HMS Victory by tedrobinson2000 - Caldercraft - 1:72

[tedrobinson2000]

Hello all.  I've been a member of this forum for many years, but have never posted a build log before.  I'm a little late to the party here, as I started this build over 11 years ago. I actually took a few years off in the middle, and am now in the final laps of this journey.

 

I had made two previous models, and this time I wanted one that had a lot of detail, and was authentic, so I decided on Caldercraft's Victory. It was, in retrospect, a good choice, because there are tons of sites and photos of the actual ship available on the net for research.  At this point I have put in a little over 4300 hours in the build, not to mention the hundreds of hours spent in research, making spreadsheets etc.

 

I'm posting here a few pix of the current state of the build, perhaps later I can add some earlier shots as well.  I apologize for the quality of some of the photos, as the light in the workshop is pretty poor, and I don't spend a lot of time trying to make them look pretty - they are more for documentation's sake.

 

My build process is a little unorthodox, I guess, at least for the rigging part of it. From prior experience I have learned that fragile pieces sticking out are disasters waiting to happen.  Therefore my masting/rigging process went something like this.  (Note that all masts and spars have been previously built and have the blocks, etc attached).  Install all three lower masts with tops in place and the bowsprit, then add lower shrouds and bobstays. Rattle down all lower shrouds, then add futtock shrouds. Next step is to add all topmasts and the jibboom, then install the topmast shrouds and rattle them down. So, these pix show that the topgallant masts and the flying jibboom are still uninstalled.

 

At some point in the build I had to decide whether or not I wanted to add sails.  I was generally disappointed in other sails that I have seen in that the stitching that is supposed to represent the sail seams was way out of scale and was way too apparent and obvious.  I spent a fair amount of time developing a procedure for making what I think are more realistic sails, I am happy with them, so I am going for a full suit of sails for her. 

 

I also had to make a decision on how to display the model, and after much thought decided to depict Victory as she made her turn to port in her run to break the Combined Fleet's line.  Her courses would have been clued up to avoid catching fire from the weather deck's muzzle blasts, and she would have been sailing in a light wind on a port tack.  Getting the sails right to suggest this scenario is my current challenge, and I am wrestling with getting the fore course to look right. Presently 3 of the 4 head sails, along with the spritsail and sprit topsail, as well as the fore topsail are in place.  After I get the fore course to look right, I will go on to the main course and topsail, followed by the main staysails.  Then on to the mizzen - driver and topsail, then the mizzen staysails.  The final step will be shipping the topgallant masts and flying jibboom and their sails.

 

Enough for now; I'll add some more pix later on.  Thanks for looking

Edited April 11, 2021 by tedrobinson2000

[ccoyle]

1 hour ago, tedrobinson2000 said:

I was generally disappointed in other sails that I have seen in that the stitching that is supposed to represent the sail seams was way out of scale and was way too apparent and obvious. 

 

I feel the same. Seam stitches and bolt rope lacing are essentially impossible to duplicate to scale on a model and are not visible on full-size ships in any case. Whenever I have made sails, I have only used glue for panels and bolt ropes.

[tedrobinson2000]

Here are a few more pics from early on in the build. These are from 2011.

 

[Kevin]

lovely work, and the sails look great, thankyou for sharing your build on here 

 

wrt sail, should i ever re rig my version then sails would be added, 

[tedrobinson2000]

Thanks for looking, Kev.  I've seen some of your work here on MSW and it's outstanding!. Your Victory is beautiful.

 

My Vic looks a little worse for wear - unbelayed lines, loose gunport lids etc., but that is the reality of taking pix during the build! She almost looks post-Trafalgar! Will fix the gunport lids later, no use in knocking them off again after they're fixed.

 

Maybe I'll post a series of photos showing how I made the sails - don't know exactly how or where to post.  Guess I'll learn my way around the forum eventually.

[tedrobinson2000]

Doing some deck planking.  Cut boards to length, sandwich about 20 of them between stiffeners and spray paint board edges & ends. LIght sanding afterwards cleans up any overspray and tones down the darkness.

 

Jig to mark trunnels on boards; one for end pattern and another for those in the middle of the planks. Use a sharp pencil to make marks. then layout a 4 butt pattern.

Edited April 13, 2021 by tedrobinson2000

[tedrobinson2000]

Working on stern fascia and quarter galleries, Feb 2011.

