HMS Speedy by Theodosius - Vanguard Models - 1:64

[Theodosius]

@VTHokiEE: thank you very much for your thumbs up! 🙂

@SpyGlass: I break the hull in half in terms of coulking, lol, don't know jet, how this will turn out :-). Like you, I also try for a nice close edge fit, but, I struggle a little bit with it. The sanding will show how it went in the end 🙂

Thought I could give water-level report :-).

 

In general, I'm working slowly through the second planking.

But I have some issues. 

Some with my work: I could not see my marks on a watered strip, because it changes colour that much, so I worked most of the time with heat-bending.

Second with the wood itself. Perhaps I have gotten quite a vew ones, done with the thickness planer just short of a blade replacement:

 

 

 

 

I break a few with imperfections like this:

 

 

Then I started to look more carefully at the strips before I started to use them. But my eyes ar'nt the best any more, so I also build in such strips:

 

 

But they are hopefully thick enough for a good sanding.

Will see if there is enough stock left, because then I started to sort some of them out, and some I have broken into two or more pices :-).

Nevertheless, I finished 15/16 strips, and the area left to do is less then the finished one :-).

 

Because of inperfection of my work there are gaps, a good example is also the picture above. I hope that they will be not to prominent when sanded, I don't want to paint the whole model, and then there is also the coppering.

But I don't know if I can copper better than planking lol.

 

Colour: well, I have sorted enough strips for the area above the whale out, and they match fine in colour. But for the rest, as you can see, I just take them as the came out of the bag:

 

 

 

 

 

 

One last sentence about the coulking question: because I did this on the stern area, I will also do this above the whale, but not below the whale. I have no idear how this will turn out...

[Theodosius]

@Sea Hoss, @SpyGlass: thank you both for your thumbs up! Much appreciated 🙂

@SpyGlass: yes, until now, I have only used the wood suplied by the kit :). Perhaps I was just a little bit unlucky :).
I will wait and see how far I can go with the strips, perhaps it is still enough, but I don't know jet :).

 

But, I don't cut the strips in two halves! They are all one piece from front to stern. Ok, one broke during gluing just very far at the back, and I still use this one, but that was unintendet and I hope, it will not be to prominent in the end :).

 

Perhaps all my pencil-marks look like as they were cut's through the strips, but they ar'nt.

 

Normaly, there are two marks for the tapering, and the others are for gluing.

The first planking, the first strips I used a combination of wood and superglue to speed things up. But for healthy reasons that did not work for me.

So I only glue with wood glue. And I make mostly three, sometimes four gluing-sessions/sections for one strip. That's where the marks are for, so I can see at what point I need to add the next glue.

 

Hope that clears it up a little bit :-).

 

Thanks again for your interest! 🙂

[Theodosius]

@Ryland Craze, @bruce d, @Sea Hoss, @CiscoH, @DelF: thank you all very much for your thumbs up! Allways a good motivationer 🙂

 

@SpayGlass: I think I will build the inner bulwarks from the not needet 3mm pear, and the rest strips. I have enough of the 4mm for the wales and the upper rest of the outside planking. If this will not work, I go and contact Chris :-). And thank's a lot for your generous offer. I live in Germany, and if nothing helps, I will come back to this :-).

So I finished the second planking. Not as good as intended, because I was impatient, and because of lack of experience. But of course, mostly becaus of my impatience. Things that were not as good as wished, I could always have done again, but I did not.

But then I was also a little bit short of strips, but that's just a poor excuse for my own shortcommings :-).

 

An overview:

 

 

Because I ran out of strips, I build the garboard plank out of two pices per side, as I also did with the first planking.

I have spared full planks for the rest of the outside of the hull upward of the main wales, and two strips for the main wales. For the inner side of the bulwarks I will uses the narrower 3mm planks, because ther are plenty of them in the kit. And then I have a lot of cut overs from the planking itself, so I think I will be fine.

 

The two-part garborads:

 

 

I know that garboard should ran parallel to the keel, but I struggeld a little bit with triangular stealers, and then there is the copper to come, so I went the easy way and bent it away from the keel and just filled the gabs with additional planks:

 

 

The contact of the planks with the stem is on this side:

 

 

not as good as on this side:

 

 

But at least the planks are quite parallel structure wise, even if not colour wise:

 

 

I think I have already talked about the colour of the strips, I'm fine with it this way, because there is the coppering that will cover the 'wild' part of it. Above the wale, I have sortet the strips per colour 🙂

 

Well, what it is worth at all, will show the sanding, which is still to do :-).

