HMS Surprise 1796 (prototype) by James H - Vanguard Models - 1:64

[Daniel M]

6 minutes ago, James H said:

There are times I'm too mentally (and physically) drained to operate properly

I feel you. Most days I have to go to sleep after work because I'm just too tired, so most of my hobby work is done on weekends.

[knightyo]

Same here.  Due to a stressful job, nothing very productive gets done in the evenings anymore.  All of my hobby time is now done on Saturday or Sunday morning after my first cup of coffee, before the Admiral wakes up and assigns me my duties for the day.

 

Alan

[Pelk]

16 hours ago, James H said:

 

There will definitely be an update this weekend. Surprise is under paint and I've been working on exterior stuff, so that's what you'll see next. Coppering is imminent too. Initial production will be circa 100 kits, but that's a rolling production as when things get down to low numbers, then you can guarantee the next series of parts are being produced. 

 

James,

 

You are just full of good news. Thanks so much for the speedy reply. You have done a beautiful job thus far, and I look forward to seeing more.

 

I'm really glad to hear about the rolling production run. Thanks again for the inside scoop.

 

-P

[James H]

Update time.

 

Surprise is now under paint and the next step will be coppering with PE plates. Here's some photos showing the work recently done.

 

To start with, the hull was prepped with Tamiya white primer, and any defects were then sanded back, filled, sanded and then re-primed to make sure all was good. This is a little tedious when you believe that all is good first time around and then find you have a couple of days work to sort it 😆 After the priming and fettling was complete and the gun ports etc. masked off, AK's Ochre paint was airbrushed over the model. I used my new Gaahleri for this and it works real nice with this paint, just over 50% diluted with water. 

 

 

The ochre was then masked off and black was sprayed onto the hull. Normally, I'd do this with the AK paint, but as I'm to a deadline, this was speeded up by using Games Workshop's 'Chaos Black' in a rattle can. I can also get an immediate even finish with a very slight sheen which helps me with further masking.

 

Back onto the bow, with these parts glued to the (as yet unfitted) V-frame assembly. This is then removed and the latrines fitted before being sprayed in the same black as the hull.

 

 

This is now finally glued to the hull and the catheads finally glued into position. 

 

The cathead knees are then fettled and glued into place.

 

...then the various bow rails are added.

 

 

I can now turn my attention towards the galleries and stern. The model is masked off and the various rails are airbrushed in ochre. It's far easier to mask the hull and then paint the rails than it is to do it the other way around. The 3D gallery drops and the roof trims are also painted.

 

LaserBak is used for the roof shingles. This is FAR superior to photo-etch as then can easily be cut and manipulated. Also note that the windows, frames and columns are now in situ. 

 

 

There's a reason I haven't added the wreath decor to the upper stern at this time. The gun port doors you see here are only there if you wish to model your Surprise with them closed. I don't intend doing that, and will show them open. As these will be removed, I didn't want to cause any fragility when I turn the hull upside down for copper. That decor will be added later. Some windows have been shown in the open position too. You have a choice here.

 

Here is the hull as it currently stands. 

 

More when I've done the coppering.

[James H]

@Pelk

 

Just for you! 😆

[Maid of the Mist]

Goodness me....

 

This reminds me that in the end I'm just a boy.  I still love bright colours, and that black and yellow contrast is sublime.  If I can figure out a workspace, this model is gonna be mine one day.

[chris watton]

Looking great in her colours, first time I have seen her like this, too, and I do like the way the engraved areas are still easily seen through the paint - I was worried it would not be seen...

 

And those PolyBak parts do look better, and easier to work with than the usual PE parts

Edited Sunday at 08:05 PM by chris watton

[kurtvd19]

Jim:

Looks great!

 

I always use an airbrush so the fine details can be seen and not hidden by thick paint.  Long ago I was very good with brushing paint onto my 1/25 scale cars but I lusted after an airbrush.  Got my first airbrush for Christmas when I was in 8th grade (1960).  I had a great uncle who modeled HO railroad stuff and his brass locomotives where my inspiration for airbrushing.  When HO scale rivets are not hidden under paint the results are great so I figured if I could paint my model cars using an airbrush my finishes would be much closer to scale thickness and would show the details others hid under paint.  Remember the time period I am referring to.

When I see people using brushed on paint today and if they ask my advice I tell them to get a decent airbrush and learn to use it.  Airbrushing can make such an improvement in the finish of the model.  But, one must practice like anything else and that seems to be something so many just can't seem to do.

 

Take care,

Kurt

[glbarlow]

It must take some serious masking to use an airbrush as you do. I guess I’ll have to be bold and give it a try with this model. I really detest coppering, after Vanguard I promised myself I’d never do it again, I may not have a choice with Surprise. 
 

