HMS Victory by nickedw - Caldercraft - 1/72nd Scale - First wooden Ship build

[nickedw]

Like most other folks on this forum, I'm building a Caldercraft Victory.

 

This is my second foray into the world of ships, the first being a 1/200th Trumpy Arizona that I built by accident, seeing as somebody maliciously stuck the kit under my nose for fifty quid, so what can you do?

 

Here's that one anyway:-

 

SO the Victory, I bought as a 'long term project' in 2007, after, I'm ashamed to say, spending a morning in Portsmouth, recovering from a very drunken stag do and finding myself getting dragged around HMS Victory. Knowing nothing at all about ships, then or now, I was blown away by the thing, and decided to resurrect my model building career by buying this kit.

 

The rest is history, it really did start me building models again - aircraft and after having made a start on her building the basic hull, second planking I ran out of steam after plating one side of the Hull. And got sucked back into aviation modelling again in a big way for the last six years.

 

So she has followed me around after two house moves in that condition until about three weeks ago, where finding some long lost time on my hands, I decided to crack on. I've got the customary few old photos of the 'excitement' of getting the most expensive kit I ever bought started:-

 

The early build is just like everyone else's, so I won't bore you with the same old shots.

 

Here is where I'm up to today:-

 

Thanks for looking and the warm welcome to the forum, I'm amazed how many other people are building this kit.

 

Regards

 

Nick

Edited August 1, 2013 by nickedw

[Shipyard sid]

Hello nick

Welcome to MSW, and another victory on the stocks. I for one will definitely follow your build log, as will many others. So please keeping posting photos, and just enjoy your build and we will enjoy watching its progress. Best wishes DAVID

[ZyXuz]

Hi Nick,

Glad to see you start your build log.. we're looking forward your future on the Victory

and I must say your Arizona is just awesome!

[Patrick Haw]

Hello Nick, and welcome to the Victory builders community here at MSW.  Your build is very impressive and I'm glad you're back in the shipyard with her.  I'm looking forward to following your build. All the Victory builders here who are much more advanced in their builds than I am at this point are my inspiration, so keep on going!

 

Patrick

[pompey2]

Hi Nick

Welcome, always good to see another Vicory, Ii hope you are enjoying her.

Your Arizona looks great by the way.

 

Nick

[nickedw]

Thanks for all the kind words everyone. Cracking on with this build now, spent the day sitting outside in glorious Welsh sunshine (you don't get to say that very often so I thought I would make the most if it) 'putting the lid on' I'm sure there is correct nautical term for this, but you all know what I mean.

 

So sat with a pair of chocolate Labradors guillotining 1/72 scale 20' foot planks and religiously colouring the edges in with a Sharpie marker, planking the decks. Added the ply formers for the top canon ports as well now, strange I've been looking at his kit for the last six years on the top shelf of the workshop rack, and adding this last deck has transformed the look of it - suddenly looks taller and shorter, very strange.

 

Anyway, the al fresco model building smoothly morphed into a couple of bottles of wine and dinner with my dear wife in the garden, so too late for photos now. I'll post some the morning.

 

Regards

 

Nick

[nickedw]

Hi all, been cracking on with this build over the last two days and have got the upper deck fitted as well as a lot of the planking done as you can see.

 

Also got the roundhouses done. As far as I can tell these had lead roofs which I have simulated with lead foil:-

 

Should these have port-holes also? I know she does in her current state, but these aren't referenced in the kit as far as I can tell?

 

Thanks for looking

 

Nick

[Shipyard sid]

Hello nick

Round houses have portholes part number 637 on brass etched sheet . DAVID

Edited August 3, 2013 by Shipyard sid

[nickedw]

Hello nick

Round houses have portholes part number 637 on brass etched sheet . DAVID

David, yes of course, I can see it now, it just comes a little later in the plan. I was expecting the hole drilling for the port holes to be dealt with during the roundhouse construction. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

 

Nick

[Kevin]

Hi Nick

You are just behind me in progress, lovely to see another build of this vessel, we do seam to be taking over at the present time

did you one post your progress on the old MSW site?

Look forward to your continued progress and hope she will not be put away for another 6 years

 

all the best

[nickedw]

Hi everyone, quite a bit of building, but not many photos, remiss of me I know, so here is my latest update:-

Didn't think much of the white metal bell in the kit, so turned one from brass

Going for the 'hand made glass' look by pulling a film of Glue'n'glaze over the inside of the PE frames, very pleased with the rippled result, not massively evident in these photos admittedly, but looks OK in  the flesh!

