H.M.S. Victory by Caldercraft - Build Log

[team118]

Finished up some of the rigging on the spritsail yards.
This included (I think) the lifts, standing lifts and bunt lines.

I also think I have missed some of the standing rigging for the spritsail yards that I am going to have to go back and address.
These are high quality photos of another build and you can see the black standing rigging on the bow. They go through thimbles on the yards back to the bow.


I did add most of the running rigging for these yards though....

 

[team118]

After those yards, I took a stab at installing the main mast lantern.
I annealed some of the brass wiring provided for in the kit and installed as close to the live pictures I had.
I tried to drill a small hole under the lantern for the main pipe (so to speak) to fit. Then took smaller wire to create the back up pipes.

It was my first try, I know what I'll need to do for the 3 main lanterns and I will have to do some touchups on this one before I get the rest of the main sheets, clews, etc in place.


I then went out of order, or rather was confused at what I was looking at instruction wise. The next steps were to install the fore topmast yard sheets and clew lines. I didn't see or understand what I was looking at and ended up creating the tri-block setup for the fore main yard clew, sheet and tacks.

This will probably cause me trouble getting in the way, but the end result is kind of nice. This is a three way system and while the standing ends can be secured to eyebolts and stanchions, you have to leave the other ends loose until they are all in place so they can be tightened and secured to look neat.

My only concern is that they are rubbing up against the fore shrouds, I don't think in reality this would be right...
I am going to check on pics I have.

 

[team118]

I wish I could remember which builder these are from, his pictures are great because I uses a nice background to show the rigging.
It does appear that his tack/clew/sheet setup seems to run close to the shrouds, so I am not too disappointed.


I also included his work on created the tri-block set up using kit blocks.



I then looked for some of the live shots I had...these are harder to find as they have a lot of the masts and yards off the boat as they are working on her.

You can see that perhaps the standing end of the rigging that is secured to the the yard may be a bit farther out to keep the rigging away from the shrouds....

 

[team118]

The grind continues and it is actually exciting!

I have completed the following:
All of the tyes that hold/hoist/lower the yards on the three masts.
All of the lifts, buntlines and leechlines for the yards
All of the yard sheets and clew (clue) lines for the yards

I started on the braces today with the first being the spritsail yard.
The braces will utilize the pendants that we worked so hard attaching to almost all of the yards. Without looking ahead and ruining the story, I would assume they will have a secure point, run down to the pendant and block then back up (somewhere!) to finally be secured somewhere on deck.

The spritsail yard starts just behind the mainstay mouse, down to a pendant back up under the foremast platform, through two blocks then back down to the belfry rail.



This was hard, the blocks under the platform are now very hard to get at and needed some creative modeler's yoga to get to!
At the time, I was using the kit's blocks and some of the holes are pretty bad. I was able to get my 'cordless' drill in there earlier to open the holes, but it was still a task!



After they just end at the belfry rail and I'll create coils later.


Honestly, there is symmetry to layout of you look at it. All triangles, all look similar, which helps to keep them straight.

I mean, here we all are, building these models. For some of us, like me, it's our first time and I think when you get to this point and start to see what the finish line is going to look like, I'm amazed at the sheer brilliance of it all. The perfection created to address every aspect of how the wind will affect the ship and how to make it work to the boat's advantage. Just beautiful....



My hope is to create a nice background using a sheet or something to get some nice detailed pictures of the build. Closeup pictures can magnify the flaws and errors, but they have helped me immensely as I have worked on this!

 

[team118]

Began work on the braces, front to back.
Started with the spritsail yard and topsail yard braces. These go through block under the foretop and required some work to thread the lines in.



Next were the foremast yard braces. The fore yard was fairly easy, it starts as a secured end tied directly to the main stay just above the mouse. I had to add two 5mm single blocks to the main stay...I ended up using a double 5mm block, which probably wouldn't work in real life, but seems fine.

You can seem below this is the finished setup with both the foremast yard brace and topmast yard brace....a little trimming is still needed.
In the end there are four blocks on the main stay to facilitate the running of the brace lines for these two yards.



Lol..you'll notice that my stunsail boom is broken! I must have clipped it when working higher up and didn't keep my situational awareness, spidey sense active.
I'll have to drill a small hole through the end and add some fine wire and reglue it. I'll hold off adding the rest of those booms till I'm done!


You can also see that for the fore topsail yard, the braces travel down the main stay to another block and are then attached to the skid beams that open up to the lower deck. I should have drilled holes in the skid beams and added wire to create the pins. I had to just tie them down, which is fine.



