HMS Sphinx 1775 by Ronald-V - Vanguard Models - 1:64

[brunnels]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who had to use a ton of nails on the wale.  

[Ronald-V]

2 hours ago, brunnels said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who had to use a ton of nails on the wale.  

Haha I know...it's a difficult piece!

 

But, removed the nails of the first wale and it looks the glue has grapped the both pieces well. I'm quite happy how it turned out!

It feels a bit like i've past a difficult test or something haha, glad it's over  

But now a ton of filling with some wood filler and very careful sanding them smooth without damaging the beautiful lasered planking.

Edited August 12 by Ronald-V

[Javelin]

Great planking job Ronald. Good decision to leave the lower part natural. 

Pitty on the slipped pin pusher, but I'm sure you will fix that! 

Keep this coming, as one of my superiors once said: "I love your perfectionist mindset, eventhough you don't achieve perfect results, at least you get closer than any of us"

 

[Ronald-V]

29 minutes ago, Javelin said:

Great planking job Ronald. Good decision to leave the lower part natural. 

Pitty on the slipped pin pusher, but I'm sure you will fix that! 

Keep this coming, as one of my superiors once said: "I love your perfectionist mindset, eventhough you don't achieve perfect results, at least you get closer than any of us"

 

 

Really cool quote! Tnx!

[paul carruthers]

On 8/12/2024 at 11:54 AM, Ronald-V said:

First wale installed. As suspected needed tons of nails 😁. First I painted the bottom black so I don't have to mask the hull when painting the rest of the wales.

I used some diluted PVA and glued 1/3...nail the wale down, then another 1/3 and so on. This gave me some time to attach everything. But still the glue dried pretty quick so it will be a test when the nails will be removed if everything stick well to each other... I hope so  

 

 

 

 

So here the nail pusher slipped from his spot and damaged the lasered gunport patterns a bit, that's a bit sad...so this needs some cosmetic work afterwards.

 

 

Dampen the damage area, it should lift some of the indentation 

[Ronald-V]

1 hour ago, paul carruthers said:

Dampen the damage area, it should lift some of the indentation 

Thanks for the tip! Will try that  

[Oboship]

Beautiful planking and craftsmanship!

Uwe

[Ronald-V]

8 hours ago, Oboship said:

Beautiful planking and craftsmanship!

Uwe

Thanks Uwe!

[rvchima]

I was away for a couple of weeks and didn't look in on your build. Your planking is perfect and the WOP is just beautiful on the pear wood. Congratulations on a marvelous job.

If dampening the damaged area does not fix the problem, try touching the dampened area with a hot clothes or bending iron. Try it on some scrap first.

[Ronald-V]

On 8/16/2024 at 2:59 AM, rvchima said:

I was away for a couple of weeks and didn't look in on your build. Your planking is perfect and the WOP is just beautiful on the pear wood. Congratulations on a marvelous job.

If dampening the damaged area does not fix the problem, try touching the dampened area with a hot clothes or bending iron. Try it on some scrap first.

 

Thanks Rod! Will try your tip also...but if none of it works, a bit of sanding and some WOP will mask most of it I think. And with all the other stuff that get's mounted it won't be really noticable I assume

Edited August 20 by Ronald-V

[Ronald-V]

After I installed the wales I found out that there were still a lot of seams on the top and bottom where the wales were not attached to the hull.

So with some diluted PVA and more nails 🤪 I was able to get it all right. Now just filled everything with wood filler (I think at least a hundred holes if not more 🥲)

 

But when sanded it should look great!  

 

[Ronald-V]

Update:

 

The wales are now finished, painted as well as the thick strake above the wales. I cut the thick strake into pieces with a knife to make mounting easier. It consisted of 2 long pieces and that seemed quite difficult to get on properly in one go. So I cut these on the lasered planks and glued them on with PVA and CA. This went a lot easier (less stressful). Also painted the sides before mounting so that I didn't have to do this on the model anymore. The paint I used is "Gun metal black" from Admiralty paints. I first mixed some white and yellow through it to make it a bit grayer and duller, but when I had the first layer on I noticed that it looked a bit patchy. I think the Admiralty paints don't mix well with each other. But it didn't matter, I just painted it over with the standard color in the end. I think it looks good and you can still see the lasered planks shining through nicely.

 

The wales are a few tenths too high at the front and there is a small difference in symmetry at the stern. Too bad, but I can't worry about it too much haha

Glad I have these tricky things finished!  

