Charter33

I have also been building the 30 cannons for the upper deck. 
 
I have 15 bases done. I have cut out the remaining pieces (except the wedges for the cannons...they seem very fragile and I expect I will be creating a lot of them on my own).
 
I have left all the wheels for later, I've seen where builders have strung them on a wire and sanded them all together. That sounds like a plan I'll try.
 
After sanding all the sides and axles, I use a basic jig to build the bases. I also drill out the holes for the bed bolt brass wire. The wire is about 1mm and he hole is about not 1mm, so it needs a bit of widening. 
 
I do 5 at a time because my patience begins to wander. There is still a lot to do. I have to create or use kit pieces for all of the eyelets on the cannons and the interior walls. I have to learn how to rig the tackles and breaching tackles and more. I have to blacken everything and create jigs to consistently line up the final cannons. So exciting! 
 
My hope is that as this will be my first attempt at creating the blocks  and seizing the lines for the tackles and it will prepare me for future more complicated rigging tasks.
 
 

In between cutting the grass, power washing the winter away and other stuff that is supposed to be fun....I have tried to plug away on Victory.
 
I think I am very close, maybe a few more rainy days away from finishing the full copper plating. Once done, I will concentrate of adding the little wedges and edges. I want to be sure they are as perfect as I can make them....or as perfect as my fingers will let me!
 

Start of the lids. No thin wall brass the size I want for the lid ropes available in N.Z. postage from cmb to N.Z. expensive. Found some left over rudder chain for my lid rings the right size. I'm going to add the lids I need under the channels then fit those and the supports. Then the rest of the lid work.

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....🤫😆

Hi photo Victory .
 

Thanks Patrick! 
Bit of a minor struggle getting the rear wheel and chain assembly in place since it is all connected and has to be shoehorned into the frame. Thankfully managed it without messing things up too badly. After cementing it all I realized I had missed a small internal lever assembly that was supposed to go in first. Will be an interesting exercise in surgery trying to get it in now but hopefully not impossible. 
Most of my detail painting and aging is being done with combinations of Vallejo steel, dark steel, aluminium, black and metallic black, and oil stain. I’m pleased with the way the hub looks with the respoked wheel, all looking very metallic.

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....🤫😆

I've reached a stage in this build where several activities need to be prepared and organized before the primary task of fitting the channels and chainplates can be done. There are five gun ports on each side that I'm guessing would be best done first as they are below or very close to the channels. There are also the pairs of holes to drill above each gun port and the distance between these is determined from the hinges on the gun ports. Rather than just make and fit a few gun ports it seems that now would be a good time to make them all although most will be fitted after the main rigging has been done. To complicate things even more I want to follow Roberts excellent idea for adding the rings inside and outside of each port.
First step then, making these rings. 0.5 mm brass wire was wound around the shank of a no.56 drill bit giving an internal diameter of about 1.2 mm.


Cutting these into individual rings was initially tried with an acrylic clamp and a piercing saw

Moderately successful, but I finally resorted to using a modified pair of cutters.

These rings needed blacking as did the eyelets they need to be fitted to. As the work bench was set up to do this I also did the 1 mm diameter tubes that will guide the port ropes.

Fitting the rings into the eyelets was straight forward, but a bit tedious so cleaning up the port lids and building up those that overlapped wales was done to break things up a bit.
Approximately 350 rings, allowing for spares...

and the starboard lids..

Hinges etc. will be added once the port side ones are done, and then they can be painted, and the distance between the guide tubes measured. I know these will be 6 mm above each port.... think it will be time for yet another jig to help with accuracy and consistency...
Another slight modification. I decided to drop the height of the two foremost painted ports to give more room for the rigols

And finally.... it seems I've been adopted... meet Bertie...

He is not our cat, he lives in the next street, but he 'owns' the neighbourhood and is frequent visitor to our front garden with its better sunny steps and shady corners than available at his owner's property. He sometimes sneaks in and has recently taken to keeping me company. Seems we share the same taste in radio station and he fines the hum of the disc sander conducive to a quiet nap.....
Cheers,
Graham.
 

