HMS Fly by Martin W - Amati/Victory Models - 1/64

[Dfell]

Martin - you are certainly making life difficult for yourself but it’s all looking good. 

 

Regards

 

Doug

[Martin W]

Ha ha!  Thanks, Doug.  The difficulties might also be thought of as intriguing questions, like, hmm, can I do this?

 

Thanks for checking in.

 

Martin

[rlb]

Martin,

 

I'm just catching up on all you've done on Fly the last few years.  Great job!

 

Ron

[Martin W]

Thanks, Ron, glad to have you check in.  Seeing the attention to detail you put into your Oneida has always inspired me.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[Martin W]

So, it's been some four months since I updated here.  Well, I have been working at it, but, in my usual fashion, which mostly means making a piece, scrapping it, making it again, realizing it was even worse than the first version, and so on.  My problem in this case had to do with the fact that the lower quarter piece had the size & shape restriction, it needed to support the upper quarter piece, and at the same time it needed to allow the upper piece to stand slightly away from the bulwark.

 

I decided to follow the pattern I showed above of the Kraken/Squid/Monster, and to make it pretty much of a round carving instead of a relief.  The latter option prevented me from showing any detail at all, and it caused problems with the requirement of supporting the upper quarter piece.

 

At some point, after carving a fair version and working out a few ideas, I realized the trailing legs needed to look interesting from three different angles, which meant that I had to make each leg look separate from the others, without losing any strength.  Carving that detail -- of the separate trailing legs -- took a surprising amount of time for the simple reason that they kept breaking, so I had to start over.

 

So here's the result:

 

First straight on of the Stern in its entirety.

 

 

And next is the view from starboard:

 

And the same from slightly forward, to show the separation of the trailing legs:

 

 

The very tail of the legs revert to a kind of relief, and that's because the tips of the legs broke off too many times to leave them as a round carving.  I'm hoping that after I apply the poly that will be less obvious.

 

Next is starboard from below:

 

This image might be a bit confusing, but what you're seeing is the head of the dogfish that twirls around the Triton's legs (its eye is mostly what you see), and below that is the Kraken/Squid's lower jaw and trailing legs.  So, here you can see the separation of the legs.

 

And next is the Port version:

 

And with this, you can see how far the upper quarter piece stands out from the bulwark of the stern:

 

 

As for the fastening:  I used 2 pins, one connecting the Triton's head to the tafferal, and another connecting the Kraken/Squid's head just below the horns. 

 

And in shaping the lower piece, I tapered it on the outer surface so that the outboard side of the mouth is the farthest distance from the bulwark and the outboard side of the tip of the trailing legs the closest; and I tapered the inner, gluing surface just the opposite way, with the trailing legs close and the mouth far.  In that way, the gluing surface of the inside surface of the Kraken/Squid remains flat but angles the entire carving outward.  And even though I think the Kraken/Squid's "head" (they don't really have heads, after all) is a touch large, I am reasonably satisfied with the appearance of Curvaceous Baroque Ornamentation and delicacy/bizarreness.

 

There's a covering board that goes over the tafferal, followed by the rail running along the tops of the turret mounts (forget the name).  And those are up next, before I take on the challenge of the quarter badge.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[Blue Ensign]

Good to have news from the prairies Martin and pleased to see that you are still chipping away.

I couldn't come close to producing those figures within the size constraints you have to work.

 

Keep at it.

 

B.E.

[GrandpaPhil]

Nicely done!

[Martin W]

Thanks for checking in, GrandpaPhil -- what are you working on?

 

Having taken the stern decorations about as far as I can, and then finishing off a few other details, I think it's time to turn to the Quarter Badge, something I feel a bit intimidated by.   I've looked over as many builds as I can think of, and I'm pretty well torn over whether to try the slightly rounded version or to take the safer route and put flat badges on.  It's pretty much impossible to tell if the NMM plans show a rounded or flat badge for the Fly, so either way would stand an equal chance of being historically accurate.  FFM notes usefully that even the rounded version should not extend outward any farther than the quarter pieces, which on my build would limit it to 3/8 inch.  With the decorations, that would be essentially flat.

 

Here's a tracing from the NMM plans to show the rough placement of the badge (I've actually placed this much too high):

 

 

This tracing doesn't show the decorations, just the general outline. 

 

I'm leaning toward the flat version.  And that then raises the question of whether to cut out the pieces and then apply carved decorations, or to cut the pieces from thicker stock and carve the decorations into them  (I'm also thinking that Plain is Good).  There's also the question (perhaps a bigger question) of the three lights:  there's only one window cut into the hull here, and because of the furnishings in the Captain's Cabin I can't cut any more.  So I'd have to simulate lights with black paper or something.

