Charter33

Thank you Michael for your kind comments.  Haven't visited my log for quite some time.  
 
Finally I received the case and the table.  First I had ordered the acrylic case and had to wait to have it in hand  before I ordered the table as I had to have the exact dimensions to cut the groove on the table surface to take the case.  This took quite some time as its becoming quite difficult to find a carpenter to do something custom made.
 
 
Acrylic case and table ready to take HMS Victory.


 
 
Stands in place to take the ship with holes drilled through the table,  The two end ones to take the threaded rods from the keel and bolted from under the table to keep it in place and the middle one to pass the wires from the keel to the power supply under the table.
 
 

 
 
HMS Victory in place.



 
 
 
And finally, after over 5 years working on her, covered and placed in a prominent place in my apartment where I hope she will stand for years to come and whenever I look at her reminds of the hours I spent building her.  


 

 
 
 
 
Now I am taking a break from ship building and my next project is reconditioning my small collection of Canon SLR Cameras and Lenses, plus a 'Rollop" twin lens camera which belonged to my late father, thus this camera has a big sentimental value for me.  They are the film type and since the electronic DSLR came out I haven't used them for years and now in need of a very deep cleaning job and also some repairs for which I ordered some tools and will do the job myself.   I want to bring them back to full working condition and maybe try taking a few photos with them as well.  When I ordered the table for the Victory I also ordered a small display cabinet for them. 

 
I thank once again all those who followed my build log and found so much encouragement from.  I hope my build log will be of help to others, as honestly I found so much help and ideas from other builders on this site.  
 
Regards
Robert
 
 
 
 
 
 

The first pic was my failed attempt at running the copper plating along the bottom keel.
I have removed all those plates and re-installed following the water line. They look much better.
 
I am not sure if I will have enough plating to do the bottom of the keel and the rudder. No worries, I ordered another 100 from JoTika. They are relatively cheap, about 12 pounds....whatever that is in USD!!!!! They actually shipped it out today.
 
I also bought some copper paint from our local craft/hobby store. I decided to go with Tamiya and it is surprisingly close.
I see a few spaces and gaps and I painted them and then wiped away the excess. I will circle back when it dries and do it again.
I also pained the bow keel ridge before adding the base plates.
 
I was hoping I would be able to bend those plates so that they fit over the keel, but there is barely enough there.
I do have a PE bender, but there just isn't enough meat to bend them. I was thinking maybe to just install flat and use a wooden dowel to bend them down....not sure if that will look good, so I will check.
 
Honestly, once I turned the boat back right side up, you can barely see a lot of the issues I have with my plating, which is encouraging. I am also happy to see that none of the grating fell off.
 
So I will tweak the plating with paint, and re-paint the black water line to clean everything up. I will also do one more touch up of the ports before forgetting I ever worked on them!
 
I am also thinking ahead as to how I am going to make sure the lower gun port cannon holes are all parallel and in line. Since my gun ports do not seem to be consistent in size, I am going to have to think about another way to do that.
 
Perhaps draw a string tight across the hull from front to back making sure the string is in the middle and using that as a guide. I think if I can get them all even horizontally, I can do what is needed to alter their stance/direction in each port so they line up. We shall see!!!!
 
I have also been working on the cannon bases. I also took a first stab at adding a ring to the cannons for the breaching ropes. I have done 3 and they seem ok.
 
Thanks for all the likes and encouragement!
Chris

Lots of prep work done lately. I filed, sanded and near polished fuel tank and mudguards, primed them with Mr. Color grey primer 1200 and sprayed the tank with Tamiya LP-2 gloss white, which came out nice and shiny. Of course, I drilled all the necessary holes beforehand.


 
The rims also needed a lot of preparation. As you can see on the pic, there are prominent cast seams between the spokes, which I cleaned with a sharp blade and then used a rotating tool to refine the surfaces. I decided against polishing and also primed the rims, after I drilled the holes for the spokes. 
Body color will be black now, where initially thought about dark blue, but I don´t like the look of blue rims.
All other parts, which will be painted black, were drilled, prepared and primed.



Luckily some help arrived today, more drill bits and two DSPIAE hand drills, the left one with a collet, the right one with a chuck. You can´t have enough of these, as you permanent need to drill holes in different diameters.



Cheers Rob

A warm welcome to MSW from 'Down Under'.
 
An old saying is, "The man who never made a mistake never made anything."
 
John

Mistakes are part of the game. Success is not making the same mistake over and over. We all learn as we go. The best thing is you came to right place to learn. Check out the build logs and you can often see how other modelers solved the same problems that you are having. Check out how the real planking and decking were done for future models. The best thing is that you are here and willing to learn. Looking forward to future posts.

