HMS Victory - Caldercraft / JoTiKa 1/72 Scale - First proper wood ship build

Stratomonkey

Stratomonkey

Joined
Oct 25, 2022
Messages
29
Points
48

Hi to all and welcome to my first build log.

So, in case you are wondering why on earth would I want to choose this as a first build of a wooden ship? Simple answer is because I love large models and this has been on my bucket list for a number of years and a few months ago I got the chance to acquire this beautiful kit. Also, I have over time, acquired various tools which should aid me in making a halfway decent job of this kit.


I have reference material and I have various things to help me, I have already made up a few one time use jigs for cutting planks for the decks and jigs to taper the masts and yards with.


0001001.jpg

I'll be honest here, I have already been at this kit for a couple of months, I have the 18 bulkheads glued to the false keel and that took two weeks of fettling and filing to get them to fit.
I have the lower false gun deck not yet glued
Lower gun port blanks are glued in upper gun port blanks not yet glued in because I need the false deck here to be a removable item while I plank it. As it stands here the framework of the ship is straight and true to within 1mm.

The bulkheads, the false keel, the dummy barrel strips and the false lower gun deck are all in CNC cut 5mm ply. As it stands it is currently just shy of 36 inches long!


IMG20220926185825.jpg


I am currently at a stage where I am planking the false lower gun deck. The actual manuals only calls for this to be done where visible from the other decks but I am doing the whole deck.

The planks are Tanganyka strips (as supplied in the kit) 4mm x 1mm and cut to 85mm long. im staining each plank with a stain called Georgian Medium Oak.
My centre plank, or king plank is 6mm wide. Ive used this width because of the false keel's 5mm width and to allow the 4mm strips to run either side of this keel as som of it protrudes through this false deck.

I laid the 6mm centre plank against a steel rule clamped in place and then after that dried and the rule was removed I ran parallel lines of black thread either side of this plank for caulking. I am currently still adapting the technique of laying my planks and caulking with black thread, and so it is still not a fully developed technique but it does seem to be working for me.

IMG20221023115115.jpg

Anyway that is a brief summary of where I am with this build and so I try to keep this up to date as I didn't intend to put this on a forum but now I have.

I have missed out loads already that I have done but there is so much more to come and hopefully I can build this.

Thanks for now

Cheers
 
dockattner said:
I'm sure there are some build logs here and on other forums for this high quality kit that would be good for you to study - but maybe you've already done that???
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Yep, but surprisingly I can't find too many logs on this kit. As with other ship build logs on here most of the methods and processes for building are quite similar of not the same.
 
Stratomonkey said:
Hi to all and welcome to my first build log.

So, in case you are wondering why on earth would I want to choose this as a first build of a wooden ship? Simple answer is because I love large models and this has been on my bucket list for a number of years and a few months ago I got the chance to acquire this beautiful kit. Also, I have over time, acquired various tools which should aid me in making a halfway decent job of this kit.


I have reference material and I have various things to help me, I have already made up a few one time use jigs for cutting planks for the decks and jigs to taper the masts and yards with.


View attachment 336627

I'll be honest here, I have already been at this kit for a couple of months, I have the 18 bulkheads glued to the false keel and that took two weeks of fettling and filing to get them to fit.
I have the lower false gun deck not yet glued
Lower gun port blanks are glued in upper gun port blanks not yet glued in because I need the false deck here to be a removable item while I plank it. As it stands here the framework of the ship is straight and true to within 1mm.

The bulkheads, the false keel, the dummy barrel strips and the false lower gun deck are all in CNC cut 5mm ply. As it stands it is currently just shy of 36 inches long!


View attachment 336770


I am currently at a stage where I am planking the false lower gun deck. The actual manuals only calls for this to be done where visible from the other decks but I am doing the whole deck.

The planks are Tanganyka strips (as supplied in the kit) 4mm x 1mm and cut to 85mm long. im staining each plank with a stain called Georgian Medium Oak.
My centre plank, or king plank is 6mm wide. Ive used this width because of the false keel's 5mm width and to allow the 4mm strips to run either side of this keel as som of it protrudes through this false deck.

I laid the 6mm centre plank against a steel rule clamped in place and then after that dried and the rule was removed I ran parallel lines of black thread either side of this plank for caulking. I am currently still adapting the technique of laying my planks and caulking with black thread, and so it is still not a fully developed technique but it does seem to be working for me.

View attachment 336775

Anyway that is a brief summary of where I am with this build and so I try to keep this up to date as I didn't intend to put this on a forum but now I have.

I have missed out loads already that I have done but there is so much more to come and hopefully I can build this.

