HMS Wolf 1754 by catopower - Shipyard - 1/72 - CARD - 10-gun Brig

[catopower]

For those who are wondering, I haven't given up on this. I needed to finish a model and diorama for a small museum in Monterey, CA, a 1/24-scale, scratch built Monterey salmon fishing boat, 1916.

With that done, I also wanted to wrap up another model project that's been hanging over my head for some time, my 1/64-scale Woody Joe kit of a Charles royal yacht, 1674.

Well, I just finished that up this past weekend as well, and I feel I really need to get more finished up. My Japanese coastal trade ship, called a Kitamaebune, is another Woody Joe model kit in 1/72 scale. Pretty much, it just needs sails and it's done. So, chances are good that I'll focus on that next. 

There are also a couple other projects that I'd like to make at least some progress on, including HMS Wolf. So, expect to see some activity again here, soon – I've not given up on anything...

 

 

 

 

[druxey]

Not juggling much, are you, Clare? All those models look lovely.

[ccoyle]

Your finished projects look great, Clare!

[catopower]

Thanks Druxey, Chris.

 

It's been nice getting some things done and "out the door" as it were. 

 

Fortunately, I'm finding fewer potential projects distracting me, so I don't really feel like starting anything new. Unfortunately, I have more than enough projects to juggle between, even after eliminating a few... 

 

Clare

[catopower]

Working on card (paper) models can feel like really slow going at times. Possibly, it's just because the hull construction is so quick in comparison. So, I'm posting a little bit of progress I'm making, and it doesn't seem like much. But, it's progress nonetheless, and I just wanted to show that I've been giving this model some attention.

 

There are three sub-projects I'm currently working on with this model. First, there are the masts and spars; second, there's the rigging of the cannons; third, there is the rigging of the ship's wheel.

 

The spars are the easiest, I suppose. Below is the progress already made on the mast tops and the snow mast, or what the kit calls the trysail mast. The topmasts required the most work, as both ends are card assemblies, connected by a dowel. The snow mast is the simplest. It's just a dowel with holes drilled in it for the fids, or that's what I assume they are called.

Below is another view of the same pieces, with the fore topmast test fit into place.

It's actually not very clear how the snow mast is to attach to the mainmast. At the top end, it seats into the crosstrees and that's fine. But the bottom end doesn't have a hole in the deck to fit through on the model. I contacted Shipyard and they said is just sits on the deck. Doesn't seem very secure, so I went ahead and drilled a hole in the bottom of the snow mast and fit a short piece of brass rod in it.  I've since removed the brass rod and trimmed the length of the snow mast so that is will sit on the deck, and simply glued it to the back edge of the mast coaming. However, I think I'll go back and put that piece of rod back in, just to make the assembly more secure.

 

Finally, I finished the assembly of the topmast crosstrees. These are kind of delicate, so I made sure to treat them with thin CA, which stiffens up the parts pretty well. They're still a bit delicate, but not nearly as much as they were, untreated. You can see I have the ship's wheel out on the work bench too. I need to rig this and the tiller, but that requires running thin line through 8 teeny blocks, and then some...

 

I think I'm moving forward with using the kit blocks, which have to be assembled. You can see some of the smallest ones at the bottom of the photo above. Assembly isn't a problem now, it's how to rig them that's an issue. 1/72-scale isn't the worst scale to work on (I practically swore-off 1/96 scale early on), but the level of detail and scale accuracy of these Shipyard kits (and I think Seahorse is the same way), results in dealing with very tiny parts.

 

In the old days, I learned to "fake it" and to take various short cuts, understanding that this is a model, and that the "art" of model making is much an art of illusion, of making things look correct, even they really aren't. This is something I used to do better and I think I've forgotten that. It's something I need to remember on a model of this size and detail...

 

At any rate, I'll try to keep at it a while on this model. It's nice to be making some progress on it again. One of the guys in the local ship model club has put me to shame, recently completing his model of Shipyard's 1/72-scale armed pinnace Papegojan, while my HMS Wolf is still in dry dock...