 

Any suggestions or guidance would be more than welcome!!

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[GrandpaPhil]

I am in the final stages of the Prince de Neufchatel.

 

You did an excellent job of the stern.  How ever you decide to make the quarter galleries, I don’t think that you’ll have any difficulty.

Edited June 11, 2019 by GrandpaPhil

[tlevine]

Your model is too good to put on a flat decoration instead of a quarter gallery.  I compared the quarter gallery on Fly with Atalanta.  The only differences are the details of the carvings and the angle of the center bank of windows.  I assume you have TFFM Vol.2.  Follow David's instructions and you should be fine.  Also, take a look at Bill Maxwell's Fly on the Admiralty Models site.  It gives a good perspective of the depth of the structure.

[Landlubber Mike]

Hey Martin, your Fly looks fantastic!  For what it’s worth, I would go with a more rounded quarter badge.  I just personally prefer that look to a flat one.  Also, it seems with all the enhancements you made to the stern, a flat quarter badge would look out of place.  If you had done the stern with the built up kit PE pieces, then the flat quarter badge would give a consistent look.  With a more rounded stern, I’d think a more rounded quarter badge would look better.

 

All that said, a rounded quarter badge will take a lot more work.  I started building the pieces for my Pegasus, but got a little stuck trying to figure out how to do the top part and incorporate the two dogfish design.  But I have faith in you - if you can do the stern as great as you did, the quarter badge will be no sweat for you.

[flyer]

Hi Martin

 

Great work!

 

I hate to say it but I would go with a rounded side badge. As I understand both versions exist in contemporary sources but for me the 3 windows panel setup only makes real sense if you build a small, conservatory like glass house to give the skipper some forward view from his cabin...

 

Cheers

Peter

[Martin W]

Hi Folks -- Thanks for all the kind words and for the encouragement.  You're a great bunch, and I have to say that you've convinced me to have a try at the rounded version.  And let me say further that the reason is that I know each of you understands first hand what it means to test your skills.

 

Peter -- Your logic of giving the skipper a view makes absolute sense.  It's one of those insights that seem perfectly obvious when someone points them out.  Cheers.

 

Mike -- I'm right there with you:  it's the angle of the whole design, and lack of actual symmetry that has had me biting my lip.  But I think if I keep the decorations to a minimum, a bare minimum, maybe even just the glimmer of a thought, I could work out the curves and angles.  The key, I think, will be lining it all up with the angle of the stern.  (Gulp.)

 

Toni  -- Your advice seems sound, and couched in such generous is irrefutable.  I do have FFM 2, and have used it to shape the (first version) of the lower stool on the starboard side.  Holding it in place helps me see that even at a light 3/8" it could be a bit too proud.  I think I might do a mock-up off-ship and see how it looks in terms of scale, integrations, and so on.

 

Grandpa Phil -- The Prince will always hold a special place in my heart, because it was my first build.  And, OH! the fits it gave me.  But it's also what led me to MSW, so it was all good.

 

The bad news is that the weather here in Oklahoma has been strangely pleasant (apart from the minor detail of 3 floods in 2 weeks).  So, it's been a bit hard to confine myself in the windowless boatyard (which doubles as a safe room and beer storage).  But the Quarter Gallery has become a problem to be solved, so I'll be thinking of it at the very least even while I'm outside wondering if this could really be June on the Prairie.

 

Cheers to all, and I'll post regular updates of my various efforts.

 

Martin

[Martin W]

Hello Everybody -- This isn't an update, but rather a question.  As I work on the quarter badges, I wonder about how the windows are going to look.  The hole I cut way back when for the window is far too small, and rectangular, to fill out the 3 lights.  I'm thinking of painting the area covered by the quarter badge black, so that the lights won't show the boxwood/castello planking.  Any thought, recommendations?

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[Dwight]

Martin , this may be way too late but the best way I've found to make windows look real is to spray one side with " Dull Coat ". I don't remember who makes it but I find it at Hobby Lobby. The side you spray becomes the inside of the window and gives them a slightly used look. I figure on a ship plying the seas the windows would be pretty cloudy about an hour after launch.

[flyer]

Hi Martin

As far as I understand were those window openings in the hull constructed in a similar way to the gun ports - in this case about the size of the middle field of the 'glass case'. Wider openings would unnecessarily weaken the structure and deprive protection against enemy gun shots. To use the glass case for a view forward or aft you would have to put your head through the opening. For me, those openings visible in post 471 seem about right.

On my models I try to open all windows through the hull. You may not always note the difference to a just black painted hull but for me a real opening just feels better.

