HMS Victory by mtdoramike - FINISHED - Artesania Latina

[mtdoramike]

Thanks George!

[CDW]

Wow, I wish I could be there to see that council meeting. That's quite an honor, Mike. So glad your good deed did not go unnoticed.

 

Cheers

Craig

 

PS

 

I hope you can get some photos of the event and share them here with us for posterity.

Edited April 15, 2016 by daddyrabbit1954

[mtdoramike]

Thanks Craig, I'll try and do that.

 

 

mike

[mtdoramike]

Thank you Lawrence, I tried to mimic your beauty and I think I came pretty close.

 

 

mike

[Paul0367]

We are at the end of a long journey and the Victory has finally taken to sail and made it to her home port without incident I might add. I made sure and rode in the back of the pickup all the way to the Library, which was only about 2 miles, but nail biting miles they were. I felt every little bump in the road, even though I told my son in law not to drive over 10 miles an hour. But it seems not even what you thought was a smooth road really isn't that smooth when moving something so fragile. They had a few guys from the City come by my house to help load it up and then met us at the library to unload and set her up. The news papers were there and will do a press release. But thankfully there wasn't a lot of fan fair or fuss made about it, I wasn't wanting that and I'm glad the City respected my wishes. Like I told the library Coordinator that my gester wasn't all that noble, I just have always wanted to build a large Victory model, but had no where to display it. So now I can come by and enjoy it any time I want.   

 

Here is a few pictures and even one of me, the old fat guy in the yellow shirt.

 

 

mike

Wow mate she looks beautiful, I have not been on this site for a while and clearly missed the posting of her in her final resting place, that is stunning and what a gesture..

[mtdoramike]

Thank you for the kind words Paul, I'll try and post a few pictures of the council meeting Tuesday.

 

 

mike

[mtdoramike]

I went to the Council meeting last night and was honored with the Proclamation and while there, I also met with a news reporter, who was looking for a story and found me, so she is wanting to do I guess one of those human interest stories about the models that I have built and why I do what I do I reckon. Like I told the council last night, I didn't want all this pomp and circumstance because my motives weren't all that pure. I always wanted to build a large Victory and my house was a bit small to house such a large model. So donating it to the Library seemed like the best thing to do and I could visit the model when ever I want to.

 

Here is a picture of me and the Mayor. I'm the fat guy in the blue shirt. Then a picture of the Proclamation.  

 

 

mike 

[CDW]

This was a very nice gesture, both on your part for donating the model, but also the City government for recognizing your contribution.

I'll bet there will be a lot of kids and adults who are inspired to build a model after seeing your HMS Victory at the library.

 

Cheers

Craig

[Paul0367]

Oh my the press go involved,,,,so they should really, not every day that someone hands over a model like that with all the hours put in to build her. Lovely gesture Mike

[mtdoramike]

Thanks Paul, but like I told the City Council, no noble gesture on my part. I have always wanted to build this magnificent ship model, but with limited space to display her, so next best thing is turn her over to the Public Library where I can go any time I want and visit the Vic. I have been to the Library several times since donating the Vic and there is always people standing around looking at her and sometimes I offer educational tidbits about the ship and the model and not revealing that I was the builder of it. Really cool too.

 

 

mike

[ronald305]

HI Mike 
     great job on your completed victory may I ask when you was cutting out the entry ways  where the dimensions

    12mm width wise like the gun ports I want to make sure before I get to that part of the build I'm doing the model space kit version but based on the AL kit like yours 

                            Ronald 

[GrandpaPhil]

Congratulations and well done!

[rmazdra]

On 9/10/2014 at 9:35 AM, mtdoramike said:

I'm still having such trepidation over painting this model. It's such a waste of beautiful wood. If It were a model that I were building for myself, I would have opted to go natural wood on this particular kit or I would have purchased another Vic kit that requires painting. But since this is a donation, I wanted to paint her up.   

Hi Mike. I'm new to this forum and just looked through your build log. Great job! Lots of time and effor...I know. I'm in the midst of building the AL Victory myself. I have >400 hours in so far and I'm only into the interior decking and cannon work. Might sound like a lot of hours, but I'm adding some customizations. 

 

When I read your post above about having trepidation over painting the model, I knew exactly what you're talking about. I had the exact same feeling. My resolution? I chose to paint one side and leave the other side as natural wood!!! The masts and yardarms will be painted, but all the details on the decks will be natural. On the painted side, I also chose to do the copper plating (using tape as you did). The natural wood side shows the beauty of the mansonia and coral woods. 

 

The colors I'm using are based on a recent (2015) video from the National Museum of the Royal Navy discussing Victory's true colors at the Battle of Trafalgar. What I like about these true colors is that the masts are actually a somewhat muted ivory color, which isn't too far off from the natural basswood of the decks and upper hull. So, when looking at Vic from the side that has the natural wood, I don't think the painted masts and yardarms will be a distraction. Still a ways off from getting to that point, but that's my theory and I'm sticking to it! ;^)

 

I'm hoping to start my own build log shortly and will post my pictures there. I'll attach a couple here to have a clue what she's looking like. 

