Heller 1/100 Victory build

It's also somewhat regional, still.

Another lousy species is pine.

Or Douglas fir, or oak.

That spar test was a good one.

Roberto, in my experience it's not possible to get good results once plastic spars start to bend. And, it eliminates any "slack" line rigging, which is generally the actual prototype.

Don't underestimate the good old hardwood toothpick, either.

Those Vic Firth sticks look promising. I know the armor guys love steel guitar string.

warshipguy

Roberto,

The old Scientific Model company once used balsa for its ship kits. The consumer had to be careful because that company also released the same ships using pine.  Unless he/she read the box closely, the modeler couldn't be sure which he was buying. I have most of their models for sentimental value, but those balsa hulls were hideous unless the modeler used a lot of sealer!

Anyway, I am very intrigued by the video concerning Victory's true colors. Thanks, John!

Bill

 

I agree that balsa can be finished okay with enough coats of priming and sanding.  But, unless you really like priming and sanding a lot, use basswood.  Also, these days I find basswood cheaper than balsa.  Poplar and aspen these days are reasonably priced and make good ship carving woods.  My local hardware store usually has a fair amount of one or both in stock.

Roberto,

The old Scientific Model company once used balsa for its ship kits. The consumer had to be careful because that company also released the same ships using pine.  Unless he/she read the box closely, the modeler couldn't be sure which he was buying. I have most of their models for sentimental value, but those balsa hulls were hideous unless the modeler used a lot of sealer!

Anyway, I am very intrigued by the video concerning Victory's true colors. Thanks, John!

Bill

jtilley

Birch is a pretty good wood for spars. Caveat: in ship model books and magazines stories about warped birch dowels have been floating around for a long time. In more than fifty years, and probably hundreds of dowel's I've bought, I've never seen one warp - and I've never met anybody who has.

I think the problem originated with birch dowels that were cut across the grain of the wood. Apparently the dealers have stopped doing that. If those drumsticks are straight now, they aren't going to warp.

Well, cutting _any_ kind of wood across the grain is seriously bad news if it is to be used for masts and spars. It can warp over time and it is also a true pain to work with when shaping the mast or yard, so just don't go there. I'd say that strengthwise it is more important that the grain runs straight down the dowel than what particular type of wood the dowel is made of,. A properly made spar with straight grain is surprisingly strong, even in 1:100 scale. The standing and running rigging will serve to distribute the load too.

That's quite a difference, isn't it?

Seems like the styrene boom takes weight well without snapping, though. Perhaps the way rigging is set up, with lines countering tension in each other, would even prevent it from bending... still I'm afraid of using it! The bowsprit goes on relatively early in the build, so I better see what I can come up with as a replacement.

Just a small test I made some time ago with the original Heller jib and a replacement birch of the same diameter, both having the same weight applied :-)

XXXDAn

Gentlemen, thanks a lot for the input.

The easiest to find hardwoods around here (in dowel form) are beech and birch. Walnut too, but that is maybe too soft for spars. I don't have a lathe, but my father is a cabinetmaker and does - I will either make a visit, or use the drill method.

Balsa! I used that for RC planes many years ago and while it's extremely easy to work with, I don't see how would anyone touch it for ship modeling :p

CapnMac, thanks a ton for that information. I might model the ship with some ports open, some closed, and guns there but run in. Maybe some run out. Would also make the ship look less symmetric and perhaps more interesting.

rdiaz

knows what standard practice was when the ship was docked

What I remember reading is the athe RN did not dock its ships in that era much at all, and for several reasons.

One, that they manned the ships through press gangs--an involuntary enlistment process wher e men were taken off the street and hauled to the ships to be sailors., So they moored out in the harbor to make it just that much more difficult to take "French leave" (the British term for desertion).

Mooring in the harbour also allowed the merchant ships to better unload quaysiddr, too.  Along with   Also it kept deeper-draft warships out in the deeper water.  Which also meant that they could sortie faster, if needed (presuming the yards were still in slings, and the topmasts not struck)

The crews selpt in hammocks slung over the guns when at sea so they do the same in port.  Ditto the tables slun between the guns for chow.  So, the ports might be opened, weather permitting, but the guns probably remained triced up rathe than run out.  Probably.  Maybe.

