HMS Victory build

Interesting. I'm an utter ignoramus when it comes to art, but I've always had reservations about that painting. Deliberately or otherwise, Turner made the old ship-of-the-line's masts and yards way too short - far out of proportion to the hull. It seems to me that the distortion has the effect of downplaying what I took to be the basic message of the picture. But I'm no art critic.

As an aside. Turners " The fighting Temeraire" has just been voted the greatest painting in Britains galleries in a survey.

Chuck Fan - None of the drawings I've seen shows a bulwark around the poop deck. That does not, however, necessarily mean there was none.

My recollection (which is pretty unreliable) is that the 1802 model in the NMM showed a simple, rather heavy rail on each side of the poop. I don't think that model has guns. None of the drawings or paintings I've seen shows guns on the poop - except those swivels in Turner's watercolor sketch. Again, none of this is decisive evidence. It may be, though, that the poop simply wasn't big enough, or its beams sturdyy enough, to support carriage guns or carronades. People who visit the Victory (including me) are often surprised at how small she seems. Four carronades, with all the associated gear, would leave little room on that poop deck for anything else.

If (heaven forbid) I were building a model of the Victory in her 1805 configuration - and for some reason had to finish it in a hurry - I probably would start with the Heller kit, raise the forecastle bulwarks, and add the swivels on the poop rail. I'd leave the steps on the sides as they are. But I'd be far more comfortable if I could wait until Peter Goodwin and his associates publish all the results of their research project. I suspect it will reveal some surprising and interesting details.

Incidentally, the most accurate depiction of the Victory in her 1805 configuration may well be a kit that doesn't get much attention: the 1/700 cast white metal one from Skytrex. It is, to my knowledge, the only one that has the raised forecastle bulwarks. It's in my "to be built" stack. The hull is a really remarkable casting, but painting it will be quite a challenge - to say nothing of the rigging.

Just watched the History Channel show about the Victory. In general I thought it was reasonably good, but I was disappointed that it only included a couple of minutes' worth of footage of the actual ship. Most of the program consisted of computer graphics (decent, with a few glitches) and stock footage of those awful models from the "Horatio Hornblower" series. I probably shouldn't complain though. TV documentaries on historical subjects are a great deal better these days than they used to be.

Mr. Tilley:

Is there any consensus regarding whether the Victory had bulwurks around her poop deck? I read that she shipped 32 pdr carranades on her poop after the 1802 refit, and those were removed in the middle of 1805. Surely if she had carranades there, there would have been some kind of bulwark to protect the crew?

Regards

Mr. Tilley said:

QUOTE: The omission of the royal yards isn't exactly an error. In 1805 the royal was in the process of being established as a permanent element of the sail plan. Rigging practices varied from ship to ship, but at that time the sail was often referred to as a "topgallant royal" and was "set flying." The sail and its yard were lowered and stowed (often by being lashed inside the topmast shrouds) whenever they weren't set. Setting the topgallant royal entailed rigging the halyard, braces, and sheets and hauling the yard up to the topgallant masthead. In a ship the size of the Victory that would be quite a job - which probably is why, within a few years, warships in general adopted the practice of mounting their royal yards permanently.

Yay! I've been wondering why most depictions of the Victory show only three sails per mast, yet stories (both real and fictional) have captains setting "royals and courses" all the time.

Thanks for solving that little mystery.

Regards,

We've taken up the question of the Victory's entry ports a couple of times before. The bottom line is that, though the evidence so far is inconclusive, Heller may well have been right to leave them off.

Quite a few paintings of the Victory date from the Trafalgar period. (We have to be careful when consulting paintings of her; she had a long career and got modified many times.) The recent book by Allan McGowen and John McKay, H.M.S. Victory: Construction, Restoration and Repair (I may have garbled the title a little) contains several excellent reproductions of such pictures. Not one of them shows the entry ports.

The most persuasive piece of evidence may be the enormous oil painting, "The Battle of Trafalgar," by J.M.W. Turner. It was commissioned not long after the battle by the Prince Regent (the future George IV), and now hangs in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. The Victory is the centerpiece of the picture; if I remember right, she stands at least six feet tall in it. Turner is known to have gone on board the ship shortly after the battle to make sketches for the painting. (One of those sketches is in the McGowen-McKay book.) He shows the steps on the side of the hull exactly the way Heller does.

