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dunnock

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  1. dunnock
    Hi ECK, Good to see another Diana builder on the forum. DIana is a great kit with plenty of challenges: you have already identified one of them, but you'll find lots of help and ideas from previous Diana builders' logs on this site. You've made a great start, so keep going and enjoy! David
  2. dunnock
    Thanks everyone for your likes: always encouraging. Over the three weeks since I last posted, I have been working on the planking below the wale. I started by reading and re-reading the various articles on planking techniques in the hope that I might be able to make a better job than usual, even if most of the planks will be covered by copper plates. I am using boxwood in the area above the waterline which creates a bit of a problem. The nearest boxwood strip to the kit walnut I could find in the UK is 4.5 x 0.7mm. The kit walnut that I will use below the waterline is a nominal 5 x 1.0mm but is actually 1.1 to 1.2mm thick. It will mean quite a bit of cutting in and sanding is required during finishing but I’m sure it will be OK. The garboard strake was the first to go on, made from a strip of 8mm walnut shaping it fore and aft and finishing at 7.5mm in the centre. After measuring the distance between garboard and wale at each bulkhead, I divided them into 5 bands using vinyl tape. The first band was divided into 6 strakes of 4.5mm boxwood and the other four into 5 strakes of 5mm walnut. After a lot of re-adjustment, this was the nearest that I could get to fair lines. The AotS shows the first six strakes below the wale are in top & butt but I decided that this was a complication too far for me and went with butt joints. It was slow work as every plank at the bow needed to be shaped. A card template above and the first spiled strip of boxwood for the bow below Continuing with the boxwood Boxwood nearly completed on the starboard side. A bit more to add at the stern. Start of the walnut planking The spiled walnut planks at the bow are cut from a 1mm sheet - and another thickness to add to the mix. This is as far as I have got, with three bands of planking down from the wale nearly completed. As you can see a lot of sanding will be required to get the margins between walnut and boxwood level. For the final two bands I will work upwards from the keel. I find I can do 2 or 3 complete strakes per day so a couple of more weeks should see the planking complete, a milestone I am looking forward to. However that it means I will be moving on to coppering, something I have never done before but hope that it is easier than it looks. David
  3. dunnock
    Those ropes look very good compared to those normally supplied in kits. I'm very tempted to get one - maybe I can drop a few hints to the boss for my birthday along with the complete set of blocks for my Diana that's also on the list. Is there import duty to pay into the UK? David
  4. dunnock
    I'm a long way off from doing the rigging on my Diana but the nail cutters I have been using are no longer very good so I have ordered some too while I the reference is freshin my mind. Thanks for the recomendation ... had to break off for a knock on the door - they have just arrived!
  5. dunnock
    Many thanks Rob for your feedback. Looking at your Diana, I take is a great compliment. I have no affiliation with Original Marquetry, but I must say that their service and quality of wood is excellent. Ordered on Sunday arrived on Tuesday so no delay in planking above the wale. Planking has proceeded slowly but after completing the first few strakes, I realised that I hadn’t allowed for setting back the edge of the planking around some of the sweep ports. Cutting half mm strips away from the edges was tricky but I think that they look ok. Cutting the ventilation scuttles at 4 x 2 mm was tricky too. These are also lidded but I haven’t lined them so I haven’t set back the planking from the edges. On reflection, this might be a mistake but if I change them, they will look too big. Some spiling of planks around the bow was necessary to get them to sit anything like flush. I continued planking up to the level of the waist on both the port and starboard sides before pausing to consider the quarter deck gun ports. The sheer strakes between the top of the gun ports and the gunwale at the waist are wider according to AotS and the one directly under the gunwale are joined with hooked scarf joints. This is the unfinished planking above the wale which is looking a bit rough but I hope will clean up well before I move on to planking the rest of the hull. Before then, I will be reading up on the many articles on planking techniques, particularly those by David Antscherl and an article called Simple Hull Planking Techniques for Beginners by Dirk De Bakker and Greg Brooker. The latter sums up my situation and needs pretty well.