 

[Theodosius]

@chris watton, @CiscoH, @Delf, @drjeckl, @SpyGlass, @VTHokiEE: thank you all very much for lookin, leaving a thumb's up and accompany my journey into wooden boat bilding! 🙂

 

Finished two sanding-sessions. At minimum a third is required, I think, but how smoth does it realy needs to bee for coppering?

 

In the macros you can see, that the two damaged strips I nevertheless build in, need more sanding.

 

Than, I'm afraid, it is not as good as I has wished it would be, because there are same small gaps to see. On the otherhand perhpas it is not so bad for a first attempt. At least a motivation to improve skills 🙂

 

Sure, most of the hull will be hidden under the copper, but if the copper also deos'nt turn out so well, well than I don't know what to do, but time will tell :).

 

 

 

 

 

[Theodosius]

Then there's the life, is'nt it?

 

But that's not the point of this log, so, after a long needet brake, work has started again.

I'm mostly finished with sanding. With the bulk of the hull, I'm quite pleased:

 

 

Front and back there are places where the planks opened a bit. That is, when I sanded them down and thinner, when they had not a good contact over the complete depth. Especialy at the stem. Perhaps of inpatience or just lack of skill. When I glued the planks at first, there were no gaps to see. Seems I have a lot to learn.

 

 

 

I used the provided deck and started the inner planking of the bulwarks with leftover strips from the second planking

 

 

104616

[David Lester]

It's all looking pretty good to my eye.

D

[Theodosius]

Happy new jear!

 

@CishoH, JeffT, VTHookiEE, David Lester, DelF: thank's for your thumbs upp 🙂

 

@David Lester: Thank you very much, but the pictures flatter a little bit. In the close ups, one can see all the imperfections 🙂

 

@SpyGlass: I used this method on the inner bulwarks. On the outer hull, the gaps are very small. They are ok for me, they only show, that there is a lot of room for improvement :-).

 

Innerbulwarks planking continuess:

 

 

 

Error: I did not sort the left overs by they're width. First, not a problem, but later on, when a longer strip cover multiple smaller pices, there were some major gaps to appear:
I also managed to break out some pices around the port holes:

 

 

Planking finished and trimmed down:

 

 

Filling and sanding:

 

 

More sanding and reopen the port holes:

 

 

 

 

Before paining:

 

 

 

Painted:

 

 

 

Now, I torn back and forth, if I want to do more filling/sanding-throughs.

I am ok, that there are strips to see. That is one of the reasons I started a wooden boat. I want to see, that it is from wood. On the other hand it still might be a little bit to prominent on the bulwarks. I have not decieded jet.

This is ok for me:

 

 

This not, when I see the macro:

 

 

I think, I will do more work on this, even if it is mostly for the pictures. For my eyes, only from a very close view, I can see that

Nevertheless, I'm proud, that I started again and did more work on the model. It is also a skill to master, to find out, what is good enough for myself, and what needs to be improoved. I hope I will finish this one, even if it does not match my expectations. Perfection on the very first build is perhaps not what I should go for, because this can be a motivation-killer. But will see...

[Theodosius]

@PhillH, @ccoyle, @VTHokiEE, @Delf, @David Lester, @dunnock: thank you all very much for your thumbs up, much appreciated 🙂

 

Ok, did two complete circles (filling, sanding, painting)

some inbetweens:

 

 

 

Not nearly perfect, but so it is ok, I think:

 

 

 

 

Now I have to relearn this planking stuff, lol

[Theodosius]

@Phill H and @David Lester: thank's for lookin in and the thumbs up 🙂

 

Some progres:

 

I like the overall lines of this ship:

 

Perhaps the caulking comes out a bit to prominent:

 

Start to reopen the gun ports

Edited February 2, 2022 by Theodosius

[Theodosius]

@SpyGlass and @David Lester: again, thank you very much for your support 🙂

 

one side to go:

 

 

 

still needs more sanding on the hull...

[Theodosius]

@bruce d: thank you too for your thumbs up! 🙂

 

I don't know if it is ok to post again just after five hours. I don't want to promote my log, I just had a very productive day and finished all the openigs in the bulwarks and also paint the tremples (?):

 

 

 

[DelF]

Looking very smooth - good work on the planking!