The Turner painting is pretty convincing, but not absolutely decisive. Turner was a great artist, but his knowledge of ship construction was sometimes a little hazy. He apparently worked on that painting for a long time; if I remember correctly he didn't finish it till sometime in the 1820s. It's entirely possible that he unwittingly included some features of her that weren't there at the time of the battle.

The National Maritime Museum has two contemporary models of the Victory. One of them represents her "as built," 1765 configuration. It does have entry ports - but in many other ways doesn't look anything like the ship looks now. The other model seems to have been intended to show what she looked like after her 1802 refit (i.e., just about how she looked at Trafalgar). That model doesn't have entry ports - and is enough to make a ship modeler throw up his hands and give up. All sorts of features of that model differ from the real ship (and every published set of plans, and every commercial kit - including the Heller one). The structure of the bow is different, the decorations on the transom are different, much of the deck furniture is different (there's no belfry, if I remember right), and the stripes on the sides are white instead of yellow. The number of gunports in the quarterdeck bulwarks is also different - and, just to provide food for thought, agrees beautifully with the Turner sketch. (That sketch is itself rather disquieting. It shows a different form of railing at the break of the poop deck - and the railing has a couple of swivel guns mounted on it.)

One other conspicuous feature of that newer model: the bulwarks around the forecastle deck are shoulder-high (rather than knee-high, as the real ship's - and the Heller kit's - are today). There's room for argument about that one too, but I'm inclined to think the NMM model is right. Back in the 1920s, when the ship was undergoing one of her first historical restorations, a fine scholar named R.W. Bugler did a thorough search of the records and concluded that the forecastle bulwarks had been raised during the 1802 refit. Unfortunately, by the time his book came out the carpenters had torn the bulwarks down and rebuilt them in their present configuration. Dr. R.C. Anderson, who was in charge of the work, acknowledged the mistake; he was (understandably) reluctant to tear apart the skilled work that the carpenters had just completed.

I think Chuck Fan is right about the armament - but that's a matter of some question too. Some sources give her 104 guns at the time of Trafalgar; some give her 102. Some put a couple of long guns on the forecastle deck beside the carronades, firing through ports in the tall bulwarks. And, of course, if the entry ports are omitted there are two additional gunports on the middle gundeck.

The omission of the royal yards isn't exactly an error. In 1805 the royal was in the process of being established as a permanent element of the sail plan. Rigging practices varied from ship to ship, but at that time the sail was often referred to as a "topgallant royal" and was "set flying." The sail and its yard were lowered and stowed (often by being lashed inside the topmast shrouds) whenever they weren't set. Setting the topgallant royal entailed rigging the halyard, braces, and sheets and hauling the yard up to the topgallant masthead. In a ship the size of the Victory that would be quite a job - which probably is why, within a few years, warships in general adopted the practice of mounting their royal yards permanently.

To my mind the most bewildering thing about the Heller Victory kit has always been the absence of any means of fastening the other yards to the masts. There are no parrels for the topsail or topgallant yards, and the rigging diagrams show no trusses for the lower yards. Apparently the yards are just supposed to hang there. That's utterly ridiculous. It would have been perfectly practicable to make a set of parrels out of plastic - and that would have been a much better use of plastic and ingenuity than those idiotic "looms" for making ratlines and hammock nettings. Sorry; getting up on the soapbox again.

As I understand it, the people in charge of the real Victory are in the midst of an extremely high-powered research project, the objective of which is to determine once and for all what she looked like on October 21, 1805. My hunch is that their ultimate answer to that question will be, "well...we really aren't sure." They've come to some interesting conclusions already, though. They've established fairly firmly, for instance, that Nelson didn't die on the spot where the "here Nelson died" marker is - and they seem to be leaning toward the conclusion that the forecastle bulwarks were indeed shoulder-high. But to my knowledge they haven't said anything about the entry ports. I'll be watching the press with great interest to see what the final conclusions of that research project are.

