Hms Victory, painting the hull

Once I had established the internal walls should be whitewashed and not red as stated in the instructions I sprayed the insides with Matt white with a few drops of matt brown to give a it a creamy/stone appearance as suggested by the latest paint analysis research by Micheal Crick-Smith

I might need to make some cladding for some of the insides if the plasticard is visible  once the hull is put together.

Next I sprayed the hull copper, in case any gaps are left between the copper foil when it was applied.

The humbrol metallic paint looks good in this light but is flat and uninspiring when viewed in different light as seen below

Next  a job for the masking tape, mostly tamiyia stuff of different thickness,imagine I will need more than this before the kits done.

Firstly I masked off the copper paint and the areas that are to be painted yellow on  both sides ready for spraying with humbrol  Matt black, I  have decided to use enamel paints  initially and then weather  the ship after building with acrylic paints or pastels/powders.

I suppose you could spray the hull all black and the mask off the black and spray the yellow, but it could take quite a few coats of yellow to cover the black. So I decided to mask off the yellow and spray black, then mask again with low tack/de tacked to spray yellow, 

I also drew around the gondolas and masked off the interiors at the stern.

Two coats of thin black enamel was spayed on the hull.

Then the masking was removed revealing a nice paint job that's starting to look like a ship of the line

Quite exciting this stage as it suddenly starts to feel like your getting somewhere.

Above a close up once the tape has been removed, I left the black paint a few days to fully harden before I started to mask off the black areas in preparation for spraying the yellow stripes.

Hms Victory purchase made to improve the kit

Update on a few Purchase made and a few I plan to make shortly. 

A while back I bought these rolls of copper to place over the keel.

They are self adhesive and very very thin, they came in at about £9.00 a roll. I will detail how their application went in future posts.

I also got 100 tiny yellow LED lights to light up the inside of the ship (cost about £7.00 from ebay) I will experiment with painting them to appear like  the lamps used.

Here a close up to show just how small they are

Here a photo of the lamps  to copy

I haveI also come across some wonderful   paper thin wooden decks costing about £70.00 from 

scale decks.com

 Other extras for super detailing the cannons on the upper decks have been sourced, and will be ordered when required.

HMS Victory, Airfix 1/100 additional research

 The instructions that come with this kit need to be treated with a healthy sceptisim, had to call in some back up with this publication below

Loads of photos and information in this book that helps to cut through some of the contradictions and uncertainties  faced when building this kit.

For example the Airfix /Heller  instructions suggest that the internal  walls on the gun decks are painted red ?

 I know the gun deck walls on the ship today are white  but were they painted red in 1805 ?

Well apparently not, they were white washed according to this publication and as I plan on lighting the ship inside small amounts of the wall may be visible.

I have  also learnt that you can not take the ship as she is today as a completely accurate representation of how she looked in 1805.

For example the yellow ochre colour she is  currently painted is not correct,according to the latest research by Micheal Crick-Smith. The yellow should be a weaker paler colour than the present vivid shade.

Also  according to the Crick-Smith's analysis of the hull, In 1805 the Orlop deck was painted a pale stone/cream colour while the surgeon's and other small cabins were painted in two shades of blue.

HMS Victory, Airfix 1/100, the boats

Started looking at the ships boats

The instructions suggest an all white paint with a green stripe paint scheme.

The three boats were cut off the sprues and the insides painted white with a brush prior to assembly leaving the edges to be glued unpainted.

The halves of the boats need some encouragement to join together, in particular the Dingy.

Then some sanding of the joint lines, 

The rudders were added and the boats put away for painting and super detailing at a later stage.