prototype build HMS Victory by James H - Amati - 1:64

[James H]

24 minutes ago, SpyGlass said:

Just a note - I found that the EVOStick Interior  PVA, which I have for years normally used, is suddenly very fast drying nowadays  - I suspect formulation change - but the Exterior version does take quite a bit longer to go off.

 

It all sounds real familiar. I wonder if a number of PVA glues have changed formulation. I remember PVA generally having a reasonable amount of time to allow for adjustment. When I was building Flirt, I glued two parts together and noted after a couple of minutes that something was out of alignment. It took serious effort to split the parts.

 

BTW, my next update to this log will be in just over a week. By then, I can show you the completed orlop deck, and the installation of the lower gun deck, plus the longitudinal side frames and cannon port frames for the lower gun deck.

 

Quick note: Planking the lower gun deck took about 50m of 4mm x 1mm tanganyika strip.

[glbarlow]

50 meters?😳

[James H]

6 hours ago, glbarlow said:

50 meters?😳

 

And that's only one deck! Remember, there aren't just three full gun decks, but also the upper decks too.

 

The kit provides 240 strips of 4mm x 1mm x 1000mm tanganyika.

[stuglo]

9 hours ago, James H said:

 

It all sounds real familiar. I wonder if a number of PVA glues have changed formulation. I remember PVA generally having a reasonable amount of time to allow for adjustment. When I was building Flirt, I glued two parts together and noted after a couple of minutes that something was out of alignment. It took serious effort to split the parts.

 

 

I can buy different formulations- time to setting being the main difference. Also age has a significant effect (? evaporation or concentration or contact  with air- I don't know). I usually buy 1 litre at a time (a couple of years worth) and transfer it to 100 ml squeezey bottles. There is a significant "thickening" of the glue and shortening of "catch" time within a couple of months.

[Sjors]

2 hours ago, James H said:

 

And that's only one deck! Remember, there aren't just three full gun decks, but also the upper decks too.

 

The kit provides 240 strips of 4mm x 1mm x 1000mm tanganyika.

I can plank my whole wall at my hobbyroom with this...😃

I think it is time for you to leave the forum for a little vacation.

Of you go!!!!

Save trip and good weather.

We cancelled our little trip 😢

 

Sjors
 

 

[glbarlow]

Glue by the gallons...🤪

[James H]

53 minutes ago, glbarlow said:

Glue by the gallons...🤪

I'm already making a mental note of roughly how much glue I use  

[hwe]

AWESOME!

 

How large will she be, when finished? - The one from Caldercraft (in 1/72) is already quite huge for a living room...

 

Best regards,

Herbert

[Articcie]

About 165cm long... so you might need a bigger house😂

[SweepHall]

Hopefully you can get it put together a little faster than this gentleman

 

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-53579079

[Ronald-V]

17 hours ago, SweepHall said:

Hopefully you can get it put together a little faster than this gentleman

 

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-53579079

It looks much bigger then the measurments in the article? Especially if you considering the time spent  

[SweepHall]

1 hour ago, mugje said:

It looks much bigger then the measurments in the article? Especially if you considering the time spent  

Ha, I thought that too.  It could just be he's a really small man

[James H]

I thought it best to do another update on this one. 

 

Amati sent a lot of the wooden sheets made from the wrong material for the job, and the laser company is going to replace them all. As Italy is in holiday mode for August, I anticipate these will arrive in September. It didn't stop me working on and completing the orlop deck, and making a start on the lower gun deck too. Plus, I've just got back from a week away in Devon, otherwise this update would have been a little earlier. 

 

Orlop deck

After fitting the 6mm MDF orlop floor sections, you will have an option to plank a section of it. You may not consider it worthwhile, and to be honest, you'd need an endoscope to see it when done, but for the purpose of the instructions, I've decided to do it. 

 

Before planking, I decided to assemble the hatch coamings. Three of these are required, build up from two parts. Always a good idea to clamp. You can never have enough clamps, especially with a model this size!

 

The orlop also has a small superstructure within. As well as being sort of authentic, it also goes some way to supporting the centre of the lower gun deck. 

 

This structure is built over the slots in the orlop floor sections, and then dry fitted into place whilst I planked the orlop deck.

 

A cut-off from the coamings was used to add a small floor to the central hatch area. This was also planked as per the deck.

 

4mm x 1mm tanganyika strip was now added to the section of the orlop deck which I thought was at least worthwhile planking. This could be seen if you left off all the gratings from the upper deck, right down to the orlop....but still only if you had specialist camera equipment! A 2B pencil was used to edge the planks for caulk, and CA gel was used to fasten them down. The coamings were then glued in place and the superstructure painted in a grey that looked close to the ones on the real ship. This structure was now glued into position.

 

The grates are made from two layers of photo-etch. These are CA'd together and then painted in Tamiya Desert Yellow, before being glued in position on the orlop. A numbest of supplied barrels are also fitted into the hold area and alongside the structure.

 

 

Some beams are now fitted across various bulkheads, but not all. This is so there is no fouling the open hatch areas.

 

 

 

 

Bow/Stern parts
Before the lower gun deck can be fitted, the bow and stern bulkheads need to be fitted, along with the various shape parts that will need to be sanded. No sanding will occur until the lower gun deck is due to be fitted out.

 

 

 

 

 

Lower gun deck
The L A R G E deck comes in four sections, primarily due to the size of the thing. These sections are fitted into the slots in the bulkhead ears, but upside down. Once they are in place and positioned correctly, tape is used to temporarily secure the port and starboard halves, before the sections are carefully removed from the hull. The sections are then slightly bent and white glue applied to the seam between them, and the upper side of the deck sections are planked in 4mm x 1mm x 1000mm tanganyika strip. After a sanding, the various slots, notches etc. are cut out from the halves. Note also that the deck planking doesn't quite run up to the edges of the slots for the bulkheads. This is because the deck slots into those bulkhead ears along the edges, and holds the deck edges down, in place, so no need to pin the edges of the decks. Those familiar with Chris Watton's work will be used to that concept.

 

 

 

 

 

As the deck still needs to be held down along the centreline, some 6mm MDF props were temporarily pushed under the centre of the deck beams. To be honest, I don't think it needs this, but better being safe than sorry. Each bulkhead with a beam was also marked with and 'X' to help me identify them when it came to pinning down the decks at those points. 

 

The deck halves are now finally glued into place and pinned down along the centreline region. Once dry, the temporary MDF props were pushed away. 

 

 

Various grades of sandpaper were now used to give the deck it's final finish. For the finest grit, I used 320.

 

 

Amati's Victory will not need any guesswork when it comes to the position of any of those gun ports. This is because they are designed into the frames of the ship.....no plywood sections to second-guess here! The thickness of Victory's bulwarks also allows this to be done. First of all, a 3mm strip is run along the bottom notches of the bulkheads, in two sections per side. Another set of strips is then run above these. 

 

 

Note how those strips have more slots. These are for the cannon port frames. Here you see them. Each port is numbered and I've added an arrow to them to show which way up them will point when fitted. These need to be pushed fully into those slots when you glue. The ports start at #2, thru to #16. 

 

I cut away a small section of the tanganyika deck where each gun port frame will fit.

 

All gun port frames are now glued into position. This creates a surprisingly strong structure until which the mid and upper gun decks will eventually fit. The small slots in front of each gun port are where the cannon carriages will securely plug into. Remember, these are full carriages and guns. No dummy barrels here, and this whole deck will be fitted out with capstans, pumps, bitts, coamings etc.

 

 

 

 

Ok, for the time being, that's it. Until I get the stuff from Amati, I will be working on another quick project for Vanguard Models.

 

Victory is one very heavy model, even at this very early stage!

[Kevin]

love the way the gun ports frames are fitted

[DelF]

Good grief, what a beast. I'd have to move to a larger house to accommodate it and probably dismiss the butler to afford it!

[bbyford]

Wow! This is going to be a fantastic model. I may even change my plan to do a scratch Victory and do this one instead (if I can fit it into the budget?). I am going to be following your progress very closely.

[James H]

26 minutes ago, bbyford said:

Wow! This is going to be a fantastic model. I may even change my plan to do a scratch Victory and do this one instead (if I can fit it into the budget?). I am going to be following your progress very closely.

The construction is pretty intuitive with those layers that build up and the cannon carts plugging into decks so all barrels protrude the same distance. 

 

Looking forward to posting the progress and completion of this deck, to give you an idea how it builds upwards.

[Ronald-V]

You are going quite fast already! Nice to follow the progress!

[glbarlow]

1 hour ago, DelF said:

dismiss the butler

😂🤣I hate it when I have to let any of the Manor staff go...😂🤣

[glbarlow]

3 hours ago, James H said:

is one very heavy model,

I’m enjoying watching you build this monster.  I just shake my head at the size of this thing.  So already the extra work you did on the orlop is lost forever other than a tiny glimpse down a hatch.  Definitely for the detail enthusiast, but so beautiful design.

[jurgisnemickas]

Post #74 "small floor to the central hatch area" is that where the barrels are shown & how far down from the deck?

[James H]

8 minutes ago, jurgisnemickas said:

Post #74 "small floor to the central hatch area" is that where the barrels are shown & how far down from the deck?

 

You get around 10 barrels. They are only representative of the area and provide some visual interest in the area where this stuff would've been stored.

[fifthace]

I've taken an extended sabbatical from building wooden ships, favouring instead the quick fix of plastic.

But seeing this, has given me the excuse I need to get back into this field. Looking forward to this being released.

[James H]

28 minutes ago, fifthace said:

I've taken an extended sabbatical from building wooden ships, favouring instead the quick fix of plastic.

But seeing this, has given me the excuse I need to get back into this field. Looking forward to this being released.

 

It's a very different beast to build and nothing like conventional wooden ship modelling with the basic construction. So many avenues for those who want to super detail things too.

[Suzdal]

6 minutes ago, James H said:

 

It's a very different beast to build and nothing like conventional wooden ship modelling with the basic construction. So many avenues for those who want to super detail things too.

I think one of the first questions would be how to modify the sides to be able to show some of the detailed interieur & how to illuminate it with LEDs.

[fifthace]

11 hours ago, James H said:

 

It's a very different beast to build and nothing like conventional wooden ship modelling with the basic construction. So many avenues for those who want to super detail things too.

It's the porthole frames that do it for me. If I was in two minds, this is what sold it. I can't believe that hasn't been done before now. So simple, yet such ingenuity.

[James H]

6 minutes ago, fifthace said:

It's the porthole frames that do it for me. If I was in two minds, this is what sold it. I can't believe that hasn't been done before now. So simple, yet such ingenuity.

 

The first model to have these is the unreleased Amati Bellona. That was the kit that Chris used as a testbed for that particular design aspect. With Victory, he told me he'd got it right. 

[fifthace]

28 minutes ago, James H said:

 

The first model to have these is the unreleased Amati Bellona. That was the kit that Chris used as a testbed for that particular design aspect. With Victory, he told me he'd got it right. 

It certainly makes life easier!

If I am understanding you correctly, you are writing the construction manual for this?

That being the case, any chance you could dumb it down some what? For those of us that aren't sailing buffs. I love the look and styling of sailing ships, but I don't know the first thing about them. I couldn't tell the difference between a Stuncel or a yard arm.

TIA

[James H]

51 minutes ago, fifthace said:

It certainly makes life easier!

If I am understanding you correctly, you are writing the construction manual for this?

That being the case, any chance you could dumb it down some what? For those of us that aren't sailing buffs. I love the look and styling of sailing ships, but I don't know the first thing about them. I couldn't tell the difference between a Stuncel or a yard arm.

TIA

 

Yes, this is for the manual(s), and I will be including many, many photos of stuff which should mean that no one can get it wrong. Despite the possible cost, there should be no reason why this model can't be built by someone at intermediate level with a few other builds already done.

[Jon B]

Without doubt this is going to be the best model of the Victory that has ever been available. Being particularly interested in the

Victory siince the late 1950's I have built models of the ship from the first version produced by Airfix (very small that came in a

plastic bag) followed by at least  two of their larger version and several from Revell. The last Victory I built was the 1/78 Panart

version which was unfortunately damaged in a house move 4 years ago. Therefore I have started saving up for this long awaited 

beauty from Amati/Victory Models. I am currently working on a "super detailed version" of the Jotika 1/64 scale HMS Agamemnon

which will include a fully fitted out lower gun deck with fully rigged gun carriges etc and the  1/64 Victory will fit in well with this

and HMS Diana which I finished building just before my house move and fortunately survived undamaged.