HM Cutter Alert 1777 by Quimp Slattery - Vanguard Models - 1:64

[Quimp Slattery]

Welcome one and all to this, my build of the Vanguard Models 'Alert'. Actually, welcome to the remainder of the build because it commenced at least four months ago, perhaps longer. I had no intentions of writing about it, made no notes, and took no photographs until last week when I thought that perhaps I did have something worth saying, even if my modelling isn't exactly top of the class. It's not my intention to compete with the outstanding Alert builds already posted here but to tell you about how I'm building the model in such a way that it will be recognisably mine when it's done. 

 

So let me tell you what you've missed. The assembly of the keel and bulkheads and those fiddly bits at the back went very well as far as I can remember. The first planking crawled along in a most discouraging way. There was nothing wrong with the model but planking is a bit of a bore to me and takes a long time partly because of glue drying times and overwhelmingly my own inertia and reluctance to return to a job I disliked so much. Finally though, it was done. The incorporation of a rebate in the keel was a nice touch and helped me to make a passable job of it with surprisingly little use of filler.

 

On to the second planking then. I had been reading Peter Goodwin's book in the Anatomy of the Ship series and read that the decoration (blue bulwarks and gilded scrollwork) was a feature of the famous paintings of the model of the cutter. I preferred to build something that followed Goodwin's description of the vessel herself. My bulwarks would be finished in rosin which would allow the beauty of the wood to remain visible. I like wood far more than paint and thought that above the wale I'd use the best looking wood I could find - walnut. Yes, large grain and wildly differing shades for each of the several planks I used per strake but it is recognisably very woody, just how I like it and I have high hopes for it when it is varnished.

 

The wale, I intend to paint black, so the choice of wood was some thick lime that I had available. This was very workable and thick enough that I wouldn't need multiple layers.

 

Below the wale things began to become really interesting. Alert was clinker built and the kit has a simpler carvel built hull. I must have taken a month off building while I worked out a way to simulate this feature that was within my abilities.

 

 

This, in brutal close up, is what I came up with. I would take half a page to describe in words how I did that but I think the following photo tells it quite succinctly.

 

 

Each plank is hand sanded to a knife edge profile and the sharp edge is tucked into a rebate scraped into the underneath of the preceding one. This not only made it tidy but the rebate helped to hold the new plank in place for the couple of minutes it took for the glue - Titebond Original - to grab. The profiling was the onerous part but since below the waterline was to be coppered, only a few of the second plankings would be visible. As soon as I was 'under water' I reverted to carvelling of the most rough and ready kind - it would be hidden behind a wall of solid copper so what the heck.

 

This was where I made a big discovery. It's not a brand new invention in the world but it was the first time I'd seen it done so I claim (shared) ownership of the technique. Lol.

 

 I accidentally stumbled on an unsuspected quality of Titebond Original wood glue - it can be made to set instantaneously with the application of heat.

 

I brush uniform layers on the hull side and the pre-shaped plank and dry both rapidly with a hairdryer. This takes  only a few seconds as the amount of glue we use is so small.

 

Then I place the plank in position and apply heat with my soldering iron based, plank bending tool from Model Craft. This reactivates the glue and the two surfaces bond instantly and exactly in place, pressed firmly down by the iron. I work along the plank from one end to the other and it's fixed. No drying time required, no clamps, no squeeze-out to be cleaned up. It's better than contact or superglue because there's no accidental 'grab' in the wrong position. The glue which has soaked into the plank softens it slightly which makes getting it into place much easier.

 

 Previously I could set two planks in a session, now I can do a dozen, and I can do much longer runs without difficulty. In fact the only limit is my stamina. This has reduced the time required tremendously and since planking is such a large part of a build, it has reduced the overall time required very significantly indeed, perhaps even halving it. Use this method and build twice as many boats!

 

Why didn't I see this before? I believe it's because I (and the modellers who have inspired me in books and on line) come to model shipbuilding from carpentry and assumed that clamping and drying time were unavoidable. Perhaps we read about how the original vessels were build from huge timbers and don't see that in our scaled down working we have more in common with marquetry or veneering?

