HMS Victory by drobinson02199 - FINISHED - Caldercraft - Scale 1:72

[drobinson02199]

Allan:

 

After I finished the center hatch, I wished I had decided to do it that way.  Would look very nice, although higher hatches than what's called for in the plans (higher like the ones on the lower deck, as you note).

 

I'm happier with the result on the second hatch using the bottom support strips.  

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Finished the hatches and bitts on the forecastle, and varnished them.

 

As I started the next assembly, I realized that if I stayed with natural walnut vs. black, the deck would not look as sharp as it should.  So I went back and painted the skid beam (in place) black, as per the picture below.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Assembled, painted and mounted the forecastle breast beam assembly.

 

This was a tricky assembly -- getting the belfry started and aligned, and finishing off the U parts of the horizontal beam.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Quarterdeck Barricade assembled, painted and mounted.

 

The instructions say to build this from the bottom up, but I found that alignment was easier if I built it from the top down to the lower rail, then mounted the wooden posts to the deck, and then mounted the assembly to those.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Built, painted and mounted the waist ladders.

 

Regards,

David

[allanyed]

David, I continue to enjoy following your build! 

I do have a question regarding the bitts and pins, I really hope you don't mind.   According to the scantlings in Steel's Elements and Practice of Naval Architecture 1805, the main bitts had bitts that were 14" square and cross pieces that were 10.5" broad by 9" deep. The Shipbuilder's Repository of 1788 has very similar scantlings.  Yours look to be right on.  But, the pins are nearly touching with not enough room for the lines to go.  Do the plans and kit parts call for this many pins and/or so large?  The diameter of the pin handles were about 2 or 2.5 inches (about 0.3" at your scale)  so they could easily be gripped by hand yet strong enough to belay a line and hold it under tension.  At 1:72 it may not be possible to make pins this small out of wood that will be strong enough.  Brass is a  strong  alternative and can be painted to look like wood.   Coiling lines around pins is hard enough, so the more room between them that you have the easier it is to work.

Allan

[drobinson02199]

Allan:

 

You are quite right -- they are VERY close together, and I had that concern about rigging when I installed them.  The holes in the cross-pieces are pre-drilled, and the pins are supplied, so this is the spacing that results.

 

I was reluctant to install fewer pins for fear that I would need them all when it came time to rig.  So I'll just make it work when that time comes.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Lined the quarterdeck rigging opening and constructed the Main Companionway.

 

The latter of those two was something of an adventure.  The ladder for that opening was constructed many steps ago, to match in width to balusters already installed below on the upper gun deck.  I was positioning it for gluing, it slipped out of the pliers, and fell down not just to the upper gun deck below, but through the opening in that deck and down to the lower gun deck (two decks below), and then out of sight.  I had put some glue on the bottom of the ladder, and so I couldn't dislodge it by shaking the ship upside down, although I suspect I'd never have retrieved it anyway.  Out of sight, gone forever.

 

Fortunately, in my leftover parts box from prior builds, I had a ladder (in plain wood), so I stained it (picture below), and installed it into the main companionway.  Not as elegant as the original, but serviceable.

 

Now as I look at the Main Companionway railings, I realize that there are supposed to be lower railings parallel to the upper horizontal ones.  I'll get to that later (maybe 🤔)

 

Regards,

David

[allanyed]

David,

 

I have no idea if the number of pins is correct for Victory or not, but belaying lines is difficult under normal circumstances even with room to work.  Would you consider getting rid of the cross pieces and pins and making your own and drilling holes for realistic sized pins.   That way you will have the requisite number of pins, and room to work each line.  As can be seen in many build logs, unfortunately there are a number of kit makers that do not appear to understand or care about scaled parts when it comes to things like the pins or rings.    FYI, Model Shipways has several sizes brass belaying pins although it is not so difficult to make your own with a drill or drill press, and jewelers file.

Allan

 

 

Edited May 15, 2022 by allanyed

[drobinson02199]

Allan:

 

I admire your attention to historical detail (and am amazed at some of the details you come up with), but I don't have the motivation to change the pins out.  I've had cross-pieces become difficult in the past, and I solve it by either doubling up on a pin, or wrapping line on the cross piece.  I took a sideways look at the assemblies after I got your first message, and there's actually a bit of room between many of the pins -- enough to sneak lines through if they aren't too thick.

 

But thanks for the suggestions -- I'm always interested in getting them 😁

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Installed bulwark fittings on quarterdeck and forecastle:  shot racks, kevels, and pin racks.

 

I did the side pictured below second, and changed my approach after doing the port side first.  On the port side, I tried to install the shot onto the shot racks after they were installed, and with the bulwark there to get in the way of the tweezers, it was really difficult.  So on the starboard side (pictured), I installed the shot onto the racks off the ship (same for the pinrails), and then installed them.  Also note that these pinrails are much better spaced than the ones on the bitts, about which there was discussion above.

 

The side pictured is the one that will show when I display the model.

 

Regards,

David

Edited May 17, 2022 by drobinson02199

[drobinson02199]

Quarterdeck and two forecastle cannons built, painted, mounted and rigged.

 

Full Disclosure:  Those of you who are Victory aficionados and are sharp-eyed may see that I goofed with the two medium cannons.  They are longer than the rest, and I was careful all through the building stage to isolate the slightly larger carriages and mount the right cannons to them.  All good so far.  Then as I started mounting the cannons, I picked those two up, intending to mount them on the forecastle where they belong.  Phone call causes distraction.  I come back, pick them up and promptly mount them at the stern in the lashed down position behind the screen.  🧐

 

They were glued down well, and rigged, so there they stay, and the forecastle gets two of the smaller cannons.  It's a goof, but a small one in the scheme of things and the ship will look fine for me, and less fine for those of you who pay close attention to historical accuracy. 

