HMS Victory by dafi - Heller - PLASTIC - To Victory and beyond ...

[dafi]

Thank you for all the thumps up, as always very appreciated!

 

And I am always delighted by the fine structures that are now possible in printing. Once again, parts whose diameter is half as wide as my papillary ridges, these are some of the finest parts of my products 🙂

XXXDAn

[dafi]

I was in model-building deprivation, with no time to do anything and not even to document what I had already built.

The version of the Launch with sails has to be stored in the back for now, as martens have damaged it by chewing on the sails ...

That's why I continued with the version equipped with a davit for anchoring and fishing. Here some pictures last stage.

First, there was the question of where to put the cable that had been hauled up. Instinctively, I had stowed it in the bow during the first test.

But in order to attach a pulley to the capstan that can only be attached forwards to the stem and the cable accordingly had to go to the rear. So I decided to store it in the middle of the boat, which is also better balanced, and you can see that this is a good solution.

But first, a little bit of small stuff, which also makes a difference http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif

The pulleys are pre-assembled; this one should hang loosely, so I shaped it with wallpaper glue.

The grapnel anchor and ladles have also arrived.

To tie in the anchor rope, I clamped a pair of tweezers in my vice.


And then I built a nice bunch with the rest of the rope.

And here it is the small menagerie.

And now it got pleasantly exciting, but see for yourself...












While two lads secure the pulley, the capstan bar is being changed on the other side. The lieutenant keeps a watchful eye on the whole process, while one man checks to see if anything is happening at the back end at the cable. In the middle, one man holds the cable taut and clears it neatly. That setup certainly wouldn't have worked with the rope at the front in the bow, as crowded as it already is there.

Cheers, Daniel

[dafi]

Captain Dafi, personal logbook, addendum:

Recently, it was time once again for public tinkering at the game fair in Stuttgart / Southern Germany. I had brought quite a bit of material with me again.

A little reminder of Èvian 🙂


And my Soleil in full sun—simply ROYAL!


One of my topics was the comparison between the parts that come from the kit and what you can make from them. Here is a comparison of the two upper decks.




And as usual, there was plenty of delicacies to enjoy: pumpkin-sweet-potato-carrot-potato-ginger-soup special recipe dafi — yum!

Enjoy, Daniel

Edited Tuesday at 10:00 AM by dafi

[dafi]

Before heading to the trade show, things were naturally crazy for me – splinters were flying once again.

One of the things I wanted to show was a comparison between the original kit parts and what you can actually make out of them. To do this, the decks had to be prepared.

First, the old gratings had to be removed. Then the good parts of the deck were protected with gaffer tape and the old coamings were sanded down with a coarse file ...

... and the remains were removed with a blade ...

... or helped along with a fine file.

For the finishing touches, I sawed a batten to the right width and covered it with sandpaper, which allowed me to achieve a nice even surface.

Since the new coamings are also supposed to cover the thickness of the decks, I had to cut larger the openings of the companionways a little. A red pencil line serves as a mark.

This was trickier on the upper deck, as the deck is not divided in half. But here too, I first had to cut out the grating ...

... cut out the coamings with the flat blade and finish them in the same way as the lower deck.

For the wide openings at the rear with the thicker coamings, I made a 45° relief cut with the scalpel, which meant there was less material to remove horizontally.

This made it much easier to work with the blade.

And then again, enlarging the section by the width of a pencil.

For this exhibit, I deliberately chose not to use a purchased wooden deck or one built one like on the other model, but to experiment with what could be achieved with paint.

Now it was getting exciting ...

[dafi]

Next, I had to come to terms with the not *quite* correct planking pattern. A few beers later, I was fine ...

Then I realised that the plank gaps were much too wide and would be far too prominent for my liking when filled with paint or wash. So I came up with the following plan: I sprayed the deck black ...

... and then scraped off with a blade so that the black paint remained in the depths like preshading. As always with my best plans, it ended up being a big mess.

Then I tried out different shades of brown, both solvent-based, acrylic and water-based, in various opacities. It resulted in a pretty patchwork.

The forecastle in particular was quite colourful ...

... which is why grey tones were used on the gangway.

But what can I say, I really didn't have such a grimy deck in mind. So I sprayed it again and stripped it off again.

In the meantime, I had remembered the other moulded parts, especially the gratings, which I had tuned to wood. That was the specification it had to match. And even though there are usually no major colour differences in the wood on original decks, except for traces of moisture, preshading with black prevents it from looking too much like a painted steel deck. You just have to throw your imagination a few little treats now and then to keep it happy. It was just a matter of finding the right balance. So I applied three glazed coats of paint until the black was only very faintly visible.



Interestingly, the plastic of the upper deck was a light beige, while the lower deck was reddish brown. This was easily remedied by applying a grey glaze under the brown glazes.

This technique also brings the area under the forecastle, which has no plank engraving, to life so well that engraving was not necessary and simple pencil strokes can substitude the engraving. I think that, given the limited visibility of this area, this is a good effort-appearance ratio.

So, quickly in with the printed parts...

...and take some beauty shots.