HMS Victory by shihawk - FINISHED - Billing Boats - 1:75

[shihawk]

 hi Mike  

I have seen several methods of seizing demonstrated but  be prepared for one of the most hi-tec yet . I think i will call it the "finger and thumb" method .

 

the clip holds the shroud at the correct length 

secure the deadeye in another clip or vice of some kind and make sure the loop is even around the deadeye 

prepare your seizing thread 

and grip the now four threads tightly between finger and thumb 

firmly run your thread around the tip of your finger and after twice around slip your fingers back slightly to leave room to continue the seizing 

Once you have the required number of turns finish the seizing in the usual way , i normally pull the slack by hand and then finish pulling with pliers ,for better grip 

snip the ends of and i don,t normally bother with glue and they seem to hold 

As i said earlier there are several methods some of which i have tried but this works for me and is simple with no set up time and although went  wrong sometimes i now can tie them without thinking . 

Hope this helps ,sometimes the easy way is best .

 I had to get my son to take the pics with his new phone ,even better quality than the usual i-pad ones ,might try and use it from now on? 

 

[Mike Dowling]

Excellent demonstration my friend and very much what I had finally come up with. Now, this is fine for the 'free end' on the desk as it were but, how on earth do you manage that with the other end which is dangling from the mast ?

[Mike Dowling]

Maybe I am just being a 'plank' about all this but, while we are here, what do you do with the ends of the lanyards ? I know the final end raps round the shroud but what about the other end ?

I am sure I am not the only one with problems about these beasties !

[dgbot]

You are doing an incredible job with a bad kit. Making a silk purse out of a pigs ear.  Most Vics I have seen have been painted you are doing a fine job going natural keep having fun.

David B

[shihawk]

Thanks David ,i hope it will all be worth it .

 

Mike  I,m not sure how you fit your shrouds but i measure them on the ship first then remove them to attach the deadeyes . 

i fit the lanyards by tying a double knot ,a spot of ca to harden and then feed through trom left to right 

 

 

 

[Mike Dowling]

OK matey, I get the picture ! Your scheme is fine as long as you have room to get one deadeye through the lubbers hole!!! I think to be honest, having had another look at my Bounty, that I am going to go back to my original 'twist and glue' method. It may not be politically correct but it works for me and in the end, by the time you have secured the final end of the lanyards by wrapping round, no-one except the perfectionists out there would know the difference !!!

 

None the less I am very grateful for your efforts and I am quite sure it will be very useful to other members who are more PC than I.

 

You have become far more of an expert than I, even if you profess to being a beginner. I would remind all budding boat builders out there that paddle steamers and stage coaches do not have any significant rigging to worry about !!!

 

You are an absolute Gent Boyd for your assistance, I just have to accept that you are a better model ship builder than I.

[Mike Dowling]

PS. What is the book you are using for reference ? The diagrams look good !

[shihawk]

Mike

 

I,m always glad to help in any way as others have helped me even without knowing it . I thank you for your interest as i know i don,t always explain my methods well ,mainly cause they don,t always work !!!!  I left the top of my mast clear so i can slip the finished  shrouds on and off easily, it would certainly be more difficult to tie the deadeyes with the shrouds fixed   .I think thats where we differ .

The book i took the diagram from is the Period ship Handbook by Keith Julier ,I bought it because it has an accessment on the CC Victory kit and a step by step guide to building it . To be honest it was not much use to me as the Billings kit is very different . A book i would recomend is Ship Modeling Simplified by Frank Mastini , deals with most aspects of model building rather than individual kits.  

[Mike Dowling]

Don't despair, you have and do help a great deal. Many thanks about the book, I will have a look for that.

[clearway]

Havn't logged in for a while- you have been a busy bunny Boyd -looking great as always m8.

 

Keith

[donrobinson]

Just finished reading your log, this is a great build, I also like natural wood colours so find this build of particular interest.

[shihawk]

Keith , don,t know about the busy , still waiting for the winter to start when i get more build time ,maybe this week ?

 

Don, glad to have your interest , there are no rules on this one ,some parts authentic but most pure fiction !!!!

