1/72 HMS Victory Cross Section

[Jim R]

Thanks guys for your nice comments. I do appreciate your looking in.
The wife and I had our second jab early this morning. No problems so far. I have to say that the staff and volunteers could not have been more helpful and accommodating. All credit to them - big thanks.

No update but some photos of the completed orlop deck. You have to peer in closely to see inside. It seems more realistic, sort of claustrophobic in a way. It must have been pretty claustrophobic in reality.








...and the from the back




Thanks again and stay safe. There's light at the end of the tunnel.
Jim

[Pr.Merlin]

Hey Jim, I've just caught up with your thread and what a beauty it is too! The detail is pretty awesome and the photos are excellent! Superb job Sir, and inspirational.

[adt70hk]

Great work Jim. Absolutely love it.

Andrew

[boatman]

YEA Jim its a great build a loads of detail very good work sir :thumb2:
chris

[scottie3158]

Jim,
I'm loving this build mate.

[NickT]

Me too Jim - Awesome work !

[Steve Jones]

Hi Jim

Good news with the jabs. Glad there were no side effects

Just had a very enjoyable catch up. The hammocks were so nice. Wonderful work on the pails and other detailing. It really is comming along a treat. Certainly one of the builds of the year so far. Keep up the great work my friend

[Jim R]

Hi all
Once again I am so chuffed that so many of you are following this and I'm very encouraged by your kind comments.

Now this has slowed from my usual snail's pace to a geriatric snail's pace :rolling:. That is mostly due to the complexity of the next stage - four 32 pounder cannons to go in the lower gun deck. There are 2 wooden frets for the carriages and wheels.




... and metal barrels which needed some clean up.




The barrels were primed with Stynylrez, which worked fine, and then I airbrushed them black and then gave a coat of satin varnish. The carriages went together fine and were painted Yellow Ochre. You drill holes in the carriages to fit in the gun rigging rings. I airbrushed the rings with Stynylrez and when it died it simple flaked off - God knows what metal the rings are made of. Anyway I found a tin of exterior black metal paint in the garage, left over from a metal gate I had painted. So the rings were painted with that :tongue-out3:
The trunnions have cap squares over them. The kit gives some pins which are too long and the heads are the wrong shape. Luckily I have a rivet maker so punched out styrene rivets and CAed them in place. You can see the kit pin in the photo.


Each cannon was built with a slightly different barrel angle. They have wedges fitted at the back to adjust the angle for aiming.


So after a good bit of time I now have four 32 pounders. Daft as it seems each cannon has 25 parts :thinking: Rigging them next which looks a nightmare.






As always thanks for sticking with it and all your comments and likes.

Jim

[wotan]

Jim

This continues to be a fascinating and beautifully executed build. Great job on the 32 pounders. Incidentally most gun crews tended to name their guns and the name was painted free hand, in small letters along the side of the carriage. They tended to choose names like "Thunderer, Beelzebub ship smasher etc" Here's a couple of guns from the film Master and Commsnder if you fancy trying to ad names.





John

[Tim Marlow]

going great guns now!

[Jim R]

John and Tim - appreciate you looking in and sorry for such a delay in thanking you.

John's post got me thinking and I did a bit of reading up on HMS Victory's armament. Couple of facts I found which surprised me. Each 32 pounder on the lower gun deck weighed over 3 tons and the gun crew was 9 to 14 men.

The guns are rigged. Each gun has a heavy breech rope and 3 sets of pulleys - one on each side and one on the rear. Threading everything up was a nightmare. Each knot had to be sealed with dilute PVA and getting the cord through the pulleys took a lot of time. It all looks a bit like "cat's cradle" at the moment but when the guns are fitted I'm hoping the ropes will be able to be tightened up - the instructions show the ropes tighter and neater.

It starts off OK, just simple attachment of the single pulleys.




But then ARHHHHHH!!! Eventually you get this though :tongue-out3:




So onwards and upwards.
Stay safe
Jim

[spanner570]

Good Grief, Jim!
I've just had a re- read of the whole thread.
What a superb job you are making of this fascinating model.

Top marks.

Ron

[wotan]

Jim

Good job with the rigging. A tip I found when fitting guns might help. The ends of all the lines were usually coiled down on the ground to keep them tidy. This is a really tough thing to model in place. You can make rope coils that are separate from the attached lines by simply coiling some thread and soaking with PVA glue. When these are dry just stick them onto the decking over the trimmed ends of the real lines and the effect is complete.

John

[Neil Merryweather]

They look like a complete nightmare, Jim, but you seem to have survived rather well!
Good luck fixing them in place

[Guest]

Wow Jim!

I've mentioned before I live locally to this ship and have been aboard many times (EDIT - redacted on the grounds of questionable accuracy!) and when I started reading your post about the gun builds I winced when I remembered how they are rigged! You have done a fine job of them, they do look incredible.