Crew "wives" would come out with the water hoys and supply lighters since the crew was not given shore leave.  Some of those "wives" were only for the duration of the port visit.  It was habit enough that the Boatswain (Bos'un) of the Watch would call out "Port (Starboard) Watch stand to or show a leg!"  Whereby a sailor would have his "xife" flash a leg from the enveloping hammock and be excused from duty.  Over the years this expression has changed a bit, to "Shake a leg" meaning to get a move on.

Could be true. I haven't set up my little table saw yet as, alas, another move is in the near future. But when I do settle down finally, I look forward to working with other hardwoods. For now, I'm a basswood guy.

I personally get better results using the square stock- to octagon- sand round method. One benefit I like is that the taper of the spar can actually be drawn on each of the faces, then sawn, then sanded. Turning is a little hit and miss for me. To each their own.

Most wood kits come with dowels though.

I wouldn't use metal tubing for sailing ship masts, although I use it regularly for modern warships.

The best way to reduce the size of a dowel is to turn it. If you don't have access to a lathe, it's quite possible to do a nice job with an electric drill. Just clamp it in a vise on your workbench and chuck the dowel in it. Arm yourself with several sheets of sandpaper (in different grades, going down to super-fine), and have at it. Set the drill speed as high as it will go, and lock it on. Hold the sandpaper in one hand and use the other as a "tail stock," to hold the end of the dowel. (Otherwise the dowel is likely to start flying around and break itself.) use a nice, soft rag to keep your hand from getting burned. My guess is that each spar will take five to ten minutes.

I have to disagree, respectfully, wth GM. The longer you're into wood ship modeling, the more firmly you get convinced: the harder the wood, the better. Experienced longtime sailing ship modelers won't touch basswood, at least in any part that will be visible. I personally am not at that point yet, but I can see the point. Basswood is too soft, and its grain is too coarse - certainly for spare. My favorite woods are boxwood, pearwood, cherry, and holly. It recently became a lot easier to find them. Take a look at www.crowntimberyard.com.

Beginning modelers often start with balsa. They abandon it as soon as they try basswood. And basswood users start having big reservations about it as soon as they try genuine hardwood.

They're not exactly drumsticks, but rods, made of smaller birch dowels:

I realized they're still a bit too wide and lots of sanding will be required. Perhaps I will find something else. I was even thinking of brass/steel rod, but then I don't think I'll be able to drill the sheave hole...

Basswood dowels are readily available from my local hobby shop, so if they work well that's great. The flying jib boom is a very, very thin spar, and I'm afraid it might snap if I don't use the correct material...

I'm not a fan of birch because it is pretty hard and takes a lot of work to make small. I also find that it splits along the grain. Drumsticks do that.

Cherry sounds really nice.

I usually use basswood. It's a basic choice, but its soft enough to work pretty quickly.

Birch is a pretty good wood for spars. Caveat: in ship model books and magazines stories about warped birch dowels have been floating around for a long time. In more than fifty years, and probably hundreds of dowel's I've bought, I've never seen one warp - and I've never met anybody who has.

I think the problem originated with birch dowels that were cut across the grain of the wood. Apparently the dealers have stopped doing that. If those drumsticks are straight now, they aren't going to warp.

I do wonder, though, whether they're really the best option. Getting those sticks down to the right diameter will create a lot of sawdust. Birch dowels down to a diameter of 1/8" are available nowadays. You could probably make all the spars you need from two 18"-long dowels - which would cost your 70 cents at Bluejacket: http://www.bluejacketinc.com/fittings/wood3.htm .

For what it's worth, I made the spars for my last model out of cherry dowels. They're available for very reasonable prices from Woodcraft: http://www.woodcraft.com/search2/search.aspx?query=cherry%20dowel . They only go down to 1/4", but that's probably smaller than the drumsticks. Cherry is nice stuff to work. It's harder and darker than birch, turns well, and takes a beautiful finish. Woodcraft sells it in 3' lengths; one of them probably would be enough.