  6. dunnock
    The main wale is finished and I have started the second planking above the wale line. I used the kit walnut and first glued 6 strips of 3 mm wide, followed by two strips of 4 mm and 2 strips of 5 mm. My idea was to avoid having the joint lines correspond between the two layers but I applied the second layer in the sequence 5, 4, 4 and 5 mm thus ensuring that the centre joint line corresponded perfectly! Each layer was sanded in between and the top layer of 0.7 x 6 mm boxwood from Original Marquetry applied. The boxwood was applied as 115 mm planks cut top and butt in a pattern as close to that shown in the plank expansion in AotS as I could get. The wale was finally painted with Tamiya matt black. I needed 4 or 5 coats to get a good finish. It has a slight sheen, perhaps more of a satin then a dead matt. It’s the first time I have used Tamiya acrylic paints and I was surprised how thin it was although it did cover well. I assume the paint is designed to be spray applied but having no spray gun, I used a 1/2’’ Daler brush. First layer of the wale Second layer of kit walnut Top and butt in boxwood The finished main wale I have made a start on planking above the wale using 4 and 5 mm boxwood veneer. The thickstuff above the wale was first applied with a layer of 5 mm kit walnut followed by 5 mm boxwood. In the planking expansion, the lengths of plank varied considerably, perhaps based on the timber available at the time. I have cut planks to a nominal 115 mm but used other lengths where joints would come in an inconvenient place. The ventilation scuttles were fiddly and I hope that I have cut the planks around the lidded gunports correctly. I will continue planking above the wale before starting below. I notice that the first 6 strakes under the wale are in top and butt planking, although I think that they will only be mostly visible at bow and stern, the rest being covered by copper plates. Nevertheless I will probably have to order more boxwood.
  7. dunnock
    Thanks to Theodosius and Black Viking for your likes and comment and to Rob for advice on the gun ports. I went ahead and the lidded ports are now also lined using 6mm wide lime strips. They are set back from the edge by the thickness of the lid plus second layer of planking. The lower counter has been planked with 3mm kit walnut. The ports are marked out to the sizing in the AotS rather than the kit plan. I’m not sure what these ports are for. I don’t think that they can be gun ports and in the AotS diagram B3/1 they are identified as false lights, (the key for 17 and 21 being transposed I assume). The picture of the model on page 16 shows them as open cut-outs but they are obviously meant to be lidded as photographs of other models in ‘The Sailing Frigate’ clearly show. The helm port has been cut out to accommodate the thicker sternpost and the rudder that I have still to make. The Main Wale… The position of the wale, as others have said, is critical to the look of the ship and how other elements, particularly the quarter gallery relate to it. I plan to start the second planking by completing the wale using 3mm kit wood to build up the thickness and then to finish off with 0.7mm boxwood veneer. I’m contemplating making the top veneer in top and butt although after painting black, it might all be hidden. I started by marking the waterline using a pretty crude rig of block of wood with a pencil clamped to it and then followed up with masking tape. The position of the top of the wale was marked using measurements taken from the centre of the lower edge of each gun port. I used the AotS drawing, although the measurements on the kit plan are similar. Once marked, I taped a strip of kit walnut to the hull to check the line and its position relative to the waterline. I feel pretty happy with the look and how it will sit with the quarter gallery so I can go ahead and plank the wale but I think first I will fix the boxwood knee of the head which I have marked off to simulate the pieces that make it up and cut a rabbet to take the planking. I am hoping that this will give me a neater finish than adding the stem after planking.