BTW, Heller kit has two significant errors in the hull:

1. It omitted the very conspicuous middle deck entry ports. It's hard to understand why Heller made this mistake.

2. On the real Victory, the entire upper deck is armed with long 12 pdrs, only the quarter deck is armed with short 12 pdrs. There is also a pair of intermediate length 12 pdrs on the forc'stle. Heller had the rear thrid of the upper deck armed with short 12 pdrs, and omitted the forc'stle 12 pdrs altogether.

Some minor errors in the rigging:

1. Dolphin striker (The thing projecting down below the bowsprit cap) on the real Victory is made from a wooden pole with round cross section. The model seem to imply it was made from a flat piece of iron.

2. fore and main top gallant masts on the real victory has a second roll of slots for royal yards. Heller's model omits there. So in the configuration depicted by Heller, Victory would not be able to cross royal yards and spread Royal sails.

I've had good luck paiinting the whole stern piece black first, then dry brushing yellow to bring out the balisters and window frames.

I understand that RN had no standard yellow color at the time of trafalgar. It's dockyards would have used cheap yellow paints of a variety of tints and dullness. Rich captains and Admirals improve the apperence of their ships with privately purchased high quality bright yellow paint. But neither Captain Hardy, Victory's skipper at the time of trafalgar, nor Nelson, was rich. So victory probably would have been painted with a mixture of dull, cheap yellow paints.

I thought a 3:1 mixture of flat yellow and yellow-green produced a result that looks like a surface freshly painted with cheap yellow paint.

Thanks powder monkey, I have just sprayed the primer and am waiting to see how that "tacks" onto the hull.
If it looks ok, I could well be putting some colour down on it by the weekend.

QUOTE: Originally posted by vapochilled Looking over the hull, I see that all the filler has gone, and that the oven cleaner has not eaten all the primer, it's left a slight deposit, is there anything I should do to "kill" the oven cleaner? Don't want to paint over and find the paint won't stick. I've allready soap and watered it all.

Soap and water should do it. If you want to be sure you have neutralized the oven cleaner, use vinegar. Oven cleaner is sodium hydroxide. A mild acid like vinegar will neutralize it no problem. The oven cleaner is soluable in water, so there is probably nothing there anyway.

I see most if not all are building plastic. I took a different tack and am building plank on plank.All wood masts and yards shaped with file & sand paper. I surprised myself they turned out pretty good. The ship is 44" long , 30" high and I'm slowly trying to do the rigging, the ratlines being the hardest. The deck s & cannon,lifeboats all deck furnishing are done.My ship sits atop the spareroom t.v. between work sessions. Hope to have pictures soon

Could'nt sleep.
Looking over the hull, I see that all the filler has gone, and that the oven cleaner has not eaten all the primer, it's left a slight deposit, is there anything I should do to "kill" the oven cleaner? Don't want to paint over and find the paint won't stick. I've allready soap and watered it all.

Well it's done
I'm sitting here with a glass of 18 year old water while I survey the task ahead!
It had to be done, there was no way I could make it look good, that's the thing with paint, more paint never covers up a problem,lol
So, I'll do no more to it tonight, I need to wash the oven cleaner off and then dry the hull before I can start the proccess again. Only downside to the oven cleaner is it seems to remove the filler as well, so I have some serious work ahead.

well, after over 40 hours spent on the hull, I'm getting ready to strip all the paint of in the morning
I figure if it's worth doing, it's worth doing as well as I can do it! And this is not as good as I can do it. The copper went on great, the yellow,mmm not so happy with the black looked great. So I tried to re mask and brush the yellow, that's where it all went wrong.
The area around the steps just looks terrible, there is no way I sit the model on the sideboard and be proud, knowing that I can do better, so I've just setup a bin bag with the hull in it outside, and I'm about to unleash the fury of the oven cleaner into it
Not sure what to expect once all the paint comes off, I would imagine many hours will need to be spent, preping the hull again and laying down the primer.
Just a little upset and angry right now, as there is a great deal of time invested into it so far.

