marktiedens

A little update - decided to start the second planking. I chose not to use the supplied mahogany planking below the lower whales. I had some leftover walnut from another kit & decided to use it.the planking on the real ship is varied with all kinds of different length & width planks with lots of scarph joints so I thought I would show some of them - not all - there`s just too many.The planking at the bow is especially odd with lots of odd shaped short planks.
 

 

 

 
As odd as the bow planking is there are only 2 stealers at the stern!
 
/Mark

The beak decking was straightforward.  I used mahogany instead of the kit-supplied wood because I wanted it to match the hull.
 

 
Here's a picture where you can see the side supports for the prow in place.  It's nice and stable now.
 

 

 

A little update - decided to start the second planking. I chose not to use the supplied mahogany planking below the lower whales. I had some leftover walnut from another kit & decided to use it.the planking on the real ship is varied with all kinds of different length & width planks with lots of scarph joints so I thought I would show some of them - not all - there`s just too many.The planking at the bow is especially odd with lots of odd shaped short planks.
 

 

 

 
As odd as the bow planking is there are only 2 stealers at the stern!
 
/Mark

A little update - decided to start the second planking. I chose not to use the supplied mahogany planking below the lower whales. I had some leftover walnut from another kit & decided to use it.the planking on the real ship is varied with all kinds of different length & width planks with lots of scarph joints so I thought I would show some of them - not all - there`s just too many.The planking at the bow is especially odd with lots of odd shaped short planks.
 

 

 

 
As odd as the bow planking is there are only 2 stealers at the stern!
 
/Mark

A little update - decided to start the second planking. I chose not to use the supplied mahogany planking below the lower whales. I had some leftover walnut from another kit & decided to use it.the planking on the real ship is varied with all kinds of different length & width planks with lots of scarph joints so I thought I would show some of them - not all - there`s just too many.The planking at the bow is especially odd with lots of odd shaped short planks.
 

 

 

 
As odd as the bow planking is there are only 2 stealers at the stern!
 
/Mark

I understand your frustration - I was at the same point in my previous build. I also removed those pin rails on mine. I am only going to move forward on my current build & not back track - if I happen to get something wrong then so be it . If I wanted it perfect then I would do something like hand carve all the figures .At this scale that would be nearly impossible.
 
/Mark

Hey all! Here are some pictures of the shrouds:
 

 

 

 
Quite enjoyable stage of the build, and changes the look of the model alot, at least in my eyes.
 
The ratlines will be testing my nerves though Im sure...
 
 
/Matti
 
 

Using dark brown rigging line, I wrapped the 2 large eyes for the anchors

 
Painted the anchors and assembled the stocks

 
Rigged the large anchor line and attached to the large eyes.

 
Took the blocks and added the hooks and wrapped with darkened thin metal straps

 
Added wrapped line to only one of the anchors. This is for the starboard side anchor, which I will show being hoisted up with davit. (I will have the port anchor shown in a stored position)

 
Rigged a double block to the starboard davit

 
I will mount the anchors soon and try to have an update early next week
 
Thanks,
Frank
 

I started working on my anchors for the ship.
(Sorry for the quality of some of the pictures. I was never good at photography!!)
 
The first thing I did was remake the anchor stocks. I did not like the ones that came with the kit. I remade them using walnut.

 
Drilled some small holes for the tree nails (Used the old anchor stocks for this illustration)

 
Using my tree nail tool, I cut some square stock of lighter wood and ran it thru the tool to make it round.

 
Glued and press fit into the anchor stock (Used the old anchor stocks for this illustration)

 
Sanded down flush on walnut stocks

 
Added the blackened nails to each side

Build log part 62
 
 
a Little update....
 
 
Nils

Mark,
 
 
Thanks for the info. That, it seems to me, will make it even harder for the smaller rear towers to rise up enough to overlap the lower parts of the upper galleries as we have been discussing. It will be interesting to see how you figure that one out, allowing enough room for the standing stern guards.
 
PS: Fred has also just sent me a post indicating that the quarterdeck pinrails should not be there. “The museum got it wrong”, he said. You can check that out at the Vasa specific site, at my build postings. So, I just removed mine, and it left scars grrrrrrrrrr. He also discusses what should be there instead.
 
PS: No I am not rebuilding my towers.
 
This will be an ongoing problem with this ship as new data are turned up and subsequent changes to our builds are needed.
 
