Vane

Thanks, very fiddely especially the tops. Trying out something new now... usually i paint everything but this photoetch burnishing fluid might save me some time fot the small stuff. Just clean carefully with aceton first and the dip a few minutes in the fluid.

Finally started to do some work on my Granado. I want to deckplank her so she dont look so rough. However, things need to be done in the right order so I had a crack at the mortar houses. Its abit fidelly work but now I have the basis in place. These are not supposed to be glued so you can take them apart and get ready for battle. I didnt read the instructions so did some mistakes. I also had to level out the deck so it is the hight to the gunports where the same.

I have my own studio and been shooting people for more than 10 years. But for photographing your boat here is my first tip which will basically cost you 4 euros but improve your photos to almost professional level. Buy a large piece of white paper, place it on a table which is very close to a window. Thats it... you can even use your phone to photograph. If u want to have some variation, buy a black paper as well. A static model doesnt need complicated lighting. But it needs lots of light so all details are visable. So make sure to be very near a large window.

This week I been working on all deck details... Just dry fitting. The kit supply wheel didnt look good so I made an upgrade. Plenty of mtrl in the kit Added a few extra details here than the plans. Fiddeling... Painting is a question... I will probably go with a lot of black.

Started to work on the masts.

Tonights project... 18 gunports. Decided to work with a strip of boxwood instead of the supplied walnut. A bit easier to work on with these fiddling pieces.

So how many hours for a build like this do you estimate? Looks like slightly quicker than Sphinx...

More photos

I havent worked on my Snake for quite some time due to many other projects. Will hopefully finish a few things on her now. Decks in maple completed and scraped!

I dont want to turn my buildlog into a long discussion on planking methods, but here are some of the things that has improved the result for me. This is the 5th hull i am building so I have gone from boiling water and thousands of pins to a much better and faster strategy thanks to this forum. But I got still much to learn and I dont claim to be any expert in this. So here are my main tips: 1) First planking is mostly about shape. PVA, plankbender and pins works for me. I dont care how the result looks. It needs to set a strong base and the shape needs to be formed right 2) Carefully select and sort out what stripes to use and when. Dont pick them randomly. The colour and grain will effect the end result. Avoid getting your hull look like a checkers board in places that are visable. There is always the option to buy better stripes or change the wood. It comes to a cost but considering how much time you will spend on a wooden ship i think its worth to work in good material. I will likely never build a ship in walnut if the wood is not painted. 3) Cut short stripes rather than try to cover full lengths. Its more accurate to the scale and also easier to work with. 4) Pay alot of time to shape the strip. Testfit sand testfit sand testfit sand. 5) Edgesanding with a rund inner edge. This will make it easier to avoid any kind of gap. 6) Prebending (aka Chuck method). I use a heatgun and a simple rig with clamps . I just put the plank in place and make a mark where the gap is widest to know where to bend. 7) CA glue. I know some people think it messy but once you get the hang of it you will be much quicker and there will be no pinholes. I use it together with warm water which makes it easier to stick fast and to immidiately to clean. CA should be fresh for best effect but with water i think even old bottles work. 😎 Finally its sanding time again.

Short update on the planking. Need to trim all gunports before can move up....

We have all heard about the Chuck method for planking.... it was abit to hard for me so I decided to come up with a more simple version... I give u the Vane method... PM me if u want a lesson. I only charge 1$ per hour 😛

Regarding Sphinx, would it be completely wrong to do built it with copperplates?

Uk has always had great wellsorted hobbyshops, especially whne it comes to ships. However, after leaving EU you have to roughly count for 25% extra on the price. I still order from UK if its not available inside the EU. But buying the latest kit from Tamiya is better to find locally. Vanguards is also a special case, since its a small business with basically no competition in its market segment. Perhaps not for everyone, but if you want the best... you got the best :-). Sphinx looks very tempting, but I have to finalize some of my ongoing kits before I buy another.

Nice build. Yes I saw the discussion on your whale and thought long and hard when I put together mine (which is 18mm) which is in accordance with the plans. But one problem with the plans is that the blackstrake is not clearly marked.

Done with most of the hidden walnut... now on to the boxwood 🙂

Thanks Jason, your log is a guide for me and I will follow some of your solutions but my ship wont be near your quality. Yes, I will try to put it as low as possible. After studying alot of Diana builds i can see that many are struggling with the stern and it often ends up kind of high. I guees it also has something to do with the ship design. The last canonport should follow the hight of the deck. And then its difficult to have its the same level as the windows without some modifications.

Slowly progressing with the 2nd planking. I dont like working with walnut but I add that under the copper.

Nice to see another Diana build! 🙂 Regarding the wale... I am working on it myself at the moment. It looks to me that you used the 5mm strakes rather than the 3mm. I did mine with 6 and they didnt turn out that wide. But when u reduced it to 4 i think it ok.

Personally I really like the new materials that Vanguards are using to improve and make things easier to assembly. But from a traditional point of view I get the feeling that shipmodelling always had try to distance itself from the plastics modelling world. Kits have strictly been limited to wood, rope and metals. Now when I do both wooden ships and plastics i see that the both worlds have alot to learn from eachothers.

Working with the whales. First a layer or walnut and now on to the boxwood for a nicer surface.

All canon ports done... My Proxxon discsander really help me out during this step.

Now when all the details start to come to place I must admit that it exceeds my expectations by far!

Oh noooo... my list of ongoing projects and kit stash is already full... please dont work quicker! I need to complete more stuff before I can take on anything new! But good luck with the company, great news!

As a former researcher and also a semiprofessional photographer, the problem I have is the Magazines/Journals always want content for free but only give "exposure" in return and that deal sucks. The used to hand out at least a printed copy for free but that is going away also. My advice would be that you contact the author directly if you wish to read an article. They wrote it for free and want to have "exposure" so they will often just send it to you if you ask for it.