DelF

Part of the fun for me is seeing how I can enhance the model. I've said it before, but with other manufacturers I've had to depart from the basic model in order to compensate for poor materials, poor design and historical inaccuracies. That is not the case with Vanguard. Well done on the waterways, by the way. I wouldn't be without my mill now - everyone I know who has the mini-mill swears by it (including Professor Glenn😄). Power tools aren't essential to make great models but they allow people like me with only average skills to achieve much more than we could with hand tools. Derek

In my defence guys, I couldn't find a supplier for small amounts of these more unusual shades. You had to buy 3,000 or 5,000 metres or nothing (or even 10,000 for some sizes). However I've spent a lot of time experimenting with rope making over the years and in that time I tried dozens of different threads and dyes. It'll be a relief from now on to be able to go with just one type of thread and no dyeing. Although the latter was satisfying when I got it right, it was always a struggle to ensure I got the dye recipe consistently right throughout a build. Anyone looking closely at one of my models will probably spot some subtle differences - arguably more realistic as real ships would have had a variety of shades as ropes lightened with age, but I think I'd prefer consistency in a model. Syren makes great rope but distance and cost make that a less attractive option for me. I like being able to produce exactly what I want, when I want. Derek

Yes Will, it’s #854.

I've been using my Syren Rope Rocket for several years now, and have enjoyed making my own rope from Cordonnet thread. Having read Chuck's description of Gutermann Mara I decided to give it a go. Here's my first attempt, using three strands of Mara 70 to produce 0.5mm rope. Using the oven for anything other than cooking is a capital offence in my house, so I used a hot air gun (the sort crafters use, not paint strippers!) to prevent unravelling and it seems to have worked. I've now tried different sizes of standing and running rigging and I'm pleased with the results - and very pleased I can leave behind the messy business of dyeing. I've now ordered a supply of #696 for standing and #854 for running rigging. Thanks Chuck, for starting such a helpful thread. Derek

Moving to a new rope Although Vanguard supplies good quality rigging line I still prefer to make my own on my Syren Rope Rocket. I think it gives the most realistic results, and gives me more freedom over producing my own colours and sizes of rope. In particular I'm not a fan of pure black standing rigging, much preferring shades of dark brown. Until now I've used Cordonnet cotton thread, dyeing the resulting rope with a variety of acrylic inks. For some time I've considered moving to Gutermann Mara polyester thread, having read Chuck Passaro's persuasive account. I particularly liked the fact that Mara comes in a huge range of shades, some of which make very acceptable standing and running rigging without the need for dyeing. A potential downside was the need to bake the rope in an oven to 'set' it and prevent the ends from unravelling. However I read in an early post from Chuck that he'd also used a hairdryer with good results. I ordered a small quantity to try Mara for myself and was pleased with the results. Here's my first attempt at running rigging - three strands of Mara 70 producing 0.5mm rope. Possibly needs to be laid up a little tighter, but not bad for a first attempt. Incidentally, I used a hot air gun (the sort crafters use, not paint strippers!) for just a few seconds on the finished rope and that was enough to stop any tendency for the rope to unravel: I've decided to switch to Mara and have just received my order from William Gee, a long-established UK haberdasher: These thousands of metres will probably be enough to last several lifetimes! I've bought sizes from 120 (fine) to 30 (heavier) and in two shades, #696 for standing, and #854 for running rigging. I haven't measured the diameters of these different threads, but #120 looks as fine as the nominal 0.1mm thread in the kit. I've tried using it to strop 2mm blocks and it looks good. On to the tiller next. Derek

Thanks for posting this - I'd not seen the Sea of Words book before. I've just found a used second edition on World of Books for £3.99 and free p&p so that'll probably prompt me to read the O'Brian books again. I got the Harper Collins editions in the nineties, and tend to read through the whole series about once a decade. They never go stale. Derek

I thought it stood for Back Of Boat (Looking great, whatever Bob stands for)

I've just been looking at those blocks too. They're definitely smaller than the ones shown in the manual, which are the ones that come with the basic kit and look closer to 3mm to me. Put a 2mm pear block next to a ring bolt and they look really tiny, unlike the ones in the manual. Although they look tiny, I think the pear blocks are the right size. I measured them at 2.15mm which equates to about 5.5" full scale, which is the right size for a block with 0.25mm/(5/8") rope. If you look at a model such as @Rustyj's Duchess that uses the pear blocks I think it looks better than versions using basic blocks. Personally, I would always go for the pear option in Vanguard kits - they are the most realistic kit blocks I've seen. I agree that 0.1mm thread is better to seize the pear blocks, and you'll no doubt need to drill out the holes to accommodate the tiller rope. Derek