[tedrobinson2000]

Laying out upper gundeck kingplank, and then planking the UGD.  All this will be hidden after the quarterdeck goes on.

[tedrobinson2000]

Gun carriage assembly jig.

[Will Ferris]

Ted, I'm doing the same kit now and would love to know how you finished your deck planking.  Did you simulate nails with a pencil?

Your cannons - Brass blackener?

[tedrobinson2000]

Hi Will,

 

I posted a reply on your build log explaining exactly how I did my planks.  Hope it was clear; if not get back to me with any questions.

Cannon barrels were simply well cleaned and spray painted with flat black Krylon. I probably overdid it in making the carriages with axel pins and quoin handles, since only a few of the finished guns will be visible in the final analysis.  These closeup photos show all the flaws - dust, open wood grain etc.  Could have done a better job! 

 

I'll be posting more pix on my build here in the next few days. As I said yesterday, these shots were taken over 10 years ago during the early stages of my build.  I am now in the throes of completion, adding sails and running rigging as I go along.  Would love to be of any help that I can be with your build.  BTW, have you checked out Gil Middleton's Victory model of a few years ago?.  It's somewhere here on MSW. His Vic was an inspiration for me, and as far as I am concerned is the gold standard!

[tedrobinson2000]

Somewhere along the line one has to tackle the assembly and installation of the gunport lids. After they are painted, the hinges have to be added.  For those ports shown in the open position, the hinges have to be bent to about 90 degrees. This can be tricky on these tiny photoetched parts.  In my bag of tricks I had a Mission Models Etchmate 3C, a tool designed expressly for bending small photoetched brass parts. It is a little pricey at $60, but if you do a lot of this work it is worthwhile.  I bought mine a decade or more ago, and a quick look online indicates that they are no longer available; perhaps Mission Models no longer makes this item, but it seems that one can find them on eBay for about $30. Here are some photos of the 3C bending hinges, and some simple jigs to locate them.

[Will Ferris]

They look great Ted; did you paint or use a blackening agent on them?

[tedrobinson2000]

The hinges were just painted.  They get dinged up with handling and installing, so  small touch-up with black Jotika paint after will make them look fine.

[tedrobinson2000]

I haven't posted here for the last 5 weeks or so, but here are some updates.  Again, I apologize for the cockamamie way that I am posting; a mix of historical pix from the early stages of the build, and some current ones.

 

 I finally got to shipping the main yard/course a few weeks ago.  

 

The yard/sail assembly with most lines pre-attached:

[tedrobinson2000]

Reeving jeers.\; sling routed but not snugged up yet,  Trusses attached to yard, but not yet routed correctly.

[tedrobinson2000]

Jeers bowsed up. Note that the running ends were pre-attached to the bitts on the upper gun deck, abaft of the main mast.  This was done ages ago, before the quarter deck was installed, which would have made access impossible. Same goes for several other lines, such as the fore yard shhets, main yard tacks, main top yard sheets, etc.

[tedrobinson2000]

This is a shot of some of the belays at the foot of the main mast. Here the port truss pendant tackle fall is being attached.

 

 

 

Belay of main course sheet at starboard staghorn.

 

•  
•  

[tedrobinson2000]

I am trying to get the belays at the fore mast foot completed, as an upcoming step, adding the main stay sail and the main topmast staysail, will almost make this area inaccessible.  It is very congested here now that I have added the belays to the focs'l breast beam assembly (fore course bunts, leeches, etc).  The stays for these two staysails are belayed in this area (note the bullseyes behind the pinrail).  The main staysail, which by name would seem to hang from the main stay, actually is rigged to what was known as a "spring stay", which runs sort of parallel to the main stay, but terminates at the fore mast foot. This was necessary due to the fact that the staysail hanks would not be able to slide along the actual main stay because of the snaking between the main stay and the main preventer stay.  I have extensively used Hubert Sicard's method of using what he called "zip seizings" on most of my rigging, which enormously makes tightening the rigging lines easier, and also lets one pre-rig lines while the zips hold them in place without glue.  The main topmast stay belay is located on the bullseye behind the pinrail.  Also, I have not yet shipped the topgallant masts/sails, and their belay points here and on the fore shroud cleats will be inaccessible after the staysails are shipped, so I must add them now and let the upper ends of these lines flop in the breeze until I get around to adding the topgallant mast. Attaching these line later at what should be their standing ends, will be much easier because of the zip siezings. This is the case for many of the running rigging lines, hence the jungle of slack lines that appear in the pix. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tedrobinson2000]