  8. dunnock
    A bit of an update and later a question… I completed lining the gun ports without lids as per the instructions. The 10mm strips left plenty of overhang to allow for trimming and sanding back and they are now painted to the same red as the internal walls. I have used a mix of Humbrol red 60 and brown 70 which was recommended in the Victory kit of HMS Fly and was left over from my build. After sanding and repainting the inner walls, I realised that I had not considered the sweep ports. These are not mentioned in the instructions until much later and then are only addressed by sticking on bits of 4x4 to the outside of the hull. I wanted a better representation since they might just be visible from the inside. There are 5 of these along each side. From the photo below you can see how many attempts I made at measuring. AotS shows 3mm ports but I went with the kit sizing at 4mm which were difficult enough to make. I lined the first couple of ports with 1mm thick walnut strip but this was tricky to get right and looked too thick, so I stripped them out and used 0.5mm which looks in better proportion. These too were sanded back and the inner walls touched up again. Now the question. Why leave lining the lidded ports until after the second planking is completed? I can see that the lids should fit flush with the hull on the outside, which means leaving the second planking short around the ports by 1mm each side. However, the lids provided in the kit fit inside the 16x14 ports, so after covering with the second planking, they will have a 1mm lip of thin planking all round. Last October I went down to Chichester for a few days of bird watching and to look around Victory and Warrior. As can be seen in the photo, the whole of gun port lid on Victory fits inside the gun port and there is no lip. I'm planning to line the lidded gunports now allowing for the thickness of the lid. They could then be finished and painted without risk of paint bleeding onto the second planking. The second planking should then run up to the edge of the gunports. Maybe this is all a statement of the obvious and I am overthinking it but I would be interested in any comments. David
  9. dunnock
    Don't be so hard on yourself. That deck looks very good and the top and butt planking is very neat. Well done David
  10. dunnock
    Those gunports.. The positioning of the gunports is as problematic as everyone says. I started by using the side profile from the AotS as a template but found it didn’t work out that well. In the end I placed the upper line of the gunport along the second layer of planking as per the kit instruction and measured the placements from bulkhead 16. All are spaced at 30mm except 7 & 8 which are 35mm apart and 3& 4 which are at 28mm. I found that this avoided the problem of cutting through bulkheads but overall the line and spacings still looked OK to me. I drilled around the edges of the ports using a 1mm drill bit beginning at the stern. After drilling 5 ports, I stopped to check from inboard and thought they looked too low. I cut out port 14 and made up a single 18lb cannon just quickly to see how it would look. You can see from the photo that the gun wasn't sitting centrally as it should. My idea was to site the barrel between spirketting and string, so if I’d thought about it properly, I could have avoided this mess by making sure that happened when I marked the up the gunports. So now I had to cut out the ports that I had drilled and add a filler to lift the sills to the correct height. Having done that, I think that the test gun now looks much better placed within its port. Just a word on the cannon. The barrels must have been changed since earlier kits where builders complained of over-sized cascabels and of being generally the wrong shape. I’m quite happy with the ones supplied, being pretty similar to the AotS drawing. The carriages though are a bit rough and will need some work and I will probably at least replace the trucks. I don’t like the walnut ones at all. To make sure I got the port at the right level, I used a hand drill to make reference holes at the top of the gunport position from the inside of the hull and then measured and marked the outside of the hull accordingly. I was much more careful now, checking as I went along that the ports were sitting correctly, first down the port side and then followed the same marking system along the starboard side. I sanded the ports to leave some room for final finishing at the next stage when the linings are added.
  11. dunnock
    The filling and sanding of the hull after first planking is now completed, so the next task was to complete the fo’csle and q’deck walls. I made a couple of temporary balsa wood filler blocks for the bow where there was no longer any support for the planking, having earlier removed the plywood stem. A single limewood strip was soaked and bent around the bow, left to dry for it to take on the shape and finally cut the scrolls to shape before gluing to the hull. The q’deck was a little more complicated. I looked at various drawings from the NMM archive and in the AotS . ‘The Sailing Frigate’ by Robert Gardiner, which has several pictures of Diana as-built was also usefu,l as well as previous logs of Diana builds. Finally I drew up a template. It’s a bit of a chimera but following Jason’s view above that there were many configurations of q’deck at the time of the Diana, I opted for a carronade and cannon layout similar to Rob Durant’s Ethalion. It may not be historically accurate but I wanted to include both open rails and carronades, so I'm happy with this compromise Lining up the template with the stern gallery The walls were made off model with three strips of limewood glued together, then shaped before glueing to the hull. The gun ports were marked out and scored for later cutting. I also previously cut back the bulkhead struts to the level of the q’deck walls. Template and above the q'deck walls glued up I will next mark up the lower deck gun ports and cut them out. In preparation, I have printed out at 1:64, the planking expansion drawing in AotS to help with the alignment. David