Cheers

Peter

[Blue Ensign]

I would agree with Peter, the rectangular shape of the light is a per the Swan drawings and other examples I have seen. It would be quite authentic to see boards behind the  glass panels. These features were more ornamentation than practical purpose, and even on larger vessels with quarter galleries, some of the lights were dummies, there for purely aesthetic reasons, and sometimes blanked out for privacy.

 

B.E.

[Martin W]

Thanks for the input, guys.  I hadn't thought at all that it would be proper for the planking to be visible, but what you say certainly makes sense, especially for a 6th rate.

 

And thanks, Dwight for the suggestion of Dull Coat.  I'm definitely going to check it out.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[SkipW]

Hi Martin -  Looks great.  I see your struggling with some of the same issues I had, When to Do What, or conversely What to do When!  Good luck on the carving, that's really ambitious. I look at some of these books of museum models and carvings are exquisite.  I've never had any luck carving stuff.  I don't think I'll start now.

[Mirabell61]

lovely pictures of the stern Martin,

Well done those little figurines look swell  

 

Nils

[Martin W]

Thanks for checking in Skip and Nils, and thanks for the nice words.  Nils, everytime I check out your work, I get inspired to pay more heed to details, and maybe even figure out some innovative solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems.

 

Skip -- the question of what to do when seems to arise every time I sit at the workbench.  I've mostly been following the sequence laid out in FFM, but skipping a chapter here and there has led me to make a list of every thing I still have to do.  As for carving, really, if your tools are sharp, and you're patient, you can surprise yourself.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[Martin W]

Following everyone's advice  and encouragement, I embarked on the quarter badges, and have effectively completed them.

 

I began by figuring out the placement, setting a tracing from the NMM plans where the badge would go.

 

With that, I cut the pieces, again using tracings from the plans:

 

 

In hindsight, I would have saved myself lots of headaches if I'd made the Upper Finishing first, and then cut the Upper Stool to fit it, rather than vice versa.  Getting a tight fit between the stool & the finishing took half a dozen tries, because any deviation along the depth of the bell portion set the Finishing askew.

 

At any rate, after getting the upper & lower stools in place, the next step was the munions and lights:

 

 

Next I cut out the stools, once again by tracing the shape from the plans then gluing the tracing onto the stock and cutting it with the jeweller's saw (I gave away my scroll saw about 6 weeks ago and then came across an intriguing carving project that made me want it back  ).  Here you can see that I've glued the piece to a backing board that I used to shape it with chisels and files:

 

 

In the end, this is where I ended up (this photo is of the port version, since it's the one I've actually finished):

 

 

As for the decorations, well, I tried afixing some ribs in various configurations, but they all looked too big and clumsy.  So I'm going plain here, even, at least for now, leaving off the decorative scrolls that go on either side.

 

There's also the problem that I lost the pieces of the  molded rail that I pulled off, and the scraper that I used to cut the molding broke.  The chances of making another scraper that will fit the pattern at least closely are slim, but I'll give it a go.

 

Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to take on the challenge of this piece.  I learned quite a bit from doing it.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

 

 

 

 

[flyer]

Well Martin, it seems you definitely took another plunge - this time past the boundary separating 'normal' modellers from those practising the dark arts of scratch building. Wonderful work.

 

Your Granado is going to be a unique piece of art. 👍

 

Cheers

Peter  

[Martin W]

Very kind words, Peter, thanks.  I have to confess that my long term goal (very long) is to do a scratch build.  I haven't quite gotten myself accustomed to retirement sufficiently to spend more than an hour or two in the boatyard, however, so I'm still a very slow builder.  This build is already well over 5 years long, so an actual scratch project would probably take me into the next world. 

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[Martin W]

To make the binnacle, I decided to use some scraps from the cherry I'm building a tool chest out of.  I basically followed the design in FFM, but chose to put legs on because they make sense in wet environment.  I also put in 2 drawers, because you can never have too many maps on hand:

 

 

As you can probably guess by looking, when I set it on the Quarter Deck, it proved to be much too big.  So I made another, smaller version:

 

 

Hmm, I didn't realize how bad the focus was, sorry.  The reason there's a bit of a lean on the smaller version is that the legs have been adjusted to fit the slope of the deck.

 

Next up, I've decided to work on the figure head.  So far I've gotten through the roughest bosting-in stage where I just work out the different levels:

 

 

Obviously there's a long way to go, and as with every other carving I find that all my tools are too, too big for such fine work.  Mrs W has been dragging me off on various "pleasure" trips (the furthest I like going is out to my workshop), but I think there's a brief respite ahead, so I hope to move with some dispatch.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[Martin W]

Hi Brian -- thanks for the kind words.  And thanks to everyone for the Likes.

