Hello from Sunderland

[Peter Small]

Greetings from the North East of England. I have been following many posts and builds on this excellent website for a while now. I suspect like many members, I have reinvigorated my model making skills (such as they are) in the last few years as I approached retirement and can lay the blame on the Covid lockdown in 2020. That was when I pulled out a half built model of HMS Victory from the attic and was able to sit down, undisturbed and complete the build. 

I am in no way as good a modeller as most on this site, but have built many kits over the years. These have included the Scottish Maid, Clara May, HMS President, The Dallas, HMS Victory (1:98 scale version), Sherbourne, a Viking longboat and most recently HM Brig Badger. I am currently trying to complete the Norske Love which I bought many years ago (pre-laser cutting) with it's sparse instruction manual. Fortunately I have been able to find many helpful bits of advice here.

I do now seek help with another project, which has featured in Model Ship World a number of years ago - the 1:10 scale model of HMS Venerable in the Sunderland Maritime Heritage Museum.  I have volunteered to help progress this build which seems to be collecting a generation of modellers. We are planning to paint the hull as for the Battle of Camperdown (1797), but I cannot find any guidance on what colours were used. The closest I have got is from paintings of the battle, but as the artist would not have been present, I wonder how accurate the scene is. Maybe some experts in RN ships of the line could tell me or point me in the right direction? 

Another advance we are planning is the stern decoration. We have the LotS guide book for HMS Bellona, an earlier 74 gun 3rd rate ship, which shows detailed stern decoration. However, HMS Venerable was actually of the Culloden Class so again I wonder if the stern decoration might be different.  

 

If anyone is interested in this project, please check out the heritage website below

https://www.sunderlandmaritimeheritage.org.uk/?page_id=257 

[Keith Black]

 Peter, welcome to MSW. Glad to have you aboard. 

[Knocklouder]

[SiriusVoyager]

Welcome to MSW!

[AJohnson]

Welcome to MSW Peter! from North Yorkshire
 

Regarding your huge project  - the Section for research in the link below might be the best place to ask. 

 

https://modelshipworld.com/forum/13-discussions-for-ships-plans-and-project-research-general-research-on-specific-vessels-and-ship-types/

 

I might have to come up and see that if people are allowed to visit 

[Baker]

[GrandpaPhil]

Welcome!

[Morgan]

Welcome aboard Peter, just down the coast from you at Hartlepool.

 

Has anyone in your group checked for the existence of ships records or logs that may still exist?  The Carpenters logs and returns would be the most appropriate as they should record details of painting and consumables used. Probably a long shot but The National Archives and the National Maritime Museum are the best sources.

 

Gary

Edited September 10 by Morgan

[AJohnson]

I just put in the terms “log” and “Venerable” and a date range 1750 a 1800 in the National Archive site and a few crop up.  
It will be quite the detective story to find out how Venerable looked at Camperdown. Just ask Gary about HMS Victory!  One you would think would be well documented. Looking forward to his imminent book on the subject. 
Artist works though are not always completely inaccurate, so caveats aside, they are often all we have and the artist was sometimes guided by those who served in the battles depicted. An example being Richard Dodd who depicted Trafalgar and painted HMS Pickle under the guidance of Her commanding officer Lapenotiere. (about all we have to guide us on Pickle’s appearance as we have no plans). So another avenue might be to see if the artist of your reference painting had any connection with those who served and might have had some “guidance” on Venerable’s appearance. 
Good luck!

[mtaylor]

Welcome to MSW, Peter.  Andrew gave some excellent advice on where to ask this question as well as his above response on documentation.   The discussion area he referenced will get your questions more "eyes' as this basically just an intro area.

[Captain Cambo]

Hi Peter, 

As another new member I will add my welcome to you.

That certainly is a fantastic scale replica, I think the word model isn't appropriate in this case.

Colour or color for our friends across the pond well don't get me started on that!

Why? Well as a plastic modeller I hear/read all the time "That's a nice model but the colour is wrong". This is most common when modelling WW2 Luftwaffe aircraft. I for one did a test of one particular Luftwaffe colour (cant' remember which one now) from 3 different model paint manufacturers who all claim that their colours are accurate. Result was they were all different.

