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HMS Victorious (1961) in 1/200


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There appears to be a lot of interest at the moment in 1/200 scratchbuilt (or using 1/200 paper kits as a basis for scratchbuilding) vessels that are unlikely to be kitted, so I thought I would join in.

 

Wandering into uncharted WIP territory here with a bit of lockdown madness, HMS Victorious really needs no introduction, but what the hell, she was the third of the Illustrious class fleet carriers, launched in 1939 and commissioned in 1941, she served everywhere, starting her wartime career chasing the Bismark, and ending it sweeping bits of kamikaze off her flightdeck, even becoming an unofficial member of the USN for a limited period as the USS Robin. Post war she was heavily modified, (a bit of an understatement there), and was recommissioned in1958 and finally scrapped in 1969.

 

My father served on her during her 1961 “world cruise” as an Observer with 825 Squadron flying Whirlwinds (“never sure whether one was going to fly back, or swim back”), after which I was Christened in the ships bell on her return to Portsmouth, and so having been brought up with albums full of photographs of sampans and blackened Sea Vixens I have always had a fascination for the ship.

 

I am sure I am not alone in playing with the venerable Airfix offering in the bath (not recently I must add) and although I have a couple in the stash I must confess the last time I built one I must have been about 12 and these days I find 1/600 a little small. I had a lot of fun with the ghastly Heller offering which required a great deal of scratch building, (and thank god for Peter Hall and his photoetch) to make something that resembled the ship at the start of her illustrious career (did you see what I did there !), but there was always a project in the back of my mind to model her in her 1961 guise in 1/350 my preferred scale these days.

That was the plan anyway, until I spotted a paper kit of the mighty Vic in 1/200 by OREL, couldn’t resist the temptation, and an even more cunning plan started to take shape. Along with the kit I bought the associated photo etch and the laser cut frames, I assume that the anatomy of the ship book was used to develop the kit because it appears to be spot on to the drawings in it.

 

The kit represents the configuration later than I want, in 1961 she still carried the original six 3 inch gun mountings, two of which were later replaced by storage for Buccaneer drop tanks, had lost the six barrelled Oerlikon mounting on the starboard side, and had not grown the extension outboard of the island to starboard,, though funnily enough the experimental bridle catcher (which was only carried through 1961) incorrectly features in the kit. Anyway the cunning plan did not feature paper bits anyway though I intended to use the laser cut structure as a basis, the cunning bit involved reinforcing the card framework by soaking it in superglue.

structure 2

 

Fast forward to now, it worked, the infused card has the consistency of thin plywood and is sandable, carvable and stable, the model will be waterline in a sea base so I have omitted the lowest level of the hull (makes life easier) to add additional stiffness I fabricated the hanger with fibre board. I scaled the AotS general arrangement drawings to 1/200 and from that cut the flight deck from 3mm styrene, the aft lift radii being squeezed in filler with a template, and the depression for the chock/roller aircraft allignment gear cut out and back filled with 2mm material.

structure 4

 

I set the flight deck up and levelled it with styrene shims and fixed it temporarily with two screws, the cable deck and quarterdeck will need to be finished before fixing it all permanently, I’m using the flightdeck as my datum, everything is measured off it in X,Y and Z planes, it seems to be working so far !

The fabrication of the docking and boat bays (she still had the port side one in 61) is my current task, though it is all very much “Blacksmithery” at the moment I'm looking forward to some proper modelmaking.

 

Flight deck 2

Just to give an idea of the size of this beast, this is my other work in progress at the moment, the 1/350 Trumpy Dreadnought, somewhat dwarfed.

 

   

Flight deck & Dt 1

 

 

This is where we are at the moment, as you can imagine this is not going to be a quick build, but all comments (even rude ones) and advice welcome !

 

Kindest regards to all from the Spanish viral apocalypse

 

David

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You, Sir, are entirely as mad as your brother and sister!

 

Definitely got my attention; we have nothing like enough RN carriers in any scale, let alone a completely insane one.  Where are you going to keep it?  In the garage?

 

Great start, for all the ritual FAA abuse.

