HMS Sophie by TBlack - kit-bashing Jack Aubrey's first command from the Vanguard Models HMS Speedy

[TBlack]

23 hours ago, Keith Black said:

  Mom liked you best.

Keith, as you may recall, I arrived 11 months after our older sister; therefore, she thought of me as a "mistake", and actually liked you better, having arrived at a more convenient time!

On the Sophie, putting the glass in first is proving to be much easier than my first, second, and third attempt!

Tom

[TBlack]

I think this is the 4th attempt at these windows, certainly the best of the lot. Don't pay any attention to the black paint. A slight misunderstanding between me and the painting contractor. It all gets covered up with pear veneer.

[TBlack]

Pear put on. this perspective shows my attempt to follow the arc:

The molding along the bottom, below the windows, is 2 mm wide. I don't have small enough tools to give it some character, so it gets to be a 1/2 round. There is molding around the sides and upper edge that will be wider and maybe a chance to do something more interesting.

[TBlack]

Thanks, guys, for the likes and for following. I need to find the right piece to make the molding surround. It's either going to be in here:

Or in here:

I suppose one day I should get organized!

Tom

[Keith Black]

20 minutes ago, TBlack said:

I suppose one day I should get organized!

 Organization is the tool of the Devil. I got organized once and couldn't find anything till I got disorganized again. 

[Oldsalt1950]

Somethings are better organized and others not so much. Small bits and pieces, yes. large stuff, no. Someone once re-organized my desk at work a nice gesture, but I couldn't find things in my paperwork pile, it was however nice to find some pens I had been looking for. 🙃

[Srodbro]

A clean desk is a sign of a sick mind. 

[TBlack]

OK, so I found the molding material. Did my best on the tricky corners and added the top rail:

Now the tricky parts are the stern davits:

My understanding is that, normally, these run along the top rail for support. But these don't. They just stick out from the transom. I think I'm going to depart from the photo and put them on the top rail unless you guys think otherwise.

[Keith Black]

Tom, the transom looks nice, the molding turned out great. I agree, putting the stern davits on the top rail would look better. 

[TBlack]

OK, Keith, we agree on the davits, but I’ve made two mistakes. If you look where I’ve placed that top rail over the stern, you’ll see that the davits have to go right where the rail meets the transom. Gotta make that rail shorter. The other mistake you can’t see from the picture of the painting of the ship’s stern, but the painting on the cover of the book shows two gun ports in the transom. Guess I’m not done yet!

Tom

[TBlack]

Stern gunports installed. I kept knocking off the top rail, so I removed it until I'm finished with the quarterdeck detail:

[Keith Black]

 Tom, it looks great, are you pleased with the way Sophie is progressing?  

[TBlack]

Keith, yes, she’s coming along OK now. I keep thinking I’m at the point when I can start following the kit instructions, but then remember some other detail. If you go back and look at the book cover photo in post 128, you’ll see that the hull planking is different than the kit which is straight pear. Also, the spacing between the tops of the gun ports and the top rail is smaller in the kit than in the photo. So, I’ll have to make some adjustments.

[TBlack]

A little more progress. I've gotten the rest of the siding on both port and starboard plus molding strip along the top:

As I mentioned in my previous comment, the gun ports on the kit are higher than the painting. Also, you'll note that I finally attached the keel. She sits in the cradle much better now.

Tom

Edited January 20, 2023 by TBlack

[Keith Black]

 Tom, she's looking fantastic. Well done!

[TBlack]

Thanks, Keith, bro, and all you others who are taking your precious time to follow my modest attempts. I do think that I've figured out how to accommodate an aft cabin and quarterdeck without altering the brig's lines too much. There are still a couple of issues that I need to sort out. Not the least of these is here:

The joint with the stem is disturbing, and I can't get it any closer than what you see. The waterline will come just at the notch, so not to worry below that. Above I'll have to fill with pear paste. And then not look too closely!

[Keith Black]

 Ahh Tom, you'll be able to fill that and it won't even be noticeable. Press on Captain Black, you're doing a marvelous job. 

