HM Armed Cutter Sherbourne 1763 by palmerit - Vanguard Models - 1:64 - First Build

[palmerit]

First layer done (still need to fix the back). Shape looks ok. Pretty symmetric. Not perfect. Will be fixing the back, adding finish wood for keel, prow, and stern (covered with Tamiya tape), then I’ll start the 2nd planking. 
 

Not sure if I should use superglue or titebond for 2nd planking. Instruction say superglue (cyano gel) but lots here suggest not. I’ll probably give superglue a try, making sure everything is shaped well, and going slow. 

[Ronald-V]

I use both glues for the second layer of planking. About 2cm or an inch of PVA with dots of CA in between. Worked great for me, just experiment what's most convenient for you.  

 

Your Sherbourne has already found its form!

Edited August 7 by Ronald-V

[palmerit]

What’s the best way to apply CA? Tooth pick?

Or will the applicator on the Gorilla Micro Precise Gel work just as well (or better). Is that a good CA to use?

 

I’ve been applying PVA with small brush, which obviously won’t work for CA. 
 

 

[chris watton]

I use superglue gell or thick. I only apply a thin bead down the centre of each plank, as if you have it near the edges, it will squish out the sides in between the planks..

[Ronald-V]

50 minutes ago, palmerit said:

What’s the best way to apply CA? Tooth pick?

Or will the applicator on the Gorilla Micro Precise Gel work just as well (or better). Is that a good CA to use?

 

I’ve been applying PVA with small brush, which obviously won’t work for CA. 
 

 

I use a local brand CA that has sort of the same application bottle as the Gorilla one and that worked fine for me, but everyone has his own preference with this. So I would experiment with it. Don't have experience with Gorilla, but don't think it's bad also. For PVA I buy empty bottles with a fine tip that you need to cut of yourself, so you can determine how big the hole needs to be. You can find those on Amazon.

[brunnels]

For medium CA glue i like to use those long nozzles you can get online, they really cut down the flow rate so you don't use too much.  Below is an example of some I use. 

CA Nozzles

 

Lately I have been using thick CA glue more and more as its a little more controllable than Medium CA glue on small parts. For planks I just use the bottle and a smaller nozzle.  For smaller more precise applications, I like to pour a bead of thick CA glue in a small cup or piece of plastic, and then dipping from that bead either use toothpicks for less fine work, or these glue loopers which have quickly become a staple in my toolbox.
Glue looper

 

[palmerit]

Getting ready to start the second planking. Letting the shaped bulwark dry. It’s clamped down without glueing it in place. Instructions recommend putting the first plank on and then removing the bulwark until after second planking and painting the hull. 
 

And I was able to repair the back that I had damaged. 

[palmerit]

Working on the second planking. Using superglue (on top of being a novice at planking) is definitely a learning experience. Started to get the hang of it (at least a little bit) part of the way down the hull. Glad the hull will be painted on the model. 

[palmerit]

I didn’t quite leave enough room for all the planks to make it to the bow. Maybe next model  I’ll do more measurements and use my calipers. Experimenting with how to insert planks based on what I’ve read. 

[palmerit]

I suppose I wouldn’t have needed to do this if I had tapered a bit more precisely. Was fun trying to shape the wood.  

[Ronald-V]

You always learn something from it  

[palmerit]

I filled and sanded (and sanded and sanded), moving from sand paper and emory boards to a very fine sanding sponge. Certainly the smoothest I’ve ever sanded something. Can easily see places where I had to use more filler. 
 

I also had to do some work on the stern. First, the stern piece that the rudder attaches to would not fit between the two upper stern pieces I had attached earlier and I had to file the gap a bit. Then that same stern piece did not lie flush with the hull and needed some filler to fill the gap. I finally realized (after a bunch of wood filler applications) that I could apply a bit of wood filler (watered down a tiny bit) into a gap and then wipes the area with a damp cloth (leaving the filler only in the gap). 
 

Masking and painting (and filling and sanding and painting) is next. 

[palmerit]

I made progress painting. It took some time to learn how to use an airbrush. (An airbrush isn’t needed, but I want to do some other kinds of modeling.)

 

I also had to learn how to use photoetch. My sprue (side) cutters were too thick to cut off the parts. I tried using my scalpel, which worked ok. But I think I’m going to try to find a pair of cutters designed for cutting pe. 
 

Then I realized I couldn’t cut pe on my cutting mat (when using my scalpel) because it’s too soft (and bent the piece a bit). So I tried instead using a piece of ceramic tile, which worked better. 
 

Fearing a tiny piece of pe might fly across the room, with some googling I found the trick of putting some masking tape behind the part on the photoetch sheet (after first using my reverse action tweezers to hold the piece). 
 

Using pe made me also realize why model sites sell really pointy tweezers. Mine were really too blunt for working with tiny tiny pe pieces. I’ll be buying a sharp pair of tweezers soon. 
 

Not sure what’s the best way to sand pe if (and when) I leave a sharp bit of the “sprue” on the part. Maybe a file works best? 
 

To put the superglue down, I ended up settling on using my scalpel blade to put down tiny amounts of glue down where the pe needs to go. 

[Thukydides]

4 minutes ago, palmerit said:

Not sure what’s the best way to sand pe if (and when) I leave a sharp bit of the “sprue” on the part. Maybe a file works best? 

I use mini files. If you look at my alert log I show some examples of this. In general I find PE often looks out of scale and so you need to file it a bit to get it to look right.

[palmerit]

I’m planning to paint the inside “walls” (can’t remember what they’re called) red. The upper part of the outside of hull is bare wood. 
 

Should I use a wood stain? If so, what kind? Brand and color?

