Bettina

They are regarded as difficult creatures. Studdingsail booms are almost thought of as disposable since they often break, as I have heard crew from Pride of Baltimore II report. They can only exist in light wind conditions and if the wind picks up they must be got in quickly. "Modern" square rigged ships seldom carried them, for instance none of the big steel hulled German barques had them.

Hi Ian. Stunsails (spelled Studdingsails) are supplementary sails that can be set on either side of the square sails. The booms you mention could be slid outboard through iron rings attached to the yards well past the ends of the yardams. On these extensions smaller square sails could then be spread, giving the effect of more canvas on each yard.  Here is an excellent recently posted photo of them in use on the the Europa which makes their disposition plain. Studdingsails were only set in light airs with the wind abaft the beam.
Most of the time the booms were not in use and they were positioned inboard, which is how they are usually depicted on models. The canvas on them was "flown" up to them from the deck, not furled on them at all when not in use. The sails could be set as needed and not necessarily all at the same time nor even symmetrically- you could set the portside ones but not the starboard ones, or even set the ones to port on some yards and ones to starboard on others. All depending on the wind. 

I stayed for a few days in Amsterdam, and I recommend the National Maritime Museum (especially the room with navigation instruments).
 

 

 

Tops
The tops have been completed and the rear rails added (I might add netting later) the tops have also had the blocks added as required. I did not like the kit instruction as to making the futtock shroud plates ,that hold the 3mm dead eyes so I upgraded using Amati ones as shown in the photos, which also included brass hooks as well these match the drawing shown in Rigging Period Ship Models.
Fore & mizzen tops

Main top



Top on lower mast


Upgrade futtock plates

 
 

Not much progress as off late due to summer time,golf,fishing and two weeks holiday.
The lower masts and bowsprit will be made from the kit supplied birch dowel and the rest from the walnut upgrade dowel.
 
The masts
The bowsprit was made first,the shape obtained by fitting the blank into my unimat lathe, and then profiled with files and various grades of sandpaper,diameters checked with a micrometer, the lower masts were made as well, I cross referenced the mast dimensions on the plans with those in Anatomy of the ship Diana so if my masts look different from the kit plans that is the reason, although the differences are mainly on the topmasts and the topgallant.
The bowsprit has had the cleats ,saddles and bee parts added and painted yellow ochre lower masts just started.
 
Bowsprit



 
Masts started





 
 
 
 

I have finally added the 'lid' to the gundeck. I have finally found a useful use for sinkers.  They certainly haven't been very useful for fishing lately.
 


 
I have applied a plank all the way down the centre of the deck and will use it as the base for spacing the remaining planks towards the edges.
 
 

I bought a rather amazingly flexible saw to cut off the deck supports flush.  It worked a treat.

 

 
The deck fittings are test fitted. There is a support almost directly under the forward hatch.  A ladder is supposed to be fitted into it.  It's really not possible without cutting the support - which does not seem to me to be an especially good idea.  I'll probably leave as is unless someone can suggest something better.

I've hit a bit of a hitch. As I was nearing the end of doing the deck ( I swear I've lived in bedrooms with less floor space), I kept on ignoring the obvious, with the endlessly optimistic  "of course they have provided enough wood". After trying to contact Billings all week with no response to emails, I've ordered what I hope will match what is already laid

I have finally mounted the guns.  It's something I have been putting off.  Putting them on is the last thing to do before putting the 'lid' on the deck and I keep thinking I may have foregotten something - aside from where I put my car keys and glasses.
 
I decided not to put the full rigging on them.  To do so would require drilling two holes in the carriages to provide for eyelets and I don't have the type of drill that would do the job properly. As well, only the guns that could be seen were (partially) rigged.  My committment to authenticity goes only so far.
 
I am happy enough with the way it has worked out, though I am not enraptured with my rope coils.  The thread provided went every way but the way I wanted it to go.  The gun rigging, while fiddly, proved easier than I thought. Two pairs of longish, fine-pointed tweezers were indispensible. I am now looking for alternative sources of rigging cord that may behave more pliably.  Suggestions are very welcome.
 
