HMS Sphinx 1775 by brunnels - Vanguard Models - 1:64 scale

[cdrusn89]

I am about to start painting the stern decoration piece and wondered if you used a primer before painting with the blue?

 

I have some spray gray "self etching" primer that I was going to use but hesitate since there is no substitute if the primer were to "attack" the resin. I have some other primers designed (so I am told) for use on Britannia metal (or whatever they make them out of these days) figures but I am not sure that would be satisfactory either.

 

Any info you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Edited July 19 by cdrusn89

[Thukydides]

2 minutes ago, cdrusn89 said:

I am about to start painting the stern decoration piece and wondered if you used a primer before painting with the blue?

 

I have some spray gray "self etching" primer that I was going to use but hesitate since there is no substitute if the primer were to "attack" the resin. I have some other primers designed (so I am told) for use on Britannia metal (or whatever they make them out of these days) figures but I am not sure that would be satisfactory either.

 

Any info you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

I believe it is 3d printed not cast so you shouldn't need to clean it, but to be safe you could gently wash it with warm soapy water and an old toothbrush.

 

Yes you should use a spray on primer. I would recommend one designed for miniature painting. Army painter, vallejo, citadel etc all sell spray cans of primer you can use. Just go to your local hobby shop and pick up whatever brand they happen to have. I would not use general purpose primers as the miniature ones are designed to go on in a much thinner coat. You don't want to hide all that nice detail with a thick coat of paint.

[brunnels]

32 minutes ago, cdrusn89 said:

I am about to start painting the stern decoration piece and wondered if you used a primer before painting with the blue?

 

I have some spray gray "self etching" primer that I was going to use but hesitate since there is no substitute if the primer were to "attack" the resin. I have some other primers designed (so I am told) for use on Britannia metal (or whatever they make them out of these days) figures but I am not sure that would be satisfactory either.

 

Any info you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

I used Vallejo white primer before I painted.   As @Thukydides mentioned, I would get a primer designed for modeling or miniatures that is very thin.

[cdrusn89]

Thanks guys -

 

I bit the bullet and used the gray primer I had. I thought any spray was better than me trying to brush a primer on.

 

Looks like it worked fine. I have the Vallejo blue background pretty well completed and need some 000 brushes to add the gold as I am sticking with the kit color scheme..

 

 

[brunnels]

I decided to change things up a bit and started working on the deck furnishings, and interior of the ship.

 

Main Mast Bitt's, Waterpumps

These are all pretty straight forward to put together and install.  Basically just cutting out the laser cut parts, removing the char, drilling a couple holes, and glue.

 

 

 

Great Cabin

I decided to paint the great cabin doors Ivory white to match the cabin and leave all the others natural finish with white window frames.  These pieces wanted to curl quite a bit whenever they came in contact with glue and paint, so after they were finished I placed them in between a couple heavy books and let them sit for a couple days to straighten back out.

 

Next I painted the Quarter deck frames that are used to hold up the cabin door patterns.  I also removed char on the topside.

 

 

I next glued installed my printed checker floor, and eyebolts in the deck and surrounding gun ports. 

 

QG framing and great cabin door patterns glued in place.

 

 

 

The water pumps and bitts are finally glued into the deck.

 

Lastly I spent an evening putting in the eyebolts for the rest of the gun ports.  It's tasks like this that give you respect for the guys doing ships like Victory with a ton of guns. 

 

How the model currently looks.

 

 

[Ronald-V]

I really like your white cabin, definitely going to copy that    Looks beautiful...so you painted the door pieces white, let it dry first and then a few days between some books?

Edited July 24 by Ronald-V

[brunnels]

6 hours ago, Ronald-V said:

so you painted the door pieces white, let it dry first and then a few days between some books?

Yes, I started with Varnish just so the paint wouldn't soak into the very thin wood, painted white, and varnished again.  By the time it had its finish varnish dried it had curled up quite a bit.  I'm not sure if several days between the books was necessary, but I was working on other projects anyway so I just let it sit for that long. 

[brunnels]

I have started to work on the frieze work.  This pretty much is the limit of my artistic abilities at this scale, I've always had lots of respect for miniature painters and this just increased that respect even more.  It took me several days and tests to decide what colors to use and how to use them.  I ended up with a base of Ochre brown, followed by Ochre Yellow as a main color with highlights of Ivory white and red. I found that at this scale you really have to keep it simple or it starts to look really messy so I decided to use no more than 4 colors.  It took a while to learn how to highlight and shade on these really small parts, if you look at it with a macro it may look messy, but from a couple feet away I am very satisfied with how it turned out.

