Dancona

Thanks Rob, it is a thing of great beauty in my eyes, but like the big "Vic" its a long term project, and its good to get covered in sawdust every now and then, it also helps that I am re-reading the Audrey/Maturin books by Patrick O Brien, which seem to be all about lashing ones thuttock trimble to a double served clench sheet,.................. certainly guaranteed to bring tears to ones eyes !! Well Stuart, its about as far away from the carrier as I can get, but its really more of an aesthetic thing, I just love the look of these things, and it may get to live in the lounge, if I'm lucky too !! but Vic will be back again soon ! Thank you sir, though its all your fault that the Xebec came out again Steve, there you were, happy as Larry, up to your elbows in blocks and stays and sheets and things, ....and I got jealous 😟 and now, blimey.... you really are going like a train with the big beast !! Not a lot to report really, got my four, under the quarterdeck guns rigged, teeny weeny little brass 8 pounders compared to your monsters Steve, but a bigger scale, and the quarterdeck itself planked, so next its planking it properly in veneer planks to get it to match the main gun deck ! Here's the training tackle for one of the little blighters And the cheesed down ropes, done on masking tape, sticky side up, then cut out And where we actually are now ! Thanks for looking, may your catharpins never tangle !! Cheers David

Nurse, Nurse,!!!!! he's doing the stompy pink elephant thing again`!!! Steve it is always such a pleasure to catch up with your wizarding, sorry about your boat, but you could always cut it in half and add a bit !..........as Jeff would say "Coat ?" I'm with Rob on the flagstaff, (but he cant talk 🙄) magical stuff, you never fail to amaze !! Cheers David

very sensible too, and very small to rig !! Im studiously avoiding mine at the moment

That is phenomenal Rob, absolutely phenomenal, I cant believe it is really 1/350, the water, the figures, the balance of it all, perfectly realised

Fantastic job, that looks spot on to me, and I've spent years peering at Victorious pictures, how long did it take to do ? I'm guessing a long time, even the air wing must have taken ages, really nice bit of model making there sir, I doff my cap to you !!! There can never be enough Victoriouses (Victorii ?) Cheers David

It will be worth it in the end, I'm sure ! its one hell of a project though, big respect......the stern is looking very good as well btw 👍

This is already looking very impressive Steve, you are a brave man, I was feeling sorry for myself with only 24 guns to worry about 😁!!

Dont worry, they always look dreadful until you sand them, and there will be a lot of sanding !!

Long time ago, in a land far away (1986, and Worthing) a young man walked past a model shop which just happened to be having a sale, and foolishly bought a reduced wooden ship kit, because it looked rather exotic and “interesting”. This box of twigs followed him around for decades, publicly shaming his cowardice, until finally he took a deep breath…and…got on with it ! It’s a Xebec (Zebec or Chebec), a fast, lateen rigged Mediterranean vessel, a development of the galley, they were notoriously used by Barbary (Algerian) pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries, this is a three masted one with 24 guns, (8 pounders) and interestingly enough was not a Barbary pirate ship but was built by the French in 1750 to catch pirates. This is a Spanish Xebec enthusiastically taking on some pirates These vessels were extremely fast, could sail very close to the wind, were well equipped with sweeps (oars), and could be easily rowed, this meant that they could stay out of the way of any traditional square rigged warships that may want to spoil the fun of any robbing, raping or general pillaging that they had in mind. Handling the huge lateen sails required a lot of muscle, as did manning the guns and bloodthirsty boarding, so they had large crews for relatively small vessels, possibly a reason for all that bad tempered violence when they weren’t on board ! The French finally decided they had had enough, and on the initiative of the naval commander in Toulon imported a team of Mallorcan shipwrights, and built four, to protect their maritime trade, and the model is one of these, “ L'Indiscret” luckily a contemporary model exists, which is very obviously a huge bonus. This is a drawing of either L`Indescret, or her sistership Le Requin`(Shark), so although a fair size, she would be a bit crowded with an (approximate) crew of 300 ! Being 1750, and being French, the rakish functionality of a Moorish raider has the additional baroque touches one would expect, so angels with trumpets, cavorting cherubs and nearly naked ladies feature prominently, ....not too prominently I might add as it wasn’t considered fashionable then and no-one had discovered silicone yet ! I started the model as a bit of light relief from Victorious, I find its good to change materials and subject occasionally, and with "war canoes" I don’t think you can get more different ! I got the hull done at about this time last year, though I found that the kit had a few glaring inaccuracies which required sorting, particularly the deck, these ships being relatively low and lean were very wet and took on a lot of water so the true deck had an enormous amount of camber leading to a row of scuppers just above the waterline, the guns were mounted on a continuous platform above this with flush gratings for drainage, as can be seen on this lovely sectional museum model. The kit would have you place the gratings sitting proud of a continuous conventional deck, so I’m kind of winging it now based on photos of other models, specifically the contemporary one ! This is where I am now Its an incredibly elegant looking thing, I just hope I can do it justice ! Unlike my aircraft carrier my extremely understanding and long suffering wife actually likes it, so I'm hoping I wont have to hide it when finished, though being a metre long, and 3/4 of a metre tall, it would be a bit tricky to hide anyway !! So, I’m sorting out the aft four guns, with their tackles and ”stuff” so that I can fit the poop deck (I’m not really sure if it’s called a poop on a Xebec) over the top of them, so I will keep you all informed of progress as I descend into 18th century madness !! A glass of wine with you sir ! David

Thank you, it was certainly a bit more complicated than I was anticipating, but I'm actually glad its out of the way now ! Thank you my friend, I wish it was a kit Jeff but even so 1/24 really would be a bit of a handful, are you really still wearing that ? 😁 Thank you Steve/Gandalf, I must admit I am rather proud of it, but glad its done, purely by accident I found out that if I held it up against the sky the lighting was actually quite good, I don't know if I will be able to do it with the whole thing though !! Thank you, I must admit there was much more to it than I thought, but its a relief that it worked !! Well only thanks to your excellent products, it reacts exactly as it does on the real thing, all of the colour images I have show different tones depending on the light, your grey is absolutely spot on, Victorious in Portsmouth and in the Med are completely different colours !! Thanks Terry, though its taken ages to get to this stage, but its the first bit that is actually finished, so I am feeling quite smug !! Careful Colin, you can end up in hospital with that, Thank you very much, if it looks OK to you then I have achieved what I aimed for !! Thank you, though it sometimes feels that its more of a series of happy accidents, you are very kind ! Thanks Chris, very kind of you, and wow, a Seahawk, in 1/32, I hadn't heard about that, what fantastic news, all we need now is a Firefly and a Scimitar !!! Thank you all for looking and being so generous, Victorious is being parked for a few weeks of wooden baroque French Mediterranean madness !! Cheers David

Yes I've got one of those, beautiful kit, I was rather hoping that he was going to do a Firefly to keep it company, but the wildfires destroyed his home and workshop, poor chap, so I don't think that is going to happen in the near future ! Coat would be a good idea, you cant go out dressed like that Jeff !! Anyway, a bit of an update, I've got to the stage where the island is pretty much done, there are some bits and pieces, but I think it would be wiser to install them when I finally attach the superstructure, I now intend to give Victorious a bit of a holiday, and drop onto the Xebec for a few weeks, I will start a separate thread for that, lots of little gold cherubs and the like, so as they say, a change is as good as a rest !! Though just to finish of this stage there were a few little bits that had to be done, the 20 inch signalling lights were a bit of a job, I scratched them out of some bits of plastic lolly stick, plasticard and copper wire in the end, after a couple of false starts ! The other bit I was dreading was the foot rungs going up to the dustbin on the final bit of mast, I tackled this in the same way as the accursed stump masts, first I cut fine slots either side of an appropriate piece of styrene rod, at the correct spacing. Then taking a square section piece and tied it on with 0.15 mm copper wire, After a drop of superglue in each slot the square section bit can be slid out and the remaining tassels snipped off, and tadaaaaa A bit of filling and smoothing down the sides and Robert is your mothers brother ! The other things that were outstanding, were the refuelling stations and cable reels, plus the reels for the aircraft electrical gear, luckily I had some photoetch for the reels but it took ages to figure out how the filters and pipes worked, I painted the filters a bronzy brown as they appeared in photographs, I think it may have something to do with colour coding types of fuel, and made flat hoses out of wine bottle top foil. So I decided to do a final few photos and call this bit done, the next stage will be back to the hull and flight deck ! So there we are, phase one done, just got the rest to do now ! Thanks for looking Cheers David

Just lurve that splinter scheme Jeff, this is going to be a very elegant and striking addition to your fleet, looking really clean !!