At what point did you paint the gun ports?

Edited yesterday at 03:42 AM by glbarlow

[James H]

3 hours ago, glbarlow said:

At what point did you paint the gun ports?

Those were finished as soon as the black was sprayed and the whole model unmasked. 

[Pelk]

On 2/1/2026 at 9:15 AM, James H said:

@Pelk

 

Just for you! 😆

Haha! Thanks so much. I'm sure there are many others who are appreciative of the update. 

 

The paint is just beautiful. I wasn't imagining th hull under the wales to be black. I'm really excited to take the same approach. I totally agree with Maid of the Mist. The contrast between the yellow ochre and the black is just stunning. 

 

I have Vanguard's HMS Harpy and am yet to copper the hull, so it will be great to see how you approach the process. 

 

Thanks again, James. Outstanding work, along with the excellent commentary. As always, looking forward to the next update. 

[Thomass]

Hi Chris,
First of all, thank you for your amazing work, which brings joy and peace to the soul, and certainly to mine! 🙂 
I have a small request. 
Your philosophy of a precisely crafted model with all the details and very detailed instructions 
opens the door to building more complex models even for us amateurs. 
I have only built three ships (including Sherborne) and I would love to buy and build HMS Sphinx and HMS Surprice, but I can't. 
I'm worried about the rigging, which is usually not as detailed in the instructions as the hull. That's a shame. 
Maybe one or two more drawings would attract a lot of modelers like me. 😉

Edited 15 hours ago by Thomass

[James H]

7 minutes ago, Thomass said:

Hi Chris,
First of all, thank you for your amazing work, which brings joy and peace to the soul, and certainly to mine! 🙂 
I have a small request. 
Your philosophy of a precisely crafted model with all the details and very detailed instructions opens the door to building more complex models even for us amateurs. 
I have only built three ships (including Sherborne) and I would love to buy and build HMS Sphinx and HMS Surprice, but I can't. 
I'm worried about the rigging, which is usually not as detailed in the instructions as the hull. That's a shame. 
Maybe one or two more drawings would attract a lot of modelers like me. 😉

There are a whole range of rigging plans included. Everything is there that the modeller will need.

 

Also remember that this level of kit isn't aimed at those unfamiliar with large, complex models such as these. At this level, the modeller should be comfortable in completing such a vessel.

 

Remember that most kits don't include photo details of every rigging aspect. it's expected the modeller will have knowledge.

[Glenn-UK]

From my experience of all the Vanguard kits there is a wealth of information provided with regards to the rigging so I have never struggled to understand where all the threads go. The skill level is how we are able to action things like seizing blocks, belaying threads, etc. 

Edited 15 hours ago by Glenn-UK

[Thomass]

 

Ok, thank you.  I'll study hard then. 

[chris watton]

Rigging is never as bad as you first think. Most of the lines go to and through blocks that you have already attached to the various masts and yard, kind of like a 'rigging by numbers' - plus, as most rigging was standardised, if you have rigged one ship, it will probably be little different to another even larger ship, with the only major increases in rig being perhaps the mast shroud count, which means more ratlines to tie.

 

For Surprise, I have highlighted some sections of the rigging in red, which do not need to be done, but can if you want to fully rig her. So you will have a choice of how far you want to go (this is when the printers decide to mess up and print all my plans in black and white....)

[chris watton]

And here are both laser machines hard at work, the one has a Surprise 0.8mm sheet set on, and the other has the Surprise limewood decks - took literally 10 minutes ago..

Edited 12 hours ago by chris watton

[chris watton]

And here is that Surprise deck set complete! For a few, I am also cutting an upper deck with no openings, (the deck seen at the bottom) so just like a standard deck, in case anyone asks for it and they don't want to show the gun deck.

 

For one set, this takes just over an hour and 16 minutes - and this is just for one kit..

[mrcc]

Oh interesting… I am glad there is an option to order the kit with a standard deck without the openings showing the gun deck below. Do not know why but I just like the standard deck better.

 

Will definitely keep that in mind when I order my next kit which will definitely be a Vanguard kit!

[RolandR]

6 hours ago, James H said:

….

 

Remember that most kits don't include photo details of every rigging aspect. it's expected the modeller will have knowledge.

I was wondering, why the majority of builds fizzle out on this website, on others and on youtube after hull ist done. I was going through a lot of documented builds, to determined which model I will eventually buy after more practice and narrowed it down to 2, because rigging was well documented by the manufacturer and youtubers.

i believe, if a modeller needs 170 pages to build the hull, 3 pages of the finished rigging is not enough.

