dunnock

Just caught up with your build again Rob. Very nice job on the coppering and particularly around the waterline where it took some working out

Many thanks Dave for your comments, they are much appreciated. I'm sure that if you do decide to build Diana, you will find it a glorious combination of frustration, challenge and satisfaction. There are many Diana builders with logs on this site that will provide support and inspiration if you decide to go ahead. David

The majority of the stern is finally finished with only a little more of the decoration to be added. I thought that I had finished it a couple of weeks ago but as it was going together for final gluing, I realised that it wasn’t fitting quite as well as I'd hoped. I reworked the lower finishing pieces twice more before I was reasonably happy that they fitted as closely as possible to the wale and lower counter. I also removed and reworked part of the lower counter to get the rail to fit better. It now sits a little high against the lettering but I think it looks acceptable. Jotika should be sending me replacements for the console brackets, and also for the swag on the upper finishing pieces which I broke trying to file it down. However I've decided not to use the swags provided in the kit and will try to paint on my own decoration that is more in keeping with that shown in the Admiralty models shown in the ‘The Sailing Frigate’ I'm continuing to work on the rudder. The pintles and gudgeons provided are too small for my thicker boxwood version so I am working out my own solutions to the puzzle.

Thanks for all the likes, it really does help to keep me going. I have been wondering how to add the name Diana to the upper counter. I wasn’t keen on using the pe brass letters supplied as they looked a bit too chunky, so I pondered on how to either paint or apply my own lettering in some way. Having searched through all the typefaces on Windows, I decided that like others before me, Perpetua Titling looked the most appropriate. I would probably make a mess if I attempted to paint it freehand. I tried printing on baking sheet and transferring onto the model as suggested by Rob in his Jason log but the result was too faint for me to see. In the end I cut the letters out and stuck them on. The result looks effective from normal viewing distance but one leg of the N still looks a bit shaky even after tidying up. I think that if I try to improve on it, I will probably make it worse so I’m going to leave well alone. Now it was time to bite the bullet and get the stern galleries fixed. I glazed the stern lights using the kit PET film. The two false lights were glazed separately and the central section in one piece. The false lights are backed with black card in the same way as the false quarter lights. All lined up ready to glue: And fixed in place with the taffarel and upper counter With the stern gallery in place I was able to carry out a final adjustments to the quarter galleries. I was disappointed to find that some of the components required more than a little fettling, but I’m now happy with the way they look and I have glued them in place. A lot of painting and repair work to do before the final decoration and mouldings are added but I’m confident that it will look fine when complete. I now have a couple of problems with the final decoration. One of the console brackets ( I think that they are supposed to be stylised dolphins) is badly formed so I have written to Caldercraft asking for a replacement. The other is that I have broken one of the swags that go on the top piece of the quarter gallery. The mouldings as supplied are very chunky, so I filed them back to the bare swag. Unfortunately I was not careful enough and broke one of them. I hope that I can align it when I fix it in place. Once work on the stern is finished, I will move on to fitting the rudder which I have already started coppering.

A few days away again, this time in Kent for a bit of bird watching but mainly to visit Chatham Dockyard. The talk and tour of the ropery was fascinating. In the early days, before the process was mechanised, how they twisted the initial yarn by hand from a coil of fibre wrapped around the waist is remarkable. It seems that it was fairly late on in the 19th century that rope making caught up with the the textile industry where mechanisation of similar spinning processes had begun to be used nearly 100 years earlier. A few other pieces completed between continuing with the stern galleries. I had some trouble with the steps getting the spacing to appear correct. On the first attempt I didn’t like the arrangement so removed them and tried again. I’m much happier with the new alignment and also made some attempt to allow for the tumblehome and shape of the wales. I have also made the riders. Although only the two amidships will be visible, I have also made the three that go along the aft section but which will be hidden by the quarter deck. They are shaped and painted ready to be fitted. The kit-supplied rudder no longer fits because of the new stern post replacement. I cut another from boxwood sheet using a template taken from AotS Diana. A bit more tapering is required but generally I’m happy with the overall look. Back to the quarter galleries. I glazed the lights using the polyester film supplied and then backed the false lights with black card before glueing the frame to the top and bottom patterns. This gave me the base from which to shape the lower finishing pieces. These are made from 7mm boxwood sheet and a piece of 2mm walnut taken from the kit. I have tried to follow the general shape illustrated in the AotS. The starboard gallery is finished for the moment, with just the drop to make, but I expect that a small amount of further work will be needed when they come to be fitted permanently The port quarter gallery will follow the same pattern and will probably take the rest of the weekend...