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Ship's wheel and binnacle finished and mounted.  The scratches on the wheel are light reflection and don't show to the naked eye.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Built the railing across the bow.  Next step is the roundhouses.  I'm a bit wary of trying to sand them on the ship -- thinking about planking them while dry-fitted, and then removing for sanding.  We'll see if I can pull that off.  Might be blocked by the wale position at the bottom.

 

Regards,

David

[Charter33]

Hi David,

Your plan to plank the round houses that way will work, but just a 'heads up' with regard to your last sentence - I found that the top edge of the wales needed trimming lower (only under them) to get a good fit as the round house extends through them and overhangs a little.

Your build is progressing impressively!

Good luck,

Graham

[drobinson02199]

Graham:

 

I have already given up on the idea of removing the roundhouses.  Because the partial trim leaves some of the wale in place, there isn't really any way to just slide the roundhouse structure out -- you'd have to tilt it and the tabs wouldn't work properly.

 

So I glued the patterns on to the bulkhead and have started planking, and will do the sanding carefully with a stick and some sandpaper.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Re my message above, here's a picture of one of the roundhouses in process.  I've finished planking the other one, and there's a pretty curved shape before sanding, so sanding shouldn't be too hard.  I'll glue some sandpaper to a stick and have at it.

 

Regards,

David

[Bill Morrison]

David,

 

I have followed your build from the beginning and have been very impressed!  I am actually using your model as inspiration to build a model of the Victory that my wife bought me when we left Italy after living there when stationed in the U.S. Navy.  It is a kit once manufactured by a now defunct company called Aeropiccola, and it is rather basic. For example, the kit was designed with no gun ports. The instructions simply said to draw them directly on the sides.

 

So, I decided to redesign the kit to better reflect the real ship. Yet, I had to decide which version that was to be. I settled with altering the kit as the Caldercraft kit. I liked the raised fo'c'sle bulwarks and no entry ports on the sides for the period before Trafalgar.  Along came your model, so I had a real template to follow!  You are doing extremely well; I hope that my small-scale ship can emulate yours.

 

Bill Morrison

[BikerMart]

Further to a posting by allanyed on May 14th, in which he commented on the distance between the pins.

The attached is a picture of the real thing, with the pins pretty close together.

I don't know who the woman is - she insisted on being in the picture.

 

[drobinson02199]

Bill:

 

Thanks for the nice comments.  I'm glad the log is somewhat useful.

 

Regards,

David

[BikerMart]

I think that her name was Buttercup.

 

[drobinson02199]

Finished and painted the roundhouses, planked the beakhead deck, and added the painted brass decoration.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Completed the cannonades, and mounted the doors and gunport lids on the bow area.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

I've built the bow structure, which was something of an adventure.

 

The manual calls for the curved rails on the stem to be mounted before the head timbers are done, but the head timbers provide a guide for the run of the upper curved rail, so I mounted those first.  Then mounted the curved rails.

 

The manual also calls for the remaining rails (horizontal and blue-trimmed vertical) to be mounted before the bow main rail, but again, it was much easier to install the two horizontal rails, then the bow main rail against the head timbers, and then cut the vertical blue-trimmed rails to fit under the bow main rail.  By the way, the head-on picture gives the impression that the leftmost hawse hole is off kilter, but that's just an illusion of the inside of the drill hole.

 

Finally, the manual tries to be specific around the head timbers at the aft end of the bow main rails, but the instructions are confusing although I think I finally got it right.

 

For this section, I did a lot of advance dry fitting and thinking, referenced the invaluable pics on the Caldercraft website, and got the idea to pre-mount the head timbers from another build log on MSW.

 

Next step is the bow gratings that fit inside this structure.

 

Building this part reminded me of the difference between this model and some of the Amati ones I've built.  For some reason, things just seem more complicated on this model.  I think it may be the amount of cutting, fitting, and pre-painting of small parts that tend to stay in walnut on the Amati models.  In any event, I'm happy building this, although my limited skills are sorely tested.

 

Regards,

David

Edited June 3, 2022 by drobinson02199

[drobinson02199]

Installed the bow gratings and made the boomkins.  The boomkins are dry-fitted using a pin in the knighthead, so that I can remove them for now (as the manual suggests) to keep from pranging them, and then reinstall them later.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

I got inspired today and painted and mounted the cast metal figurehead components.  

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

I've built the starboard cathead.  A couple of construction notes:

• For the blue rectangles on the front of the cathead, instead of trying to use tape to get them straight (too small a surface), I painted a section blue (on top of yellow) and then added 1x1 yellow-painted strips to create the rectangles.
• For bending the brass strip to create the curve, I used a philips screwdriver pushed through a drilled hole in a 5mm board, heated the strip, and then bent a section into a 180 (so the two sides parallel).  Then hammered the curve flat.  I then cut that 180 degree curve into two 90 degree segments.

Lots and lots of touch ups required to get the blue stripe right.

 

So one side done, and now on to the other.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Finished up the bow by adding the mariners walk.  The boomkins are built but missing from these pics, as I have them put away to avoid pranging them.

 

Regards,

David

[zappto]

Incredible build, all is great looking, good luck!

[drobinson02199]

Mounted and planked the poop deck; built and mounted the flag lockers.

 

Regards,

David