 

Having spent a week experimenting and working up a repeatable, efficient technique I belatedly searched YouTube for "Titebond" and "heat" to see whether anyone else had got there first. The Official Titebond Channel showed a guy veneering a table but the techniques and chemistry are all valid. Significantly, I now have faith that the bond will be permanent, because Titebond says so.

 

(There's more discussion on this matter here in the tips and tricks department including a link to that video.)

 

 

Here's that second planking in progress - rough as a badger's bottom. It was completed in two sessions, from the start of the carvel to the garboard. So fast, so easy and because of the frequent repetitions I learned tons about spiling and bending (not that you see it in THIS photo. 😁

 

I'm well into the coppering now and I'll tell you about that next time.

 

Edited August 26 by Quimp Slattery

[Quimp Slattery]

The next stage in my proceedings was to discover how best to attach the copper plates which I wish to use on Alert. 

 

 

This is my first trial sample photographed in direct sunlight. The raking light shows how poorly the copper has adhered to the varnished wood. They remained in place through several tests, providing useful information, but finally they just fell off. The cyano had stuck fast to the varnish but the varnish itself failed in tension. The cyano also needed to be held in place for up to ten seconds to set which was too long for my comfort.

 

I also realised during this trial how hard and springy the copper plates were. This affected the grip, even on a flat surface and I wanted to achieve that soft 'wrinkled wet leather' look that I see on photos of old copper.

 

 

On the bare wood, the superglue gripped almost instantly when pressed into contact. Any surplus glue must have been drawn into the wood fibres because nothing squeezed out to pose a threat to my fingers.

 

Further to the adhesion question, I experimented with different ways to weather the copper.  In the beginning I tried various ways to sand and otherwise texture the plates.  I couldn't get anywhere near the soft metal effect, despite wounding the surfaces with a range of tools.

 

Finally, as you see on the top row, I annealed the copper with a soldering torch. Heated to a dull red and allowed to cool naturally, the copper softened so that it could be moulded over the substrate with only finger pressure.

 

 

The crumpled, draped effect is enhanced by a little gentle sanding which also highlighted the overlapping.

 

 

In this shot the plates have been lightly treated with an antiquing fluid and then re-polished. Now the buckled and toolmarked surfaces are really apparent, even my attempts to make nail marks, though they are over-scale and I continued to experiment.

 

 

 

One last test on the sample was a trial of strength using pliers. I think the adhesion question is settled to my satisfaction. 😁  I may have found an interesting way to reveal the wood below the metal in the form of reef or harbour damage, even perhaps battle damage?

 

Despite not touching the actual model all day, I'd had a most constructive session and was very happy about the work to come.

 

I started coppering at the edges of the keel.

 

 

I started at the stern and continued right up the stem to the waterline. This was a mistake as I'd have preferred the copper on the stem to overlap the plates behind.

 

 

My word, it looks rough on the screen.

 

 

Of course, it's meant to look hand built and the overall effect of chaos is enhanced by the method I've developed to simulate the nails that hold the copper to the hull. I roll a rough round file over the surface of the annealed and soft copper. The effect is impressionistic and isn't supposed to be a replica of the original.

 

 

The house on the left is clearly made of bricks. The house on the right may be more 'accurate' but it looks awfully overdone.

 

 

Here are my bricks. Some plates have a lot of nails and some fewer. There will also be some with no nails at all.

 

 

I have some marvellous colours to mix together.

 

 

I hope that you like the effect as much as I do. Remember, the extremes of contrast will be slightly polished out and then the plates will be antiqued and polished up a second time. That should produce a more unified overall look. (Should?)

 

I haven't used these methods or materials before and have greatly enjoying experimenting and working out my best way to proceed. I think that I now know what to do and so the rest of the sheathing will just be a matter of repeating the process another 600 times while gradually becoming more fluent. I would like to be able to show you the completed hull next week but that will depend on my other amusements lying dormant for much of the week. We shall see...

