HMS Vanguard by RMC - FINISHED - Amati/Victory Models - scale 1:72

[aliluke]

Big time! Now we can give you a really hard time about your work . Brian thsi should be pinned somewhere.

[RMC]

After all this I  have now discovered to my profound relief, that the program that enabled editing of photos taken on my old Olympus camera also works for my new Nikon. I suspect my wife will be even more pleased.

 

Brian: Alistair is right.  Your Paint manual is really valuable and should be made widely available. All the best and thanks again.

 

Bob

[RMC]

I am doing the tree nailing of the main deck, and a question has occurred to me: are tree nails put into margin planks? I have looked at a number of builds and from what I can see no one has put them in. Moreover, Julian, in one of his books which shows deck planking, does not show tree nails in the margin planks. If there are none, how are the planks held down?

[Beef Wellington]

Bob, I would think its pretty safe to say there must have been treenailing for all the reasons you describe.  I had found the diagram below on the usual trawl for images, hope this is helpful.  The interesting part is that the treenailing is much more extensive (as would perhaps be expected) because of the additional framing beneath the edge of the deck.

 

[RMC]

Thanks Jason. It's exactly what I what I wanted.  I'm getting rather sick of drilling (more) little holes though. Just to break the tedium, I'm finishing a few bits of deck furniture still to do.

 

When I have finally finished the holes I'll fill them with some sawdust from some dark walnut and hope that looks the part.

 

Incidentally, I was in Connecticut a couple of weeks ago.  It's a beautiful part of the world, particularly at this time of year.

 

Thanks again

 

Bob

Edited October 22, 2014 by RMC

[RMC]

I have now laid the margin planks having first drilled th holes to simulate treenails.

 

I decided to use some dark walnut sawdust to fill the holes.

 

 

I then coated the plank with polyurethane

 

 

Here are the results.  I think the dark filling is a little too dark, but there''s not much I can do about it  now. Much of this planking will be obscured so it's not all that much of a problem.  When I get around to filling the holes in the remaining planks I will choose something a bit lighter.

 

 

 

 

In laying the decking and for other fiddly gluing jobs, a hypodermic needle (point ground off) is ideal.  I have also dry fitted the black assemblies (whatever they are) in the following photo.  Putting it together so that everything is square proved to be moderately difficult, and I am not looking forward to putting the other similar structures together. I have looked at Arthur's (AEW) log where he described the process and it appears quite daunting.

 

Edited October 26, 2014 by RMC

[aliluke]

Nice work Bob.

 

I just used a wood paste for the tree nails and mixed it up so that it was about the same colour as the deck. It makes them almost disappear but was an easy exercise - smear it on and scrape/sand it off.

[RMC]

Do you mean a commercial woodfiller Alistair?

[aliluke]

Yep. Just dumb old commercial wood filler - the brand is Wattyl. As my deck was holly and very pale I went for the palest waterborne wood filler "Pine" and then diluted it with "Neutral" to make it even paler. The treenails completely disappear. What a lot of work for no outcome...but if you look closely you can see them, from above they can't be seen. I stuffed up the quarter deck though by mixing up my micro drill bits and making the holes too big. As it weathers, this difference won't be noticed at the end of the build (I hope).

[RMC]

Aaahh.  Oddly enough I have just been experimenting with some Wattyl pine I have had lurking with intent.  I have also mixed it with a bit of walnut filler which still produced too dark a result - as well it would have been difficult to make mixes of consistent colour.

 

Then again I didn't realise that the treenails were supposed to be quite unobtrusive until I looked up 'treenails' in the planking forum  (which I should have done in the first place) so I'll go with the straight pine which is just noticeable.  It seems a pity to go to the effort of drilling all those wretched holes for them not be noticed at all.

[GuntherMT]

 

 

Then again I didn't realise that the treenails were supposed to be quite unobtrusive until I looked up 'treenails' in the planking forum  (which I should have done in the first place) so I'll go with the straight pine which is just noticeable.  It seems a pity to go to the effort of drilling all those wretched holes for them not be noticed at all.

