HMS Victory by Bill97 - FINISHED - Heller - 1/100 - PLASTIC

[Hubac's Historian]

Fantastic post, Ian!  Also, amazing eye-candy of a model that you have built, there!  Incorporating wooden deadeyes is such an improvement.

[Hubac's Historian]

The coppering of the belfry is also an interesting detail, as it makes perfect sense to sheath the belfry roof in copper. 

[Ian_Grant]

Hi Hubac, or "Marc", is that correct?  First time my model has been described as "eye candy", especially by someone who crafts such an incredible model as your SR; thank you!  😲

 

Yes wood deadeyes are pretty much de rigueur for this kit as the plastic ones don't have a groove around their perimeter and so are pretty much impossible to attach to the shrouds.

 

You have a sharp eye to notice the belfry roof.  I find Humbrol metallic paints hard to apply convincingly; you almost need to have the can stirring continuously to keep the metal flakes mixed. So I used copper tape for the belfry roof, and didn't bother applying a verdigris patina.  I also wrapped the bell itself in silver metallic duct tape; looks very nice but not really accurate as a bronze casting.

[Hubac's Historian]

Yes, that’s me - Marc LaGuardia.

 

Interesting application of foils.  I am considering something like that for deck sheathing under my stoves.

[Bill97]

Good morning Ian and Marc. Based on your advice I am going to have Daniel send me sheets 3 and 4.

Working on a couple things today. Continuing to add the Evergreen to your he cannon ports and using a 0.1 pigment liner to highlight the molded deck board lines. A little monotonous but worth it when finished. Once I get each board identified with lines I will use a few different old wood colors to apply a bit of definition to each. After which I will blend it all with a nice wash and then a matt varnish. 

[Bill97]

Finished framing the gunports on the Port side. Marc based in your recommendation I used .125” mm square strip stock to frame the lower ports, and .100”mm stock for the middle deck. I really like the looks of it and now to do the gunports on the starboard side. I also finished drawing in all the lines between the deck boards. Will start painting the individual planks now. I emailed Daniel about the plates. Hope to hear back from him soon. 

[europapete]

Good morning all. Pete in RI here. Looks like you are making a well planned start here, well done. When you order parts from Dan, ask about his new stern balisters. He now makes separate ones (3D printed), so that you can scrape off the kit ones, paint the area black, paint the new balisters yellow, then add them to the stern. Check his build log. They are also much finer detailed than the kit ones, and no fiddely painting or masking required. Also I suggest you buy all his sheets, you will realise this as your build progresses. There are full instructions on his website. Regards, Pete.

Edited June 22, 2021 by europapete

[Ian_Grant]

Bill,   Pete's message has reminded me: also ask about his knighthead part - worth getting too! 🙂

 

The kit is also short of the smaller anchors and I think he may have them too. Or you can order suitably sized ones elsewhere.

 

Sorry to bombard you with info!🤪

 

EDIT: I just looked and he has expanded his production since my day!!!!   Beautiful anchor buoys come with the anchors, and his resin figurehead shield - WOW!!!!!! I would love to have had that to paint with its crisp relief.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Ian_Grant

[Bill97]

You guys are trying to get me killed! 😀

How do I convince the comptroller of the family budget (wife) that I ultimately need to spend as much for after market improvements to the ship as I did the actual model. Of course I do have a birthday coming up in August! Hummm!

[Hubac's Historian]

Do you have any after-college age children still living at home, upon whom you can impose a modest ship-tax?

[Bill97]

Marc I have 3 after college age kids but all have left the nest. Maybe I can start charging for when they drop by for dinner with the grandkids. Get me a “Dafi Contribution” jar! 😊

[Ian_Grant]

On 6/22/2021 at 9:45 AM, Bill97 said:

You guys are trying to get me killed! 😀

How do I convince the comptroller of the family budget (wife) that I ultimately need to spend as much for after market improvements to the ship as I did the actual model. Of course I do have a birthday coming up in August! Hummm!

Uummmmm........did we mention that all these options are on top of the obligatory purchase of better thread and wood blocks and deadeyes?  😁    I did not total my expenses on this ship, or tell my wife, but the enhancements were far more than the kit cost.  And worth every penny. 

 

LATER EDIT:  I was telling my wife about this discussion and she snorted and said, "All those packages from Europe? I figured you spent quadruple the model price on extra stuff".  I told her it was actually only about triple 😁

Edited June 24, 2021 by Ian_Grant

[Hubac's Historian]

Okay, Ian - what did you do for thread to rig the model?  Did you purchase someone else’s scale rope?  Make your own scale rope?