[Theodosius]

@Dave_E, @bruce d, @ccoyle,  : thank you all for showing in and the thumbs up! 🙂

 

@chris watton: did I already mentioned how cool it is, that the master and creator himself shows into the logs of his followers and give help where needed and look how to improve his kits!? Thank you so much! 

 

@DelF: thank's a lot for your comment about my planking! In the end it is not as good as I dreamed of, but then, what could I espect from a first time build? I mean, I am quite please with it, and the best: I'm sure this will not be my last wooden-boat-model-adventure 🙂

Preperation for the wales done:

 

 

 

Both strips for the wales are installed, sanding still to do:

 

 

 

Messed it up, so some filler was needed:

 

 

Some tuch-ups with black still required, but the overall look is quite ok for me :-). Here you can also see, that I painted the bullwarks not the whole way through, I left the outer planking in wood:

 

 

 

 

 

More black needed, but wiht my light tremor I have a lot of respect for the paintings recently. At least, the curves come out good, and the underside will nobody else ever see:

 

With the black wales as a seperator, the caulking is'nt as prominent as it was before, now I like it a lot more.

Still need to decide if I want some blue on the first two planks. Painting black was a little bit frustating in the case of lost skills with the brush. I'm afraid to mess it up with more paint. Perhaps I should go for a 'less-is-more-style'.

I would say with the wales is the planking-process finished.

 

My conclusions or lessons learned: be more precise with the preparation of the planks in terms of the bevels to the planks next to it. If it is not good enough, there will be gaps appear during sanding. And, sort the strips for the start after colour and thickness. Colour is obvicious, and sorting after the thickness reduces the needed amount of sanding. I read the Chuck method, but here I think, the shown way in the manual of the kid is more than enough to get an smooth and nice looking hull. Of course, more effort is always possible to do 🙂 

Edited February 9, 2022 by Theodosius

[BobG]

I just read through your log, Theodosius, and you've done a great job of overcoming the problems you've had along the way and your model is looking really good at this point as a result. Good job!

[PhillH]

It is really coming along now Theodosius and looks great to my eyes. Keep up the good work. 👍

 

Phill

 

[Theodosius]

Ui, so much positive feedback! I love this community here :-).

 

@KARAVOKIRIS, @PhilH, @BobG, @Katsumoto, @hollowneck, @Ondras71, @ccoyle, @DelF, @David Lester: thank you all very much for your thumbs up, much appreciated 🙂

@BobG: thank's for your kind words! I have learned during building, but still, every step I do, I find new things to do wrong, lol. The biggest problem: errors from earlier steps become later more prominent, in my experience. So I learn it the hard way, but I still enjoy the building process. 

What also has a learning curve is the photopgraphing: nowadays I can hide my errors better with better pictures... 🙂

@PhilH: thanky you Phill! Now I'm confidence that I can finish this! During my ply-gunport-pattern-desaster I was not so sure abaout this. And then I had that problem with the dents in the hull. I solved this, but now, while I'm adding the keel, I know what went wrong:

Somehow I managed to let the whole hull to get warped! my Keel looks a little bit like a bana, if you look straight at it. This explains it all! 

Sure, if I won't post any pictures of this or don't write it here, nobody would know about this, but as more experienced builder than I am already pointed out: the community can do more with a log, if it don't spare the errors 🙂

@SpyGlass: I love to share my work, but I'm very sure, I'm not the first one doin it this way:

 

I went the easy way: paint just one side with a black crayon:

 

 

 

 

some leftovers glued on a piece of scrap-wood:

 

 

sand it:

 

 

profit:

 

 

On this test piece, I was not as careful as on the real thing. How priment the plack line will turn out is now a question of how consistent you use the black crayon and how strong the planks are held together during the gluing process.

 

Before I decided to go with the deck as per the kit provided, I did some tests for a potential do-it-yourself-deck, and then I tried paper inbetween the planks. Muuuuch better result, but also muuuuuuch more work lol. 🙂

Hope this helps.

Edited February 13, 2022 by Theodosius

[Blue Ensign]

Your Topsides planking looks very nice Theo, I’d be very happy with that, well done.👍

 

B.E.

[Theodosius]

@BobG, @chris watton, @Blue Ensign, @BenD: thank you all for your thumbs up! Good motivation at the right time 🙂

 

@Blue Ensign: thank's a lot for your kind words! 🙂

 

 

Hello to the swarm intelligence, I need some advice :-).

 

Because of the relative success of my planking as a whole, I run into some issues/problems!

