Revell 05408 H.M.S. Victory 1:225 Scale Unbuilt/Unpainted Plastic Model Kit

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The scale on the Revell Victory is stated as 1/225, though I made some measurements that indicate the scale is actually closer to 1/256 - but I might be wrong.

To see if I could get some further information to help inform the debate and assist in members deciding which colour scheme to go with I thought I’d go to the man who should know, Andrew Baines, Deputy Director of Heritage and Curator at the National Museum of the Royal Navy. As an artist myself to get a pure yellow color it is common practice to put a base coat of white with a layer of yellow over the top.Beyond the archaeological evidence, we have details of what paint was carried on board Victory, and the quantities in which it was consumed. The accounts of carpenters stores for Victory in the run up to Trafalgar also gives details of use of paint, and some indication of how it was mixed, but this is actually quite difficult to decipher due to the manner in which the quantities are recorded against the work undertaken. There's lots of evidence that at the time of Trafalgar the ship had shoulder-high bulwarks around the poop and forecastle. The Heller kit doesn't. None of the spars was replaced, except the dolphin striker and the bowsprit flag pole, both of which broke while handling and had to be replaced with sewing pins. The Guild is a non-profit educational organization whose mission is to “Advance Ship Modeling Through Research”. We provide support to our members in their efforts to raise the quality of their model ships. Yellow ochre as supplied to ships was a dark colour that was commonly mixed with white (1804 handbook of instruction for RN officers). It must be borne in mind that this was an earth pigment and the actual colour varied widely.

All of the available evidence was reviewed by the Victory Technical Committee, then chaired by Martyn Heighten the then Director of National Historic Ships UK, also a member (and still a member) was Jonathan Coad, who had served on the Victory Committee for almost forty years at that point. The recommendation to change the colour was not, therefore, made on an ad-hoc basis, but subject to extensive scrutiny before the Board of the HMS Victory Preservation Company took the decision to change colours when the ship was next repainted. If you enjoy building ship models that are historically accurate as well as beautiful, then The Nautical Research Guild (NRG) is just right for you. Measuring at a depth of 400 millimeters and a height of 330 millimeters, this ship model is compact yet intricate. It is scaled at 1:225, making it a faithful replica of the original H.M.S. Victory. BTW, I have edited the original post with simple things I added to the original kit, which might be of interest for those building it. Across a number of threads there has been considerable debate about the new colour scheme for HMS Victory, most recently on Dafi’s Victory build. There are supports and doubters. Doubts as to the change mainly arise because of the there isn’t much material out there other than to say we looked at some old paint samples and worked out what’s what.Lots of people know a great deal more about H.M.S. Victory than I do, and if one of them happens to read this post and offers some evidence I haven't heard about I'll be delighted to read it. (How about it, Forum? Does anybody out there know of a piece of actual evidence that those entry ports were there in 1805?) I thought I’d post this information here rather than on a specific build thread to make it easier for people to search for and retrieve the information. As for solid hull wood models, I've considered them, and I guess the day I decide to try wood it will be with one of those. Maybe a schooner, or something simple in a larger scale.

I'd like to build this kit again in the future, with a simpler rig, but only if I find a vintage, crisply moulded version. Maybe scratchbuild some ornaments and make a Royal Sovereign from it. And perhaps the most important thing I'm learning from this build is to use dilluted white glue for rigging, rather than CA. That stuff is impossible to tame... Some progress on the Revell kit - finally decided to ditch the ugly plastic stand and epoxy the model to a pair of metal pedestals , courtesy of our HECEPOB friend Artist in the... well, that thing Then there's the question of the entry ports. The big, ornamental entry ports that are on the ship today aren't on the model. I'm among those who think Heller was probably right on that point - but I can't claim to be certain. Dr. R.C. Anderson, who supervised the restoration in the 1920s, admitted flat out that the low forecastle bulwarks were "a mistake for which I must bear my share of the blame." He said that research had established that the bulwarks were raised during the refit shortly before Trafalgar, but the researchers revealed their findings just after Dr. Anderson and his team had finished building the low, knee-high ones. They hesitated (understandably) to scrap work they'd just finished, and "the result, while wrong historically, is certainly pleasing to the eye." From the surviving carpenters' accounts of British ships at Trafalgar, we can discern that ship's sides were either painted with pure yellow (Prince, Temeraire), used a mix of two or three parts yellow to one part white (Ajax and Revenge prior to the battle) or used a mixture that was (or was close to) equal parts yellow:white (Mars, Thunderer).Constructed with precision and meticulousness, the Revell H.M.S. Victory assembly kit provides an enriched and accurate portrayal of the naval ship. It is a naval ship model product that caters to individuals with an intermediate to advanced skill level. Pure yellow aged in the sun would indeed pale over time and to match this when repainting, a yellow / white mix may attempted to match the aged yellow color. A new yellow color would be quite alot brighter and if there were many ships in a fleet painted at different times then I can see Nelson's issue and request for a pale yellow color to be used as standard.

The one primary source I know of that shows the entry ports is the other contemporary model of the ship in the National Maritime Museum - the model that apparently shows her in her "as-built" condition. That's a rather dubious source. It's an established fact that not all actual ships matched their "Board Room Models" (which often were built before the ships were), and we know she underwent lots of modifications between 1765 and 1805. The archival evidence when combined with the archaeological material provides, therefore, compelling evidence that Victory's colour in 2013 was not correct to the time of Trafalgar (I don't know of anyone who seriously suggested it was) and that we were able to say with some degree of confidence that it was possible to return to a Victory much closer to that Nelson would have known (admittedly he wanted it lighter, but didn't get his way). An interesting point: the people responsible for the upkeep of the ship herself have been remarkably silent on this matter. I know they hired a carver who (superbly) made new canopies over the entry ports for her pre-2005 restoration. And several publications issued by those folks show the entry ports.The shade of yellow paint employed by the British fleet prior to Trafalgar appears to have varied from ship to ship. Some ships used yellow neat, others mixed yellow with white in a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1, whilst others mixed yellow and white at 1:1. I'll go out on a limb and say I think it's the best plastic sailing ship kit on the market (though the big Revell Constitution gives it a run for its money). But the Heller kit does have more than its fair share of problems. I'm wondering if this was done to freshen up the Victory instead of just painting a mixed yellow and white over the top. If the base material is not a uniform color / shade then that can create the effects of color variance of colors painted over it. On a large surface this would be more apparent, so it makes me think that a baselayer of white may have been used and then yellow over the top... meaning the final color would be pure yellow.