HMS Pegasus by SkipW - Amati/Victory Models - Scale 1:64

[SkipW]

Hello Everyone - 

 

I've just come back to ship modelling after a long hiatus - work and family took all my time and space - now I have both.  Decided to start with the Swan class Pegasus.  I've done several other models - the Revell Cutty Sark in the mid-60's and Model Shipways Rattlesnake in the 70's.  Neither one has survived the intervening years.  

 

I have read over twenty build logs on the Pegasus, Fly and Syren.  Learned a lot before starting.  I will try to only show/add things that I think others might benefit from slightly more detail - or things I have decided after looking at how many others approached the challenge.  I am amazed at the quality of the builds out there - truly impressive.

 

I have already received some very good advice from a few members by asking questions about their builds - - it's a great help.

 

Look forward to interacting with the community.

 

SkipW

 

 

 

Just beginning main deck planking

[SkipW]

 

OK, to get started, I won't re-post all the pictures of the kit's contents - there are a number of good posts of those.  I heeded all the advice about fairing the bulkheads as best as possible before gluing them to the spine.  I also cut a 1mm deep by 2mm wide rabbet all along the stem, keep and stern post (leaving a 3mm wide surface) to aid in planking and with the bearding area forward of the stern post.  I did not glue on the walnut prow at this point to keep from damaging it during the fairing process.

 

 

 

[SkipW]

After reading many build logs I decided to add balsa filler blocks at the bow and stern to make sure that the curves would be smooth and there would be plenty of gluing surface.  This was not hard to do with the already faired bulkheads.  Although as others have observed the balsa does tend to "crumble" at the edges.  So in a couple of places I added small hemlock fillers that were easily shaped and took the shaping better.  Clearly I am obsessing about having a well faired hull prior to hull planking.

Bow Fairing with Balsa Filler BlocksStern Fairing with Balsa Filler Blocks

[SkipW]

Again, after digesting a lot of good discussion in many build logs about deck planking and ways to do it I struck out to try a few methods.  I tried edge blackening the Tanganyika planking with a Sharpie, Soft lead pencil and Archival marker.  The Sharpie was a disaster as the ink bleed into the planks very badly.  The Archival marker (suggestion from Danny) was much better.  I also tried using black thread as done by Doug Fell.  While I loved the look of this, it proved hard to do and the thread was difficult to get to stay in place.  It also had the drawback of producing "fuzz" when sanded, even after being varnished (see photo).  I planked the center section of the lower deck using the black thread and concluded while the look was good it had the potential to create a mess on the main decks.  (The lower deck was "low risk" as it can only be seen thru the main deck hatches.) So I abandoned that method.  I did trial sections with soft pencil and archival marker (see photo) and decided on the pencil lines as being adequate but not over doing it.  I also adopted Doug's technique of spacing the planks with a 0.004(0.102 mm) feeler gauge to allow the edges to show slightly more.  To aid in blackening the edges of the very thin and flexible Tanganyika strips I made a jig by cutting a ~1mm kerf in a strip of scrap wood about 2mm deep. (See photo) This allows me to hold the strips straight and use the pencil to blacken the edges and use some pressure to get an even black surface.  I have now started planking the main deck using this method.

 

Lower deck planking - the edges of the two outer strips were blacked with the Sharpie - note the bleeding - but I used them as they really cannot be seen. The center was done with black thread.

 

[Dfell]

Hello SkipW - good to see you have started a log.

The thread I used was Gutermann (CA02776) 100% linen - little to no fuzz.

 

Good luck with your build.

 

Regards

 

Doug

Edited July 17, 2018 by Dfell

[Landlubber Mike]

Great start SkipW - this is a really fantastic kit of a gorgeous ship.  Hope you don't mind me following along.  There are a lot of us that built or are building a Swan class ship, so feel free to reach out with any questions.

[SkipW]

Hi Mike - I have thoroughly studied your Build Log - - excellent work.  Thanks for the offer - I'm sure I will have more questions.  Skip

[SkipW]

Hi Spyglass - - Sorry for the missed attribution - I've just read so many build logs over the past month keeping all the various builders straight is not possible.  Now I have a small notebook where I write down the most interesting/useful things I find - and where I found them.  Because quire frequently I want to go back and I can't find where I first saw it.  Thanks.  The technique works great.

[SkipW]

Thanks.  I actually have given it one shot.  To make it a bit easier I cut a couple of forms from scrap wood using the upper deck as a pattern.  That way after soaking the strips in warm water for an hour I could get an initial shape to them with lots of clamping area.  Now it will have to be done on the hull to get all the subtlety of the curvature both fore and aft and up and down.

 

I do have the stem on now.  I saw a photo where someone actually clamped some small blocks to the stem to fix the forward end of the bulkhead strip in place for gluing - - I like that idea.  I also saw several builders who did not put any deck fixtures on until the first planking was done - I also like that idea as it would be too easy to know things around while fidgeting with the hull and sanding it.

 

Right now I am learning how difficult working with small blocks is - playing at setting up the gun tackles.  I need to learn a lot more about holding and manipulating these tiny parts.  I am really in awe of some of the detail people can get in these models.  I will  push myself to try to emulate the best of what I have seen.

 

Any more hints you can share will be greatly appreciated.

 

 

[Martin W]

Hi Skip -- You're off to a great start.  It looks like you've taken full advantage of MSW by studying other Swan builds.  Doing that really adds to the fun!  I'll be looking forward to your progress.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[SkipW]

Appreciate all the advice - all taken to heart.

 

Now it's time to make the final decision on deck planking.  I decided to go for a 1:3:5:2:4 butt shift pattern as shown in the NRG article.  I chose the plank length of 120mm - that way each supplied Tanganyika plank yields 4 full planks.  I made the jig shown in the attached photo to accurately size the planks.  It is 119.9 mm (to allow a tiny space for the butt gaps).  The planks are cut to about 121 mm in a razor saw miter box then sanded to actual length in the jig which gives a perfectly square, fuzz-free end.  

 

I have pondered the addition of the deck pegging endlessly and have finally come to the conclusion to omit it.  Looking at many build logs, photos of ship decks and models - I believe that in most cases the pegs are over-emphasized.  A good photo can be found if you google "Fo'c'sle grating HMS Victory".  It is a close-up of the grating and surrounding deck.  The deck planking pegs can clearly be seen.  They are about the size of the caulk-tar seams, look to be 1" or less in diameter.  However they are exactly the same color as the deck and are only visible because of "dirt" in the joints.  I believe at the scale of this model they would be invisible - so I will not be drilling and marking simulate planking pegs.

 

I also picked up from several other blogs a very good point, that the center 6 planks would not have butt joints in them.  The distances between the various hatches would make it feasible for the carpenters to lay that section of decking with no "butts".  In my scheme the next two outer planks only get one butt joint - the others would again fall in the openings.

 

In the photo - The overall length of the groove is 119.9 mm - it is hard to see the left end of the plank but it is pulled out past the end of the jig for illustration.  A block with fine sandpaper is used to sand down the protruding end flush with the end of the jig.

[SkipW]

Cannons and Gunport Strips

 

I took a sojourn into making cannons to get my head into working in Lilliputian scale.  I found the carriages supplied with the kit a bit wanting, especially the wheels.  So I bought the carriages from Syren.  Really nice quality.  Then I got a surprise, the Syren carriages are made for Chuck's turned brass 6 pound cannons, and since I convinced myself that the Amati cannons were OK, I found the that the carriages were to narrow for the supplied cannons.  Hmmmmm.  Solution, hybrid carriages, axle cross pieces from Amati and all the other parts from Syren.  Worked out OK because I got the width I needed.  Still a nerve racking as thinning down the axles and drilling out the wheels was very delicate.  I found that holding the wheels cross-grained with pliers would keep them from splitting while being drilled.  Once I did this I had no issues.  I painted the cannons with Rustoleum matte black - looks OK to me.  Making the brass trunnion caps was also a nice challenge - for that I made a jig similar to what Blue Ensign did.  Not quite sure how to do it with card stock and get the sharp bends.  Photo below.

 

I soaked and formed the gunport strips after reading every blog I could find.  No one has enjoyed this task.  When satisfied I fitted a dummy bowsprit and glued the front sections on.  The screw in clamps from Micro-Mark worked great - I found that drilling a small pilot hole helped get them started and kept them from splitting the mdf.  I made one mistake - if you see the pictures, in my zeal to get everything tight and with the crowding along the frames I put pump type wood clamps between the frames - this resulted in some scalloping along the bottom of the strips which I would rather not have.  Anyone gluing these strip in the future should probably avoid doing this.  Some filler will make it "all go away" prior to second planking but it didn't need to happen.  Another issue I had was that while I faired all the bulkheads really well - somehow I did not get the main deck faired as well and in a couple of areas it was proud of the bulkheads - - I all looked great from the top.  However when the glue dried I had bulges where it distorted the gunport strip.  This was remedied with a Dremel with a small burr - cutting away the deck behind where it was too large.  Those "scars" will be covered by the deck planking so no harm done.

 

Have started the first planking and it is going smoothly.  Will write on that later.  At this point I have switched to Titebond glue as I had several joints where I used the White Glue come unglued with slight pressure.  Not happening with the Titebond.