In my model railways days I had a friend who was not happy with the colour produced by Humrol at the time of GWR green. Now I'm colour blind anyway so if the tin says its such and such I take their word for it. Anyway we both went to Didcot railway centre one day and were in an elevated posistionn totake some pictures. There were 3 GWR locos lined up, all a different shade of green. He wasn't quite so fussy after that.

Some manufacturers, claim their paints are match to genuine swatches of Luftwaffe paints. Now these so called genuine swatches have been subject to 70 odd years of time and have they been kept in the dark for this time? No of course not so sunlight etc has affected them.

What I am trying to say is for goodness sake don't get to hung up on getting the exact shades right. I guess you mean what actual colours were used and not shades but you know what I mean.

There's no one around who can say for sure whether you're right or wrong.

i went to an optician who imported glasses to help colour blind people. After a lengthy test and discussion which did improve my red/green/brown vision it also degraded my ability to identify other colours, so in the end I didn't get any.

The optician also told me that we interpret colours differently anyway.

Sorry for such a lengthy post but I learnt long ago not ignore the colour/shade experts. lol

Regards, Mark

[Peter Small]

Thanks for all the welcome messages. 

Andrew, please do visit the Venerable, but you need to phone ahead. The centre is open for visitors Monday, Wednesday and Fridays 10am to 2pm. Somebody can take you around if you would like. I have surfed the National Archive and NMM websites to see what I could dig up (the painting was one of the sources), but didn’t use log as a reference. Predecessors have done searches as well and the “model” has been based on Admiralty plans. One of the last modellers to work on the Venerable, Fred Gooch, used to build models for the shipyards. There is a display of his models of ships and buildings in Sunderland - they are simply amazing. 

I shall also ask my questions in the forum you suggest.

Gary - I plan a trip to London to check out Kew and the NMM records as some of the sources don’t upload on the websites.

Mark - I appreciate colour hues vary, but if you check the painting below, the Venerable was not painted in “Nelson” colours (as is the current plan) and I would not want such a large model to be incorrectly painted. 

 

I look forward to updating those interested in Venerable in the future. 

 

Yours aye

Peter

[cockybundoo]

Hi Peter,

If it's of any help, during the same period Colonel Fawkes noted the colour schemes of the 74's at the Battle of the Nile,1798 (Culloden & Theseus both being Culloden Class 74's, although this might not be significant when considering colour schemes).

 

The British fleet at Abu Kir Bay

Alexander, Audacious, Bellerophon, Defence, Orion - Plain yellow sides.

Goliath - Light yellow sides with black streak between the upper and lower gun ports.

Culloden - Yellow sides with two small black streaks between the upper and lower deck ports.

Majestic, Swiftsure - Yellow sides with a black streak between the upper and lower deck ports.

Theseus - Light yellow sides with a black streak between the upper and lower deck ports with hammock cloths yellow and ports painted on them to resemble a three-decker

Vanguard - Yellow sides with a black streak between upper & lower deck ports.

Minotaur - Red sides with a black streak between the upper & lower deck ports

Zealous - Broad red sides with small yellow stripes.

 

It appears that the yellow was defined as being light yellow or canary yellow; an earlier darker yellow was not popular due to making the ships look 'dirty'. 

Various articles that are great for information on ship colours are;

An Artist's Notes at the Battle of the Nile - Mariners Mirror (1914) - Original reference to Colonel Fawkes

The Application and Scheme of Paintworks in British Men-of-War in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries - Goodwin, Mariners Mirror 2013

Pitch, Paint, Varnish and the Changing Colour Schemes of Royal Navy Warships, 1775 1815: A summary of existing knowledge - Vale, Mariners Mirror 2020

http://www.larsonweb.com/Transfer/Miniatures/Sail/NAPSHIPS.htm

 

Mickey

 

 

Edited October 16 by cockybundoo

[Nick 843]

Welcome from another recent arrival!

[Louie da fly]

Welcome, Nick! I'm awestruck by your model. Colours, like so many other details, are always 'educated guesswork' based on what (often sparse) information is available. Do the best you can, and you can  be sure no-one will be in a position to tell you you're wrong.

 

I'm in Oz but I was privileged to be in the UK in 1972 (or 73?) when Sunderland won the FA Cup from the 2nd Division. Very cool.

 

Steven