- Member since
November 2005
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Posted by Anonymous
on Saturday, September 17, 2005 2:17 PM
Originally posted by Mr_Gardner
aha!
I certainly like the idea of a nice coppery bottom!
Well-some tanning would help! ;-)
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- Member since
May 2003
- From: Greenville, NC
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Posted by jtilley
on Saturday, September 17, 2005 8:36 PM
We had a good discussion about the color of hull sheathing a few days ago, in the thread headed "Copper leafing instead of paint for plates on hull." I've moved that thread to page 1; it should appear just below this one.
For what it's worth, I firmly believe that the question "whether to weather" has no right or wrong answer. The old "Board Room style" models are pristine (or were when they were built), and I can't imagine that a ship model could be more impressive. I'm also blown away by good, skillful application of weathering techniques; done carefully and knowlegeably, they can convey the character of the real ship like nothing else can. I know one prestigious European ship modeling organization bans weathering in its competitions. I have no interest in any group that operates like that. In my opinion such matters should be left to the judgment and taste of the modeler.
As to open and closed gunports - there's another good application for personal taste. The normal drill would be for the ports to be opened more-or-less simultaneously during an engagement, or during gunnery practice - or when the weather was hot. But there would be plenty of scenarious in which some ports would be open and others shut. The appearance of a model ship-of-the-line changes to a surprising extent if the ports are closed. I'd suggest giving the matter some thought, and handling it however you think looks best.
For that matter, there's no rule that says both sides of the model have to be identical in that respect. (Running out all the guns on only one side of the real ship would be risky, but since only one side of the model is normally visible - who'd know?)
Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.
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Posted by Chuck Fan
on Monday, September 19, 2005 10:59 AM
Actually, running out all guns on weather side of the ship while leaving all guns on the lee side inboard is a common practice when sailing on a boradreach. It improves the ship's stiffness, reduce the ship's heel and increases the ship's speed. Zeolous captains even insist that all members of watches not currently on duty to stand by the weatherside rails to make the ship stiffer still.
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- Member since
November 2005
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Posted by Anonymous
on Monday, September 19, 2005 5:32 PM
QUOTE: Originally posted by Chuck Fan
Actually, running out all guns on weather side of the ship while leaving all guns on the lee side inboard is a common practice when sailing on a boradreach. It improves the ship's stiffness, reduce the ship's heel and increases the ship's speed. Zeolous captains even insist that all members of watches not currently on duty to stand by the weatherside rails to make the ship stiffer still.
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On a ship the size of victory, would it make "that much" differance? it's a Q not saying your wrong, just seems that she's so big, ![Question [?]](/FSM/CS/emoticons/icon_smile_question.gif)
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Posted by Chuck Fan
on Monday, September 19, 2005 11:21 PM
Victory is not that big. Her displacement is only about 3500 tons. All her guns on one side would weigh over 100 tons. Moving 100 tons around inside a 3,500 ton ship would noticeably effect the trim.
(note: her often quoted tonnage of around 2200 tons is derived for a formularused at the time to measure a ship's relative carrying capacity, it does not bear any relationship to the ship's actual weight or displacement)
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- Member since
November 2005
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Posted by Anonymous
on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 10:34 AM
Re paint seepage....
I was looking at pictures of the Victory. It seems that the Heller's molded on wood effect is too deep for a model of this scale - especially, the gaps between planks.
When you look at the Victory as she is now, the sides of the ship look almost smooth with faint lines denoting planks.
I think that the ship should have the wood effect detail sanded off and the gaps filled. I'm doing it on mine and it should cut down on the paint flowing under the mask.
Here's an example of the smooth effect on the actual ship:
http://gallery.drydockmodels.com/album217/IMG_0454_c
I know you could argue that coats of paint could have hidden the effect but I really think that the models details are too deep.
Steve
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- Member since
May 2003
- From: Greenville, NC
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Posted by jtilley
on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 11:56 AM
There's no doubt whatever that the gaps between the planks on the Heller kit are too deep - and too wide. If that much space existed between the planks of a real ship, said ship would leak so badly that it would sink.
