Admiral Beez
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Everything posted by Admiral Beez
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Here’s my model guide for the stern gallery. Shown at https://www.modelships.de/Vanguard/Vanguard_eng.htm I need to improve my straight line work. But we’ll get there.
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What’s really helped me is joining the local model boat club. Wherever you are there’s likely likeminded folks that can provide guidance or at worst motivation and encouragement.
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Now that the Canadian autumn/winter is approaching it's time to return to my grotto and the build. I didn't understand that the stern gallery had to be installed BEFORE the rudder, so I had to saw off the rudder. This turned out for the best since I found that the pintles left too much space between the rudder and sternpost. I've put the bowsprit aside for now and have been painting the stern gallery. See below, where it's just pressure fit in place for viewing. The two side galleries are just lightly glued to the stern gallery so will be detached and properly glued in place later. For the stern gallery paint scheme I'm using HMS Vanguard as a guide. https://www.modelships.de/Vanguard/Photos-HMS-Vanguard_detail-views.htm I'm not sure if I'll paint the columns between the stern windows gold or black. I've begun to paint the window frames gold, but my paint was too thin, so I may go over them again, or switch to red. Any recommendations? I've also placed the upper deck for placement only.
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I used a curved razor blade to scrape the copper down smooth above the true water line. I'm happy with the results.
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I need some help. These notorious Heller instructions make no sense. I’m trying to assemble the beginnings of the bowsprit, with parts 50 and 51 making the main spar (I’ll be reinforcing these with toothpicks before I glue together) and then these smaller parts someone attached. But I don’t understand how part 105 works, it appears to go between the two halves but there’s no notch to prevent part 105 causing a gap between 50 and 51. And now does 77 go on. Its diamond hole for the end of the 50/51 spare forces part 77 to go to the side. Can this be right? @Lukasvdb and @Blue Ensign do you remember this from your Le Superbe builds? Cheers.
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There are thirty-eight tiny rings per side that need to be clipped from the sprue and shaved down to a round profile. After have a few fly away from my tweezers and exhaustive sweeping to searching to recover them I devised the following. Using scrap sprue cuttings I ran a line through all seventy-six rings and then tied off the other end. This allowed me to trim and sand without fear and then prime all at once. In hindsight I should have used fishing line that wouldn’t fray but this seems fine.
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I just finished this book, Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/933602.Captain_Bligh_s_Portable_Nightmare An excellent read.
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Interesting resource.... https://threedecks.org/index.php
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Ships of the line, such as a 74-gun third-rate would carry more than 700 men. How far could one realistically sail one? One could reply, as far as the food and water lasted, but how far is that? Here’s James Cook’s final voyage, two small ships with a total of about 200 men. Did ships of the line ever sail to Australia, for example? How long could a ship of the line stay at sea before her water and food ran out?
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Upper deck guns installed. I’ll add some tackle ropes to those guns that are visible once the quarterdeck and forecastle deck are in place. I also now need to decide what colour to paint the interior of the hull on those two final decks.
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Upper gundeck CA glued. This Heller kit is poorly made in many respects, and the thin rail the deck sits on is definitely insufficient to mate up with the deck undersides. I’ve clamped it to make it work.
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Indeed, I think my Dragonforce DF95 is doing about 60 knots at scale. HMS Victory had a top speed of 11 knots (20 kph) or 20,000 meters per hour. This means a 1:150 scale model should have a speed of 133 meters per hour (20,000 / 150), or 220 cm per minute. But can you imagine sailing a model that took ten minutes to go out ten meters and and come back?
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Boomkin Bumkin Bumpkin Question
Admiral Beez replied to GaryKap's topic in Masting, rigging and sails
Thanks for this old post. I was wondering what the yellow spars on my bow were. Though I may need to paint them black or brown.
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Did my first attempt at weathering with acrylic paints today.
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I’ve now primed, painted and weather stained the upper gun deck. It’s a mix of AK’s Buff and Deck Tan for the deck, straight dark brown for the columns and deck eyes, then all covered in a clear satin spray topcoat, and finished with a very thin wash of straight black. I’m pleased with it and it will be sad to scrape it off to glue down the cannons. Since this deck is mostly not visible I used this as training for the quarterdeck and poop.
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Bows closed in and painted, anchor cables fitted, 18 pdr cannons puttied, painted and clear coated. Upper deck assembly now underway.