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Nick

Edited September 2, 2013 by nickedw

[Kevin]

lol - Well you were behind me, in build progress

[Kevin]

Nick i see you also have the same issue of a missing Gun port on the lower deck fwd

Edited September 2, 2013 by Kevin

[nickedw]

Nick i see you also have the same issue of a missing Gun port on the lower deck fwd

Nothing a rectangle of black paint won't put right (:

 

It's on the list.

 

Nick

[nickedw]

Hi everyone, a few small updates:- carronades built, all internal ladders and bannisters finished, access ladders on one side completed:-

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Nick

 

[Kevin]

Very nice Nick

[nickedw]

When I built the Carronades, I used a 1/17th scale model I built years ago for reference:-

Here are my photos of the 'original', which I seem to remember is a fibreglass replica itself now?

 

So a model of a model of a model then?

 

Nick

 

 

[nickedw]

Yesterday I was mostly making anchors:-

 

Good fun actually, I formed the rings by winding a 'spring' of 1.5mm brass wire around a 14mm dia steel former, this was under a lot of tension, so 'persuading' with heat was applied by blowtorch, it was then a case of slicing the spring into rings with a Dremel cutting wheel, forcing flat in the vice, inserting into the anchors and soldering closed.

Puddening was then applied to the rings with 0.5mm black thread.

 

The bands are just formed from my thinnest masking tape.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Nick

Edited September 13, 2013 by nickedw

[Shipyard sid]

Hello nick

Cracking stuff. Your build is certainly move along and looks really good. Every thing is so neat and tidy. Keep up the good work and enjoy you build. DSVID

[nickedw]

More progress. Here are 3 of the 4 ship's boat, Pinnace, Launch and Barge.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Nick

[Patrick Haw]

Hi Nick,

 

Very impressive work on your barge.  It's a beautiful little model in its own right.  Good job!

 

Patrick

[edmay]

Hello Nick,A very very classic and neat build,your expertise really stands out.. ps early 50"s used to cycle through tunnel to Flintshire on home made bicycle(pillbox red)beautiful countryside.will follow your log ,Edwin

[nickedw]

Hi all, Nearly time for masts and I didn't fancy my chances with a draw knife or David plane, so spent the weekend modifying my trusty lathe from the 'rough-but-functional' school of engineering - this was a scrap-heap challenge, so everything you see was lying round the workshop somewhere, so you could argue I built this for nothing. should be self explanatory from the pictures I hope:-

 

 

It's designed to cut any taper (as well as cylinder) within reason with the lathe running, or will taper individual faces and cut parallel square or octagonal sections with the indexing plate and the lathe stationary. In both cases the Dremel does all the work.

 

 

Strangely, it all seems to have worked!

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Nick

Edited September 16, 2013 by nickedw

[nickedw]

And here's my first mast using my new setup:-

 

 

Regards

 

Nick

[Kevin]

what are you using as the straps?

[nickedw]

what are you using as the straps?

I have some masking tape of the right width and thickness, sealed with Matt varnish.

 

 

Probably not the 'done thing' but seems to work OK.

 

 

Nick

[Kevin]

I have some masking tape of the right width and thickness, sealed with Matt varnish.

 

 

Probably not the 'done thing' but seems to work OK.

 

 

Nick

im using evergreen, nothing traditional there either, but looks ok

[nickedw]

Hi all, main top built this morning:-

 

Thanks for looking

 

Nick

Edited September 18, 2013 by nickedw

[nickedw]

Hi all modified my tool so I can continuously vary the travel of the cutting head. This is a much better arrangement than my original index idea as you can see.

 

Original MKI Setup:-

 

MKII enhancement

 

This makes multiple passes much easier, maintaining a constant angle.

 

It has a floating nut captive in the new machined pillar the adjustment screw is sandwiched between the flat plat with spring washers to allow very slight pivoting as the screw is worked. The knob is just turned from scrap acrylic sheet I had lying around in the workshop.

 

I know it all should be linear ideally, but it works well enough for the application in hand.

 

Thanks for your continued support.

 

 

Nick

Edited September 19, 2013 by nickedw

[gulfmedic1]

beautiful builds, the Arizona is that plastic?