gene1's 1/100 HMS Victory Build

Here are my latest pictures of the Victory. I just put more deck things on & all the Hammocks & nets. I am taking a break & am starting to build the Renwal 1/200 Ethan  Allen that warshipguy,  Bill, served on for 3 years. About 3 seconds would have been my service time on a submarine. I will stick with the Air Force. It is a very interesting kit & nino gave it to me & gave Bill one too. 

Sorry, I got 3 the same.I will try to get them off later.I will start the masts in a couple weeks. 

very nice clean work as always gene , love watching your build's . I think I might follow in your shoe's and have a break from my build , been on it 20 month's , need to do something else . have an academy 1/350 tirpitz in the stash , might give it a go OOB .

is bill still building , if so what ?

steve

It's nice to know that I am not the only one who has several projects going at the same time....causing mr to jump from one to the other for sanes sake.......

Rob

Definitely getting better each time I see her.....Cheers mark

Thanks guys for all the nice words because I know you are all great model builders. At least you know that you can still build when you are pushing 90' It is an endless hobby. I do love building submarines because there is no rigging. If you haven't built one, look at ebay for one of these Renwal subs. It shows the whole inside & Bill gave me the correct colors.  Pay a little more to get one that hasn't had any parts glued. I can get paint off fairly easily, but glue is tough.

    The nuke subs were huge & now there are some that are as big as my brother's WW2 battleship. Nino sent me some pictures of them & what a surprise to see their size. 

Looking great enjoying this work and looking forward to seeing you start on the rigging. 

EST 1961, Is that your birthday,if so I was EST 1930. I broke off the Victory for a little rest to build a Renwal Nuclear Sub with an interior detail Interesting old kit. I have been on the Victory 2 & 1/2 months & will be back on it in a couple weeks.

     You all have some awfull good Irish whisky over there.

Thanks for the reply Gene 1961 it was.       I'm still modeling thanks to a teacher when she suggested to a class of six year olds that we bring in Airfix kits for our Friday afternoon craft lesson. Now with my kids all teenagers and doing their own things I have more time for modeling and checking into the forum to see what others are doing cant fail to be incouraged to keep building and it's still fun.

True we are spoilt for choice with whiskey and I was lucky enough to receive a bottle of Connemara peated single malt for Christmas due to my taste for woody flavours.

Joe

Wow Gene! You're flying through this project. In the time you've managed to acheive all that, I've done........nothing. Back to it now though. looking forward to see where you go from here.

Flint, I know what you have been doing, chasing all those little Black Sails pirate girls, while I have been hard at work.

  I took a Victory break & have been building one of the interior detailed Renwal nuclear subs. that have a great full interior. In his career, Bill served 3 years on the Ethan Allen that I am building along with 6 other Nuke subs.  It is an old model from 1961 & is not correct, but gives you a good idea what they are like inside. In years past I built a bunch of sub kits. The nicest thing about them, they have NO rigging.

Ha! Would love to have the time to do that Gene.

I'd certainly be interested to see the sub interior model. I visited the inside of HMS Ocelot a few years back; a Cold War era diesel-electric. Very cramped. Felt like I was trapped in an engine bay trying not to accidentally touch anything and set something off! 

Flint, go on ebay , Toys & Hobbies & look up Renwal 1/200 Polaris submarine. There is usually one or more for sale. They are a nice size model & fun to build. Warshipguy is building the Ethan Allen as he was on it for 3 years & was on 6 more Nuclear subs in his career with the US Navy. 

    I also got Revell's U 47, which has a complete interior, real nice kit. It is 1/125  scale. I will be back on my Victory pretty quick. Masts & rigging. 

gene is warshipguy doing a build log of his sub , I haven't heard from him in ages .

Hi Steve, Bill has  been working on his Alabama & I know he has the Ethan Allen, because nino sent us both one. Bill sent me the color info for the Ethan Allen when I asked him about it. He said he has been feeling a lot better.

   I am well along with my Ethan sub & am working on the inside. I am back on a sub kick as I built a bunch of them about 6 years ago. I will go back on the Victory soon.

I took a couple weeks of the Victory to build the Renwall Ethan Allen Nuclear sub that warshipguy served on.  It was a fun build & then subs bit me again & now have 5 more to build after the Victory. Here is a quick picture on my Ethan Allen & I will put a new thread on that.

 It took me 3 months to get back from my submarines, but I did build 8 of them. They were a little faster than the Victory. I just finished & installed my  3 lifeboats & here are the pictures .

I did one thing that worked well on them. I was trying to use .020 plastic strip & do a floor, but that didn't work so I used a sheet of Evergreen box car siding & used the seat casting as a pattern. I cut it down to drop in as a floor. I sanded a bevel on the bottom so it fit tight & I was done. Now with everything on top you can barely see it.

Now it is on to the masts & rigging & forget how easy subs are.

It continues to look great!

As usual, Gene, you do beautiful work!

Bill

gene1

 It took me 3 months to get back from my submarines, but I did build 8 of them. They were a little faster than the Victory. I just finished & installed my  3 lifeboats & here are the pictures .

I did one thing that worked well on them. I was trying to use .020 plastic strip & do a floor, but that didn't work so I used a sheet of Evergreen box car siding & used the seat casting as a pattern. I cut it down to drop in as a floor. I sanded a bevel on the bottom so it fit tight & I was done. Now with everything on top you can barely see it.

