Thukydides

Lots of good advice in this thread. Model ships are a huge learning curve, but just about any mistake can be fixed. As has been suggested take a deep breath and go back and read a bunch of build logs and watch some planking tutorials. As @tmj said you may need to buy a few more strips, but it definitely can be fixed. Take your time. This is not a race. I am almost three years into my first model ship build. Good luck :).

Log #94: The Ensign For a while now I have been experimenting in the background on the ensign. Some of you may have spotted a test version in the background of some of my pictures. These early attempts (and there were 4 or 5 of them) were about figuring out the best way forward to make the flag look like it was semi transparent like the real thing. The above example used the method described by BE[link], but I found it looked too solid and dark. I also found that getting crisp lines did not work out as well as I wanted painting by hand. I also struggled to avoid wrinkling the paper as I was continually wetting small parts of it. So after a bunch of experimentation I came up with the following method. Step 1 was to staple the paper (silkspan) to a frame to hold it tight and then coat it in a combination of watered down pva and white acrylic ink. I used a large flat brush and regular strokes to give a slight hint of brush lines. On the reverse I brushed perpendicular to the front so as to give the impression of a weave. You can’t really see much of this, but I found it gave the best looking white base. This ink, which I also used for the other colours, is essentially just pigment and water (no other additives). It has high pigmentation, but is very translucent so you can get bold colours without making it look like a thick layer of paint has been applied. See below for all the inks used in the flag. I used the same template as BE used and printed out pictures of the ensign on non-permanent full sheet labels. I then carefully cut out templates for each colour. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of these, but you can see below the results after spraying the red ink with my airbrush. I added a small amount of airbrush medium to the ink to provide a tiny bit of binding agent. The reason I made two of them was that mistakes happen and this process takes a long time so I decided to make two and just take the better one. Once dry I placed the template for the blue (I used 3 parts of the dark blue ink with 1 part of the lighter blue plus a tiny bit of airbrush medium as before). You can see below the results as with much of my work there was a minor miss alignment, but I decided that one of them was good enough to not do the whole thing over again. Once everything was dry I cut the ensign off of the frame and proceeded to work on the ropes. I decided on 0.2mm rope so it is visually smaller than the other ropes in the area. For the toggle end I made a eye splice and then looped the rope on itself. I then pulled it tight around a spare off cut from an eyebolt. The other end of the ensign rope was formed into an eye splice and the edge of the ensign was folder over it. Next came the shaping of the flag. I experimented a bunch trying to find the best way to do this and in the end I found the following method worked best. I folded over a piece of tin foil and then cut this double thick piece to approximately the same size as the flag. Using round dowels and brush handles of various sizes I formed this tin foil into the shape I wanted. I placed the flag on the tin foil and blasted it with the hair dryer into the foil. This softened the pva in the flag and the wind blew it into the shape. I then allowed it to cool and it held its shape. Finally I attached an eye splice to the toggle and ran it through a 2mm block with a hook on it. This then looped around to tie onto the eye splice at the bottom of the ensign. I wasn’t sure of the correct way to secure this so used a single sheet knot which seemed fine. And here is the ensign on the model. After some thought I have decided I am not going to do the signal flags. I am still undecided on the pennant. I may make one and see how I like the look of it before deciding.

I believe it is 3d printed not cast so you shouldn't need to clean it, but to be safe you could gently wash it with warm soapy water and an old toothbrush. Yes you should use a spray on primer. I would recommend one designed for miniature painting. Army painter, vallejo, citadel etc all sell spray cans of primer you can use. Just go to your local hobby shop and pick up whatever brand they happen to have. I would not use general purpose primers as the miniature ones are designed to go on in a much thinner coat. You don't want to hide all that nice detail with a thick coat of paint.