Just a bit tricky installing the lines from the oil tank due to access, and there not being any positive connection point at either end. Thought about using some brass wire instead of the plastic parts but went with the kit part and paint at the end of the day, think it’s believable.
Rear wheel and chain install is next.

I've reached a stage in this build where several activities need to be prepared and organized before the primary task of fitting the channels and chainplates can be done. There are five gun ports on each side that I'm guessing would be best done first as they are below or very close to the channels. There are also the pairs of holes to drill above each gun port and the distance between these is determined from the hinges on the gun ports. Rather than just make and fit a few gun ports it seems that now would be a good time to make them all although most will be fitted after the main rigging has been done. To complicate things even more I want to follow Roberts excellent idea for adding the rings inside and outside of each port.
First step then, making these rings. 0.5 mm brass wire was wound around the shank of a no.56 drill bit giving an internal diameter of about 1.2 mm.


Cutting these into individual rings was initially tried with an acrylic clamp and a piercing saw

Moderately successful, but I finally resorted to using a modified pair of cutters.

These rings needed blacking as did the eyelets they need to be fitted to. As the work bench was set up to do this I also did the 1 mm diameter tubes that will guide the port ropes.

Fitting the rings into the eyelets was straight forward, but a bit tedious so cleaning up the port lids and building up those that overlapped wales was done to break things up a bit.
Approximately 350 rings, allowing for spares...

and the starboard lids..

Hinges etc. will be added once the port side ones are done, and then they can be painted, and the distance between the guide tubes measured. I know these will be 6 mm above each port.... think it will be time for yet another jig to help with accuracy and consistency...
Another slight modification. I decided to drop the height of the two foremost painted ports to give more room for the rigols

And finally.... it seems I've been adopted... meet Bertie...

He is not our cat, he lives in the next street, but he 'owns' the neighbourhood and is frequent visitor to our front garden with its better sunny steps and shady corners than available at his owner's property. He sometimes sneaks in and has recently taken to keeping me company. Seems we share the same taste in radio station and he fines the hum of the disc sander conducive to a quiet nap.....
Cheers,
Graham.
 

Thanks Graham, I'm well short of your skill level, I love how you did your scrolls. I have had to accept and move on from quite a lot. I have still got the starboard side to try and make a bit better. I'm lucky people who see it think it's an aeroplane anyway.

I've reached a stage in this build where several activities need to be prepared and organized before the primary task of fitting the channels and chainplates can be done. There are five gun ports on each side that I'm guessing would be best done first as they are below or very close to the channels. There are also the pairs of holes to drill above each gun port and the distance between these is determined from the hinges on the gun ports. Rather than just make and fit a few gun ports it seems that now would be a good time to make them all although most will be fitted after the main rigging has been done. To complicate things even more I want to follow Roberts excellent idea for adding the rings inside and outside of each port.
First step then, making these rings. 0.5 mm brass wire was wound around the shank of a no.56 drill bit giving an internal diameter of about 1.2 mm.


Cutting these into individual rings was initially tried with an acrylic clamp and a piercing saw

Moderately successful, but I finally resorted to using a modified pair of cutters.

These rings needed blacking as did the eyelets they need to be fitted to. As the work bench was set up to do this I also did the 1 mm diameter tubes that will guide the port ropes.

Fitting the rings into the eyelets was straight forward, but a bit tedious so cleaning up the port lids and building up those that overlapped wales was done to break things up a bit.
Approximately 350 rings, allowing for spares...

and the starboard lids..

Hinges etc. will be added once the port side ones are done, and then they can be painted, and the distance between the guide tubes measured. I know these will be 6 mm above each port.... think it will be time for yet another jig to help with accuracy and consistency...
Another slight modification. I decided to drop the height of the two foremost painted ports to give more room for the rigols

And finally.... it seems I've been adopted... meet Bertie...

He is not our cat, he lives in the next street, but he 'owns' the neighbourhood and is frequent visitor to our front garden with its better sunny steps and shady corners than available at his owner's property. He sometimes sneaks in and has recently taken to keeping me company. Seems we share the same taste in radio station and he fines the hum of the disc sander conducive to a quiet nap.....
Cheers,
Graham.
 