 

Edited July 11 by catopower

[catopower]

Those cardboard crosstrees turned out to be SUPER delicate, so I ended up having to reinforce them.

Since the detail is so small, and will be mostly hidden by the topmast shrouds and t'gallant shrouds, I was able to just apply some 2-part epoxy to the undersides. Painted over, the results are hardly visible. In fact, I can't even get a good pic of the details of the small black-painted parts. I considered gluing some short pieces of thin, stiff wire to the undersides of the crosstrees, but it didn't seem necessary in the end.

 

Meanwhile, I went ahead and added the jib boom to the bowsprit and added the belaying pins to the pin rails. However, I have yet to glue all the deck furniture into place yet. I want to make sure I have enough room to add the gun tackle, though I'm still not sure if I will do that. 

 

I also started adding the eyebolts to the mast caps and bowsprit cap. The kit provides thin copper wire for this purpose, but it's really soft stuff. I was trying to replace it with some black wire I bought recently, but it turns out to be copper wire with a black coating, so still pretty soft. Finally, I settled on using some annealed steel wire. It's a little shiny, but at this scale, they're barely visible anyway.

I need to start adding a bunch of blocks onto the model, particular on the underside of the mast tops. This means I need to make a call on the which blocks I'm using. I was really trying to use the cardboard blocks included in the kit, but I'm just not great at assembling the multi-sheave blocks and had some problems with that. 

 

The cardboard blocks are very detailed and I think they look more like the actual blocks needed for the model than anything else commercially available and in the right sizes. But, I've decided I need to use wooden blocks at this point. It's hard to find ones in all the sizes necessary. Fortunately, I have a large collection of old blocks from Lloyd Warner, who used to be heavily involved in the NRG here. I have my own supply, and I recently inherited a friend's supply as well, so I'm pretty well set with that.

 

Still have to decide on the rigging of the gun tackles though...

I definitely don't put them on my 1/96 scale (1/8" = 1') models, but I though as a rule of thumb, that I'd add the gun tackles at 1/72 scale and larger. However, these are very small cannons, only 3 or 4 pdrs. So, I'm thinking I may have to skip them on this model.

 

Anyway, I can still work on some masting details before I'm forced to make the final call on the gun tackles. I think I'd really like to add all the bowsprit rigging and those blocks under the mast tops next.

 

Edited July 19 by catopower

[catopower]

Vacillating on which blocks to use again! I went through my inventory of blocks, and I have two different lines of wooden blocks that include ones small enough for this model. I'd still LIKE to rig the gun tackles, and that calls for 2mm blocks, though it looks like I could get away with 2.5mm blocks.

 

I have some old Warner Woods blocks, quite a few actually, and fair supply of Master Korabel blocks. Neither of these includes shoulder blocks or long tackle blocks, which the instructions call for, and which are readily available in cardboard form. So, I'm giving the cardboard blocks another chance, seeing if I can assemble ones that don't fall apart when I start to work with them.

 

Meanwhile, I ended up making a couple spars today. Oh My God are these tiny, even at 1/72 scale. I started with the kit dowels, but I ended using some 1/16" diameter birch dowels I have a supply of, as they were smaller diameter to start with. I just used these to make the main gaff and the fore t'gallant yard. 

 

I tapered the dowel accordingly and sanded them down closer to 2.3mm in diameter. That was okay for the main gaff, but the t'gallant yard has a nice laser-etched piece that wraps around the middle to represent the octagonal section or battening. In order to get it to fit, I had to shave down the middle section of the dowel to 1.7mm, creating a slightly recessed section in the center of the yard. Even then, the battening piece doesn't quite wrap all the way around, but it's close enough. The seam will be located on the underside of the yard, and if I mount sails, they will completely cover it up as well.

 

This was more of an effort than I was expecting. But, it's done – 1 yard down, 7 yards to go. Fortunately, this is one of the smallest. The others should all be larger and easier to deal with. At least, that's what I keep telling myself...

