HMS Harpy 1796 by Richard44 - Vanguard Models - 1:64

[Richard44]

The stern cabins. These were a bit fiddly to do, needing dry-fitting, sanding and repeating until the fit was satisfactory 

Various rails were added - top and bottom of the inner bulwarks, the caprail and the one immediately under it and the decorative moulding that crosses the gunports. The catheads were added, as were the side counter timbers. Nothing really to say about these additions, all were easy enough. The gunport sills were painted red, but before doing so, wood filler was applied to them to hide the laminated appearance.

Cheers

[François de Saint Nazaire]

Richard,

Your model is very well done. Everything is clean and meticulous.

Are the draught marks raised or flush with the hull ?

 

have a nice day

[Richard44]

7 minutes ago, François de Saint Nazaire said:

Are the draught marks raised or flush with the hull ?

They're raised, they came as PE pieces.

[Richard44]

Thanks for all the likes, and to those who just stop by.

 

A short update. The chesstrees, fenders and steps were added to the hull. The pieces are shown in the following photo, the chesstrees on the left, the fenders on the right and the two pieces (treads and risers) for the steps in the middle.

To assemble the steps, the risers were laid out on a strip of masking tape, sticky side up, and the treads were then glued to them. There are four completed steps on the left.

The chesstrees and the fenders were rounded slightly on their outside edges to improve their appearance, and needed a slight touch with a diamond file to let them fit close against the hull. The lowermost step will be painted to match the wale.

Cheers

[Richard44]

Some further progress.

 

The hair brackets and the PE decoration that fits between the brackets were added to the prow. The upper and lower cheeks were added as was the hawse bolster. The brackets were very delicate and required careful handling, but fitted perfectly. The cheeks needed some sanding to get them to fit as they should. The bolsters needed quite a lot of sanding before they matched the existing hawse holes.

The next bits to add were the prow knee and the "V" brackets that support the head rails. Chris very kindly included two sets of these (other than the knee) in case some of these rather delicate pieces were broken. Murphy's law was then triggered and the only piece I broke was the non-dupicated one.

There was no chance of gluing the two pieces together, so each part was separately added to the prow along with its "V" bracket. There is a slight misalignment, but you need to know it's there to see it. The head rails were then added. And the davits have glued in place at the stern.

Cheers

[François de Saint Nazaire]

It is a perfect adjustement. is it a flower the decoration ?

Thank you for the explanations

[Richard44]

5 hours ago, François de Saint Nazaire said:

is it a flower the decoration ?

Thank you for the kind comment François. Yes it is a flower.

Cheers

[Richard44]

More progress, but not a lot to see.

 

The eyepins/ringbolts were all added, with blocks seized to them where required, mostly those associated with the steering tackle. The instructions call for these latter blocks to be 3mm in size, but to me, these looked overscale and 2mm blocks were substituted. The ringbolts were made by adding a brass ring to the PE eyepins.

 

All pin racks and cleats were glued in place.

 

The tiller is in place but not glued.

The rudder has been sitting out of harm's way, but was now fixed to the hull. Following Blue Ensign's example, a rudder coat was fashioned to fit around the rudder where it passed through the lower counter. I made one of these for my Pegasus build but couldn't remember how I'd done it so I referred to B.E's detailed description of his method in his Alert build log (here) and I more-or-less followed his method. Briefly, the coat consists of a canvas "bag" held against the rudder and the hull by a metal plate. I made the "metal" plate first, getting the inside shape by using a piece of the fret that had contained the lower counter, and then simply eyeballing the outer edge to give me a horseshoe shaped plate. Card was used. I had no fine material for the bag so used surgical tape instead. The plate and the tape were glued to the hull, leaving the tape baggy enough to stuff some cotton wool into it and then moulded it to suggest a bag. Once satisfied with this, I painted the coat with a mix of black water-based acrylic and PVA.

 

Card and the piece of fret used to get the inner shape of the plate.

The partly stuffed bag.

Cheers

Edited May 19 by Richard44
Changed "eyebolts" to "ringbolts".

[dunnock]

A nice tweak Richard. Always tricky to get the shape right but yours looks very good 

 

David 

[Richard44]

11 hours ago, dunnock said:

A nice tweak Richard. Always tricky to get the shape right but yours looks very good 

Thanks David. I had one go at trial-and-error cutting of the card, but then it dawned on me that I could use the fret as a template. Easy as.

[dunnock]

Wish I'd thought of that it would have saved a lot of trial and error.

[Richard44]

Thanks for all the likes and comments, and to those who have just stopped by.

 

Some more progress. The first thing to do was assemble the fore platform, only four parts. It was glued together, then dryfitted, gently sanded, dryfitted etc until it was a good fit into the bow. When I was satisfied it was glued in place.

The two short steps to the platform were added at this point.

 

A longer set of steps were assembled and glued in place.

The companion way fits above these, and making this proved to be a little tricky in places. The parts for it are shown below, with some pieces already glued together.

The more interesting facets of this build were the two doors at the front and the hatch on top.

The instructions say that these can be left closed or open. I chose to have them open.

 

The doors were no particular problem, except for adding the hinges, provided as PE. I glued the doors in the open position then added the hinges (the handles, ring bolts, had been fixed already), but ran into some problems with the PE hinges in trying to get them to fit correctly. I finally used some of the Syren hinges I'd used previously. 

 

The hatch however needed a little more attention. As Blue Ensign said in his log, the hatch needs support in the open position. For the two supports I used some leftover PE, bent into a curve, glued to the underside of the hatch with the lower ends held in place by small eyebolts fastened to the sides of the companion way. Syren hinges were again used.

The guns were assembled over several days, usually while waiting for glue or paint to dry. Assembly  line. Patience is required. 

I didn't add Part 227, described as the "quoin" in the instructions for the long guns. Instead I replaced it with a short piece of 0.6mm fret to represent the bed of the carriage and added two separately made quoins. (The left carriage needs a paint touch up.)

Finally, a word of thanks to Blue Ensign (Maurice), who continues to suggest improvements that can be made to an already superb kit (thanks Chris), some of which are obvious in my build.

 

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 28 by Richard44