I'm going to be following too and can only echo what West Port said about your Pegasus build

A very nice start on the coppering. Those tiles are in a different league compared to the ones supplied in my Diana kit. Is the relative difference in size due to the different eras in which the ships were built? David

Thanks for all the all the likes and to Rob for the encouragement. This might be obvious to most but despite cleaning up any excess immediately, I was having difficulty obtaining clean joints with the wood glue that I was using. After reading around, I realised that what I thought was PVA was in fact a PU adhesive. I have now bought a bottle of aliphatic glue which I’m finding is much better. It quickly forms a strong bond and any excess can be cleaned up without leaving any stain. I wasn't happy with my attempt at hand-painting the taffarel and maintain a fine line, so I have taken some 1x1mm strip scraped and sanded it down to about 0.5mm and formed it around the bottom of the curve. A bit more touching up of the paintwork and further decoration to be added before it’s complete but I'm happier with the look now. In the meantime I’ve been working on the main rail. After many failures at cutting a suitable scraper freehand, I finally got to a working method by fixing my Dremel in it's stand, turning it through 90deg and set it running with the thinnest grinding disc. The blade to be cut was fixed in my drill vice and then the scraper blade was moved towards the grinding disc. The rails are 2.7mm square boxwood planed down to 2 x2.7mm. A final check on the run of the rails and the quarter gallery I used Tamiya tape as a guide for fixing the rails The chesstrees and fenders are also cut from 2.7x2.7mm boxwood. I'm working on the steps now. After a few attempts, I have cut a profile for the scraper that I was happy with and then cut and shaped the steps. 13 done and 13 to go...

It’s been a while since I updated my log but I’ve been away on ‘staycation’ for a few days. I’m not sure when this portmanteau word was brought into the language: it always used to be called a holiday... The hatch gratings and frames for the lower deck are complete but I need to add the shot lockers and to order some 2mm cannonballs. The kit supplied parts are slightly oversized. I have continued to work on the stern and quarter galleries. I decided to follow Rob’s lead on Jason in the end and make my own lights rather then use the PE versions in the kit. I cut the mullions first and then finished off with the transoms. Then I cut them all out and started again because all the joints looked dirty and some were misaligned. The finished version. Still not great but I have lost the will to do it yet again! I have added some embellishments to the taffarel but the brass framing provided looked too bulky and in any case was too wide for my revised version. I cut the lines from 1x1mm boxwood strip and thinned it down to look more balanced. The scroll-work was also too large. First, I tried to paint it in but my hand is not steady enough, so I carefully filed the brass etch thinner and bent it into a better shape to fit my version. I did successfully paint the two smaller arches by cutting a stencil from Tamiya tape after the freehand version was a failure. Some touching up still required. You might also be able to see the repair to the port leg which broke off. For the quarter galleries, I made up mock versions using balsa block to check alignment with the stern. The general fit looks OK and they line up with the stern quite well. I think I can work with that so continued making them for real. I used 1.5mm boxwood for the frame and modified the kit ply for the top and bottom patterns and end and back panels. All these were cut and sanded to Rob Durant’s template. For the quarter gallery lights to line up, I have to make the lights from scratch using the same method as for the stern and like the stern lights, they provided endless hours of ‘fun’ and frustration. Here are the stern gallery and quarter galleries in place on the model If on my next ship, I say that I’m going to make the gallery lights from scratch, tell me not to be so daft! I’m not sure that I have the perseverance or the patience to repeat the exercise. . I’ve been dithering a bit for the last few days about how to continue. I think that I need to fit some of the rails to make finally sure that the galleries line up. I’ve been playing with cutting scrapers to make boxwood rails rather than use the walnut kit versions. This is a work in progress and I also need to order some more square section boxwood. Part of the same exercise is making the entry steps and again I’ve being doing trials on bits of scrap to get a satisfactory profile. Not quite there yet As a further distraction, I’m also working on the oar port doors. The hinges have been blackened and the doors made from strip to match the hull. These are tinny and easy to lose in the various de-greasing and blackening treatments. I use Birchwood Casey brass black diluted with about 3 parts water which I find works well after a couple of treatments. I'll finish off the oar ports and then continue with trying rail and step profiles.. David

Beautiful work and a lovely model. I found your excellent log rather late in the day but there are so many useful tips and 'how-tos' that I will shamelessly be adapting for my build of Diana. David

Excellent tutorial Derek. I have bookmarked your method to refer to when I get to this stage on my Diana build David