Hope that helps a little. Good luck.

I'm thinking ahead, because the rigging phase is still miles away, but I just remembered I played drums for some years and I still have some rods lying around. Those are drumsticks made from birch dowels that I could maybe use for topgallant masts and the flying jib boom. How's birch suited for spars? Topgallants from the kit might work, but the flying jib boom... it's extremely flimsy.

I don't think it would be hard to make them wood with a steel core... but of course that means £££. On the other hand, if they painted it in that hideous shade for the sake of accuracy, they should be consequent and remake those topmasts...

GM, thanks a million for those instructions. It's funny that something written in Japanese is actually more clear and helpful than something written in English/French...

I hope the restorers will correct another problem with colors. The topmastes and topgallant masts ought to be greased bare wood. Earlier restorers, for the sake of durability, replaced them with steel pipes, and painted them yellow. I suspect (though I'm not sure) that those spars aren't tapered. (Tapering a steel tube isn't easy,)

thank's for the instructions gmorrison , they are a bit different aren't they

rdiaz

So, I finally decided to start working on this subject as my main one. I don't plan to add a Gun configuration, well I don't know. Maybe someone around here knows what standard practice was when the ship was docked but not for too long, with the running rigging still in place. Guns run out? No guns? Port lids open or closed?

As far as I know there was no standard practice as such, it was up to the wishes of captain and officers. The Royal George was lost in harbour in 1782 because she was inclined too much while undergoing maintenance and water flowed in trough the open lower-deck gunports on the "low" side of the ship, so we can infer that it was not unheard of to have the gunports open while in port. It would help with light and air, certainly; the gun-decks were stuffy places. I fulle expect that the ports would generally be open on a ship in a hot port like the Mediterranean or Caribbean in summmer and closed if she happened to be visiting, say, Archangel towards winter, for obvious reasons in both cases.

As for the guns, they would weigh several tons apiece so they were not something you moved around on a whim. Running them out would certainly give more room on deck, especially important if the ship in addition to the crew had large numbers of visitors aboard such as the families of the crew or hundreds of ladies of, shall we say, "negotiable virtue" as was not uncommon after a cruise.

The guns on the "low" side of the Royal George were run out, the ones on the "high" side were not (indeed they were hauled as close to the ship's center-line as was possible), this was how they inclined her in the first place and made closing the gunports quickly impossible when they tipped under water. But it does indicate that guns could and would be run in or out in port and that doing so could even be a maintenance tool.

Watever you do nobody can really come and say that it is wrong :)

I just looked at the video- I think it's really nice looking. I'll have to watch it with sound. What about the gun carriages? No way I can get down to the lower and middle decks now.

I saw that video and I have to say that I HATE the newly found colour scheme! :p 

Perhaps it's not accurate, but personally, I'm going to go with yellow ochre. At some point in history it must have looked like the Heller kit in that colour! (well, maybe not...)

Anybody wanting to build a model of this ship GOTTA watch this video: http://www.hms-victory.com/restoration-log/hms-victory-her-true-colours .

jtilley

One thing to watch. The yellow-ochre (or "light cream," according to the latest theory based on the latest research) stripes on the hull do not follow the gunports. The stripes get narrower at each end, and they arch up slightly at the bow and stern. Painting them like that would be a real pain on the smaller Revell or Airfix kit. But Heller figured it out, and provided some extremely fine raised lines to guide you. They aren't mentioned in the (scandalously awful) English "instructions"; I don't know whether the Imai ones mention the curved lines or not. But if the stripes are painted right the model will look a whole lot better.

No need to say sorry at all, John! That's very valuable information. I could have easily missed those raised lines.

I didn't notice the transom windows got smaller  as they approached the top of the transom, either. Very interesting. Just like the columns in the Parthenon were not evenly spaced to make up for perspective...