[TBlack]

So now I'm rethinking the red. Perhaps a little too bright. It's splotchy and needs a second coat anyway, so maybe tone it down a little. If I were Chuck P., I'd know just the right mix of paint to make it happen, but I'm not so stay tuned!

[Keith Black]

 I don't understand why red was used on the bulkheads, I know it was but white makes more sense (IMHO) with it's ability to reflect light.

 

 Great progress Tom.

[Nipper]

10 hours ago, TBlack said:

So now I'm rethinking the red. Perhaps a little too bright. It's splotchy and needs a second coat anyway, so maybe tone it down a little. If I were Chuck P., I'd know just the right mix of paint to make it happen, but I'm not so stay tuned!

Tom

If Patrick O'Brian doesn't mention the colour, I'd suggest that you can't go wrong with red ochre.  It was a very common colour for the inside bulwarks of Englich ships, and for a model, looks much better than a brighter red, in my view anyway.

 

Nipper

[flyer]

Hi Tom

 

Many modellers unfortunately use too bright colours. Using them straight out of the bottle or can lessens the look of their model. I highly recommend to dull all so called 'original' paints. Allow me to repeat something I wrote in my Bellerophon log some time ago:

 

(In a book, written by a professional model railroad landscape builder he explains about colour scale. By that he means that if you look at a model in scale 1/100 from a distance of 50cm it should look the same as the prototype from a distance of 50m. And from that distance colours look less bright because of the air absorbing some of the intensity. He says that's the reason that models tend to look like toys if you use original colours. He recommends to always mix in a bit of white or grey and to avoid shiny colours. I think it works.)

 

Usually I mix about 15 % dull white into any color I use, including black.

 

Regards

Peter

Edited January 25, 2023 by flyer

[glbarlow]

12 hours ago, Keith Black said:

I don't understand why red was used on the bulkheads,

These were war ships, lots of blood flying about during a battle, white would be demoralizing splattered with blood. Hence red being the standard.  I used Admiralty Paints Red Ochre on all my earlier models. Now, like Chuck P, I like RED. It makes the model pop, and highlights the details. Nothing at all wrong with the red you have, some modelers seem to think darker is better, not so in my view.

Edited January 25, 2023 by glbarlow

[whitejamest]

My understanding is that red paint was just one of the cheaper ones to produce. Iron oxide is not hard to come by. This is the same reason why barns and other structures were commonly painted red for so long. You're going to have to repaint bulwarks exposed the elements fairly often, so you're not going to get fancy. 

[TBlack]

Thank you all for your thoughts. I've mixed a little brown into the red and come up with this that I think will work:

[Srodbro]

Further to Flyer’s comment on color scale:

 

Justin Camarata addresses this in his book, Waterline Dioramas. 
He references a chart created by Monogram Models that indicates the % white to be added to any color, including black, to get  “ scaled color”. He also references an article by Eric Ronnberg in a past NRG Journal that addresses this (perhaps another NRG member can comment on that article … I’ve not seen it). Here’s a pic of the page from Camarata’s book:

[TBlack]

Steve,

Thanks for your research and diligence. I think, however, that I need to make the red darker, rather than lighter. I've added some brown to the red and gotten a shade that I can accept.

Tom

[Srodbro]

If it looks right to you, then it’s right. 

One could easily argue ( if needed) that your choice actually is the scaled color, that the “ real” color is much darker than your choice, since lighter-darker are relative terms, and there is probably no baseline to measure against. Not sure how anyone could be definitive with a ship of fiction. 

Looks great to me. 

[glbarlow]

22 hours ago, TBlack said:

gotten a shade that I can accept.

Then that’s the right color. 

[TBlack]

15 hours ago, Srodbro said:

One could easily argue ( if needed) that your choice actually is the scaled color, that the “ real” color is much darker than your choice, 
Looks great to me. 

Actually, Steve, the photo makes the new color lighter than in reality. As you say, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder!

Tom

[TBlack]

OK, now I've gotten the red toned down, and applied the below waterline paint. I've elected not to use the copper plates that come with the kit. There is no reference in the

book about the bottom of the ship, and because she is described as being a plain and lumbering craft, I thought copper would be too fancy for her. Besides, it saves a lot of time to paint.