Richard44

Hi Starlight, If you haven't already thought of it, you need to consider now how you will display the finished ship. If just on a cradle, you probably don't need to do anything, but if on pedestals, a steel (or perhaps brass) rod through the pedestals and into the false keel is recommended so as to give support and rigidity to the display. To do this, you need to drill suitable holes through the pedestals and the actual keel and into the false keel. It's far easier to do that now rather than later. Small pieces of scrap ply glued both sides of the false keel will strengthen this in the path of the drillhole. Cheers

Yes, I meant the gun deck (it's also called the upper deck, just to confuse things). The false deck to me is the ply that you install then cover with planks. It's not to difficult to plank when it's in situ. Put it in place, without gluing, and try putting a few planks in place (no glue) to see how you go. Cheers

Hi Starlight, I wouldn't worry too much about the planking on the lower deck - it's basically invisible once you complete all the hatches on the upper deck. I did it, but I had plenty of wood left over from other builds. As for the coamings/hatches, if you haven't come across Blue Ensign's build log, look it up. He has some details of how he did these which should help you. I glued the false deck in place then planked it - it seems the logical thing to do. You're doing well with your build, the best piece of advice I can give you is to think ahead, several steps ahead in fact. Tends to prevent any nasty surprises. I've got a few days off then I'll be onto the hull planking. Should be fun! Cheers

Thanks for the comment Spyglass. Now for the gunport patterns. The NMM plans of Pegasus show two extra sweep ports compared to those already cut into the gunport strips of the kit. So two more were cut. The mounting holes for the eyebolts for the cannon breech ropes and side tackles were drilled through the gunport strips as well. This was done in the expectation of being able to use the strips as a pattern to drill through the bulwark planking, if this is installed before the second planking above the wale is completed. We'll have to see. The instructions and all the build logs say the same thing for fitting the patterns - soak, clamp, let dry and repeat if necessary. I decided to change this by using a heat gun after clamping the soaked patterns to the hull. The patterns were soaked in hot water for 25-30 minutes then clamped to the bulkheads and the heat gun was used to dry the patterns. In a few places the patterns did not quite mould to the bulkheads, so these places were heated again and while the patterns were still hot, finger pressure was used to hold the patterns against the bulkheads until they cooled. The forward port pattern clamped in place after soaking and heating. The two patterns after forming. Both patterns had to be trimmed to fit at the stem, and the hole for the bowsprit had to be re-cut. After allowing the patterns to thoroughly dry, they were glued to the bulkheads. The port pattern glued, clamped and pinned to the bulkheads. Both patterns glued in place. It can seen that I have already removed the extensions of BHs 5,6 and 7 in preparation for completing the deck planking. Cheers.