Thanks Rob. If you don't mind, I will be taking a lead from your method of window framing Oh and thanks for the tip on the q & fore deck coamings. I've made a note on the plans for future reference

Stern and Quarter Galleries A cardboard template was made from the modified AotS stern gallery drawing and the alignment looks OK to me so I next added the PE window lights to check the overall look. I don't think that they look too bad but I would have to redraw the openings to make them fit properly so in the end I have decided to try to make my own from scratch. Trying to align the quarter gallery on the port side showed up another error in that somehow I had cut the sternmost starboard gun port 2mm too low. In the shot below you can see where I have added a strip to the bottom of the gunport. I made the stern gallery in three parts. The overall frame from 1.5mm boxwood sheet There is a step just above the line of lights and below the taffarel which I have added using 1mm walnut sheet and finally the taffarel is cut from 3mm boxwood sheet. I series drilled and cut out the lights and did the same for the two piercings in the taffarel. Partially painted in Tamiya Blue and my own mix of red. In between times I have been making the hatch gratings and coamings for the gundeck. The coamings are made from the 6x2mm boxwood guitar banding that I bought from Timberline some time ago and the gratings are from the kit. I've just noticed that the small grating and frame looked skewed but it must be the angle from which I have taken the shot and the fact the grating is not fully placed inside the frame!

Thanks to Beef Wellington, BenD and Rob for the likes and also to Rob for your very kind comments. I have read about the treatments available (both chemical and biological!) for toning down the copper but have decided to let nature take its course. Rob, your points on setting up the stern and making sure that stern and quarter gallery lights are aligned are well noted. Having read both your's and Jason's accounts, I am trying to construct something more representative of the plans in AotS. To that end, I have got my daughter to copy the stern gallery from the book and modify it to account for the angle (she's much better with image manipulation programmes) which I will use to make a template and with drawings of the quarter galleries to check alignments. I have also taken the liberty of downloading your drawings for the quarter galleries which I will make up in cardboard to see how it all fits together. David

Port side coppering is completed. Although this task is pretty repetitive, I found that once I got going, I wanted to see it completed. Learning from the starboard side, I decided to plate the gore line progressively as it occurred in the run of tiling. Again I ran three straight runs of tile and then marked the position of the gore line with white tape. Instead of then placing all the tiles along the line, I continued to add plates normally from the stern row by row and cutting tiles to the line of the tape as it needed. This resulted in a much smoother transition than I achieved on the starboard side After that, it all went quite smoothly but I am glad to have completed this part of the build. I am going to leave plating the rudder for a while because I the kit supplied part will need replacement so I’ve started to think about the stern and quarter galleries. David

Hi Schubbe, thanks for the compliment but there are definitely better examples on MSW. I started using a pattern cut from plasticard and then tried to make a crude jig for the top and butt planks on the deck but found both to be more trouble than they were worth so I just cut each on individually. I followed this route for the wale too. I think that perhaps if I spent more time and made a more refined jig that I would have got tighter joints. Maybe next time.

Starboard side is finished. On with the larboard...

On with the copper plates. Starting with the starboard side, I laid the first two rows of plates beginning at the keel and sternpost. Thinking that the overlap would be easiest if I used the dimples as a guide, I glued the first two rows. I realised at that this was creating too much of an overlap between plates making the joints look much too thick and as you can see from this photo, a lot needed re-gluing. On subsequent rows I reduced the overlap to the minimum which looks much better. I tried various methods of holding and placing the tiles, including using tweezers, and a piece of dowel with Blu-Tak on the end. Finally I settled on using a piece of scrap basswood just smaller in cross-section than a tile and cut at an angle. A piece of double-sided tape on the end provides just enough tack to hold the tile while a dab of CA gel spread is spread across with a piece of scrap walnut strip. The biggest puzzle so far has been deciding where to put the gore line. There doesn’t seem to be any formula for this, so based on looking at other builds on this forum, I just went with what seemed right. I ran three straight rows and then used tape as a guide to mark the line. So far it seems to be working out… Onwards and upwards …

Jason, Not a great fan of Dunnock's tea cakes but I quite like their caramel wafers! Interesting to hear that the roof is original. It's pity the ship is only open at the weekend currently, but we were constrained by the Northlink Ferrries' timetable of boats from Aberdeen to Kirkwall. Rob Thanks for the link to the item from the BBC. It's good to see that at least there is a plan for restoration of the ship. It would be nice to think that it could be restored in a similar manner to Victory, Cutty Sark and other classic sailing ships. I'm sure that it won't be the last time that I'm passing Dundee but next time I'll make sure that it's open for visits. David