 

Syren got out of the rope making business.  I’m debating whether to lay-up my own line.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Hubac's Historian

[dafi]

Dear  Sirs, thank you for all the interesting discussion here and the very nice comments!

 

Did not have too much time lately as for real life purposes, but it was a joy to discover the discussion here. Thank you all for that!

 

Yes it is right. Of course one can leave the brass blank, especially wooden ship builder do this by choice sometimes. But the main reason for the parts are to provide extra or better detail than the kit can offer. When I started the kit some years ago, I had to learn to solder to replace the chains by custom made ones out of brass wire. Time consuming but great effect and well worth it. Actually the second picture that @Ian_Grant shows in #59 are real "hand made" ones, before I did the etch parts. Thanks for showing the old pix, Ian, one nicely sees the difference. But after the first set one only thinks - been there, done that. So laziness from my side was to help developing the etch chains.

 

Let me put it straight: the Heller kit is one of the finest available. In the days it was released - some 50 years+ afaik - it was state of the art. The idea of faking the dead eyes was - seen by those days - magnificent. Only times have changed and we model makers have risen our standards. Also the plastic moulding has limitations as for thicknesses in both ways. Details smaller than 0,5 mm were difficult and thicknesses over 1,5 mm create sink marks. 

 

For the missing thickness one can double the material with sheet as shown here nicely with the gun ports. All details smaller than 0,5 mm are a wonderful subject for etch parts.

 

Also in this aspect we have improved a lot. We expect today many details, we did not bother 2 decades ago. 

 

And the last thing is that the research is far beyond the knowledge of the days that the kit was created. Side entry or not, stern davits, side davits and knowledge of many other things has changed. So we can take a chance to adjust a bit. If one ever wondered over the strange binnacle displayed by the kit, a matching one was on display in Portsmouth in the 1950ies 😮

 

So Bill, great start here and to all of you: Have fun and enjoy modeling!

 

All the best, Daniel

Edited June 22, 2021 by dafi

[dafi]

42 minutes ago, Hubac's Historian said:

Okay, Ian - what did you do for thread to rig the model?  Did you purchase someone else’s scale rope?  Make your own scale rope?

 

Syren got out of the rope making business.  I’m debating whether to lay-up my own line.

Just do so 🙂 Same scale as my Vic so you can copy and not too difficult and great effect with the full variety of all needed sizes. Most rope shops have sizes optimized for larger scales.

 

 

XXXDAn

Edited June 22, 2021 by dafi

[Ian_Grant]

6 hours ago, Hubac's Historian said:

Okay, Ian - what did you do for thread to rig the model?  Did you purchase someone else’s scale rope?  Make your own scale rope?

 

Syren got out of the rope making business.  I’m debating whether to lay-up my own line.

Marc,

 

On the recommendation of someone on the old Pete Coleman HMS Victory web site, I ordered various sizes of Amati rigging thread. For the forestay and mainstay I could not get the required diameter in black (was it 1.6mm ?? I think??)  but it was available in natural so I dyed it with fabric dye.

 

If you want to view more of the looks of Amati thread there are more pictures in my Victory pseudo-log, added here after the demise of Pete Coleman's HMS Victory web site on which I had a detailed log.

 

I must say rope walks look interesting especially for larger ropes in scales say 1:100 and greater, but my current 1:150 build only needs small threads so the surface is less important. Especially to my ageing eyes 😉

Edited June 23, 2021 by Ian_Grant

[Bill97]

Daniel I sent you a couple emails about ordering some etched sheets. Then I got crazy and sent a second one adding a couple other sheets and a couple resin items. One I am curious about and all you guys thoughts are welcome, is sheet 6 with the gunport hinges. For my other builds I have all the ports open with cannon barrels out.  If I do the Victory the same way you really don’t see the hinges are the ropes that open the hatches. If I were to buy plate 6 would you advise having some hatches closed to highlight the new hinges and rigging?

[Ian_Grant]

Bill,  I have no opinion about the port hinges, I left it with the kit version. My only comment about the gunport lids as supplied is the actual ship's port hinges place the hinge pin just outside the hull, centred along the crack between the port's upper edge and the hull. So when you want to display an open port on the model, proper placement of the port lid means that the only contact to the hull is the top edge of the hull opening just "kissing" the top outer edge of the port lid. Hard to explain without a picture, I hope the preceding sentence makes sense.