Thanks for the comments and the likes. And so on to the planking of the deck. I decided not to follow the kit instructions which would have you plank the fore and aft sections (but not the waist) and fix a transverse strip across the ends of these sections. Not very realistic. I’m going with full length strakes and I intend to follow as best as possible the pattern of planking as shown in TFFM. Before starting the planking, I made and fastened in place the various gratings/hatches and added mast partners and a step for the capstan. I also moved the after hatch forward and modified this to allow the main jeer bitt pin to pass through (as per TFFM). By doing all this, the planking would then have to butt up against these fixtures, rather than planking first and then gluing the hatches etc on top. As I hadn’t done it this way before I thought I’d give it a try. Antscherl doesn't specifically mention a kingplank on this deck though his deck plan diagram clearly shows one. I have assumed that this kingplank is the same thickness as the deck planks and hence it will not stand proud. The king plank was fixed in place and several strakes either side were trimmed and glued in place. At this point it became very apparent that trying to follow TFFM closely was just not going to work. There are some differences between the kit and the plans in TFFM which would have been correctable if I had known about them earlier. To do so now, while certainly not impossible, was impractical. So rip up the glued planks and start again. This time the deck planking was going to be based on that in TFFM, but not a copy. Once past the central part of the deck where short lengths of plank were used, it was time to start laying full-length planks. Antscherl’s deck plan shows that the strakes taper and curve fore and aft. Additionally, the last four strakes before the margin plank were worked in two lots of top and butt with varied plank lengths. The method I used to plank the deck was as follows. Firstly, the deck was subdivided with a curve being drawn using a strip of wood where the top and butt (T&B) would commence. The outer section was divided equally in half by a curve for the two bands of T&B. The inboard section would be covered by five strakes of planks and was lined accordingly. Exactly the same method we use to line a hull before planking but much easier on a flat deck. A full length strip of wood was trimmed and tapered, then held in position while the butt positions were marked on the strip. Antscherl’s deck plan was used as a guide for this. A strake ready for the butt positions to be marked. The strip was then cut into individual planks and these were glued in place. The curvature of the strakes was gentle enough not to need edge bending, though some minor sanding helped. To do the top and butt strakes, a pattern was first drawn on a strip of paper. Planking started at the bow. A piece of wood slightly oversized was sanded until its inside edge butted up nicely against the already in place planks. Its width clearly changes along its length at particular points and these points were marked on the piece of wood. The widths at these points were measured from the pattern, the wood was then trimmed and glued in place. Individual planks ready for gluing. This was repeated until the first strake of the T&B was in place. The second strake commenced with a length of wood being sanded so that its outside edge matched the curve marked on the deck. The points where the width changed were marked and the widths this time were measured off the deck, not from the paper pattern. The following photos illustrate the method I used, though I did not use a pen for marking out, just the tip of a sharp pencil. The high lighted plank is the one being made. The piece of wood has had its inside edge sanded so that it fits neatly against the deck plank (actually the first band of T&B) and has been marked ready for trimming. The first plank in place and the second marked ready for trimming. The two planks in place. Not a perfect fit. Light sanding may have improved things, otherwise I would have recut the second plank. The first band of T&B was completed, at which point I realised that I really, really should have already installed the margin plank, particularly at the bow, as several deck strakes should be butting against this. I am using a 5mm wide margin plank. A template was used (because of the curvature) to mark the inside edge of the margin plank at the bow, while elsewhere simply marking points 5mm in from the deck edge was sufficient. A chisel was then used to remove those parts of the deck planks where the margin plank should have been. The margin plank was then fitted between the bulkhead extensions, and fitting of the T&B continued. There is no joggling involved. The almost completed deck. The jeer bitt pins in place through the after hatch. Planking in the waist of the ship will be completed when the extensions to bulkheads 5,6 &7 are removed. Cheers.

I too have the Amati crimper and use it occasionally, but only when the crimped side is not visible. I also use it gently and put in numerous close-spaced shallow crimps rather than trying to get the curve I want with only a few. Some woods are not suitable and tend to splinter. Cheers

Thanks everyone for the likes and the comments. Cheers

Thanks Moab. Cheers

I did think of using threaded rod. The end that goes into the captured nut is not a problem, but the other end? The rod would need to be tightened but how to do this. File a slot for a screwdriver - don't think so. Silver solder a nut on the end and use a nut driver?, but this would essentially be the same as what I did more simply. I did spend some time puzzling about this, and I came up with the simplest solution I could think of. SpyGlass, I have been following your helpful comments on various Pegasus builds - thanks for your inputs. Cheers

