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

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RDiaz, you're not alone. I'm inclined to agree, in fact. The entry ports she has now are beautiful, but it looks to me like the weight of the evidence is against their having been there in 1805.

It is important to note that this product is not suitable for children aged 0-3 years. The recommended minimum age for this model making endeavor is 10 years. This ensures that the complexity and intricacy of the assembly process are appropriate for individuals within that age range. 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).Mighty nice looking model. Rigging a model to such a tiny scale isn't easy, but this one looks impressively to scale. And I like the sails. (Those who frequent this Forum know I don't often say that.) 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. 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. 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. 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.

I'm afraid that anything associated with Victory tends to be subject to significant debate, much of it ill-informed. 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 thingAcross 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.

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." I ended up using this as a test bed to learn rigging, using Lennarth Petersson's wonderful book. This is actually my second ship model, first was the Revell Santa Maria. In addition to the extensive historic paint surfaces on board the ship, we also have the archaeological archive of material removed from the ship between 1960 and 2005. This material can help fill in gaps or give greater understanding where areas on board have been subjected to extensive stripping in preparation for new coats of paint. Whilst there is primary source evidence of Nelson’s desire to employ a pale yellow on the topsides of the ships of the Mediterranean fleet, the evidence is also conclusive in confirming that the proposal was rejected. No manuscript evidence supports the mixing of a shade with more white than yellow.Anyways, I have three more kits to finish before I start with this one - I hope I'll learn a thing or two in the process, otherwise more kits will have to be done. I really want to do the Heller kit justice.

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.

Revell | No. 05819 | 1:450

Added to the OOB kit are the shrouds and ratlines (the plastic ones are awful). Ratlines were threaded through shrouds with a long, thin needle. The figurehead, which is moulded flat and is probably the worst part of the kit, was softened up from behind with liquid poly, then bent a bit to better represent the angle of the cherubs on the real thing. Fake hawse holes made from stiffened thread were added (the kit expects you to pass the anchor hawsers through the gammoning slot!). Sails and flags are made from that paper that comes in shoe boxes - the material looks and behaves much like silkspan. By wetting the main course sail and pulling on the bunt and leech lines I managed to somewhat "brail" it. I must give my thanks to jtilley for that idea, which I found in an old forum thread. The fore course sail will receive the same treatment. All sails will be weathered a little more with dilluted acrylic paint, as they look a bit too white right now. Reefs will be added. 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... 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. 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. 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?)