 

And that brings the log up to date with the build.

 

[Quimp Slattery]

Here's a very quick little update, intended to keep you all interested and to demonstrate my delight at hitting, and passing, a milestone moment that I didn't quite know how I was going to handle. 😃

 

 

The sixth strake of copper plating up from the keel turned out to be the one that ran out of space on the stem. I was a little worried because I couldn't quite see how the geometry would work out on that corner where the compound curve of the hull would meet the vertical flat stem and the horizontal waterline. 

 

 

Either I've been very lucky or there never was a problem at all because it just ... works! This second photo was taken level with the point just below the waterline where the two strakes of the 'hem line' of the copper will be laid. It's not perfect but it's much better than I was hoping for so there is a large sized grin on my face as I write. These overlapping plates are a little slow to fit but the overlap makes the system very flexible and I'm finding it easy to hide my mistales.

 

You may notice some grey organic-looking material right forward? I'll call it weed growth but in fact that's tiny pieces of my left thumb - the one I press the plates down with and frequently superglue to the hull. 😅

 

There are about twelve more strakes to lay amidships but each one will be shorter than the other as the smiling curve develops. This last full strake took an hour so another eight to ten hours should see the stbd side done. The other and possibly better port side should be a bit faster so in less than two weeks I could be at the sanding/polishing/blackening process which I'm looking forward to very much. It's a good incentive to keep me in the dockyard.

 

Thanks to everyone who has given me the thumbs up so far. It's great to have that encouragement. I'm open to anyone's suggestions, comments and advice and I'm even willing to take some criticism, though I may not take it far. 😉

 

Next SITREP will be in three strakes when the aft end of the coppering hits the waterline at the stern. That's when I'll find out if this end was just beginner's luck.

 

 

 

Note to self: Don't forget to plate the rudder. (Please feel free to remind me to do that should it slip my aged mind.)

 

 

Edited August 15 by Quimp Slattery

[Quimp Slattery]

 I kept on with the copper cladding and have reached this point.

 

 

Practice has made the procedure almost habitual and I find I can watch a movie while laying the tiles. I take this as a sign that I ought to do something else for a while before I become bored and discouraged.

 

 

Now that I have a wide band of tiles to work with I experimented with sanding off some of the dark texture I've been applying. Zoomed in as close as this to the 5mm by 17mm tiles I'm rather pleased with the result. I must admit that this is an unconventional approach to coppering and many people who prefer their hull shiny as a cap badge will find it absurd. My intention is to simulate the hull of a vessel which has spent a year or two at sea and then been careened and cleaned with scrapers - not polishing machines. The weed has been removed but the corrosion and other chemical transformations are still apparent. 

 

You may wonder why the plaques vary so much, one from the other? My reasoning is that while they all swam in the same sea, their purity and the elements with which they were alloyed and contaminated would have varied between manufacturers and even batches. This was the year 1777. The dockyard would perhaps have taken deliveries from many smelters, stored them and issued mixed cartloads to the vessels undergoing sheathing resulting in the patchwork you see here.

 

And even more importantly, I think it looks good and will provoke thought and conversation when people look at it.

 

As an aside, in the books of Forrester and O'Brian you will find reference to the shining bands of copper revealed by a ship heeling to the wind on a sunny day. These writers of fiction never saw a ship in the eighteenth century except in their imagination. I have yet to find a reference to shiny copper in any descriptions written during the period. I tentatively conclude that dull brown is not only more interesting but more accurate too. (If you have other contemporary descriptions, please let me know.)

 

 

I've continued to experiment with different domestic chemicals, from bleach to vinegar, applied to hard and annealed copper, reheated and not. I don't think it's going to make much difference to the overall effect but I haven't had so much fun since "My Junior Chemistry Set" turned up under the Christmas tree last year.

 

 

The copper store shed in my dockyard is now adequately stocked. I may even have enough to finish the entire hull.

 

So, what do you think of it so far, shipmates?

 

 

Edited August 19 by Quimp Slattery

[Quimp Slattery]

It's been a very productive few days and the starboard side coppering is now complete.

