Cutty Sark by William A - Revell - 1/96 - PLASTIC

[William A]

My stepfather has been building a partwork HMS Victory for the best part of a decade, and so I finally caved and bought myself a ship to work on too. 

 

I decided to stick with something at least (mostly) injection moulded rather than wood, but it's ended up slightly larger than I expected - baby for scale:

 

It will be built here:


The build will not be wholly as instructed, as there are a couple of modifications I'm planning to the base kit which are quite simple such as the bulwark stanchions and moulding around the deck houses. 

More significantly there are a few aftermarket parts available for the kit - the main one being the replacement of the plastic, three-part deck with a laser cut oak veneer equivalent. The supplied deck has 'positive' timber outlines and so even if I can fix the glaring gaps between the three deck sections and rescribe the grain it's still going to look quite bad. There are also photo-etched names and ornamentation, draft decals and flags which I think I will avail myself of, but the rigging and its level is yet to be determined (see later)

Anyway, on with the build, commencing with purchasing two hardback books about the ship (by C. Longridge) and getting the hull together.

 

The first modification are on the bulwark stanchions - seen here:

 

These should be metal posts rather than fillets, so I have cut away and sanded them flush as below. You can see the fairly awful decking laid in place:


I experimented with fixing the decks together with supporting styrene to get them as level as possible and extra clamps, but even so the joins are very obvious indeed. As such, I'm expecting to use the laminate decking and will work under that assumption:

 

 

Despite enjoying the occasional ferry and reading the Aubrey-Maturin series I've no meaningful knowledge of rigging and only a very minor familiarity with terms (please excuse me - lots of googling going on). I am aware that hismodel provide both rigging plans as well as CNC machined deadeyes, photoetched eyelets and hooks, etc. but frankly I don't know if that's just going to end up being too much for me. I think I would be quite happy with the rigging as described by the Revell kit instructions, except for the fact that the shrouds and their associated deadeyes/lanyards are moulded plastic - it just doesn't look right to me.

 

QUESTIONS ABOUT RIGGING:

1. Is real rigging a fools errand for a first sailing ship build? I don't mind taking time but I don't want it to be impossible!
2. I'm thinking given the low cost to replace the eyelets and hooks with photoetch/wire as standard. My first thought was to use the Revell hardware placements like-for-like, and then add any additional for the 'real' rigging as I go along (if I take that path). Is that sensible, or should I really know upfront?
3. If I go ahead with replacing the shrouds with thread, how much time is that as a proportion of the time spent doing a) the Revell rigging, or b) real rigging? I want to know if I'm going to commit to that whether I should just go the whole hog, or whether there really is a large gap and I need to think carefully.
4. It is also really not clear to me why I would replace the belay pins, though it seems to happen frequently - I appreciate they are about twice the size they should be, but they are still very small. Does the fact they are plastic play a role?

 

QUESTION ABOUT OTHER AFTERMARKET PARTS:

1. Most build logs seem to replace the plastic railing stanchions with turned brass equivalents - not cheap at all, worthwhile?

 

Many thanks for reading, see you all soon.

[Wawona59]

Welcome to MSW William.  I built the 1/96 Cutty Sark when I was a kid in the early 70's.  The CS can result in a very attractive model if you take your time.  Getting additional references is a good move.  The Longridge books are a good start.  I would not feel like you have to purchase every CS reference book available though.

 

In my opinion, I think you would be happier with your build if you replaced the deck with a wooden one.  Scaledecks.com is one manufacturer that comes to mind.

 

I would definitely replace the molded ratlines, lanyards and deadeyes with aftermarket items.  I would also consider replacing the plastic blocks with wooden ones.  There are a few sources of wooden blocks; Syren, Model Expo and Bluejacket are good sources.

 

I seem to be a fumble fingers/gorilla when it comes to the plastic eyelets and belaying pins.  I frequently break them.  I would replace them.  Consider trying to make the eyelets from wire instead of buying photoetch.

 

There are many modelers on MSW who have built the Revell 1/96 Cutty Sark.  They can provide you with a wealth of knowledge and shared experience for your project.

 

I wish you the best in your Cutty Sark project and will be following you log.  I'm currently working on a Model Shipways Flying Fish that I started over 20 years ago.  I'm fixing errors and re-doing parts that I'm not pleased with.

 

Wawona59

[Ian_Grant]

Hi William, this kit does indeed make up to a beautiful model. Like many here I made this kit in the 70's as a teenager and still have it.