 

Someone posted some photo's somewhere in these logs last week of a picture of treenails on the deck of a real ship that currently exists, and those treenails are quite apparent, they don't blend in at all well, so I think there is quite some variation on how visible they might be, and that means you can make a reasonable argument that your visible treenails are also authentic if you choose to make them more obvious.

[RMC]

Thanks for that Brian.  I'll see if I can find that post.

[RMC]

I couldn't find the post so I went ahead with pine water-based filler for the treenails.  It is a bit too light and noticable unfortunately - but I'm certainly not doing it again. I hope that with all the other stuff that will eventually on the decks they won't really be all that obvious - which is a bit ironic. 

 

I have probably gotten a bit carried away with the number of photos here, but I am still experimenting with the new camera.

 

 

The first two photos show the the holes for the treenails before filling.

 

 

The following photo shows the holes filled before a coat of polyurethane.

 

 

 

 

 

The deck with one coat  of poly.  Another coat has since been applied.  I have not bothered too much about the deck planking that will be behind the screen towards the stern. It should hardly be noticed through the gun ports.

 

 

 

 

While taking a break from drilling/filling holes I began making the belfry.  It proved to be a bit tricky to get everything square. I eventually used a piece of scrap balsa to mount the sides and the cross-piece.  Nails are supposed to provide support for the cross-piece, but they proved to be far too big for a very small piece of 1.5mm ply.  I ended up using a couple of small brass eyelets.  It has yet to be painted and coated with poly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In doing the treenails I found dust getting in to all sorts of comparatively inaccessible places. If anyone has some recommendations regarding small vacuum cleaners I'd be grateful.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2014 by RMC

[RMC]

I have just looked at my post and the last two photos seem to have come from nowhere and I haven't been able to get rid of them. Still, worse things can happen I guess ....

[RMC]

Thankfully the planking  etc is finally finished. While taking a break from treenails I began the quarter deck barricade assembly.  It proved, and is proving a very tricky little job.  The columns are tiny - about 6mm high and about 1.5- 2mm in diameter. I used a pin vice to drill 0.6mm holes top and bottom of the columns and in the bottom part of the assemby to receive the columns.  Brass 'rod' (from small eyelets) was inserted in the bottom assemby and the columns glued using 'slow' CA.  Nails had been inserted in the tops of the columns to enable the columns to  be properly aligned with the curved top-piece of the assembly.

 

 

 

 

The screen has now been added and I have dry fitted the rear hatch, binacle and the mizzen mast, just to see how things look.  The stairs and the hand ropes in the hatch have been done in the same way as earlier done. I gives a good result and is far less trouble than alternative methods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2014 by RMC

[RMC]

The photo of the screen was quite blurry.  This should be a bit clearer.

 

Edited November 3, 2014 by RMC

[RMC]

Thanks for the kind comment Arthur.  No, the nails aren't glued.  I was warned of the hammock crane problem from your log - I have appropriated much of your work I'm afraid. (The Cheque's in the mail). I still haven't decided how I will finally glue the top on the assembly (at the moment it's just dry-fitted).

 

I would be grateful for your comments on the following. (Comments from others are welcome.)

 

My wife bought some fine tulle which appears to be the same fabric as you have used for the hammock netting.  Is that what you used? Fortunately, she has a wonderful machine for cutting material straight and cleanly.  I will probably wash it (it is quite stiff) and dye some of it with a bit of tea to see how that goes.

 

I hope to have the chance over the weekend to start on the yards.  Some of the smaller yards have octagonal cross-sections; some even 16 facits (I don't know the word for a 16 sided cross-section).  It seems to me that at 1:72 you would hardly notice.  Did you bother?

 

With some of the longer yards I am thinking of cutting them in half, turning the two ends and rejoining them. At 400mm+ and thin material to boot is at the extreme limit of my little Proxxon lathe.

 

All the best.

