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

[Nightdive]

Excellent information, thank you for taking the time to write your posts. 

 

@ERS Rich interesting point about sealing, as a beginner, I assumed that harder woods should just be airbrushed directly. I've been meaning to mix some shellac from dewaxed flakes to touch up some old shellacked furniture scratches, Sherbourne will give me the perfect reason to finally do it. There's also plenty of extra wood in the kit, and that will give me a chance to experiment with different methods before doing the final painting. 

 

@palmerit I've already gone ahead and purchased an airbrush, though it is a fairly inexpensive hardware store one. I haven't tested it with paint yet, and I'll keep your Iwata and Badger recommendations in mind if it turns out to be of low quality.

 

I was hoping to do all my painting outside, but it's getting late in the year. I might have to purchase one of those cabinets for later stages of the build. For compressed air I've decided to use a scuba tank. It should work well, the air is already bone dry. The adapters and a small additional pressure regulator cost only a fraction of a compressor's price. For fun, I'll post a picture of the setup once I get to the painting phase.

 

@Desertanimal @palmerit Good point about blackening. I was already opting to do it for companionway hinges and belaying pins, but just as with hardwood, I assumed that PE can also be painted directly. My local hobby shop seems to carry Tamiya primer too, so I'll use that one in case I decide to paint the below-waterline brass parts white.

[ERS Rich]

Good point about hardwood, I was thinking about pine.  The walnut strips can be grainy, shellac may reduce it, but it will probably look good unsealed.  If you go that way interested in seeing how it looks. 

 

I’ve never used the Walnut strips to plank, did not want to deal with the brittleness, I think some soak them which helps with the knife cuts, cut with the grain rather than against.

 

Check out Mr Hobby Mr Metal Primer, I’ve brushed it on metal cannon barrels and painted with Vallejo acrylic paint.  Paasche Talon is my go to brush, a little less expensive than an Iwata.  

 

Most common airbrush problems are due to cleanliness or paint not thin enough.  Vallejo air solves the second problem, the first is knowing how to disassemble and clean the brush.

 

Anyway now I always go with blackening because you skip the priming step.

 

Nice talking about this stuff, I’ll hang back and see what happens.

[Nightdive]

 

I'm now past the halfway point on the second planking and have been able to get away with fairly little clinker. I've used @Jase's spreadsheet method and re-measured after every few planks. Only some small adjustments to the spreadsheet have been needed.

 

I've primarily used PVA again, with some CA for the bow and stern.

[ERS Rich]

“Clinker” happening means the width of the plank needs to be reduced, or tapered, towards the stem.  The taper starts about the third bulkhead aft of the stem, the plank width will end half the width or less at the stem.

At first you can get away with not doing it, it will catch up to you.  

 

Find one of the many postings on this site to see how to do it.  My Constitution build log talks about it.

 

Nice work, so far, good luck.

 

[Nightdive]

 

As I got to this point in the planking, I noticed that there was a 2 mm difference in the remaining gaps. I could finish the port side with 15 planks, but the starboard would require 16. So initially I split my spreadsheet in two and had elaborate plans about heavily thinning and tapering all eight remaining planks. But after shaping the first one, I understood how laborious it would be and decided to just finish both sides identically with three planks each, then add a small filler piece to the starboard side.

 

 

And with that, the second planking was done. While everything I learned during the first planking certainly helped a lot, I think the second layer was easier in general, as there was almost no need to twist planks over a kettle in multiple spots.

 

Edited September 19 by Nightdive

[ERS Rich]

Good job, looking forward to what’s ahead…..

[Thukydides]

Great job, getting the planking done is an important milestone.

 

For next time, one way to help with keeping things lined up is to do the planking in bands. Chuck's planking videos describe the process. You are now entering one of my favorite parts of a build. Lots of visible progress once you get past the planking.

[Ronald-V]

Nice planking! Well done  

[LoydB]

That looks great, what a milestone. 

[Nearshore]

Looks great. Nice job!!

[Nightdive]

 

 

Thank you for your likes and comments, everyone!

 

The Sherbourne is now sanded, filled, and ready to be painted - if the weather permits - later this week. My plan is to seal the wood with Tamiya fine surface primer, sand if necessary, add the photo-etch parts, prime those parts, and then apply as many coats of AK off-white as needed. 

 

[palmerit]

Great planking job. Not "for a first model". Just great planking job. I'm going to make myself feel better and say that you learned from our (my) mistakes on our first (second, third, ...) attempts.

[AJohnson]

Very good planking, the Sherbourne has lovely lines, shown off well by your careful work. 

[ccoyle]

On 9/22/2025 at 10:03 AM, palmerit said:

Great planking job. Not "for a first model". Just great planking job.

 

Yes, that's a phenomenal job!

[Nightdive]

Thank you again! Your build logs and tips have helped me reach this point in the build.
 