What this amounts to is what the aircraft modelers call "surface detail." It's customary these days for high-quality aircraft kits to have countersunk lines (i.e., grooves) delineating the panels of the fuselage, wings, and other components. Everybody knows that there are no grooves between the panels of a real airplane; the panels butt up against each other. Countersunk detailing is a modeling convention, designed to create an illusion that the model is actually made up of individual components like the real thing.
Countersunk detailing is a relatively recent innovation in plastic modeling. (Actually it's been around since the fifties, but it only became fairly common in the late seventies or thereabouts.) For a long time plastic airplane kits represented the joints between panels with raised lines, and rivets with raised dots the size of scale watermelons. The typical 21st-century airplane kit, with its barely-visible countersunk panel lines, is far better than that.
Ship kit designers have wrestled with the same problem, with varying degrees of success. To my eye the Heller Victory is one of the better examples. (For one of the worst, take a look at the Heller French ship-of-the-line Superbe. Its hull has "wood grain" engraved it it - but no planking seams. Apparently we're supposed to believe that the entire hull of the ship was hacked from a single, Brobdingnagian log.) Heller researched the complex layout and shapes of the planking pretty thoroughly. The "anchor stock" pattern of the wales is especially noteworthy. None of those hideously expensive continental European wood kits bothers with it.
If (gawd forbid) I were building the Heller kit I'm not sure what I'd do about the surface detail. I think my inclination would be to sand down the "wood grain" texture a bit; it's really too prominent. As for the "seams" between the planks, I wouldn't want to offer a suggestion without doing some experimenting. I don't think I'd want to fill them and sand them till they disappeared, but I might try filling them partially in order to make them less prominent. This is yet another instance where personal taste has a role to play in this kind of modeling. I want my models to look like they're made of individual planks - but I don't especially want them to look like they leak.
Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.
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- Member since
December 2003
- From: 37deg 40.13' N 95deg 29.10'W
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Posted by scottrc
on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 12:01 PM
That is another issue about Heller, that the molded in planks are out of scale in some places. On my Heller Santa Maria, the gaps in the deck and sidewall planks are wide enough to swallow a small dog so I ended up putting a layer of thinned Spot Glaze filler over the deck and rescribing the seams.
Scott
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- Member since
November 2005
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Posted by Anonymous
on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 2:24 PM
It's certainly a note worthy point, but given the painfully slow progress I need to either srap this or just go with what there is. The amount of research I've allready done is mind numbing, for what was supposed to be "something to do of an evening!)
Don't get me wrong, having all this info is of great value, because I don't think this will be my last Victory, but I need to start making some headway into this kit and the hobby in general. This is the first model since childhood(yes,yes I know<sigh>). It's my first time out with an airbrush, first time with rigging, and on and on and on!
The knowledge you guys are giving is fantastic, and it will serve to make this a far better model that it would have been had I not joined these forums.
I must admit, I'd not even thought about gap plank scale, never crossed my mind.
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- Member since
May 2003
- From: Greenville, NC
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Posted by jtilley
on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 4:41 PM
One more point about all this. In a well-constructed wooden vessel of the eighteenth or nineteenth century (I have no idea about the Santa Maria) there actually would be gaps between the deck and hull planks - sort of.
Shipwrights and naval architects discovered fairly early that it was almost impossible to fit the planks of a big ship together in such a way that they didn't leak - especially when the ship was working in a seaway. The bending and twisting forces in such circumstances are tremendous, and even the most careful shaping of the boards can't compensate for them entirely.
Hence the development of caulking. In typical, high-quality work the shipwright would plane off the outside (or, in the case of deck planking top) corners of each plank, either at a slight angle or with a rabbet plane. The result was that a gap, probably somewhere between half and inch and an inch wide, was left on the surface when the planks were spiked into place.