I still have to tighten up the braces to make them neat. In real life, these lines are so heavy that they have a nice sag.
I may try to paint them with watered down white glue and see if I can get the same affect.

 

[team118]

It's been eight days since my last post. I've spent about 4-6 hours on the days I have worked on model working on rigging.

It is very slow and high detail oriented. Each yard on each mast requires braces, clews, sheets and in the lower yards, tacks. They take hours to do.
Once done, there was work installing the driver gaff and driver booms at the stern and all of their associated sheets, halyards, tackles, etc.

Finally, there was work on the two main and fore yards. These require that triple block setup for a clew attached to the yards and sheets and tacks to control the yard. Those sheets and tacks are attached to the side of the hull and in my case, I drilled out the holes at the beginning and tried to add sheaves.

I have added a few pictures here as there is now so much detail, it is very hard to pick out what I did or what is what.
Again, the best bet for me will to setup a nice gray neutral background and try to create some closeups of all the work later.

The final stage are the standing rigging for the bowsprit, this includes the traveling guy, guy pendant and flying jibboom guy.

They are done, so I have essentially finished all of the standing and running rigging.

I still have the quarter davits to do and the rigging for them. I did the anchors but will have to rig them and I still have to create the work boats.

My thoughts are to build the cannon lids and install ALL of them, do the davits and then try my hand at the boats.

Once done.....I've always liked the HMS Bounty!!!!!

I am going to try and build a case for the boat. That is harder than it looks. I think I can build one, but the real task is trying to find plans. It has been difficult. I have looked at a number of YouTube videos and they are helpful for the process but I'm not having luck finding actual schematic plans. I haven't REALLY started looking, but a first pass hasn't been as productive as I thought.

I did try to use ChatGPT, but it has trouble converting what I want into actual blueprint or architectural drawings. I don't want to get too bossy because once it becomes self aware, I don't want it looking for me first!

I'll keep you posted on the display case side mission....I still have PLENTY of work to do!

 

[535i]

Masterful work! When I see such detail, I immediately think of all the 'swabbies' needed to set sail 'over the bounding main' and the continued work to trim the sails to stay on course. Great Job!!

 

[GrantTyler]

It's been eight days since my last post. I've spent about 4-6 hours on the days I have worked on model working on rigging.

It is very slow and high detail oriented. Each yard on each mast requires braces, clews, sheets and in the lower yards, tacks. They take hours to do.
Once done, there was work installing the driver gaff and driver booms at the stern and all of their associated sheets, halyards, tackles, etc.

Finally, there was work on the two main and fore yards. These require that triple block setup for a clew attached to the yards and sheets and tacks to control the yard. Those sheets and tacks are attached to the side of the hull and in my case, I drilled out the holes at the beginning and tried to add sheaves.

I have added a few pictures here as there is now so much detail, it is very hard to pick out what I did or what is what.
Again, the best bet for me will to setup a nice gray neutral background and try to create some closeups of all the work later.

The final stage are the standing rigging for the bowsprit, this includes the traveling guy, guy pendant and flying jibboom guy.

They are done, so I have essentially finished all of the standing and running rigging.

I still have the quarter davits to do and the rigging for them. I did the anchors but will have to rig them and I still have to create the work boats.

My thoughts are to build the cannon lids and install ALL of them, do the davits and then try my hand at the boats.

Once done.....I've always liked the HMS Bounty!!!!!

I am going to try and build a case for the boat. That is harder than it looks. I think I can build one, but the real task is trying to find plans. It has been difficult. I have looked at a number of YouTube videos and they are helpful for the process but I'm not having luck finding actual schematic plans. I haven't REALLY started looking, but a first pass hasn't been as productive as I thought.

I did try to use ChatGPT, but it has trouble converting what I want into actual blueprint or architectural drawings. I don't want to get too bossy because once it becomes self aware, I don't want it looking for me first!

I'll keep you posted on the display case side mission....I still have PLENTY of work to do!

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Good morning. The rigging on the Victory never seems to end……wow you are doing a brilliant job with all these stays, clews, buntlines, sheets, blocks, tackles…..etc etc. Very impressive. Cheers Grant

 

[team118]

Took on the cannon lids. To begin, the work and glue makes them look a bit sad, but once they're painted, they clean up fair.

The lower lids have to have the wales attached so that if they were closed, they would match the hull. After punching the lids out, I would lay them up in the openings to mark out the thinner upper wale (lol, of the lower wale section) then glue that to the lid. Once done, I would glue the thicker pieces below to create the 3d look.