I know that at least by the end of the 18th century single double combos were in use for 12pdrs. For 9pdrs and below it would only be singles. Not sure how applicable this is to the mid 18th century. The following table is the sizes I found from ADM 160/150. Obviously this is general allocation of stores information and any given ship may have differed: Size & Number of Breechings, Tackle and Blocks Per Gun Circa 1794-1802 Breeching Size (in) Gun Tackle Size (in) Blocks (Single) Blocks (Double) Size (in) Number Size (in) Number Guns 32 pdr 7 3 10 2 10 2 24 pdr 6½ 3 10 2 10 2 18 pdr 5½ 2½ 8 2 8 2 12 pdr 5½ 2½ 8 2 8 2 9 pdr 4½ 2 6½ 4 6 pdr 4½ 2 6½ 4 4 pdr 3½ 1½ 5 4 Carronades 32 pdr 7 2½ 8 2 8 2 24 pdr 6½ 2 6½ 4 18 pdr 5½ 1½ 5 2 12 pdr 5½ 1½ 5 2 Speedwell is looking great chuck and those new blocks look really good, fantastic as always.

Looks very nice and organized. That is a lot of models you have in that display case.

I am planning to do a smaller plastic model as a sort of interim project though I am not sure if I will do a build log for it. It will mostly involve painting which is harder to convey in a build log, we'll see. For my next wooden ship model I am well into the research phase, but I will talk about it a bit more once I am fully done with Alert.

Glenn you haven't wasted any time getting rolling on this one.

Great job

Good job, the planking looks great.

This is my main worry with the idea of signal flags (apart from the previously articulated historical issues). I like the thought of them in principal, but am worried it might clutter things up. I am thinking I may mock up a short (one number code) message on normal paper just to get a feel for what it looks like before deciding. I am planning on using the kit stand, the one you always see in my pictures is the original one, but I did purchase the newer version from Chris as well so that nicer one is what I will be using. I have a glass display cabinet it is going in (I will take a picture in it once everything is done, but the pictures don't turn out great due to the reflections). I actually keep Alert in this cabinet most of the time to protect her from dust and knocks between hobby sessions.

Log #93: Rigging Complete The last remaining bit of rigging left is the jib. The inhauler, outhauler and halliard all round to the same thickness at our scale (0.35mm) so that is what I went with. The inhaler I tied off on the bits. The outhauler follows the kit arrangement and runs through a block on the stem. I was unsure of the best place to tie this off and in the end settled on just using the timber head like structure above the hawse hole. Neither of these needed significant extra rope so I didn’t do any coils. For the jib itself I followed the Goodwin arrangement by making the lanyard like attachment that hooks onto the ring and then runs through the jib cringe. It is a half hitch with the end served twice. The hook is spliced into the end of the rope. Then it was a simple matter of running the line for the jib. I used a double sheet knot fasten the end of the line to the lanyard with the hook on it. Then the line went up to the block on the masthead and then down to be tied off on an eyebolt. There were no free cleats left so I just left the rope coiled on the deck. With that I think the rigging is complete. There is not much further to go now. To celebrate this milestone I decided to finally place the commander on board. Any small things I have left will not require me to reach into the middle of the deck so he should be safe. Finally, I took a step back to catalog what remains to be done. In the background work on the swivel guns and ensign is ongoing and I am considering whether or not to add a pennant. Many contemporary drawings of cutters depict one, but I am undecided. I also am considering adding some signal flags. The issue here is Alert was captured by the French in 1778, but the only signal logs I can find online are for the system that came into effect in the early 1800s. Should I just use this or is it better not to bother with them. Any thoughts people have on either that or the pennants would be welcome.

Sherbourne is a great kit. One masted ships are great for beginners. My first ship was Alert (also by Vanguard) and I love it. All you need in terms of tools really to get started is a craft knife and wood glue. I made my own pin pusher out of an old paintbrush. Hit up your local goodwill store to see if you can find a small iron, that will be best kind for plank bending. Apart from that your really don’t need much. better to wait till you really need a tool before spending money on it. Welcome to the forums

If you want to paint metal parts you need to prime them first. Just normal acrylic paint won't stick. I suspect that is your issue with stuff rubbing off. Also a good rule of thumb is you can do oil over water but not water over oil. This is not completely true, but it is a good rule of thumb.