 

[catopower]

It seems that my ship modeling "prop" is cavitating, my sails are taken aback... it's two steps forward and TWO steps back...

 

Made main t'gallant and topsail yards, but there are problems. The laser-cut part for the octagonals/battens takes a lot of care to fit, and as a result, I found the topsail yard too thin. Also, the t'gallant yard mid-section where the laser-cut part fits is also very thin and it seems the wood broke underneath the laser-cut part. I'll need to re-do the topsail yard, but not sure about the main t'gallant.

 

I'm now considering the sail configuration of the model (so that's kind of a step forward!), as this might tell me if I can reinforce the main t'gallant yard with a piece of wire that might hide under/behind the sail material. Below is the kit photo. The kit includes all the sails shown here, but I think I'm going to try my hand at making some sails from silkspan, inspired by the recent workshop by Ron Neilson and Tom Ruggiero. Excelling workshop, by the way, and I'm very inspired to try it!

I think I'm going to go with a simplified sail arrangement and try flying the topsails, jib, and spanker. The courses I'm thinking I may furl.

 

Still not sure about the t'gallants. If I furl them, I can put the yards in lowered position. I could also leave the t'gallants off the yards. Given the tall nature of the rig, that might give it more of a nice balance look, especially if the courses are loosely furled. But, having the furled sails on their yards will allow me to hide repairs.

 

Looking through Harland's Seamanship in the Age of Sail, as well as online images of brigs under sail.

 

Beyond that, I did permanently fix the guns into position, so I won't be adding any of the additional tackle there.

 

On the blocks, can any paper modelers out there suggest the best way to glue up the laser-cut card blocks? Mine tend to fall apart when I try to clean out the sheave holes. I'd still like to be able to use them, but I'm consolidating my wooden block supplies to be ready to go with those.

 

 

 

[catopower]

Two steps forward and... that's it! Managed to make some progress on HMS Wolf this past weekend.

 

I installed 31 cleats, mostly on the bulwarks, but 9 tiny ones had to go onto the inboard side of the bowsprit.

 

Also constructed the ladders that I'll need to mount on deck soon. Still have to touch up the painting of those, but it was nice to get some construction done.

 

After I finished these, and with the guns permanently fixed in place, I started to feel much better about my progress on this model.

 

Pretty soon, I'll start rigging the tiller ropes and adding the ship's wheel, and rigging the bowsprit.

 

 

[catopower]

It's all little stuff now...

 

Those ladders have been cleaned up and they are now permanently on the model. Next, I decided I have to get this block situation dealt with. 

 

I've been pretty successful at assembling the smaller blocks. I just broke down and thick, slow cure CA for the small blocks, and that seemed to work okay. It's slow going, though. The blocks are done in batches of about 8-10. Each batch of single blocks requires 3 parts: 2 cheeks and "the guts" with the sheave an such...

I cut the strips out from the laser-cut sheets and then apply the glue to one side of the middle section, "the guts".

 

Then, one of the cheek strips is put into place. Note that there is a "groove" in the outer face of the cheek pieces, so you have to make sure to put the flat side to the inside. Below are two strips glued up.

 

CA, even the thick stuff, sets up quickly, but I leave the glued up strips for a few minutes, just to make sure. Then, I use a scalpel blade to trip apart the individual blocks. To keep from losing them, and to make sure that the sheave holes are clear enough to rig, I run a #78 drill bit through these smallest blocks. That's enough to make sure the 0.1mm line called for by the instructions will thread through easily enough. I then thread the block onto a piece of line to keep from losing the darned things, since there's more work to do on them.

 

I dab each end of each block with a tiny amount of thick. This is because I've had too many blocks fall apart in the past, so I'm just being extra cautious now. After all the blocks are glued and dried, I then dab each end with a tiny amount of tan colored paint. It doesn't exactly match the color of the cardboard, which looks fine for "wooden" blocks, but it's mostly to get rid of the bright white spots at the ends.

