HMS Pegasus by Richard44 - FINISHED - Amati/Victory Models - 1:64

[Blue Ensign]

I remember those breast rails, tricky little beggars to fit, well done Richard. 👍

 

B.E.

[Ronald-V]

Really nice! Great neat modifications!

[Richard44]

Thanks for the likes and comments.

 

The two ladders in the waist, the swivel gun mounts at the bow, the tiller, the cover over the head of the rudder, the pin rails and the channels were all added. The wheel and binnacle will both be added later as I think they would be a little vulnerable to being knocked at the moment.

 

 

It was immediately apparent that the channels lacked something - the supporting knees. The kit makes no mention of these, but TFFM says that the fore channel has three, the main four and the mizzen two. So knees were made from suitable strip and glued in place. A Dremel with a sanding drum was used to put the curve into the knee and it was then simply cut from the strip. There is a however, however. The knees butt against the hull between the two rails that have already been installed with PE decoration between them. Removing the PE, trimming it to allow for the knees and reinstalling was never an option. Neither was trimming the PE whilst in place. So the knees are simply glued against the PE decorations. Although close inspection would show this, the knees will be hard to see behind the rigging.

 

The Dremel and two knees that have been parted from the strip.

 

 

The tops of the swivel gun mounts were sanded to an octagonal form, but this is not readily apparent.  The black “iron” bands around the tops of the mounts are heat-shrink tubing.

 

The fore channel and two of the mounts.

 

 

That's all for now.

 

Cheers

 

 

Edited September 6, 2021 by Richard44

[Richard44]

Thanks for the likes.

 

The quarter deck cap rail is supported at its aft end by a simple post, and at the fore end by a pre-cut slot in the rail which goes over a post. In between these two are the five swivel gun mounts into which the rail slots. All seven points of fixing had to be aligned so that the rail formed a straight line in profile. To do this, I glued the rail to the aft post and the first and last gun mounts were similarly glued in place and adjusted so that the rail was reasonably straight - it did sag in the middle. The rail was just slipped onto the fore post, but not glued at this time. The remaining three gun mounts were then offered up to the rail and adjusted till the rail was straight. The join between the rail and the fore post was painted with glue, and after drying, the post was trimmed as it was overlong.

 

The wheel had already been made, with a few changes from the kit. The end stanchions were simplified, the barrel was replaced as I did not like the appearance of the plywood one in the kit, and the wheel was rigged to the tiller following the diagram in TFFM, rather than the one in the plans.

 

The binnacle was fastened in place.

 

 

 

The Swan-class ships had two brake pumps (elm tree pumps) as well as the two chain pumps. The kit did not supply nor mention these. So, a Caldercraft kit for two pumps was bought. The instructions weren’t quite followed. The 4mm dowel supplied to form the body of the pump should have been cut into 13mm lengths and drilled length-wise through the centre (a 0.75mm diameter hole). A length of 0.7mm brass rod (the connecting rod) was to be fed through this hole, protruding through the bottom to make a locating peg, and formed into a small loop at the top to take the brake handle. I decided to cut a 4mm dowel into a length sufficient to reach the lower deck of Pegasus and to give the 13mm length suggested for the body of the pump above the upper deck level. A short hole was drilled in the top for the connecting rod for which I used a pre-formed eyelet. Caldercraft supplied 2mm dowel from which to make the outlet - I had some thin walled brass tubing which I used instead. The hole I made through the upper deck was angled as the pumps were not perpendicular to the deck. The instructions call for the pump, when in place, to be oriented so that the handle pointed aft and the outlet forwards. The TFFM says the opposite and this is the way I will install them. When looking at the space available, this is more logical as there is room for a sailor to operate the pump. Also the outlet now points directly at the scupper that the chain pump drains to.

 

The parts to the pumps with the extra long dowel.

 

 

The completed pumps, and I was careful to make port and starboard ones.

 

 

One of the pumps in place. They’ll be permanently installed later.

 

 

The next installment will be all about swivel guns.

 

Cheers

[Richard44]

Thanks for the likes.

 

All the swivel gun mounts are in place and now to deal with the guns themselves. The ones supplied in the kit are terrible, so guns were bought from Syren, nicely turned brass barrels, brass trunnions but no yokes. I initially thought that I would do what B.E. did and bend and silver solder together two brass hooks. I tried this but was unsuccessful. I then realised that because I was not going to install the hammock cranes, these could perhaps be used. The photo shows the first attempt (on the left) at adapting one of the cranes - rather rough. On the right is the second attempt, much better. Also shown is a hammock crane as supplied and a brass nail which I will have to cut down to use as the trunnion. The trunnions that came with Syren’s guns are too big to fit through the holes in the arms of the cranes, even after I had drilled these out as much as I dared.

 

 

 

The new yokes are perhaps a little underscale, but even so, they look quite good.

 

A 0.5mm hole was drilled in the gun and a short length of 0.5mm brass rod was epoxied in for the tiller with a blob of epoxy forming the knob at the end. The sixteen swivel guns ready for assembly. The small washers are to go onto the tops of the mounts as sockets for the yokes.

 

 

One of the finished guns on a mount.

 

 

Finally, this photo shows one of the kit guns compared to my version.

 

 

That’s all for now,

Cheers

 

 

 

[Richard44]

Onto the headworks, where I immediately ran into a problem. With the figurehead in place, there was insufficient clearance for the upper prow rails (part 127) to fit between it and the prow.

 

 

If I moved the figurehead forwards to provide the clearance, it protruded past the prow by a couple of mm.

 

 

I therefore thinned the prow so that the total width of the prow plus the two upper rails was 5mm, the original width of the prow.

 

 

Construction of the headworks then more-or-less followed the plan/instructions. The head three timbers were glued in place and the ends carefully sanded to allow the upper rails to lie flush against them. The lower rails were very delicate pieces and I broke both trying to fit them into the slots on the undersides of the head timbers. Two more were made from leftover fret and more carefully glued in place. The lower prow cheek was positioned so as to just touch Pegasus’ foot.

 

Once finished, the prow area looked decidedly empty - specifically, no seats of ease.

 

 

So two seats of ease were made, the discharge tubes made from square wood strip sanded to provide the correct parallelogram cross-sectional shape, while the actual seats were made from thin ply, glued in place then gently sanded to thin them even more. Knees were fitted between the first head timber and the bow head rail. Ledges were fitted to fill the area. These were tricky to fit given the small area in which to work. Beams were first glued across the first and third head timbers, then two curved rails (to support the inboard ends of the ledges) were glued to the undersides of these. Five minute epoxy was used and gentle finger pressure held each rail in place until the glue grabbed (I preferred to use epoxy rather than gel CA). On the inside of the head rails, thin strips were glued to provide outboard support for the ledges. The upper edges of the strips were curved to match the head rail, while they protruded below it. The grain was kept horizontal, then once the ledges had been glued in place, a sharp knife trimmed those strips back flush with the rails.

 

 

 

The decorations, the figurehead and the berthing rail were all fitted, as was the rail around the fore deck.

 

 

Cheers

 

 

Edited November 14, 2021 by Richard44

[Blue Ensign]

One of the trickiest parts of a build, well done Richard.

 

B.E.

[Richard44]

Ok, so Pegasus has been sitting idle for some months now. I have finally decided that I am not going to go with the masting and rigging, so here are a few final photos, and I declare Pegasus to be finished. It’s been an enjoyable build but I don’t have the enthusiasm to take it further.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So thanks to all those who added likes or offered comments and advice.

 

Cheers

 

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by Richard44

[bruce d]

Lovely model,  Richard, and I like her just the way she is.  

[Ronald-V]

That is a really nice end result! And she won't take a lot of room to display this way  

[ccoyle]

Very nice! And welcome to the Fly & Pegasus hull model club!

[Mirabell61]

very nice build Richard, well done !

 

Nils

[AJohnson]

Very nice "Admiralty" style model Richard.

[Knocklouder]

Nicely done,   I just started mine and can see some  ideas  that I will try to emulate,  big emphasis  on try lol.  Thanks for posting, well done.     

[aliluke]

Excellent model! That is exactly as far as I intend intend to take HMS Fly although that still feels a long way away...