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....🤫😆

I've reached a stage in this build where several activities need to be prepared and organized before the primary task of fitting the channels and chainplates can be done. There are five gun ports on each side that I'm guessing would be best done first as they are below or very close to the channels. There are also the pairs of holes to drill above each gun port and the distance between these is determined from the hinges on the gun ports. Rather than just make and fit a few gun ports it seems that now would be a good time to make them all although most will be fitted after the main rigging has been done. To complicate things even more I want to follow Roberts excellent idea for adding the rings inside and outside of each port.
First step then, making these rings. 0.5 mm brass wire was wound around the shank of a no.56 drill bit giving an internal diameter of about 1.2 mm.


Cutting these into individual rings was initially tried with an acrylic clamp and a piercing saw

Moderately successful, but I finally resorted to using a modified pair of cutters.

These rings needed blacking as did the eyelets they need to be fitted to. As the work bench was set up to do this I also did the 1 mm diameter tubes that will guide the port ropes.

Fitting the rings into the eyelets was straight forward, but a bit tedious so cleaning up the port lids and building up those that overlapped wales was done to break things up a bit.
Approximately 350 rings, allowing for spares...

and the starboard lids..

Hinges etc. will be added once the port side ones are done, and then they can be painted, and the distance between the guide tubes measured. I know these will be 6 mm above each port.... think it will be time for yet another jig to help with accuracy and consistency...
Another slight modification. I decided to drop the height of the two foremost painted ports to give more room for the rigols

And finally.... it seems I've been adopted... meet Bertie...

He is not our cat, he lives in the next street, but he 'owns' the neighbourhood and is frequent visitor to our front garden with its better sunny steps and shady corners than available at his owner's property. He sometimes sneaks in and has recently taken to keeping me company. Seems we share the same taste in radio station and he fines the hum of the disc sander conducive to a quiet nap.....
Cheers,
Graham.
 

Port side profiles done, more painting to do yet plus parts 180 and 194 to fit. Profiles did'nt line up the same way as the plans so I just did what looked alright. The plan measurements were different in reality to my Victory.  I'll make the lids under the channels I need too before gluing the channels in properly and adding their supports. Avoided a few mistakes doing these, If I added my miss adventures to this build log I would be up to page 100 by now. Lots of exercise today bending down under the table, I have'nt dropped the knife on my foot yet but there's always tomorrow.

Now for some brass profiles.

Thanks Chris, not that good close up. Deadeyes done now for cooper eyelets and dry fit before starting on the brass profiles. Glue the channels later on.

Over the past 3 weeks, I have spent about 2-4 hours at a sitting working on the copper plates. I did begin filling in some of the stealer plates, but I used regular scissors to cut them (which works, they cut easily) but they do bend a bit and when I installed them, they didn't look very clean.
 
I stopped installing more partial plates and concentrated on full plates only. Once I am done, I will go back and tackle the partials. I removed any of the partials that I did that looked bad. 
 
I also have a bit of a gap between the hull and the keel on the port side nearer the stern. I should have filled this in before. It will be visible when done, but nothing more I can do other than remove those plates and fill the gap. We'll see....
 
I finished the port side and I'm working on the starboard side. However the weather has finally turned for the better up in the northeast US and I have been concentrating on getting my boat in the water. I guess you see that a lot in builder logs....huge gaps between spurts. 
 
I also started working on the cannons as a break. I would do 4 or so courses of plates and then remove five cannons and build the bases. I don't have any pictures of that. So far, that is pretty standard work. Cutting out the carriages, axles and wheels is fairly easy, the stock is thick and does require a bit of power to cut through the sprue to get them free.
 
I sanded all of the carriages and axles to remove any fuzz. I also drilled out the holes for the bed bolt. The factory holes are a bit smaller than the 1mm wire provided. I created a crude jig for the fitting the carriages and axles together. Just some small blocks glued to a larger piece of wood to hold the carriages apart while adding the 2 axles.
 