[shihawk]

After trying several variations which included served futtock shrouds ,black futtock shrouds with white seizing and the other way round ,attached with hooks and without hooks i finally settled for a fairly simple method which was within my abilities  . the ratlines are tied with a  clove hitch i found the overhand knot difficult to keep tight , and although not perfect i will have to be content

 

 

I used 2 4mm strips cliped together to roughly measure the spacing 

 

 

Been trying to work out how to finish the mast top , getting there but is still ongoing 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mike Dowling]

I have been doing ratlines today as well - it is just such a joy don't you find !!!!

[shihawk]

    Mike   ,   I do  a few then leave it for a while and it,s not so bad.       What you workin on now ?? 

[Mike Dowling]

Yes, easy stages and you get there in the end !! I am still working on my Santisima Trinidad cross section. Not the most rewarding model I have done but it is helping me practice my rigging skills - or lack thereof !! Still haven't decided on my next creation but I am beginning to think the Victory is a bit too clever for me. I don't have all the wonderful tools you have collected to bail me out of problems. I don't know about you but if I get too many problems I stop enjoying it all and after all that is not the idea. I will never be a master scratchbuilder like Danny but enjoyment is the most important thing. I can still enjoy other peoples wonderful models as long as I enjoy what I am doing.

 

Your ratlines by the way look terrific.

[GLakie]

Rat-lines look great Boyd! 

[shihawk]

Tks George , i,m hoping they will get better with practice .

 

Mike ,It is hard to keep the motivation going at times and i have fought the urge a few times to start another project but am afraid i won,t finish the Vic if i do , I,m beginning to understand why some people keep 2 or 3 builds going at once . As for the tools , they are not really necessary and in fact the mill and table saw have hardly been used although i,m hoping they will be usefull in the future , at least thats what i keep telling myself .There is no tool for tying ratlines ????   Deciding the next build is a common problem . some days i,m convinced i,ll start a scratch build and then i think a small straight from the box build would be a lot less hassel ,The only thing i,m faily sure is my next build will be smaller in size and bigger in scale ,1:60   or maybe even 1:40  so at least i have narrowed it down a bit !!!  It,s a  case of an easy build and getting bored or a challange and getting frustrated ,which is the most enjoyable ????

[shihawk]

Can,t believe it,s been 3 weeks since my last post but i have as usual been tryng numerous variations in an effort to please my now worrying desire to achive the possibly unachievable .So i have decided to try to describe my failed attempts which may save others precious time and keep a record for my own future use .I had been looking forward to starting the rigging and had many ideas in my head as to how i would accomplish the look i was after . Little did i know !!!! .Forgive me if some ideas sound like the wanderings of a complete novice but after all thats what i am and what i finish up with may seem obvious to many as it now does to me ???

 I,ll start with the mainstays .  Apparently they are served to just below the mouse ,.My first snag was forming an eye in a served rope that looked realistic .The normal seized end just didn,t look right so i reckoned the joint needed to be spliced and then served , easier said than done ,by me anyway ,On the thiner ropes i found it easier to to form the eye unserved and only serve from that to the mouse . On the mainstays i served close to the eye and then finished by splicing and finishing the serving of the eye by hand , tedious but the only way i could manage it  ,just about acceptable ?

 

 

Next was worming the mainstays ,in the first pic i wormed it completely with 3 runs of black thread but later decided that it looked too much so in the next pic the finished version only has 1 run of black thread and IMO is enough to highlite it without overdoing it .I briefly attempted the weaving between the 2 stays but soon decided it wasn,t worth it .

 

 

Next was the shrouds , . I left the finishing of the top of the masts untill later which ment i could measure and fit the shrouds for the deadeyes and then remove them to fit the deadeyes and their seizing of ship.Care should be taken to make sure that the loop on the shrouds is a tight fit on the mast to ensure it sits correctly when tightened , first pic shows them too loose and the second how they should IMO look .

 

 

 

Unfortunately i had gone to far before i realised how it looked so i will have to live with it

.I didn,t fit hooks to the futtock shrouds on the mizzen as i thought they looked to bulky but ran into problems fixing them to the main shrouds as i was trying to attach them and the catherpins to the staves with as few knots as possible plus the seizings look oversized 

 

will have to be redone !!!

