James H

Beautiful work and some nice info too re: skid beams. 

6 minutes ago, Mike_H said:

Some questions:

I'm sure this will be clear in the manual, but did you change your mind about masking-off the keel?  The photographs shows it masked but then painted.

What kind of filler do you use? It looks fine-grained, hard, and buff coloured - all good things but I've not found those properties in one tin or jar.

 

 

Ah yes!

The masking tape is on the keel whilst I sanded back the filler on the hull underside. It was just to protect those surfaces. Once I was happy with the hull planks, I removed the tape from the keel and sprayed the whole underside. 

I use Ronseal natural acrylic wood filler on the undersides, diluted. I also added about 50% Titebond Original to the mix as it's easy to sand, more so other Titebond glues.

37 minutes ago, glennard2523 said:

It is another master class of your building skills.

lol!

Morning!

I was hoping to have more to show you, but finishing off the hull underside to get a nice even and homogenous surface really is a labour of love. Nonetheless, here's my work so far. The main wales are now fitted to the model, after a 30 minute soak in hot water for the forward half. Positioning this is very easy as it simply follows the line of the lower outside pattern parts that were fitted earlier, and covering the first two laters of later cut planks. The wales are pinned in position whilst they dry. This is left overnight as pear can expand quite a lot when soaked.

Once dry, the wales are glued with PVA and pinned in place. 

After fitting the main wales, a narrower and thinner wale is added to their upper edges. This is supplied in halves.

The inner stern upper counter and stern fascia are now fitted. Both these have inner and outer panels. I bevel the edges of these slightly as they butt up against each other. Some minor measurement is done to make sure the parts are central.

Now it's the turn off the quarter galleries to be fitted. The core of these are some MDF frame parts.

These are now fitted. Before gluing, they are trimmed at the rear end to the size of my particular build, and bevelled to match the angle of the stern fascia. The edges are bevelled to accept the exterior parts. This will be explained in the manual, and it's dead easy. All of these parts are supplied with extra material so there's no need to worry about things not fitting. Note also the small ply part (51) between the frames. This is there to get the angles of the frames to the hull, correct.

Now the gallery frames are fitted, the model is masked up so I can spray the wales and the inside of the upper quarter gallery areas. I used Plastikote aerosol to do this as the coverage is excellent and is ok straight onto timber.

The stern upper counter and fascia outer panels are now glued onto the hull. Note how the outer fascia now creates rebates for the window glazing parts.

The quarter gallery window areas are constructed in the same way as the stern, with an inner part fitted first. Again, these parts have a little extra on the front and rear to cater to individual builds, and there will be little to nothing needed to be trimmed along the upper/lower edges. A thick pear 'roof' is then bevelled to the engraved line and these are fitted to the top of the quarter galleries.

The gallery berthing panels are now added below this.

MDF parts are now used to construct the lowest areas of the quarter galleries. These are assembled to each other on the model (but not glued to the model just yet), then set aside to dry. They are then shaped to match the gallery, checking progress by test fitting to the hull. Once shaped, some pint is scraped from the wales and the sections are glued into place.

Out comes the waterline tool again. Checking this against the hull profile so both the prow and stern are at the same height, the line is added and the model masked again. More sanding, filling is then done. This took me about 4 days to get into a position where I was happy enough to paint.

Plastikote White paint is now added. This is done in thin layers and more rubbing back and filling will need to be done to get a smooth, even surface. It is tedious, but the results pay off.

The last task I did was to take the bow rail patterns and soak these before clamping into position on the hull so they can dry in shape. 

With these taken off, the hull can now be selectively varnished in places before applying the red, blue and black exterior panels. You'll see that in my next update.

Well done! Very nice result 😎

Lovely work. Nice to see another of these being built. 

14 hours ago, skipper1947 said:

Thanks for the replies guys. Chuck, I am afraid your Winchelsea  looks a little above my pay grade. I guess when I said higher end, I was thinking along the lines of high quality components ready to be finished and installed. My tool set amounts to little more than a couple files and some xacto blades, which is in keeping with my manual dexterity.

 

As for what I would be looking for, perhaps a yacht from the early 1900s such as the Bluebird of Chelsea, and since I am fantasizing; with high end wood and fittings. I don't see myself tying any more ratlines any time soon. 

Shame you don't want the ratlines, but this is a yacht

Can also be built with very basic, standard tools. Lots is pre-cut/pre-fabricated, engraved, and from pearwood. You can see a build log in my signature, and the instructions are downloadable to see first, from the website.

https://vanguardmodels.co.uk/product/duchess-of-kingston/

1 hour ago, aydingocer said:

I also got inspired from this review and bought this kit. Almost ready and looks like in the photo this at the moment.