Enough already (:-) I'm just going to move forward from now on. My log is already SO filled with "going backwards” tearing out and making fixes. I'm now done with that. And as you said maybe six members here out of the more than ten thousand would even know the differences, and errors........
 
As Fred had mentioned last year there is some interest for a new kit that may be in its development stages. One that is 100% based on Vasa’s 1/1 current info inclusive of 3D/cad computer renderings. I say current info because the way this ship is "changing" I can just imagine after this kit "is released???" the museum will find more areas where they got it wrong.
 
Just going to have fun moving forward, not sideways, and definitely not backwards anymore. Pulling out those two pinrails that left scars is the last change for me.
 
I will however absolutely highly regard member’s suggestions for how to get this right in regard to nautical accuracy. Nigel, B.E, Ferit as well as some kind other members have been so gracious in offering their guidance as I move along.
 
Big thanks to the nice people, who click, or post comments. I need this project to be fun, not an exercise in frustration J
 
Sorry for the long post, but I needed to vent as well
 
PS: I do very much believe, however, that seeking the most accurate build possible is a wonderful goal that I wholeheartedly support. I'm only writing for myself here, certainly out of frustration. And Corel's is the furthest from what should be Oh well..
 
Regards,
 
Michael

Hello Michael
I got an answer from Fred at the museum about the sizes of the towers. They are different sizes - the front one is 2.12 meters in diameter & the rear one is 1.5 so I will stay with the parts that the kit came with . Sorry about the bad news.I still think yours is really nice & would not change it.After all,no one will know but you & me,right?
 
regards,Mark

Hola:
 
Before going into the sailing process I decided to finish the anchor fittings.  Here some pictures:
 
For the first step it was necessary to do the blocks due that the ones included in the kit seems not the appropriate.  To accomplish this I used a little piece of redwood, brass wire obscured with Black Patina (the one used to the lead in staining glass) and the metal strap for the pulley was made with a paper strip painted black.

 
The second step was to fix the anchor ropes. Here you can see the little pieces of wire in the opposite side of the anchor that were used to fix them inside the anchor ports

 
And finally, installing the anchors in its place. This was done according to the BB instruction manual, except I added little wood caps in the extremes of the anchor davits.  I made this because the ropes tended to slip off the pulleys due to the low weight of the kit anchors (in the original this did not happen due the great weight of the anchors)

 
Thanks for your comments and likes.
 
Saludos, Karl
 
 

Hi Mates,
 
Continuing with the bow anchor cathead details, now turning to their needed kevels.
 
It turns out that I had built and installed a second pair that was at one time attached to the quarter-deck, turns out that this was incorrect (see first two pics).
 
 An early Vasa museum plans set (1980) showed two sets per side at that location, as did Landsröm. A second plan set dated 1981 had one set removed. I communicated with Fred Hocker, who indicated that the ’81 set had been corrected.
 
So the two kevels were just lying around, how convenient; shortened them for use at the bow railing, and just added a framing bit for attaching.
 
After gluing, then drilled small holes and inserted black fishing filament to simulate the needed nails.
 
The brilliant fishing line idea is not mine but belongs to one of our MSW members; apologetically I don’t remember whom (I did post a notation on his build log at the time of seeing his very clever idea)
 
Inserted the lines from the rear and left the front ends just a tad proud to simulate nail heads-sort of J
 
G-S cement is perfect for this task. If there were a bit of glue that travelled through the hole to the front end, after a few moments it can be removed with your thumb nail or tweezers, pulls completely off as would rubber cement. LOVE this glue! It has proved to be so versatile. Ferit thank you Again!! You found this.
 
Hint: I attempted to just “hack of" the front tips of the black filament to adjust them, but the blade snagged them and some resulted in angled cuts. Solution was to actually use the razor blade as a slicer moving the blade as I cut. Worked very nicely allowing for a nice clean flat cut. PS: Exacto type blade not up to the task.
 
--------------------
 
Thanks for your “likes”, dropping in for a look, as well as the very welcome supportive suggestions and comments J
 
Regards, as always
 
Michael

Here are some photos of the wales.  Most of the job was straightforward, particularly since the sweep of the hull planks was correct, so the wales just needed to follow the planking.  Another good reason to have scratched the bulwarks.  
 

 
The compound curves at the front meant spiling planks for the wales, just as for the hull planks.  I used scarf joints for the wales though, and then scribed joints at regular intervals along the rest of each wale.
 

 
The rear of the wales as they hit the quarter gallery framing.
 

 
Next up was the quarter galleries, which were...difficult.

