Artesania Latina Anatomy of Lord Nelson’s HMS Victory 1805

AllanKP69 · Mar 29, 2026

It may be the photos, but the blocks all look like they are upside down so the line is running against the tail, instead of between the crown and where the sheave would be.
Allan

wernerweiss · Mar 29, 2026

Hello Allan, you are right! The blocks are all turned upside down. Sorry to say, but these blocks are scrap, and I don' t understand why AL - and other kit manufacturers - provide such blocks with their kits. I would never use them but buy proper scale blocks instead.

Werner

AlanOES · Mar 29, 2026

wernerweiss said:
Hello Allan, you are right! The blocks are all turned upside down. Sorry to say, but these blocks are scrap, and I don' t understand why AL - and other kit manufacturers - provide such blocks with their kits. I would never use them but buy proper scale blocks instead.

Werner

Not going to change them now
What blocks do you suggest for when I do the quarter deck guns

wernerweiss · Mar 30, 2026

Hello,
I suggest blocks from drydockmodelsandparts.com or syrenshipmodelcompany.com

AlanOES · Mar 30, 2026

wernerweiss said:
Hello,
I suggest blocks from drydockmodelsandparts.com or syrenshipmodelcompany.com

Thanks
Just ordered some 2mm single and double blocks from Syren ship models
I think you’ve answered your own question as to what kit manufacturers supply poor quality blocks, the price ! At the end of the day they are there just to create an illusion of the tackles and at that scale, unless you zoom in you probably wouldn’t notice that much, but I’m going to try to get the quarter deck guns looking better as they are immediately more visible

wernerweiss · Mar 30, 2026

Hello Alan, of course it is the price......if you think that on a fully rigged e. g. Victory model there are hundreds of blocks of all sizes for the guns and the running rigging, it is a matter of cost, and providing hundreds of high quality blocks in one kit makes a kit probably unaffordable to one or another builder. I had the same issue with my Confederacy from Model Shipways, and I replaced all provided blocks for the gun tackles with blocks from syrenshipmodelcompany, and it makes a difference......

AlanOES · Mar 30, 2026

wernerweiss said:
Hello Alan, of course it is the price......if you think that on a fully rigged e. g. Victory model there are hundreds of blocks of all sizes for the guns and the running rigging, it is a matter of cost, and providing hundreds of high quality blocks in one kit makes a kit probably unaffordable to one or another builder. I had the same issue with my Confederacy from Model Shipways, and I replaced all provided blocks for the gun tackles with blocks from syrenshipmodelcompany, and it makes a difference......

Yeah of course
The fact that this is the Anatomy version where every one of the 104 guns is rigged, ( that’s over 600 blocks just for the guns), the cost would be astronomical
Its cost me over £70 (including shipping) to get some nice blocks from Syren, but I don’t mind making the effort for the more visible guns

AllanKP69 · Mar 30, 2026

AlanOES said:
kit manufacturers supply poor quality blocks, the price

Price to be sure, but I don't blame the kit maker. As long as people continue to buy their kits, why would they change? I would not be surprised if their business model is akin to the famous saying attributed to P.T. Barnum. We all have budgets within which we strive to live, and blocks can be relatively expensive from aftermarket suppliers, but there have been some great tutorials at SoS on making high quality blocks at home.

Allan

DARIVS ARCHITECTVS · Mar 30, 2026

AlanOES said:
Yeah of course
The fact that this is the Anatomy version where every one of the 104 guns is rigged, ( that’s over 600 blocks just for the guns), the cost would be astronomical
Its cost me over £70 (including shipping) to get some nice blocks from Syren, but I don’t mind making the effort for the more visible guns

Tell me about it. ALL THE GUNS on the Sovereign are fully rigged!