To achieve reasonable uniformity of the heights of the gun barrels in the ports, I adjusted the heights of the guns towards the bow and the stern by grinding down the front wheels at the three stern ports, and the back wheels at the three bow ports.  It is at the bow the difference in the heights of the gunports from the deck is greatest, and here I also glued a small piece of copper strip below the front wheels - two under the guns at the very front port.  These can't be seen.

 
Here is the gundeck.

 

 
 
 

 

The side gallery decorations are now complete. I thought completing the right side decorations would, having done the left, be easier. naturally my expectations were disappointed.   The large oddly shaped decoration refused to be glued. It took four attempts before the wretched thing went where it should.
 
For those who try this in the future I have a fewsuggestions that may help.  Start with a very complete vocabulary because it's likely you will use it.
 
Bend the piece the conform with the curves of the structure of the gallery as best you can.  The top and the bottom curves differ and essentially the whole piece is twisted. Glue the lower curve to the structure (I use dots of gel CA about the size of a pin head all  over the back of the piece).  Make sure it is firmly fixed at the bottom as it will be under stress.  Initially, the top curve is almost certain not to fit - there will be a gap between it and the surface of the gallery. Now that the lower curve is firmly fixed, press the top curve to conform with the curvature of the gallery.  It will bend to the right shape fairly easily, but keep applying pressure until you are sure it is firmly glued.
 
Finally here it is.

 
I have now more or less completed the bow decoration.  The joining of the two bits of the middle rail - the one that meets the bottom of  the cathead - went fairly well on the left side, not so well on the right. I had it lined up perfectly and applied pressure to complete the gluing - and the model then moved.  The decorative bit moved down about half a mill and the 'moveable' gel CA then decided not to. To redo it risked significant damage, so there you are.
 
The catheads and the bow timber heads are dry fitted in the photos.  Putting them on at this stage, sticking out as they do,  is inviting trouble.
 




 

I have finished the decoration of the side gallery on the right side of the model.  The fit of all the decorations relies on the accuracy of the underlying structure.  It turned out fairly demanding with a few heart-stopping moments.  I have photographed each step in the hope that it may help future builders.
 

 
A piece of strip needs to be attached to the very top of the gallery apparently for the sole purpose  of decoration - which seems a bit odd.  Definitely pre-bend the strip to the required curvature.
 

 

 
Two pieces of 1x1mm strip are glued to the tops of the pillars.


 
Then the rather strange curved decoration was applied.  I bent it to shape as best I could beforehand. Getting the bend  completly right off the model was well-nigh impossible so it was glued on under some stress (both the decoration and me).  Fortunately it turned out quite well.
 

 
The fit was quite close, but at the bottom of the decoration there were small gaps at either end.

 
I used wood filler to fill them.
 


 
And here are the remaining steps.
 




 
Before applying, the decoration should be bent to shape of the underlying structure and laterally to conform to the curve of the strip below it.

 
The very top decoration proved impossible to bend laterally.  As a consequence I glued it at a slight angle to give the impression of it conforming  with the lateral curvature of the decoration below it.
 

 
Except for some very minor touching up :finished. 
 

 
Now for the left side .....
 

I have now completed making the rest of the mast parts,some differ from the plans as I have cross referenced them with AOTS Diana`s drawings, and I am going with the books drawings, for instance the fore mast, the top mast has no eight square section. All the sections were profiled in my umimat lathe, and all square or eight square sections
filed ,some square sections were built up as required.
As showed in the last photos the masts have been dry assembled (so if they look slightly out of line that’s the reason why).The lower masts and tops will be stepped into the hull next after the tops have all the required blocks fitted to them, and the rest of the mast parts held over for now, as I will next make and add the burton pendants and the shrouds to the lower masts before working up the masts.
 







 
Masts Dry Fitted to Hull

Lower masts
The three lower masts were made up next profiling as necessary and the fore and main having the sides filed for the cheeks to be added, they were then painted and the metal bands added I used black plastic insulation tape as seen in the photos, the cheeks and front fish, were added and also the hounds and bibs which are in one piece they then had the wooling added and the bands to the top square section, I have also started making the tops.