 

[I hasten to add for other forum members that, though I don’t think I’ve ever met David, I flew with his brother over 30 years ago and know his sister, Mum & Dad - I don’t normally abuse random new posters just for the hell of it.  OK, well maybe a bit]

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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Hi David,

what a great start and I will be watching intently as I also have that set of card drawings.  I have re-scaled mine to 1:350 and am at a similar build stage to you and so will follow along with you, hoping to pick up some ideas along the way; especially how to plate the hull sides!

cheers,

 

Mike

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You've made a magnificent start there on your audacious enterprise. I'll watch your build of this illustrious ship with great interest - whatever formidable challenges along the way, I'm sure you will emerge victorious in the end. Yes, I did see what you did and probably like a pun more than is healthy! :-)

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Never worked with card so really interested to see how you have used that as the basis and will be following this.  You've made an excellent start (and DREADNOUGHT's looking pretty good too!)

20 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

[I hasten to add for other forum members that, though I don’t think I’ve ever met David, I flew with his brother over 30 years ago and know his sister, Mum & Dad - I don’t normally abuse random new posters just for the hell of it.  OK, well maybe a bit]

I did wonder if there was a connection when I saw the name yesterday.  I went through Dartmouth with David's brother

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23 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

You, Sir, are entirely as mad as your brother and sister!

 

 

😂😂 I'm trying  hard to be madder........  the trouble with sibling rivalry is that if ones siblings are both high flyers one is completely stuffed unless one gets creative....!

 

 

Hopefully, Crisp one day we can meet, have a couple of beers and discuss PE pom poms (magnificent by the way) and also perhaps I can pick up some  blackmail material on my younger brother, actually we should invite Chewbacca as well, I'm sure he must have some dirt on him as well !!!!

 

23 hours ago, bootneck said:

Hi David,

what a great start and I will be watching intently as I also have that set of card drawings.  I have re-scaled mine to 1:350 and am at a similar build stage to you and so will follow along with you, hoping to pick up some ideas along the way; especially how to plate the hull sides!

cheers,

 

Mike

Actually Mike its not the sides that keep me awake at night, its the pointy end and the blunt end, this is going to be an interesting (and amusing to onlookers) learning curve I suspect a lot of filler will be involved !!!

 

 And thank you Midland1965, 🤣 that was painfully brilliant !!!

 

 

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Wow! What a build. A giant post war RN Aircraft Carrier.......... what's not to like.

 

Significantly awesome progress already.

 

I'm in for sure.

 

Terry

 

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Just a quick update, making up some bits for the cable deck, and the bulkhead, though to be honest very little of it will be visible, watertight door, capstans and bollards via Shapeways and fairleads from Artesina Latina, the bulkhead still needs some more "gribbly bits" to be added.

 

cable deck 1

 

Now, calling all gurus, I have a bit of a dilemma, I wasn't intending to use any of the paper kit at all, but I'm thinking that I may use the planked decking, the warm grey colours seem to me to be about right for damp teak (and I understand that this part of the ship for most of the time was either damp, or underwater),  a lot of wooden decks on models seem to look too bright and yellow to my eyes, what do people think ?

 

Cheers

 

David

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8 minutes ago, Dancona said:

I understand that this part of the ship for most of the time was either damp, or underwater

Like this?

spacer.png

This view is of Ark Royal III but both ships had similar cable decks, and effects!

 

For my time on Albion, Bulwark and Hermes,  all of which had similar cable decks; yes the deck was constantly wet.

 

Mike

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As I outlined in the HMS Ajax thread,  I use whatever material works best in the 1/200th card models I base my radio control models on and the card itself comes out best where strength is not important but weight saving (for stability) is.  I don't even use the card supplied in the model but rather take a scan and then print on the most appropriate thickness of card.  Do you intend to put a coat of matt varnish on the decking to ensure long term stability?   If it still looks right after that, then I would definitely go for it.

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I recently had the chance to look round HMS Belfast on a rather wet day and was struck by how dark the wet parts of the deck were. Now I appreciate the wood wasn't freshly holystoned so may not be fully representative of an in-service ship but the wet parts certainly weren't yellow or grey. I took this photo to include fully dry (apart from atmospheric dampness), damp and (a tiny bit of) fully wet wood.

 

spacer.png

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Thank you gentlemen, I am convinced now that the deck colours on the printed deck are actually about right (very useful shot of Belfast) for damp teak and I will use it as a base, plus Mike, looking at the picture of Ark Royal I think the word "wet" is a bit of an understatement !

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On 21/04/2020 at 18:56, bootneck said:

Like this?

spacer.png

This view is of Ark Royal III but both ships had similar cable decks, and effects!

 

For my time on Albion, Bulwark and Hermes,  all of which had similar cable decks; yes the deck was constantly wet.

 

Mike

Not sure I would still be standing there with a camera!  Great photo

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just thought I would post a little update........ bit of a c*ckup on the cable deck front, I noticed on a photo a stream of water draining from the cable deck, where according to my understanding there shouldn't be.

Vic mod4

Upon further investigation I realized that my deck was too short, in fact the bulkhead should be further rearward, I stupidly assumed that the Orel kit was correct without doing a bit of due diligence, duh !!

In fact its going to be very difficult to see anything in there anyway, but I'd know, so it was a case of doing it again, so thats what I did.

Cable deck#2

 

cable deck#2 2

Using the earlier printed deck as a basis I re proportioned  it in Photoshop fiddled with the planking a bit but couldn't resist having a go at  different degrees of dampness, the bulkhead was modified from the previous effort. Due to the enclosed nature of this area I decided that trying to replicate proper Blake Slips and the like would be a bit of a waste of time so the chainwork has been somewhat simplified, and the redundant capstan covered with a lead foil tarpaulin (she only appeared to have carried two anchors in later life).

cable deck#2 3 (2)

 

cable deck#2 4 (2)

Pillars were brass tube with a slightly longer rod down the middle to locate them and the plasticard upper deck added, and I realised that I had been right all along........no-one is going to see any of it, but I know its there !!!

 

Cheers

 

David

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Another quick update, and now its getting serious because these bits will be seen !

To finish off the cable deck area I needed to add the structure which is quite visible through the "hull apertures" (I'm sure that there is a correct nautical term for them), this is where it started to get a bit complicated because the hull shape flares quite dramatically  through this area with a twisting surface, so each bit is a different length and sits at a different angle, so far so good, bit of a pain but not too bad, until railings come into the equation.

HMSVictoriousl

The railings were strung across the"hull apertures" between the structural members with no stanchions in evidence, and followed the change in angle, leading to an interesting problem, because they also ran horizontally in side view, meaning that the dimensions between the mounting points for the railings (to be added later) will be different for each structural bit.

After heavily lubricating my brain with vino tinto, I came up with a plan for a simple little jig able to accommodate all of the fourteen individual sections, and a sliding drill guide that would enable me to ensure that the railing height would be horizontal from the side no matter what the angle of the section was.

jig

 

structure fitted

So finally got all the little blighters in place, this 1/200 malarky is proving quite a challenge I must say !

Off to the other end now, and the quarter deck, I appear to have a bit of a dimensional problem at the stern.................

 

Cheers

 

David

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44 minutes ago, Dancona said:

I appear to have a bit of a dimensional problem at the stern.................

Don't we all when we reach a certain age :whistle:

 

Great work so far David and a simple but effective little jig will have to add that to the notes :book:

 

beefy

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2 hours ago, Dancona said:

After heavily lubricating my brain with vino tinto

Clearly a practice most of us are familiar with and with results like that jig, simple proof that alcohol can help solve such challenges!

 

Great thread here.

 

Terry

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  • 1 month later...

A minor update on the "Mighty Vic", progress is slow but steady on the quarterdeck, as this will be a bit more visible than the cable deck I'm trying to do it a bit more proper like.

There don't seem to be many decent photos of this area, but by finding little hints in the backgrounds of blurry pictures of "band practice" and even a boxing match, I've tried to put something together that shouldn't be too far off.

Its still very much WIP and still needs a lot of pipes and "gribbly bits" but I thought I would show that there has been some progress, even including the Battle Honours board !

 

quarterdeck 5

 

quarterdeck 3

 

quarterdeck 4

 

Got to make some desks and the bell next !!

 

Cheers

 

David

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I love that Battle Honours board! So maybe I missed it earlier, but did you fabricate the watertight doors and hatches, or are they ready cast items?

 

Terry

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Here's another one, with a bit of furniture and a few more gribbly bits, in answer to your question Terry, the watertight doors and bollards come from Shapeways, the hatch and the rest are scratched out of bits and bobs.

quarterdeck 8

 

Cheers

 

David

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Great to see this back, David.  Can I ask what colours you used for the cable deck wood?  I’ve just started on Ark’s cable deck, and I very much doubt I’m going to leave the Tetra wooden deck looking pristine and dry teak!

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