Middle gun deck

TonyJ · Wednesday at 6:35 PM

AlanOES said:
Rope Coils

Following my last post, TonyJ asked me to describe how I do the rope coils. I know Tony is a fair way off from doing any guns so I was going to do it when I got to my next batch of guns, but it occurred to me that some others may wish to see it, so here goes
First off I would like to say that I don’t claim total credit for this, I have watched a few videos on YouTube and cherry picked the bits I liked and adapted it to the way I wanted to work. I will number the stages of the process followed by numbered photos
1. Start off by getting a piece or flat smooth plastic,( I use the lid from one of the components boxes supplied with the kit) and stick lines of double sided tape to it. Obviously it can be as big or small as you want depending on how many you want to do in each batch. From what I’ve seen it appears that most modellers make the coils as a stand alone item, as I’m doing in this demo, then attach them to the deck adjacent to the guns to give the desired effect
I decided to do the coils on the thread attached to the block a tackles which I thought was more prototypical. If you do the same, you will need to leave spaces between the rows of tape to lay the block and tackles while you carry on working.
2. Remove the top cover of the double sided tape on the upper row and place a circular former in the centre of the tape at one end
The former can be anything you want depending on the size and scale of your coils
I actually used a spare gun carriage wheel and sanded it down as small as I could without it breaking, then gave it a coat of varnish to aid constantly moving it on and off the tape and to prevent the thread trying to attach itself to it.
3. Place your length of thread at the top of the former and make sure it’s stuck well to the tape.
4. Using a pair of tweezers, start coiling the thread around the former, making sure it stays tight and close as it circles.
5. Once you’ve reached your desired size, remove the former and place it further along the tape ready to start your next coil. Flatten the coil you’ve just made down onto the tape using the flat end of the tweezers.
6. Once you’ve done all the coils in your batch, brush in a 50/50 mix of white glue and water and leave till fully dried.
7. Once dry, scoop the coils off the tape with a wide enough blade.
8. If all has gone to plan, the underside of the coil that was against the tape should not be discoloured and that’s the side to face upwards on the deck.
9. Here is one of mine made on the block and tackle. If you do them like this you will find that once the gun is fixed to the deck and the slack taken up on the block and tackles, you will need to do some coiling and dressing of the thread to loose the excess length.

I hope some of you will find this helpful

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Brilliant! Thanks for that great explanation
TJ

AlanOES · Thursday at 11:51 PM

Instructions video #33 Part 2

In this 2nd instalment, I build and place the furniture for the upper deck stern cabin areas, build and fit the entrance doors to the officers roundhouses at the bow. Then onto the bits and sheaves around the main mast and I have to say, placing part U32.C is a lot trickier than it looks in the video
Next in the video is making the pillars, but I decided to skip that part for later, and as I was in sheave mode, started on making the boxes and sheaves for the hull sides. Finally in this instalment, I fit the large cleats on the inner side of the hull and attach threads as indicated. It doesn’t mention in the instruction video but I sanded the “horns” of the cleats into a rounder profile. With the threads, it states leaving 400mm of thread hanging out through the sheaves but with the experience I had earlier in the build with the length of anchor cable to cut, I decided to leave over 500mm instead, as I learned early in my electrical apprenticeship regarding cables, “it’s easier to cut them shorter than make them longer “
Again, lots of progress pics below.

AlanOES · Thursday at 11:53 PM

Additional photos 1

AlanOES · Thursday at 11:54 PM

Additional photos 2

TonyJ · Friday at 12:31 AM

Splendid progress Alan. Drilling out those notches looks tricky, well done! The map is a nice touch.
TJ

GrantTyler · Friday at 1:08 AM

AlanOES said:
Additional photos 2

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Good morning. Such cool detail- impressive. Cheers Grant

AlanOES · Friday at 3:10 PM

I’ve been working on a couple more figures
“Set course for home”

oldflyer · Saturday at 11:14 AM

Alan,

As always a nice update. Too bad about those blocks... but given that only single side holes are drilled into these (all kit provided) "junk blocks its easy
to occasionally reverse installations.

Good decision getting aftermarket blocks - they make huge idetail improvements. Especially for a ship such as yours. Yea, but in the aggregate very costly

PS: Did that table map come with the kit -- very cool!!!

Regards,

AlanOES · Saturday at 12:25 PM

oldflyer said:
Alan,

As always a nice update. Too bad about those blocks... but given that only single side holes are drilled into these (all kit provided) "junk blocks its easy
to occasionally reverse installations.

Good decision getting aftermarket blocks - they make huge idetail improvements. Especially for a ship such as yours. Yea, but in the aggregate very costly

PS: Did that table map come with the kit -- very cool!!!

Regards,

Thanks for you comments
The map is my own addition, a photo of an old map that I reduced in size and printed out

AlanOES · Saturday at 12:26 PM

Another figure

Standing post by the magazine