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chris watton

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Everything posted by chris watton

  1. What you could do now is start planking from the bottom to the top, this may make the run of the planks a little less severe. For a bow like Adder's, I did taper more than I usually do for each plank, less than half width at the front, so more, perhaps 75%. There are only 12 planks per side, so not too bad.
  2. This is one of the pics I took when visting Victory, for research when developing Amati 64th scale version. Gun port linings are top and sides, and not lower ledge.
  3. You did indeed, almost out of these and I cannot get anymore for the time being, with Russia being a sanctioned country.
  4. This picture of one of the bevelled and edge bent 1x5mm strips is from the Sherbourne manual. No tools were used except a Stanley Knife and steel rule for the taper after just a little soaking, and then while still wet, the bend was manipulated using just my fingers. I use this method for most bending, even for the huge Amati Victory hull. Loking at your second plank down, it doesn't seem to have enough taper at the front. My basic rule of thumb is always taper to half the planks width, and then ease off a little once then planks start to run a little more naturally further down.
  5. Regarding the rear most bulkhead, I decided to remove the tab at the end of the longitudinal brace, as it would have been too difficult to slot into place. I should have deleted the holes in the pear stern, but forgot – but they are not at all important to the overall assembly, just surplus. When designing in CAD, on the PC, designs look great - but sometimes, they do not work so well when put into practice. The stern tabs was one such example.
  6. Sherbourne actually only carried 6 x 3-pounders, with the last three ports per side the likely homes for these cannon. But people always think every single port opening must be populated with cannon - this was very rarely the case. (I have seen many models burdened with so many cannon where they shouldn't really be, that if the ship pitched in heavy weather, it would just keep heading down to the bottom of the sea) I really wanted to give the official numbers for armament, but I know I would receive countless emails telling me I didn't add enough for all the gun ports....
  7. To those who have bought a Sherbourne kit, I have just noticed an issue with one in every eight laser etched decks. If you have the deck on the left of the picture, with the bitt square hole not aligned like it is on the right of the picture, please contact me so that I can arrange a replacement deck.
  8. Actually, no. I used the AotS Diana for those, coupled with James Lees The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War 1625-1860. No Victory references were used at all for Indy.
  9. Nice thread. I have found that I have a 99% success rate by positioning the barrels almost vertital (with slight tilt). This minimises the areas for the supports, as commercial products would not look too great if the customer had to file/sand off all the support 'poc marks' the whole length of the barrel. It may take longer to print, but this is offset somewhat by the increased number of barrels that will fit on the build plate, and they will have much less clean up. Also, in the Winter months, I will have my oil heater on, and I have the tub of resin and build plate sitting on top of the heater overnight, so in the morning, both are nice and warm.
  10. Grecian is a kit I would consider 'Medium Size', with a hull length of over 500mm (vessels with a main deck length of around 100 feet, give or take a few feet). Speedy and Duchess would be Small/Medium, and Sphinx Medium/Large.
  11. Just an update on what I am doing right now, and what is planned for the next year. I did mean to have a couple of weeks off after Sherbourne and Adder, but cannot help myself, so started designs for the 17th kit. The next two kits will be medium size. The one I am working on now, once designed and plans drawn, will be built by Jim, along photos and text for manual. This then frees me up to concentrate on the 18th medium kit – so after a very large kit like Indy, there will have been 3 mediums and 3 smaller kits done. After this, the 19th kit will be large, and hopefully, we will have moved to larger premises by then, as space is a major issue now – so another very large kit like Indy is out of the question until we have more space. Also slowly building back up my stock of materials, pear sheet especially, and photo etched sheets for each of the kits. Finally, I already mentioned this, I would like to commission someone to produce more 3-d printed boat files for me – if you feel you can/want do this, let me know.
  12. The website will always be a work in progress, as it is constantly updated and more products added - it is quite the job to keep on top of it. I would like a tick list for each kit on their product page, so you could tick the kit and however many extras are associated with that kit, but all of this takes time, and as James mentions, the site he inherited was a complete mess and has taken a lot of time to sort out from the ground up.
  13. Tie the two side deadeyes with a single rope, and the lower deadeyes with a single rope each, then the heart blocks with a single rope each - I should have made the drawing clearer, as they all look like the same length of thread.
  14. Well, when designing Speedy back then, it was more like a legacy type kit, as the laser cut wood was was to be limewood and sub contracted, and some Amati fittings, like ladders. I think only 20 were made like that before I realised I wanted better....
  15. OK, Plans and manuals for both Adder and Sherbourne are now at the printers, and I have been told they will be delivered to me by the end of next week. So now I can open for pre orders. Adder: HM Gun Brig Adder – 1797 – VANGUARD MODELS Sherbourne: HM Armed Cutter Sherbourne – 1763 – VANGUARD MODELS
  16. I kept the PE cap squares just in case some modellers preferred to use them, instead of the now intergrated caps. I never liked the PE caps, sometimes way too fiddly, more so on the smaller size guns (and so easily lost)!- but I leave it up the individual modeller to choose, rather than taking that choice away completely. There was room of the new PE to keep them, so I did.
  17. Cheers! But just had over 80kg of photo etched brass sheets arrive for kits, boats and cannon (ordered last September)! So no rest for the wicked...
  18. OK, plans, manual and box label all now fully complete for Sherbourne. Was up all night completing manual, and then the box label this morning. Gonna have a couple of weeks off now..
  19. I would guess that the manufacturer updated some of the parts from wood strip to laser cut, but have never updated the instructions to tell you this. It is a kit that has been on the market for decades.
  20. The wooden hoops are never shown because scaled down to 64th, they would be less than 0.6mm wide (1.5 " or 38.1mm wide full size).
  21. It is always a balancing act with prices. For these, I decided to subsidise them even more than I usually do, Sherbourne especially, in the hope they will attract newcomers and other modellers who haven't yet tried one of these VM kits and have no clue about the materials that make up the kits - hoping the dividend will be more people taking up the hobby, rather than being permanently put off. Prices will have to be higher in the future, though, as pear and PE brass have just risen very sharply, but I had the materials and PE before the price hikes for both Adder and Sherbourne. The cost of PE brass especially has just gone through the roof. Adder was almost abandoned last year, as I wasn’t sure how popular it would be (and the costs of producing these is great), so started to do Sherbourne instead. But as I kept looking at Adder, it grew on me, and ended up looking so much better than I had hoped.
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