 

I still have the upper frieze work which I am going to work on this week.  Those will be a bit harder as they are figures and the patterns at the bow of the ship get incredibly small, so I will probably have to minimize the colors even more on the smaller stuff. 

 

Here is my lower frieze work.  The PE around the gangway steps didn't fit, so I will have to hand paint those portions. 

[Thukydides]

I think that looks really nice. Makes it look more like a painted decoration which is what they were.

 

Well done the colour choice is perfect and there is lots of contrast. You clearly have the ability. Great job.

[brunnels]

4 hours ago, Thukydides said:

Makes it look more like a painted decoration which is what they were.

Thanks, that's what I was trying to go for.

[Ronald-V]

That looks really great! Just like Thukydides said...it looks painted. Well done!  

[TJM]

I totally agree, it looks really good, very well done! I guess you paint the decorations off the model and then add them after?

[brunnels]

4 hours ago, TJM said:

you paint the decorations off the model and then add them after?

Yes I paint them while still attached to the sheet.

[brunnels]

Howdy everyone, thanks for the likes and compliments on the frieze work it really boosted my painting confidence.  While working on the frieze work between coats I have also been working hard on equipment on the gundeck.

 

Ships stove:

 

Assembly is very straight forward, assemble to wood frame, glue on the brass PE and then paint.

 

I used Vallejo black mixed with a little steel pigment powder.  I have never really used pigment powder, so I am not really sure if I used too much or too little, but I am happy with how the stove turned out.  I really struggled with painting the bricks, I have discovered mixing paint is a skill I am not very good at.  After probably a dozen attempts I got a brick color I was happy with.  Next I used a light grey wash for the brick mortar.  I have never used washes before, and I never really figured out how to use it properly.  No matter what I did I always seemed to remove the wash in the cracks when trying to remove the excess wash.  Finally I just used a 000 paint brush and painted it in the cracks as best I could.  

 

The doors in front of the stove.  Can someone explain the purpose for these doors, because their purpose doesn't really make sense to me.  The doors were pretty straight forward, glue two sides together add the hinges and door handles and glue on the frame.  The frame I had some issues with as it was very fragile and I snapped it in a couple places.  I repaired It best I could with a piece of 1x2mm wood I had, but some of the frame is still missing above the closed door.  

 

Capstan:  The capstan looked like it would be very fiddly to put together, but it was actually a very easy process that went together in no time.  

Here is how the ship looks as of 7/30/24, hopefully I haven't missed covering anything. 

[brunnels]

Upper Frieze's:

Finished the upper frieze work, these were quite a bit smaller than the lower frieze patterns, so It was hard to do a ton of shading and highlights without it looking like an absolute mess.  So I kept it fairly simple on these, they don't look the best on macro, but they do look acceptable when viewing from normal viewing distance. 

 

 

 

 

The upper patterns on the bow are very small, so these only got a very simple Ochre Yellow on top of Ochre Brown base.

 

Lastly I painted and glued in the 4 cleats that go in the bulwarks on the gun deck. 

 

[brunnels]

Does anyone know where I can get the brass nails or a similar size that are used in the kit?  I just realized the deadeye chain plates also require some nails, and I have run out of the nails.

[Thukydides]

19 minutes ago, brunnels said:

Does anyone know where I can get the brass nails or a similar size that are used in the kit?  I just realized the deadeye chain plates also require some nails, and I have run out of the nails.

I believe they are the amati nails so you should be able to get them at ages of sail (one of the site sponsors)

https://www.agesofsail.com/ecommerce/am4134-07-amati-brass-nails-7mm-200.html

 

Not sure if those are the correct size, just check your size and then do some googling.

[TJM]

54 minutes ago, Thukydides said:

I believe they are the amati nails so you should be able to get them at ages of sail (one of the site sponsors)

https://www.agesofsail.com/ecommerce/am4134-07-amati-brass-nails-7mm-200.html

 

Not sure if those are the correct size, just check your size and then do some googling.

I have som Amati nails that I got directly from them - they seem to be identical to the ones that come with Vanguard kits.

[brunnels]

Howdy everyone, happy monday. Here is my progress update from the past few days.  My time was mostly spent on cannon duty which means lot of tedious work on lots of very small parts.  Luckily the Olympics kept me entertained while doing things like char removal on 80 cannon wheels.

 

 But first I installed the water pump handles, and the caps.  I'm out of nails so once I receive some more I will pin the caps down with the nails per the instructions.

 

I also added the rope railing around the steps.  I'm not sure if I am going to keep the rope fairly tight, or if I should add some droop to the lines, I'm thinking a little droop will look more natural.

