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Cutty Sark, Vintage Billing Boats BB564, 1:75.
- Thread starter DomCee
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- billing boats cutty sark
You also thanks, Dom. Who knows... maybe they'll do that with the Cutty Sark sometime too....
Regards, Peter
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I am in the process of building the same kit - with a few modifications. What I have found to be handy was to get the Campbell drawings scanned and rescaled to match the billings drawings (1.62% from memory). I have put up progress posts on this site
Good morning Dom Impressive work as always. Cheers Grant
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After I bought Campbell's plans I found out that the RMG will supply properly scaled prints to order. I'm at the stage that I am just going to soldier on with the standard prints and rely mostly on Longridge's descriptions of the rigging.
Good luck with your build, this kit has proved to be a real struggle for me, but the challenge was accepted at the start, so I knew what I was letting myself in for!
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Sadly, she will never see the sea again, they cut big holes in the hull and hoisted her up on steel beams and walled her in. There was a group that proposed to build a true replica Cutty Sark 2 a few years ago, but that came to nothing - too much £££/€€€, a pity.You also thanks, Dom. Who knows... maybe they'll do that with the Cutty Sark sometime too....
Regards, Peter
Dom
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Part 45 Fitting the 
s and Boats.
Too busy to spend time on the rigging, so not much to show his week. There were a few “housekeeping” items to finish off, mainly gluing things down that I had only temporarily fitted, tying the small boats on the top of the deck houses and fitting the anchors, so I got on with those tasks.
s: The Cutty Sark carried several types of anchors as required under Lloyd’s Rules: 3x Bowers (30 cwt. each), 1x Stream (12 cwt.) and 4x Kedges (2x 6 cwt. and 2x 3 cwt.). On the museum ship, the anchors are just chained on the outside and they have removed the anchor chains. At sea they would have been hoisted inboard and stored on the forecastle deck to prevent damage. For display purposes, I also placed the anchors under the Catheads (which is what most people do). There were a couple of anchors in the kit which I could have used, but they were the usual generic plastic ones and were not the correct scale size (and pretty rubbish), so I bought some metal replacements from Corel which were of a better quality and size and were nicely finished, so I didn’t even need to paint them.
30 cwt. Bower
I did find that the jibboom guys were a pain because they were in the way and I kept catching them, so simple solution, I cut them off! Not a big deal, I will reattach them later, I shouldn’t have fitted them so early anyway because there is some very fiddly work going to be needed when I fit the fore and jib stays and having them out of the way will give me better access. To provide a tying off point for the anchors I added some small eyelets and used lanyards rather than small chains to hold them in place. The only other thing needed was to blacken some chain and make a loop running to the hawses.
The Small Boats: Placing the boats was straight forward but I was in two minds about how they were mounted. I thought it was a shame to have the boats covered in canvas (as they would be) or turned over. Originally, there were only two lifeboats carried on the skids at the after deckhouse (which were placed upright on chocks), and a Gig, which was placed on batons upside down, on top of the forward deckhouse. Later, the lifeboats were moved outwards, the Gig placed upside down between them and a Jolly Boat was placed upright on chocks on top of the forward deckhouse. The photo also shows how the boats were tied down using chains and lanyards. I didn’t have any chain fine enough that would look in scale, so I used some of the tiny eyelets that I made for the jackstays to attach the lanyards to boat the gunwales, which worked well enough.
The Jolly Boat
Kevin at KTL sent me some chocks for the Jolly and Gig but in the end, I decided to turn the Gig over but leave the lifeboats and Jolly uncovered. The Gig is only tied down, so if I ever change my mind, it would be easy enough to flip over. I will make some small masts and wrap some sail material around them to go in the boats later.
Next up: Back to the rigging!
s and Boats.Too busy to spend time on the rigging, so not much to show his week. There were a few “housekeeping” items to finish off, mainly gluing things down that I had only temporarily fitted, tying the small boats on the top of the deck houses and fitting the anchors, so I got on with those tasks.
s: The Cutty Sark carried several types of anchors as required under Lloyd’s Rules: 3x Bowers (30 cwt. each), 1x Stream (12 cwt.) and 4x Kedges (2x 6 cwt. and 2x 3 cwt.). On the museum ship, the anchors are just chained on the outside and they have removed the anchor chains. At sea they would have been hoisted inboard and stored on the forecastle deck to prevent damage. For display purposes, I also placed the anchors under the Catheads (which is what most people do). There were a couple of anchors in the kit which I could have used, but they were the usual generic plastic ones and were not the correct scale size (and pretty rubbish), so I bought some metal replacements from Corel which were of a better quality and size and were nicely finished, so I didn’t even need to paint them.30 cwt. Bower
I did find that the jibboom guys were a pain because they were in the way and I kept catching them, so simple solution, I cut them off! Not a big deal, I will reattach them later, I shouldn’t have fitted them so early anyway because there is some very fiddly work going to be needed when I fit the fore and jib stays and having them out of the way will give me better access. To provide a tying off point for the anchors I added some small eyelets and used lanyards rather than small chains to hold them in place. The only other thing needed was to blacken some chain and make a loop running to the hawses.
The Small Boats: Placing the boats was straight forward but I was in two minds about how they were mounted. I thought it was a shame to have the boats covered in canvas (as they would be) or turned over. Originally, there were only two lifeboats carried on the skids at the after deckhouse (which were placed upright on chocks), and a Gig, which was placed on batons upside down, on top of the forward deckhouse. Later, the lifeboats were moved outwards, the Gig placed upside down between them and a Jolly Boat was placed upright on chocks on top of the forward deckhouse. The photo also shows how the boats were tied down using chains and lanyards. I didn’t have any chain fine enough that would look in scale, so I used some of the tiny eyelets that I made for the jackstays to attach the lanyards to boat the gunwales, which worked well enough.
The Jolly Boat
Kevin at KTL sent me some chocks for the Jolly and Gig but in the end, I decided to turn the Gig over but leave the lifeboats and Jolly uncovered. The Gig is only tied down, so if I ever change my mind, it would be easy enough to flip over. I will make some small masts and wrap some sail material around them to go in the boats later.
Next up: Back to the rigging!
A happy Sunday afternoon Dom. In my opinion you got the display of the open boats just right for the look and feel of your Cutty Sark. Lovely work as always. Cheers Grant.