 

Take care and God bless,

Ron

 

 

 

 

[mtdoramike]

Absolutely beautiful Ron, after seeing your photos, it makes me really have second thoughts about painting her, what a waste of good wood. When I was sanding the hull, my wife would refer to it as the pecan shell because that was the color of it. 400 hours, you have probably another 1600 to go. It took me 2000 hours to finish. Have you thought about how you are going to display her when finished? Due to it's size, it will be a bugger to display.

Edited August 6, 2019 by mtdoramike

[rmazdra]

Mike, thanks for the feedback. I’m so far away from finishing that I haven’t thought too much about the display case yet. I have considered that I should place a mirror behind the case so that you could see both the painted and natural wood views at the same time. For my USS Constitution, I worked with a cabinetmaker and created a custom case. Although I didn’t build the case, I had a lot of fun helping design it. It turned out beautiful. The case separated from the base cabinet so I actually had 2 pieces of furniture. Hidden, dimmable lights were around the top of the case. I may need to go that route again.

[mtdoramike]

You will I'm sure, and it's never to early to start planning for the display case. I could have built one, but the only wood available to me here is oak and when the rubber met the road and I calculated the building cost versus $1000.00 to have one made from mahogany, it was a no brainer for me. So I went the easy route. The City Library was actually going to see about having a display case made for it, but I told them NO, my donation included that as well.

 

mike 

[rmazdra]

The thought has crossed my mind about stopping the build before I do anything with masts, sails, and rigging. Sort of a admiralty version. That version of any ship is awesome in it's own right. And then the size of the case is much smaller. If nothing else, I may take a break for a while before starting on the 2nd half of the build. If I do that, I need to figure out how to have a low cost dust cover that's still transparent to see through and easy to remove. Some thin Plexiglas maybe. Thoughts? 

[mtdoramike]

To me, an admiralty version is an option, but if I were to spend as much time, money and effort to build a ship model as grand as the Victory, I just couldn't and wouldn't see myself short cutting the whole experience by not fully building the model from stem to stern, to the mast tops with all the mind numbing tedious rigging inbtween. To me it's about the adventure and not the destination, from learning to the research. I spent probably as much time researching as I do building every model I have ever built and as of today, it about 45 models built with a few still waiting there turn, a Chris Craft mahogany run about 36" I'm working on now and then a Vietnam era gun boat named the Crockett. Both of these will be radio controlled.

[mtdoramike]

With the above said, if i built the Victory again, i would build it without sails so the entire deck area as well as spars could be easily seen as well as all the rigging. I would also like to add here that the Victory and it's display case are quite large. The display case that I put here in was 54" in length, so it has a very commanding presents no matter where you display her. This was one of my motivating factors on the Library donation, I had the pleasure of building a HMS Victory model which was on my bucket list, I gained more experience and knowledge from the building and research of the model as well as marking another bucket list item off of my list which was to build a ship and donate it to a local Library so that anyone could enjoy, critique or marvel at the finished product without it costing them anything. Plus and this is a BIG plus, I get to go by and visit the Victory when ever I want without listening to my wife complaining about dusting the display case, cleaning the case or asking where can we move it next to get it out of her way.

 

I went by the Library one day shortly after the donation and there was a fellow there taking pictures of the Victory so I asked him what he thought of the model and he thought it was great and took pictures of it to show friends since he was out of town and for future reference if he decided to build one. He asked several questions about the model and for the life of me I can't recall what they were, but I tried to answer them as best I could. When I was leaving the guy commented to the Library coordinator how knowledgeable I was regarding the model and she laughed and said, he should be, he's the builder of the Victory model. I smiled as I continued to walk out the door.      

 

I laugh when people say what a selfless act this was to build and donate a model, but only I know what a selfish act it was on my part and I'm good with that knowledge hahahahahaha.

 

mike  

Edited August 11, 2019 by mtdoramike

[rmazdra]

Mike,

I hear your heart when you say that no sails is the way to go. I love the intricacy and engineering of the rigging. But I've never done sails, and I want to have some present. I thought some unfurled sails and some furled, probably only those on the yardarms. Or maybe some type of "in harbor" look (all furled - sorry, I don't know the sailing term for that). I'm also thinking of displaying the yardarms on an angle versus being at perfect right angle to the port/starboard line of the hull so that the view from both sides of the hull will be different in the rigging as well as on the hull. However, I don't think I'd use the angle if all the sails were furled. 

 

I think it's great you donated your Vic to your local library. I feel mine may have a similar destination sometime in the future. 

[mtdoramike]

I would only give a right angle look to the sails if you have sails mounted as though the ship was in sail, moving. But in port they would never be at a right angle.