After I add the 2 lower main stay sails, the waist/boat stowage area will also be cramped and mostly inaccessible, so I'll add the boats now. The 4 boats have been made since summer 2011, when I had to be away from home for several months.  The main Caldercraft kit was too big to take with me, so I concentrated on making the ship's boats that summer.  I have resisted adding them permanently up until now, mainly because they are dust-catchers.  My workshop area is located in my garage, and the dust level up til now was very high.  I've had the garage floor epoxied recently, and now don't kick up as much dust, but still cover the model every night with some very light plastic to keep most of the dust off. Here's the last look at the unencumbered waist area, prior to adding the boats and their tie-down lines and tackles.  Most of this will no longer be visible after the boats are mounted

 

 

 

 

Here is the 34' launch being added to the boat tier.

 

 

 

Now the 28"  pinnace and the forward main stay boat tackle.

 

 

 

Finally, the 32' barge and the 18' cutter, along with the after boat tackle.

 

 

 

[tedrobinson2000]

I have now shipped and rigged the two lower main stay sails (the main stay sail- the lower one, and the main topmast stay sail- the upper of the two).  There will ultimately be two more above these - the middle stay sail and the main topgallant stay sail.  These will have to wait until later, when I install the topgallant masts and their respective stays.

 

Next up will be the main top yard/sail assembly. already made and awaiting placement.

[tedrobinson2000]

Adding the main topyard/sail.  Tyes being rigged.

 

[Kevin]

very very nice

[Ian_Grant]

Beautiful model!  It's a shame to hide your first class main deck below the boats, but the boats are very nice too. Must be a huge model at the scale...😀. Love your sails.

[mort stoll]

Great job. Sorry if I missed it but where did you get the fabric for the sails and what did you use for the hammocks? I have used tissues in the past for hammocks  but yours look great.

 

Thanks,

Mort  

[tedrobinson2000]

Thanks to Kevin, Ian and Mort for the nice comments.

 

Sorry it's taken so long to respond, but I was busy with company over the Father's Day weekend, and this is the first opportunity I've had to get to the computer. I've had some questions and comments about the sails and hammocks; I think maybe I'll post a couple of practicums on how I made them - not that they are the best examples, but that my procedures may be new to some folks who can probably improve on them. This may not be the best place to post them, as they may not be seen by many of our members, but at least the info will be out there.

[tedrobinson2000]

As I went along with my Victory build, I decided that I wanted to display her as she went into battle, including with her hammock cranes full.  It was common practice, especially in times of war, for His Majesty’s ships to wake all hands an hour before dawn to prepare for a battle with any enemy ship that may appear nearby at dawn’s break.  Hammocks were broken down, rolled and triced up, with the sailors’ bedding and other belongings inside the roll.  The hammock tricing, as per the bosun, was with the regulated 7 circumferential turns of small stuff.  The roll was then folded in half and stowed in a hammock crane at the sailor’s assigned position under the watchful eyes of one of the bosun’s mates.  The reason for doing this was twofold; one to get them out of the way as there was little storage space below decks for personal belongings, and secondly to act as some degree of protection from the wood splinters that were the result of an incoming cannonball’s impact, and also from musket shot from the enemy’s Marines stationed in their fighting tops.  The filled hammock cranes were also an impediment to boarding parties coming over the side. The weather deck of a line-of-battle ship during an engagement was not a nice place to be! The filled cranes were usually covered with tarps to protect them from the weather, but I decided to display them without covers so the individual hammocks could be visible. Hammocks were also lashed to the aft net barriers on the fighting tops to afford the Marines positioned there some protection from enemy musket fire.

 

Victory had a complement of about 850 men, so making individual hammocks of this volume was going to be a challenge. My Vic is the Caldercraft 1:72 version, so the slightly over 6 foot long hammocks are about 1-1/4” in finished length.

My aim was to make them showing the tricing lines, with the fabric a slightly off-white from the natural canvas color, as they would often get a little grimy and gray with use even though they were scrubbed regularly. I didn’t want the tricing to appear too stark, as that would detract from the random look that would have appeared as the hammocks were placed in the cranes. This meant no pure white canvas material, and no dark contrasting lines to simulate the tricing lashings.

