Craigie65

I am going quite slow at the moment for me. I might have to build another fishing boat in the new year before I get the Indy kit.🤣

Slow down Glenn!  It’s at least 2 months before you get your Indy.
 
This one is looking good and will be a nice addition to your fleet.

Slow down Glenn!  It’s at least 2 months before you get your Indy.
 
This one is looking good and will be a nice addition to your fleet.

I might even beat Glenn to the order-button, depending on our respective time zones 🙂
I literally began to stroke the spines of my books (I nowadays own a set of five bound books with all novels in it) - but I digress...
There were figures of Aubry an Maturin mentioned in an earlier post by Chris. I began to visualize them, sitting at the stern, playing music together. This would be a wonderful touch, as it symbolizes the heart of their friendship. Now I bet all of you have this silent movie in your head, the long, endless voyages in the south sea -  impossible to unthink 🙂 .
Cheers,
Gregor
 

Thank you for all your comments, they are appreciated.
 
I did state from the start that I finally wanted to develop stuff I always wanted to do, for the main developments at least, and the scale would be constant.
 
When working for others, there were so many developments that were started but never finished, or finished but never released. At least now I can state with 100% certainty that what I now start, it is finished to the bitter end and released.
 
I have enough subjects in my 'Future Projects' folder to last at least a decade. I have to be mindful of the very large models, as a 1st to 3rd rate is a 1.5-2 year development cycle, a lot of time and money, more so if they are designed with full deck/s detail, and not the standard fare of block models and dummy barrels (If the latter, I have little doubt I could develop 8-10 kits like that per year, and make more money - but no fun and not bringing kit fidelity/design quality forward)
 
After Indy, I have this US privateer schooner, and after that, I may do a small kit before Surprise, which should be complete next year. Anyway, that is my plan for the next 10-12 months....
 
ETA - I haven't forgot Bristol, it is another large kit, so I need to wait just a little longer - I shall probably have a figurehead and stern decoration made for her sister, Leopard, too, so you can have a choice.

OK, finally, Indefatigable pre order is now live:
 
HMS Indefatigable – 1794 – VANGUARD MODELS
 
The first batch will be ready to ship mid-late February.

I have placed my order and looking forward to the challenge of lifting the big heavy box from the courier to my shipyard. Seriously I am excited about the challenge of building the indy.

017 - Getting Ready for the Rigging Phase and Sails
 After carefully adding a slot on the starboard side for the bowsprit it is was glued in place.

With regards to the next photo, the blue arrow shows where I went a bit off line with the drill when adding the cleat. This will be touched up. The yellow arrow shows the opened up anchor hole.

Some of my surplus pear wood deadeyes were added to the strops and placed in the channels. I will add the pins when I ready to rig the shroud lines.

With regards to the shroud lines and forestay I have made a start and these lines area ready to be rigged, which will be later as I need to add the main sail to the main mast.

I dyed the sails using a cocoa brown dye which was the same process I used for the Erycina. I then added the topsail to the top yard / top mast. It is possible to move the top yard/sail up and down the top mast so it's final position can be set later on.

Here is a picture of all the sails in roughly the right position. I am very happy with the sail colour.

 
 

OK, I streamlined the pricing options and now have the box details for shipping.
 
Here are the prices:
 
VM/12           HMS INDEFATIGABLE  (February 2023 Release)                                                                                              £1350
VM/12/Box    HMS INDEFATIGABLE  Boxwood Planking (This replaces all pearwood and red alder planking (Decks)        £1800
VM12/D1       HMS INDEFATIGABLE  Laser engraved deck set (Very Limited supply - Red alder planking still included)     £120
VM12/CP01   HMS INDEFATIGABLE  PE copper plate set (Including rudder shape PE)_                                                        £150
VM/12/PB      HMS INDEFATIGABLE  Pear block and deadeye set (This set replaces the standard set)                                 £140
 
Box details:
Box weight – 14.5kg
 
Length – 990mm
Width – 370mm
Depth – 195mm
 
The box weight is well over double that of even Sphinx. The box dimensions are those for the shipping sleeve. I wanted to keep the length under 1 metre, as I know some postage rates go up a lot past this point.

015 - Gunwales and Rudder
Time for another Saucy jack update. I have now fitted the belay pin racks, deadeye channels, gunwales and rudder assembly to the hull. The first couple of photos shows the current build state of the Saucy Jack. She is now ready to have all the deck items added. The various pieces of PE parts (eyebolts, belaying pins, hooks, strops, etc.) are currently being cleaned in hot soapy water and acetone baths so they can be blackened.

The next photo is shows the gunwales in place.

The next photo is a close up of the tiller and stern area.

The one area I am not totally happy with is the stern counter pattern area, as can be seen in the next photo. I tried to be clever with the engraved Saucy Jack by adding a red infill. It almost worked.
I did paint the inner stern area black, which I think made a big difference, noting the odd splash of unwanted black paint on the deck, which I might be able to clean off.

The next photo shows the the left side belay pin rack in place. As mentioned in an earlier post I think painting the inner bulwark support patterns black was a good choice.

The final photo in this post shows left side channel, which has been pinned and glued in place.

The furniture really enhances the kit. It looks fabulous. Thanks to Chris.

Will the furniture also be a separate order?
 

Furniture is standard. Use it, or not! 

Nice update!
 
OK, I can now finally give hard details about release dates and costs.
 
All of the production for Indy is now fully complete, photo etched brass, all castings and laser cut parts. Production started at the start of this year, but I have had to produce a lot of our existing kits in between.
 
The time for each kit for laser cut parts is nine and a half hours. This is only for actual laser cutting time, and does not include removing and setting up each batch of material on the laser table (plus laser/extractor maintenance etc.), so the real time would be more like 11-12 hours dedicated to each kit for laser cutting. There are a total of 51 individual laser cut sheets, and with the (very limited) engraved deck option, 53 sheets and an hour added to that overall cutting time. This is all done on my large laser machine, and for the main construction parts, materials twice the size of Sphinx.
 
Pricing:
 
VM/12               HMS INDEFATIGABLE - £1350
VM/12/PB         HMS INDEFATIGABLE  Machined Pear block and deadeye set - £140
VM/12/Box        HMS INDEFATIGABLE  Boxwood Planking set -£450
VM12/D1          HMS INDEFATIGABLE  Laser engraved deck set -£120
VM12/CP01      HMS INDEFATIGABLE  PE copper plate set  -£150
 
I have stock for 50 kits. (Complete kits with all masting and rigging materials, as usual)
 
For the pearwood block and deadeye set, I have 30 sets in stock.
 
The boxwood planking option includes all hull planking strip, including deck planking, in boxwood. Right now, I have ordered enough for 5 kits, but 2 of the 5 have already been pre ordered. If people want this, I will order more. This is due in January
 
The laser engraved deck option is very limited, due to the sheer amount of scrap wood not suitable for the job. I was meant to have at lease 30 sets, but only have 8.
 
The PE copper option will be available by the time of the kit launch, but is now quite expensive, and did not include in the kit for this reason (copper tape is included, and is what Jim will use). I was not sure I could even get this until a week ago.
 
The kit will be available for pre order next week, with the actual release being mid-late February

Time for an update here.
 
The hull was varnished and sanded back a couple of times, helping to seal any open grain before applying paint. This was instead of using a primer, which you can of course use. Yellow ochre was then applied. I used Humbrol Linen as I wasn't in possession of the VM acrylic paint at the time. This paint was airbrushed over the hull and rubbed back successive times over a week or so, to make sure I'd got it right and it looked reasonably homogenous. The reason for painting all of this in ochre was that it's easier to see any fault areas that needed fixing up, before applying black paint.

 
 
The hull was then painstakingly masked off before applying black. It's always tricky cutting a mask line across the longitudinal rail, and this took a few bits of touching up to get right. The effort is worth it though. The rails were also then painted in ochre and the gun ports touched up again after ochre overspray. 



 
 
I used a Prismacolor silver pencil to add a waterline on the hull, and made sure this was a few millimetres below the eventual one. The plan is to then use that as a guide and copper above it. Once coppered, I'll add another regular pencil line at the correct height and score a line along it before removing the copper tape above the waterline.

 
 
 
A 50m roll of 6mm self-adhesive copper tape is included. This is reduced down into 18mm lengths. It sure does take some time, so I recommend a tool like this for making them. Each plate is exactly the same length and with perfectly square ends. 


 
 
Ok, it's about time to start coppering this hull...
 

With a bit of sanding the bare wood finish might have been ok. I really liked the red oxide used on the Eyrcina below the water line with a white strip above, so I'm just extending this a bit for the Saucy Jack. I've not thought about the stern painting as yet. I have a good set of paint brushes, so hopefully with a bit care I will be OK. Time will tell.

She’s looking great Glenn. I found the planking on this boat harder than all the other Vanguard fishing boats, except the Zulu with her raked stern post (and I’ve yet to build Ranger). Luckily I think I just about got away with the bare wood above the waterline without filling (although plenty below). Probably wouldn’t have met the exacting standards of the more experienced builders on here, but I was happy.
 
I really look forward to seeing the colour scheme - she’ll look very different. How will you paint the etched lettering on the stern? I struggled with that. 

Titebond Original (with map pins) is good as it grips fairly quickly. Also Super Phatic is a good fast gripoing glue which is a mix of wood and super glue. I will check out Veloset, thanks for the heads up.

I use Veloset, which is a relatively fast setting woodglue.  Find it gives you plenty of time to work the part, but sets quickly enough to see some progress. I buy it from Wonderland Models in Edinburgh, but I am sure it must be available elsewhere.

Hi Glenn,
I found the planking on this one a bit more challenging.  Did you taper the planks as well as edge bend? I struggle with getting the taper right.  Each time I think I understand where I have gone wrong, but by the time I am ready to plank a new model I have forgotten the lessons learned.  
 
Looking forward to seeing the colours you have chosen. 

I use Veloset, which is a relatively fast setting woodglue.  Find it gives you plenty of time to work the part, but sets quickly enough to see some progress. I buy it from Wonderland Models in Edinburgh, but I am sure it must be available elsewhere.

I will have an update here by weekend. 
 
Prepping and painting the hull has taken an inordinate amount of time for me, and I want it under poly varnish before I post my WIP.
 
Just a couple days or so now. 

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I think you are secretly holding out for the Indy 😉
 
I will pull up the proverbial chair and follow along.

Looking good!