The caulker (a member of a separate, specialist trade) then did his thing. He pounded strands of caulking (usually old rope soaked in hot tar or pitch) tightly into the gap using his caulking irons. (While he was at it, he also stuffed caulk into the counterbored holes over the spikes or treenails that held the planks in place. The counterbores were then filled with wood plugs, which were cut out of the face grain of a board of the same species of wood as the plank.)
The caulking expanded and contracted with changes in the weather; on a hot day it would project a little above the plank, and in cool, dry weather it would be, in plastic modeling terms, countersunk.
I haven't been on board the Victory in quite a few years, but I know she's been replanked several times since 1805. (As I recall, only a few of her original components are left.) I suspect that, in view of the price of labor and the fact that she's never going to go to sea, the modern restorers took some short cuts regarding the planking. (They made plenty of compromises elsewhere. Most of her current spars are made of steel, and her masts are no longer stepped on her keel. They're steel tubes, and steel rods welded alongside them poke through the bottom of the hull to be embedded in the concrete of the drydock.)
On many models the gaps between the planks are out of scale. One trick that I like, when building a deck from individual wood planks on small scales, is to run a soft pencil around each plank before I install it. The pencil line (which runs all the way through the deck, and will survive any sanding or other brutalization) looks pretty convincingly like a caulked seam.
Again, I'd have to take a good look at that Heller kit before forming an opinion on how best to deal with that particular problem. I'm inclined to think, though, that filling the gaps almost - but not quite- flush with some substance might give just about the right effect.
Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.
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- Member since
November 2005
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Posted by Anonymous
on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 5:01 PM
JT-was that called 'chinking' as well?
Also, guys, remember the line has to be drawn somewhere-there's modeling and then there's self-abuse.
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- Member since
May 2003
- From: Greenville, NC
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Posted by jtilley
on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 5:18 PM
Trowlfazz - You may be right. I can't recall having encountered that term "chinking" in a nautical context, but the American Heritage Dictionary (which happens to be beside my computer) defines the verb "chink" as "to fill small openings in." I wonder if it may be a carpenter's term.
I agree completely with your other point: somewhere one has to draw the line. I certainly don't suggest that every technique ever conceived by every ship modeler be applied on anybody's first effort.
Incidentally, this discussion illustrates one of the big reasons why, when newcomers ask me for recommendations on how to get into ship modeling, I always suggest starting with a small ship on a large scale. Such a kit can produce a beautiful finished product in a few weeks, leaving the modeler with an arsenal of skills and knowledge ready to be applied to something more advanced. Unfortunately that advice doesn't work well at the moment - at least in the realm of plastic sailing ships. So few kits are in production that it's almost impossible to find a small ship in a large scale. That's one reason why the announcement of the Zvezda medieval cog kit interests me. The price is high, but if the kit is any good it will be a fine one for introducing people to the hobby.
Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.
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- Member since
November 2005
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Posted by Anonymous
on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 7:22 PM
I got the boat before I got the forum,lol. So I'm kinda stuck with her for the next, oh, 2 years!
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Posted by gleason
on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 11:43 PM
Here in the upper Midwest, the term 'chinking' is used when building
a log house. It is a cement-like material 'stuffed' in the gaps between
the logs, to keep the wind out, etc...
I have also seen it used in 'prairie' sod homes, built by the early settlers.
<Gleason>
Originally posted by jtilley
Trowlfazz - You may be right. I can't recall having encountered that term "chinking" in a nautical context, but the American Heritage Dictionary (which happens to be beside my computer) defines the verb "chink" as "to fill small openings in." I wonder if it may be a carpenter's term.
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Posted by Chuck Fan
on Friday, September 23, 2005 12:52 PM
Has anyone tried to convert the Heller Victory to represent her apparent during Battle of Cape St. Vincent or earlier?
My understanding is the basic hull didn't change. Only some relatively superficial changes are needed:
1. The forward bridle ports need to be blanked off
2. The twin Cherub figurehead is to be replaced by a larger, more elborate statue
3. The angular top of poop and quarter deck bulwurks are to be shaved down to the level of the scroll work on the outside
4. The center portion of the stern window needs to be removed and a convex set of open galleries added.
5. Add scroll work the stern around the rear windows
6. Replace the kit lower masts with slightly fatter masts to represent the original pole mast. (Move the fore mast slightly backwards and main masts slightly forwards).
