HMS Pegasus by herbgold - Victory Models - Scale 1:64

[herbgold]

I discovered yesterday that Hobbies Ltd are selling this for £299.99, about a £45 reduction, so I placed my order. Expected any minute now if Darren is on time! The excitement mounts...

 

I almost certainly won't be able to start it until the New Year so this post is a bit of a hostage to fortune.

[Blue Ensign]

Welcome to the Swan Club herb, I don't think you will be disappointed with the Pegasus kit.

 

B.E.

[herbgold]

Thank you! She's listing already, even before I've unpacked her - not a good omen!

 

Probably no more now till the New Year.

Edited December 3, 2014 by herbgold

[Landlubber Mike]

Let me add my welcome to the Swan club.  Looking forward to your build log

[herbgold]

Well, started today and, by dint of a little whittling, have managed to fit the bits together. I will take them apart again tomorrow and sand down the bulkheads whose thickness needs reducing, and perhaps glue it all together.

 

Tell me, is inhaling MDF dust a bad idea? Worse than ordinary sawdust? Should I wear a mask?

[Blue Ensign]

Why do the bulkheads need reducing in thickness Herb; as I recall mine slotted onto the false keel  just about right and I didn't have to touch the faces.

 

mdf produces a very fine dust and is considered  hazardous to health, but you'll find that when it comes to fairing the bulkheads it's a nice material to work with.

 

B.E.

[thowen]

Nice start.

[herbgold]

I needed to fiddle about with the bulkheads a bit, Blue Ensign, to get the 5mm deck to fit. What I meant by "sanding down" the bulkheads was faring them to get the planks to lie neatly...

 

Thanks for the advice about MDF.

[Landlubber Mike]

I would definitely use a mask when working with the MDF.  The dust bothered me a little when I faired the bulkheads, particularly when I did my rough sanding with a Dremel.  After reading stories about wood dust on here, I am taking a lot more precautions with my health.

[Glenn-UK]

Hello sounds like we're both at the same stage. I'm in the process of fairing the bulkheads. Have fun with your build, I'm time sharing my build with another boat build.

[herbgold]

Thanks for that, Mike...good to meet you, Glennard!

[herbgold]

I decided, following the advice in Lloyd Matthews' blog 'Preparing the Hull Assembly': http://hmsfly.com/startingTheHull.html  to plank part of what he calls the "lower deck" (the 5mm MDF deck) on the grounds that the planking might just be seen if you look very carefully through the grating on the gun deck and (and much more important for me) it would provide good practice before planking much more visible bits.

 

I decided also to sort of follow Spyglass's method ( http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/420-hms-pegasus-by-spyglass-victory-models/ ) and score but not cut planks, but not attempt to simulate treenails. Decided (unilaterally!) that deck planks were 16' long, reducing nicely to 3" at 1/64 scale, and that there would be a three plank repeat (do you detect a theme here?), moving each plank up 1" from the previous one. Built a sort of jig to make marking the planks easier, and have so far planked on the template that Lloyd Matthews says will be all that will be visible through the gratings.

 

Moderately pleased with myself, but I think it was a mistake to plank symmetrically about the centreline, first left then right, rather than start at one side and just plank straight across, because as you can see there isn't a three plank repeat across the centre.

 

Hope this all makes sense!

Edited February 23, 2015 by herbgold

[Landlubber Mike]

Nice progress.  I ended up just planking the area under the fore hatch - I don't think you'll see much if any of the rest of the planking, but probably a little laziness on my end as well went into it.  Good practice though.

 

Just out of curiosity, what wood are you using for the planking?  It looks like walnut, when I think the kit would have you use tanganyika.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Landlubber Mike

[Beef Wellington]

Looking good.  As Mike says, good practice and an opportunity to figure out how you want to finish the more visible decks.  Something to remember is that the but shift would only have been used on full planking runs from stem to stern.  Planking between any hatch coamings, partners etc would have just used a single plank with no butt joint - visually that means the butt shift is less apparent along the center line.

[Landlubber Mike]

Jason's post reminds me that one thing you might want to consider when planning your planking run is to butt the planking against the hatches.  It makes for a clean look, though it might be tough to butt the planks against the sides of the hatches if you aren't cutting your own planks.

[herbgold]

Thank you both very much. Mike, I'm not sure what the wood is - it was leftover deck planking from my first build, HM Brig Supply, aka (once I'd had my hands on her) The Carpenter's Mistake.

 

Are you both saying that I should first build hatches and plank after, or at least stop short at hatchways? I'd thought it was mostly done the other way round, planking straight across hatchways and cutting them open later.

Edited February 24, 2015 by herbgold

[Landlubber Mike]

Take a look at my log here beginning at page 15:

 

http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7267-hms-pegasus-by-landlubber-mike-amativictory-models-scale-164/page-15

 

What I did was pre-build the hatches, then ran the planking to stop short of the hatches fore and aft, and ran them alongside the hatches athwartships.  Then, having built the hatches slightly oversized, I sanded them back carefully to fit the opening in the planking.  Once the deck is complete, I will finish the hatches and glue them.  That being said, I created custom-sized planks for the deck, making it easier to take this approach.  It might be less feasible depending on the proportion of the hatches vis-a-vis the width of the kit planks.

