HMS Victory Anatomy Version by JeffT - Artesania Latina - 1/84

[JeffT]

I have decided to take a shot at building this kit. This will be a test of my vision but I'll do my best. I have an opinion on a few things that I may state but its just my opinion. First of all, this is classified as an elite level kit by AL. My take is that this means that you need elite skills to build it and so far I believe that to be the case. The videos are great but they don't offer any insight on some things you need to pay very close attention to. This kit is complicated and requires a bit of scratch building to finish. I really think that a kit like this should have written instructions (my opinion). You must think far ahead before completing a step and I don't recommend following the order of construction in the videos. This is critical when installing the inner frames.

 

It would also have been nice to have drawings to scale for a build like this, particularly of the hold area. The hold drawing is virtually useless for lack of a better way to say it.

 

There are templates provided for the various structures that you will need to build. The first thing I did was glue these templates to a piece of cardstock with an Elmer's glue stick. They are too floppy otherwise. Also, in the video, they will have you glue a bunch of planks together to make a sheet to cut the parts from. I'm not doing it that way. I'm gluing just enough planks together to create a specific part as needed. I think there will be less wasted wood that way. In addition, in the video, the builder is gluing the planks on top of a sheet of paper creating a mess to clean up on the back of the planks. I'm doing this on top of a piece of parchment paper. The glue will stick but pops loose from the paper easily with no cleanup needed.

 

And very conveniently, I can see that the builder is cutting out the parts with a laser cutter. I don't have that convenience.

 

On with the build:

 

Assembly of the hull is pretty straight forward and now in addition to the videos, you can use the written instructions for the full hull version to help you along. I do love this hull assembly method. The inner hold planking isn't too difficult but does require some thought on getting the planks to clear the bulkheads at the bow and stern as seen in the videos. The videos would have you glue in the mast step after finishing the planking but I left the mast step out for a reason that you will see in a minute.

 

I live in a very arid environment so a lot of parts are warping badly. I was able to straighten the hull using the build board and then the planking holds it.

Here is where things get interesting. In the videos, they have you draw a line using a provided template to position the inner frames. If you do this and nothing else, you will have big problems later. Specifically with installing the orlop deck (is that right?) pictured here. The frames must be positioned perfectly in order to fit this deck. You have about 1/2 mm of wiggle room all the way down the length of the ship to play with. If the top of the frames are off by more than that there will be troubles.  The first thing to think about are these decks and how they will fit. The deck is assembled from 4 pieces. Mine didn't fit lengthwise or across the width. I suggest dealing with this before assembling anything in the hold. This required some fairing of the inside of the bulkheads to fit across the width. I didn't want to take anything off the decks in either direction on the length because of the various structures that are sitting on top of this deck. I do think my most forward bulkhead was slightly out of alignment top to bottom (not a kit problem, just my eyes). I ended up chiseling away some of the thickness on the hold side of the bulkhead to get the decks to fit lengthwise.

I am using the orlop deck as a template to align the top of the bulkheads ad as you can see, there is very little room for error, almost none. The videos don't address this at all.

I'm using the template provided in the kit to align the lower part of the frames and the paper template for the walkways. This why i didn't glue in the mast step.