Those hatches look superb, as does your deck planking. Derek

Bitts & pieces I enjoy making deck furniture so I stopped following the manual for a while and skipped ahead to make the mast bitts. The mizzen bitts are made from 3mm and 1mm sheets, laser cut as shown in the manual: The manual recommends using a round file to clean the laser char from the groove near the top of the bitts, and to repeat the groove on the sides thus making the bitts three dimensional. However I found that I had to file quite deep to get rid of all the char, and the resulting grooves made the top of the bitt look flimsy. I decided to remake the tops, taking the opportunity to make them slightly more decorative. I started by using an angled bit on the Proxxon mill to create a shallow pyramid on a short 3mm square length of boxwood, followed by a ball cutter to make grooves all round: The tape across the vice in the first shot allowed me to do repeat cuts on all four sides of the four tops (remember them?!). To cut the grooves, I ensured repeatability by lining up the right hand end of the top with the edge of the vice. Here's one top finished: The next step was to cut the top pieces off just below the groove, slice the corresponding pieces off the original bitts and replace them with the new top pieces: I intentionally () made the new tops very slightly larger than the originals - by about 0.1mm all round - so that the joins looked like a decorative feature. I shall hold off fixing to the deck for now. The bitts fit through holes in the deck and I would normally pin them for extra security, but in two cases there is nothing under the hole to pin to. I think I can glue a piece of wood under the holes in the deck to provide a surface to pin to, but I'll decide later. The main mast bitts presented different challenges. The groove round the top was v-shaped and relatively easy to clean up and replicate all round. I didn't think it was worth replacing the tops just to replicate the pyramid on the mizzen bitts (I may change my mind before I fit them!). The laser cut bits have holes to represent sheaves so I used a 0.5mm end mill to make grooves between the holes. I'd normally round the bottoms of the grooves to represent sheaves but they weren't quite wide enough. I don't think it'll show at this scale. Here's my bitt against the originals: The main issue I had with this bitt is that the groove in which the belaying rail fits is on the side and extends the whole width of the bitt, leaving a visible gap when the rail is fitted as this picture from the manual shows: I plugged the gaps with pieces of boxwood but I couldn't get a very good match: Looking at this photo I might be tempted to remake the bitts from scratch (or make sure they are festooned with rigging to hide the dodgy bits 😁). The gallows went together without any issues. Because they are made in two halves there is a proper stopped slot for the belaying rail. As with the main mast bitts I milled grooves for the sheave holes: One final little job was to make up the housing for the rudder head. Made from 1mm sheet this cleaned up well, although I found I had a lot of sanding to do to remove the machining marks from the surfaces. Fortunately the plank and panel lines are etched deeply enough to allow this. The only change I made was to the front of the housing, where I felt the join between the sides and front looked a bit crude: (Yes, I know the paint needs touching up!) I had some spare 2mm boxwood dowel I'd made up for Speedy's spars and I cut a short length in half to cover the front sides of the housing: The roof of the housing is just dry-fitted at this stage. Thanks as always for looking in - likes and comments are much appreciated. Derek

Good progress David. I liked your idea for holding the canopy and shall copy it when I get round to painting mine. Derek

Welcome to the mill club Tim!

Your decision to go for bare brass rather than yellow paint has paid off - those hair brackets look really smart.

Boarding steps Time in the shipyard is limited just now, as this is the time of year I have to get outside with a chainsaw and loppers to try to keep the jungle (aka my garden) in some semblance of order. So, just one little job to report on. The steps are simple to make, each comprising two small laser cut pieces of 1mm sheet glued together at right angles. However I thought the plain wood looked a bit too plain, especially on such a bling-laden ship, so I painted them black with a gold edge. I also spaced them more evenly than shown on the plans. Getting them parallel to the waterline was slightly tricky, as my eye wanted to follow the lines of decoration along the sheer. Derek

Thanks Dave, always happy to help.

Technically I suppose what I called spirketting was really the waterway, or a combination of spirketting and waterway as this drawing shows.:

Thanks David. Ships did indeed have spirketting - I’ll see if I can find an illustration to post later. My flush cutter is by Xuron. I find their tools well made and durable.

