NellyV

Tx Mattlow, TBH I just accepted that flash and sinkage was to be expected for such an old set of moulds but both these issues are a relatively easy, if a somewhat tedious fix. I also had to fit some plastic card strips inside the hull to better align the decks when assembling the hull and I can't remember if I included this or not in the 1st build thread.🤔 This said, the quality and detailing of the original moulding, for example on the hull sides and transom, is actually very fine for a late 1950's tooling, although I've no idea if the dimensional accuracy is there or not. No LIDAR, CAD or CAM back then. I did wonder if I should check Scalemates claim that the kit is actually 1/146 and not 1/220, bearing in mind they appear to have the 1st release date wrong also, but I took it hook line and sinker as fact. I should have got the ruler out and done the maths myself. It's got me thinking however that maybe HiSModel used Scalemates as a reference when claiming the cloth flags I bought are suitable for both the Airfix and Revell kits? I read somewhere that the White Ensign would typically be the same length as the width of the ship's mid deck, but their Ensign is about twice the width of the Revell model. Assuming their Ensign is the same width as the Airfix kit deck then at 1/146 it should only be about 1.3x the width and therefore a better fit. Your so right that the model is relatively 'dinky', but you still need a fair sized display case to accommodate all the sticky out bits.🙂

Tx Noel. Those are very kind words. A lot of work did indeed go into it, but there's also a lot about it that could still be improved. It's the usual story of any new journey taken, in that I'd go about things in a different way if I were to do it all again. If I'm ever allowed to try a ship model again I have a yen to try Cutty Sark or Thermopylae in the future and the lessons learned with Victory should come in handy if I ever get around to it.

Tx Theyjammedkenny!. Unfortunately, I think my wife has learnt her lesson. Due to the amount of time spent on Victory over winter, I'm currently banned from modelling and have a long list of DIY chores to complete before I can begin my next build, which will likely be a Trumpeter 1/48 RAF Red Arrows Hawk T1.

Tx Donald. TBH the case was arguably the biggest test of craft skill involved. The manager at Timpson's impressed me. I forgot to tell him that Hereres Islands has an accent over the 1st e, but he did his due diligence and included it in the engraving. So a 4 star review from me. 😉

Tx Farmer Boy. It also went well beyond my patience threshold at times!;-)

