HMS Vulture 1776 by Dan Vadas - FINISHED - 1:48 scale - 16-gun Swan-class sloop from TFFM plans

albert · July 29, 2015

Fantastic work.

Albert

cog · July 29, 2015

Dan,

Not just a great modeling result but a true work of art ... she does show your prowes, or should I say versatility in all sorts of materials ...

Cheers

ronny · July 29, 2015

BEAUTIFUL proficiat

keelhauled · July 30, 2015

Thank you for the explanation and the photos for the rigging. It's very informative!

Dan Vadas · July 31, 2015

Thanks for the kind comments Robin, George, Mark, David, Albert, Carl, Ronnie and Marc. As always they are much appreciated .

Fitting Hammock Cranes

I managed to drill the holes for the hammock crane mounting "bolts" without going completely insane, but it was a near thing . It would have been MUCH easier if I'd done this a lot earlier in the build. The couple hiding amongst the shrouds were fun (not).

I've fitted the passing ropes too. I chose to use a simple knot at each end :

:cheers: Danny

druxey · July 31, 2015

I was wondering how you would do this at this point in construction, Dan. You really challenged yourself!

Dan Vadas · July 31, 2015

Thanks Druxey, I sure did. I managed to drill the holes with a Pin Vise without "re-arranging" any rigging .

Fitting Swivel Guns

I've also fitted the Swivel Guns that I'd made earlier. They are only going on the port side. All the guns can be moved in any direction. Once again, I had to redrill the holes in the posts from 0.8mm to 1mm to accept the mounting legs :

:cheers: Danny

GLakie · July 31, 2015

Nice work jockeying that pin-vise around all that rigging Danny! I sense the banging of little ice-cubes against each other soon, for the up-coming, "all done" celebration festivities.

Cheers :cheers:

Jim Lad · July 31, 2015

Danny, you obviously need this sign in your workshop!

John

BANYAN · August 1, 2015

Excellent work Danny - looks great! Despite the small hiccups you've had enough practice to set your sights on a real one now

cheers

Pat

Edited August 1, 2015 by BANYAN

mtaylor · August 1, 2015

I can't imagine drilling at this point in your build. Bravery and skill of the highest order. A salute...

Greg the peg leg sailor · August 1, 2015

G'day Danny

Another exceptional step by step pictorial log, marvelous piece of artmanship (craftsmanship with art). I agree with all the other post mate

Goodonyamate

Greg

Dan Vadas · August 2, 2015

Thanks for the comments Robin, George, Spyglass, John, Pat, Mark and Greg .

John, I was thinking ahead (well sort of) - when I fitted the quarterdeck rail I wasn't sure if I'd fit the hammock cranes as my silver soldering skills at the time were only in their infancy. By the time I'd got around to the shrouds I'd forgotten all about the cranes :blush: .

Flags

I have made my own flags before - on my last two models I used Silkspan with reasonably good results. Unfortunately it seems like I've left the silkspan at my daughter's place, so I thought I'd have a go at using the Egyptian Cotton which I fortunately DID bring with me, and used Artist's Acrylic paints. I figured all I had to lose was a couple of day's work. If they were a failure I would buy some from Modelflags.com who from all accounts supply some pretty good ones.

I started by drawing the Jack using AutoCAD. I then printed it out twice, drew up the borders for the Ensign and used the 2nd Jack in it's top corner. I taped both of these to the tops of a couple of flat containers so I could turn them in whichever direction I wanted when doing the hand painting. Then I taped the two pieces of (oversize) cotton over them. Last thing for this step was to go over the outline of each section with a pencil as they were only just visible :

I painted the White areas first, being careful to stay inside the lines as much as possible - from previous experience I'd found that it was better not to have to paint over the white, even with dark blue, as it lightened considerably and needed at least three coats to cover sufficiently :

After laboriously painting the red cross without using any masking I had the idea of using Tamiya Masking Tape for the blue areas. I tried it out on a 3rd piece I was painting for any experiments I might have needed - it worked very well, considering I was painting on a medium that it wasn't really designed for. There was a small amount of "bleeding" in some areas that needed a bit of touch-up, but it was much easier than trying to free-hand the lot . Then I removed both flags, turned them over, and repeated the process for the other side :

I cut the borders with a new Xacto blade and steel rule. The painted edges cut cleanly, but the small border I left for the Hoist Cloth tore out a bit as the weave of the cloth wasn't quite exactly square to the flag. A tip to avoid this is either paint the band white or use dilute PVA on it :

:cheers: Danny

Jim Lad · August 2, 2015

Nice job on the flags, Danny.

John

mtaylor · August 2, 2015

Very well done on the flags, Danny. You didn't pretreat the cloth with anything to prevent bleeding?

Greg the peg leg sailor · August 2, 2015

G'day Danny

Sorry to mention this to you. The St. Andrew's Cross the flag of Scotland, looks to me very thin.

Havagooday

Greg

SawdustDave · August 2, 2015

Danny.... Having spent the last hour going through your latest pics, I am caught without words to express my admiration for the excellence of your work. A humble fan....