So, my build log of the Pegasus kit from Victory. I’m not going to describe the kit contents as there are quite a few build logs here on MSW that do exactly that, the latest being that by Mugje. The first task was to read the instructions carefully, at least as far as the first planking, examine the plans and read the already existing build logs. The second task was to repeat the first to ensure that I had a more than reasonable grasp of what was to be involved in starting this build. Unfortunately, the result of all this reading was information overload, but anyway, on with the build. As well as the information in the build logs, I will occasionally refer to the "The Fully Framed Model" by David Antscherl and Greg Herbert. After numbering, the false keel and the bulkheads were removed from their sheets and trial fitted. All slots had to be eased slightly as the fit was just a little bit too tight. It was noticed that bulkhead 13, the last one, was not properly centered when slotted fully home onto its tab - it was slightly shifted to starboard. The slot in the bulkhead was widened with a few passes with a file to correct this. The false keel has to be thinned near the sternpost to allow for the thickness of the two layers of planking to closely match the width of the sternpost. To do this, the bearding line first needed to be drawn on the false keel as the thinning starts here. The kit plans do not show this, and in looking at the logs there is some variation in builders’ interpretation of where this line should be. I drew my line so that it clipped the fore edges of bulkheads 9-12 and finished under the filler block (part 16). A 2mm wide strip of wood was spot glued to the rear of the false keel to aid in sanding the false keel to the needed thickness. The bearding line was continued along the keel as a marker for a rabbet here, and then along for the stem rabbet. Although Chris Watton in one of his posts says that a keel rabbet was unnecessary, I decided to cut one for the experience. A knife cut was made along the line using a steel rule to keep it straight. A chisel was then used to pare the MDF to give the rabbet. A 2mm wide wood strip was spot glued along the bottom of the false keel to guide the depth of the cut and then removed. A similar method was used to cut the rabbet at the stem. The MDF cut easily. The walnut stem and the two keel parts were glued to the false keel. The stern post was not fitted at this time to allow easy sanding of the first planking at the stern. The rabbet at the stem completed. I’d decided to mount the Pegasus on pedestals, so mounting holes, for 3mm bolts, had to be drilled through the base, the pedestals, the (real) keel and far enough into the false keel to give secure mounting. Captive nuts were epoxied into slots cut near the end of the holes in the false keel and small pieces of ply were epoxied over these for additional strength and to help in preventing the nut from turning. The only 3mm bolts I could find locally were too short for my need, so two bolts were joined to form one by expoxying them into a brass sleeve which was then crimped. I thought epoxy rather than solder was more than sufficient. The bolts were run in and out repeatedly to ensure that there was no binding or glue blocking the holes. The ends of the bolts were rounded to enable them to easily “find” the nuts. Trial mounting onto the pedestals. The bulkheads, the false lower deck and the main, fore and aft decks were trial fitted and then removed. The slots in the main deck needed slight easing to enable it to be fitted without undue force. The lower deck, bulkheads and pre-shaped infill blocks were then glued in place on the false keel. Infill blocks were glued in between bulkheads at bow and stern. I used scrap wood that I had rather than buying a sheet of balsa, so the appearance is not as neat as others. After several hours sanding, the hull was apparently faired. Upon checking with a strip of wood though, I found the same problem with BH7 as Mugje did. (To confuse things, Mugje in subsequent posts referred to the bulkhead as BH6, though the photos are clearly that of BH7).That is, the strip does not fair smoothly past BH7, but there is a gap between it and the bulkhead. The gap was more prominent at the top of the bulkhead and decreases towards the keel, and is the same on both sides of the hull. It would seem that either BH7 is slightly undersized, or the adjacent bulkheads are slightly oversized. More gentle sanding was done on bulkheads 5,6,8 and 9 but even so, the fairing still was not smooth. So, a shim strip was glued to BH7 and finally, after BH7 was sanded, a fair run from BH5 through to BH9 was achieved. Although totally unnecessary, the lower deck was partly planked below the main hatch. Antscherl describes the kingplank of the lower deck as being 3 inches thick and, as the remainder of the deck planking is 2 inches thick, it stands proud by 1 inch. So a kingplank 1mm thick was laid, and with the other planks being 0.6mm thick, it stands proud by about 1 inch equivalent. Not that anybody's ever going to see this. The stern counter pieces were glued into their slots. The quarterdeck was positioned to ensure that the outer pieces were angled inwards correctly. A minor amount of sanding was required to fair these. The main deck was glued in place and is ready for planking. Cheers.

That's looking very nice Russ. Cheers

Ok, extreme slackness on my part. I hadn't bothered to read the detail on Chuck's website, where it specifically says "These cannon also fit the Amati Victory models Pegasus and Fly kits very well." So, I'm about to order some, that's if Chuck is shipping to Australia. Edit. Ordered.