 

This is definitely a process, but it's not too bad. It is nice to be able to say the model AND the blocks are paper. But, I still do have wooden spars, metal cannons, etc.

 

The part that makes me rethink using the cardboard blocks really comes from the double blocks, which are made up of 5 layers instead of three. The construction process is similar to the single blocks, but I initially had a terrible time with blocks falling apart. But, now that I've settled on using the thick CA, the process is not terrible, and the blocks seem to hold up. The main problem now is the appearance. The blocks look very... so so.

 

The laser char is very bad on these blocks for some reason, and after assembly, the block layers are very clear. I've tried to clean up the char a little using a needle file, but it's very hard to work on these 3.5mm and 2.5mm blocks individually.

 

 

 

I've taken to painting the cleaned up blocks to even out the color. I may not continue the painting, but just doing the filing. Anyway, I don't need that many double blocks on this model, so maybe it's okay. Below, you can see cleaned up and painted blocks in the lower left, and untouched blocks in the upper right.

If I do paint, I think I need to use a lighter shade and maybe just do the faces of the blocks where necessary. With that, when these are stropped and rigged, they may look okay. I think the lighting makes the painted ones look a bit darker than they actually are, as I'm using a tan-colored paint.

 

The next step is to rig the ship's wheel, which calls for a half-dozen 2mm single blocks, so I need to make the final call on wood or cardboard in the next couple days.

 

[catopower]

Didn't start rigging the ship's wheel yet, but I did decide to proceed with using the laser-cut cardboard blocks for this model. I've got a good start on making a supply of most of the necessary sizes for this model. 

 

 

By the way, I’ve found it a bit confusing that Shipyard gives each block type a special designation number in the kit, with 2mm single blocks called B1, 2mm double blocks called B6, etc. I find this particularly confusing, because when you buy blocks as accessories, they are only named by size and type. What’s more, a B1 block in one kit is not the same as a B1 block in another kit.

 

I’ve had to buy some extra blocks to replace ones I completely messed up, and to do so, I had to ignore the kit’s block designation and to figure outthe actual sizes. The “translation” between the kit number (B1, B6, etc) and the block size/type is only shown on the kit’s block packaging and on a label on the small cardboard box that contains all the block packages. Don’t lose these labels. You may need to refer to them later on to figure out exactly which blocks you are working with. Glad I didn't toss out this small box!

 

Anyway, in addition to the block making, I managed to finish two more yards: The main and the fore lower yards. These are the largest, of course, and that make them the easiest of the bunch. So, now I'm up to 4 completed yards (the lower yards and topgallant yards), though I still have to add stuns'l booms and irons on the fore lower yard. This means, 4 more yards to go.

 

 

More by this weekend...

 

[catopower]

First use of the paper blocks are now in place on the model, and this also marks the first rigging to on as well. Just finished rigging the ship's wheel and tying down the binnacle box as well. 

 

It began with stropping a bunch of the smallest of the blocks provided in the kit: 2mm singles. I also had to make a bunch of eyebolts as small as I could.

 

I pre-rigged the blocks to the eyebolts, and then mounted them into place.

 

In the process, I kept finding items on the deck and on the hull that I'd knocked loose. So, I had to do a bunch of small repairs. Fortunately, it was nothing serious, and the rigging of the ship's wheel and tiller is now done and I can move on.

 

This has been weighing on my mind for quite some time, so I'm very happy to have this step behind me. Afterwards, I went ahead and tied down the binnacle box, after doing a little paint touch up on that first.

 

 

 

[druxey]

Very neatly done, Clare!

 

The tiller/wheel set-up is unlike any I've seen - usually if a wheel is present, it is on the quarterdeck where the funnel-like structure is sitting.

[catopower]

Thank you Druxey!

 

Of course, I'm just going by the kit instructions and plans. Are they accurate? I don't know.

 

Do you think they might have been more like Speedwell in being steered by a curved tiller?

 

In many respects, the ship certainly resembles Speedwell. I think it would be easy enough to modify the kit to do away with the wheel, except for the rectangular outline on the deck marking the position of the platform. 