[AJohnson]

The inside walls “Bulwarks” are red as you say. The outside is a really nice Pear wood that a Chris provides in the kit, so best left natural, just Danish oil or wipe on poly is good. No stain needed. If you wanted to paint then Pale Yellow Ochre or pale bright yellow would be historical accurate.  Main thing is to take time carefully masking everything you what to preserve as bare wood. 
You are doing great, wish this version of Sherbourne was available when I did it as my first build. 

[palmerit]

Been a while since I last posted. I’ve been busy with work. And I’ve been learning how to use my new airbrush and properly thin airbrush paint. And not being a woodworker, learning how to sand and when and how to interleave painting and sanding. 
 

I understand even more clearly how even when painting a hull how important it is to have a good first and second planking. I didn’t do a great job on either so I had to do a lot of repetitions of wood filler followed by sanding. Next time I’m definitely going to follow closely the advice to treat each plank as its own project. 

 

I also now appreciate what I learned from videos on plastic modeling I’ve followed recently (I’m doing a plastic Tamiya tank model between steps on my wood model): That a primer (or first) coat of paint can more clearly reveal blemishes that need to be filled and/or sanded. 
 

I also got a bit ahead of myself and added the photoetch straps on the hull by the rudder too soon. After I added them, in better light I realized I had more filling and sanding to do. Well, in the process of sanding, I lost four of the small straps after hitting them and they flew across the room. I had to cut some small pieces out from the scrap photoetch sheet to size and drill some holes. That was a learning experience - both to take a pause and to fix mistakes. 
 

The end result isn’t perfect by far but much better than where I started. 
 

 

 

[Ronald-V]

No worries! It's a nice clean looking hull!  

[palmerit]

Being a novice model, the Sherbourne is pretty basic (but still complicated for me) when it comes to rigging.

 

One thing I'd like to maybe add is the thick rope that goes from the hull around the small cannons (that would keep the cannon from flying across the hull when fired) - sorry, I have no idea what the actual name of that rope is.

 

Two questions:

- Where would I buy the proper scale rope for this (ideally from a supplier in the US)?

- I'm guessing I should just check out other Vanguard models that have this kind of simple cannon rigging to see what to do?

 

I've attached an image that's a screen shot from the Sherbourne instructions (showing the lack or rope around the cannons).

 

I'm not yet anywhere near that point in the build. But if I need to order some rope, I'd want to do it well before I get to that step.

[AJohnson]

For rigging of cannons I find this thread very helpful. 
 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/21776-carriage-gun-rigging/

 

As for rope, one of our Sponsors and member of MSW do excellent rope look for sponsor banner for Ropes of Scale. 
 

 

Edited September 12 by AJohnson

[Thukydides]

1 hour ago, palmerit said:

- I'm guessing I should just check out other Vanguard models that have this kind of simple cannon rigging to see what to do?

There are tonnes of logs showing how to do this. Read a whole bunch of them as there are many different ways to do things. Only thing I will mention as you get to rigging things is do as much off model as possible. It is much easier to do the work off model.

 

In terms of rope both syren and ropes of scale are great. Both are on the list of sponsors. I used the polyester ropes from ropes of scale myself. They take a bit of work to lie right, but I think the definition is worth it.

[palmerit]

Making more progress. Dealing with small pieces of PE is definitely a learning experience. Thankfully I didn’t lose any. I had to leave off the XIII on the depth markings (not enough width). 
 

I’m glad for the good advice not to glue the bulkhead to the bulkhead ears that are snipped off. 

[palmerit]

Fingers crossed I did a descent enough job masking off the rest of the ship. 
 

I’m glad I splurged on an airbrush. I don’t know if the fine etch marking on the wood would show as cleanly if I had used a brush. 

[palmerit]

Looking like I need to do another coat of white on the hull because it got scuffed in several places just from handling. 
 

I’m guessing l should have (and now will, after repainting) sprayed on a couple coats of matte varnish. My understanding is that that should protect the paint a bit?

[palmerit]

Continuing to make progress. Realizing how small (correctable) mistakes earlier bite you later. I didn’t quite have the bulwarks bended right (and with a bit more fiddling and patience I’m sure I could have) which meant that the gunwales don’t fit quite right. 

[palmerit]

Because I didn’t line up other parts quite right, things didn’t line up at the stern. You can see what I mean in the photos. I spent some time adding some wood, doing lots of sanding, and adding some filler, and doing more sanding. 

[palmerit]

One problem was that the side rails near the stern were not flush with the stern.
 

The rail is curved, so I actually used the “negative” from where I originally cut out the pieces, cutting out a section, gluing it to the piece on the model, and sanding down, trying to replicate the shape. 
 

I also had to extend the main wales a bit with some of the same “scrap” wood, some wood filler, and some sanding and filing.

 

The port and starboard sides are no longer exactly identical and some of the symmetry is lost, but I think it’s looking a lot better (and should look even better after a bit more filler and sanding and some painting). 

[Ronald-V]

Nice problem solving👌

[palmerit]

After some work it looks better than it did. 

[palmerit]

I'm wondering if anyone knows if there is a Vallejo (or other) paint that would be a close match to the various woods in a Vanguard model (I can mix paints to match but I thought maybe someone solved this problem and found a good match). I have a few tiny oops's I'd like to fix (on the deck, on the bulwarks).

 

Also, in one of the photos I just posted, you can see where there is some CA glue that got on the wood bulwarks (I'm going to try to avoid CA glue as much as possible going forward) - there are a couple other places like this. Any suggestions on the best way to remove? (I can paint over too, if I find a good match, but I don't know if that will look worse.)