HM Cutter Trial 1790 by AJohnson - FINISHED - Vanguard Models - 1:64th

[AJohnson]

Hi all, finished off some of the items on the hull over the last few days. 

 

This included a re-make of the stern knees, as these did not survive the replacement of the belay pins.  The addition of the Roman numeral waterline markers - these were an absolute torment to space correctly for some reason and the carpet monster eat two of them, so I ended up making those out of card strip, from the usual viewing distance you can't tell, so ended okay.

 

Bulwark ladders added; one in place and one stored near the stern, as I'm sure these would be stowed in action, as they get in the way of the Carronades, added hand-ropes for the sides by repurposing the spare companionway stanchions.
 

Added shot garlands and pyramids of shot for each gun and added the deadeye straps; loose fit for now until the shrouds can be setup and final fixing of the strap positions can be gauged.

 

Finally I assembled the display stand, this I think gets me to pages 48/49 of the instructions, so on to masts and yards next, with the odd detour for anchors when I need a change.

 

Thanks for the likes and comments.  😁

Edited July 8 by AJohnson

[AJohnson]

Updates for this weekend, before I torture myself watching England play football later! ⚽ 🤦‍♂️

 

Have made a start on the masts and yards.  Largely as the instructions, I did however add mast hoops (purchased from @chris watton) , as I am adding sails and also some minor details added to the stool for the main boom, as David @dunnock did on his Trial build, shameless copying... 😁  For the main boom I have also decided to thicken the main boom jaws and add card bands and wire to simulate iron reinforcement bars.

 

Started adding blocks using the thread I got from Ropes of Scale @BenD gone with brown standing rigging instead of black, very impressed with this thread. 👍  Adding a few extras; for the top rope as an example, I'm referring to the Cutter chapter in Lennarth Petersson's Rigging Period Fore & Aft Craft, quite how far I go I'm not sure yet.

 

Think this get me as far as completing Plan sheet 6.  Thanks for looking in. 👋

Edited July 14 by AJohnson

[Nipper]

Lovely work Andrew!

 

What make is your mini-lathe, pictured above?  I've been planning to buy a Proxon in order to make the masts for my Sphinx, but yours could be another option.

 

Nipper

[AJohnson]

56 minutes ago, Nipper said:

Lovely work Andrew!

 

What make is your mini-lathe, pictured above?  I've been planning to buy a Proxon in order to make the masts for my Sphinx, but yours could be another option.

 

Nipper

Thanks, I have no idea what make it is, I suspect some generic Chinese knock-off, I picked it up cheap at an auto jumble! 🤣. It is okay, but only any use for small jobs. 

[Thukydides]

Great job on the claws. It is a relatively easy modification but I think it is one of those that really adds to the model.

[dunnock]

On 7/14/2024 at 4:05 PM, AJohnson said:

added to the stool for the main boom, as David @dunnock did on his Trial build, shameless copying... 😁

Copy away Andrew.

If you had been ahead of me in the build I would definitely have taken a lot of your ideas  😁

David

[AJohnson]

Thanks everyone for the likes and comments.

 

As something of a partial diversion I have assembled and started to experiment with Chuck's Servo-o-matic that I got months ago.  Just used up some old threads for practice first, then served some line for block strops and did a few for the bowsprit.  For the bowsprit I have not used the PE spider plate, but gone more with, as I have mentioned before, the Cutter chapter in Lennarth Petersson's Rigging Period Fore & Aft Craft, and as such have added blocks for the Topsail and main yard braces and Topsail yard bowline thimble blocks.  Eyelets at the tip are set into a white metal ring, I also replaced the thin PE bowsprit securing iron with copper wire flattened and shaped to suit.

 

The last picture shows the main mast and boom just dry fit for a quick preview at how she will look later, all for now.

 

Edited July 22 by AJohnson

[Thukydides]

Good job, I think serving makes a very noticeable difference.

[Oboship]

Beautiful model with a deep love to detail!

Although I haven't "pressed the buttons" everytime I carefully followed your log from the beginning, and it will be a very good reference for me to spy on when I get to work on my Trial.

I am glad your recovery is successfully progressing!

Uwe

[AJohnson]

Small update for today, I have completed the masts and yards; well at least the sawdust making part!  I need to add blocks and footropes etc yet.

 

I have also completed the two anchors, experimenting again with he Servo-o-matic to serve some wire for the anchor ring puddening before bending the wire into a hoop, this seemed to work okay.  Other enhancements was to add the bolt holes in the wooden stocks and use wire to simulate the bolts.

 

I decided to not use the PE for the studding sale booms and irons, but refashioned these out of copper eyelets and tubing for those.

 

Next up lots of blocks and serving of lashings and trying to make these all look tidy without entombing everything in C-A as I normally do!

 

Thanks for looking in and the likes.

[dunnock]

Great idea Andrew to serve the anchor rings prior to bending  and fitting. I always struggled to make a decent fist of it. With a better serving the seizings must go on better too.

I'll definitely try your method on Speedy.

 

David

[AJohnson]

Progress for this last few days has been adding blocks and the like to the mast and yards.

 

I have also made a start on the rigging of the Bowsprit, adding the traveller for the Jib as I will be adding sails,  it doesn't sit right at the moment but hopefully will be better when the Jib halliards are added and counter balance the inhaul/outhaul.  Deep breath - looks like some rigging now on the horizon!  😬

 

Thanks for looking in and the likes.

Edited July 30 by AJohnson

[AJohnson]

Hello shipmates!  Since the last update I've been wrangling shrouds and deadeyes into some resemblance of respectability.  This hasn't always gone smoothly and there has been a considerable amount of "redo's" to get them looking as best I could manage, at one stage it looked like the poor old Trial had been in a scrape with a French Privateer like her original namesake - rigging all shot to pieces! 😆  Anyway, glad I redid them, for the few extra hours, would be as nothing to the countless times I would have looked at them later and not been happy if they had been left...

 

The fore shroud was served for the full length and the remained the top portion only, I've also added Burton Pendants as a little detail.  I am starting to think about the order in which the rest of the rigging gets completed as I am adding sails. I think the foresail first, once I have the Forestay is added as this won't get in the way too much, then Jib sail, but this will be vulnerable as an extremity.  Then yards, or mainsail?  🤔  Another thing that I'm pondering is how the topmast shrouds were adjusted if the lower yard was braced round for the wind?  On the RMG model referenced before:-

- the foremost topmast shroud is already deflected and rubbing up against the lower yard when the yard is simply perpendicular to the keel, but when braced one way or the other, this must really have deflected the topmast shrouds a lot!  These must have been served and regularly replaced due to wear?  Lennarth Petterson's Cutter in "Rigging period Fore and aft craft" (based on the model in the London Science Museum, shows tackles for adjusting these shrouds when the yards are braced?  Perhaps this is something I could replicate?

 

Plenty to ponder as I start on the Ratlines! 😬

 

Thanks for looking in and the likes. 😁

Edited August 4 by AJohnson

[Thukydides]

Looks great. If you are planning on adding sails I would suggest checking out this log:

Though it is for a much larger ship, I suspect the same principles will apply.

[DaveBaxt]

Excellent rope work Andrew and I really like the look of those dark deadeyes and great looking shrouds. 

[Nipper]

Andrew

I pondered on the same issue when adding furled sails to my Alert - i.e. the issue of the mains'l yard fouling the foremost shroud whenever the yard was  braced round.

 

I couldn't see a way round it, unless the force of the wind caused the yard to move forward away from the mast, thus giving a bit more of an angle for the yard to turn.

 

What a great build you are doing.  Definitely right to re-do something rather than forever sigh whenever you look at the finished model!

 

Nipper

[FriedClams]

I've been reading your log over a couple of sessions and what a beautiful model you're building!  Such nice work, Andrew.  I found your hull color-banding technique for tone variation to be unique and effective.  Had not seen that done before.  Will be watching for future updates.

 

Gary

[Jay 1]

Andrew, she's a cracking build--I really enjoy your excellent craftsmanship!

 

Cheers,

Jay

[AJohnson]

Thank you all for your likes and kind comments from the last update.

 

Not a great deal to show for what seemed like a lot of effort at times, but I have completed the ratlines and the Topmast shrouds.  The ratlines actually went okay once I got into the "groove" of doing them and slowed down to take time to tease/allow the thread to curl they way it wanted to whilst doing the clove hitches, so the free end to the next clove hitch stayed flat and didn't want to kink upwards and also taking care to use fine tweezers to help the knot tighten into the correct location to avoid moving it about later and the evitable loosening of the knot that causes.

 

The topmast Shrouds have turned out satisfactorily, I might not go so far as to say I'm "happy" with them, but my rigging skills would not produce noticeable improvements with yet more redo's! 🙄  They are something of a compromise between the details provided by Lennarth Petterson's Cutter in "Rigging period Fore and aft craft" and the contemporary model referenced before.  Most noticeable being the tying-off to the Dead eyes (as per. the contemporary model) rather than their own eyelets as shown in Petterson.  I have tied off the port side, but have not done the same yet for the starboard side, as some adjustment will be needed for the deflection of the Topmast shrouds caused by having the lower yard braced to that side.  I am having the yards braced as though the wind is coming onto the Port quarter, partly for looks, but also to make the model narrower for the designated shelf width! 😆 These Cutters with their large sails have a deceptively large footprint for display purposes!

 

Next up the rigging of stays, whilst preparing for the addition of sails.  Hoping for an incremental improvement over the ones I added to my Nisha 🤞:-

 

Thanks for looking in! 😁

Edited August 12 by AJohnson

[AJohnson]

Progress this week has been slow, rigging the stays and redoing about 50% of everything I touched!

 

Added a mouse turned from dowel on the forestay and then painted it dark brown before serving.  Otherwise all fairly straight forward following Petterson and the kit instructions.  Also would like to add that the ropes I got from Ropes of Scale @BenD are really nice and make my average rigging look much better!  

 

One other detail I did add was the addition of Toprope pendants.  I know from Lee's they were unrove when not in use from 1800, so thought it would not be too much of a crime to add the pendants as Trial was c.1797.  Tied off the thimbles at the same level as the Burton pendants, which added a certain pleasing symmetry.

 

Next stage is to look at loosely adding yards and booms, but acutely aware that from this stage on working space on the model is going to start rapidly shrinking, so careful planning would be good, so I can maintain access and working room for as long as possible... We shall see what I forget to do as time goes on! 😆

 

Thanks for stopping by and the likes.

[Thukydides]

The rigging is looking really nice. It holds up well in the close up pictures. I would say on average I also had to redo about 50% of the rigging I did.

[AJohnson]

Hello all, been over a week since the last update, but I have been busy working away on Trial.  Experimenting with an iteration of the sails that I added to my Nisha build.  This time I have used tissue paper throughout, rather than a thicker middle layer, to try and provide some scale looking translucency to the sail.

Some discussion has already been taking place on this excellent thread:-

But for completeness this is what I did for my first sail (foresail) on Trial.

 

Initially I cut out loads of strips to a scale 2 foot wide, including plenty of spares - correctly anticipating plenty of redo's! This I did with a steel rule and a scalpel initially, but the blades did not last that long, but I then remembered that we had in the cupboard a rotary cutter rule, so I tried that out and it worked a dream, no more torn strips caused by a blunt blades dragging the tissue.

 

They were then glued on to a centre carrier sheet of the same tissue paper, using - wait for it! - a glue stick! I raided the kids craft stores!  😆  I tried this out hoping that the dry glue wouldn't wrinkle the paper too much, which it didn't, however you have to be careful to get good coverage and constantly clean/wash your work surface to mop up the residue, this could stick your strips to the surface and the strips rip trying to peel them off - I know that from multiple times it happened to me....  This layer, when dried, was repeated on the other side, so the thickness was three ply and five at the seems.  The sail was then cut to shape from this blank.

 

The next step was to add some reinforcement patches at the corners and a couple of repair patches just to add "interest" so the sail didn't look too pristine.  I want to make the sails look like they have some wind in them, I know that this is frowned on by luminaries like David Antscherl, but as I am also adding crew members, I might as well go the full Heretic and be made to walk the plank for good reason!  So at the perimeter I added stainless steel 0.2mm wire, this was spun in a drill to straighten and stiffen it, this will allow the sail to retain a shape when curved.  This was trapped in place with the luff-leech-foot reinforcement.  The head and tack had wire loops (painted cream to hide them a bit) for me to add the running rigging to, the clew, not having as much tension on it was the corner I used to tie off the wire at.

 

The whole assembly was then ironed between two sheets of grease-proof paper, so that if any glue softened it wouldn't stick to the iron of the under surface - and on the whole that worked - phew!  Some seems did need a touch-up with dilute fabric glue to hold them, but not too many, so overall, for the ease and lack of wrinkles, I would recommend dry glue sticks for making sails like this.

 

Additional details then added was the bolt rope, glued the the perimeter and reef points, both added with fabric glue.  I followed steel and added two per panel, so that made for plenty of little knots and trimming!

