Heller HMS Victory Kit

Dans son message précédent, gleason a écrit :

Yes, I did it... a long time ago. May I help you ?

I'm working on it now, but very slowly, a little at a time. This, I think, is a kit that requires a lot of advance planning, at every step

-- and the instructions are not necessarily helpful. For example, according to the instructions, the guns are just glued to the decks. But once the upper decks are installed, the lower decks are inaccessible. Suppose one of the guns on a lower deck gets knocked loose? You won't be able to get it back into place. For insurance against this, it might be a good idea to secure each gun more-or-less prototypically with thread. I'm drilling holes through the edges of the decks, on either side of each gunport. Then I'm running a continuous thread along each side of each deck, up and down through the holes, and looped around the cascabels of the guns. This can be drawn tight once the guns on the deck are installed, and before the next deck up is added.

Thanks for the offer.

After I posted the message I did a search in the newsgroup [ which I should have done before asking the question ], and found many other responses to the same question asked by other readers.

Will keep your message on file though.

Not the Victory kit, but it's cousin, the Soleil Royale. It is a superbe kit, probably the best plastic ship model I have ever seen. I know folks who have built or are working on the Victory, and they say the same about it. While some of Heller's car and aircraft kits sometimes leave a bit to be desired, their ship kits are top notch.

A general hint that should apply to the Victory as well as Royale- don't try to finish it as a single project, continuously from start to finish. A project like this is a long term project. Whenever you feel like taking a break to work on something else, do so. Put the Victory up on a shelf and work on a simpler project. If you attempt to stay with it continuously, you risk doing less than quality work, getting discouraged, and adding the kit to the imfamous graveyard of lost (model) ships.

Just a note I have heard that this kit is likened to a career decision. So the previous posts about doing small bits working slowly applies. It's not something your going to finish in a day, week or over a 2 week vacation. Some people on this group have mentioned that they have been working on theirs for years. I personally haven't started mine. Box is still sealed in plastic, it is a huge kit with over 1000 pcs.

H>> Hi!

Y'Know! This brings up a thought. I have heard comments about the difficulty of getting the plastic decks on these models to look like realistic wood. I wonder, would this be a good product for Nautilus Models. They are making lazer cut and stamped wooden decks for the revell 1/72 scale U-Boat and the new 1/350 scale aircraft carrier kits from Trumpeter. How about wooden decks for the Victory and Solieul Royale??

Bill Shuey (who's imagination sometimes works overtime)

William H. Shuey vient de nous annoncer :

Hi Bill,

I have the Nautilus wooden deck for my Sea Wolf, and not sure it would be good for the Soleil Royal (Royal Sun in English). These sailboats has decks with no really smooth boards. Bur present decks on the sailboats is not really hard : light brown enamel base, dark brown (almost black) in the joints of boards, dnd then rub the boards with a sweet rag and darker pigments or darker powder of pastel, red and brown, without insisting too much. I don't know if my message is understandable :/

Let me volunteer a comment about the paint. One of the strong points of this kit is the exquisite engraved detail (planking, etc.). Overdoing the painting would tend to obscure this detail, and make the model somehow more toylike and unrealistic. I'm very restrained with my painting. I like the Tamiya spray enamels because they have good coverage without undue paint buildup. And, when appropriate, it's OK to leave the parts in the molded color. For example, the gunport lids are molded in red. Obviously, the outsides of the lids need to be painted black, but the insides could/should be left red.

Here's another suggestion, for what it's worth. (Regarding the rudder.) Unless you glue the rudder in place, in a fixed position, its attachment is very flimsy. Compare the way Revell designed the rudder on its Constitution -- it's a working hinge, with a working tiller, linked to a working helm! I replicated that on the Victory, drilling out the "nubs" and using brass rod for a hinge pin. A tiller is easy to make from plastic stock, and then you can drill holes in a couple of decks for the ropes connecting the tiller to the helm.

My Soleil Royale (same series and scale) has over 2000 parts! And most of these need to be painted. Painting parts alone is a career. But boy does it look nice even partially built. Mine is now almost ready to rig. I am adding training tackle to deck cannons, but as soon as that rigging is done, on go the masts and rigging starts. I intend to do actual tied ratlines rather than prefabbed.

I airbrushed my decks, to ensure the engraved grain detail is visible. Decks in this era weathered to a light grey with just a hint of tan. I combined a tan (sand) and light flat grey. Deck should be very flat, no sheen. They were not varnished, they were sanded clean periodically.