 

 

Moved to the mainmast and decided to fit the hooks and again the serving plus seizing looked out of scale so after several variations i finally came up with sensible and now obvious solution 

 

with a bit of measuring and marking i simply one end of the thread with the other end leaving no bulky seizing and a smooth run from hook to thread . It,s difficult to simulate seizing without it looking to large

 

 

Again i had problems keeping the tension correct so rethinking the futtock shrouds to the main shrouds ,this may also have to be redone !!!

 

The plan now is to serve the futtock shroud  as before and clip of the end used for serving then with a needle pull it through the main shroud and seize with very fine thread 

 

 

 

the stave holding the catherpins will be attached later . Thats enough giberish for tonite ,i will let you know if it works later . 

 

 

 

 

 

[GLakie]

 

So i have decided to try to describe my failed attempts which may save others precious time and keep a record for my own future use .I had been looking forward to starting the rigging and had many ideas in my head as to how i would accomplish the look i was after . Little did i know !!!! .Forgive me if some ideas sound like the wanderings of a complete novice but after all thats what i am and what i finish up with may seem obvious to many as it now does to me ???

To your credit Boyd, I think the process and methods you're using are serving you well, and the end results are there to show for it.   Novice? H*ll you say! 

[shihawk]

George ,if you seen the amount of thread i have wasted you would know what i mean and there is still a lot to redo . i,m glad i have decided to stick with the Half rigging thingy other wise i would be taking another year at this build ,and i don,t think i could do that but i hope now i have got my head half way round the rigging the end is in sight 

[GuntherMT]

It looks good, but would a stay ever be wormed without being then parceled and served?  I thought worming was just the first step of the process?

[shihawk]

Brian ,thanks for looking in . I may well be wrong but i think Longbridge stated that the entire stay was wormed but only parceled and served to just below the mouse . I am only using this as guidance and to be honest at this stage as long as it looks to my pleasing i,m happy ,so much else has been either changed or left of completely that authenticity is a thing of the past . Anyway why bother worming or even parceling to serve over it and hide it ?

[GuntherMT]

I have no idea why a modeler would do that, but then many people build stuff into the lower decks that will never again see the light of day either!

 

My understanding of worming is that it was done to fill in the ****-lines of the large ropes that were to be served, making them a more 'round' shape prior to the parceling and serving.  I personally wouldn't do worming or parceling of a rope I was going to serve on a model, because I agree with you on the 'why?' on that.

 

If you have documentation that it was don on the Victory this way, then I've learned something new today.  I'm still quite new to the hobby, so I have a great deal to learn, which is why I asked the question in the first place, as my understanding of worming was that it would never actually be visible.

 

Thanks for your response, take care, and keep on keeping on!

[shihawk]

Brian ,you put doubt in my mind so i rechecked as there were so many different discriptions of different stays . All i can say is tell a lie ,told a lie .  Other possibility is  i took the wrong meaning ,quite possible ???

 

 

 

[GuntherMT]

Very interesting, thanks!

[shihawk]

Hi John ,good to hear from you again . Yes the end is in sight and i can,t say i,m sorry . I have reached that stage where i can,t wait to start something different ,I am cheating and only going as far as the first stage of the masts to speed things up and cut down on the display case .In fact i ordered my next build, Santa Maria from Dusek which may sound like a step backwards but i fancy something small and hopefully quick to build this time , i am also  however considering one of the cross section scratch builds from this site just in case i get bored over the winter . I assume as usual you have many and varied projects on the go at present , i,m still not sure if i could manage any more than one at a time ?  The hooks are from Amati Futtock strop & hook 3mm set and the smallest i could find locally .

 

Cheers Boyd 

[shihawk]

Rigging continues but hopefully now that i have figured out the basics it won,t take much longer to finish it .As you will see from the pics only the ratlines on the foremast need doing but have thought on another idea for fixing the futtock shrouds etc and will go into more detail if it works ????

 

 

 

 

Have been distracted lately and could not resist Daniel Dusek christmas offer so bought a Santa Maria and a couple of longboats . I still intend to finish the Vic before i start another build but as the longboat is an add on to it i reckoned it would be a change from the rigging 

 

 

What you get for £3.00 

 

 

 

It,s  a kit on its own and so far everthing fits well . at this price scratch building would not make sense , but time will tell .

[Seventynet]

Absolutely beautiful job Boyd. Please keep the pictures coming.

Ian

[GLakie]

The rigging's looking splendid Boyd, and a nice longboat kit you have there.