Having seen some builders add a wire loop to the back of the cannon to hold the breaching wires. I like that. I'm thinking I would run all 30 cannons through a piece of wire to hold them all upright and then seeing if my looper pliers can create a small enough loop to suit the task. 
 
...that's down the road a bit, but I think that doing a few different tasks when working on something like copper plating or planking helps to keep the builder motivated.

The Big Reveal!
 
This kit proved to be much more challenging than I anticipated, but I am mostly happy with the result. The propeller hub ended up being a little troublesome -- the first painting effort produced a cracked finish, so several additional rounds of filling and sanding were needed. It wound up being pretty smooth, though, and easily wins the "Best Paper Hub I Have Ever Done" award. Enjoy the pictures!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I really like the angle on this next shot because you can easily see the Typhoon's lines in the ol' Hurricane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
This last one is the new wallpaper on my phone.

 
Cheers!
 

Aaaand . . . done. I will post the Big Reveal tomorrow. Time for bed now!
 

 
And one more shot of the one-time adversaries together.
 

 
G'nite!

Hi,
It’s been a little while since my last post – life can get a bit complicated at times!
Thanks’ for all the ‘likes’, they are much appreciated and a source of motivation when tackling those more challenging tasks.
 
Before starting to apply the paint I did a bit of improvising with the tools to hand and marked on the waterline.

 
Two coats of yellow ocher where brushed on and once dry, after several attempts to get the lines right, the edges of the black strips were masked off using Tamiya’s fine masking tape.
 


Two coats of black paint later the tape was removed and the gun port linings were then neatened up with red ocher and a very fine brush. My concerns that I might lose the definition of the different plank patterns on the wales proved unfounded.
 

 
Finally I masked along the waterline and applied some copper paint.
 


Next task is to mark out the additional gun ports on the bow and come up with some kind of drilling guide for the dummy guns on the lower and middle decks.
 
Cheers,
 
Graham.

Hi,
 
Tackling the wales proved to be fairly straight forward.
 
After taking measurements from the plan and transferring them onto the hull, a strip of wood was pinned on these marks and, after a little ‘fine adjustment’, the curved lines were marked on.
 

 
The majority of the prepared pieces fitted straight on and CA glue was used for bonding.  At the bow and stern some additional shaping was required together with gentle bending with plank ‘nippers’.
These photographs show the work in progress and the final results.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Drifting randomly through the wide ranging posts on this site the other evening I came across many superb examples of the model makers art that reminded me of a time, back in the mid-1960s, when the ‘Birthday treat’ of choice was a trip across London to visit the Cutty Sark followed by the model ship galleries at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.  It was these amazing models, mostly ‘plank on frame’, that sparked a lifetime’s interest.  Sadly these wonderfully detailed models are no longer on display although they can be examined to some extent on-line.
 
 
Why am I rambling on about this?  Well – one of the sections I was exploring that started this reminiscing was the HMS Triton project.  WOW!  My head is telling me to keep focused, the ‘Victory’ journey has a long way still to go, my heart is saying – what a challenge! The build logs, both completed models and works in progress, are very impressive.  It costs nothing to start planning… the keel plans are easily down loaded,…. and there just happens to be a very helpful and friendly print shop less than a mile away ……mmmm
 
Meanwhile, it time to start lining the gun ports.

Nice, very nice Ron. I found the bow and stern the two most satisfying stages so far.... Well done!

Channels coming up next.

Painting & Placing & PLA
 
I painted the not-black stripe using Tamiya FX-15 Flat Flesh. I came up with this number from some perusing of this website (Go MSW!) and other sources. I like the color. To my eye it is real close to the "new" historic color from back in the day as shown on the YouTube video of the paint job. 
 
To get into the nuts and bolts:
Kit Quality (inhale sharply as through a straw). Brittle does not adequately describe the plywood sheets and because of this, I had to create a lot of parts on my Ender 3 printers using TinkerCad. This included all the gunport doors, the bell housing, all the knees, the arches and roundhouses on the beakhead, the bits,  the binnacle, the seats of ease, galley stack and a bunch of other parts. I'm a bit of a techno-geek old guy who loves mechanical drawing (just not the Fusion 360 level) and TinkerCad was really helpful.