 

Let me explain: I decided to go Speedy on top of Flirt because of the coppering (ah, who don't like a little bit of bling bling on this beautiful ships :-)).
Now, If I went the original way, copper the hull and paint the stem, I had no problems, but I fell in love with the wooden look of Speedy and I would like to preserve this.

 

But, I needed a lot of filler (and not jet finished with the filling/sanding process) to get a good fit of the stem and keel:

 

 

 

Now, if I want to save the wood look, I need something to save the nice wood-colour and also bring it all in line.

For that I made the two test parts with lots of extra cracks in it to use a lot of the sand-dust-filler:

 

 

 

 

 

The bigger one was then separated with a knife to get three areas for different coats. Now I used shellack, pure linseed oil and a matt varnish on water base.

This is how it turns out:

 

 

 

My first impressions:

 

While the matt varnish gives the best colour (IMO) to the wood, it also even sharpens the difference between the dust-filler and the bare wood. Not what I was looking for. Unfortunatly. If my woodwork would have been of better quality, I would go this way!

 

The shellack: it hides the dust-filler perfect! But, It was also the most complicated to add. It is not that easy to get a smooth, even and thin layer. And if it differs in thickness, it also differ in the colour. At least, it comes out quite yellowish. I'm not sure jet if I like it jet. I had promised me more of that.

 

Last, the linseed oil: it also hides the filling perfect, even if I don't know if it last that way, because the oil does not cealing the wood, I think it would dissapear over time.

 

What to do?

 

I have not decided jet, and that slows down my work. Because now would be the time to either copper or paint the stem.

 

Any idear from the community I did'nt know about jet?

 

Thank you all in advance! 🙂

 

[Theodosius]

@SpyGlass, I'm very sure, that this is not the case! Perhaps some more sanding? And, don't do it too good! If you leave a very small gab between the planks, the black lining becomes more prominent. And everything I build needed more sanding than I initially thought it would need, and that was also the case at the bulwarks! Hope in the end you get the finish you're looking for!

 

Ok, I could made first decisions!

 

Because this parts:

 

are made of ply, I need to paint them anyway, so I will paint something at the stem. Still undecidet of exact colour and how much I will paint.

Made same tests:

 

 

The colour is to shiny, but the only alternative I have here, is an oil based one, and I don't want to use oil colours.

So, I need more and different blue ones, and, I'm not sure, if it would'nt be better to paint the inlay also black. It is a lot of blue that way. 

Or perhaps just a much darker blue, that goes more into black. Need more tests...

[Theodosius]

@BobG: thank's for your thumbs up! 🙂

 

Cobalt-blue, this is better, but I'm still not fully convinced:

 

 

 

 

[BobG]

1 hour ago, Theodosius said:

Cobalt-blue, this is better, but I'm still not fully convinced:

 

I like this shade of blue better also.

 

I'm sure that many ship modelers try to be as historically accurate as possible when they choose the colors they paint their models. I prefer to find shades of the correct colors  that please my eyes or, on some occasions, I even choose a completely different color that I like. After all, I'm the one that's going to be looking at it the most in the future! 😂

[Glenn-UK]

Looks very nice, great work

[PhillH]

Looking good. I would go with the darker blue.

Have you considered doing a test with Wipe On Poly (WOP) for the planking.

 

Phill

[Theodosius]

@BobG, @glennard2523: thank you both for your thumbs up! 🙂

 

@BobG: luckylie I don't have the claim to build historicaly accurate, but I need to like it, so I'm completly with you on that! 🙂

 

@glennard2523: thank you very much! 🙂

 

@PhillH: Thanks for your suggestion about the wipe on poly! I would love to test this, but I have no idear, what I have to look for!? I live in germany, so I need a product that I can get here. Anybody any tips on this? 🙂

Colours.

 

Well, because still I wasn't very hapy with my blues, I decided to go all in. I entered the local artists supply and buy me a bunch of additional acrylic blues:

 

 

 

I hold the test pieces next to the stem to decide which I want to give a try (just one example):

 

 

The two I liked best found they're way to the model:

 

 

 

Still not happy. But now, I know why I don't like it: all this colours are to powerfull, to shiny, to 'good' to match the oxide-red.

So, another two trys. One with most palest and one with one of the two very dark ones:

 

 

 

The coloured stem draw so much attention in this small area. Perhaps it would help to paint two blue lines on the hull like it is done on Flirt.

Still not decided the oucome of my blue colored fight :-).