Edit: GM's link is what I meant, but I got it wrong. It's not that they are not evenly spaced, but rather they're not in a straight line.

jtilley

Sailing warship designers were sensitive to such things. It's interesting, for instance, that the lines forming the bottoms of the transom windows in the Victory are shallow arches, and the windows get shorter and narrower as they approach the top of the transom. And their sides are sloped; all of them are radii of a circle whose center is located far above the transom. From the carpenter's standpoint, that means no two windows are identical. It would have been a lot easier to build a bunch of identical, rectangular windows. But eighteenth-century aesthetic taste in ship design wouldn't allow that.

https://books.google.com/books?id=HL2I_t_ZyQoC&pg=PT422&lpg=PT422&dq=temple+columns+in+convergent+line&source=bl&ots=2mr8pWqvXH&sig=QpAvGUKhX2s2gohvf-wMVcZ1vM0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYsfinz5jMAhVT1mMKHV4wDlYQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=temple%20columns%20in%20convergent%20line&f=false

Rdiaz, I should have figured that you found those raised lines on your own! Sorry about that.

The optical illusion caused by straight lines along the sides of a ship is present, in one way or another, in just about every ship model. It's worth noting that Longridge, in his Anatomy of Nelson's Ships, says he deliberately made the top of the copper sheathing sweep up just a little bit at the bow and stern, to cancel out that effect.

I'd heard about that trick for building models a long time ago; I always assumed it was a model builder's convention. Then, a few years ago, I bought a book (whose title I don't remember) of reproductions of colored drawings from the yard of Harland and Wolf. It contained tinted, hand-drawn deck plans and hull profiles of a bunch of nineteenth-century British merchant ships. (The text explained that such a drawing was part of the package that the shipbuilder turned over to the shipowner on completion of the ship.) They all show the coppering lines sweeping up a little at the ends. So the same thing, it seems, was done in painting  - and coppering - real ships.

Sailing warship designers were sensitive to such things. It's interesting, for instance, that the lines forming the bottoms of the transom windows in the Victory are shallow arches, and the windows get shorter and narrower as they approach the top of the transom. And their sides are sloped; all of them are radii of a circle whose center is located far above the transom. From the carpenter's standpoint, that means no two windows are identical. It would have been a lot easier to build a bunch of identical, rectangular windows. But eighteenth-century aesthetic taste in ship design wouldn't allow that.

Thanks a lot.

GM, that would be immensely appreciated indeed! I had to figure some things out, like the order of the deck support beams, which was completely wrong in the provided instructions. I wonder how much more stuff is wrong in that awful booklet...

JT, thank God I noticed the stripes didn't follow the gunport wales in the Revell Victory, which helped me realize there are indeed raised lines indicating where the stripes should be in the Heller kit. I noticed this is a bit of a problem with unpainted Victory wood models; the wales are usually a darker wood, and if they are made to follow the stripes on the real ship, they won't be laid out in the same way the real wales were.

One thing to watch. The yellow-ochre (or "light cream," according to the latest theory based on the latest research) stripes on the hull do not follow the gunports. The stripes get narrower at each end, and they arch up slightly at the bow and stern. Painting them like that would be a real pain on the smaller Revell or Airfix kit. But Heller figured it out, and provided some extremely fine raised lines to guide you. They aren't mentioned in the (scandalously awful) English "instructions"; I don't know whether the Imai ones mention the curved lines or not. But if the stripes are painted right the model will look a whole lot better.

If the stripes follow the lines of the gunports, an optical illusion will take place: when the model is viewed from the side, the bow and stern will appear to be drooping. I should say that I don't know whether the curved stripes were there in 1805, but they're certainly there now. If you locate the raised lines, the job isn't difficult.

There would be plenty of times when the guns were run in, the ports were closed, and the ship was fully rigged. She probably would look like that most of the time when she was at sea, and in port if the weather was cold. The big advantage to running the guns out when the ship was not in action was that more deck space would be created, but that doesn't seem to have been a big consideration. Nobody can say that any configuration of closed and open ports is wrong.

Good luck. That's a huge project.

I've got the Imai instructions if you'd like a copy.