The battery/alternator area was a little bit nightmarish to assemble, with lots of connecting parts, PE brackets and the wiring, which needed to be pre fabricated, because of the tiny PE connection fittings. Somehow, I got it done with a bit of wiggling. 
Adding the pedals on both sides was much simpler affair, luckily and they are now awaiting the footrests.
Until now, there is one thing to remember with that kind of build. Study the manual, examine, where all the parts connect and how, measure the connecting diameters and drill out the corresponding holes and try not to forget any, as they may be impossible too reach later. Sure, test fitting is mandatory as well.


 


Cheers Rob

Luckily my world doesn´t only move by turning a key or push a button, as I walk, run, work in the garden and bike a lot without burning fuel or electricity. No blocks where I live .
You´re right, technology, specially combustion engines changed the world, but computers and smartphones also did. Do you have the same technological insight on these evenly important modern world movers? Me neither and I don´t want to sound disrespectful. What I mean, technology changes and in it´s whole is very complex to understand. I´m a bit more than half wit with computers, but with combustion engines, it´s only very basic knowledge, I possess, even when I studied engineering in the late 80´s.
When I got my apprenticeship as an engineer, I built a steam machine from raw material as a learning project and there are not many mysteries with these anymore. We also developed a CNC-milling machine as a project, late 80´s, like I said and that left a thorough insight, which was reinforced later on. With car and bike engines, it´s different, I´m more of a user. I understand nearly all the mechanical processes, but fail where electricity comes into the game.
Modeling is clearly a chance to understand technology, due to replicating them and discuss the subjects, like here on MSW. I learned a lot about the "how does it work" through modeling, but it takes time with complex knowledge. The Crocker is a good example, where there is a lot of technology involved, with only little more, like design. In a way, it´s technologic essence, nearly nothing is hidden and therefore prone for learning.
I can only thank you again for showing me, how this wonderful bike works.

Cheers Rob 


 

The magic of ships in bottles!
 
Pulling up the masts


 
Then glued masts in place using thick CA glue. 
Straightened up all 17 sails.
Added a home made cork, Aqua Magic, and did some rope work (including a triple turks-head-knot)
AND IT'S FINISHED!



 
A big THANK YOU to all those who followed me, gave me 'WOWS' and 'Likes'
(It is the best encouragement possible.)
 
 

Time to tackle the bottle! (Not in the way you think! 😋)
 
I removed the two nails from the BOTTOM of the lower hull. I also marked the bottom of the bottle in order to make sure I glued the bottom half of my model where I wanted it.
 

 
I just used white PVA glue as it gives me time to place my hull and it dries clear. I left it overnight to dry.

 
Adding white 'Mont Marte Modelling Clay' coloured with scraped blue oil free pastel, was a first for me and quite nerve wrecking. In fact it was pretty easy. I added white paint for effect. ( I forgot to add the 'Deluxe Aqua Magic ' to make the 'water' glisten. I'll do that later.)

 
I was keen to get the remainder of the ship in.
Added PVC glue to the base and made
a nervous yet great start!

 
No breakages I hope. The rest slipped in quite easily.

 
And presto!

 
Apart from the camera having trouble focusing through the bottle, everything went well.
Another night drying and I'll raise the masts and sails.
What a great day. Cheers
 

Ok I have had an amazing day! For my 60th birthday my wife and kids gave me the Caldercraft HMS Victory!! This will be my third Victory build. My sister also painted me a picture of the Victory, my favourite ship. What an amazing job she did!! She is so talented. It was a 100% surprise and just blew me away. 
 
Cheers Grant 

Hi photo Victory 1765.

I achieved some important progress today, marrying the engine and the frame. Luckily casting precision and design is very good and I had only a little wiggling to do, while join the numerous connection points of the engine bearing plates to the engine.
The frame itself needed some bending, to accept the engine, which I did before painting. The cast material is durable but easy to bend an very good to work with, luckily. 






 
Cheers Rob

Not much time available to me today, but I did manage to do some painting, drill the gun ports, and add the guns to the main deck.
So here's the evidence!
 
I weathered the upper deck with Citadel Colour 'Wraithbone' and streaking of Tamiya XF-52 'Flat Earth' It looks better than the image suggests'

 
I glued another diagram of the sides onto the sides and drilled the gun ports using a 1mm bit. Also then added the guns on the main deck (tricky but ok).
 
More paint ...

 
I like to paint the upper edge of the BOTTOM wood as sometimes the lighter colour may show when you join the two pieces.

 
I'm happy with today's results. Tomorrow, given time, I hope to start on the black stripes on the upper hull and finish items on the decks.

 
Have a good weekend,
Cheers
 
 

I built up the frame from it´s various parts, which again included lots of drilling and leafing through the manual, to see, which diameter is needed for a hole and what´s going in. Luckily the precision of the casting is fantastic and there are only minimal irritations in the parts.