Edited November 3, 2014 by RMC

[aliluke]

Looks really great Bob. A very nice bulkhead even if does disappear! Sorry, no answer to your question - way past me. But I'm still enjoying watching your work!

[AON]

16 sided figure is a hexadecagon

(Google is a wonderful tool)

[RMC]

hex=6; dec=10

 

Makes sense. I should have thought of Google

[RMC]

Here is the beginning of the main yard.  There was not as much progess over the weekend as I'd hoped.  Doing the octagonal centre piece turned out to be not as difficult as I first thought and it turned out quite well.  Having more suitable tools would have helped however in making the edges more defined.  Once I had worked out the dimensions of each side of the octogon, I used Tamiya tape to delineate the edges, then used an Exacto knife to plane the surface flat. (The little plane I bought has proven to be the most useless tool in the box.)

 

 

 

Once the octagonal section was done  I used my Proxxon lathe to taper each end.  The tapering was done in stages. For example I first measured 40 mm along the yard from the end of the octagonal section, referred to the plan to see the thickness of the yard at that point, and tapered the intervening distance appropriately. I then did to same for the next 40 mm ......  The following picture shows about 80mm tapered.

 

Here is the (semi) finished yard tapered at both ends (the tapers turned out to be pretty well spot on to my pleasant surprise).  The octagonal section does not show up well in the photo unfortunately

 

Edited November 12, 2014 by RMC

[RMC]

No Arthur, I haven't got as far as to spot the mistake.  I'll have a look at it tomorrow.  Thanks for the warning. I'll certainly try the varnish idea to finish off the yards before the final sanding. 

 

My plan is to do the yards while I'm away off and on over the next few weeks, and while at home, continue with the deck furniture, railings etc on the main deck.  Most of it is now finished but not finally fitted.   I hope to be working on the poop deck by Christmas. I have pretty well finished the masts.

 

I have a couple of questions about the deck railings (there seems to be an omission in the plans), but I'll leave them for later if I haven't solved the problem beforehand.

[RMC]

I have been working on the forward railings and the gunports on the upper deck. I have just realised that the rear end of the side railings require an angled piece of timber to join the upper and lower parts of the rails. As well there seems to be a curved bit of timber required that butts onto the end of the lower part of the railing that covers the curved decorative molding. I can't see a part like this listed, so I guess it needs to be fabricated.

 

The forward railng is dry-fitted here and I'm not looking forward to gluing it over the curved timber to which it must be attached. It will be under a fair amount of stress.  The side railings must then be fitted to the front railing and in doing this, the corners with the protruding decoration will be an intereresting exercise .

 

 

 

 

The lower sills of the gunports required filling - I used Intergrain water-based woodfiller. (The Intergrain is far superior to others I have used.) The openings then need to be painted. As all the rest of the hull is already painted, each opening needs to be carefully masked.  For this  I used Humbrol Maskol again. It's effective but a bit fiddly to work with. So far I have only completed one side. Once both sides are painted, a couple of coats of polyurethane should finish the job.

 

The next two photos show the gap between the exterior of the hull and the inside wall. Here, for the filling, the exterior was masked by Tamiya tape.

 

 

 

The gaps filled.

 

 

The gunport openings painted awaiting two coats of poly.

 

Edited November 19, 2014 by RMC

[RMC]

Thanks for the info regarding part 88 Arthur.  My problem with the corners stems from my positioning of part 96. I have sanded back the ends of the headrail 101 to receive 96. It gives better support to 96 but  means I can't simply butt the side rails to the head rail as I have just now realised.  I have found, I think, an acceptable solution, but have made things needlessly hard for myself.  I will put up a couple of photos next week to illustrate the problem and my solution. I am just about to leave for a few days away and hope to make a bit more progress on the yards.

 

Incidentally, thank to those for the 'likes' - they really do provide encouragement.

[RMC]

The side rails are causing a few self-inflicted problems. The head rail has been glued with far less drama than I expected. It is supposed to butt against the side rails.  However I have fixed Part 96 in a way that makes that impossible. I have therefore shaped the forward part of the side rails to butt against part 96. As well I have cut the two gaps in the side rails to provide for the guns.