I thought of you John, the original "Mast Meister" and those trained spiders of yours, I would have killed for them !! Thanks ! there was a lot of pondering about the best way of doing it, too much pondering... I realised that I was just putting off the evil moment, and so forced myself to get on and do it, it worked quite well in the end, but could have been a bit more solid ! Good lord Scooby, that shows dedication, its been a long old ride, but at least now some bits are starting to look finished, gives me some hope that it will be finished one day ! Thanks Chris, I can only echo that sentiment ! The plan is, after finishing the island, to drop back onto the hull, more specifically the bows, and finish all of the little rails under the flightdeck overhang, after doing that I don't have to work on the hull upside down again so can finish off the flightdeck, paint it, then the hull sides and then stick the island on ! Lovely Seafury on your profile pic, btw, is it the Fisher one ? Thank you Zoran, Its certainly not a quick build, but its very satisfying in a masochistic way Thank you gentlemen, I had better get on and do some more stuff on it !! Cheers David

Dear Steve/Gandy, thank you maestro ! Rob, you say the kindest things, Ive just got to do the rest of it now´! I hope so Ant, its the "once its finished" bit that keeps me awake at night ! but it is very satisfying to see some finished bits emerging from the chaos, and I knew that the island was going to be pretty involved, so I can actually detect a faint glimmer at the end of the tunnel now ! Thank you Jeff, you are an intelligent man, these things that look like a cross between an electricity pylon and a Christmas tree are best avoided, unless of course one likes to be soundly thrashed with wet spaghetti by large ladies wearing rubber matrons outfits, I would just like to put it on record that I don't !!! Thanks Pieter, I will certainly bear that in mind, I bet that led to some colourful language ! Very kind, its quite satisfying gradually building it up with increasingly tiny "gribbly bits" it starts to actually look like a bit of ship ! as for the mast, you are right, I have to be very careful around it, as I don't think I could face doing it again !! Thank you gents for your support, I will do an update with some more fiddly bits fairly soon Cheers David

Thank you John, you are very kind, but a little misguided, have you heard the one about an infinite number of monkeys, a modelling knife and a pile of plasticard ? 😁 Thanks Chris, its nice to start to get a feel of what its all going to look like in the end, which is probably important for my sanity (I say sanity, but that is of course purely relative) after nearly 5 years ! Thank you Steve, I have the idea to pretty much finish the island, and then drop back onto the Xebec for a bit, there has a been a bit of sailing ship activity on here recently, cough, cough ! and its making me jealous and giving me hankerings for a bit of woodwork for a month or two ! Anyway, a quick update on "THE MAST", or as it has become known as "the bl$$dy, ba#¡rd, so&&ing christmas tree from hell" but I'm nearly there now, so I can calm down now and put it all down to experience, but if I drop it, and it breaks, I would rather become the love toy of a Greek army battalion than have to do it all over again !! So, after a very elaborate masking and painting process (external and internal lattice plus trunking, in two colours) I made a jig to ensure that the arms (or rather "f#@!ing twig things") were mounted at 90 degrees to each other and horizontal, I made up the 12 "twigs" (or FTT´s for short) in a little jig out of 0.4mm brass wire and 0.2mm craft wire. Starting at the top I worked my way down, attaching the FTTs and the bracing rods (fibre optic strands) and all of the other little aerials and bits and bobs, trying very hard not knock anything off (you can imagine how successful that was ! One of the things that I was dismayed to find, was that the aerial fit on Victorious was in a permanent state of evolution, so what was up there in 1959, was not the same as 61, or in her later commissions, so after a few false starts and becoming cross eyed staring at blurry photos of obscure comms components in the background (no one takes photos of masts, they are just there, out of focus behind a Scimitar, or Vixen !), I think I have it correct now. Also of course there are lots of little mast head lights and things, like this little fella ! So it soon starts to get quite busy up there Only one more row to go, and then all the little cones and stuff (AJE aerials, filed out of styrene rod), and finally a coat of paint ! Signal halliards are "Eezee line" very fine, and about scale, but what a job ! Now I've just got to do the easy bit at the top, crowned with the dustbin (URN 3 aerial) So .........satisfying ? yes,....... infuriating ? most certainly ......should one consider taking blood pressure medication if one is about to scratchbuild something similar ?....absolutely Thank you for looking, onward and upward fellow travellers !! may the smell of Tamiya extra thin be forever in your nostrils ! Cheers David