Caldercraft / JoTiKa - HMS Victory 1/72 Scale

[Bertie McBoatface]

5 hours ago, Stratomonkey said:

 

 

True, I don't have to do the entire deck. I have that thing called "I know most of it won't be seen but I know it's there" syndrome and besides where better to practice the fine art of deck planking. If it turns out crap then it doesn't really matter too much and its first ever attempt at doing this so I thought I would make a meal of it! lol

 

I can say with confidence that your thinking is spot on. I intend to do exactly the same on my Bellerophon build (whenever that happens!).

[ArnoldAmbrose]

7 hours ago, Stratomonkey said:

I have that thing called "I know most of it won't be seen but I know it's there" syndrome and besides where better to practice the fine art of deck planking. If it turns out crap then it doesn't really matter too much and its first ever attempt at doing this so I thought I would make a meal of it! lol

Gidday, that seems very sound reasoning. 👍       Regards, Jeff.

[Faraway]

8 hours ago, Stratomonkey said:

know most of it won't be seen but I know it's there" syndrome

It’s one the unwritten truths of model making, we spend hours adding detail only to put a roof/deck/canopy on and it all gets hidden from view. But, ‘we knows it’s there’ 

Jon

[Stratomonkey]

 

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Stratomonkey
duplicated

[Stratomonkey]

 

 

10 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

 

I can say with confidence that your thinking is spot on. I intend to do exactly the same on my Bellerophon build (whenever that happens!).

 

8 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday, that seems very sound reasoning. 👍       Regards, Jeff.

 

7 hours ago, Faraway said:

It’s one the unwritten truths of model making, we spend hours adding detail only to put a roof/deck/canopy on and it all gets hidden from view. But, ‘we knows it’s there’ 

Jon

@Bertie McBoatface Thank you. Hopefully, you will get around to that sooner rather than later

 

@ArnoldAmbrose Very sound I would say.

 

@Faraway But I think it all comes down to being a labour of love.

 

Near me over this weekend is a machine and hand tool exhibition. Im definitely going along tomorrow to see what's there.

 

For now I am plank cutting, the whole deck btw 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Stratomonkey

[Kevin Aris]

its been a long time since i was planking mine, its nice to see some at the start of a build, a lot of adventures lie ahead, good luck

 

i have put my build on here, but if anyone wants to see some photos, im willing to put a complete log on

Edited October 15, 2022 by Kevin Aris

[Stratomonkey]

4 hours ago, Kevin Aris said:

its been a long time since i was planking mine, its nice to see some at the start of a build, a lot of adventures lie ahead, good luck

Thanks, I think Ill be doing planking for some time to come.

[Kevin Aris]

i may re-rig mine one day and put some sails on her

[Stratomonkey]

9 hours ago, Kevin Aris said:

i may re-rig mine one day and put some sails on her

 

I guess that all that rope has its own function in one way or another but thanks for reminding me of that particular impending task. One of the great adventures into the unknown for me; rigging "The Ship" 

[Stratomonkey]

So this weekend, while I am waiting for my extra deck planking to arrive along with the set of Admiralty Paints for the Victory, I began work on the first part of the Bowsprit, so far so good. Well, so far , so ....... well, ok (fair to piddling as the saying goes).

 

 

 

This is my first piece of carving and whittling gin about 45 or so years so Im bit out of practice. however we will get there Im sure.  So now, it's just a case of tapering this part from 12.7mm down to 9 point something mm's. The square bit on the end is already to size. Oh and the other thing is that it needs to be fettled to fit., or the recesses in the bow bulkheads do

 

Ive spent the last week venturing down the rabbit hole which is the colour tone and shading of the decks. Achieving this is still an ambition because I have tried various colours for the levels of decking I want

 

The reason for starting the Bowsprit now is that I want the this along with the Lower Fore, Main and Mizzen masts to be seated properly with some confidence that when the time comes they will be just a good interference fit with the minimal amount of gluing, if any glue at all. I 

 

Right now I am also planning on fitting the gunport patterns so I have 3 on each side to fit. Also I am aware that somewhere along the line there is a potential mis-alignment between the outer and inner gun port patterns because the the gun ports are lined

 

 

 

 

[Stratomonkey]

For those who may want to know, (and for those who don't)

 

I have finally decided on how the deck will be planked. I have finally decided to go with Colron Georgian Oak wood stain for the lower gun deck. . For the Lower Gun Deck this will be from Tanganyka strips with afore mentioned wood stain. The caulking between the plank edges will be thread and the end butts will be black paper. Im going to do a 4 Butt Shift Pattern

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wood stain decanted into a manageable bottle. Planks are brush painted (one coat only) and dabbed down with kitchen towel to remove excess.

 

 

Cut deck planks. I cut a strip at a time into 9 pieces and thats enough to do the whole length of this deck. 85/86mm long and approx 4mm wide.

 

to sand the edges I clamp a group of 5 and a group of 6 planks together and its backwards a forwards on the emery a few times to make these groups the same width

 

 

 

 

 

 

The plank cutter has issues (for the purposes I want to use it for anyway), namely that it isn't the most robust piece equipment and has a lot of give and flimsiness about the cutting handle, which replay does not help with a 90deg. cut angle on the blade. So I decided to insert a few lolly sticks into the grooves of the cutting handle and I super, superglued them in. No the handle does not flex or bend and gives a pretty accurate 90 deg. cutting angle. And for my purposes the cutting guides there make great clamps to hold a 6 inch rule

 

 

 

 

OK, so now the planking ........

 

First and foremost I have decided to Plank this deck uninstalled on the model and then make all the cuts to fit or once I reach the slots then I may install it then and continue to finish it "In harness"

 

Also, I've decided, upon looking at various photos of peoples visit to the Victory at Portsmouth to include a wider plank as my king plank. I noticed that on the quarter deck of the real thing the centre plank does indeed seem to be wider than all the others on that deck. I can't say that I noticed this for the poop deck though. Im going to do this wider centre plank on all decks except the poop deck

 

 

 

So far I have laid the centre plank, and one row on the Port. The idea for the caulking is to lay out the thread at the width of the planks, cut a black paper end piece and glue them in. My initial idea was to drizzle superglue down the length of the caulking thread to make it considerably stiffer just to make it that bit easier to handle (the thread is clamped either end of the deck). Getting the thread the right plank width is a serious faff but I'm willing to put myself through this torture for the best possible outcome for this model.

 

I have a few options for how this deck would be finished. Im considering Danish Oil (natural), super thin Superglue or a matt varnish of some description. However a lot of scraping and sanding will be needed.

 

I need to cut another bowsprit, the first met a fate that saw it being consigned to the "maybe it's a good idea not to put that on the model" pile. I still need to cut the Lower fore, main and mizzen masts to length to get them for trial fitting too.

 

there's a lot to do here and getting the order right is a hard one. Most of the time building this is taken up by reading the build manuals, thinking about the build sequence, reading the manuals again and rethinking the build sequence.

 

I still have the hull bulkheads to shape but that really won't happen until the all the side gun port patterns and the lower gun deck have been fitted.

 

That's it for now.

 

Cheers

 

 

 

 

 

[Faraway]

You wood builders are a remarkable breed. 

Jon

[Stratomonkey]

2 hours ago, Faraway said:

You wood builders are a remarkable breed. 

Jon

I do plastic kits as well, it's just that I haven't got around to those yet  

 

There is still plenty of time to completely mess it up though!