My wife bought this somewhat vintage injection moulded plastic Revell 1:225 scale HMS Victory kit for me at Christmas about ten years ago. Scalemates have the 1st iteration of this kit dated at 1958, but because the date the moulds were made is moulded into the poop deck, I can state it’s actually 1959! It took some careful work with a blade to remove the manufacturers raised name and date from the deck before assembly. My kit was a Battle of Trafalgar Bicentennial 2006 boxing. Scalemates also claim the original scale is 1:146 and not the 1:225 stated on the Bicentennial box, but as has been pointed out in the kind responses below, this is incorrect and a 1:225 scale is most likely. The present was only a last minute stocking filler really, which my wife expected would end up at the charity shop because as a lifelong landlubber who’s main interest is aviation I typically make aircraft models. What she didn’t know is my dear old mum, the other important woman in my life bought me the Airfix kit of Victory for Christmas back in around 1967 when I was - to use Royal Navy 18th Century vernacular - a “nipper” of 10 - 11 years old. From memory, mum’s present along with the dining table, ended up a glue and paint smeared hulk with no attempt made to reproduce the miles of rigging. So despite my better half’s assumption, I decided to keep the kit and try to make a better job of Victory in memory of my late mother. However the kit remained stashed for years until Covid hit, when I started building it for something to do during lock down. As a lad I can remember being awed by the shipwright’s models I saw at the National Maritime Museum in London and truthfully what I’ve tried to create is a facsimile of a shipwright’s model, rather than a scale model of the real thing. I started out trying to keep as close as possible to the original Trafalgar colour scheme recently identified at the start of her most recent refit. I recall that many of the sailing ship models in the NMM did not have sails fitted, so I’ve made no attempt to model these. I realised early on that the finished model would be damage prone and also a powerful dust magnet, so once the rigging was well underway I constructed a custom acrylic and oak display cabinet for her. This includes a 2 cm diameter lapel pin copy of the her modern day ship’s badge and six small silver plaques engraved with all of Victory’s battle honours mounted at the front edge of the cabinet’s oak plinth. The latter were engraved at my local Timpson’s store. After the photographs you’ll find a bit more info on the build and some links to my previous posts in Work in Progress - Maritime. I hope you like her, warts and all, and no, I will not be building a “proper” wooden ship model from scratch anytime soon because I couldn’t afford the inevitable divorce settlement. During this voyage of discovery I’ve learnt a lot about 17th-18th Century sailing ships that I didn’t know previously and quite a few new construction techniques, such as making the clear acrylic display case to protect the finished model from dust and recreating the many deck mounted hammock racks out of an old Sainsbury’s supermarket loose veg netting bag! In my first build thread posted in Work in Progress - Maritime you’ll see that the hull came together fairly quickly during 2020, but stalled after I first attempted the rigging. In the beginning I reproduced all of the shroud lines individually using black elastic thread and attached these between the masts and the moulded on dead-eyes using jewellers adhesive. The adhesive worked, but took several minutes to cure sufficiently to hold firmly in place. I lost count of the number of times that the shrouds kept pinging off and needed re-glueing due to my impatience. When I’d finally got them all in place, I then realised that recreating the ratlines on the elastic shrouds was going to be an even greater challenge because when thinner elastic cord ratlines were glued across the shrouds they distorted and the process was also really tedious, I gave up halfway up one side of the lower main mast shrouds and literally put the now rather sad looking model on a shelf, where it sat gathering dust until 2023. My daughter and son in law bought me the Revell 1:700 HMS Invincible kit for my birthday in 2023 and I completed her last September. This put me in a nautical frame of mind again, so I decided to try finishing Victory off as a winter 2023-24 project and started build thread part 2 over in Work in progress -Maritime. So if you want to find out exactly how I reworked the shrouds and ratlines, do take a look. I’d downloaded detailed rigging plans for the JoTika large scale wooden model of Victory from the Jotika website and used these as the basis for this smaller scale model, but I also got a lot of kind help and suggestions from several more experienced Britmodeller salty sea dogs. I’ve tried to recreate as much as possible of the fixed and running rigging, but getting the right diameter elastic line at this scale remained problematic and I wasn’t able to do all the rigging because I started too late on in the build for easy access to some parts of the model. The end result is therefore by no means a fully accurate scale representation of HMS Victory, although I’d claim it’s currently in better shape than the real McCoy which is undergoing a multimillion pound refit and currently sans masts. Where I attempted to model some of the wooden blocks, I used various cut sections of plastic rod and compressed paper earbud shafts. The shrouds and some of the stays are still too thick and most of the other lines are to thin, but this is because I elected to use elastic thread throughout to prevent distortion of the kit’s thinner plastic parts. Also, all rigging lines are depicted under tension, when I suspect many would have some slack in them. However, taught though she is, I hope I’ve captured the essence of what was in her time one of the most complex man made moving objects on the planet and she’s turned out to be a really interesting and historical display piece for our living room bay window.

The rigging is complete and I'll post some shots of the end result up on Ready for Inspection - Maritime next. One final post on here regarding finishing the display case. I bought a lapel pin badge version of Victory's ships badge online and had six silver self adhesive plaques engraved with Victory's battle honours at our local Timpsons store. I applied a couple of coats of Patina wood finish to the oak base and affixed the badge and battle honours along the front of the base. Quite pleased with the result.

I’ve been methodically rigging away the last few weeks, hence the lack of posts, but I’m getting very close to completing this build now.. It’s been a little frustrating at times, because I’ve snagged a few parts threading the elastic rigging lines through existing structures and several parts have needed fixing. I knocked the model over at one point and the starboard main mast shroud assembly popped off. It took a while, but I was able to get this back on more or less where it was originally. So, very much a case of three steps forward and two steps back at times. I’ve had to accept I can’t replicate every piece of rigging, but I’ve put quite a few of the inboard rigging lines down to their various belaying points on the deck and bulwarks to make it look suitably busy, if not 100% complete and accurate. As usual, I’ve learned enough during the build to go about this slightly differently if (and that’s a very big if) I was to attempt something like this again. I’d make sure I ran all of the inboard rigging lines down to the belays before putting the shrouds and outer stays in place for example. I’ve also learned that when attaching the elastic rigging line, less is better than more when it comes to the amount of adhesive. It only needs a very tiny amount on the end of a line to create a strong bond to the model and the line bonds almost instantaneously with such a small amount. The elastic lines are quite robust and very resistant to snagging once the CA has cured. I’ve been using sections of thinned and sectioned paper cotton bud stalks attached with CA glue to represent some of the more prominent blocks and I made up the main sheet brackets and rings shown above using coiled copper wire and thin sections of a PE brass sheet. This shows them before being painted and attached to the rear hull ahead of the mizzen mast deadeye channel ready to thread through the upper mainsail sheet. I was going to add a White Ensign and a Vice Admiral of the White pennant to the model and ordered a set of fabric flags that purportedly were compatible with the Revell 1:225 Victory by HiSModel from Super-Hobby.com in Czechia . They arrived last week and only then did I discover that they are really only intended for the Airfix 1:180 scale Victory. I’ve asked Super Hobby to remove the reference to Revell 1:225 from the product description on their website, but no offer of a refund from them so it’s a case of caveat emptor on this purchase for me😞. They’ll have to live in the spares box now! My aim was always to try and make a passing approximation to the shipwright’s models I first saw as a kid in the National Maritime Museum. From memory these tended not to have either flags or sails, so it’s not a great loss and I think it might look better as a display piece sans flags. I think this will be the last post in this thread. When I've finished the remaining rigging I’ll post some more detailed photos of the finished article in ready for inspection.