Dave

druxey · August 2, 2015

Greg: in contemporary paintings, the St Andrew's cross was usually as narrow as Danny has painted it.

Jeff-E · August 2, 2015

Hi Danny,

Just been catching up on your build after a long time away I cannot find the appropriate words of praise to describe your work absolutely stunning.

Dan Vadas · August 2, 2015

Thank you John, Mark, Robin, Greg, Dave, Druxey and Geoff.

You didn't pretreat the cloth with anything to prevent bleeding?

Mark - only a press with the iron. I didn't get any "bleeding" on my untreated test piece, or for that matter on the "real thing". It was more a matter of the paint creeping under the tape between individual pieces of weave in the cloth. This only happened in a couple of places where I may have thinned the paint a bit too much and/or didn't press the tape down firmly enough.

Robin and Greg - I went with the comments in TFFM regarding the St Andrew's Cross being usually shown as too THICK on a lot of modern models. I may have made mine a FRACTION narrow, but what's been done is done. Here's a pic of the action between USS Constitution and HMS Guerriere, painted by Thomas Birch, that shows the St Andrew's Cross as narrow as mine :

:cheers: Danny

druxey · August 2, 2015

Robin: various contemporary paintings show different widths of white: I agree that there were apparently no standard proportions. I have seen very narrow crosses depicted as well as wider ones. I don't think we differ in our views that much!

Dan Vadas · August 2, 2015

how ever the action you show was in war of 1812 and your ship is in the erlea peroud look at the time span Red Ensigen 1707 1800

Can't fool you Robin . I knew that .

I've spent two days painting these flags, and I'm NOT about to redo them. I'm going with Druxey's last comment. Besides, once they are twisted and semi-furled not a lot will be visible.

Thanks for your concern.

:cheers: Danny

Greg the peg leg sailor · August 2, 2015

G'day Danny

Que sara sara

Greg

Landlocked123 · August 2, 2015

Hi Danny,

Taking "scratch building" to flags is a new one for me. But, as usual, you keep pushing the bar higher!!! I don't know if this would help anything but if you painted taped edges with something like "gloss cote" it seals the edges and limits bleeding.

I may be going a bit off topic, but as you know, you inspire me to push myself to new levels and you've succeeded. For the past few months, I've found myself doing things which I would've wagered I could never have done. It's one of things I totally love about this avocation. I'm in my early 60's and I can't think of any aspect of my life where I continue to grow and achieve success, especially with new endeavors. Frankly, my wife and kids (not really kids any more) are amazed at what I'm doing.

I've got two questions. One, how long have you been scratch building? And, it is possible to do what you do without a micro-lathe and milling machine? Thanks.

Best,

John

Dan Vadas · August 3, 2015

Thank you Greg and John.

I've got two questions. One, how long have you been scratch building? And, it is possible to do what you do without a micro-lathe and milling machine? Thanks.

I started Scratchbuilding not long after I started the AL kit of HMS Supply and found that the entire kit was not only wrong but contained a lot of garbage parts. That was about 7 years ago. After that I used the hull bulkheads of a Modeller's Shipyard kit of the Norfolk Sloop which I'd bought for my grandson to build (he didn't start it) and Scratchbuilt the rest, including milling my own timber from a chunk of Norfolk Island Pine for all the planking, masts etc.

Sure, lots of guys build models as good as or better than mine using just hand tools. It takes a bit longer though, especially when making multiples of the same part which can be "mass produced" on a Mill in next to no time. Others use a drill or Dremel tool to turn parts if they don't have a lathe.

Personally, I find it more accurate using the machines. I couldn't do some of the things I do without them.

An update on the Flags. I painted some Egyptian Cotton white on one side and let it dry. Then I cut a 5mm wide strip from it to make the Hoist Cloth. I glued half the width to the flag using Industrial Strength Contact Cement.

Next I glued a loop into each end of some 0.20mm line and PVA glued it to the middle of the hoist cloth and let it dry. Finally, I Contact Cemented the 2nd half of the cloth over itself. All that remains is to soak the flags and shape them. This is why I used the Contact - the PVA would have softened and let go :

:cheers: Danny

GLakie · August 3, 2015

Those flags look fine to me Danny, and will look just dandy on Vulture. A quick question -- I've been mulling over the idea of getting a milling machine, but I'm wondering if a decent drill-press with a good compound-table (X - Y table) would work as well for wood? I wouldn't be using it for metal.

Cheers

dgbot · August 3, 2015

This can be done but the spindle was designed for pressure up an down not lateral pressure. Light cuts only for increased life of the drill press,

GLakie · August 3, 2015

Thanks David. That's what I've been thinking. That those types of cuts, for our purposes in modeling, would for the most part, be very light, and with a 10" drill-press, it should hold up fairly well.

Dan Vadas · August 4, 2015

David - Thank you for answering George's question.

I've finished fitting the flags. I'm not sure whether my method of hoisting them is suitable for the period, but they work quite well this way.

I made two toggles for each flag. One is fitted to the bottom corner of the flag, the other to the halyard at the top end. When no flag is flown the toggle and eye in the halyard are joined together :