 

Brian, I have actually gone back and added glazing to the various windows, using a product called Micro Kristal Klear.  I'm about halfway pleased with it, since it does dry clear and glass like, but as glazing it's uneven.  Maybe that's due to my own inexperience with it, or with the size of the individual lights that I had to fill in.

 

Sorry to see that you've put down your tools.  My outside shop is also unheated, and un-air-conditioned (which matters more here in Oklahoma).  I found a small and supposedly efficient heater last winter, but by the time I installed it, the winter (always brief yet severe here) had passed.  I'm hoping this winter it will warm the shop up enough that my tools don't feel like ice-cicles every time I touch them.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[Martin W]

Hello Everybody, and Happy New Year!

 

Checking the log I keep for myself in the boatyard, I see that it was 3 October that I started work on the Figurehead.  I proceeded in a somewhat methodical fashion, but suffered several setbacks that made this little project longer and more involved than I'd expected, even for such a slow worker like me.

 

One setback is that the Coolpix I've had for only about 9 years, and that replaced the old Nikkormat I bought in 1971 stopped working with any reliability.  My sister and wife pressured me last summer into buying a smart phone, and I have just this morning figured out how to upload pictures from it to my laptop.  Pictures of the steps in carving and the mishaps don't exist, I'm afraid, so I'll rely on verbal narrative.

 

I began by working out a clay model that helped me understand the basic design issues.  Setback #1 came when I wanted to study that model for some detail, and found it completely squished under the glue bottle.  By that point, I was committed to the carving, so I didn't bother with resurrecting the flattened clay version.

 

I decided to try carving in cherry rather than my usual boxwood (castello), just for a switch.  One consequence is that the grain of the cherry is more obvious in the final carving than the boxwood's would have been, and it made the overall piece more fragile.  I oriented the grain lengthwise, but still suffered two major breaks.  The first was when the entire right arm (on the starboard side) broke at the shoulder.  That was early enough that I could glue it back into place, and then follow the Roman technique of supporting the thin piece of the arm through connections with the body, one at the shoulder, of course, and one at the wrist.

 

The second break came with the foot on the same side, because the back-bent angle of the legs meant that the calves and ankles were cross-grained.  I left the feet outlined only as "boots" since any more detail would have led to more breaks.  And when I glued the foot back on, it broke again almost immediately, so I've left it off until I put the figurehead permanently into place.

 

So here are some views from different angles:

 

 

The pointing arm on the port side, I carved separately, and then pinned on.  It's a bit larger than the right arm, because I had to allow room for the hand and fingers.

 

 

 

And here, by way of contrast, is the kit-supplied figurehead:

 

 

Oddly, this version looks decidedly feminine, in contrast to the masculine Mercury figure of the plans (and in FFM).  Her arm -- and the one on the plans -- is raised more vertically than mine.  And in the plans (and FFM) Mercury is pointing a single finger upward.  That struck me as slightly offensive, so I had my Mercury pointing the way Onward.

 

I'll add a few coats of wipe-on poly, then store it away, with the detached foot, until the whole ship is done.

 

I'm unsure what to do next, since I don't really want to add any fragile details for a while.  Mrs W & I plan on pulling up stakes here on the prairie and establishing our retirement home in some cooler region.  I have no idea how to move a ship model, and have already begun to dread the damage I'll inflict on this one and my other two.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[Landlubber Mike]

Hey Martin, happy new year to you!  Nice job on the figurehead!  Looks great 👍. I’m thinking of carving the Pegasus on my Swan class eventually - hopefully a lot easier than carving a person.

[tlevine]

The figure head looks great.  As far as moving the model, I took Atalanta from Chicago to Las Vegas and back for the 2018 Conference without any mishaps.  Here is my suggestion...  Make a building board which is a few inches wider and longer than the model.  Take a look at mine for an example.  Drill holes on either side and run wire through the holes and over the top rail (after protecting with with a towel).  Tighten the wire and you're done.  

[flyer]

Hi Martin

 

Despite any shortcomings you may see, the new figure head is a great improvement.

 

If you really are looking for a cooler region to live, could I perhaps propose this?:

 

Hope this is cool enough. Ok, the lake isn't even fully frozen but it's still a few weeks to go until you reach the lowest temperatures. Every February there are horse races on the lake - no Pegasuses or seahorses allowed, so the lake must be frozen.

(Over the holydays I was going to hike a bit in the snowy mountains but  got a severe cold the first day and was reduced to stroll among the tourists at St Moritz.)

 

A very happy new year to you (and everybody here)!

 

Peter

 

 

Edited January 3, 2020 by flyer