 

For my Badger build, I took the approach of planking the deck, cutting out the holes for the hatches, then gluing the hatches onto the planking.  While the approach I took on my Pegasus looks cleaner and is more accurate historically, frankly, once the deck is busy with all the deck items, the difference in the two approaches won't be as apparent.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Landlubber Mike

[herbgold]

Thank you again, Mike, that's very clear.

[herbgold]

Restarted today after a long gap, as it's finally warm enough in the garage to work without heat. Glued the bulkheads to the keel, glued the fake planking to the lower deck, glued the lower deck to the bulkheads. All seems very square and solid.

 

Was about to ask silly question about plank termination patterns, but have sussed it out. Onwards (very slowly)!

Edited April 14, 2015 by herbgold

[Martin W]

Judging from your photo, I'd say the butt pattern you've worked out looks pretty good.  The only problem I ran into was that the hatches interrupted the pattern I worked out, but you seem to have avoided that issue. 

 

Good work!

 

Martin

[herbgold]

I'm puzzled by the instructions for the gun deck planking and I don't think they've been thought out very well. I'd hinged the two halves with some tape and then stuck crosspieces as indicated but I can't see (i) that  they are historically correct, (ii) what the point is of not planking the centre part of the deck at this stage, and (iii) why the deck should be in two halves if you're going to defeat that by fixing them together..

 

Spyglass says that most modellers plank in straight runs bow to stern - see here:  http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/420-hms-pegasus-by-spyglass-victory-models/?p=4616 and I think I will scrap the crosspieces and do just that. Then I will be able to cut through from the back for the hatchways etc, following Landlubber Mike's Badger build method (see above). I will not plank right to the edges on the centre section - this will have to be done after the deck is in place and the tops of the centre bulkheads have been removed.

 

Make sense?

[herbgold]

Thank you, Spyglass. It IS the "duff ply" and I will try to strengthen it. To me, the great advantage of planking the deck before I fit it into the hull is that I will be able to plank end-to-end and then cut through the hatchways etc from the underneath - just seems easier that way rather than having to measure carefully after fitting it.

[Martin W]

That ply deck is a nuisance.  What I think most of us have had to do is glue pieces of scrap  along the tops of those midship bulkheads to provide support for the ply deck -- otherwise it tends to stay a bit springy there in the middle.  It's also important to ensure that the 2 halves line up the full length -- after dry-fitting mine, I had to go back and file the insides of the foremost bulkheads to avoid the tendency of one half to overlap the other.

 

Spy's advice has helped me through many tricky steps.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[herbgold]

Ah. Good point, SpyGkass. I will fit the deck first and then plank round the hatches - and worry about fitting them later.I think I'm over-analysing this!

[herbgold]

Back to work after far too long a gap. I'm still just about to fit the gun deck! I need to make better progress than that.

[Landlubber Mike]

Hey Herb, welcome back and happy new year.  We all take breaks from our build at times  Look forward to following your progress!

[Martin W]

Welcome back Herb.  One thing about this hobby is that there's never a rush!

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[betamale]

Looking good so far Herb. I think we all overthink sections of our builds, for what its worth I think planking before fitting the decking would have made more problems than it solved. Cutting out the hatches etc is not actually a problem (As long as you do not totally obscure them) I had a lot of fun using Pegasus as makeshift maracas, trying to get all the bits of planking out from the lower deck.  

[herbgold]

Well, it's been a while since I was last here! I decided that my original gundeck planking was so bad (even my beloved said it wasn't very good, and she's usually very encouraging) that I've remade the whole thing on "proper" 1mm plywood and 1mm x 3mm lime strips. It still isn't great, but a lot better than my first attempt, after I put some tung oil on it. I've planked it with 3inch strips, which I was quite pleased about, but the ends of the strips don't quite line up. Photo attached - I haven't finished the cutouts yet. I haven't done treenails - beyond me.

 

I have a question, learned brethren. I'm trying to work out the sequence of the rectangular cutouts on the main gun deck, from what seems like rather inadequate diagrams. As far as I can see, from bow to stern, it goes:

 

1. hatchway or grating??? 2. grating 3. grating 4. hatchway or grating???

 

I think 4 is a grating (and I'm not too bothered as it won't be very visible when it's covered over with the quarterdeck), but what is 1?

 

I'll go away now, but not for so long, I hope.

[herbgold]

Got it - the booklet shows a hatchway with ladder there but I can't find it on any of the plans. Thanks for your help.

 

P.S. I'm fitting all my gratings on top of the deck simply because I don't have the skill to do a neat job with the cutouts.

Edited May 15, 2016 by herbgold