 MagicSteve wrote: |
| .... How are the chains to be done.
What did you use for the hammock rail net. I've used the plastic net that wedding decorations are made of on my boat, I thought it looked good till I saw your picture.
You have what looks like a spoon where the anchor will end up, what is it.
What sort of ship's boats does the kit lack? |
|
I assume you are talking about the channel chains supporting the shrouds. I threw out the model's plastic deadeyes, and used brass wire make the chains around the cast white metal 5/32" deadeyes from Blue Jacket Ship Crafters. (http://www.bluejacketinc.com/fittings/fittings4.htm) These have a groove around the edge, and it is easy to bent the wire around it in the right shape. The lower links of the channel chains were also made of brass wire. I did not solder the brass wire to close off each link. The links hold their shapes well even without solder or glue. The shround tension was also not a problem and did not tend to pull the chains apart.
I used Modelship Ways MS2828 netting for the hammock nets. A sheet of 70mmX700mm netting cost $2.99, and just one sheet was enough to do all the hammock netting around the deck.
I assume the spoon thing you mentioned is the silver thing stuck in the fore channel. That is a cast white metal stropped deadeye from Blue Jacket Ship Crafters. (http://www.bluejacketinc.com/fittings/fittings5.htm) I originally intended to use these for the shrounds, but their stropping is too thick and too long. I used the unstropped deadeyes instead, making my own stropping and chain for them.
The official boat complement of a British ship of the line at around 1800 consist of 6 boats - 1. a widebeamed, carvel built, plain launch for heavy work duty, 2. a long, slender, elegantly decorated carvel built barg for official use by the senior officer aboard, 3. a slighly smaller and less elegantly decorated pinnace, usually carvel built, for routine use by all officers aboard, 4. two plain clincker built ong cutter with 6-8 oars aside for lighter work duty and for cutting out expeditions, 5. one plain clincker built shortcutter with 2-3 oars aside for even lighter work duty, Sometimes called a Jollyboat.
The exact mix and lengthes of the boats carried by Victory is not known as this varys from ship to ship and from year to year. But majority of sources suggest it was something like this:
1X34 foot launch
1X32 foot barge
2X30 foot long cutters
1X28 foot pinnace
and 1X18 foot short cutter
Normally, the Victory would have stowed the launch, the barge, the pinnace and the short cutter on the boom across the
midship well, and suspended the 2 long cutters from the davits
outside the poop deck. There is also a stern davit which Heller overlooked. Usually the stern davit is left empty. But sometimes an extra, 7 th boat might be carried on it as well.
Heller's Victory comes with just 3 boats. The largest one scales out to about 34 feet, which is right for Victory's launch. But the hull shape is totally wrong. The launch is a heavy, thickset, broadbeamed boat equipped with an onboard windlass and a davit capable of lifting the ship's anchor. It is certainly not the relatively long, slander boat offered. The second largest scale out to about 31 feet, which is close to the barge's 32 feet. The resemblence between the shape of the barge and the shape of Heller's boat is reasonable, except for the stern. Except for the Launch, all British boats feature a stern that tappers to a small, declicate transom, not the broad, heavy transom offered by heller. The smallest boat offered by Heller scales out to about 25 feet. It's wide, squat shape does not resemble anything carried by the Victory.