willz

finished the wales on the port side and lower gunports linings, shoved in the cannons

cut the wales with the jig, stuck em on, 

the last picture shows one of the orbs surrounding the crown has also chipped off but even with 20 20 eyesight its hard to spot with the naked eye. I would of liked to make the top bands thinner but I think the risk is too great
 
 
cheers lads and lasses
Willlz
 
 

yes Toni, the step by step does show that its possible to complete a complicated piece, as you can see all the different stages dont look that difficult and are quite rough, but when you get to the end and clean the piece up it looks like a master carvers work!!!!!
   I use two types of blades Cog, the stanley blade (my favourite) and one with the steel back edge, i would like to point out that i do shape my blades to suit the job in hand, heres a couple of pics of my designer blades, I buy them in packs of 100 so I dont feel limited when grinding out new ones, as you can see in the pics i do like a rounded end, depending on what your doing I feel it easier to cut a line by rolling the blade rather than trying to cut into it, this does depend on the cut though.
 
anyhow cheers all
 
 
rules there is no rules

ok Chuck, dont have much in the line for leaners. but anything i put on my blog can be of help to beginners, they dont and shouldn`t dive in at my level but they can always look in, this is my free advice, and i know when i was learning i searched everywhere for everything on carving and to be honest there wasn`t much!!. So with no further ado here`s the different stages on my HMS Victory sheild

hi Moxis, dont have much on the main emblem on the stern, but found a few pics finishing the left hand side as you look at it,  as i go i use a wet toothbrush for cleaning the piece

another one with a match
 
 
 
rules there is no rules

this is the marked point where i started the teethy things. so when you look at the finished band it looks perfectly symmetrical, and its not bad, but any discrepancy would be at the centre hidden behind the main emblem
 
 
rules there is no rules

I havent posted on here for over a year but my build is still going, it is my first scratch build, a 1/72 HMS Victory. My problem lies in the lack of challenge, It all started with a monthly subscription of the AL HMS Victory 6 years ago, it was well advertised in Britain. Started the kit along with many others at the time on a slowly but surly monthly build, time went by and I started to feel a lack of challenge that I was expecting from the kit, so I bought McKay`s book and jumped into a scratch build.
I decided to make it at 1/72 simply because I could buy 3rd party cannons anchors and all the stuff I couldn`t make, as I merrily carried on with my build not hitting any problems. So I decided to have a go at making the cannons, turned them out of ebony and found yep I can do that.
So thinking a little deeper I split the cannons in two so I could build the entire cannons on every deck then remove the bit of the barrel that sticks out any replace it when the build is finished. Then my old mate the LACK OF CHALLENGE was again tapping on my shoulder so OK going to have a go at carving the stern decorations and again did that, next carved the figure head, built a the barge with anchor and oars and again no challenge, so as the challenges fall so does my enthusiasm.
 
So advice for a beginner… dont think one day, right gonna build a wooden model ship, no keep the idea in your head and let your enthusiasm grow, and when your really keen and ready thats the time to jump in, as for the rules there is none. Pick as big a scale as you can this makes the detail much easier but keep in mind the space you need to build it, another point is the time it will take to finish the build, the longer it takes the more your mind will go through different phases, so I think a 3 to 6 month build would be ideal, one last point and I use this one, is if you find you need a break, cover you build up with a towel, this stops you catching sight of your model on a regular basis, then when your ready to start again, you will find removing the cover will give the model a fresh look..
 

Had a break and starting to delve back into it !!! Started to tackle the ships wales ! found this very tricky on a natural finish ship. I’m using two types on wood to create the striped pattern, the difficulty lies in the fact that the stripes don’t follow the wales, so ended up splicing some of the anchor stock shaped wales together ( the ones that overlap the striped pattern), one photo shows one centre wale spliced and the other shows the same wale fitted .

the last picture shows one of the orbs surrounding the crown has also chipped off but even with 20 20 eyesight its hard to spot with the naked eye. I would of liked to make the top bands thinner but I think the risk is too great
 
 
cheers lads and lasses
Willlz
 
 

Next I cut some tamiya masking tape to the desired thickness and stuck it on the top to act as a guide for cutting. Then having the basic shape I just carried on with stanley blades and my dremel to get the the stage shown in the last photo, still work in progress but no need to go mad at this scale
 

This is how I went about carving the crown, first I shaped it in the lathe, the lathe I use is a metal working lathe, so I dont have a tool steady, so I gently shaped it using stanley blades.  i have a lot of experience with this  machine but i would not advise anyone to try this method without a tool steady

your carvings look fine to me Chuck. but i have no idea how you can finish them whilst still on a mounting board, how can you get the roundness at the edges, as i said on my post i dont use mounting boards, heres a pic of my Vic stern carving, it is slightly less the 1/32 thick but not much, as for the finish i just scrape my blade sideways to smooth it out, when we are dealing with carvings as delicate as these we have to reach a equilibrium to are own satisfaction, and by the way i dont have big fingers
 
 
rules there is no rules

the last picture shows one of the orbs surrounding the crown has also chipped off but even with 20 20 eyesight its hard to spot with the naked eye. I would of liked to make the top bands thinner but I think the risk is too great
 
 
cheers lads and lasses
Willlz
 
 

Next I cut some tamiya masking tape to the desired thickness and stuck it on the top to act as a guide for cutting. Then having the basic shape I just carried on with stanley blades and my dremel to get the the stage shown in the last photo, still work in progress but no need to go mad at this scale
 

This is how I went about carving the crown, first I shaped it in the lathe, the lathe I use is a metal working lathe, so I dont have a tool steady, so I gently shaped it using stanley blades.  i have a lot of experience with this  machine but i would not advise anyone to try this method without a tool steady

the last picture shows one of the orbs surrounding the crown has also chipped off but even with 20 20 eyesight its hard to spot with the naked eye. I would of liked to make the top bands thinner but I think the risk is too great
 
 
cheers lads and lasses
Willlz
 
 

whilst I was carving the two grooves in the bands at the top of the crownd I had a bit of a disaster !! Chipped a small lump out of one of the top bands, bit fed up about it but its not that easy to spot with the naked eye so going to have to live with it. I should have grooved the bands before hollowing them out 

Next I cut some tamiya masking tape to the desired thickness and stuck it on the top to act as a guide for cutting. Then having the basic shape I just carried on with stanley blades and my dremel to get the the stage shown in the last photo, still work in progress but no need to go mad at this scale
 

This is how I went about carving the crown, first I shaped it in the lathe, the lathe I use is a metal working lathe, so I dont have a tool steady, so I gently shaped it using stanley blades.  i have a lot of experience with this  machine but i would not advise anyone to try this method without a tool steady

the last picture shows one of the orbs surrounding the crown has also chipped off but even with 20 20 eyesight its hard to spot with the naked eye. I would of liked to make the top bands thinner but I think the risk is too great
 
 
cheers lads and lasses
Willlz
 
 

the last picture shows one of the orbs surrounding the crown has also chipped off but even with 20 20 eyesight its hard to spot with the naked eye. I would of liked to make the top bands thinner but I think the risk is too great
 
 
cheers lads and lasses
Willlz
 
 

Next I cut some tamiya masking tape to the desired thickness and stuck it on the top to act as a guide for cutting. Then having the basic shape I just carried on with stanley blades and my dremel to get the the stage shown in the last photo, still work in progress but no need to go mad at this scale
 

the last picture shows one of the orbs surrounding the crown has also chipped off but even with 20 20 eyesight its hard to spot with the naked eye. I would of liked to make the top bands thinner but I think the risk is too great
 
 
cheers lads and lasses
Willlz