Tops

All the fore deck fittings have been added to the ship, getting close to the hull completion, only the hamock cranes and netting to do.
 
Gratings added

 
Plus bitts and stove pipe



 
Completed fore deck





 

Get the Caldercraft model and pay your credit card the installments. Thats the American way anyways. Hee Hee.  Bill in increasingly more CC debt in Idaho

Hello everyone,
 
This is my modest attempt on the excellent HM Cutter Lady Nelson kit. At this stage, the hull is almost ready. Inspired by some outstanding examples in this forum, I decided to add some nice little details.
 
I do not have much time to send many posts to show all progress. So, the next post will take a while...
 
Enjoy the pictures!
 
Peter

This is a progress shot before I head off for some R&R.  During any build there comes a time when the pleasure of the build becomes a bit of a slog and I have reached that stage with this model.   Even the smallest of misalignments between decks edges etc are starting to show up as the decorations and railings are installed and I don't have the persistence right now to correct them.  So a bit of R&R is in order.  Will give me a chance to think about how on earth I am going to fix the 1mm sq trims to the decorations and railings! 
 

INDEX OF PLANS
 

 
Sheet 1: Overview of ship
 

 
Sheet 2: Masts and Yards
 

 
Sheet 3: Decorations
 
   
 
Sheets 4, 5, 6, 7: General construction details
 

 
Sheet 8: Longitudinal and Cross section (for scratch builders) 
 
 
 
Sheets 9, 10: Deck furniture
 
 
 
Sheets 11, 12: Standing rigging
 
  
 
Sheets 13, 14, 15: Running rigging
 

 
Sheet 16: Mast and yard details
 

 
Sheet 17: Ships plan

The hull is now finished and below are some photos.
 
The next phase will be the masts and the rigging.
 
SERVING this is one thing that has unoccupied my thoughts, serving the rope is one thing I want to do on Diana that I did not on Pegasus,so how to serve the parts of the rigging that require it, like the top part of the shrouds and the forward ones where the sails can rub according the Rigging Period Ship models by “Lennarth Petersson”. I have been reading through logs to try and find the technique needed to do said serving,and fairly quickly came to the conclusion that the only successful way would to be to use a machine,and the way forward would to be to buy one of Alex’s ones The Machine 2.0 an unforeseen cost at $100 or £62 delivered, but having upgraded the decks, and mast material, is the only way to go, so one was ordered from his website,it came in only a few days nearly as fast as ordering something from home,( I have yet to put it together) pay pal does have its uses . The other item just arrived is black Guterman polyester thread 6 spools for £6 on e bay,
 
So mast making next and some serving practice.
 
Mort
I agree Cornwall model boats give a first class service I have bought all my upgrade materials and extra thread blocks & paint from them.
 














 

Hammock rails and netting
 
The hammock rails were added, and .5mm thread threaded through the holes, the netting I used on my Pegasus build looked to small and fine, I did have some other netting that I had from the Pegasus build, the problem being it was red, but looked a better size, so I painted it mat black and it came out ok, so I decided to use it. My method for fixing the netting, is to line up the netting to the top edge and sew it to the rail thread as it the photos, then tie the netting into the bottom corners of the cranes, and then trim to to hight of the other crane upright and sew as the first side, and then just trim up and tie in any bits that need it, and final touch up the paint.
The hull is now completed with just a few touch ups required I will take some photos and add them soon.
netting

cranes added


sewing on netting
attachment=161383:sewing to top thread.jpg]

 
 
netting finished



 
 

28 Railings and Decorations.  The railings and decorations are made from photo-etched brass strip and supplied in a single sheet.  Well made and detailed.  Firstly I thoroughly sanded each side of the sheet before separating the components for convenience.  I found the sanding was sufficient to achieve a good bond for the paint (flat white enamel) although it can chip if not handled carefully.  I used a sharp chisel to separate the components as access for a cutter was difficult.  Shaping each component to the required curve was quite straightforward.  Each component is cut to length, curved if required and then painted before fixing.
 