Thanks for now

Cheers
Click to expand...
Good morning. Excellent kit choice. You will have many hours of fun with this ship. I will pull up a chair and watch for sure. Cheers Grant
 
I was able to land one of these kits through a forum member several months ago. Have been busy building Model Expo's Confederacy in the interim. That project will finish up in a month or so and after some reorg and cleanup of the build yard I will jump into the Victory experience. Will be following your log with great interest. If you haven't seen them already, Paul1978 has posted some fantastic videos of the early build stages. Cheers and good luck.
 
GrantTyler said:
Good morning. Excellent kit choice. You will have many hours of fun with this ship. I will pull up a chair and watch for sure. Cheers Grant
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Bryian said:
my goodness, good luck building that model. Its probably the most difficult kit to build, but I wish you all the best with it.
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Red Bear said:
This is going to be a very interesting thread to watch!
I'm sort of busy building a smaller sister to this monster (the Vanguard)
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Uwek said:
Great to see a Caldercraft / Jotika Victory in a building log - I will follow your log of this "monster" with big interest
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Adiefenbach said:
I was able to land one of these kits through a forum member several months ago. Have been busy building Model Expo's Confederacy in the interim. That project will finish up in a month or so and after some reorg and cleanup of the build yard I will jump into the Victory experience. Will be following your log with great interest. If you haven't seen them already, Paul1978 has posted some fantastic videos of the early build stages. Cheers and good luck.
Adiefenbach said:
Actually, when I went looking for those videos this am, I realized that they are posted on YouTube under the name of Paul Vickers, sorry for the confusion but they are really worth a look, he does a great job
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My goodness what a response from you guys about this build log. Too many responses here to address separately so I try and address them in one "hit"

@GrantTyler ; Thank you, it an excellent choice for a kit indeed but I worry if it may be a good choice with the kit having me as the builder :oops:

@Bryian ; Thank you. I will need it I think. The way I see it is that its big enough for my sausage fingers to handle. Also I don't see it as difficult, but rather a set of challenges to overcome making the various parts and assemblies. Obviously the hull is frightening, not for complexity but for the sheer size of it.

@Red Bear Thank you and the very best of wishes for your build of HMS Vanguard, a ship I would also like to have a go at. :)

@Uwek; Thank you and I appreciate anyone following this because at some point I will cry, I will bleed, I will shout and swear, I will question my state of mind and my sanity. `Most of all , however I do intend to finish it, however long that may take.

@Adiefenbach Thank you, and you will not regret getting this kit, I am fully aware of Paul Vickers YouTube videos and build log here as it was the first things I found whilst pondering on buying the kit in the first place. Obviously it worked because it was on the basis of the those videos he made that convinced me I could build this kit.


I will do a little retrospective log on how I assembled the bulkheads and false keel, but I guess that you guys would already have seen thousands of those. Thats why I didn't bother. By the time I got this onto this forum the hull frame had already been assembled. That was a few weeks ago.

The main thing I am doing right now which is proving to be rather time consuming is planking the lower false gun deck completely. I am expecting a least another month of planking yet to come.

Thank you all for your kind responses and likes and for anyone following. I really appreciate that :)

Cheers for now
 
DARIVS ARCHITECTVS said:
Congrats on choosing probably the finest kit ever made for HMS Victory. You have your work cut out for you! You'll have lots of support from fellow members who also built the Victory to help you with the challenging bits. :D Thumbsup
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Thank you, I certainly have got my work cut out, but not many kit parts cut out yet! :)
 
Good luck with building your Victory. It wiil be quite a challenge and interesting to follow your build log.
Although many methods and processes are very similar, there are many roads that lead to Rome. And none of us have wandered all of them, some more than others, but there always remains a new road to explore, a new or maybe finer view on building methods with or without specialized tools or homemade jigs.
Show us yours, it will be highly appreciated and as you have already noticed you can reach out and find support here.
Success!
 
Herman said:
Good luck with building your Victory. It wiil be quite a challenge and interesting to follow your build log.
Although many methods and processes are very similar, there are many roads that lead to Rome. And none of us have wandered all of them, some more than others, but there always remains a new road to explore, a new or maybe finer view on building methods with or without specialized tools or homemade jigs.
Show us yours, it will be highly appreciated and as you have already noticed you can reach out and find support here.
Success!
Click to expand...

Thank you, yes it will be challenge and I do hope that it will be interesting to follow. Knowing that people are interested and would like to follow really helps with giving me the incentive to do the best I can and actually finish this model. I'm already experimenting and developing my own methods and have some rudimentary jigs built.

I already have my modified (re-inforced and strengthened) plank cutter. A simple case of buying a cheap plastic tool and strengthening the flimsy handle that also holds the blade so it doesnt flex when cutting. It gives me a perfect 90 deg. cut angle now. As I go on I may modify it some more to be more accurate when cutting angles
 
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