 

While I am waiting on more nails to come in the mail for the deadeye chain plates, I decided to do some work on the cannons.  Working on the guns always gives me more respect for you builders who do larger ships with more guns. Each cannon just has so many pieces and lots of small pieces takes time no matter how good the kit design. 

 

Carriages painted ready for installation of the guns.  When I first saw the design of the carriages I wasn't sure If I would like the cap squares being one piece with the carriage side.  But after putting these together I must say, doing a little detail painting on the cap squares with some black paint is FAR easier than fiddling with some super small PE pieces.  I really like this design and once painted you don't even notice that they are one piece.

 

Cannons painted

 

Cannons installed on the carriages.

 

Cannon cross bars, and 7 eyebolts installed.  Next step will be touching up the eyebolts and crossbars, and then installation of the wheels.

[Ronald-V]

Cannons look great! Are you going to rig them fully?

[brunnels]

3 minutes ago, Ronald-V said:

Cannons look great! Are you going to rig them fully?

I am planning on it, and even purchased a bunch of super small 2mm blocks from Chuck to do it.  But to be honest when I saw how small those 2mm blocks were I started to get some second thoughts haha, I know some curse words are going to be said while trying to work with those little buggers. 

[cdrusn89]

45 minutes ago, brunnels said:

super small 2mm blocks from Chuck t

When I decided to do the rigging for my guns Chuck did not have the single sheave 2mm blocks available. I think they are almost too small to work with, at least for my hands, so I went with Model Expo 3mm "beautiful blocks". They are "all set" (stropped with standing ends attached and hooks on the ends) ready to rig as soon as I get to the point where mounting the guns makes sense - which I think is not too far in the future. I think I am going to do that before any of the bulkheads and other "stuff" is in the way. I think I would be very likely to damage the items along the centerline if there were there when I added the guns and their rigging.

Edited August 5 by cdrusn89

[Ronald-V]

On 7/30/2024 at 4:01 PM, brunnels said:

The doors in front of the stove.  Can someone explain the purpose for these doors, because their purpose doesn't really make sense to me.  The doors were pretty straight forward, glue two sides together add the hinges and door handles and glue on the frame.  The frame I had some issues with as it was very fragile and I snapped it in a couple places.  I repaired It best I could with a piece of 1x2mm wood I had, but some of the frame is still missing above the closed door.  

 

 

 

 

 

I hope someone can answer this...thought it was an interesting question  

 

 

Edited August 6 by Ronald-V

[Ronald-V]

Edit:

I was making a cup of tea and thinking about it...if a ship sails, the wind blows from stern to bow. So maybe the doors will protect the stove for the wind blowing in?

[cdrusn89]

Certainly when a sailing ship is heading dead down wind (by and large I believe was the term) the wind comes from aft to forward. the relative wind onboard being the difference between the actual wind speed and the ship's speed. As the ship moves off that course the apparent wind (what it feels like on the ship) moves forward until with the real wind on the beam, the relative wind is now likely coming from ahead depending on the difference between the true wind speed and the ship's speed.

 

So in many cases the apparent wind onboard would be from ahead of abeam and thus the galley doors would provide some shelter. Plus keep crew members from coming in contact with the hot stove in the event the ship moved unexpectedly while they were in the vicinity. I suspect the doors were necessary (as opposed to a solid wall) because access to the rear of the stove was required for some type of maintenance or cleaning.

[DonSangria]

I don't know how 'wet' these ships sailed. But the doors could also cover from spray and water which was coming over the bow or the sides. Although in heavy weather, the stove would certanly be off. Just brainstorming here

[brunnels]

I think you all are on to something with the weather and wind regarding the doors, it would make sense that the stove would need some protection from the elements considering the gun deck is open.

 

Small update, I have all the wheels on the cannons, and I only lost one wheel to the black hole under my desk so I will call that a win.  The only task left on the cannons before gluing down and attempting to rig are the carriage quoins.  I haven't touched these yet so I will have to remove the char, sand, paint, and varnish 20 of these as my last step on the carriages.

 

 

[cdrusn89]

You are a better (and likely more careful and skillful) man than I to attempt to rig the cannon with all the "interference" inside the hull

 

I took the "chicken" way out and am mounting the cannon before I start adding the interior "features".

[brunnels]

6 minutes ago, cdrusn89 said:

You are a better (and likely more careful and skillful) man than I to attempt to rig the cannon with all the "interference" inside the hull

You are giving me too much credit lol.  Only reason I am rigging the cannons after is because I have never done it before and am ignorant to which way is easiest.  I'm sure in the next week I will be wishing I did it your way. 

[Ronald-V]

You guys let me know which one was best 😆