 

 

The overall effect is far, far better than I expected. 

 

 

The top of the copper follows the waterline and there are no gaps.

 

 

It's the same at the back. (Does that remind you of a fish?)

 

 

There was one error which needed to be patched but the repaired 'docking damage' is now almost unnoticeable, though I will point it out to interested visitors.

 

 

This is where the two strakes of 'hem' reach the sternpost. (What is the correct term for those top few strakes of copper?) There are still pencil and copper oxide marks on the woodwork in the picture but I have just now removed them with an eraser and a gentle stroke with sandpaper. I'm very pleased that there are no superglue fingerprints soaked into the pearwood where they would have been irremovable.

 

 

It was the same at the bow. This end isn't quite so tidy in macro, but is still acceptable to me.

 

I had to count them. There are 359 tiles attached to the hull at the moment including those which run along the midline of the stem, keel and sternpost. That was fewer than I estimated at the beginning, I believe. I didn't count the tiles for this reason, but it's good to know how many I will need so that I can prepare enough in advance, including a 15% allowance for wastage. (I counted them for bragging purposes. 😅)

 

I am in a celebratory mood but aware that I must now plate the port side. The stbd side took 13 days (including days off) and I was definitely working at least twice as fast today as at the beginning. I learned to be efficient as a way of avoiding boredom. With this in mind, I could perhaps complete laying the remaining 320 tiles by this time next week but there's no real need to rush. However, if it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly: 

 

Edited August 19 by Quimp Slattery

[Quimp Slattery]

I've taken a couple of days away from Alert. I've been busy with other things, true, but mostly I've been disheartened by the thought of doing the same thing over again - another 300+ copper plates. 😔 However the less exciting parts of the hobby cannot be dispensed with so today I'm back. It seems that the rest did me good.

 

     
 

 

The first picture is last week's working and then this morning's equivalent. I have reduced the overlap to what now seems a more realistic amount and as a result the lines are much straighter. There's even a clear improvement between the first two strakes (at the keel) and the latter two. If there were world enough and time I'd build two of every model, one for practice and one to keep.

 

There will be some amongst you who would suggest ripping the copper from the starboard side and redoing it, but what if 'side three' was better than 'side two'. And what if side four...

 

No, that course of action would drive me to drink (more) and I have a better idea - HM Cutter Alert will be displayed port side out.

 

Edited August 23 by Quimp Slattery

[Ronald-V]

Lol yes you learn as you go and when you are almost done you often master it very well.

One option is to keep building new ships and do it a little better each time.  

 

But when you have finished your ship the end result will be really nice, then you don't really see the "mistakes"

because there are so many other details on it  

[Quimp Slattery]

1 hour ago, Ronald-V said:

One option is to keep building new ships and do it a little better each time.  

 

That is my master plan. I have a few queued up ready to go already. 

 

1 hour ago, Ronald-V said:

But when you have finished your ship the end result will be really nice, then you don't really see the "mistakes"

because there are so many other details on it  

 

I imagine so. And on Monday I was very pleased with the stbd side - nothing has changed there, so I can continue to be pleased with it (and be just a little more pleased with the port). 😃

 

Thanks for the comment Ronald, I really appreciate the support.

 

 

[Quimp Slattery]

The hull os coppered.

 

 

I'm very pleased with this. The next job is to sheathe the rudder and then I'll finish off the weathering as planned, sanding/polishing off some of the patina and darkening other parts until I'm happy with it all. Actually, apart from homogenising the whole by simply polishing up the high spots, I might just leave it as it is.

 

I feel a great deal of pleasure and pride about what I've done here - the whole point of the hobby as I see it. 😃

 

[Ronald-V]

Personally I like the patina on it, looks really nice!

[Quimp Slattery]

50 minutes ago, Ronald-V said:

Personally I like the patina on it, looks really nice!

 

I'm glad you like it. I think I will leave it more or less intact with just a swipe of very fine sandpaper to milfly highlight the structure. It won't stay bright for long, the copper is changing, tarnishing by the day, so that by the time I apply the protective coating it will look 'natural'.