The procedure for installing the railings and decorations is illustrated in the following photos.  Firstly the combined railing and decoration is fixed to the upper deck.  A groove at the rear of the railing/decoration helps to located it very nicely on the edge of the deck.
 

The next step is to install the 1mm sq railing columns.  This proved to be quite difficult and frustrating requiring a steady hand and patience that is in short supply these days.  To help I clamped a timber strip to the deck to provide a stopper for the bottom of the post.  Using tweezers I maneuvered each column into place and when in the correct location I used a strip of timber behind the column to hold it in position as I released the tweezers.  During this operation too often the column would flick into the distance like a twiddly wink and the hunt was on to find it.
 

The bottom rail is then glued into position and I used 2mm sq timber spacers off the deck to be sure it was set level.
 

This is not a very flattering photo as the columns appear out of plumb but that is largely camera lens distortion.  The railings/decorations and posts are held on with spots of medium CA glue, all very delicate and not particularly substantial.  One inadvertent knock and all will fall down.  

A few odds and ends
 
Rudder coat and pendants.
 
I usually make rudder coats out of micro-porus tape as it has a sort of canvas finish to it and has the added advantage of a sticky back.
Rudder coats are a sort of bell shape in plan but cutting a pattern for a particular ship is a matter of trial and error.
 
There should be an element of ‘bag’ in the coat to allow free movement of the rudder
 
This is difficult to achieve without padding out the interior, I use a little cotton wool off a cotton bud for this purpose.
After this it is just a matter of teasing it into shape around the transom and rudder.

The canvas was tarred to waterproof it as much as possible and I have represented this with a black grey finish.

 
The Rudder pendants
 
Evidence is that even smallish vessels like Pickle would have had some system for retaining the rudder after all loss of rudder was no small matter.
I could not find any detailed information exactly how the pendants and chains would have been fitted on Pickle; similar smallish vessels are shown with the pendants taken up over the transom and secured to cleats on the inside. This method would foul the stern gunports in the case of Pickle.

I fitted chains to eyebolts secured in the rudder and to eyebolts in the lower transom, and contented myself with this arrangement for the present.
 
Anchor buoys
 
These too are an essential part of a ships equipment, they need to be clearly seen on the water, and the standard size is 54”x 30” with something in excess of 100’ of line.(475mm)
 
Smaller vessels such as Pickle would have had a smaller version and I scaled mine down to 36” x 20”
I made an egg shaped core from the cone shaped tips of two cheap bic prop pencils and planked these with styrene strip.
 
With the addition of eyebolts either end and 0.25mm line to form the slings and hoops and the job’s done.

I don’t normally adhere to scale lengths of line but in this case I have measured out 18 fathoms of line (scale of course) to coil on the shrouds.

 

 

Nearly there
 
 

Cheers Chris
 
Anchors
 
A white metal anchor is provided with the Pickle kit to be fitted on the Starboard side.
 
I was a little puzzled by this as my research suggested that she should have at least three, two bowers of 6cwt plus a smaller kedge.
I bought a second matching anchor plus a kedge.
 

The observant may have noticed the absence of catheads on Pickle, something that puzzled me somewhat.
 
In my research I discovered that it is entirely possible that catheads were not fitted given the relatively light weight of the anchors, and that a Fish tackle from the Masthead was used to raise the anchor.
 
I may still yet fit one of these to demonstrate the principle.
 

The stocks of the anchors required some fettlin’ to obtain the correct shape and I wasn’t happy with the given dimensions of the anchor rings.
 
The ends of the anchor stocks have been rounded off in accordance with practice of the time.
 
The use of an inside clinch to secure the anchor cable can be seen here. I was tempted to use a Fishermans Bend, an interesting knot, which was sometimes used on smaller anchors, but decided in the end to stick with the clinch.

Jotika suggest that wire is wrapped around a 6mm dia dowel to produce the rings, but this looked out of scale to my eye.
 
As with everything naval, anchor proportions were subject to specific rules, the ring diameter on small anchors is something in the order of 1/8th of the length of the shank.
 
