Cutter Speedy 1/300

DST07 · Aug 23, 2022

Years ago I bought the cutter kit from Langton Miniatures. I read the Philip Reed books and wanted to give the small scale a try.
The plan is to convert it to represent the cutter Speedy of 1828 (more or less)

Until now I only did plastic kits of aircraft in 1/72 an and 1/144 and modern ships in 1/700, so the rigging part of this build will be something completely new for me.
If this turns out well I might do their brigg as well.

Let's start with some pics of the kit contents. The box comes with a photograph of a finished build. This and the pics on their webpage are the only ones I could find.

The contents of the box. I opted for a full sail set, sea base and figurines (I'm not sure if I will include those)

The hull is one piece of resin, fittings and masts are in pewter, which is a bit difficult to handle since it is so soft it bends easily. Once the standing rigging is in place it should be rigid enough though.

Shrouds and ratlines, sails and gunports are photo etched brass. The sails do look good and are to be bend to have details on both sides.

The cast of the hull is quite good, with only a few air bubbles, one of the channels had a corner broken off. This is easy to repair since I have to fill the empty space in between the two to form a one-piece channel.

In this pic one can see the small air bubbles on the shots/cannonballs.

Some cannonballs came out flat so i need to build them up with white glue or something.

Uwek · Aug 23, 2022

I never saw such a kit - it is looking very interesting
Have fun with this project!

DST07 · Aug 23, 2022

I started the build installing some of the fittings.

After installing the tiller I realised that it is way too big so I will make a new one from wire.

Some more fittings cleaned:

Making handles for the winch:

I broke off a knee of the mast bitts and had to replace it with one cut from a polystyrene sheet. I have to be extra careful on those masts

I added handles to the elmtree pumps:

Some mouldings on the stern made from wire and build up with artist gesso.

I decided to take off the two-part channel and fit an new one:

The resin cuts easily with a scalpel blade. After cleaning up with a fine sanding stick and a fiberglass brush:

And the new one in place

I have to clean up the hull some more before final painting. Macros are brutal on those small parts

Uwek · Aug 24, 2022

Very interesting how the works on such a type of model are - Many thanks for showing us the details

DST07 · Aug 24, 2022

The bow is next. Hawse hole timbers were cut from styrene sheet and installed:

Cathead knees:

And the moulding under the gunports made from 0,25mm wire

Cutting and filing the transom knees for the stern:

Once the two parts were cut they were glued together with PVA glue to file them simultaneously while being held in the tweezers. Still a little rough in the Photograph. They were sanded with a very fine sanding stick before installing...

All kit supplied deck fittings are installed and base color applied to the model.

Some more details are missing, like the "half round" pin rail in front of the mast, pinrails between the bowsprit bitts and windlass bitts and the two deckhouses at the stern. Since I do not have plans for the ship I have to "guess" the dimensions from Photographs. Still have to figure out how to do these

DST07 · Aug 25, 2022

Building a pin rail from scratch. As I have no plans for exact measurements I have to eyeball proportions and dimensions. It doesn't really matter too much at that scale as long as it looks somewhat believeable from a certain distance. Nobody will look at those small models with a magnifying glass, this would only ruin the appearance. These models are meant to be admired as a whole.

Or as Philip Reed described in his introduction to the Period ship modelmaking book: ..."
The distinguished ship modeller Donald McNarry believed that
miniature models should never be portrayed at a larger size than the models
themselves, and I tend to agree with him. Doing so rarely shows off to
advantage any virtues the model may possess but magnifies the tiniest of
blemishes and faults. ..."

Anyway, here is the cutout pin rail:

After drilliing the holes for the stanchions I positioned it with some rubber cement to mark the holes in the deck.

This was done with a sewing pin:

And the holes drilled in the deck:

Brass wire added serving as a base to mould the stanchions and test fit with the mast in place...

Stanchions formed with artist gesso and a coat of red paint:

DST07 · Aug 27, 2022

On to the masts...
Detailing the main mast head. I rounded off the mast cap, squared the mast head / topgallant mast heel and build up the tressletrees and crosstrees from styrene strips:

Mast cheeks and a sort of iron band thingy to attach the gaff throat halliard (still have to look up all these nautical terms

)
The iron bands around the boom and gaff jaws are made from paper strips:

The spars have these oversized reinforcement pieces cast to grip around the mast. This looks horrible when istalled like this so I decided to file them down to an absolute minimum:

To attach the yard to the mast I will use wire pins:

Dryfitting the yard. Yes, it is upside down in the picture Cautious

And finally added the spreader bar for the topgallant shrouds

Painted:

And an Über-macro of the mast head. It's a pity that most of the details will be hidden by the shrouds and stay...

Thanks for Your interest and the likes

danielsje · Aug 27, 2022

Wow…very different modeling techniques required at this scale and with this kit medium. Thanks for introducing this build and your modeling techniques. I have not modeled at this scale…I prefer kits around 1/48 scale. Well done indeed!

DST07 · Sep 2, 2022

Thank You all...

Small progress on a small model

To bring out the details the model got a wash with dark brown heavily diluted oil paint. After this has dried completely a drybrushing of grey acrilic was applied. This is result. It looks kind of dirty in the macro pics, when viewed from a "normal" distance it looks fine