It's been a while since my last post because I’ve been on holiday in Scotland and The Orkneys for the last 3 weeks. On the way up we stopped off in Dundee and went to see HMS Unicorn, a Leda Class Frigate launched in 1824. Unfortunately it wasn’t open on the day we visited so were only able to look around from the dockside. The hull seems to be in a pretty poor state of repair as these shots show but then it is nearly 200 years old; and it's fitted with a strange-looking cover where the masts should be to keep out the Scottish weather. Back to Diana. Before I went away, I had made a start on building up the deadwood to match the thickness of the modified sternpost. Now finished and sanded back, I’m hoping that it will be OK when it is covered in copper. I have also made some of the fixed blocks for the tacks, sheets and main brace from boxwood strip. I've fitted the all but the main sheet block but I want to check its position. The AotS has it sited just forward and about halfway up the second carronade port on the quarter deck. I’m not building up the quarter deck sides as it is shown in the book, so I am assuming that this block would just sit lower down nearer deck. As well as the repair, the paintwork on the wale had taken a bit of a battering so I have applied another couple of coats of matt black. Marking the waterline caused me some trouble, which I finally realised was because the base of my homemade version had to made more stable. Once I had added a piece of scrap mdf, it was quite straightforward. I have added a beading strip at the waterline to give me a border to copper up to, using some black boxwood strip from Original Marquetry. It’s only 0.5 x0.7mm and very delicate a but with careful handling it went on OK. So that’s where I’m up to and with a vapour mask just delivered (thanks for the recommendation Rob) and a bottle of acetone, I guess I can’t put off the coppering any longer. I will be using the Caldercraft plates as replacing them with PE sheets of tiles would be just too expensive.

Well thought out solution and neatly done. David

Hi Jason, I've started to do that on the port side just to try it out as a fix. I've also had to use a couple of layers in one area to build it up. I guess doing it on the first layer, it was easier to disguise. I'm pretty annoyed with myself as the second planking wasn't looking too bad overall. David

Thanks for your encouragement AJohnson . For me HMS Swan was quite an advance on my previous builds, and provided plenty of challenges and scope for adding extra detail. It makes a lovely model when finished. I think HMS Diana is a further step up with some new challenges, perhaps partly because the age of the kit means that the machining of parts is not so accurate as later kits but also coppering is something that I have not attempted before. I'm sure there will be plenty more 'learning opportunities' that will appear as the build develops. Having said that, your Bounty is looking great, so I'm sure that you could make Diana your next build if you wanted to. Cheers David

After planking, the keel/false keel should be 6mm deep and needs to be built up. I tried using four pieces of square section spruce joined with hooked scarf joints as shown in the AotS but couldn’t get a clean finish. In the end I abandoned the idea of authenticity as this area will be covered by copper plates and took the easy way out by using maple strip. I cut away part of the prow and built it back up to merge with the increased keel using 3 strips of 1mm thick maple. I also worked on the stern post which I had made earlier from 7mm boxwood and fixed it with carpenter's glue. However now that I look at it, I realise that earlier in the build, I cut back the deadwood area of the keel too far and the enlarged sternpost sits proud of the planking. I should have thought this through better at the beginning when I was preparing the keel and bulkheads. In my last model, HMS Fly, I needed to cut back the deadwood area to make the planking flush and almost automatically went the same way with Diana. Maybe it was later that I decided to cut off this plywood section of the keel to make way for a more authentic looking boxwood sternpost without thinking through the implications. Another lesson learnt. I’m going to have to have to decide on the best way of building this area up.

The planking is finished at last. It looks a bit of a mish-mash using walnut below the waterline but boxwood is expensive and as the walnut will be covered up, it makes sense economically if not aesthetically … But using different wood from different sources has complicated the finishing because of the various thickness of the strips. I needed to remove quite a bit of walnut to get it to run into the boxwood so I decided to do some preliminary work with my electric detail sander. I thought that I was being careful not to damage the boxwood but obviously not careful enough because, at the stern, I sanded away some of it through to the lime below. Luckily, this area is below the waterline and will be covered. I don’t think that it has affected the overall symmetry. I also managed to damage the wale but the one affected top &butt plank was easily replaced. Lesson learned – forget the electric sander next time and even though it may take longer, better to sand the hull by hand. and repaired. A lot of painting and touching up is needed but I will leave that while I concentrate on getting the hull ready for coppering.