Build the Victory

The first I knew of the Build the Victory partwork was when I spotted visitors to this blog coming from the website. Apparently there are some TV adverts too but I've not seen much telly for weeks and anyway we're not convinced by the commercial channel, nothing wrong with Auntie Beeb etc.

But of course I had to go out and buy the first edition. The cheap one.

Inside I find some nice laser cut wood for the front of the boat, a DVD, two pamphlets and a kit for a 12 pound cannon.

Apparently if I keep buying the magazine, in an indeterminate number of weeks I will have built a 4 foot long model of the Victory. The photos and films certainly make the resulting vessel look really impressive. Were I at all interested in ancient sailing ships this would be a tempting prospect.

At this point people will be wailing "It costs lots of money" and they might be true - I can't work out exactly how much as there is no indication of how many parts are in the series. However these things usually end up at about 800 quid - not bad when you consider that the Jotika version comes in at £724 and I suspect that partwork version has more full some instructions.

Anyway, I built the cannon kit. I sticks together OK although the wooden parts didn't take to superglue as well as I expected. Maybe the stain colouring the wood resists the glue ? As often happens, the instructions don't quite match the parts supplied - the brackets either side of the barrel have holes in them for nails wheras the instructions show bumps in their place. The parts are quite nice, the barrel and wheels are cleanly cast metal. £1.99 probably isn't a bad price for the cannon on its own and if you rally get keen the instructions give enough details to build a full sized one !