The bow is now pretty much finished with the addition of the four anchors. There's probably a mass of running rig missing, but it looks suitably busy so I'm stopping here. I'm not 100% sure how the anchors were attached. I ended up lashing the forward set to deadeyes on two foremast stays and the cat heads with rigging thread, although in dry dock they appear to be held in place with chains. I'm guessing however you can't necessarily rely on this arrangement for the original ship at sea? Also, were the anchors really attached to the hawsers with giant reef knots and did the rear anchors also have hawsers attached when under sail?? There are after all four hawse holes in the bow. Makes you wonder how the ship stayed water tight with these four holes so close to the waterline. I doubt the hawsers stayed hemp coloured based on how close they are to the heads. 😬 Anyway, I thought I was using the thread supplied in the Revell kit for the two hawsers depicted here. It wasn't until I'd already attached them and discovered the Revell thread lurking in a draw that I realised I used some thread supplied with a set of 1980s 1:48 Royal Navy aircraft wheel chocks by mistake.😆 It's a bit thinner than the Revell thread, but doesn't look too out of place and believe it or not, it's a lot less hairier, even though it looks hairy in the photos below! I remembered I had some PE chains after I'd lashed the front anchors in place and so used a couple of these chains to attach the rear anchors to the hull. They still need a wash to dull them down a bit. After a bit of wiggling around, I was able to remove the stern flag staff and the name plate from the plastic stand. The latter is now attached to the front of the oak base and looks a lot better for it. I'm going to carry on fitting out the remaining running rig on the main masts and yards. Not sure yet how much of this I can replicate. especially the multiple ropes running down the masts to the belays.

Thanks Bertie. If you don't know then I'm guessing no one else does and I can use my imagination then😉

You may know the answer to this @Bertie McBoatface Revell include a raised stern flagstaff, which I installed early on in the build. I assume this would have a White Ensign raised on it when at anchor in port, but when at sea the flagstaff must have been stowed in order for the driver boom to travel freely. So I'm thinking if it's possible for me to remove the flagstaff without damaging the model, (possibly not), I might have a large white Ensign flying off an Ensign halyard slung between the Gaff and a belay on the Transom, as it would have been whilst at sea. But where should the flagstaff then be stowed? Was it simply swung down to lie forward on top of the Poop Deck lantern? Or was it removed completely and stowed elsewhere?

Just time for one last post in 2023. I've made some block and tackle up, which I assume the lower yards were slung from based on detailed diagrams I found on-line. I used sections cut from the compressed paper rod of a cotton bud for the blocks, because these look somewhat like wood. I compressed them sideways slightly to change their circular cross section to an oval one. I went back to something I tried before to make the rope tackle. This needed to be rigid, because the yards in this kit are attached to the masts directly and couldn't actually hang from thread. I tried using CA glue previously to stiffen rigging thread with little success. This time I tried PVA glue and this worked much better, creating a semi rigid length of thread that I could cut into short sections, which when glued together in threes, created rigid sections of rope that could be glued between two blocks. I attached short section of wire to either end of the items shown below and trimmed these to fit the gap between the yards and the fighting platforms on the fore and main masts. I haven't yet made anything similar for the mizzen lower yard because I can't find any evidence for a similar rig here yet. You can just make out the pieces in place on the foremast in the right hand photo immediately below. They aren't that obvious when attached, or completely accurate, but add a bit more complexity to the overall look. I've also finished strapping the boats, complete with oars, to the mid deck area. There was only space for three of the four boats supplied in the kit, but I think I'll sling the remaining one from one of the derricks mounted at the stern. All the yards are now permanently attached and she's starting to look the part. However, there's still quite a lot of rigging still to do and I'll take my time doing this over the first few weeks of 2024. There are some smaller blocks needed for some of this and I'll have to think about how best to replicate those. Happy New Year!