 

It makes the model a lot more finished and neater.

 

 

 

Edited August 21 by Ronald-V

[Ronald-V]

I'm going to leave the outside of the hull for what it is now and concentrate on the main gun deck. I haven't mounted this yet and don't want to get too far behind with the manual. Unfortunately I messed up the lasered deck (the replacement that is 🥲, still thankful for Chris sending me this, sadly i'm a bit clumsy)  How that happened I described earlier in my log. But then decided to lay the deck myself with boxwood, seems like a nice challenge to me and I also thought the deck of Blue Ensign's Sphinx looked beautiful. So that is a bit of the inspiration for this. So this will be the next chapter!

[Ronald-V]

I am doing some research on how to lay the deck etc. and also how the hatches and gratings would look. Of course I have to take this into account before I lay the deck.

 

Now I wonder if the shot garlands were present in the original or if Chris added them as an extra detail. I can't find them on the original Sphinx deck plan, but perhaps these details are not mentioned on a deck plan. Since I would like to make a curve in the gratings and hatches it would be nicer to paint them black afterwards, but with the shot garlands that would look strange in my opinion, because the cannon balls are already black, maybe leave the shot garland natural pear, or just everything natural pear...or to omit the shot garlands at all. Not sure yet what would look nice here. What do you guys think?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 22 by Ronald-V

[chris watton]

As far as I am aware original Admiralty plans do not show shot garlands. I have looked though my collection, and do not see them on any.

[Ronald-V]

2 hours ago, chris watton said:

As far as I am aware original Admiralty plans do not show shot garlands. I have looked though my collection, and do not see them on any.

Thanks Chris! It's a nice detail of course so to leave it out altogether would be a shame I think. Let's see what I think looks best

[Ronald-V]

Just looking at some photo's of the HMS Victory, which is ofcourse a total different color sheme, but here are the shot garlands also painted black. Looks pretty cool I must say. Ofcourse it would look different in model, but still maybe I overthought this   

 

 

Edit: 

 

Found also a contemporary model with black hatches, grating edges and shot garlands. Posting this stuff so it may help others also 

 

Edited August 22 by Ronald-V

[Nipper]

That is fantastic planking on your Sphinx - congratulations!!

 

Nipper

[Ronald-V]

20 minutes ago, Nipper said:

That is fantastic planking on your Sphinx - congratulations!!

 

Nipper

Thank you very much Nipper!

[Ronald-V]

Update:

 

Started laying the deck. I use boxwood 4x1mm for this. Except for pieces like here in the middle of the hatches and gratings.

I want to have 1 plank over the center line for reinforcement since I am not using the lasered piece that would normally provide the strength.

So in between come a few other sizes of planks to get exactly on the edge of the hatches and gratings.

I find it handy that Chris places the hatches and gratings on the deck instead of having them fall between the holes.

This makes the planking a lot easier because they go over it anyway. So that's a plus

 

This is the first time I'm working with boxwood and that certainly takes some getting used to. It feels a lot harder and drier than the pear.

So I have to learn how to work with it.

 

But it's fun to do this again, it feels like 1 big jigsaw puzzle!  

 

Edited August 23 by Ronald-V

[cdrusn89]

Ronald - what are you using for adhesive on the decking?

 

I am about to start the forecastle decking and am torn between carpenter and PVA.

 

I might have been tempted to plank over hatches rather than plank around them (carefully marking where thew go of course). You won't really be able to tell, especially if you paint the planks black under the hatch grating.

[Ronald-V]

3 hours ago, cdrusn89 said:

Ronald - what are you using for adhesive on the decking?

 

I am about to start the forecastle decking and am torn between carpenter and PVA.

 

I might have been tempted to plank over hatches rather than plank around them (carefully marking where thew go of course). You won't really be able to tell, especially if you paint the planks black under the hatch grating.

I use the same as for the planks of the outside hull. Just some lines of PVA with dots of CA in between for the immediate hold   🙂

Edited August 23 by Ronald-V

[Ronald-V]

So here I am now regarding the deck laying, but in my search for how to lay the margin plank etc... I came across a passage

in Chuck's "Cheerful" about how to lay the deck in a curve. So that the deck slowly tapers towards the bow and towards the stern, as do the planks.