 

I tried several types of material, including cloth and paper of all sorts, but none seemed to look right to me or were just too difficult to make in large numbers. I then tried some polymer modelling clay called Fimo, which showed some promise.  Fimo can be manipulated like regular modelling clay, but after taking the desired shape can be oven-baked for several minutes to produce a hard, stable object. As I experimented with the Fimo, I developed a procedure and a simple jig that produced acceptable (to me) hammocks – generally the same, but different enough from each other to present some degree of randomness in their rolling and placement.

 

Fimo comes in a couple of different consistencies, and a limited palette of colors – none of which was exactly what I wanted for the hammocks.  I thought about combining two or more colors of the Fimo into a composite color that approached what I wanted for the finished hammocks, but was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to duplicate it over and over as I needed more material. In the end I decided on the “soft” version of the Fimo in White – I would color them later to the desired hue.

 

 

To simulate the tricing grooves, I glued seven .020” soft iron wires about an inch long at equal distances apart over 1” on a scrap piece of 2” wide, ¼” thick scrap of basswood. 2 more wires were added about 1/8” outside of the first and last tricing lines – these would serve as the guidepoints to trim the finished hammocks to their proper lengths.

 

 

First a chunk of Fimo was torn off the block, about the size of a grape.  It was softened slightly by rolling and warming in the fingers into a rough cylinder.  This was then rolled between two wooden planks about 3” wide to get a long cylinder about .100” in diameter and 4” or 5” long.  The length is not important, and you will soon be able to “eyeball” the proper diameter close enough - some diameter variation is to be desired to simulate randomness. Cut off a chunk of the roll about 1-1/2” to 2” long, place it near the wire strips, and using another flat board press down and roll the Fimo between the boards once to leave the tricing line impressions from the wires on the hammock. Rolling more than once will blur the lines.  If it’s not right, just wad it up again and repeat. I would usually make them up in batches of about 50 to ease the tedium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the tricing lines have been impressed, carefully fold the hammocks in half, bringing the two outer impressions (the cut-off lines) together.  This will leave a shape like a Greek Omega, with a bulge at the top.  Don’t try to fix this with your fingers, but squeeze the roll together gently between two small chunks of flat wood to make the sides parallel, or they won’t fit right in the hammock cranes. At this point I trimmed them a little longer than the cut-off lines, prior to baking them.  I probably could have trimmed them to the exact length here, but this became my routine.  Now they get placed on a piece of aluminum foil and baked in the oven at 230° F for 30 minutes to harden them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After they have cooled, trim to the proper length. Now rub the sides on a piece of medium sandpaper, which will make them flat so that they lie properly next to each other in the netting.  Keep a couple of them rounded on one side to use at the ends of the arrays in the netting.

 

 

 

I wanted the finished hammocks to appear a slight grey-tan, so I made up a diluted (abut 60-40 water to paint) batch of acrylic paint in the desired shade in a pill bottle, and soaked the baked batch of hammocks for a few minutes.  Then they were placed on a piece of paper towel and blotted to get most of the paint off the surface, which left the paint darker in the tricing line grooves.

 

 

 

The hammocks were then glued side-by-side in their nettings. I did this in batches of about 5-8 pieces at a time, letting the glue set before adding more hammocks to avoid getting them out of alignment. Foe ease of manipulation, this was all done prior to mounting the hammock crane/cap rail assembly in place on the hull.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mort stoll]

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Mort

[tedrobinson2000]

Just a brief update on my progress. I have fitted the gaff and boom to the mizen mast to try the fit of the driver sail.  Then the sail was made up using my paneling method, the bolt rope, linings, cringles, reef points etc. were  added.  Then the sail was bent to the gaff using two robands per sail panel. The brails will be added at a later time, before hanging the gaff/boom/sail assembly.  Still more to do before then, though.

 

 

I mounted the crojack spar, adding the sling, truss and lifts, Then temporarily set the mizen top yard, which allowed me to get the critical dimension of the mizen topsail height. That number, along with the cleat-to-cleat dimensions of the crojack and top yard, allowed me to make a paper template for the top sail.  This will be used in the next step, which will be the assembly of the topsail from the sail panels and then cutting the sail to the template.

 

 

Here are a few shots of the current state of the build. Excuse the messy background, that is my garage workshop space!

 

 

 

 

 

[Bill Morrison]

Looks great!  I love your method!

 

Bill