That's one hell of a tooled up snake! Fantastic detailed finish

A quick update before the Festive season kicks off. I've finished adding the stirrups and walk ropes to the yards, but have yet to finally attach the yards to the model. In the new year I have to work out how to replicate the block and tackle associated with these when on the masts before doing so. Whilst most rigging guides and models I've seen appear to represent the yard walk ropes as tarred rope, I've opted for the natural look, because as a previous observer of a previous post stated regarding the ratlines, Captain Hardy wouldn't have taken kindly to tarry footprints all over the decks.😁 I also spent some hard earned shekels on a piece of oak plank for the display plinth. After much planing and sanding back, I finally achieved a relatively flat surface and smooth edged finish. I've also finally found a use for the router I bought some 20 years ago by putting a rebate around the edge so that the case neatly slots over the base. The ship may be plastic, but the case is at least in character with "Heart of Oak are our ships" and most definitely worth more than the model kit it protects now! Have a blast of a New year and may your Christmas nuts be merry and bright!😆

Hi Will, sadly the missus wouldn't appreciate a move to Portsmouth and I doubt my ageing skill set would fit the job description, but in another lifetime I could maybe dream on it. I think the fighter jock dream job would still win out though!😆 Now that linked-in post has me wondering when the first fully 3D printed HMS Victory will appear. When it does I suspect it'll be a massive anathema to any traditional wooden ship/boat builders out there? Regards Neil

Wow, I'm really envious. I'd love to get an inside view of something like that. I did get a response by the way, but as I expected, it was politely pointed out that the conservation team was too busy to deal with information requests directly. I agree 100% that real evidence will have driven the choice of new paint scheme and that's why I went with the cream coloured masts, but my only concern is that they may leave some finishing paint work until after the upper masts and rigging are reinstated. Do you know if they plan to open up the digital archive to the public in the future? It would be an amazing on-line resource for detail obsessed sailing ship modellers. They could also perhaps get some valuable input on any intractable questions posed by their raw data gathering from a global pool of amateur historians and sailing ship experts? (Not including me here😆). Although I'll again admit that I sometimes wish I had less information on a chosen modelling subject, because replicating an object down to its last bolt or rivet gets to be impossible and I suspect trying to build a really accurate Victory model with such a resource would then take a lifetime of effort.

I'd luv to do that mate but I'm plumb tuckered out. It’s beer o’clock. I’m going to Do the Harry and Hit the frog and toad. Catch ya later😉

Spending the time making a custom clear dust proof case out of 2mm thick acrylic sheet for this Revell HMS Victory has taken me back to my days in the Biochemistry lab! We used home made slab polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis units made from the same stuff to separate proteins by molecular size at Birmingham University in the early 1980s. Not the first time that learnt skills have crossed disciplines, because back then I made the spacers for casting the thin slab gels out of plastic card left over from modelling😉 These cut sheet parts weren't cheap, but the great thing about using acrylic is that extra thin CA glue applied with a fine nozzle wicks into butt joints through capillary action and forms a strong transparent bond (with some air bubbles). Any exterior fogging or drops of excess CA glue can easily be polished off with fine sanders and polishing sticks. It still needs a bit of clean up and a finishing polish with polishing compound, but it should do the job nicely. I'll make a wooden rebated base for it eventually with Victory's battle honours listed around the edge, but using this as a cover will keep the dust off while I finish the rigging. You may notice from the photo that I took the decision to replace the one overly thick main mast backstay with fine elastic thread, because I reckoned if I'd used the thicker elastic to recreate all of the fore and main mast backstays to match, it would have ended up looking way too top heavy. The thinner elastic is of course too thin for true accuracy, but it does result in a "lighter" overall look for the fixed rigging.

Photo etch shrouds are apparently available, or imminently available, for the Airfix kit from Scalewarship, as mentioned in another Victory thread on Britmodeller here. Deffo a step up from the kit polyethylene(?) parts if memory serves me right. (I got the Airfix kit off my parents for Xmas when I was about 10. I made a complete pigs ear of it back then. No rigging, other than the shrouds, wonky hand brushed bright yellow stripes and a glue smeared wreck!). These will probably be OK for a larger scale kit like Airfix, but the rectangular cross sections will still give the game away. PE would also be an improvement for the smaller scale Revell kit if an aftermarketeer thought there was mileage in it, but using actual rigging thread on the Airfix kit and tying the ratlines on individually is probably the way to go if you have the patience. I tried this first on the Revell kit (See 1st photo on this thread), but made the decision to use elastic cordage because I reckoned the plastic masts would distort under the tension needed for rigging thread. It worked sort of OK until I tried to put the ratlines on, when I realised there was no way of stopping these massively distorting the elastic shroud lines and I put everything on hold, until the start of this in progress thread. I believe Heller provide metal inserts for the masts in their larger scale plastic kits to allow tensioning of rigging thread. If I was to start this all again, I'd use the elastic thread approach again but attach the ratlines as per Youtuber Harry Houdini's "Rat Harp" approach. I "borrowed" a version of this method to apply ratlines to the modified Revell shrouds.