 

Looking at the photographs above I'm struck by the symmetry of the hull which greatly helps the look my coppering. The shape of the hull is pretty well guaranteed by Vanguard Models whose designer Chris Watton is a bit clever. The keel, bulkheads and underdeck fitted together perfectly in a matter of minutes with no adjustment required. All I had to do was plank the thing with a reasonable degree of attention. Had this been a scratchbuild with those vital foundations manufactured by me, you would most certainly have seen a 'banana-boat' writhing on the stocks. 

 

@chris watton was kind enough to post a thumbs up overnight which was a pleasant Sunday morning treat for me. It seems only fair to acknowledge the work put into our models by the manufacturers before we even receive the box. 👍 

 

[Ronald-V]

I'm having the same experience with my Vanguard HMS Sphinx...the design is really well done 👍

[Quimp Slattery]

 

The rudder has received its cladding and a touch of black acrylic ink on the woodwork.

 

Next on my list is making a wooden base using the supplied acrylic one as a template. I like the fit but not the material.

 

[Quimp Slattery]

 

The base is now attached to my Alert so that I don't have to touch the copper any more than absolutely necessary. It's designed to recall those boats which most of us have seen up on blocks in yards, supported with wooden props.

 

[Quimp Slattery]

 

I've begun the deck planking. The centreline plank vaults over the various holes in the deck because I've decided that they are surplus to requirements - there's nothing worth seeing down there and not much chance of seeing anything through the gratings anyway. I'll simply fit the deck furniture over the littl marker holes I've drilled in that long plank.

 

I've elected to fit a margin plank as you see. This is new to me and I'm keen to joggle my decking into it in the proper English (and Dutch) way.

 

 

I've found the joggling quite easy to do reasonably well but difficult to do perfectly. By the time I've finished this deck I will probably know what I should have been doing from the beginning. Sigh!

 

I'm using my Modelcraft Plank Bender again to heat-set the glue under the planks. It speeds the process enormously and is so much easier than clamping and weighting the wood down, and then waiting for glue to dry - surely the most boring of modelling's disciplines.

 

 

[Ronald-V]

Those first joggled planks look already quite nice!

[Quimp Slattery]

3 hours ago, Ronald-V said:

Those first joggled planks look already quite nice!

I am very pleased with them though I note with wry amusement that the first one I did was the best! I was forced to stop after four because my eyes were watering and I couldn’t see well enough to work. 🤓

[Quimp Slattery]

 

9 hours ago, Quimp Slattery said:

I was forced to stop after four because my eyes were watering and I couldn’t see well enough to work. 🤓

 

@Ronald-V Darn it. Same thing happened tonight but I have eleven full strakes down now. 

[Ronald-V]

10 hours ago, Quimp Slattery said:

 

 

@Ronald-V Darn it. Same thing happened tonight but I have eleven full strakes down now. 

That's pretty fast!

Edited Tuesday at 05:51 AM by Ronald-V

[Quimp Slattery]

1 hour ago, Ronald-V said:

That's pretty fast!

 

Yes it is! I'm heat setting the Titebond adhesive so there's no time lost waiting for it to dry, no need to hold it down.

 

See my topic 'Tips and Techniques'

 

 

[Quimp Slattery]

Another eight strakes done and now, as I near the sides of the deck, I'm joggling both ends. I have twelve left to fit but remember they are getting shorter quickly now and soon will be a single piece per strake.

 

Day off shipbuilding tomorrow though - real life stuff instead, boring but necessary!

[Quimp Slattery]

Hello @Ronald-V

 

One thing I’ve done today is to scrape the deck a little. The home made planks vary a little in thickness and need a lot of work with a cabinet scraper to even them out. I can’t do it all in one go as it’s hard on an old man’s hands so I’m alternating laying and scraping. It hardly justifies a picture. 

I’ve also done a few experiments with this wood and my usual method for simulating treenails. Good news; it works. Bad; I took no photos.