HMS Sphinx 1775 by rvchima - FINISHED - Vanguard Models - 1:64 - 20 Gun Sixth Rate Frigate

[rvchima]

I finished my Mississippi River Steamboat Robert E Lee in early October, and took a break from ships to build a TV console for my son and daughter-in-law. In the evenings I was looking for a new ship to build - something beautiful but challenging that would not need to go in a case.

 

I found a build log for HMS Fly (Amati) built by moderator @ccoyle. Chris built his model as a hull model, no masts, yards, or rigging. What a brilliant idea! He built all the fun bits without ending up with a dust catcher. I started searching for other ships that might look good as a hull model and found the Diana by Caldercraft. I asked Chris for advice, and he told me that my taste was consistent as both models had been designed by @chris watton, owner of Vanguard models. I ordered the Sphinx and had it within a week, but haven't been able to start it until now.

 

There are at least 18 build logs for the Sphinx on MSW, 7 finished, 3 in progress, and 8 stalled. Here are links to the finished logs for easy reference.

 

HMS Sphinx 1775 (prototype) by James H - Vanguard Models - 1:64 - FINISHED

12 pages, 5.5 months. This is the prototype build used for photos for the beautiful manual in the kit.

 

HMS Sphinx 1775 by Blue Ensign - FINISHED - Vanguard Models - 1:64 scale

29 pages, 16 months. Built as a hull-only model.

 

HMS Sphinx 1775 by Glenn Shelton (glennard2523) - Vanguard Models - 1:64

10 pages, 5 months. Glenn wasn't happy with his work (which looked great to me) and stopped with a hull only model.

 

HMS Sphinx 1775 by glennard2523 - FINISHED - Vanguard Models - 1:64 - V2 Kit by Glenn Shelton

16 pages, 11 months. Glenn started over and completed an even nicer model.

 

HMS Sphinx 1775 by mtaylor - FINISHED - Vanguard Models - 1:64

17 pages, 10 months. Mark also stopped with a hull-only model. A very nice build.

 

HMS Sphinx by ECK - FINISHED - Vanguard Models - 1:64

Only 3 pages, 5 months. A fast build with a short log, but the model is gorgeous.

 

HMS Sphinx 1775 by Hollowneck - FINISHED - Vanguard Models - 1:64

19 pages, 16 months. Amazing model with full sails mounted in a diorama.

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by rvchima
typo

[rvchima]

What's in the Box

A photo of the box is at the top of my first post. The box weighs a hefty 13.5 pounds (6.1 kg).  Here are a couple of composite photos of box contents.

A lot of the weight is paper - a beautiful 152-page manual and 23 sheets of plans. The cannons, figurehead, and stern decoration are 3-D printed. The hull is double planked with lime wood and pear wood. The masts and yards are walnut. Most of the blocks and rigging material will go into my leftover box if I stop with a hull-only model.

The kit includes 33 sheets of laser-cut MDF for the frames and pear wood for most everything else, 1 sheet of laser cut acetate for a stand, and 5 sheets of photo-etched parts.

 

 

[schooner]

Great choice Rod! That is one classy kit. I'll be following along.

[Knocklouder]

Good luck  on your journey. 

[ccoyle]

2 hours ago, rvchima said:

Chris built his model as a hull model, no masts, yards, or rigging. What a brilliant idea!

 

I completed it that way because I wasn't completely happy with how the hull had turned out, but hey, I'll take 'brilliant'! 😁

[rvchima]

I started the model a week before Christmas and have managed to make a little progress.

 

Bow & Stern Filler

Bow and Stern Filler pieces are made from a number of small MDF parts attached to a backing plate and sanded to shape with a rotary tool. Sanding was a little bit intimidating but came out just fine. The purple take in the third photo holds a temporary piece in place to protect two delicate vertical frame pieces.

Keel & Frames

I forgot to take a photo of the basic keel with frames attached, so I'll jump ahead a little here. The keel is a single piece of MDF, and the frames drop perfectly into slots. Nothing is glued at first. The manual says to place the lower deck with laser-burned planking lines on the frames. Neither the manual nor most of the build logs say anything about finishing the sub deck, but I went ahead and used a coat of Minwax Golden Oak oil stain and three coats of satin Polycrylic spray. Now I realize that you can't see that deck on the finished model, but hey, I know it's there.

 

Longitudinal gun port frames are attached to the top of the frames, then everything is glued with diluted PVA glue painted on from below. In this way the lower deck and longitudinal frames keep everything in alignment as the glue drys.

 

You know the laser-cut wooden toys/puzzles that are so common now? Names like ROKR, UGEARS, and RoWood? So far this model reminded me of those - no skill necessary. I think that planking the hull will be a different story.

Four lower coamings with gratings made of pear wood are assembled and attached to the lower deck.

Note to Self: These precisely thin laser-cut pieces can be extremely delicate! Don't ask me how I know.

The stern counter is made up of nine frames.

Horizontal supports for the gun deck are attached next, and then longitudinal supports are attached on top of them.

The kit includes a cradle to hold the model during construction. It matches two frames exactly, but until the hull is planked I am using two spring clamps to keep the hull from slipping off.

 

Next the gun sub-deck is attached in two pieces. Remember what I said about "no skill necessary?" I take that back. The gun deck was very hard to fit. The notches were all a little tight, and the two pieces wouldn't quite match up along the center line. I placed, removed, sanded, and replaced the two pieces for hours, and still ended up with gaps between them. Eventually a nicer deck will go over top so it won't matter.

Edited December 28, 2023 by rvchima

[RossR]

7 minutes ago, rvchima said:

I started the model a week before Christmas and have managed to make a little progress.

“A little progress”.  I would say that is more than a little progress in less than 2 weeks.   Looks great.  Can’t wait to follow your build.  
 

 

[ccoyle]

1 hour ago, rvchima said:

Four lower coamings with gratings made of pear wood are assembled and attached to the lower deck.

 

I've noticed the rounded coaming corners in Chris' kits before and wondered whether they mirror actual practice? Knowing Chris, I'd be slightly surprised if it didn't.

[chris watton]

24 minutes ago, ccoyle said:

 

I've noticed the rounded coaming corners in Chris' kits before and wondered whether they mirror actual practice? Knowing Chris, I'd be slightly surprised if it didn't.

Yes, the coamings are directly copied from original plans, it seems most had the rounded corners.

[Ronald-V]

Good luck with your Sphinx journey! It's such a lovely kit...I also toyed with the idea of building it without rigging etc. due to space saving. But I also lack the experience to rig a three masted frigate...so i'm going to rig it just for the experience I think...but I have some time to decide it so nothing is set in stone at this point.

Edited December 29, 2023 by mugje

[chris watton]

1 hour ago, mugje said:

Good luck with your Sphinx journey! It's such a lovely kit...I also toyed with the idea of building it without rigging etc. due to space saving. But I also lack the experience to rig a three masted frigate...so i'm going to rig it just for the experience I think...but I have some time to decide it so nothing is set in stone at this point.

You do not have to fully rig it, you can leave off all sail related rig and just add yard rig, the ties, lifts and braces, and leave it at that. That also means a lot less blocks to tie to the lower yards.

[Ronald-V]

3 hours ago, chris watton said:

You do not have to fully rig it, you can leave off all sail related rig and just add yard rig, the ties, lifts and braces, and leave it at that. That also means a lot less blocks to tie to the lower yards.

Thanks for the suggestion Chris! I'll take it one step at the time...and see where I end  

[rvchima]

 

9 hours ago, mugje said:

Good luck with your Sphinx journey! It's such a lovely kit...I also toyed with the idea of building it without rigging etc. due to space saving. But I also lack the experience to rig a three masted frigate...so i'm going to rig it just for the experience I think...but I have some time to decide it so nothing is set in stone at this point.

Hi Mugje,

 

I just looked at your log. If you can do beautiful planking like that you can certainly do the rigging.

 

I really enjoy building the masts and yards, and doing all the rigging. But I have four fully-rigged ships in my house, 3 in cases that I built from scratch, plus three modern warships in another very large case, plus two large tugs and several smaller ships. I just don't have room for another large ship. But who knows, I may just break down and rig this one too 😀

[rvchima]

Gun Ports, And A Piece That Just Didn't Fit Right

These little pieces get glued vertically to define the sides of the gun ports, like this.

Then thin plywood strips get painted red and glued to the insides of the gunwales. (Test fit before painting shown.) The fit was perfect, but after I had attached everything I discovered a gap between the gunwales and the horizontal notched strip.

And so, deconstruction. I removed the notched strip  and found that the gunwale pieces matched the notches in the MDF frames perfectly. I have no idea how the notched strip ended up so high, and on both sides. But I glued it back in the correct position. I also stained and attached the second deck with laser-marked planking.

The next step is to pre-soak thin ply panels for the outer gunwales. Before I glued these I discovered another gap between them and that same notched strip. There wasn't enough material on the MDF frames to fair the hull any more, so I filled the gaps with 1/16" square strips. It looks like this will all be covered with another deck and rails later.

 

So future Sphinx builders, keep an eye on that notched strip. Consider attaching the inner gunwale pieces first to make sure that strip sits right on top.

[rvchima]

No, I Haven't Given Up

Actually I just returned from an 11 day trip to Maui with my wife, two sons, and their wives. Before I left I made an embarrassing mistake. Despite several warnings in the manual I started planking the hull with wet wood. When I got home there were some serious gaps between the planks. I've planked several hulls in my life and totally know better. I spent a couple of days filling and sanding, and it shouldn't cause a problem on the first layer of planking. I am now pinning wet strips to dry overnight, then gluing them the next day with PVA on the long edges and CA on the bulkheads. The photo shows the hull about half planked with wet planks and gaps, 3 rows with dry planks attached, and 3 more rows of wet planks pinned to dry overnight. This is all working out much better.

 

I prefer to mount my models on brass pedestals rather than using cradles. It makes them much easier to handle during construction and to move when finished. I just ordered two pedestals, and added some reinforcements along the keel to attach them to.

 

While waiting for planks to dry I built the stove. It comprises a surprising number of wood and photo etched brass parts.

 

 

 

Edited February 5 by rvchima

[rvchima]

First Layer of Planking Complete - 72 Hours, 50 days
 

A little bit of caulk and a little bit of paint,

Make a carpenter what he ain't.

 

At least that's what a painter told me, and it sure is true of the first layer of planking. I filled all the gaps with Famowood filler and did a lot of sanding. Foam sanding pads work beautifully. One thing that came in very handy was a remote controlled extension cord for my shop vacuum. As soon as the dust began to build I grabbed the hose, pressed the button, and had the dust cleaned up in no time.

 

Here are several photos of the first layer of planking.

The kit includes several braces to maintain the width of the hull during planking. Trouble is they are made of MDF, and I broke them off so many times that I had to reinforce them and tape them in place. But they did their job.

 

 

[allanyed]

On 2/1/2024 at 9:25 PM, rvchima said:

While waiting for planks to dry I built the stove.

Very nice work Rod! The stove mini kit is a gem but raises a question.   In the Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War Lavery states that with the advent of iron stoves, they sat on a flat metal base, but this looks more like brick or stone work, thus my confusion.  I realize very little is set in stone in shipbuilding in the days of sail and would not be surprised if one or the other or perhaps both types were used on various ships, but I am curious if there was a so called norm and if anyone knows of other sources of contemporary based information on this.
Allan

Edited February 8 by allanyed

[rvchima]

Allan,

Interesting question about the stove. I certainly don't know the answer - I usually build to the plan and discover historically inaccuracies later. Perhaps someone else will know.

Rod

[rvchima]

Outer Bulwarks, Keel, Bow, Rudder Post, & Stern

The outer bulwarks are covered with 8 pieces of 0.8 mm pear with details burned in by the laser. The pieces fit almost perfectly but were tricky to attach. The manual says to coat the hull with dilute PVA and hold the pieces with a zillion clamps. The clamps just didn't fit very well, so when I unclamped the first piece there were several gaps along the bottom that had to be fixed carefully with CA. I attached the remaining 7 pieces by coating the hull with PVA over the center of each piece, and putting a bead of CA around the perimeter. Then I aligned the piece and held it in place for 20 seconds. No clamps necessary.

 

The keel, bow, and rudder post start as 3 mm MDF. After the first layer of planking they are covered with a 0.8 mm veneer of pear. This brilliant scheme leaves a perfect rabbet for the second layer of planking. The lower stern counter also gets a layer of veneer.

Second Layer of Planking

Before applying the second layer of planking I oiled the planks with Watco natural oil. That way if when I get CA on the planks they will already be oiled. That pear takes the stain beautifully.

My pedestals arrived so I attached a temporary stand. The second layer of planking takes a while to apply, but it is relatively easy with a solid hull underneath. The manual recommends splitting the planks so the front and rear joints can be fit easily.

There are some edges standing proud that will be sanded down later. The trim pieces on the bulwarks have some fuzzy grain on them , but the laser detail is too fine to sand. Don't know what I'll do about that.

 

 

[Ronald-V]

Going super fast! 👍 Looking good  

Edited February 11 by mugje

[rvchima]

Second Planking Complete

I put in a marathon build yesterday and completed the second layer of planking. "Completed" as in "all the planks are glued down." I've done a little sanding but still have a lot of sanding and filling to do. The second layer of planks took about 28 hours for 29 planks on each side. So roughly 1/2 hour per plank.

Edited February 20 by rvchima

[rvchima]

Sanding Done, Filler Needed

I did maybe 80% of my sanding with a random orbit sander, and much of the rest with a Proxxon pencil sander. It's mostly done but I had to order some new wood filler to match the color of the pear. It should come tomorrow. In the meantime I marked the waterline with a high-tech marking tool, and wet-bent the main wales to shape.

[rvchima]

Filler

2 hours with Timbermate wood filler. It looks like my hull is made out of clay.

5 minutes with a random orbit sander - nearly smooth.

20 minutes with a sanding pad and Proxxon sander - ready to paint.

[rvchima]

Nautical Question

At the bow the keel has a ring of holes shaped like a U. What is this?

[James H]

There's a PE 'horseshoe' to add there. You'll see something similar towards the stern where a 'fishplate' will fasten.

 

These were for strengthening the timber joints on the real ship.

[rvchima]

18 hours ago, James H said:

There's a PE 'horseshoe' to add there. You'll see something similar towards the stern where a 'fishplate' will fasten.

 

These were for strengthening the timber joints on the real ship.

Thank you James! That seems obvious in retrospect.

[rvchima]

On 2/23/2024 at 3:52 PM, James H said:

There's a PE 'horseshoe' to add there. You'll see something similar towards the stern where a 'fishplate' will fasten.

 

These were for strengthening the timber joints on the real ship.

Spoiler Alert - I am about to copper the hull. The Sphinx was coppered in 1781. Would the copper go under, over, or around the iron reinforcement plates? Same question for the rudder hinges.

[wvdhee]

52 minutes ago, rvchima said:

Spoiler Alert - I am about to copper the hull. The Sphinx was coppered in 1781. Would the copper go under, over, or around the iron reinforcement plates? Same question for the rudder hinges.

 

Looking at the Speedy instructions, the horseshoe and fish plates are omitted and the rudder hinges go over the copper plating. So that's what I would do (and will when I'll do the Sphinx 😉 )

 

(Edit... I noticed that on the Indy, the plates and and hinges all go on top of the copper plating, so I guess it's any way you want...)

Edited February 25 by wvdhee
more info

[Thukydides]

1 hour ago, rvchima said:

Spoiler Alert - I am about to copper the hull. The Sphinx was coppered in 1781. Would the copper go under, over, or around the iron reinforcement plates? Same question for the rudder hinges.

Just as a note, if you are displaying her as coppered (like she was in 1781) then you should know that at that time she was also given carronades around the same times as many of her sister ships were.

 

She appears on a 1782 list saying she was armed with 6 12pdrs on her quarterdeck, but then later in a 1793 she is not on a list of carronade armed ships. Sometime before 1799 her bulwarks were built up on the quarterdeck and forecastle (likely when she received the corresponding armament, but it is impossible to know for sure).

 

So given your time period I would guess the most correct armament would be just the 6 12pdr carronades on the quarter deck, with correspondingly built up bulwarks, but you could probably also make an argument for adding the 2 to the forecastle as well.

 

EDIT: I should add both the 1779 and the 1794 establishment lists say that 20 gun ships should be equipped with 8 12pdr carronades, 2 on the fore castle and 6 on the quarterdeck, though in reality many ships did not adhere to the establishments.

Edited February 25 by Thukydides

[rvchima]

55 minutes ago, wvdhee said:

(Edit... I noticed that on the Indy, the plates and and hinges all go on top of the copper plating, so I guess it's any way you want...)

That's what I will do. I wondered about having iron and copper in contact, but ship builders didn't understand Galvanic corrosion at the time.

 

20 minutes ago, Thukydides said:

So given your time period I would guess the most correct armament would be just the 6 12pdr carronades on the quarter deck, with correspondingly built up bulwarks, but you could probably also make an argument for adding the 2 to the forecastle as well.

😬 Yikes! I was afraid that other changes would show up in six years. Since the coppered hull is much more obvious than gun barrels to the casual observer (like me), I think I will copper the hull and ignore a few years of historical inaccuracy. But thank you kindly for the information.