Airfix HMS Victory 1/180

[5Craven]

The story behind this build is that after I picked up the polyglue for the first time in many a year, my darling wife decided to get the kids to buy me a nice new model as a fathers day prezzie. Now my wife has many talents but when to comes to modelling she knows just two things, nothing... and B****r All! So they all toddled off to the nearest Hobbycraft store and chose and I quote 'something in a nice big box to keep you busy' bless her. So now I am the proud owner of a model of a type I have never touched before so with no little trepidation I pried off the lid and yep there is a lot of plastic in there and not all of it looks great. So naturally I am all gushing and its marvelous and how did she guess I had always wanted one? I know but you have to don't you?, and into the stash it goes. BUT she has not forgotten has she, and she would quite like 'a nice sailing boat in the window' so I dig it out and build it as a back up when the main build is drying or gone stale. Which brings us to here........



HMS Victory Build
Hull almost complete



HMS Victory Build
Hull almost complete, still need to add main gundecks guns and hatches



Ejector pin marks!
Yes! on every single gun hatch, this shows about half of them. Also visible on anchors but with added sink marks as well



HMS Victory Build
Masts made and ready to install

Coming in the next installment, hull and masts will be joined, my fingers will have recovered from filling and sanding the gun hatches and I will have progressed onto...... The Rigging!
God knows when I will get there but the little woman is a great motivator!
Dave

[Paul]

That's one hell of a model Dave, it'll be a looker when built though

[bullgill67]

that looks fantastic Dave, it will look stunning when complete

michael

[5Craven]

Quick addendum for those of you interested in these things. I checked the copyright info on the model this evening and it was first released back in 1965!

[Lee]

That looks like a labour of love...lol.

Nice work Dave

[muskegman]

Very nice Dave, its always fun to do a ship, I am a big fan of the HMS Victory, although i am an aircraft builder and prefer to do aircraft as a rule, I also have on the go a Mayflower ,Bluenose and now a USS.Constitution which was just given to me the other day, half built in the box by a friend who doesnt have time to complete it. I try and work on the ships in between the aircraft builds, but seeing as i have 3 more aircraft to build now it may be a little while before i get back on the ships.

[Lee]

I forgot to add I live in the city (Portsmouth) where HMS Victory is dry docked. Get to see her, the Mary Rose and The Warrior all the time as my son loves it at Portsmouth Dockyard

[AlexModelling]

Awsome boats... this one is beautifull

[SnMStuff]

Very nice indeed ! Make sure you've got some good tweezers and a padded cell ready for when you do the rigging I just did a load of rigging on the Revell Bounty and Heller's Superbe (with the added twist of making it lightweight because I messed around and made them float, so didn't want too much weight in the top hamper), and all I can say is...gaaaah !

I always wonder if we make our models of 17th & 18th century ships a bit too "clean" looking. They didn't have modern paints back then. Apparently ships were painted with linseed oil as a base, thinned a bit with turpentine, and then worked into a gooey paste with a pigment - lampblack (soot) for black paint, ground yellow ochre or red ochre (effectively, coloured mud) for yellow and red respectively. The end result would never really dry, and if you add in constant pounding with salt water and the effect of up to 900 blokes cramped inside, I can't imagine the ships looked or smelled as pretty as the marine artists would ahve us believe !

[5Craven]

I am sure most ships hulls must have been an interesting variety of colours as you suggest. However on board, especially on large ships, they were kept almost pristine. The reason why is because for most of the time there wasn't much happening and if you have 900 men living in close proximity to each other you MUST keep them busy, all day, every day!

[ChubberLang]

That looks fantastic! The hard work will be worth it mate. Stunning build!

[T3hGuppy]

Good stuff.

I've been looking at ship kits recently and am interested in what problems you face doing this sort of kit and how you overcome them.

[5Craven]

Hi there T3hGuppy sorry for the delay in getting back to you I must of missed you post somehow. As I mentioned in my OP sailing ships aren't my regular builds at all so how this compares with other kits I can't say but these have been my observations so far. First these are really old moulds that have been well used so there are lots and lots of moulding issues. There is flash, pin marks, sink marks and warped parts however on the positive side all of the parts are there with no short shots and although you need to persuade stuff into the right place generally the fit is OK. Given the age of the kit all of the detail is in the form of raised lines and given there is so much of it you have no option but to accept it. That in itself is a nice as you can then just get on with the build. This kit and the others that Airfix did in the same series actually come with a clever little tool to deal with the rigging. It is an adjustable jig that you set up and then wind the rigging lines around to set pattern before fixing in place using Humbrol Clearfix. Once I have the WW2 GB sorted this task will be next on my list so look out for the photos. In fact the instuctions have almost as many pages devoted to the rigging plans as to the actual build. Overall what I have found most challenging so far is the different subject matter and the multiple repeat parts to deal with. The actual skills for dealing with the plastic moulding issues are merely a matter of scale rather than difficulty. Hope you find this all useful in your search.

[Bissyboat]

Beautiful job on the Man o war. Will without shadow of doubt check on this build frequently. I have built a Lindberg 1/350 scale Victory, and it was quite the undertaking in terms of the rigging. I imagine this model would be a handful. Keep at it. You're doing a sterling job!

[JayCub]

My favorite ship of all time, i hope to see it for real some day, but for now i can look at this build, which is excellent by the way, and it is one i have built a couple of times, sadly they don't travel well, can't wait for more updates.

Tom

[Rodney]

Nice job on the ole girl.. Going to have to keep watch on this one.. I have a USS Constitution to build

[gsxrdave1974]

i have just been given this kit from a friend but i think there is a lot of it missing the box doesn't look as full as it should be is there any way i can get parts for this kit it's the classic ships version in the white airfix box now i don't know if you can get resin parts or airfix still do the parts for this kit but all help would be gratefully appreciated to help me complete this kit i'm not sure what is missing but most of it looks to be there i suppose i should build it and see how far i get without needing bits for it there is no rigging thread or jig included in the kit but the rigging that you climb looks to be complete but other stuff isn't there i way be able to scratch build some of the parts

[kpisnuts]

That's looking very tidy, lovely job so far.

[Davethepitch]

Nice build and I like HMS Victory in fact I have been on it twice on holiday years ago.

[RobertK]

Looks great

[pantovarnik]

zdravím přátelé.. prosím vás o info jakou má tahle kráska z toku 1965 asi tak cenu