HMS Victory by Kranck - Corel - 1:98

[Kranck]

So, after some months of hard work on this first ship, it is eventually time to start a build log. 

 

Building started in July after this gift kit unexpectedly ended up in my hands . Unfortunately or fortunately, I acquired a new house and moved almost at the same time. So work in the shipyard resumes when the multiple improvements in the house and my new job let me some scarce free time.

 

I have no experience in wood work (nor manual work actually!). So I bought a lot of tools to help compensate 😉. Not sure it was a good idea but well, one has to start somewhere at some point. 

Forums on this website helped a lot to avoid some mistakes. Yet, I eventually made a lot of them...

 

Let us summarize the consecutive steps up to the current stage of the build:

- Frames were attached to the keels after tapering (alas, I did not compare the two sides of each frame

- I planked the upper deck and lower deck 

- Bits of woods that attach to the half gun were set between each frame.

- Stern and bow fillers were adequately shaped (all praise dremmel power tools).

- Many pages about planking were carefully read. Then they were read again. And again. 

- Months and much energy were spent for first layer planking with the following mistakes:

+ Miscalculation of stern and bow tapering. For instance, the planks close to the main and upper deck are too wide at the extremities.

+ Unredeemable (well, almost) mistake in the overall curvature of the tucked stern. 

+ Overall ugliness 

- Currently happily sanding and filling.

 

Next steps:

1. Drill holes and design gun ports. Wondering how to accurately set each location. Then I can move the half-gun holders at the right place, if necessary. Forum pages shall be read and read again. 

2. Anxiously bite my nails while wondering about how the lowest planks should meet the keel.

3. Despair for a while. Read ther build log for tthe 20th page. 

4. Cautiously get to 2nd layer planking. 

5. Observe result. Incriminate lack of experience and dubious genes to explain obvious failure.

 

All comments and tips are more than welcome !

 

 

[Kranck]

I forgot one other mistake:

- Stealers. Don't like them. 

[Keithbrad80]

I have never been a fan of stealers my self, I seem to have to do it three or four times before I get the results that I want. For a first build you are doing a great job! 

Before you start planking the second layer of the hull I would look up and read about butt shifts. Basically when the hull was built back in the day that would offset planks by 3 or 4 bulk heads I assuming to increase the strength of the ships hull. 

 

Here is a link to another build of the HMS Victory by Michael101 asking about the butt shifts of the main deck. Comment #9 by John Garnish does a nice job of explaining how butt shifts work with the HMS Victory. 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/15399-hms-victory-middle-gun-deck-plank/

 

 

Bradley

Edited November 23, 2020 by Keithbrad80

[Kranck]

Thank you for your comment !

I intend to plank the deck as you mentioned.

However, what about the hull planks  themselves for the second layer? I see that many modelists choose to keep them as long as possible (for the good looks I suppose), while others cut the planks (as used to be done in shipyards at the time I suppose). What would you do?

[Keithbrad80]

I think it depends on what you want your model to look like, usually when doing the first layer of planking the butt shifts become important because they help define the shape of your hull. With the second layer, you typically do longer planks because they look a little better, I will say though making planks the full length of the hull is harder to taper in my opinion. 

 

Personally i prefer the look of butt shifts when planking, but if you like the look of longer full length planks then go with that, beware of bending though with longer planks. 

 

So this is a build by Allan Tyler shown in a booklet by him on planking techniques. If you notice his planking has a butt shift, and this is the look i prefer. It’s a very clean planking job with a very subtle butt shift in the planking, most people will never notice it, but for those that do it really makes all the difference.

 

So here is a model from the Admiralty Ship Models website, you can clearly see the full length planks they chose to use. 

 

Typically i think people use full length planks when using a wood that i really nice when polished, i dont think its very historically accurate but it is up to! No matter what choice you go with just make sure to take your time and go slowly and it will look great!

 

Bradley  

 

 

[Eugenio Treviño]

Nicolas, regarding the position of the gun ports, I started by marking them on the gun holders (piece 31) and drilling the holes. Then I transferred the position of those holes To the first planking while doing it. So you get a “correct” positioning marking of all of them when you finish the planking. Please see post # 4,5,8 and 12 on my build blog. My suggestion is to drill a small hole on the first gun port of each row and from there start positioning the whole line. Do not do it in those that go directly in a frame.
Keep up the good work!!!