 

 

[SkipW]

The adventure of the first planking is completed.  Again I benefitted from the many Pegasus and Fly blogs.  Didn't have much trouble doing the planking.  I used the method described by Chuck Passaro along with the Planking Fan that is on the NRG website.  Came up with an easy way to soak planks - two feet of 1" PEX tubing with a cap on one end and a stopper in the top.  Fill with hot water - drop in one or two planks - soak 30 minutes and pin to hull to dry.  No problems.  Having the rabbet in the stem made forming the planks quite easy.  I also stopped the planks short of the stern post in the bearding area so that once sanded out the second planking will be flush.  Not quite so lucky on the keel and will need to sand a bit there so the second planking will be flush with the keel when laid.

 

 For the second planking.  The kit says from the top of the gun port strips down.  However looking at some blogs some guys seem to scribe the whale and use that as a guide for planking both down towards the keel and upward past the gun ports.  Suggestions?  I have a bit of sanding to do before starting the second planking.  Also - kit say use CA glue - some builders have used PA - I'm more comfortable with PA (or Titebond is my favorite) is CA forgiving enough to locate planks tight and well positioned before it "bites"?

 

Plank SoakerStern Pre-sandingPort  Side Pre-Sanding

Bow Pre-Sanding

 

[SkipW]

Now beginning the second planking with the walnut strips.  I have the strip at the top of the whale in place and now two strips along the keel on each side.  I find that there is a slight misalignment in height as the planks get laid next to each other.  Instead of waiting to sand this all out I cut a 3/4" wide strip off the end of a cabinet maker's card scraper and turned a burr on it.  This acts like a plane - used this to good effect on the deck planking as well.  The card scraper actually removes shavings - - not dust - - and you can quickly level out high spots.  This will in the end reduce the amount of sanding significantly.  See photos.  You can find how to turn a bur on a card scraper by Googling "sharpening a cabinet scraper" takes a bit of practice but once you can do it it is a very useful tool.

 

I used Titebond to put the top of the whale and garboard strakes in - but cannot figure out how to effectively clamp the strips in between.  So have moved to CA - - no problems yet - only slightly glued my fingers to the planks.  Even though this will all be covered by the copper plates - I want to learn how to plank without pin holes for future projects.

 

Pink spots are sanded down Bondo auto body filler which I used to level out low spots.

 

Planing down second plank - note shavingsCard Scraper

[SkipW]

Finally finished the second planking.  Overall I am happy with it.  However I needed a couple of "cheats" near the bow.  No matter how well I tried to taper the planks at the bow, they became very small and did not lie flat at all.  They started to clinker badly.  My fix was to put in three planks on each side that tapered to a point just short of the bow.  They will essentially be covered with copper sheathing so won't show.  You can see them in the "bow on" photo below about 1/3 of the way down from the keel.  At the stern I added several stealers with good success and had no problems with the stern planking even the turn up to the counter.  In reviewing all the Pegasus blogs it does not look like I was the only one who had trouble with the second planking.  Most models have some "adlib" to fit the planks at the bow, or stern.  Even the picture on the box cover shows some rather bizarre planking below the whale, just above the copper sheathing.  I also found the plans rather vague on the stern construction.  I planked the whole area above the hull planking, then fitted a piece of walnut veneer which will mate up to the stern fascia piece.  The height of which I ended up setting from looking at a number of blogs.  Now on with finishing the gun deck planking.

 

Pictures are: l to r:  Bow planking, stern planking.

 

Below:  Port side planking

 

Bottom:  Starboard side planking.

[DBorgens]

Skip, I just found your log and will follow (literally) your build. I started Pegasus this fall and have planked the main deck. Your hull looks great and thank you for the tips.

 

Dave B

 

[SkipW]

Hi Dave -

   Glad to be able to help a bit.  These blogs are of amazing help.  I have pored over the Pegasus, Fly and Syren blogs and gotten a wealth of information.  Trying to do this from the kit instructions alone would be nearly impossible.

  Good luck!

Skip

[SkipW]

Have moved on to hatch gratings.  After looking at a lot of blogs I came to the conclusion that the gratings should be cambered athwartships.  This agrees with some blogs and a lot of actual hatch grating pictures.  I assume this is so when tarped over they shed water easily.  To construct them rather than do the tedious job of making half lap joints I used two pieces of 2mmx3mm walnut.  The top one upright and the lower one on its side.  This gave me the 5mm height shown by others with the ability to camber, or crown the grating appropriately.  While a glue seam can be seen if you look really closely the net effect looks like the half lap joint.  Sanding across the grating with a rocking motion produced a good curvature. 

