Thukydides

Fantastic work. I look forward to seeing the carrack, I think that should be a very interesting build.

Minor update. I have finished the base of the water. All the foam details still need to be added, but those won't go on till the uboat is ready to go in. I covered the whole thing with two coats of gloss varnish, but it ended up a bit too shiny so I went over it all with a coat of satin. Since I am depicting a relatively stormy sea I don't want a huge amount of reflections. I also glued it onto the base and added the brass label that came with the kit. Next up I need to break out the airbrush again and get back at the uboat itself.

Great job Ronald. Those joints look nice and precise.

The boats are looking really good. Those ebony Wales do look very nice.

If it was me I would do it in the opposite order and not bother with masking tape. Masking tape when hand painting has a tendancy to have paint bleed under it unless it is placed perfectly and on curved surfaces it is pretty much impossible to place it perfectly. I would paint the rail first not worrying about if I go over as the black will cover grey very easily. As a general rule all other considerations aside you paint the colours that cover best last. Also in this case getting a clean line will be much easier with the black. Just drag a round brush at an angle along the flat surface just short of where you want the line to be. Then with you second stroke do it again, but just edge a tiny bit closer. If you are methodical and careful making sure to have your hand resting on something you should get a very clean line. Getting a clean line in the other order will likely be harder as you are having to point your brush in towards the hull to get the sides of the rail. I show the proper positioning for the brush in the picture below (note this is a bad brush, you should use one with a sharper point). Just imagine the black part is the top of your rail and the side I am running the brush against is the hull above it.

Fantastic job Andrew. The whole thing comes together really well.

That is always the problem. By the time I finish the model I sort of know what I am doing. Unfortunately too late to benefit the model...

They look really nice. Good job. Those tiny blocks are a real pain. I also didn't bother with the training tackle as I aesthetically prefer the look of the guns without it.

The figures look good. Nice and neat, great job. A small thing you could do next time to give a bit more depth is try using some washes (particularly for the skin). They are super easy to use and will help the models pop more for only minimal more effort.

Looks like you have made a good start Gregory. I thought your previous build was looking good so I will be interested to see how this one develops.

It has been a while since I posted as I havn’t had any progress to report. Life has been busier and I have been spending most of my hobby time doing research for Perseus. However, this evening I broke out the airbrush and decided to make some progress. I love my airbrush, but I dislike the setup and teardown I have to do with it and so I often have trouble finding a free evening where I am in the mood to use it. First up is the uboat itself. I primed it black and then gave it a coat of VMC German Grey. In retrospect it looks a bit on the dark side. I may have to give it another slightly lighter coat for the dark colour. Once it has fully dried I will mask it off and spray the lighter grey. I also primed the water base in black and then gave it a coat of VMC dark sea blue. This did not cover as well as I wanted and ended up just looking a slightly bluey black (see below). So I broke out my inks and started shading and highlighting with various combinations of cyan, white and navy blue ink. The nice thing about the inks is they don’t cover, but are super saturated so you get lots of colour that you can layer on top of itself. I don’t have any pictures of the process as it is hard to take pictures in the middle of airbrushing, but here is the final result after all the spraying is done. This is not by any means done, I have lots of steps yet to do, but I am encouraged that it looks at least somewhat like water. I will chalk it down as a good first attempt.

Very nice. Great job on painting the shields.

I soak the plastic parts in simple green. It works like a charm and just use an old tooth brush to agitate the paint off.

If you go to their profile you can see their activity. There is an option I believe to see threads started by them. That is how I would do it.

Log #7: Service History Part V - St. Alban Roy, George Palmer and John Gibson St Alban Roy St. Alban Roy was born sometime around 1731 and had a somewhat unremarkable career. He was promoted to post Captain on the 8th of July, 1782 having been given temporary command of the Cato (50) the previous month. On October 21st, 1782 he was given command of Perseus, but no significant events are recorded during his command. Perseus was paid off in March of 1783 and Roy was given command of Perseus’ sister ship Unicorn in August of that year. This was his last recorded service and he died November 1796. Tobacco Box Depicting Perseus Circa 1782 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. OBJ0260. George Palmer George Palmer was born sometime around 1755 and had a successful if relatively quiet career. The vast majority of his service was in command of Perseus during the peace. He was posted captain on 18 January 1783 and briefly appointed to command the Surprise (28) before being reassigned to Perseus in July for service out of Liverpool and off Ireland. This command appears to have passed uneventfully with much of the time spent patrolling the coast. The most notable event that can be found in the logs is the loss of the ship’s cutter when a sudden storm hit while attempting to tow the Perseus. Perseus was refitted at Plymouth in 1784, and after further service off Ireland she was paid off in February 1787. In December 1791 he recommissioned the Perseus 20, going out to Jamaica in March 1792, and at the commencement of hostilities with France in 1793 he was commanding her in the Leeward Islands from where he returned almost immediately to England. At some point around this time he likely captured the American ship Active. An appeal regarding the capture was filed in 1794, but no date is given for the capture. Perseus was paid off in December 1794. Palmer saw further service on the Lion (64) and the Adventure (44) before being appointed rear Admiral on 23 April 1804. He retired having reached the rank of Admiral of the White and died on 8 September 1834 in Surrey. John Gibson There is little to no historical information available on John Gibson. He was born sometime around 1740 and was posted Captain on 23 December 1782 as commander of the Porcupine (24). His time as commander of Perseus, from 8 May 1787 to 15 March 1791, appears to be uneventful with the only recorded events being refits. As with the time under the command of George Palmer, Perseus appears to have spent this time serving in the Irish Sea and the Channel. At some point in late 1789 or early 1790, Gibson was given or had commissioned a bowl with a hand painted image of Perseus under sail. Bowl Depicting Perseus Circa 1790 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. AAA4434. The bowl is notable as it contains a remarkable amount of detail. This represents one of my primary reference points for Perseus. Some notable details that can be seen include: The bulwarks on the quarterdeck are built up, but not on the forecastle. No armament can be made out on the forecastle (unless that tiny bump between the two people is a carronade), but the quarterdeck could potentially have three gunports (alternatively those marks could simply be smudges). No decorations are visible except for the figurehead. Not much detail can be made out of this, but it does appear that the left arm may be extended. There are no visible decorations on the quarter galleries or the stern, but it is impossible to definitively say if this represents their absence or just a lack of detail in the painting. The traditional lighter band above the wales is visible and appears to be larger than traditionally is visible on most depictions of similar sized RN warships of the period. In particular it is wider than the Marshall painting would suggest the band should be. The line runs above the gun ports as opposed to through them on the Marshall painting. The rigging is quite detailed and appears to show most of the principle standing lines as well as some of the running rigging.When compared to the rigging diagram for a 20 gun ship in Steel, there appears to be an extra stay above fore, main and mizzen topgallant stays. The ensign is depicted attached to an ensign staff and no boom is visible. The darker colour of the ensign compared to the sails suggests it was a red or blue ensign rather than a white one. One boat (possibly a pinnace due to its length) is visible on deck and the small bower can be seen apparently rigged to the cathead, but no sheet anchor is visible. Gibson does not appear to have had another command after Perseus and died on 30 June 1824 in Somerset. On the design side of things I had to redo a bunch of my work because I discovered a scaling issue between my different reference plans which resulted in the dimensions being slightly off. So I am still trying to adjust for this. On the research side I am still digging into the knee of the head arrangement and have managed to find at least 6 contemporary examples which likely represent English construction practices. I will do a full post on this subject once I have a firm idea in my head as to what I am going to go with for Perseus.

On the button pendants if you look at the diagram of the standing rigging for a 20 gun ship, steel refers to the pendants for the main, and fore topmasts as burton pendants as well as the mizzen. https://maritime.org/doc/steel/part7.php#pg235 There is nothing clear in the diagram to differentiate them.

Fantastic, I love it when you find these fun historical details. For me finding these sort of things is as much as part of the fun as building the model.

Which period are you building her from? As launched or a later date. Many of the sphinx class saw significant changes over their lifetimes, many of which I have documented. I am always happy to collaborate. My research document where I am compiling all my info is well over 200 pages at this point so if you have some specific questions regarding the ships I may very well have found something interesting. If you are still in the design phase you might want to check out my first post where I include a link to a transcription of the contract for Perseus and unicorn. I had to make some adjustments from Alex's plans because his drawings did not always line up with it.

What you said of rope coils is true of so many details on a model ship. Most will not notice them. That being said I do think that though people don't consciously notice them they may in the aggregate grasp the higher overall quality of the model for all those extra details. In any case as you pointed out, you will notice which is really what matters. Fantastic work.

That display is quite the work of art. Your friend is indeed talented.

I hesitate to say this as what you have done looks really good, but technically the first seizing should be a throat siezing (see below for an image from lees). If you look at my alert log I think I show some picture of it.

Alert is great. You can make something nice out of the box but also there is lots of scope for small improvements. It was my first build (see signature for the build log) and I was very pleased with it.

As Jacques said it is hard to recommend something without knowing your exact skill level. It all depends on how hard your first subject was and how successful you were with it. If you are keen on a warship here are some suggestions that are smaller and easier than a full frigate: Vanguard Models Sherbourne (small cutter) Vanguard Models Alert (large cutter) Vangard Models Flirt or Speedy (small brig) Especially as a new entrant to the hobby I find the VM kits are great. They are a little pricier than some other brands, but they have higher quality materials making building easier.

I like the ideas you have. I was looking at contemporary depictions of Danish frigates and I found this one from the battle of Copenhagen in 1801 at the RMG (I have copied the relevant potion): https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-12020 You can see the yellow band is actually a bit wider than you have it. It seems to me (a general observation on the many frigate paintings I have looked at) that when the switch from painted decorations to just black and yellow came they tended to make the yellow band wider. You might want to consider bringing the yellow band up to the next molding sand potentially make the molding black. Granted this is a bit later than when your ship launched. The ship in the painting appears to have built up quarterdeck bulwarks hence the large black band on the top. I agree with Ronald, less is more. If you are using the maple for below the waterline then I would also use it for the deck as they are both meant to be "whiteish".

Good luck. Cutters make great projects. There are a number of sherbourne build logs on MSW you should take a look at to help guide you through the process. You may find that Trial, Alert or Cheerful build logs might also be useful. Lots of collective wisdom to draw on to learn from everyone else’s mistakes.