 

 

Edited August 6 by catopower

[druxey]

It is more than likely that Wolf was steered by tiller alone. No reflection on your work at all, but on the kit design! Some of these smaller sixth rates were retrofitted with wheels in the position mentioned.

 

 

[catopower]

Druxey, were I to build another HMS Wolf kit, and it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility, considering how much I've enjoyed this build, I would go with a modification of the tiller, deleting the existing ships wheel, or possibly relocating it on the quarter deck, as you'd suggested. 

 

Perhaps another intrepid ship modeler will take on this amazing build with such a modification? One can only hope.

[catopower]

Nothing new to report, except that I removed the jib boom for now. This allows me to put the model under a nice dust cover. Kind of looks like a good way to display a hull model...

 

[Ronald-V]

That does look great!....Finished! 

[catopower]

1 hour ago, Ronald-V said:

That does look great!....Finished! 

Don't tempt me! 😆

[druxey]

Looks lovely, Claire.

[catopower]

Well, I'm not sure if it's the time change, the shorter days, colder weather, or what... But, I've been finding myself more motivated to get back to the completion of HMS Wolf. 

 

Perhaps it has something to do with the restarting of a ship model group in the San Francsico North Bay? I don't know. But, it's good to be working on this project again...

 

 

HMS Wolf is now out that small case I had it in, all the deck furniture except the gallows structures has been permanently fixed to the deck, as well as the bowsprit itself. I ended up not adding the little belfry, as it's very much crammed in behind the foremast, between the aft pinrail and the riding bitts. I'll have to figure out what to about the ship's bell. I'm inclined to mount it from a stand on top of the binnacle box, if that seems reasonable.

While it's not shown in the photo above, I went back and installed the belaying pins. My kit included brass belaying pins. I'm not sure, but I think Shipyard has since gone with 3D printed belaying pins. Mine, being brass, were treated with BlueJacket's Brass Brown metal toner. 

 

 

Gammoning rope has been added, and stay collars added to the bowsprit.

This may not seem like much, but it's the first time I've been really motivated to work on rigging for a long time. I did have the rigging on the Charles yacht, but it was a lot simpler that this smaller scale brig-rigged snow.

 

I think I'm going to go ahead and rig those bobstays. Then, I can get started dealing with the deadeyes and chainplates, which are weirdly mounted on Shipyard kits.

[catopower]

Some minor progress is being made on rigging HMS Wolf...

 

 

But, in the meantime, I'm trying to plan out other preparatory work on the masts, and discovered probably the most egregious of the instruction shortcomings of this Shipyard kit. Note the instructions below showing the shrouds at the mainmast. Note specifically that you can see the mainmast in the photos, beginning with the two unnumbered photos to the right of photo 100. Next, photo 102, you can also see the mainmast, and all looks normal. But then, in photo 103, there suddenly appears a small mark, which I've added a red arrow to point out. That mark is one of four cleats that apparently needed to be added to the mainmast, but this is never shown anywhere.

 

The plan views don't show them either...

 

Now, this is actually the foremast that I'm showing here, but the mainmast is drawn the same way, without cleats shown.

 

Then, on a later page of the instructions, there is one photo that shows the cleats installed on the foremast, but not before showing the foremast installed with no cleats...

 

Very strange, as the bowsprit is shown without any cleats installed either, but the shrouds are installed, as well as the mainstay. And, now the cleats suddenly appear many steps later...

 

This was the first indication in the instructions that cleats are supposed to be added at the base of the masts. How many cleats are there? You might be able to guess from the above photos that there are 8 on the foremast and 4 on the mainmast.

 

As for the plans, the only indication that these cleats are required are in the belaying plan. Fortunately, a close examination gives us the actual numbers of cleats needed on the mainmast...

 

And on the foremast...

 

 

This project certainly requires a lot of study to pull the info needed from the plans and instructions. Fortunately, all the info seems to be there. It just takes a bit of work to pull it all out. 