Why not document at least one of the 3 mast ship as a suggestion, if they are so similar and let the more experienced modeller figure out the difference.

Maybe as a novice I am completely wrong and I apologize for my suggestion. 

[chris watton]

1 hour ago, RolandR said:

I was wondering, why the majority of builds fizzle out on this website, on others and on youtube after hull ist done. I was going through a lot of documented builds, to determined which model I will eventually buy after more practice and narrowed it down to 2, because rigging was well documented by the manufacturer and youtubers.

i believe, if a modeller needs 170 pages to build the hull, 3 pages of the finished rigging is not enough.

Why not document at least one of the 3 mast ship as a suggestion, if they are so similar and let the more experienced modeller figure out the difference.

Maybe as a novice I am completely wrong and I apologize for my suggestion. 

There are no less than 10 A1 size plan sets dedicated to the masting and rig for Surprise, giving you all the dowel sizes, lengths, block positions etc, with the rigging plans broken down into 8 separate stages, so as not to overwhelm the modeller. So, they may not figure as much as the main hull in the manual, but they do in the plan sets, with half of the entire plan set dedicated to masts and rig - and less sheets for the hull, as this is featured much more in the actual manual. Plus, because the vast majority of parts are already marked where they go on the hull or decks, full size plans for the hull are not so important (but I still add them anyway - although not essential to).

 

ETA - here is the A1 plan sheet for just the foremast assembly, with no less that eight views of the lower mast, and 4 views each for the Topmast and Topgallant, all in 64th scale:

 

Edited 6 hours ago by chris watton

[glbarlow]

When it comes to rigg

1 hour ago, RolandR said:

Why not document at least one of the 3 mast ship as a suggestion, if they are so similar and let the more experienced modeller figure out the difference.

Written instructions would be of little value when it comes to rigging, they would be confusing at best. Even lessor kits turn to diagrams for rigging, often those are slammed into a few small, confusing, out of scale and hard to comprehend sheets. The difference for Vanguard models are the details, the accurate and complete labeling, and as Chris noted, multiple plan sheets breaking down each stage.
 

Folded to fit in the box these are large sheets, printed clearly with annotations and separate ‘zoomed in’ drawings for some of the more complex areas. They are in 1:128 scale, so you can measure and double the length to get an approximate length of rope needed (though add more to allow for seizing and belaying). It just doesn’t get any better than Vanguard, these plans are the instructions.

 

However as James noted Surprise isn’t the place to start, it will be a large and complex model.  Chris notes on his website the skill levels needed for each model. Take the time to learn on one of his simpler models. Our skills are additive, what you learn there keeps larger models from becoming overwhelming.

 

All that said, and as my UK Glenn friend points out, models don’t provide instruction on how to seize a block, belay a line, or for that matter plank a hull. I provided a little of this in my Cheerful log, as Glenn has done in his. Delf in his logs did it better than most, I’m sure many others have touched on it. However, models and build logs are not where you learn these basic skills. On this forum, and I’m sure on YouTube, there are specific tutorials for seizing blocks. In fact Chuck Pissaro has tutorials both for seizing blocks and planking a hull here on MSW. Heads up though, there is more than one way to do the same thing, pick one and stick with it.
 

I’d encourage you to search the forum, learn the basics, and start with an entry level Vanguard model. Please understand we have all been where you are, each one of us on this forum started knowing little. I’m on this Facebook forum for wood ship models. Some of them are atrocious and hard to look at. I’m constantly recommending Vanguard models and providing a link to Model Ship World. So you’ve already taken the first step, your’re here with access to the knowledge and resources this forum provides. 
 

FYI Chris, I’m not alone recommending Vanguard on this Facebook page, more and more people know who you are. I hope your US distributors are selling and maintaining stock.

 

Edited 6 hours ago by glbarlow

[palmerit]

1 hour ago, RolandR said:

Why not document at least one of the 3 mast ship as a suggestion, if they are so similar and let the more experienced modeller figure out the difference.

Maybe as a novice I am completely wrong and I apologize for my suggestion. 

I think the Sherbourne (novice) kits had some additional details on how to do things like the ratlines and a few other rigging details - details that might not show up on more challenging larger kits. If you haven’t built a Vanguard kit and just looked online at the manual you might think there is not much instruction on the rigging but as others said there are many many sheet plans and they are numbered in the order you would proceed. You want sheet plans because they are often to scale so you can measure the plans and then reproduce on the model. This wouldn’t work in the instruction manual. And Vanguard’s sheets (and instructions overall) are way more detailed than other kits. 
 