 

I actually wanted to write this post for sending my thanks to Occre. There were a couple of missing parts and some wires supplied too short (though it is also possible that I might have lost the parts and used the wires a bit too generously), but they sent me the missing parts free of charge with no questions. It was as easy as filling a form on their page. The parts were in my post box within 2-3 weeks. 

 

One recommendation to Occre; although the photos are detailed, they don't always provide sufficient information to see the exact assembly points at several spots. A sheet of drawing would be helpful. Depending only on the photos for building a model is not really a modeller's way.

 

Regards,

Aydin 

That turned out beautifully 🥰

I don't think a search for 'new kits' would turn up anything as they only stay new for a time, so not worth tagging as such.

What sort of thing are you actually after? 

@DelF

Your photo processed in Adobe Lightroom.

I should've tweaked more, but it's only a 30 second fix.

I think it's important that for a white backdrop, you buy something which is bright white.

For my use, I have a large card sheet called 'ice white' which is excellent. When I do larger photos, I draw down a vivid white roller blind as a drape. I still need to generally fix white balance in Adobe Lightroom, but it's pretty simple.

9 minutes ago, mort stoll said:

How much of the stern cabins are going to be exposed on the completed model?

 

Thanks,

Mort

You'll be able to see into the cabins via the cutaways in the quarterdeck:

Prob going to be another week before I update. The engraved wales are now fitted and those needed to be altered slightly from the first cut parts, so little things like this need a couple of days lead time. I've just painted them black, and I'll be concentrating on the stern and underside this week, so there should be something worthwhile to show you in a week's time.

12 minutes ago, Captain T said:

Just now jumping in on this build log, looks amazing so far. Chris's designs are fantastic as is James's work. I just finished Pegasus and I'm really hoping this one becomes available in time for Christmas.

 

Question regarding the kit. Is the lettering for the ship's name on the stern counter photo etched parts? Curious about the font and size, etc, in case someone wanted to use the name of one of the other nine ships in the class like HMS Daphne or Narcissus for example.

 

Though now that I think about it, I suppose that also brings up the issue of modifying the figurehead as well...

 

Tony 

If it's not ready for Christmas, Chris will kill me and probably never use my services again! 😆

The stern lettering is PE, and sits above the letters which are engraved on the stern counter. 

It's all coming together 🤗

8 hours ago, mtaylor said:

Just curious, James on the shoulder harness.   I take it the instructions don't show the shoulder harness connected to the lap belts?  If I remember right, they were on all the cars of the period.  It's still a beautiful build.

I would've thought so, but I'm not too sure. Just building it as per instructions. 

4 hours ago, jep1210 said:

Wait, there's a micro switch on the accelerator pedal? 😲 That means push pedal get engine sounds???? 😍

 

Sure is, as well as horn sound, working lights etc.

21 minutes ago, JohnU said:

Whoa, I didn't mean to start a flame war! 

Don't worry, you didn't. 

30 minutes ago, rshousha said:

Race to the bottom. Let's all run to Cornwall models and throw our local hobby shops under the bus. 

 

Taking this a little further, why buy from Sherline when Chinese copies are cheaper? Why buy from Proxxon when Chinese imitations are cheaper? 

 

Oh well. 

You're lucky if you have a local hobby shop.

Most I know of succumbed in the 1990's/2000s, let alone any that would ever sell anything as niche as wooden ship kits or the accessories needed to build them. Even when my little town had 4 hobby shops in the 1980's, and as many others that sold hobby stuff as a sideline, there was never even a sniff of wooden models. 

You know, Manchester (UK city) doesn't even have a model shop any more....and you'd think a city that size would have several. Nope. The last, Manchester Models (Deansgate) disappeared a good few years ago. 

When it comes to model ships/boats, it's generally the internet that's keeping us going.

Onwards with Pack 7!

It really doesn't seem to have taken long to get to this stage. Quite a simple pack this month that concentrates on the interior, so we can 't yet cure the wobbly front wheels on the main chassis. 😜 I've put some stages of this pack in the same sequence as at least 3 stages contain zero work.

18 minutes ago, JJT said:

That looks to be quite a large model.

3ft tall (half scale) and weighs about 13lbs

Well, we are now onto Pack 10.

At this stage, the model is extremely heavy and not so easy to manoeuvre for photographing! I'm also more wary of just lifting this thing by the chest cage and now grip by the pelvis too so I don't put any unnecessary strain on the model. Everything seen in this pack is just a reproduction of building the previous lower leg and foot, so these pics just show the key assemblies.

1 hour ago, EKE said:

James-  Just created a gallery for Fidelity.  Thanks for the prod, mate.

 

Cheers, that really is a beauty. Now I see her when I visit the site 😁