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I’m installing the lower deck cannons onto the deck. This required me scrape away paint and primer on both the deck and carriage wheels to ensure good glue adhesion (otherwise the bond is only as good as the paint’s bond to the primer, and the primer’s bond to the plastic). I realized after I affixed the first three cannons that I needed to clear coat seal the cannons, as the acrylic paint was coming off the barrels through my handling of the guns.
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I’ve drilled out one side and installed ropes for the gun port lids. I’ve omitted ropes (and lids) on the upper deck gun ports between the quarter deck and forecastle, as this matches what I see in models and paintings, but I may decided to put lids across all.
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Hull sides now completely painted. I realize I’ll need to cut out some ports on the poop deck for the carronades, but that’s a future worry. Edit, carronades aren’t on the poop, only the forecastle, so no port cuts needed. I’ll just swap out a few of the 12 pounders. Here’s the carronade my friend made for me on his vacuum former.
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Either my abilities with the Tamiya tape are wanting or my black paint was mixed too thin but I suffered some black incursion into my ochre stripes and copper. But it’s okay, fixed it with some free hand ochre and copper, and now it looks like a true wooden, weather worn ship. The lower gun deck cannons turned out nicely. I think the ochre carriages are a little too close in colour to the unpainted wheels (same colour as the deck), but we’ll see, maybe I’ll paint the wheels of the upper deck and quarter deck guns (they’re unpainted on HMS Victory). Next steps is to use a thin brush to touch up the black edges above and below the ochre stripes, finish painting and install the lower gun deck, install ropes through the drilled holes for the gun port lids. I left the upper hull unpainted as I was planning to paint some thin blue decorative trim lines (like here on HMS Vanguard, https://www.modelships.de/Vanguard/Photos-HMS-Vanguard_detail-views.htm), but I’ve decided to paint it black right to the upper edge and decorate it later.
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Plank lines scribed between gun ports. Copper above waterline now scraped away. Hull below waterline now coppered. I’m learning not to over dilute the paints as it takes many coats otherwise. Yellow ochre is more yellow than the Nelson orange I was expecting, but that’s fine, we’re not changing it now, and it will look sharp once I add black. Yellow ochre side strakes now painted, plus the hull sides of the interior of the lower and middle gun decks, like done on HMS Victory where the interior walls and carriages match the external strakes, like here https://c8.alamy.com/comp/F80MNG/lower-gun-deck-of-hms-victory-at-the-portsmouth-historic-dockyard-F80MNG.jpg The upper gun deck interiors will be black, maybe red, I’ll decide. The 32 pdr cannons are on toothpicks for painting. I’ll have to sharpen them for the small guns. The next step is the complete the lower gun deck. Unlike the upper decks, Heller omitted the plank lines. I may scribe these with a metal ruler, but I think this deck may not be visible.
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Hi B.E., I've now primed my cannons and carriages and am beginning to plan out their painting and assembly. How did you attach the tackle ropes to the side of the hull? I think you have small eyelets glued to the hull insides, what are those? Did you fabricate the tackle ropes for all cannons or just those that are visible? As for the ropes for the gun lids, what rope do you recommend? I have drilled out the hull for for the ropes that close the ports lids using a 0.6 mm bit. I want to tie knots so I assume fishing line is out. Plus I want that yellow, running rigging colour. This is new technique for me so any advice is welcome, thanks.
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Now scraping the excess copper above the waterline down with a curved blade. Once done I’ll be sanding the hull between the gun ports so that I can scribe the plank lines, as we want to see them under the ochre paint. I’ll also be drilling the holes for the gun port lid ropes, this includes drilling through the wales (the reinforcing fore/aft planks), as shown in this book of plans for HMS Bellona. I also noticed after priming that my 18 pounders need more sanding of the raised circles on the upper sides of the barrels. The 24 and 32 pounders look fine. That’s the upside of priming as it reveals imperfections that you’ll want to fix before final paint.
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Thirty 32 pdr cannons puttied and sanded, now drilling out muzzles. Carriages sanded and now primed (thanks to bathroom fan ventilation). Once I have these all done I’ll do the same for the 24 pdr and 18 pdr cannons. A friend (building the same kit) is also vacuum forming me some cannonades, since the French didn’t use them.
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