the first place, then why tie myself to any particular colour scheme, why not go french and give it a bit more colour, a la Marc's Soliel Royale? I also had a look around the Victory museum, largely to get a closer look at the figurehead, which has been removed to there. This picture caught my eye though, or to be more precise, this section of a much larger painting by John Wilson Carmichael, of Victory moored off the Isle of Wight with Nelson's body aboard. Since John was only 5 years old at the time I don't suppose this was contemporaneous, either that or he was quite a talent, but either way, there's no trophy of arms here, just a moulding that's in keeping with the scroll-work we see today either side of the stern. Though oddly, the latter is not present.
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Fresh back from a visit, I can shed a little light on the position of the doors and hatches, see picture below. There's a big difference in height between the upper gun deck and the small deck section in front of the bulwark. Makes sense, bearing in mind the guns here would be quite elevated. Obviously this isn't the case on the model. Unfortunately the main mast has been completely removed and that area is covered over so no photos of how they dealt with the line going through gratings etc. I'll talk more about todays trip over on my log.
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I’ve booked for monday so, if there are any details you’d like photographed, sing out and I’ll do my best. You’d best give very plain descriptions, I wouldn’t know a jeer from a shear at this point. This will be my first non-family trip, just me and a camera, purely for info gathering. Sadly I think it still doesn’t have the upper masts or rigging, I was very disappointed at that when I first visited 8 or 9 years ago but maybe I’ll see them back on one day. postscript: just occurred to me that, therefore, I don't suppose the rigging talked about above will be present... but at least I may be able to see how they handled the grating and fixings (I googled Hackney following Ian’s tip, horrifically expensive on some sites…. But then looked on Amazon and saw a copy for £1.50 - about $2 - needless to say I couldn’t get my wallet out quick enough).
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Incredible progress Bill. Your log is turning into essential reading, a go-to for future builders. I now understand the discussion about the lines running through the gratings and why some think the gratings should be omitted. I’m hoping to make a trip to Portsmouth on Monday, if the weather improves, and that’s something I’ll try to look at. It seems like a strange arrangement in principle, I’d have thought there’d be a risk of the ropes rubbing against the gratings and fraying, but I’m sure they knew what they were doing. I like your rope coils, looks natural and convincing.
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Thanks Bill. I've got a bit sick of doing the flags, too complicated for my brain this week, so have switched to the now relatively easy windows etc for the side galleries. Two done, third to go some time over the weekend. Bit by bit....
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You may want to put a ring of people barriers around it, come the show. It draws you in, makes you want to look ever closer at all the exquisite detail and, if it was mine, I’d be terrified that someone was going to get TOO close!
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Same here. The hammock cranes would be way too fragile made from plastic so I'm keen to see what you do, otherwise I'll probably buy some from Daniel.
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Oh, you don't want to be doing that Bill, not unless you're planning on living a very long time. I have it all mapped out in my mind how I'm going to race through stuff once the stern is finished but I thought that would only take 2 or 3 weeks when I started on it 9 months back. And I'm so close to the end that I really want to just soldier through before I start playing with more interesting things. (It has become extremely uninteresting of late, just a never-ending series of technical obstacles). Bearing in mind that sketch is of the 32lb gun, the largest she shipped, there's precious little space for the blocks on the smaller guns, and of course it's those that are on show. I suspect I'll cheat - from an appearance perspective, you only need one hole in a (single) block as the rope would hide the other... that offers possibilities. BTW, I'm sure you know and this is deliberate but you've got the blocks hooked to where the big rope goes. (Leave me alone, I'm still working on my naval terminology).
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Interesting - this is where our quite different media (for modelling stern galleries) coincide. For Victory I too chose a blend of art and science, using the kit part as a start point but developing a contour that pleased my eye and made technical sense; and by coincidence I'm at this very moment fiddling the spacings and sizes of windows. It's quite surprising, isn't it, how a difference of 0.15mm (1/64th) can have such a profound effect on the look.
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Very sensible Bill.
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Bill, in between times I've played around with these blocks over the last few days and got something reasonable. In truth these are 2.3mm which, for me anyway, will be close enough. I wouldn't say I'm particularly happy with them, I had to make them more square-ish rather than ovoid in order to gain a little thickness, as 0.15mm walls were proving fragile and they are still a bit clunky. I'm sure, when I come to using them a good few months from now, I'll tweak further. Regardless, if you're inclined to re-visit with thinner rope, I'll send you some of these. That rope in my pictures seems just the right size. It's about 0.15mm thick. No idea which kit it came from, I have a little stash off ebay and people sometimes throw in all sorts of stuff.
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That looks better, Bill. I tried threading the 2mm earlier but couldn’t get my smallest thread through it so I’m seeing what happens with enlarged, ovoid holes. Though that opens another can of worms, that the rope itself becomes out of scale. Ian, I agree, 1.5mm is just too small. And to answer the question, will they hold, to be honest I don’t yet know but I don’t see why they wouldn’t, the force on them is minimal. It’s probably possible to come up with a jig to make stropping easier, that looks like a nightmare freehand. Bill how have you found that with the filed down blocks?
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I have a plan. I don't think 1.5mm are practical so will park those in favour of 2mm, even though that could those which should be 1.5 would be 30% out of scale. For the 2mm, the issue is that the walls of these are only about 0.15mm thick - that's just less than the thickness of a decent quality bit of paper. So there's no room to widen the holes, which at this scale are about 0.2mm - 0.3mm. However there is room to turn these into slots which might just allow threading using one of those sewing kit things. Ian, have you used blocks this small or seen anyone use them?
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They do look too big, don't they. I've printed off some scaled down blocks at 1.5mm and 2mm as per Ian's excel sheet and these are incredibly small; this looks like real 'threading the needle' stuff and you'd definitely need magnification and a lot of spares! Bill, in the small picture below, the big block is a 5.5mm, so you'll be able to compare shortly. I'm not even sure if I could thread the micro's, something to try this weekend.
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Bill, just looking at the cannon ‘problem’, what about making the coil as the last step, coiling from the inside out. I would try making a little jig which would simply be a very short bit of round evergreen or spruce set vertically on something like a small piece of evergreen sheet, with a slot or hole through the middle to hold the end of the rope while coiling. If you coil as a mirror image you could glue the coil and, once dry, pop it off the jig into its proper position and the glue might not even show as it would now be on the bottom of the coil. Then tease the starting end into place or snip it off. I’d expect to have to do a couple of dry runs to work out how much rope was needed. There’s a handy thread on using matt nail varnish instead of glue, below. Zulu “Lady Isabella” by EKE - FINISHED - Vanguard Models - 1:64
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This is the thread, I think it’s one or two pages from the end. Sorry but copying hyperlinks defeats me on an iPad, so just the title. Zulu “Lady Isabella” by EKE - FINISHED - Vanguard Models - 1:64
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I received my 1:96 Cutty Sark today, bought at a good price off ebay. Very exciting, particularly as it doesn't appear to have an endless array of parts so maybe won't take quite as long as the Heller Victory. However, not something to start for a while, I'll wait for a sensible break point on the old lady. I haven't fully checked it over yet, something to do a little later this evening, but I noticed that my shrouds are pre-made using thread, i.e. they look a bit different to yours and probably better than anything I'll do by hand.
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The sirens are especially incredible. I would so like to see the finished article in the flesh when it's completed.
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