 

I agree with Wawona -  get a wooden deck; those raised ridges where caulking should be are irritating. These decks were not available back then, and even if they had been who would ever have known without the internet? 😃

 

Since this is your first ever sailing ship I wouldn't sweat too many exacting details on the rigging. Using the supplied plastic blocks with a touch of paint will spare you the task of stropping many many aftermarket wood blocks (and their cost), because the supplied blocks have an eye molded in as a strop. The model builds up beautifully with them.

 

The Revell rigging instructions are actually very good and when followed result in an impressive amount of rigging. I still have mine; glancing at them I believe they omitted standing lifts on the upper topsail yards (on my instructions from the 70's anyway). I didn't know then to add them.

 

I agree too that the shrouds and deadeyes are best replaced. For one thing the deadeyes on the lower shrouds are spaced apart about 8 scale feet which is ridiculous. The molded shrouds/ratlines do not look realistic (my ancient kit had these molded in a "soft" sort-of-thread-like material which is far too thin and does not tie off at the masthead at all realistically; perhaps they are changed to rigid plastic now?). Bear in mind though that you will have to tie all the ratline clove hitch knots! 😬 At a guess allow maybe 12-15 hours??? Not too sure about it. I know my Victory's ratlines took a l-o-n-g time. I have kind of stalled my Preussen build since I reached that stage - not sure if I can bear rattling down 5 masts at 1/150....

 

I also agree with Wawona about the plastic eyelets. You can buy copper replacements almost exactly the same size here, if you are not comfortable with making them at this scale:

 

https://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?WD=eye copper&PN=4703-Eyepin-Copper-2mm--100--A4703.html#SID=367

 

Good luck and enjoy building your model! You can be as fussy with it as you are willing to spend the time and effort. You will be rewarded with a beautiful display.

 

ps that's a nice secretary desk but with the bowsprit on and when rigging you will need a larger surface without the side uprights to bump things like yard ends etc 🙄 ...spoken from experience

Edited October 16, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[William A]

Well, it's a year later...

I've decided to treat this as a 'best efforts' kit rather than aiming too high. I think that's been the biggest problem for me with so many professional modellers churning out content online I have always felt completely inadequate. This time I have the 'excuse' that I can only be as good as the kit is, to a degree - it doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be finished.

 

Doing an inventory it seems when re-boxing I have unfortunately lost the rudder, so a pleading email has been sent to Revell. I have decided to go with a HiS Model deck - though my stepfather assures me that the caulking could be proud, I just can't get on with the frankly horrid join lines, no matter how much filling and sanding (and resultant obliteration of detail) I do.

 

While I'm waiting for that to arrive I've got some masts and painting, and a base to mount it on to get on with. Rather than the faux wooden batons that come with the kit, I'm going to mount it on brass pillars screwed through the keel into captive nuts inside the hull. With a lathe it's a pretty straightforward exercise to run up some temporary stand-offs so the kit doesn't have to wallow around.

 

I'm having trouble deciding on the exact paints to use, my rule is Vallejo for everything and both the kit's painting instructions and the Revell-Vallejo colour conversion chart doesn't make any sense to me - so I'm basically aiming for a warm orange wood tone for 90% of those wooden areas, with a darker cool tone for around the hatchways, and a bit of gloss medium mixed in for specific parts.

 

First up though, is the hull - I airbrushed up some Vallejo Model Air Copper and though it was an absolute beast to spray, I don't think it's come out looking too bad:


 

[William A]

On 10/16/2022 at 4:18 PM, Wawona59 said:

I seem to be a fumble fingers/gorilla when it comes to the plastic eyelets and belaying pins.  I frequently break them.  I would replace them.  Consider trying to make the eyelets from wire instead of buying photoetch.

 

Hello @Wawona59 ! Sorry for the slightly delayed reply  For the belaying pins, is the implication that I'm going to cut all of them off the racks, then drill and fix brass ones? The idea of that fills me with dread - there are so many! 

[Ian_Grant]

It's your model, you can be as bold or conservative as you like. I made it with the plastic pins with no problems. Perhaps the plastic now is "softer" than in the 70's though?

Nice job with the copper paint!

[William A]

Funny how I was a rote amateur in the workshop a couple of years ago but now I'm much more confident managing lathes and milling machines than plastic models at the moment. I whipped up a stand to hold the ship in place: