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

[rvchima]

Outside of the Hull (Finally) Complete

The rudder, displacement numerals, and random reinforcing plates are now attached.

The rudder was hard because of about 120 nails holding the gudgeons and pintles. Those parts are non-functional - the rudder is actually held in place by 5 PE pins. A while ago I mentioned that my rudder wouldn't fit past the rudder post so I removed 1/4" at the top. Now the top pin has nowhere to attach. And with the pins the rudder was now a few mm wider and wouldn't tip in place. I had to use my trusty rotary tool to enlarge the hole in the hull, which is what I should have done in the first place.

I glued the displacement numerals with CA. The plans showed the starboard side so I did that first using a cutout copy of the plans for placement. For the port side I made a mirror image of the pattern with Photoshop and started gluing. After a while I realized that Roman numerals look the same forwards and backwards, but XI is not the same as IX. So I had to remove and reverse a few numerals. That removed the patina, which turns out to be fairly delicate. I touched it up with random green and black acrylic.

 

When I attached the copper plates I covered up the holes for the horseshoe and keel plates. I laid the paper cutouts in place, poked a pin through a marked hole, and hit the corresponding hole through the copper on the first try. Amazing!

 

 

[rvchima]

4 Hatch Coamings and 88 Cannon Balls

I figured it would be easier to place the cannon balls before the coamings were installed.

[Thukydides]

She is looking good, I like the patina, very visually striking.

[rvchima]

8 hours ago, Thukydides said:

She is looking good, I like the patina, very visually striking.

Thank you Thukydides. The patina is more intense than I ever imagined but I like it. I was hoping for a visually striking model (even if not quite historically accurate) and it is certainly turning out that way.

 

By the way, do you have another name besides Thukydides?

 

Two Ladders - Never to Be Seen Again

Chain Pumps and Supports

[rvchima]

Interview with Chris Watton in Nautical Research Journal

If you haven't seen it already, there is a fascinating interview with @chris watton, designer of the Sphinx kit, in the latest issue of Nautical Research Journal. When I was looking for a new project I was debating between the Diana by Caldercraft and the HMS Fly by Amati. Moderator @ccoyle told me that I had a good eye because both models were designed by Chris Watton, and suggested that I consider the Sphinx. After reading the article I realize that I could have chosen any number of kits and that Chris would probably have designed most of them.

 

The only thing missing from the article is a photo of Chris' private collection. My house is getting crowded. Chris' house must be a museum.

[chris watton]

I have very few completed models in my house, no room! All the models I did for other companies are with them. I only have a few fully completed models here, Alert, Speedy, Trial, Adder and Sherbourne, and then some of hull only for Duchess, Fifie and Zulu, and then only three prototope hulls (what I used to check designs) for Indy, Sphinx and the re worked Speedy.

[rvchima]

Chain Pumps, Hand Pumps, Grates and Finally the Stove

This part of the build is quite enjoyable. Each little component adds something interesting to the model. I built the stove almost two months ago and finally got to install it, and to jump ahead three pages in the manual past those instructions.

[rvchima]

Cannons

In my last post I wrote how much I was enjoying this build but I'm not looking forward to this next part. At least she's not a first rate.

[wvdhee]

3 minutes ago, rvchima said:

Cannons

In my last post I wrote how much I was enjoying this build but I'm not looking forward to this next part. At least she's not a first rate.

You know what my opinion is 😉

[rvchima]

Eclipse

We had a solar eclipse today, 87 percent coverage where I live but only briefly visible through the clouds. I managed to get one decent photo with my old Celestron 90mm  spotting scope with a solar filter and an iPhone holder.

[rvchima]

Cannons

Not as painful as I thought - it took about 15 hours to build 20 cannons.

[rvchima]

A New Base

The outrageous patina on my copper hull needed an equally outrageous base. I made one out of a light cherry with a Bubinga veneer, finished with Watco natural oil and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. I have been ordering brass name plates for all my models from a vendor on Amazon. The temporary base will go back on while I am working.

 

I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

Edited April 10 by rvchima

[Thukydides]

59 minutes ago, rvchima said:

I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

You should still do them off model. Just you are limited by the fact that you have to run the ropes through the rings on the guns. I did some posta on my method in my alert log.

 

I like the base, she is looking nice.

[rvchima]

Breech Ropes

On 4/10/2024 at 6:16 PM, Thukydides said:

You should still do them off model. Just you are limited by the fact that you have to run the ropes through the rings on the guns. I did some posta on my method in my alert log.

As suggested, I am rigging the breech ropes to the cannons off the model. I just use a single knot under the barrel with a spot of CA.

Then I glue the cannon to the deck.

The ends of the breech ropes must go through the eyebolts and get tied with much thinner thread using a single clove hitch. It is quite difficult to tie a clove hitch in that tight space, but it is MUCH easier to tie a clove hitch in your hands by overlapping two simple loops. There is an excellent animation of the procedure here. I hold the clove hitch with an electronics test hook clip, then put the breech line through the clove hitch, through the eyebolt, and back through the clove hitch. I grab both ends of the breech line with another test clip (red.)

So now I have a clove hitch around the breech line as desired. I release the yellow clip, snug up the clove hitch, add another single knot and a spot of CA for safety, release the red hook, and trim the ends. Fairly painless.

[rvchima]

Cannons Installed with Breech Ropes

This took another 12 hours over 3 days. About 27 hours to build and install 20 cannons. Now it's time to cover them all up with another deck.

[rvchima]

Quarterdeck Beams Installed - 308 Hours, 122 Days

This was another satisfying task. I added the optional hanging knee braces below the beams, sanded most of the laser char, and finished all the pear wood with Watco oil stain. Yes, I know most of this won't be seen, but the pear wood is just so pretty that I can't resist.

[rvchima]

Forecastle Beams Installed

My quarterdeck beams all ended up about 2mm too long and had to be trimmed on each end to fit. I did build the hull with the recommended jigs in place so I don't know why the parts were off. The forecastle beams dropped into place perfectly. I really hate to cover this all up.

[Ronald-V]

The beams look great with this stained color!

[wvdhee]

And great photography too! I got so much to learn still ...

[rvchima]

Upper Decks, Railings, Cathead, Binnacle, and Drumhead Capstan

The fore and aft upper decks and railings are all complete. The aft deck took a little shaping but the forward deck dropped right into place. As before, I stained the decks with Minwax Golden Oak. The belfry, stove chimney, and some belaying pin racks are also done.

The stanchions for the quarterdeck railings are flat and need to be sanded round. I chucked them in a rotary tool and hit them with sandpaper wrapped around a dowel and taped to a stick.

Here's a view of that railing with the drum head capstan behind it and some more ladders nearby.

A lot of parts in this kit are PE brass that are typically cast metal or wood in other kits - eyebolts, belaying pins, etc. I had my doubts about them at first, but frankly they look just fine. However the ship's wheel is three pieces of PE glued up and it looks pretty flat. I considered buying a better wheel but would have had to resize the drum to make it fit, so I stuck with the PE. The binnacle is very nice.

Catheads - from the manual: "The holes in the bulwark are deliberately left smaller than required for alignment and part integrity when assembling. You will now need to open these up to fit the catheads. Use small files and a sharp blade to open these up to size." Easier said than done. I spent a couple of hours on each side filing those slots to within a hair of the railing and deck before those pieces would fit.

 

[chris watton]

You can give the wheel a few coats of spray primer, white or red oxide. This does help round off the edges. Wooden wheels are always way too thick and out of scale for 64th, metal ones almost as bad, and 3-d printed versions too fragile. (in my experience, at least - same applies to belaying pins)

[rvchima]

5 hours ago, chris watton said:

You can give the wheel a few coats of spray primer, white or red oxide. This does help round off the edges. Wooden wheels are always way too thick and out of scale for 64th, metal ones almost as bad, and 3-d printed versions too fragile.

Thanks Chris. I tried to paint the wheel to look like wood and left the PE rims and hubs blackened. A better wood color would have helped.