Log #92: More Rope Hanks While waiting for the rope I ordered to arrive I decided to finish off the lines I recently tied off and to tie off the topsail bowlines. The topsail bowlines are run through two small blocks tied to the end of the bowsprit, but at this point I ran into an issue. I had planned to run them to the pin rack on the windlass, but there is no way to get them there without tangling up in other lines. I suspect the problem is I needed to make the pendants longer so that the line would come in from higher up. However it is too late to fix that so I decided to run them to timberheads near the catheads. This is not a perfect solution, but I was able to run them under the catheads without impacting the ability to lower the anchor so I think it is fine. Following up on my previous hank jig, I made a new one to allow me to do a bunch of hanks at once. This lets me make multiple hanks at the same time and allows me to make two different sizes of loops for pins vs cleats. After tacking everything in place with super glue I blast them all with the hairdryer and then apply the diluted matt varnish as usual. A few hours later once dry I pull out the pins and remove the hank from the jig to be attached to the model. You can see below I have added 4 hanks to the pin rack for the squaresail bowlines and topsail braces as well as added two hanks to the timberheads where the topsail bowlines are tied off. Almost done with the rigging now. All that is left is the jib and then I need to do some checking to make sure I haven't missed any random lines or hanks.

That is a nifty tool prior to your post I had no idea existed.

Great job on the claws. It is a relatively easy modification but I think it is one of those that really adds to the model.

That's awesome to hear Ben. Your rope is fantastic and this is proof I am not the only one who thinks so.

Those blocks look fantastic.

Log #91: The Topgallant Stay & Topsail Braces Thank you again for all your kind comments and encouragement. I suspect that there are only a few more log entries to go as the list of things remaining to do is getting smaller and smaller. I once again underestimated how much rope I would need and ran out of the 0.35mm rope I need to do the jib so I decided to proceed with the topsail braces and topgallant stay. The topgallant stay was a little bit of trouble as I had already attached the block it will run through to the model and both ends of it need to be served. To get round this problem I first served the eye to slip over the top of the mast and then ran the rope through the block and stuck the other end in my serving machine. Since the rope is rather long there was enough slack that I was just able to get the serving done. Steel calls for 3in rope for the stay which is just slightly bigger than the 2.5in used for the topgallant backstays. However at scale this rounds to the same size of rope (0.35mm). This presented a problem, do I go with a slightly larger rope to illustrate the size difference or go with the more accurate rope size. In the end I decided to stick with 0.35mm rope. To attach the stay to the stem I used the kit arrangement as Goodwin is not clear how this is done. The lanyards were 0.2mm rope. The topsail braces steel give as 2in. This equates to 0.25mm at scale and I used BE’s arrangement just running them straight down to the bowsprit instead of the kit arrangement of the pendant with a block on it. And here you can see the tip of the bowsprit with the three lines running through the triple block. The block seemed a bit large and if I had any I would have preferred to use a 4mm one given the rope sizes running through it, but all I had was 5mm so it will have to do. At this point I tied off the squaresail bowlines to the pin rack on the windlass and also ran the topsail braces to this pin rack. I plan to add rope coils to all of these once I am done tying ropes off in this area. And finally here is a picture of her with all the new lines. She looks much more imposing with the braces and stay on her.

The nails appear to be just in front of or just behind the frames. The most logical answer to me seems that you add some cross beams secured to the side of the frames right below where the nail patterns would be. This makes intuitive sense as the platform has to be secured to something and that something really should be secured to the frames. Great work as allways.

Fantastic planking job

Fantastic Glenn. She is quite the model.

I believe that is a later print of the above painting. If you look at the inscription it says it was published in 1814 for the naval chronicle. That being said if I had to guess he likely based it off of someone else sketch.

It is a fantastic painting and one of the few potential visual representations of the Sphinx ships. Do you plan to paint the lower counter black then? I did a bunch of digging but was never able to establish if Serres was actually present or if he worked off someone else's sketch or if he just made up the scene based on accounts of the action. During the seven years war many of his paintings were based on sketches from an eyewitness so given he was fairly old at this point I suspect it was one of the latter two options. At the very least he would have seen enough English ships to know what in general they looked like.

Thanks Ronald England has not been easy on the eyes this euro. I am sort of torn between cheering for them and wanting them to loose so I don't have to watch them anymore 🤣.