I thought this would be very complicated so beforehand I just had the idea to lay the deck planks straight. But as Chuck explains it in this chapter:

 

https://syrenshipmodelcompany.com/resources/ChapterchapEight.pdf

 

To be honest, it seemed doable to me. Worth a try anyway. That's why I wanted to try it with the main gun deck since most of it disappears under the

upper decks anyway (if it doesn't look okay.) That way I could practice nicely. And it turns out I have ordered more than enough boxwood so that's why

I'm now demolishing the planks that I have laid now (except between the hatches and gratings)

 

So that's the plan! Seems like a nice challenge

 

 

[Ronald-V]

Removing the planks with some tools:

 

 

 

 

Ok...the removal process is quite delicate, you have to use just enough force, but not too much otherwise you will slip.

This happened twice. In the first place it had no consequences, because that is covered by the oven.

But in the second place it did because I damaged the checkered floor. But...I was already planning to do something with it

(probably stick a printed white/black floor on it). But now that it had to be removed completely there are of course more possibilities.

I can also extend the deck planks and put a nice carpet on it. Let's see what I think is the most beautiful/accurate. The captain's cabin will be painted white anyway (a nice example of this is in "Brunnels build log")

 

The battlefield now looks like this  :

 

 

 

I must remind myself....it will look beautiful again 😛😄🫠

 

Edited September 4 by Ronald-V

[Loracs]

@Ronald-V, I really like the fact that you got the courage to break down the existing deck to implement something new and potentially better. It already looks better to me.  NICE! 

 

Thanks for the link to Chuck pdf.  I was not aware of the method.

Edited September 4 by Loracs

[Ronald-V]

Update:

 

Before I started on the main gun deck, I thought I would paint a piece of the captains cabin white. When I had done that, the lasered doors

on the side to the quarter galleries were hard to see. (the white paint did not cover well so I needed 4 layers)
I tried to make the lasered doors visible again by going through the lines with a knife, but the knife followed the line too poorly, causing them to go crooked.

This of course did not look so cool. So then I tried to make a door out of paper... this seemed okay, but also not to my liking. Then I remembered Blue Ensign

and Brunnels their Sphinx where they removed the doors, so that more light comes into the cabin. This seemed to me the nicest and most beautiful solution,

so here is a small side quest to realize this. You can see the result below... the photos are self-explanatory.

 

The first door has been removed, now the other one still has to be done and then finished with wood between the inner and outer wall and make everything a bit nice and straight. (and I need to re-paint the gunports as you see...there is spilling of the white paint, jobs keep stacking up  )

 

So now I also belong to the open door quarter galleries club  🎉

 

 

 

Edited September 10 by Ronald-V

[AJohnson]

That’s brave surgery you have undertaken there Ron, but looks neat, will make the cabin look good. 

Edited September 10 by AJohnson

[brunnels]

That looks great welcome to the exclusive club 😁 , are you going to open up the Quarter Galleys as well?

[Ronald-V]

11 hours ago, brunnels said:

That looks great welcome to the exclusive club 😁 , are you going to open up the Quarter Galleys as well?

Thanks! And yes probably....but when it's time to fit them I will look into it if it's doable for me  

 

13 hours ago, AJohnson said:

That’s brave surgery you have undertaken there Ron, but looks neat, will make the cabin look good. 

Thanks! Always a bit scary to do it when the construction is already so far, but it worked out fine  

 

Everyone thank you for the likes! 🎉

Edited September 11 by Ronald-V

[Ronald-V]

Update:

 

Just an update of what I'm working on now. I finished the door to the quarter galleries. Placed some planks between the bulkheads and boxwood as small steps on the floor. All very basic, it's more about the idea than it being a representation of the original. Then painted it white.

 

 

 

The next step was to continue planking the deck. First comes the installation of the margin plank. Now 1 side done and busy with the other side. I really notice the advantage of using boxwood. You can work really sharp and that comes in handy with these hook scarf joints. I first sand away the bulk and then finish the joint with a knife. With this you can shave off very fine bits to get nice sharp corners. I wonder if this would work with e.g. tangayika wood which is normally supplied with kits for the deck.

The first few times it went wrong quite often and I had to redo quite a few. But then I got the hang of it and it went quite easily. I am quite proud of the result, because this seemed quite difficult to me in advance.

 

 

By the way, you can edge bend wood quite far...this is 5mm wide boxwood and that works fine if you do it bit by bit. I was amazed myself that this could be done without breaking. As you can see I use the lasered deck as a template for the last piece of margin plank at the bow.

 

Edited September 16 by Ronald-V