 

 

Here are the notches cut to butt against part 96.

 

 

 

The rails dry-fitted.

 

 

The following photo shows a side rail butted against part 96.  It is dry-fitted.

 

 

I have cut a notch at the end of  the mid-deck gunwale  to enable fitting it in what appears to be in the correct position. I found the plan and instructions here far from clear.

 

 

 

I am not sure at the moment how best to close the gap between the side rail and the gunwale.

 

 

Edited November 27, 2014 by RMC

[RMC]

The last couple of weeks have been a bit hectic and not much progress on the model has been made.  However I did finish turning the mizzen cross jack yard.  It is derived from 8mm diamenter dowel, the cross-section of middle part is supposed to be a hexadecahedron (16 sided)(I hope my memory is accurate, even if my spelling is not).  I thought (it turns out corrctly I think) to be rather a waste of effort.  My method was to make an octagonal cross section and then to trim off the corners.  It proved quite effective.  However when viewed from a foot or two away, it wasn't reaaly possible to discern the difference between the 16 sided cross section and a circular cross section - and I'm quite short-sighted. Anyway it's done now.

 

Some of the quite small diameter yards are also 16 sided cross-sections and I really don't think it's worth the effort. I may, however do the cross sections as octagons.

 

Other than that I have experimented with tea-dying material for the hamock netting.  The material I propose to use is blindingly white, and I would like to tone it down a bit.

 

 

 

And just when you think you've seen some weather ....

 

Edited December 8, 2014 by RMC

[RMC]

I seem to have lost some text. In the top photo the undyed material is on the bottom.  In the second, the middle is the undyed piece.   The lighter dyed piece had about 15 minutes in the tea; the darker, about 45 minutes.  At this stage the slightly darker one is my choice. Comments welcome.

Edited December 8, 2014 by RMC

[RMC]

I have finally done something about the gap between the ship's railings on the fore and middle decks. It's not quite as I would like it. I think Arthur's nice rounded shape provided a better finish (the side decoration, not Arthur), but that's the way it worked out.

 

This photo is a bit blurry but it shows how a piece of timber connects the top and bottom of the front railing.  The plans here are rather sketchy.

 

This shows the curved transition from the fore to the middle deck which has caused me some angst.

 

 

The front railing dry-fitted

 

 

The two railings both dry-fitted

 

 

 

The railings are still to be finally painted, poly applied and a bit of touching up will need to be done before gluing everything together.

Edited December 9, 2014 by RMC

[RMC]

The forward and middle rails are now glued.  Before doing so I have finally glued on the cat heads - something I have been delaying as long as possible. Sticking out as they do, is a sure invitation to disaster, to which I am quite prone.

 

 

I found it is best to make the cuts in the forward railings (to provide for the guns) before they are glued to the model. Doing so makes them a bit more pliable, so that if you need to put a little more bend in the rail to fit, there is no great problem.

 

Since the following photos were taken, some minor touching up has been done.

 

 

 

.

 

 

The bowsprrit is dry-fitted here - just to see what it will look like.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 12, 2014 by RMC

[RMC]

I have finally glued the fittings to the foredeck. The cannonballs have yet to be put in to their shot garlands, but that's about it.

 

 

 

 

The middle rail has now been attached as well as the supports for the stanchions. I've assumed these to be 1x2mm strip. I can't see a measurement in the plans, so I've assumed it is the same thickness as the side railings. The quarter deck capping rails have also been glued.  Finishing the curved part at the end of the capping was a bit of a problem. I eventually used some 5 x 0.5mm scrap, put it in a mug with some water and microwaved it for a couple of minutes.  I then wrapped the softened strip around some old PVC pipe of about the right diameter and left it overnight. It turned out quite well. I also tidyed (sp?) up the vertical part under the front of the capping with the 5 x 0.5mm strip.

 

 

 

 

The wheel etc. are only dry fitted.-  just to see what they look like.

 

 

Edited December 17, 2014 by RMC