 

I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise. Most kits come up short when it comes to the instructions. However, I am a bit surprised that some of these things aren't even shown in any of the plans. Well, excepting possibly the belaying plan.

 

This is just one example of a shortcoming of the instructions/plans, but I've only found one other so far. And, all in all, this has been a very enjoyable project.

 

I'm sure my own errors will completely overshadow any kit errors... And, with that said, I've just spotted one of my own errors regarding the pin rail just abaft the foremast. I have it reversed, but may leave it. Oh well, more on that later.

 

 

 

 

[druxey]

Ah, the joys and frustrations of rigging! Hopefully you can install the cleats before permanently securing the masts with shrouds.

[catopower]

Druxey,

 

My penchant for staring at a model and the plans for long periods of time, repeatedly, may have delayed my progress on this model, but it has helped me in some ways. The masts are off the model and I just added a stay collar to the foremast that isn't well documented. The cleats will be easy to add at this stage.

 

After that, I can spend more time repeatedly staring at all the plan pages to see what other items I might otherwise miss.

 

 

Edited November 16 by catopower

[catopower]

Two weeks later, and I haven't made much progress, though I've been working on the model pretty regularly.

 

I've rigged a bunch of the paper blocks I made, and found that I really don't like the way they look. I just can't make and rig them to my satisfaction. So... switched back to wooden blocks again!

 

I figure I have enough of Chuck's old pear wood blocks to rig this model. Maybe. I have large quantities of various sizes, but of course, small quantities of the sizes I really need the most. Still, I think I should be able to manage.

 

 

I've since sorted these out and labeled bags of blocks using the kit's own identifiers...

 

I added blocks to the undersides of the mast tops and found two problems. First, since I attached these blocks to eyebolts, they hung down lower than they should. Second, in assigning the blocks their kit identifiers, I erred on the side of using larger blocks, since the holes are so darned small. Bad choice, as I found the blocks looked way too large. 

 

So, I removed the blocks from the mast tops, and downsized the block choices. I decided to not use eyebolts this time, and just stropping the blocks and simply left on long tail to run through holes I would drill in the mast tops. These tails would be glued into place and the excess line trimmed off.

 

But, first, I felt I needed to reinforce the tops a bit, after removing the eyebolts from them, along with extra bits of the cardboard mastops that were still attached to them. So, I just cut some thin wood strips and glued them to the bottom side of the affected cross trees...

 

Once pained the added structure is unnoticeable, and provided a solid support to drill new holes through.

 

The newer blocks were then glued into place, and they look MUCH better now, and I'm really happy with how these turned out. Now, I can move on FINALLY!

 

Edited November 28 by catopower

[catopower]

I really want to get going on rigging the lower deadeyes, but I found myself on a roll with the yard making and the anchors. As of my last post, I had all the yards done, except the topsail yards and the two spritsail yards, so I decided to finish up these last four yards.

 

Below are the two topsail yards. 

Below are the two topsail yards, now painted, and the two spritsail yards below them, still under contruction.

Because you really can't see the octagonal sections of these small yards after they're painted, I decided not to fit the laser-cut parts for the octagonal sections, using plain paper instead. This way, I don't have to thin these yards any further to get the pre-cut parts fit. It looks a little messy, as I soaked these and the other laser-cut parts with thin CA glue. Above these, you can see the anchor stocks in production. 

All of the new yards are completed and painted now, though they'll require a tiny bit more paint touch up. This isn't exactly the last of the yard construction work to do. I still have to add the stu'n'sl booms to the lower fore yard. 

Anchors done now, sans the rings, which I'll add next.

Really enjoying the model progress now. 

 

[Jsk]

6 hours ago, catopower said:

Really enjoying the model progress now.

Me, too! When I started working on the Seahorse Revenue Cutter a year ago I think I read your entire blog soaking up a lot of ideas on how to approach the build.  Very inspiring! I'm really glad you're back to working on the Wolf.

[druxey]

On a roll now, eh? Anchors look great.