 

The hull is now primed, but some of the gaps seem a bit large. Do you think that I should use some watered-down filler, or will layers of top coat and sanding in between be enough? I'd prefer planking to be visible in the finished model, so I'm concerned that using filler might be too much. 

Edited September 24 by Nightdive

[Burgundy]

Looking great so far!

[palmerit]

3 hours ago, Nightdive said:

but some of the gaps seem a bit large.

Sometimes - in my very limited experience - gaps only pop visually after a first coat of primer (I think some of the Vanguard instructions actually note that too, if not in the Sherbourne, then in the Ranger instructions). I'd try to fill and sand large gaps. I could be wrong, but the goal isn't to make it seem like a smooth fiberglass hull, because it's fine for some of the details of planking to show through the paint, but you also don't want large gaps - as you said. If you look at photos of real painted wooden ships, you can see the planking, but you don't see gaps or holes for obvious reasons.

 

If you use some really watered-down filler, it can get into some of the tiny pinholes you have, which would be the things I'd be most inclined to want to fill.

 

I first tried using a Minwax wood filler and it was way too grainy when watered down. Maybe fine for large-scale, but terrible for small scale. I found the Elmer's (water-based) wood glue to have a finer grain and it waters down a lot better. Would be interested to hear if other have different recommendations. You can apply it, let it get into the tiny holes and gaps, and just gently wipe the surface.

 

(You can also get yourself into a death spiral of adding filler, sanding, adding filler, sanding. Don't ask how I know.)

Edited September 24 by palmerit

[Nightdive]

Thanks @palmerit, I used a tiny bit of filler at the bow, but think I'll leave the plank seams alone at this point. We'll see where it goes after a couple of coats of acrylic. 

 

I also decided to prime the PE parts separately and add them later, their details might become cluttered by paint if added at this point. 

 

[Nightdive]

 

Below-waterline painting completed, time to celebrate a little.

 

 

 

After two layers of acrylic, I opted to touch up the seams with a brush. I lost count of how many airbrushed layers of paint I applied, but before the final two ones I attached the PE parts with CA. Too much CA in fact, some of the depth markings had to be removed, bathed in acetone, and re-primed. 

 

 

I think that there is a nice amount of woodwork still visible. I would have preferred more consistent lines of planking, but for a first model it's close enough to the real thing:

 

 

I have to take a break from modeling now, as I'm waiting for Cornwall Model Boats to restock Admiralty Paints' yellow ochre and 5x5 mm walnut strips. The strips are for a little slipway that I'll try to build for the finished ship, inspired by these models:

 

 

 

 

https://nauticalhistory.weebly.com/the-70-gun-third-rate-prince-frederick-of-1714.html

 

[palmerit]

When people come into my office at work they see a few of the models I've built on one of my shelves. I turned 60 this past year. I tell people jokingly that over the past year I've developed an old man hobby - model ship building - and a young man hobby - scuba diving (my adult boys and I completed our Advanced Open Water this summer).

 

(I know model ship building is not an "old man hobby" but there are lots of people who discover - or rediscover - it closer to retirement.)

 

(As long as you're healthy, and you can get your doctor to approve, scuba diving is actually a nice "old man hobby". The hardest part on the knees is when you're fully loaded getting into the water. And if you have bad knees, you can often, depending on conditions, put your heavy equipment on in the water. On a dive trips in Grand Cayman last summer there was a guy on the boat who was probably in his mid/late-70s.)

[Nightdive]

2 hours ago, palmerit said:

When people come into my office at work they see a few of the models I've built on one of my shelves. I turned 60 this past year. I tell people jokingly that over the past year I've developed an old man hobby - model ship building - and a young man hobby - scuba diving (my adult boys and I completed our Advanced Open Water this summer).

 

(I know model ship building is not an "old man hobby" but there are lots of people who discover - or rediscover - it closer to retirement.)

 

(As long as you're healthy, and you can get your doctor to approve, scuba diving is actually a nice "old man hobby". The hardest part on the knees is when you're fully loaded getting into the water. And if you have bad knees, you can often, depending on conditions, put your heavy equipment on in the water. On a dive trips in Grand Cayman last summer there was a guy on the boat who was probably in his mid/late-70s.)

That's awesome, welcome to the hobby! 

 

With my limited experience, I actually find scale modeling and scuba diving to share some similarities. Everything is about careful planning, calm execution, and if you're breaking a sweat, you're probably doing something wrong! 

 

I started diving at 16, but then forgot about it for well over a decade. For the past 10 years I've been mainly diving shipwrecks in the Gulf of Finland with my old high school buddy. The wrecks are fantastic, but the water is always freezing cold, and visibility is often poor. I wish there was a place with the visibility of the Great Lakes, combined with the variety of intact shipwrecks dating back hundreds of years that the Baltic Sea has.

 

Most of my favorite wrecks are actually from the Sherbourne's era. It's crazy to go down the mast of a merchantman that sank sometime in the late 1700s, and see all of the items where the crewmen left them all those years ago. Sometimes even coils of rope survive.