Just came across this site while searching to find out the purpose of a "fish" (please don't state the obvious,lol
http://www.all-model.com/wolfram/PAGE26.html

Has loads of info in their, very usefull for the sailing ship fans

I've allways been amazed at how these ships were manned, but the more I read, the more I'm not only impressed at the mechanics of these things, but also the skill required to sail one, not just as a proccess to move, but also to move as a ship of war!

that would certainly do it
Just ordered the longridge book, I have one book allready, but this kit was never meant to be the start of a hobby, it was just to get some "quality" time with my now very pregnant wife(it's going to be a girl btw, found out today)
However as time goes on, I'm being drawn more and more into it, instead of this being my one and only kit, I see it being used as a tooth cutting excercise!
Also, comming from a background of always aiming for perfection in pretty much everything I do, I keep, re-doing bits on it as I'm unhappy with it. Don't get me wrong, this won't be a patch on any of the fine examples I've seen of your work or many other guys here, but it will be a steep learning curve in terms of techniques, airbrushing being just one example. ropewalking being another.

Well...forty-nine years of reading, forty-nine years of model building (starting at age five), thirty-five years of travel to maritime museums and restored ships in the U.S., Britain, and Holland, four years as an undergraduate student (in history and music), seven years as a grad student (in military and naval history), three years as a curator in a maritime museum, and twenty-two years as a college professor. (Teaching is one of the best ways to learn things. If you want to stay ahead of your students you have to keep learning - and if you don't stay ahead of them, they'll know it sooner than you do.)

That sort of resume is not, however, necessary to understand the basics of square rig. I strongly recommend that anybody with a serious interest in building models of sailing ships start acquiring a library of books. The number of good ones on the market has increased dramatically during the past twenty years or so. Some particularly good starters for anybody interested in H.M.S. Victory:

C. Nepean Longridge, The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships
John McKay, Anatomy of the Ship: The 100-Gun Ship Victory
John McKay and Alan McGowen, H.M.S. Victory: Construction, Restoration, and Repair
George M. Campbell, The Neophyte Shipmodeler's Jackstay
John Harland, Seamanship In the Age of Sail
James Lees, The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War
Darcy Lever, The Young Officer's Sheet Anchor
David Steel, Elements of Mastmaking, Sailmaking, and Rigging

If I had to recommend two for starters, they'd probably be Longridge and Campbell. Longridge built an outstanding model of the Victory that's now in the Science Museum, London. The book (the title not withstanding) is a detailed account of how he did it - with beautiful drawings as well as photos. The book would serve admirably as a replacement for those awful Heller instructions.

The Campbell book is a moderately-priced paperback, originally intended as a guide for people working on solid-hull wood kits. But it contains an amazing amount of sound, basic information on how the structure and rigging of a sailing ship work. Anybody who learned everything in that book would know a good deal about ships.

the one I have uses Black,White,bright red!, Tan and that awful brown, which is so brittle!
I think the average modeller would be horrified at the amount of filler this boat is using! One of the anchors had such bad sink marks, that actually ended up building up one half of it it from filler. Damm things a work of art in itself,lol.
Barring the fact that your 200 years old JT, where did you pick up all this knowledge on square rigs? just years of doing them?

Ouch, what an awful - and irrationally chosen - color. As I remember, the kit I reviewed (quite a few years ago) didn't have it. I remember yellow, black, and bright red. But maybe that's my senile memory talking.

Actually, the mastheads are that colour out of the box, it's the nastiest plastic I've ever worked with. Very brittle.
The two halves did not go well together, so the grey you see, is me starting to build up the join lines, ready to spend happy hours sanding!

There are no "rules" about how to rig a ship model. In the case of the real thing, the near-invariable practice was to step the lower masts, rig them, use them as the mechanism for hoisting the topmasts, rig the topmasts, use them to hoist the topgallant masts, etc. That was about the only way to do it without inviting the masts to fall over.

Lots of modelers do it the same way - not because of strength considerations, but simply because setting things up in that order keeps things from being in the way. It's easier to rig the shrouds of the lower mast before the topmast is in position. That sequence also makes it less likely that anything will get broken.

It's entirely practicable to rig the model in stages like that. The whole network of spars and rigging is, in fact, designed for that purpose. If you set up the rigging of the lower mast and find that you can't fit the topmast into position, you've done something seriously wrong. On the prototype ship, it has to be possible to unship the topmast without disturbing the lower mast.