After that, I added the hinges. The lower lids also require the portal. I know I didn't do them right, I believe the wooden base of the portal should have been small enough so that the PE piece would lay on the portal and the lid itself. That seemed too hard, so I just cut little pieces, glued those on the lids and then added the PE over the top.




The direction call for the use of the PE eyelets (#480...I believe) for the rope pulls. For the other lids I did under the channels, I used regular large eyelets.
These seemed a bit too small and l thought they'd be difficult to get thread through. It turns out they didn't offer any resistance....even after getting painted.

For the first set of lower lids I also added the under side eyelets, I didn't bother after that as you really can't see them.


After painting, they actually don't look too bad


I drilled the holes for the pull ropes and once I glued them in place, I added the rigols. I know I did these wrong too. I think they should be up higher, but they really blend in with all the other clutter/detail.

 

[HHIG]

Great job!!

 

[team118]

Finished rigging all of the cannon lids. Are they as clean as some of the great builds I've watched? No, but from afar and to the average viewer, I think they look pretty good.

I also added the bow netting and railings that I had removed to make it easier to rig. I had used a different netting then and opted not (at this time) to redo with the better netting. I will think about that.

I then added the stern lanterns. These were kind of fun to figure out. I annealed some brass tubing I had then drilled some recessed holes in the lanterns so that the tube would fit. Looking at live pictures of the stern, I tried to judge where the brackets should be installed and then the small brace brackets.
I still have to do some minor painting touch ups, I didn't want to paint the tubing until it was secured to make sure the glue would hold.

And that is it! It's hard to believe that I am actually that close to finishing. I will begin working on the cutters and work boats, but I am not so sure what I am going to do here. As others have pointed out, doing all 4 boats and then mounting them on the quarter deck skid beams seems like a real waste. There is so much work that was done on the lower decks, the cannons, stairs, stair rails, etc. Securing the cutters will almost completely hide all that detail.

A quick search says that possibly two 25' cutters were carried on the davits. The kit doesn't really contain these. I get a 34' launch, 32' barge, 28' pinnace and 18' cutter to choose from. I thought about building the 34' and 32' boats and hanging them from the davits and maybe build the others to place in the case next to the boat.

The 18' jolly boat is perhaps too small. The pinnace, barge and launch would be launched using the yards. I thought about cutting down the lengths of the larger boats and create 25' launches and place them on the davits.

Not sure right now and will start searching builder blogs to see what others have done.

 

[GrantTyler]

Great job!!

Ditto

 

[team118]

I am really putting off starting the work boats! I know, I know, I'm a coward!!!!

I worked on the davits first. There isn't a lot of detail as to how they are built and what material I should use for all the pieces. I did lose the metal cleats..I am sure I'll find them some day!



I didn't quite follow the directions, but decided to try and follow what Gropp's book shows when it comes to rigging them.
I added three eyelets to the end along with 1x1mm pieces for the steps.

I drilled out the bases so I could get some pin nails in. I had to cut the nails short so they would fit.

After, I painted them with my airbrush prior to installation.





Attaching them to the hull side, I glued the bases to the side of the hull. The first davit I did, I didn't quite get the base right and when I attached it to the hull, it was loose and the little nails fell out. In the end, I was forced to slide a piece of wire in to hold the davit in place.

After gluing the davit to the hull, I added the blocks to the mizzen mast and ran the rigging for the davit heads. I am going to hand boats from the davits, so right now they are down. They may not be down far enough, but can adjust them.

...you can see the right davit base and the wire I am using to hold it. Doh!!!!



The rigging to the belay points and the blocks on the mast.


The rigging to keep the davits in place.


I also reattached the rudder which I kept smacking off when I was working around the stern. I also painted the gudgeons black. After, I added the chains to the rudder spectacle plate. The holes on that plate no longer existed, so I was forced to kind of heavy glue the chain on to it.

I then had to add another eyelet so that the chain would droop from the plate to the first eyelet then around the corner of the stern to a side eyelet.


At that point, I wasn't sure where that went. I know there is a rope attached to the end of the chain and it went somewhere into the side of the hull. I just don't access to pictures in my shop.



Finally, I added the bower anchors. Again I followed the rigging details of Gropp as best as I could.
I don't have extra chain, so I used thread to tie off the anchor to the side of the hull.

I had lashed the end of the anchor rode, but I think I'll have to CA glue it so it lays tight to the rest of the line, just to make it look it clean.