[Kranck]

Hi all,

Going slowiy but steadily here. 

Until I ran into the latest issue...

Unlike first planking i started the second planking from the wales and up. 

However,  once i got to the upper deck level, i noticed the slope is different and planks are laid far too steep in the stern part. 

I don t know what to do... especially for the planks just below the gunwale on the top deck...

 

Any kind of advice most welcome !

[Eugenio Treviño]

Nicolas very nice work !!! Congratulations.

 

As you mentioned, the curvature of the main wales is different than the planks of the first planking. Therefore the second planking has also a different curvature. When setting the upper and poop decks you will need to cut those planks to deck level. I set the decks first, so when planking I trimmed the planks to level.

 

When planking the decks take care of 3 issues:

 

1. First remove the tips of planks (bulkheads) 9 and 10. See post number 6 in my log to avoid that error.

2. Plank the space between the upper  deck and the poop deck before setting the poop deck.

3. When cutting the beams of planks (bulkheads) 6 and 7 also cut the one on number 11. That is not shown on the instructions. I didn’t do it and it doesn’t looks ok. The height at that point is not ok. See attached pick.

 

[Keithbrad80]

 Your angle is indeed kind of weird, but it’s not that bad. I think you have three options: 1) remove all the planking on the second layer of planking and taper them evenly for best results. 2) remove the top ten or so planks and have a steeper taper that evens them out, this probably won’t be noticeable once every thing else is added later. 3) leave them how they are. You will probably have a dramatic angle at the end of each plank, but with a nice sanding and a finish it should look nice. Remember to cut the second layer to fit the first as well. Nice work!

 

Bradley

[Kranck]

Thank you all for your help ! I also think that with proper finish and behind the raft cranes and all, this should not be visible at stern

I hesitate between solution 2 and 3...

I think the issue arose from  1)a slightly incorrect setting for the wales  2) the incorrect notion that upper planks should not be tapered...

 

I'll think a little more about this.

 

 

[Kranck]

just a little update about the second planking:

 

I dealt with the upper part problems with a nice sanding that hid the defects... I'll ponder a bit more for the next ship.

 

Some issue with planking of the bow:  I suppose it is a common problem but the planks won't lay flat on the bow as I progress towards the keel. It is a simple geometry problem , really, but egde-bending seems a no-go. I thought about spiling but I only got the weed provided in the kit.

I read in one planking manual that in that case, I should perform a 'directional change' that seems to be basically a massive tapering of one of the planks :

 

https://www.modelerscentral.com/blog/how-to-plank-the-hull-of-a-bluff-bow-model-ship/

 

So much actually, that the plank will not touch the keel at the front of the bow. 

I think this is efficient but rather inelegant as I suppose that for the second planking all planks should take the full lentgh of the ship. 

 

What do you think? either way, I must find a solution or I won't be able to plank this bow. 

 

bests,

 

Nicolas

[Kranck]

Ok so I officially close this topic. 

I abandonned the building of this ship.

It was too difficult for my feable crafts at the time.

But I did not abandon the hobby !

It turns out that there is a fantastic modeling club around and I thought a lot about how to start over in a way that would let me improve my skills in a satisfying way. 

So I bought decent tools and I started to build le cerf, a small french cutter from the monography of Jean boudriot. 

It is very satisfying, but for me it is a kind of a draft, I'm learning to model ships one piece at a time. I have no beforehand knowledge about ships except that they float in water so well...

As such, I will not display here the results, there are a bit rough.

The hull is quite nice and I use CNC to cut it after drawing it with Fusion 360. I messed with the upper hulll (muraille?) bit time as I did not think about it at the time of hull design. So well, it is not that great but it teaches for the next time. 

 

Speaking about the next time: I feel sufficiently confident now to start a small 'admiralty type' model which will be built very slowly, using for each step what I learnt building le Cerf. I chose 'La Belle', again from the monography of Jean Boudriot. It is supposed to be simple enough for such an endeavour. 

But to do so, I want to design as many parts as in an in 3D and used CNC. 

 

Should you be interested, please have a look at my second build log. I will start listing all the tools I got and the ones I intend to use (Christmas came early this year from Florida, thank you god for the life of the Byrnes !) including the Shapeoko 4 CNC machine.

 

Thank you all for all your advice!