That said, I did supplement by watching YouTube videos (Olha Batchvarov, Modelkit Stuff, Curtis Wooden Shipyard), reading tutorials and detailed build logs. There are definitely levels to doing rigging. Some might be happy just using simple knots. I try to do seizings where can, but I am slow and unskilled at it, marveling at what experts can produce. Still learning. 

[mrcc]

I think what some of the beginner modelers are likely referencing (me an intermediate at best), are the lack of instructions on order of rigging, where to start, where to end in the "rigging journey".

Some of the old vintage kits have/had very little to no direction for the modeler on masting and then rigging.

 

A simple "build the masts" with regards to directions for the beginner can be perplexing.

 

I for one found the Mamoli plans and direction for rigging to be sparse but by studying, reviewing, looking over and over at where lines begin and end and anticipating what block(s), rings, hooks, etc. are at the beginning or end is the key. Now on my second Mamoli kit, the rigging instructions, limited that they may be, make perfect sense to me and I find them perfectly adequate whereas a "newbie" would definitely struggle.

 

Just my thoughts...

[palmerit]

Vanguard instructions often have guidelines in the written instructions on what order to do the rigging with some photos of various steps in the process, but point to the plans, which are numbered, for the recommended sequence of steps in doing the rigging. I think a general "how to use the plans" was something that took me a bit to figure out. It was actually helpful to see the Modelkit Stuff videos where Jason would say explicitly things like "now for the next steps we need to turn to the plans". At first, I thought the plans were merely a supplemental nicety. Most of the plans (after the plans showing things like the organization of parts on the wood sheets and the like) show - in order - what to do in terms of the final deck fittings, how to create the masts and yards off the model, and how to do the rigging on the model. While the instruction book might say "build the mast", as Chris showed in his post above, there are details on the plans of how the mast is to be constructed. I think the simpler (novice) kits do a bit more hand-holding on that than would be the case for more advanced models since presumably someone with some skill has gone down this road enough to know how to do it, they just need the plans to know where to do it.

 

I inherited a decades old Marine Models kits (of the Cutty Sark that I will likely never build because the materials are kind of garbage) that had a couple dense pages of writing and a few plans and nothing else. It was assumed that people could just take sticks and pieces and just build a model, like a home builder could build a house from a set of plans.

Edited 4 hours ago by palmerit

[mrcc]

Agreed... the other issue is that builds take so long and even though I have rigged a couple models, the time frames are so far between (I am a very slow builder), that a skill or sequence of skills need to be relearned.

 

It seems I definitely need to relearn a few skills again before tackling the rigging on my current build.

[James H]

36 minutes ago, mrcc said:

the other issue is that builds take so long

...'taint a a hobby if you hurry!

 

And in other news, here's a cabinet that's supplied for the cabin. I didn't use it due to space restraints, but you might be able to house it. Now....back on topic.

 

[AJohnson]

47 minutes ago, James H said:

...'taint a a hobby if you hurry!

 

And in other news, here's a cabinet that's supplied for the cabin. I didn't use it due to space restraints, but you might be able to house it. Now....back on topic.

 

 

Thant looks fabulous Jim!  I can imagine it full of Dr. Maturin's specimens and poor Aubrey's maps & charts dumped in his cot! 😆

[Gregory]

4 hours ago, RolandR said:

Why not document at least one of the 3 mast ship as a suggestion, if they are so similar and let the more experienced modeller figure out the difference.

Here is a page from The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, 1625-1860 by James Lees.

 

How much of this would be reasonable to include in a model ship kit?  What good would just one line out of hundreds be, if you didn't include all of them?

There are many good illustrations, but no clear description of how to serve, seize strop etc.

With the information above, you can accurately model the lifts on any English ship of war for the periods listed.  You will also be good for any merchant ship that followed standard practice.

Now, all you need are the rope and block sizes.   Lees has those also.  Blocks are determined by the size of the rope.

Here is a really good resource from Chuck Passaro and the Syren Ship Model Co.   Guide on how to strop blocks
Another great rigging resource is Rigging Period Ship Models: A Step-By-Step Guide to the Intricacies of Square-Rig

It has a drawing like this for every line you will find on any 18th century square rigged ship.

 

If Chris provides rigging information for Surprise,  I can guarantee that he does not have a book called " How to Rig the HMS Surprise ".

There are no such references for any named ship.

His information came from sources like Lees, which are a must have for anyone who wants to model the rigging of a sailing ship with a reasonable amount of accuracy.

 

 

 

[James H]

Suffice to say there is PLENTY of information on rigging this ship, and without a doubt MORE than supplied with any other contemporary manufacturer. 
 

This is a discussion for another topic though, and not a build log