Many modelers set up the lower masts, then the topmasts, then the topgallant masts, and then move on to the yards. I like to rig the fore lower mast, then the fore yard, then the main lower mast, then the main yard, then the mizzen lower mast, then the crojack yard, then the fore topmast, then the fore topsail yard - etc. That system adds some variety to the job. It's all up to the individual modeler.

The object in your photo is indeed one of the lower mastheads. I imagine the brown paint on it is either a primer or a trick of lighting in the photo; the masthead, along with the top, the trestletrees, the cap, and the hounds, should of course be black.

Scottrc's comments about plastic spars probably are more applicable to smaller kits. As I said in my last post, the larger spars in the Heller kit probably are strong enough - though the smallest ones might benefit from replacement. I agree completely with scottrc's comments on the kit-supplied blocks and deadeyes. Heller made a gallant attempt at them, but was thwarted by the inherent characteristics of the injection molding process. One-piece injection-molded blocks and deadeyes, by definition, just don't work. A two-piece rigid mold physically cannot produce an object with a hole in it and a groove around it.

Wood replacement blocks and deadeyes are available from a variety of sources. My own personal preference, though, is the line of Britannia metal fittings from Bluejacket Shipcrafters ( www.bluejacketinc.com ). They aren't cheap (a full outfit of blocks and deadeyes for a 1/96 Victory might well cost more than the Heller kit did), but to my eye they're the most authentic-looking fittings available.

I am enjoying your thread You seem to realize what a lot of scale modelers find out when tackling a plastic sailing ship, that in order to satisfy the requirements of looking as authentic as possible, the kit becomes a multi-media project.

In regards to paints for instance, I use all types of medias; enamels, acrylics, tempura, and oils to get the best results. Don't rule out any medium, because they all have their purpose.

Also, as you found out, we apply these medias with different techniques. I for one use the technical pen a lot. I also use India Ink for deck and side washes. I like oils for painting gilding and also as a wash, since oil seems to give depth and a patina that real wood represents. Pastels also are a must for shading and blending and light weathering. You find yourself more of an artist painting a 3 dimensional picture than a plastic model builder.

In regards to the masts and spars. I have built several Heller sailing ships, and have learned that the some of the kit masts, yards, and spars are only good for stirring paint and to use as patterns to make better ones out of wood, round styrene, and brass tube.

Same goes with any hardware Heller provides such as blocks and tackles. Most are too big, or are molded poorly that inhibit them to function properly. RTV and resin has become my best friend in being able to make a pattern, then a mold, and make a couple dozen resin fittings.

Building the masts in stages is the more sane approach. I tried eating the whole elephant by building the entire foremast and ended up in pure frustration when trying to install the stays, braces, footropes, futtocks, and reefers. The best solution is to build and rig each step before installing it on the model, with exception to the lower mains which are installed in the base of the hull, that way you have room to test and re-rig if possible each line in the segment and iron our any issues before finding them when the masts are secured on the model.

I hope you enjoy your build, I think it's looking fantastic so far, don't let it get to complicated though, for there are always more models to build in the future.

Scott

JT, excuse my ignorance, but is this the masthead? If so, then I'm not happy with it either! they will require a great deal of work to get them looking good, let alone any problems with rigging.

The wife is now officialy starting to get worried!
She's just seen me putting the masts together to check how they fit etc.
Her response was "where on earth do you intend putting it once it's done?"
That's a 12" rule being dwarfed by the lower section of the mast

Hi JT, yes , I was thinking that the rigging on this thing will be far from a model, it will be functional!
I had a look at modelexpo, the ones they have will require a great deal of work to get right.
I've glued brass tube into the two lower mast sections, and can do something similar with the yards.
You know, while I greatly appreciate your answers JT, your knowledge is great, I sometimes wish you would'nt answer,lol, You see every time you answer, I find out my question is only half the story. Your answer normally opens a whole other can of worms for me. Far from making the job easy, you force me to learn yet more and more with each answer
I fear my brain is going to explode before the end of this kit
You've built several of these beasts, and from your answer, am I to understand that I can't assemble the masts, fit them , then do the rigging? that was my plan, as it would make the job of putting them in easier(I thought), your asnwer suggests that I must install each mast section in stages as per the real thing, doing the rigging as I work up the mast?

Ship model fitting companies don't make replacement yards with all the fittings attached. They do offer tapered birch dowels in various lengths and diameters; you might be lucky enough to find some in sizes that match. But the final shaping and the addition of the fittings would be up to you. It probably would be virtually as easy to start from scratch.

A yard on an eighteenth-century warship is more complicated than it looks. (Incidentally, the word yardarm refers to the outermost section of the yard - the part from the shoulder to the tip. The shoulder is the "step" near the end of the yard, where the earring of the sail is attached. Each yard has two yardarms - one at each end.) The center section of the yard is octagonal; the taper from that section to the ends is governed by rules. That sort of thing sounds pedantic, but nothing wrecks the appearance of this kind of model like a set of badly-proportioned spars. A yard also has a number of fittings attached to it (though not as many, or as complex, as a late-nineteenth-century yard).

As I remember (I don't have the kit in front of me), Heller got almost all that stuff right. The only criticism of the yards that I can recall making when I reviewed the kit (that was a long time ago; beware my senile memory) was that the representations of the studdingsail boom irons were sort of crude. If I were building the kit, my inclination would be to keep the plastic spars (with the possible exceptions of the very skinniest ones) and make new studdingsail boom irons from pieces of wire and brass tubing, soldered together.

I wasn't impressed with the design of the lower mastheads - the pieces that plug into the lower masts, supposedly after they (the mastheads) have had the shrouds rigged around them. That's part of Heller's ridiculous solution to the Great Ratline Problem. Each lower mast ought to be one solid unit.

I can't imagine that the plastic tops would give any trouble; they're plenty thick enough, and a lot of rigging supports them. Ditto for the lower masts and yards. I suspect the topmasts and topsail yards are hefty enough to handle the strain too. For the topgallant yards and topgallant masts, your options really are to use the kit parts or build replacements from scratch.

If I remember correctly, the lower masts and yards are hollow. (Maybe the topmasts and topsail yards are too; I don't remember for sure.) You might try gluing pieces of wood or piano wire inside to provide some stiffening, but I don't really think it's necessary. This is a large-scale model., and those plastic parts are pretty stiff. Most species of wood, turned down to the diameters of those topgallant masts and yards, would be either just as springy as the plastic or (worse) prone to break at the worst moments.

There's no way to avoid the fact that, even on a big model like this, it takes a good deal care and some practice to keep the rigging from pulling the thinner spars out of alignment. If the model is rigged to scale, though, the problem won't be nearly as severe as it may seem at first glance. Rigging isn't an arbitrary collection of ropes; it's a system, carefully designed to resist far greater forces than any that a model will ever encounter. Those old boys knew what they were doing.

Well I have now stripped the stern end twice, as I was unhappy with the results, going to be looking at that again this weekend.
I had the bright idea of looking at the mast assemblies today, boy what a lesson in frustration they are! So much filler and sanding to be done.
Can I get 1/100th scale yard arms? the plastic ones, well even the mast tops are so flimsy that I can see a real "pita" brewing once I start rigging?

Vapo-I occasionally have ideas-but only occasionally. Get that shoulder shake going!

Trowlfaz, the rotring pen idea seems to have some merit!
After the enamal yellow had dried, I loaded up the pen with diluted Tamiya acrylic, and started playing. While I', not thrilled with the flat/no flat acrylic!! it does seem to be working, Once it's all cured for a week or so, I'll build up 2 or 3 thin layers of dullcoat and see how it looks.
Quite a lot of work to do, but you can see the basic idea of the pen is actually working, nice idea trowlfaz

Well, I was up until 4am trying to figure out this rope business. I tryed my first one.
3 lots of 3 strands, each yarn wound right then the the 3 yarns wound together left. Not as pretty as using a ropewalk,(I could have done with about 4 extra hands,lol)
But not too bad for a first attempt.
Oh and thanks for the water tip! worked a treat JT