Interesting info Bertie. Western style square riggers evolved to produce something that definitely worked, but as a newcomer to this field, I can't help thinking this seems to have resulted in a somewhat sub-optimal design? I think I read a while back now that the large sea going sailing "Junks" or Treasure Ships, like those used by Chinese Admiral Zheng He, who reached Africa in the 15th Century under the Zongle Emperor had a simpler square rig which was easier to control. It's claimed they had up to 9 masts and were over 400 feet in length. In the 15th Century! The yards in Revell's kit have simplified slot in attachments that hold them a few mms forward of the mast so as to clear the forward shroud. They make no attempt to recreate Parrels, ropes and blocks as per the real thing. However, I think they'll blend in on a plastic model at this scale and the overall effect will be suitably complex. I'm not sure you're definition of fun would chime with most people😁 TBH it's self wonder at my own patience and problem solving ability that will see this build finished!

I never even realised Ronnie Barker was in The Navy Lark. Pertwee's voice for me was subsequently more associated with Dr. Who. John's brother Bill Pertwee was the Air Raid Warden in Dad's Army! 😆

When I painted in the logo, my "excuse" was a half jobbing Erk hadn't painted over the logo when he applied the camo over the original RAF blue finish at the start of the war and so got put on a fizzer. Your explanation has more of a ring of truth.

"Corrrrr!" "Ooh, nasty...", "Oh lumme!", "Left hand down a bit." "Everybody down!". Ah, the Navy Lark! I remember it well. Used to listen to the radio when I popped home for lunch from school as a 6th former. Leslie Phillips was always pranging something and Bill Pertwee was always up to no good. I’ve finished all the shrouds and ratlines on the lower masts with the addition of the lower futtock shrouds and catharpins to the rear. As you can see, I kept the overall cream mast colour, on the basis that pictures of Victory in her previous but one paint scheme in which she had yellow masts, but no black banding. I wasn’t able to consistently draw out enough melted plastic sprue to the correct diameter for the futtock shrouds or catharpins, so in the end ordered up the thinnest styrene rod I could find (1mm diameter) and sanded some lengths back to around 0.7mm diameter. Although this was still way too thick for true scale accuracy, it was at least about the same diameter as the kit lower shroud lines. Getting a good fit for these final assemblies was in the end a matter of attempting to measure and then guesstimate the right spacing and slant relative to the futtock staves so that the shrouds lined up with their equivalent on the lower and upper mast shroud lines, but this meant I ended up with some gaps to fill. I discovered a neat trick for filling any gaps between the plastic rod shroud ends and the fighting platforms was to apply a small amount of PE glue in between the two parts with a fine brush. The glue had the magical ability to flow into and bridge some quite wide gaps. A coat of black paint over the glue then blended things in nicely. The fore and main mast futtock shrouds worked out OK-ish, but because I failed to get the mizzen mast to slope backwards enough, the ratlines on the mizzen futtock shrouds are not parallel to the waterline😬. I know I'm taking artistic liberties, but to be honest, I’m surprised they all ended up looking as good as they do. Whilst by no means perfect, or indeed fully accurate, they do at least bridge the climbing gap between the lower ratlines and the fighting platforms. Something that the original kit parts made no attempt to address. In the side profile photo below, the yards, driver gaff and boom are only clipped into place temporarily and this has me wondering how the yards were able to rotate about the mast on their parrels to accommodate the direction of the prevailing wind filling the sails, if not coming from directly behind. To do this they must have distorted the shrouds quite a lot on the leeward side? I also added some guard rails and netting above the heads and around the boomkins based on those seen on the modern day Victory. I think these were probably also a feature of the ship in 1805, because the rail at least can also be seen on a NMM shipwright’s model from the 18th Century. Some precision cut perspex sheets arrived today and I’ll take some time now working how best to assemble these into a robust dust proof cover. Having also just taken delivery of some white lycra rigging thread to help complete the running rig, I’ve just depressed myself massively by taking a look at what’s still left to complete on the rope work front.😞 So I might take a pause before I do much more and may not post again now for a couple of weeks and maybe not until the new year. Season's Greetings!

Quiz question - Who knows which USN ship is the only one allowed to fly the White Ensign? Full marks! The Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill