Dam fine work and a Dam fine model

Here is more about my (slow) progress.
In the kit, the deck rail at the aft end of the large opening of the quarterdeck is too high.
I tried to spare a mm or two by replacing the 3x3 mm woodstrip at the bottem with a 1x3 mm woodstrip. Now the rail has the same height as the bulwarks



At the forward end of the deck opening I placed the belfry ...



... with pillars glued into the opening's frame.

For the cockpit rails I replaced the U-shaped cast metal parts with wood parts sitting in line with the frame, not in front of the frame (as in the magazine). Now a rope could glide through these parts, without the frame of the deck opening getting into its way.

Thanks, Mike, just trying to do my best
Regards, Bernd

For the side ladders I decided that I wanted to have 23 steps instead of the 14 suggested by the magazine.







Each step was made of three parts

Here are images of my model with completed side ladders:









and fenders







Because of a planning error, the fenders still had to be made a little bit longer



Here the other side:



I wonder if we will ever know what deAgo has planned for the cutaway version?

Hi Bernd by far the best build on the forum FAB-U-LOUS Regards Mike

Here is the inner side of the bulwark



Next, I started with the gratings next to the main mast. I did not want to glue them on the deck, but sink them into the deck to create a level surface









For the last image, I placed the two posts as suggested by the magazine.

It turned out that they are too far apart!

They should have exactly the same distance as the bitts in the deck below. In order to prove this point, here is an image of situation on board the Victory:



Here we see the bitts on the upper battery deck in front of the main mast. The posts behind the mast reach through the the quarter deck to form the pin rail posts there.

(By the way: The bitts on the battery deck reach to the ceiling. Why not in the model kit? If I had noticed earlier, it would have been easy to correct this! )



For the next image, I placed the two posts on the inner corners of the gratings - here they have the correct distance:



But why is the distance between the two quarter deck gratings too large? Where is my mistake????

In the images above you can see that (as in the magazine and on the real Victory), the gratings are exactly behind the gaps in the lower part of the deck rail (between third and forth column).

And then I saw it:

On the real Victory, the deck rail has only eight pillars - not nine as in the model!!!
There should be only two pillars in the middle, not three!!!

I must confess that I didn't notice this before I came to this stage. Now it is too late - I will have to live with the fact that the two quarter-deck gratings are two far apart; they should be much closer to the main mast.

What the heck, I do not really have a problem with this. I know that my model and the original are different in many respects. Fine with me, as long as the model looks nice.

Finally, I decided to build the quarter deck pin-rails in the right scale (and, of course, with the correct number of pin holes).






That has been an awful lot of images for one day. That's all for now.
Good night, shipmates!
Bernd

Hi Bernd

Your improvements and enhancements can only be described as Masterful! And I especially love that idea with the razor blade - hurry up and patent it!

I'm beginning to wonder if that grating on the quarterdeck isn't a 'modern' addition to prevent curious visitors from falling down the hole! My ref books all show that as an open hatch with the bitt pillars going all the way down through three decks to finish on the middle gun deck, and the rigging diagrams also have the running rigging going down through as well.

Once again, fantastic detailing!

Robin

Now THAT is a model!
It looks like there are rigging lines going down through the gratings too. What scale was she Bernd?

Many thanks for the pic

Don't know. Could well be about twice as large as de Ago's Victory...
Regards, Bernd