 

Regarding making the sail look like canvas and not tissue paper I did try painting the sails using an airbrush, but this looked a bit too "grubby" to me (the first two picture of a sail attached to the fore stay).  So I tried pre misting the tissue with acrylic wash (oak colour in my case).  I did have a close brush with disaster by trying Tea, but @druxey saved the day and warned me that this would make the sails brittle, so in time my Trial would look like a forlorn Egyptian Mummy.... 

 

The sail was finally mounted with down haul lines and tackle; following the diagrams in Petersson, all knots sealed with matt varnish and trimmed, the halliard just temporarily taped to the side of the hull until I tie it off later.  This whole process has taken me a week to do one sail (the final one was my fourth attempt!)  So I am really hoping, having learnt a few tricks, the next three will be quicker - Jib sail next update!

 

Thanks for all the kind comments and following along.  😁

 

[Dave_E]

Oooh yea! 👍👏😀

[Thukydides]

Fantastic work, those have got to be some of the nicer sails I have seen on this forum. You almost make me wish I had put sails on alert :).

 

On the airbrush, I would imagine you should be able to run the wash through the airbrush and it would produce a more even coat. I suspect you were running too much through.  That being said if the spray bottle does the job then why fix what isn't broken.

 

The wire is a good idea and it really doesn't stand out at all. I wanted to put wire in my flags, but was worried it would be too visible. Now I have the issue that the ensign is drooping a bit more than I would like so next time I will probably try the wire or just go full tinfoil on the ensign.

 

I do have one question which is not clear to me from your pictures. The reinforcing strip on the outside folded around the wire, is that a separate piece you glued on after cutting the sail to shape?

 

All in all great job.

Edited August 28 by Thukydides

[AJohnson]

40 minutes ago, Thukydides said:

I do have one question which is not clear to me from your pictures. The reinforcing strip on the outside folded around the wire, is that a separate piece you glued on after cutting the sail to shape?

 

Thank you for the kind words, sorry if not clear, yes the reinforcement strip is another one added at the perimeter to the already cut sail.  As the tissue is so thin I didn't think it would matter to have one more layer.  As they are, they are a bit fragile!  😬  I shall have to move with glacial speed around the build from now on..... 🤞

[wmherbert]

Very nice indeed. I'm a little unclear about how you did the color.  It appears you completed the sail entirely first.  How and what did you do for the color? 

The sample I made up I used some left over silkspan that I had painted like Laurie shows. But silkspan I think would be easier to assemble if it was unpainted.

   Another question. I was a little concerned that 3 layers of paper was starting to get too thick and might start to  seem out of scale. What did you find?

Bill

[AJohnson]

Hi Bill, the tissue paper is coloured with the acrylic wash first (the pictures show the sheets drying in the garage, before being cut up to use.). Sorry for not being clear. 
As to the thickness, even at the seems where it is five layers, or around the perimeter where it is seven, it is still as thin as copier paper; I am currently playing with a copier paper template for the jib sail, so the two are side by side and there is no difference between them. Picture attached. 
I’m using traditional tissue paper, I have not come across silkspan, assume something you have access to across the pond. 

[Oboship]

Although it is technically a fore sail you created so brilliantly, it is a TOP sail, qualitywise 😉! Very nicely done, can't wait to see Trial with her full set of sails!

On a side note, I like your "Keep calm..."-motto. A good approach to help settle serious modelling issues..😁.

Uwe

[Nipper]

That sail looks fantastic Andrew.  Thank you for the excellent explanation and photos.  Now I  can't wait to get onto my next build  for which I will fit sails, once my Sphinx is finished.

I especially like the way you've created the wind in the sail effect. To me, that looks much more lifelike and interesting than the Antscheri approved version. 

Nipper 

[AJohnson]

Thanks to everyone for the likes and feedback on the sails.  This week I have added the Jib sail, by the same method as the foresail.  The dawning realisation on how restrictive the sails will be for access means I am also having to tie-off some of the rigging sooner than anticipated, but I should have foreseen that - doh!  The sails are held in place by using the same stainless steel wire used in the sails, but painted to match the rest of the running rigging and glued to the appropriate spot on the hull.

 

The rigging is largely following Lennarth Petterson's Cutter in "Rigging period Fore and aft craft" and in so doing I am slowly realising this work somewhat simplifies the rigging compared the contemporary model Petterson based his drawings on.  So I am finding this out as I go and adapting as best I can.

 

Next up finish tying off the rigging forward of the mast, then add the topsail, I am thinking that I then will need to add the anchors and the gun crews before access becomes more confined by adding the booms and main sail.

 

Thanks for looking in.  😁

Edited September 2 by AJohnson