Hi Grant, Yes, Chuck has cannons that are close to the size I'd like, so I may well go with those. Chris is developing a set of cannons, but his smallest is 9pdr, not the 6pdr that Pegasus has. Cheers

Hi, I'm just starting to build Victory's Pegasus and I'm not happy with the quality of the supplied cannons. The cannons are 6pdrs with a length of about 32mm. Any suggestions please as to replacements. Thanks

Hi Russ, I've just finished building this boat. You may get some tips from my build log - see link below. Enjoy. Cheers

Thanks for all the likes. The rigging. This shouldn't be too complicated, afterall, we only have one cannon, one mast, one yard, one sail, two shrouds, and no stays or ratlines. Firstly some comments about the material supplied in the kit but these comments apply to the kit I bought about 20 years ago. The kit is still available today and the contents may well have changed. The cord supplied for the rigging consists of one light coloured hank of reasonable diameter, one spool of thin, light coloured cord and one spool of thin, black cord (see below). The larger diameter cord is supposed to be used for the cannon breech rope, the anchor rope, the sail bolt rope, and, although not specifically stated in the instructions, also for the shrouds (and perhaps for the mast and yard wooldings) after you dye it dark brown (or black). The thin light cord is for all the running rigging, the cannon tackle, the tiller tackle, the shroud lanyards and other lashings. The thin black cord is apparently for the wooldings around the mast and yard, and for those around the tubs etc. Only three sizes of cord for a wide variety of needs. Panart (now Mantua) seems to have fairly closely believed the philosophy of "one size fits all". Also included were two sizes of blocks - 10mm (16 of these) and 7mm (4). The 7mm blocks are for the tiller tackle and seem to be of appropriate size, as do the 10mm blocks for the shrouds. Other 10mm blocks though, are for the gun tackle and appear way over scale, so 7mm blocks were substituted. All blocks were more or less sanded to get rid of the sharp edges, thus making them far more rounded and realistic. I had a sufficient supply of various sized cord left over from previous builds to be able to substitute for the supplied cords where I thought it necessary. For example, the photo shows the cannon with the supplied breech rope (top) and my substitute (bottom). And in the photo is the supplied ring bolt (far too light in my opinion) for the breech rope and the more substantial one I made. The cannon rigged. The rudder, tiller and tackle. All the running rigging, other than the halyards, was simply led through ring bolts, one at the masthead and others on the cap rail. This did not seem to me to be good practice as the ropes would wear rather quickly, so single blocks were seized to the ring bolts and the rigging run through these. The masthead contains two sheave wheels over which the twin halyards for the yard are run. Also visible are the two shrouds that the instructions suggest are simply seized around the mast. I could easily see these slipping down the mast, so two cleats (one of which is visible) were fixed in place to prevent this from happening. The shrouds and the gun and tiller tackles are all attached to ring bolts by hooks. These were made from brass wire and blackened. The sail was made and bent to the yard. Like others, the material in the kit was insufficient for the size of the sail, so some unbleached calico was bought and substituted. To get a reasonable looking drape to the flag, a boltrope was glued to its leading edge, then the flag was hung at a suitable angle. It was folded and the folds held by small clips which also weighed it down. The flag was then sprayed with poly and left to dry. A halyard was run through the top of the staff and then the flag tied to this. The halyard was tied off to a cleat which I added at the base. The eagle-eyed amongst you have probably spotted that there are no cannon balls anywhere on board. This is because Pannart didn't supply any in the kit. I have some on order, but who knows when they will arrive. So, the boat is finished, and here it is. The boat was fun to build. Not especially challenging, except for the poor instructions. At times there was much head scratching as I tried to match the instructions with the plans and with my thoughts about what had to be done next. All came good in the end though. Probably not a kit for a beginner, unless Panart/Mantua have improved the instructions. A short break then onto the next build - Pegasus by Victory. And finally, just for laughs, a view of my extremely cluttered work area just before a much needed tidy up. 😊 Cheers.

I've just caught up with this log - very interesting. Well done. I'll keep watching now. Cheers

Thanks for the likes, and the comment Bruce. To continue with the tubs, water containers and barrels. One tub contains the anchor rope. The stock for the anchor was made from scratch as I did not like the supplied plywood one. The hoops on the stock are dyed paper strips. Another tub contains what are meant to represent the gunpowder-filled cloth bags that are the cartridges for the guns. The instructions say to make these cartridges by cutting dowels into appropriate lengths, paint these white and pile them in the tub. I thought that these would look exactly like pieces of white painted dowels so I looked for an alternative. I found hair bands that were of exactly the size needed, although they needed to be given a coat of poly to prevent instant fraying when cut. When cut to size and piled in the tub, they look quite reasonable. The third tub contains pieces of rag that are used as wads to keep the charge in the gun barrel. Two barrels were in the kit. They are well made but do not show any detail so two were scratch built. The first attempt was not successful, so a better approach was adopted. I used the dimensions of the supplied barrels as a guide and calculated the circumference of the barrel at the top/bottom and middle. The circumference of the latter was almost exactly that needed to fit 18 staves each 4mm wide. I decided that this would look better than the 15 staves of 5mm that I used in my first attempt. The diameter at the middle was then back calculated using the needed circumference of 72mm. Fortuitously the diameters at top and bottom were such that the 18 staves would fit if tapered to 3.5mm. I then made three disks that were joined by a length of dowel and one stave was shaped and carefully glued to these. Tick marks were made on each disk using that stave as a reference point. This then allowed all other staves to be shaped to match the tick marks so that cumulative errors did not creep in (one of the problems with the first attempt). The staves were pre-bent before fitting using a plank bender. The first attempt at making a barrel on the right, the second attempt on the left. The scratch barrels on the left compared to the ones from the kit. The finished tubs, barrels and water containers. Cheers.

Oates didn't return - I sincerely hope you do 🥴🥴

The next step was to finish the gun carriage and install it. A trial was done outside the boat, and a problem became immediately apparent. When assembled, the muzzle of the cannon pointed downwards to such a degree that removing the quoin was insufficient to get the muzzle to at least the horizontal. The carriage was built as per the instructions, and as all but two pieces were pre-cut, there was very little room for error, and the two pieces I had to make were fashioned from blocks already sized. A measurement made on the carriage as built was found to be 5mm greater than the same measurement on the cross-section on the plan. And this discrepancy was certainly sufficient to raise the quoin high enough to depress the cannon’s muzzle. I puzzled over this for a while, then decided to change the way the quoin was mounted. The cannon on its carriage as initially built. The carriage as modified. The carriage with its cannon, mounted on the gun slide. As part of the on-board equipment there are two water containers and three tubs, all of which have to be made by gluing staves to pairs of ply discs. The top and bottom discs are of different diameters. The tricky part of this is that all but one are open topped, so the staves cannot be glued to the top disc as this has to be removed once all the staves are in place. The instructions suggest waxing the edge of the upper disc so that glue does not adhere. Instead I wrapped the disc in cling film. The staves were tapered appropriately, glued to the bottom disc and edge glued to each other. Gel CA was used for this and with a setting time of 60 seconds there was plenty of time to position the stave and more than enough to get at least one finger in just the right place to glue it to the stave. All five have two bands of reinforcing rope wound around them, while the two water containers have rope handles. One tub, it contains the anchor rope, has both discs in place so this was easier than the others. The photos shows the beginning of this tub, and although it’s not apparent in the photos, I was actually building it upside down. How I did this I don’t know as the diagram on the plan is perfectly clear. Ah well. I realised this the following day, swore, pulled off all the staves, cleaned up the two discs and redid it. The beginning of a water container, showing the top disc wrapped in cling film and several staves in place. The tub for the anchor rope on the left, a partly completed water container in the middle and a finished water container on the right (it still needs the handle). There are various accessories for the cannon to be made - a swab, a scoop, a rod for ramming the charge home and what looks like a corkscrew that is used to clean fragments of rag out of the barrel. The scoop is formed from a section of brass tube, the “corkscrew” from twisted brass wire and the ram from a piece of dowel. The instructions suggest you make the swab by gluing small pieces of white cloth to the rod (the handle) to get the desired thickness, then trim this to get it looking cylindrical and finish by rotating this against sandpaper to get a fluffy surface. I decided to shortcut all this by gluing an unused felt polishing pad that came with my Dremel to the rod, then holding this against the Dremel’s drum sander to reduce its diameter. Quick and easy. Smaller versions of the swab and ram were made for the two swivel guns. The completed cannon and swivel gun accessories. A Dremel felt pad is on the right, and one of these was used to make the swab next to it. Another pad, cut down, was used to make the swabs for the swivel guns. Cheers.