 

Edited May 4, 2019 by SkipW
Align photos

[Blue Ensign]

Nice progress Skip, like the camber on the gratings 👍

 

B.E.

 

[SkipW]

Yes, they should look familiar.  Except for not having actual half lap joints they are copies of your design.   I love your blog and refer to it often.  

[Blue Ensign]

Cheers Skip, glad it's of use 😃

 

B.E.

[SkipW]

Back to cannons and how to rig them since the cannons which will be under the upper decks need to be placed prior to gluing the decks in.  I decided to fit all carriages with breeching ropes, not a big deal.  Only the four cannons that will be slightly visible will get in-haul and out-haul tackles, out-haul only on the visible side.  There are several approaches to treatment of the spare line on the tackles.  On DubZ's Syren - he leaves the lines free on the deck, although these are not cannons and don't have as much excess line.  Many builders of the Pegasus, e.g. Flyer and Blue Ensign, chose to frappe the tackles.  After looking at a lot of reference material and blogs, I have gone a slightly different way.  With the guns run out, showing her teeth as they say, I would guess that the gun would need to be ready for somewhat violent recoil, so the out-haul tackles would need to be free to run, not frapped as they might be for storage with the guns stored inboard.  So I have flaked the excess line alongside the gun as I might imagine it was done in preparation for firing.  The in-haul tackle is at its' maximum extension so there is likely very little excess line, so I chose to affix it to the deck running back close to the eye bolt holding the inboard block.  This seems to me how the cannon would be set up prior to firing.

 

 

 

[Martin W]

Hi Skip -- Your logic certainly seems sound.  I think we all work out a basic idea of which position we want the guns to represent -- ready to fire, or simply secured against the seas -- and rig them accordingly.  The main point here is that your work looks neat and realistic.

 

Cheers

 

Martin

[SkipW]

Hi Martin -

 

   You can find a lot of info on rigging the guns "for sea".  The barrels were typically raised quite high and lashed to a ring bolt above the port.  I would guess in this configuration you would build it with the gun ports closed, which while realistic, would hide some nice detail.  I have not seen any models fitted with all 18 gun port lids (open or closed).  Most have the guns run out and only show closed lids on the forward two ports, where guns were not fitted according to the records.  I think there is even data to suggest that very likely the Pegasus went to sea with only 14 guns as the British Admiralty was short of cash and scrimping on armaments and decorative work on the Swan class ships.  

 

Cheers,

Skip

[SkipW]

After a lot of debate (with myself) and reading blogs I decided this was a good time to copper the hull; prior to installing the upper decks.  It has its advantages and disadvantages, but this way once the hull is coppered I won't have to invert it anymore.

 

I used the technique described by Blue Ensign - soaked the sheets, one at a time, in white vinegar, buffed with 0000 steel wool and then cleaned with acetone.  Put the sheet into a gallon zip-loc bag and then folded to separate the plates.  Once this was done they were never touched without latex gloves.  Used medium CA to glue the plates, applied with the side of a needle as a spreader.  Too often I still ended up with too much CA and cleaning the plates will be a bit tedious, but I have found 0000 steel wool with a bit of acetone will take off the excess CA (with a bit of elbow grease).

 

First I put folded plates around the stern post, which will be mostly covered with the hull plates.  This gives a neat look to the stern post.   I started off trying to "brick lay" the plates like Blue Ensign, but quickly became unhappy with the gaps caused by the curvature (kudos to Blue Ensign).  I then went to the technique used by Flyer, of overlapping the plates slightly at the bottom (top edge of the lower row).  This allowed me to get tight fits and looked a lot better.  The upper most row was installed along the waterline as done by Flyer.  I like the nice appearance.  Cutting the plates always leaves a somewhat jagged edge.  When both sides are complete I will add the small wooden strip at the top of the copper, on the waterline.

 

Pictures show the starboard side, finished, and lightly cleaned.  I won't do the final cleaning of the CA until both sides are coppered.

 

 

 

[Martin W]

That looks pretty doggone nice, Skip.  Now you won't have to worry about those pesky worms.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[SkipW]

Martin, Are you doing a blog?

[Beef Wellington]

The coppering looks great Skip.  You're making great progress so hope you don't mind if I follow along, I do love the Swan builds.

[Martin W]

Hi Skip -- I do have a log going, though I'm very slow at posting updates.  You can find it here:

 

 

[SkipW]

On 7/12/2019 at 10:38 AM, Martin W said:

Hi Skip -- Your logic certainly seems sound.  I think we all work out a basic idea of which position we want the guns to represent -- ready to fire, or simply secured against the seas -- and rig them accordingly.  The main point here is that your work looks neat and realistic.

 

Cheers

 

Martin