[rvchima]

Boat Beams

The manual says that if the rear beam hits the chain pump handle you can cut a little notch in the beam. Mine hit way too much for that so I gave it a good twist. It would never go around but no one will be able to tell. The handles definitely should be smaller.

[rvchima]

Proxxon Sander (my favorite tool for removing laser char)

Ever wonder what's inside a Proxxon oscillating sander? Well mine started running erratically and making funny noises a few days ago, and it's only 7-8 years old! Can you believe it? So I took it apart (typical engineer). There's a switch, small permanent magnet motor, fan, eccentric, a big, heavy weight, and a plastic arm that oscillates the head back and forth. I cleaned everything out using my airbrush as a blower, added a drop of oil on each side of the motor and some graphite on the other parts. It should be good for another 8 years. 

 

[rvchima]

End of Hull Construction - For Now

The boomkins, seats of ease, and hammock cranes are all complete. Here are a few photos.

Boomkins and 2 seats of ease for 140 sailors.

 

 

The manual says to skip the aft hammock cranes for now because they will interfere with rigging the shrouds. The manual never gets back to them, and most other builders omitted them as well. I won't be rigging shrouds so I built them.

 

[rvchima]

Ship's Boats

The ship's boats comprise a 28' pinnace, a 24' launch, and a 22' yawl. Can someone out there please tell me the difference between the three? Is it the size, intended function, crew size, rigging, or something else? I finally acquired Lavery's excellent book, Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War, 1600 - 1815, and read the long section on ship's boats with great interest. But there was so much detail that I still don't understand the basic distinction. But that didn't stop me from barging ahead with construction.

The boats are built over MDF bulkheads.

They are single-planked with thin pear strips. This one has been sanded and filled with acrylic filler.

Here's what they look like off the base.

Then you twist the bulkheads off with pliers. VERY scary, but no damage. Sanding the inside is not fun. 

The interior gets fitted with thin ribs. I used Tamiya tape to set the spacing between the ribs.

 

OK, full disclosure. The manual recommends using PVA wood glue for planking instead of CA, so of course I used CA on the first one. It went together OK, but after I filled the exterior and removed it from the bulkheads a lot of joints opened up. I got nervous and painted the interior with PVA. Big mistake - now the ribs would not stick to the interior with CA, so I had to use PVA on them, which increased construction time a lot. On the next two boats I used PVA on the edges of the planks and dots of CA on the bulkheads to act like pins. That's how I planked the main hull, and it worked very well on the boats as well.

Here are  the three boats temporarily in their cradles on deck. Now I have to find a way to make the PE floor boards look like wood. That's a mystery to me, why Chris decided to make all these wood parts out of PE, when they could easily be laser cut from thin pear wood and stained to match.

It won't keep out water. I hope that it will keep out paint.

Edited May 24 by rvchima

[rvchima]

The Boats Don't Quite Fit

The fit of the ship's boats has always been a bit "iffy," but after I added the wales to the their sides they were just too close for comfort.

And so, deconstruction.

I moved the two outer boat racks each about 2 mm outwards, and now everything fits comfortably.

[rvchima]

FINISHED - 441 Hours, 165 Days

Since my last posts I finished and attached the ships boats, anchors, lanterns, and some stub masts. I knew from the start that this would be a hull-only model. I simply don't have room in my house for another large model.

 

@chris watton at Vanguard Models has produced an absolutely beautiful model in the Sphinx. The materials are all excellent, the laser-cut parts all fit perfectly, and the photo-etched parts make detailing the model easy. (Well, relatively easy.) The kit uses some unconventional parts. I had my doubts about the photo-etched eyebolts and the MDF anchors, but in the end they look perfect. I do think the ship's wheel and the floors of the ship's boats would be better done in wood, but again they look fine.

 

My finished Sphinx is so photogenic that I hired a professional photographer to take photos of her. Many thanks to Leea at Asheville Headshots for her beautiful photos. Here they are.

 

[Thukydides]

Congrats and great job.

[mtaylor]

Beautiful model, Rod