 

  Oh, I can see it.  That Evergreen Boxcar siding looks GREAT! Another of your excellent ideas. 

   I Think you managed to finish 3 Ships boats in the time it took me to cut grass & replace washers on 2 sinks and a Tub. One of us (me!) needs to work faster. And your little masts look way better than anything I've done...(including that Korean "Turtle" warship.)

     And Nice coils!  (Thank you for the advice on making them.)

   Jim.

A small Evergreen observation:

    The smallest size of the Evergreen Passenger Car Siding (HO Evg 3025) makes for a very finely scribed deck surface, and a better-look to simulate 1/700 (and smaller) wood decks than Plastic Kits molded parts. In my opinion it's slightly better than the V-Groove .025 spacing  sheet to depict planking as the deck surface appears less wide.  Only problem is the groves run width-wise instead of length so the longest section can only be 6 inches.

Gene,

Those ships boats are masterful.  I really admire your work.

Scott

 Thank you all so much for all the nice comments. I am back to working hard on the Victory & like it more than ever because I have the finished hull to look at as I work on the masts. A couple of things I tried and they worked. 

         I am working on the deadeye's & rigging them to the shroud table. I have rigged the pair on the tree & knoted & glued the bottom deadeye. I will leave the top loose & glue the bottom to the base & then adjust the top to the right height & then glue it 

    On the mast bands I tried a lot of things like masking each band & painting or using a marking pen, but that didn't work good so I have that super sticky red tape I use for my rope coils & I painted a strip of that black & then cut the thin bands for the mast bands. I did use a black marker to go over every where needed on the bands & then stuck each one to the mast. Worked real good then hit them with dullcote. The castings on the mast bands were not great & the tape really cleaned them up. That red tape is super & I think it might have come from a car painting shop.

   Also I have been working ( & going crazy) trying to figure how to use the shroud rigging tool. The plan instructions are terrible & I did architecture for 40 years & built the homes from my own plans so I do know how to read plans. The Victory shroud tool works completely differently than the smaller ship rigging tools.  I finally figured it out & it is a good system but terrible instructions.

   On this Victory tool or jig, you make one pair of lines for each side & they are attached at the top to a kit part that fits into the top of each mast with a completed shroud & ratlines already attached. You do put a complete set of shroud lines on this way & they attache just like the real ships. Then you run the ratlines & that is why I use the tool as my hands won't work to tie the rats on a regular rigging way. I have had real good jobs on all the other ships I used the rigging tool. Hope this helps someone & I will post more pictures when I am done. 

                                     Gene

Since my last post several things worked out better than I hoped. The mast bands worked great. I used the sticky red tape painted black & cut onto thin bands on a piece of glass I have used for years. It is a 9"x12" double strength window glass & I have cut on it with a scalpel or any sharp blade ,thousands of times.

  I stuck each band carefully on the mast & trimmed the ends. It looks good. Cleans up the mast castings too. I also learned more about the shroud rigging tool for the Victory. It does work different than the smaller version. You place a seperate mast top for each mast in the top of the rig & rig from the bottom up. You start with the first & then to the last shroud & then from the second to the second from last to rig the shrouds. When they are all in you will run the rat lines across. This time I used a thin fast setting CA with a long fine added spout. I glued each joint & it worked fine without building up a big glue joint. I did learn ONE knot that I use to tie the lines together at the bottom. It is a sliding Taut line knot & works great. Iused to tie all knots but that is 35 or 40 years ago. My type of building is for old people . Real old.

  My last thing is my son in law came & routed 6 new bases for me & I sanded & stained with Minwax Gunstock & spray lacquer. My biggest base is now on the Victory.

Hope I helped someone who is building the Victory, I know with those lousy instructions on a beautiful kit, I was going crazy trying to figure out how the rigging tool worked.      Gene 

I forgot to add, that you use a single line for every 2 sets of shrouds. You do both sides of 2 each by wrapping the shroud around the added top piece. when you are done with all the shrouds you will remove the top mast piece & glue the long shaft on it to the mast itself.It gives you a realistic shroud/ mast wrap when done. 

jadowning17, Thanks for the kind words. I am 88 & still build models. Been doing it too long to quit. I had a bad day today on the shrouds, but have a different way figured now to do them. I have to do things different, mostly on rigging, to get a decent model. This is a hard one for me to rig. I did big wood sailing ships years ago, but I could tie knots then. Painting & building models is still fine with me, the close finger work is what's hard. Thanks again,,,,,, Gene

Gene, your Victory looks terrific!

I'm super-impressed!  :)

Dave

Gene,

Your HMS Victory is exquisite!  Extremely well-done!  Nelson would have been proud!

Bill

Bill & Dave, you silver tounged devils make me feel awful good. Bill , I am reading P T Deutermann's  Ghosts of Bungo Suido, about a  WW2 sub in the Japanese inland sea by Kure & Hiroshima. His navy books are #1 in Naval fiction. 

love your work gene , don't know of any other modeler , who can use that damn rigging jig , as well as you mate .

 I just did pictures  of my first of the kit rig shrouds. They worked out good, but could have been better just with a better glue. I used mostly fast dry thin CA. It didn't hold good. There were 60 glue joints in each one of the shrouds. After I broke the bowsprit, I put on a full front thin aluminum one on with a red tape to protect my eyes.

   I had to stop to watch 4 baby foxes & their mother playing in my front yard. They are so cute & thiss years crop.