 

If one glues the port lid to the top surface of the port opening, it means pushing the port lid into the opening a little and then the port lid looks too small to close the port opening completely. I ended up gluing very small strips of evergreen along the port lids' top edges, then gluing this evergreen to the top of the port opening, leaving all the port lid outside the hull. I painted this evergreen red inside the port lid, and left bare to glue to the port opening tops (which I did not paint red way back after lining the ports, for this reason).

 

I did add four brass etch eyes to each lid, two inside and two outside.

Edited June 24, 2021 by Ian_Grant

[dafi]

Hello Bill,

 

sorry for the delay, I was not in the office for a while. Should be there today and tomorrow and will have a look for your order 🙂

 

All the best, Daniel

[dafi]

Regarding your question on plate 6: It depends how far you feel like going. 

 

Best effect for the new hinges is of course if the ports are closed. If opened they officially should be a tad up more then horizontal, so the hinges can be seen clearly but even more the eyebolts. But this also means extra fiddly work. If the lids are up more than 45° - in reality not to be done as for lanyard reasons - then of course no one sees the difference.

 

All the best, Daniel

[europapete]

Good morninig everyone. On the subject of ropes, take a look at the Dormanoff rope walk. A nice bit of kit that works great.  I have been experimenting with the Uni-thread 8/0 that Dan suggests in his log, ( amongst other sizes) and it makes really nice fine rope. 

Thanks again to Dan for producing all the parts you do, and for posting such a wonderfully detailed and enjoyable log of your build. Regards, Pete in RI

[dafi]

On 5/14/2021 at 10:50 PM, Bill97 said:

My initial internal debate is the process used to paint the hull, especially the stern?  I think by far the design of the stern and the paint scheme is so distinctive on the Victory. You see it you know it is the Victory! So beautiful!  If you are now building, or did in the past, what was your method to apply the black and yellow ochre. 

Within the next days there will be available the assembly instructions for the resin parts, also including some hints for the painting 🙂

 

As usual, it got more detailed than planned, but the whole lot for anchors, side entry and the stern is already now 26 pages full of technics and hints, and some more still coming as I have to finish the painting to shoot the fitting pictures 🙂

 

The german version is almost finished and the translations will come soon afterwards.

 

All the best, DAniel

[europapete]

Awesome! Thanks Dan.

[Bill97]

Thanks Daniel.  Look forward to getting your email. 
 

I am really enjoying the discussion here. So much to learn. That is the crazy thing about this build. You really don’t know what you don’t know until you know. I learn more with each post here and on other build logs I read. As with my hesitation getting started because I did not know my exact plan, now I am hesitant to proceed on a major process for concern I will later see something I wish I had done instead. 😀

You guys may think I am nuts but I love this indecision. I am in no hurry to get the Victory done. As with all my builds I enjoy the trip just as much, or more, as the finished piece of art. Seeing and learning about the different ideas and ways you guys do things is great!

[ajenkins]

The best book on modeling the HMS Victory is by Neapolitan Longbridge, The Anatomy of Nelson's Navy (or ships). It is a very complete progression of a very detailed building of the Victory replica. It is not a new book - I bought mine back in the 1950's. If you can find it, the enclosed information about  age of sail ship modeling and how the actual ships were put together is exceptionally detailed. It is well worth an investment for the serious age of sail ship modeler.

 

Allen Jenkins

[Bill97]

An excellent example of what I am talking about is Evergreen. Until last week, I think it was Ian’s post, I had never heard of or seen Evergreen. Was not sure I could come up with a workable way to thicken the appearance of a the hull at the gunports. Had I given up on the idea and assembled my hull and lower decks without being able to thicken the hull, I would really have been disappointed when I learned of Evergreen. My hobby store has various sizes of the stick version like I am using on the gunports and various sizes in sheet form. This product opens up unlimited possibilities of things a modeler can do!  Soon after I learned of Evergreen I was reading through Foxy’s build log of the Heller Victory here in MSW and see all sorts of items they created for their decks with Evergreen. Most of which I have no idea what they are but am intrigued. 

[Bill97]

Page #13 of Foxy’s build log is where they use Evergreen for some deck additions. 

[Hubac's Historian]

…And, the undertow grows stronger.

 

Yup, these plastic sheet and strip goods open up whole other worlds.   I thought you would like the thickening of the ports!

[Bill97]

You are so right Marc! 

[Ian_Grant]

I actually used Evergreen 0.005" sheet to make steel hull plates for my "Preussen" build, because Heller only engraved them above the waterline. Yes, Evergreen is very handy!

 

Bill, I sense some upcoming kit bashing..........