But I can say, that I like, at least until now, the last two examples best.

Perhaps I also try the darkest blue, we'll see :-).

[PhillH]

20 minutes ago, Theodosius said:

@PhillH: Thanks for your suggestion about the wipe on poly! I would love to test this, but I have no idear, what I have to look for!? I live in germany, so I need a product that I can get here. Anybody any tips on this? 🙂

 WOP is basically a thinned down oil based Polyurethane Varnish.

The recipe I made a note of is "thin it down 50/50 with White spirit to make your own wipe-on".

I have not used it yet but I am sure there are others with more experience who will be able to provide more advice.

[BobG]

Of the color combinations you have tried, I prefer the blue and black in the bottom photo the best. You might try the darkest blue with the black also.

[Blue Ensign]

I can relate to your 'blue' issues Theo, it takes me ages to decide on a shade, altho' I do tend towards the  lighter, slightly dusky pastel  tones.

 

These shades on contemporary models   are the sort of thing I aim for.

Of course the blue may well have faded over the years, but it's still the look I like.

 

It's all very subjective, but I think the paler shades look better on the paler woods, Box and  light Pear, and tone in better with the Red Ochres.

 

Of your samples Numbers 4 and 7 appeal the best to me.

 

B.E.

 

Edited February 20, 2022 by Blue Ensign

[Theodosius]

@ccoyle, @bruce d, @BobG: thank you three for the thumbs up! 🙂

 

@PhilH: thank's a lot! I will see, if I can get a polyurethane varnish somewhere!

 

@BobG: yes, I tried last the most dark blue I own, and this won the race, at least for this build 🙂

 

@SpyGlass: SpyGlass: thank you too for the info on the WoP! Perhaps I can get it on my local artists supplier, that would be the most easy way to get it!

 

@Blue Ensign: wow, thank you very much for your good post and explanation, and the beautiful pictures! First, I also wanted this finish! But (there is always a 'but', is'nt it? lol), during my tests I was not sold on the yellowish of the shellack. So I stick now on this build with the more 'modern' colours and the darker blue. But, I'm very sure, that I will give this a try on my next buil. And hopefully there will be a next build! I need to spot me from just buying another kit before I end this one! 🙂

In the meantime, I had some small progresses:

 

Some additions to the galleon:

 

 

 

With the stern counter side timbers I went the easy way, I did'nt wanted to cut into the wales. So I marked the pieces and cut them:

 

Some filler was needed, so that it looks as it is was one pice. I painted the sides before they went on the boat, that gives an clear border:

 

 

I think in the end they turn out ok (some dust need to be removed):

 

 

 

 

 

[Thukydides]

Looking really good. I am also also humming and hawing about colours and finishes. From my tests with wop it seems to give more of the deeper brown on pear that you are looking for.

[Theodosius]

@PHillH, @Thukydides, @DelF, @drjeckl, @BobG, @David Lester: thank you all for your thumbs up, much appreciated! 🙂

@Thukydides: thank you very much! I also enjoy your log! And, as you can see in this post, I also made same tests with PU 🙂

Perhaps I will build more ship models, so can also now spend the time and effort to find the colours that I like best 🙂

I buyed a water based satin PU varnish and treated one of my test pieces with it (first, I sandet the old coat down):

 

 

 

I like the colour, that the PU gives to the wood, but it did not overblend the dust-filler well. So this is only good for 'good' surfaces.

Than uses the PU on a part of the oild wood. I also buyed another shellack. As I know now, there is not 'the' shellack. Nowadays there are different colours and so on, so I buyed an trayed a more light one:

 

 

On the left side, the lower three planks are also with the satin-pu-varnish, and the right is my other brand of shellack. Now, this shellack grows heavyly on me 🙂

 

Between all my trials with the different varnish's I also added some more parts. Because I have the bana-warped hull, I need some curves that the parts don't like, so I brake them, unfortunatly. But, need some paint anyway, so I use some filler:

 

 

 

 

First I thought about to let the parts on the side of the bulwarks (stringer?) in natural wood, but they are made out of ply, that don't look good without paint, so I painted the sides black and installed them all:

 

 

Had a run, so just added the reinforcements for the swivel-guns:

 

 

 

Painted it all black:

 

 

 

 

Need some tuch-ups, especialy on the red (sandet a little bit there too!), but that has to wait until the stern-parts are finised, which are next, I think :-). And I have to remove that black block, very prominent on the last picture. At the end I become unconcentrated...