Firstly, I have changed the heading of this log from “Armed Pinnace” to “Armed Launch”. When I bought this kit about 20 years ago, I was given a review of the kit that had been published in, I believe, Model Boats and the author, Keith Julier, referred to the boat as a pinnace. I now realise that the boat is more correctly called a launch. Thanks for the likes and the comments, Lou and Barnes. On with the build. A short update. The photo shows the gun slide and carriage almost complete and ready for fitting. The rudder has been painted and the hinges are ready to put in place. The tiller had not been made at this time, but was later cut and shaped from a suitable piece of wood, rather than trying to bend a piece of 3.5x5 as suggested in the instructions. The making of the oars was tackled next. The photo shows the various parts for the oars, a partly completed one and a finished one (though not yet stained or coated with a satin finish). Cutting the slot in the central dowel looked as if it was going to be a real problem, as I don’t have access to a mill which would have done the job very easily. The plan suggests filing the slot which would have been an exercise in frustration. So, I mounted two Dremel cutoff wheels on the one mandrel, set up the Dremel on its stand and with the aid of a simple jig, basically ground the slots. The photo shows the apparatus. I anticipated lots of smoke, so this job was not done inside otherwise the smoke alarms would have been triggered. The slots were later cleaned up with a file. The gunslide has now been glued in place and the rudder fitted. The boat has been given one coat of a satin polyurethane finish. That's all for the moment. Cheers.

Instead of a circular ring at the end of the rope gripe, the "ring" is triangular - and this what is lashed to the eyebolt in the deck. You can actually see this in the diagram, deck-ring bolt-lashing- triangle link-rope gripe. Cheers Richard

I've just found your build log Lou, and read it from the begining. Nice work. Cheers Richard

There are six thwarts to assemble, with Number 3 having the mast step underneath and a 10mm hole in the centre to allow for the mast. The supporting elbows for the thwarts were made by using a Dremel with a drum sander attached and mounted on the Dremel router table, with the wood strip pushed against the sander until it hit the stop. The latter was a small strip of wood clamped to the right hand side of the router's fence. The shaped piece was then parted from its strip and cleaned up. I made two extras just in case, and sure enough, one dropped from my fingers, fell straight through the gap between the planks of the outside deck into the leaf mould underneath. Gone forever. And yes, in looking at the photo, I now realise that I should have fed the strip through in the other direction and used the adjustable wedge as the stop. Ah well, it worked. The thwarts are supported underneath by columns, the top of these being turned and supplied, while the bottom part was made from 6x6 stock. The two parts were glued together (CA gel was used) with a brass pin inserted into both for strengthening.. The columns being assembled. The mast step with its supports and thwarts with their columns and elbows ready for fixing. The thwarts fixed in place. The columns were first glued to the underside of the thwarts using a small blob of 5 minute epoxy. CA gel was tried but didn’t hold as well as I wanted. I've assumed that in the actual boat, the thwarts were fastened to the top of the columns by means of an iron spike driven through the thwart. I've used a short piece of blackened brass wire to simulate these The columns were then glued to the stringer on each side of the boat, PVA was used, and another small blob of epoxy was used on the bottom of the column to fix it to the bottom of the boat. The elbows were sanded to fit snugly against the side and glued using PVA. Shortened, blackened nails were pushed into pre-drilled holes in the elbows. The two fairleads at the bow and the thole blocks are also in place. There is quite a bit of loose debris in the bottom of the boat which needs to be cleaned out. Cheers Richard

Of course, how stupid of me. I did think you were being optimistic with your 3 inches, but that was as far as my thinking went.... 🙁 🙁. Anyway, on the positive side, you now know the size of the miniature vise 😀😀. Cheers Richard