7. Replace the mizzen gaff booms with a lanteen yard.
Did I miss anything major.?
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- Member since
May 2003
- From: Greenville, NC
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Posted by jtilley
on Friday, September 23, 2005 2:24 PM
I don't know if anybody has done a really thorough study of the Victory's precise configuration at dates before 1805. As I understand it, the people in charge of the ship currently are in the midst of an intensive effort to establish her Trafalgar configuration - and are discovering some interesting things. Whether they've investigated earlier documents with such determination I don't know.
On the basis of the materials I've seen, the differences Chuck Fan has noted are the big ones. The changes he's described would produce a model quite similar to the "as launched" version in the National Maritime Museum. Whether she looked exactly like that in 1797 I don't know, but I suspect the differences were minimal.
Those changes, though, would require a very substantial amount of work and skill. The NMM also has a model - apparently made as an advance study by the carver - of the Victory's original figurehead. "Statue" is a good word for it. It must have been enormous, and carving a replica of it on 1/100 to Heller's standards would be quite an undertaking. The open stern galleries also would be challenging. The individual balustrades of such a gallery are subtle pieces of turning and carving. They taper, they lean inward (a trick the shipwrights apparently learned from the Greeks and Romans), and they have quite a bit of detail on them. And even small mistakes or inconsistencies in that sort of work stick out like sore thumbs - especially if the rest of the model is detailed with the subtlety of that Heller kit.
I'm not sure shaving down the quarterdeck and poop bulwarks would solve the problems there - though it might. That's another area where, I suspect, further research may turn up something interesting.
I'm about 90% certain that the "as launched" model at Greenwich does have the much-discussed ornamented entry ports on the middle deck - which Heller (with some justification, in my opinion) omitted from its representation of the ship's 1805 configuration. It sticks in my mind that the entry ports on the old model may, in fact, be more elaborate than the ones currently on the ship. I may be wrong about that one, though.
Frankly, if I wanted to build a model of the Victory in pre-1805 configuration I'd start from scratch. I'm not at all sure I could make all those parts in such a way that the difference between them and the Heller components wouldn't be obvious. Furthermore, though I am (as I hope has become obvious) a big believer in the "legitimacy" of kit-built ship models, if I were to put that much effort and skill into such a project I think I'd want to go all the way and scratch build it.
A similar, somewhat less ambitious project that's occurred to me several times would be to convert the Revell 1/96-scale Constitution to represent the ship as she appeared at some other period. If the various contemporary paintings and recent reconstructions are to be believed, she was an extraordinarily beautiful ship when she was launched. (She's always been a beautiful ship, I hasten to add, but to my eye looked even better when freshly built.) The big jobs in that conversion would be to lower the bulwarks, and to change the figurehead, transom ornamentation, and armament - quite a job, but not as demanding as a Victory conversion. I don't think I'll get around to it during this lifetime, but it's kind of fun to think about.
Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.
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- Member since
December 2003
- From: 37deg 40.13' N 95deg 29.10'W
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Posted by scottrc
on Friday, September 23, 2005 2:58 PM
In regards to the Constitution, I have 1/96 hull on my workbench where I cut it down to the gundeck and had rebuilt the upper bulwarks and beakhead with basewood, brass, and styrene. I was about 98% complete with this phase when my basement flooded and all my work was destoyed. However, it is not an hard undertaking with someone who is familiar with scratchbuilding. The ship in it's configuration at lauching just looked cleaner and not so "industrial", plus, I wanted to build the Revell kit so it didn't look so "common".
I am using the Chappell drawings, although I'm not sure if they are the most accurate? Also, the hardest effort is to make a stern with the carvings from the pre-1812 period. I'm thinking of making a resin cast if I live that long.
Scott
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