This is 33.15mm so the anchor ring should be in the order of 4mm.
 
After clean up the anchors were painted with humbrol iron grey rather than black, gave a better scale effect I thought.
 
For the iron stock bands Jotika suggest using strips of black cartridge paper,I preferred to use the brass etched framing from their eyelets as the banding.
 
1.3mm line is supplied for the anchor cable; I checked this against known formulae - ½” circumference of line for every foot of maximum hull width.
 
This did indeed work out at 1.3mm Ø line – well done Jotika.

The anchor cable however is far too white for my taste ; I rather thought it would have a sort of greyish appearance so I soaked it in ‘dirty’ water to dull it down.
The anchor is secured to eyebolts fixed atop the rail with thread.

I wasn’t sure about the authenticity of this so I modified the lashing using 23 links to the inch chain to secure the one fastening with chain secured with a rope lashing to a ring bolt in the deck. The second lashing was line secured around the capping rail eyebolt.
The effect I was after with the anchors was a slightly worn/weathered appearance, and to this end I am satisfied with the result.
The Kedge
This is lashed to the Starboard aft bulwark on the Naval Museum model, Jotika did not include one with their kit.

No historical evidence for it but I rather fancied securing it to aft face of the skylight, seemed a reasonable place to store it.

 
B.E.

Next, I performed the second planking.
 
I used this kind of drawing pin to fix plank during PVA drying (the point diameter is smaller than that usual drawing pins):
 

 
and a wood ruler in order to bend planks:
 

 
Before filling and sanding.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the feedback so far, some interesting suggestions.
 
The Mamoli Surprise with alterations and additions is looking attractive.
 
I haven't done any serious research yet but I'm sure others have, can anyone advise on what books or other information is available to assist in upgrading the Mamoli Surprise kit to include the full gun deck and other details that may not be in this kit.
 
One thing, several in fact, I would need to source are appropriate full length cannon barrels. Gun carriages should be easy enough to make up, but the barrels might present a bit of a challenge.
 
I found this lovely pic of the inside of Jack Aubrey's cabin, recreating this would be fun.
 

 
(Pic from http://www.thedearsurprise.com)
 
Cheers,
 
David.

Some background: I started this build a year and two months ago. I did some modeling when I was a kid, but discovered other joys of life when I reached puberty 🙂 In the meantime I settled down and decided to take it up again (I'm 30 years old).

I decided to go for a challenge and went for the Heller Victory. I wanted to try all the new and exciting tools & techniques I did not have the money for when I was a kid. I started out using acrylics by brush, but invested in a good compressor and airbrush a couple of months ago. Too bad I did not have this at the start of my build! The finish is so much nicer!

The goal is not to make a true to life representation of the actual ship, but a nice looking model in warm colours with lot's of detail that looks good under glass in the living room.

Enough background, here are the pictures:



You can clearly see half of the hull bee lines haven't received the sepia wash yet I use to give it more depth and a warmer tone.





I also need to rework the figurehead a little bit. The white crown is a bit to big and the white horse needs some TLC as well. Otherwise, I'm very happy with the look of the ship!



I used some styrene sheet to make the gun port thicker. I like that look even though it's out of scale.



After a lot of trial and error, I finally settled on a style of gun carriage lashing. I used 2mm single blocks and Morope rigging chords. The most difficult part was making the two holes in the top blocks. I ruined quite a lot of blocks just to get these guns finished 🙂 Will need to order lot's more!

I was not completely happy with my decks. The colour was a bit to pale, it missed some 'life', and some parts were damaged a bit. So, in a moment of temporary insanity, I went out and got a second Heller Victory kit. Maybe a bit drastic, but now I have spare parts for everything and this allows me to experiment a bit more.

I tore out the old deck. This meant I also had to take out the four guns I tackled already, unfortunately. I redid the decks using the same technique, but this time I added two coats of MIG brown filter. This added a nice weathered wood tone. I'm very happy with the result, but judge for yourselves (the foto does not do it justice, though):



The stanchions were made using 2mm eyelets and 0.1mm Morope rigging chord.