Your model is coming along very well. Most likely black in common with naval practice at the time. I painted mine black which makes a nice contrast with the unpainted masts. I chose not to paint my tops, but that was only because I didn't want to cover the boxwood. Sometimes, aesthetics is more important to me than historical accuracy! I'm not sure what your question is about the shape of the yards in the AOTS book (unless you meant shaded?). They are octagonal in the central portion and round elsewhere. I took all my mast and spar measurements from the book (including the mizzen topgallant which isn't in the kit) and was happy with the result.

William doesn't look impressed at the idea of using him as a scapegoat (or maybe he's groaning in anticipation of Glenn's post!). Fortunately my shipyard assistant, Hector, is too small and lazy to eat important stuff, unless it falls off the workbench and straight into his mouth: Happy New Year to you from me and Hector

I just got this NMM plan of HMS Sphinx back from the framers and couldn't resist sharing it, even though not directly related to this build. However it's also by Vanguard Models so there is a link. Happy New Year everyone! Derek

Looking great David. Like you, I'm still getting the odd photo refusing to upload resulting in the 200 error code. I noticed there were two Windows 10 upgrades on 17 December which is when I first experienced the problem. Coincidence?

Thanks (I think!). Hopefully not too much detail, but to be honest a lot of it is for selfish reasons. I take so long to build ships that I would forget half of these techniques between models if I didn't write them down. If it helps other people then that's great too. The photos are the best I can do on an ancient iPhone 6SE.

Glenn, I had promised to stop pointing out your autocorrect typos, but now that you've mentioned it yourself I'll take that as the green light to continue. My favorite is still "sanding a rabbit on the bottom" from your Lady Nelson log (I hear the animal cruelty people dropped the case for lack of evidence), although I see the offending typo has now been edited. Spoilsport. Derek

Rudder Constructing the rudder from the wooden core, boxwood veneers and photoetch parts was straightforward. My only change to the instruction manual was to snip the heads off the pins, otherwise I think they look over-scale for the bolts securing the straps: Once painted and the pintles fitted, the rudder fitted neatly into the three holes pre-drilled in the stern post: Fitting the straps to the hull was slightly trickier. Given the shape of the hull and the fact that it had several coats of wipe-on-poly, I felt trying to glue the straps would be a non-starter so I used the following method with pins. First, with the strap laid on the hull with no glue I used a pointed tool to mark the position of the hole nearest the stern, drilled a hole then dry fitted a pin. With that pin in place and the strap at the correct angle, I marked the second hole: I did all this dry, no glue. I found if I put CA on a pin and tried to push it through a strap, most of the glue would wipe off on the hole. The best method was to insert the two outermost pins first then apply glue to the ends before inserting them in the drilled holes: Once the pins were in place I snipped them short against the strap with flush cutters, leaving just enough showing to simulate bolt heads. Btw, this shot reminds me I should have beheaded the pins in the fishplate to avoid overscale bolts. Oh well, the port side looks OK. With the outermost pins in place on every strap I drilled through the intervening holes, just deep enough to take a short length of pin held in place with a tiny dab of PVA - any excess PVA being easier to wipe off than CA. Here's the starboard side finished, bar a little touching up: Here's the port side (if only to illustrate the point about the bolt heads on the fishplate!). Derek

Mid Deck Bulkhead & Spirketting Now that the last relative has departed and the remains of the turkey are in the freezer, it's time to get back to the shipyard. The mid deck bulkhead was straightforward to assemble, with a couple of minor modifications. I glazed the windows with Fantasy Film as before (care is needed the starboard and port frames are very slightly different). Also, I wasn't keen on the door handles suggested in the model. They looked slightly over scale to me so I substituted round-headed pins to simulate plain knobs: The bulkhead looked a bit gappy, especially where it meets the bulwarks: I cut some narrow strips of boxwood to cover the gaps - 1 X 0.7mm on the sides and 0.7 X 0.7mm along the deck: A similar very slight but noticeable gap was visible between the main deck and the bulwarks, which I took as an excuse to make some spirketting. I started by bevelling one edge of a spare 0.75 X 5mm boxwood strip. I tried a couple of methods, the first using the Proxxon table router with a 45 degree cutter. As the boxwood was thin and bendy I had to use a couple of pieces of scrap wood to keep the strip tight against the cutter blade: The second method used a tilting table on the trusty Preac saw: Both methods worked well, with the saw being slightly easier to set up. Then, it was back to the saw with the tilting table removed to cut the bevelled edge off, thereby producing a triangular strip to represent the spirketting: The trick here was to avoid making the spirketting too big. I initially tried making it from a 1mm strip but the result looked over-scale. The 0.75mm strip covers the gap neatly and looks better, at least to my eye. On to the rudder next. Derek