Here is a mock up with the engine mounted into the frame. Meanwhile said frame is primed and the missing carburetor parts got airbrushed.





Cheers Rob

The last building sequence was a bit fiddly, with wiring the spark plugs with tiny etched parts and micro rivets, followed by the distributor, which consists of about 20 parts, a lot need to be pre drilled for various installments. There are two variants and I chose the more complicated. The magneto has a fewer parts count, but looks odd and the pictures I have of the real bike always have the distributor installed. I prepared the wires, but add them later, when the engine meets the frame.

 



And that´s how tiny the distributor is, you find it on the left side of the engine, lower middle.



Cheers Rob

A bit side tracked with the rudder now back to the gunport lids.

Thanks to everyone for dropping in….like the sound of the Manx bike for a future project, and am totally humbled by Kim’s house motorcycle model collection. Just some more cabling to finish, decals and final detail painting etc and I’ll wrap this up. Still have to go back and reset the slightly troublesome fork/frame connection so it works correctly. For the saddlebags I glued on a bit of old thin denim on the plastic and then stained it. Probably not quite scale but hoped it would visually suggest a canvas type fabric. 

Thanks again for the likes. They are very much appreciated.
Next step in my build is the prep for shaping and sanding the sides of my ship.
1. I started with two pieces of 20x12mm timber. I can only get pine or tasmanian oak. I prefer the softer pine.

2. I chose one piece to be the TOP piece. Then ran a red pen around the ouside edge of the scaled plan, cut and glued this view onto the wood. I used PVA glue. The sideways fit was pretty tight but just made it.

3. I drew and extended the blue lines from the plan view right around the two pieces of wood. I did NOT GLUE THESE TOGETHER!

4. Next I took the bottom of the BOTTOM piece of wood and laid it adjacent to a scaled side view of the ship, making sure the blue lines line up. I then marked with a green line where the masts go. Next I marked (in red) where the shrouds will be going. I'm assuming five shrouds on each side of each mast, separated by 2mm on the side of the ship, ie. 10mm long. The reason for this will become obvious later. Next, I marked TWO black crosses where the two nails will be going to temporarily join TOP and BOTTOM pieces of timber. These marks are away from the bow and stern, masts and shroud markings (please excuse the wrongly placed third hole in the picture).

5. Finally, I lined up the two pieces using the blue lines as a guide and nailed from the bottom up. I used 16mm flat head nails because they are not too long yet long enough to hold the two pieces together. I left two millimetres of the nail heads sticking out so they will be easier to remove later on. I did NOT USE GLUE at this stage as I will want to separate the two pieces later to get them into the bottle.

Sorry for the 'long winded explanations' but I am trying to be as clear as possible. TIME TO SHAPE THE SIDES!!!
Cheers,
 

Rigols done, found an easy way for thread hole alignment. 70 holes left.

Thanks CDW, Shipman and Rick! Patrick that is a lovely rendition of this kit. Very authentic looking I can almost taste the rust on that exhaust.
Just finishing up the handlebars and a few other mechanicals. This Italeri kit may be old but it builds up to a pretty good looking model. Kind of wish there were others at this scale. 
 

Impressive work Ron, and I too have had to make a few compromises along the way when trying to get things to line up and work out (approximately) as shown on the plans.....if only to preserve my sanity🤪. Sometimes you just have to accept things and move on. More often or not we, the builder, are the only ones who know....🤫😆

Know that feeling!🤣
She's coming along nicely Ron...

Hi Ron,
When I had a parts problem I found that phoning Jotika directly was the best method of contact. That broken part you have looks like the lower curved rail for the bow. Once fixed in place it's not under any load and is supported all along the back. It also will need trimming in length to fit properly. You might find that it is still usable...
Great progress with that second planking and squaring up the corners of those ports - keep up the great work! 

Port side done. Maybe onto the rigols before going back to the lids.

Enjoyed the spoke discussion… I’ve been pre stressed and tense myself lately; our modeling hobby is good therapy.
The seats in the kit are a black flexible plastic, good quality but looked a little plain. I wrinkled up some leftover tissue from my Guillows spitfire and applied it to them with a fluid mix of wood glue and water, then a few tries with various brown paints until it looked something like well worn leather. Finished it off with a few brass pin heads from my wooden ship box, and a bit of Vallejo gloss oil stain on the saddle to give the impression of wear and sheen.
I cut off the shielding from the headlamp just because I felt like it, and because the kit has rather a nice lens I wanted to see. Added bumpers on the tank. Haven’t put in any tubing into the machinery yet, hoping I can do all that at the end. 
Tim