Hello MSW Great stuff this build log . What I would like to see is an aftermarket upgrade - or let us say a "downgrade" - for the Victory to build her in an older configuration before 1800 with the balconies on the stern and so on as seen on some pictures. just an idea regards ludger

Thanks for the info.I have been studying the few pictures there are of a side view of the galleries as a whole. Maybe it`s the camera angle,but if you look closely at  the first picture of your last post the front one does look a little larger. I am going to ask about those towers on the Vasa forum just to be sure.Thanks again!
 
/Mark

Thanks Karl - I like how it came out.  Here are some pictures of the clinker-style planking above the main deck line.  Fairly easy to do once you have the top wale in place.  The wale was easy to install because my scratched bulwarks followed the deck line, so the hull planking did as well, and to install the wale I just followed the hull planking.  Everything following everything else :-).  I did have to replace the wale because I made it too wide and the spacing for the wales below it wasn't quite right.
 

 
The only real issue was being very careful about opening the round gun ports because the veneer had a bad tendency to split.  
 

 
I added scratched pieces of very narrow (1mm) veneer painted white at the top.  Note the rearmost gun port - it is a half-port and I think I'm going to mess with it some and make it fully round, but lower.  The kit supplies an odd looking carriage for that gun - looks like an artillery carriage.  Since I want to replace it with something correct, I can make sure at the same time that the gun is in line with the port at its new location.
 

 

Michael - thanks for your thoughts.I think that anything I do will be a compromise. I had hoped to get Billing`s better figures  to mix & match with Corel`s but they are not available separate from the kit. At this point I will probably be more concerned with construction details than accuracy of the figures.Thinking about it maybe all 3 Vasa kit manufacturers could get together & make one nice kit as a joint project!
Not likely.
 
/Mark

Thanks Matti!  I'm pleased with how the hull came out - the single planking design felt a bit like a tightrope without a net - any mistakes would be very visible.
 
Here are a couple of pictures of the hull after it was sanded, filled, and stained.  I had to use a darker mahogany stain to cover the different shades of wood I used - the strip stock and the wide stock for spiled planks.
 
I ended up scribing a butt pattern on the strip wood.  It matches with the actual butts between the spiled and strip planks.  Just use an X-acto knife once or twice to make a cut, then use the back of it to enlarge the cut slightly.  Do it before staining, and the stain fills the scribed mark with a slightly darker cast.  The effect is pretty good.  I realize the real ship used scarf joints for all the hull planks and didn't really have a pattern to them, but I wanted a pattern and I didn't want to make hundreds of scarf joints.
 

 
Here you can see the area where the spiled planks meet the strip planks.  The two shades are pretty well merged; another coat or two of stain on the front and it should be fine.  Much of the area just below the lower row of gun ports will be covered with the four wales, so the planks in that area didn't need to be shifted like the ones below the lowest wale.
 

 

Today I received the blocks in 3, 4, 5 en 7mm
I orderded these by clasicmodel.com
 

 

 

 
first impression looks very good so I can now continue

the last days some small points done, today I painted the doors
 

Beautiful work.  I too had issues with the back lower turret in the Billings kit.  Lots of reshaping required.  It's interesting to see how two manufacturers (Billings and Corel) interpret the same ship differently - I wonder what the design process was like.  What I'd love to see is 3D scans of the original ship used to create something really accurate, but I'm sure cost would be prohibitive.
 
mark

I have decided to continue on with the Corel version of the Vasa which I started about a year and a half ago.I got as far as the first planking done & set it aside while I continued working on the Sergal kit. I have fixed a couple of things so far. I re-sized the upper row of gunports as I cut them too big to start with . Also I the slant to the companionway roofs - the kit had them flat. I also re-did the lower stern to be more square.One more thing I noticed after glueing on the false deck was there were no openings for the knighthead behind the main mast or the ladder behind the fore mast so I had to make them.
 

 

 

 

 
/Mark

I have decided to continue on with the Corel version of the Vasa which I started about a year and a half ago.I got as far as the first planking done & set it aside while I continued working on the Sergal kit. I have fixed a couple of things so far. I re-sized the upper row of gunports as I cut them too big to start with . Also I the slant to the companionway roofs - the kit had them flat. I also re-did the lower stern to be more square.One more thing I noticed after glueing on the false deck was there were no openings for the knighthead behind the main mast or the ladder behind the fore mast so I had to make them.
 

 

 

 

 
/Mark