  12. dunnock
    Nice work on the swivel guns Tim
  13. dunnock
    Well done Rob a great model you should be really proud of. David
  14. dunnock
    Thanks Rob and Jason for the advice and encouragement. I've spent the last two afternoons sanding and filling and sanding and filling and... A little more to do but as you say Rob good preparation will make the second planking go more smoothly. David
  15. dunnock
    The first planking of most of the hull is now completed. It threw up a few challenges to avoid the worst of the clinkering at the bow and has meant a few pointy planks and small fillers. I have tried before the idea of splitting the hull into sections and marking out each with tick strips but was never able to get on with it. Probably because my starting points and measuring were not precise enough. Maybe I will have another try on the second layer. Just the quarterdeck and fo’csle walls to complete. At the bow, I am grateful to Jason for his solution to the problem of providing support for the planking where modifications for the bowsprit and the stem have taken it away. At the quarterdeck, I like the more open appearance of the configuration as built but I would also like to include the carronades in the build. Was there ever a time when carronades were present before the rails were filled in ? David
  16. dunnock
    Looks like a well put together kit and should be a very enjoyable project. The hull certainly looks very sturdy. I'll be following progress with intrest. David
  17. dunnock
    I realised why my deck was so flexible, having forgotten to fix the deck beams beforehand. Stupid error but it won’t be the last I’m sure. I fitted beams 7a and 10a and cut them around the hatch openings but I left the others off as they went right under the hatches. The coamings should add some rigidity once fitted. The inner walls went quite well. The 5mm strips of limewood from CMB were nicely finished and didn’t require much cleaning up. Two runs of 5mm which I painted first, followed by 3 of 4.5mm Tanganyika and a final row of 6mm limewood. I am hoping that all this will make it easier to cut and line up the gun ports, the bottom edge of which should sit along the top of the 5mm planks. I planked the entire run of inner walls having first thinned down the inner front bulkhead struts to give a more even run. Sanded down and painted red and the area behind the forward cabin bulkhead white. It’s a pity that the cabin area can’t be opened up more to be seen through the gallery windows but that would involve a lot of cutting away of bulkheads. Without modification I know that this area will not be seen easily, if at all, but I want to add the cabin partitions again like I did with Fly, hopefully making some improvements this time. I have now started on the first layer of planking. The 6mm strips provided in the kit are really good. The first plank at upper deck level. There are some irregularities in the height of the supports but I will level these out later. The first two planks went on straight followed by the next tapered at the bow. I am chamfering each plank on the bottom edge to try to get a tight fit edge to edge but I still have difficulty get them to mate together in places. The irregularities will be taken care of with plenty of sanding and filler later. So far I have been fitting a plank each side to keep things even. I’ve got to the tight bend at the stern section. is a struggle and I am also wondering whether I have tapered the planks at the bow by too much. Anyway, I’ll keep going…
  18. dunnock
    Hi Tim, Only just caught up with your log so apologies for my lateness! Your ship is looking really good. I used the kit pivot guns but wished I had made an attempt to replace them with barrels and new brackets. I did replace the posts though with 3mm boxwood because the kit supplied walnut ones were not very nice and I couldn't get them to fix firmly. David
  19. dunnock
    That's great thanks Rob. I'll take a look. My lime strips turned up this morning from CMB and they look pretty good so I'm going to finish off the messy job of sanding down the balsa blocks at bow and stern before I go back to the inner walls. David
  20. dunnock
    Thanks Jason and Rob for your kind comments. While I'm waiting for the strips from CMB, I'll continue with the balsa filling blocks and getting ready for first planking. I'm also looking ahead to making the hatch coamings and covers. I think Rob, that you got some boxwood from a guitar making source do you have a link to them? David
  21. dunnock
    Not too happy with the maple strips that I received with large variability in strip width and thickness and in the quality of the surface. I realised that I had not laid enough 3mm planks before starting the top & butt so I removed them and laid another two runs before starting the top and butt again. I cut out a template from plasticard to try to get consistent planks but in the end I found I could do much better by measuring and cutting each individually. I think the last rows probably follow no known pattern but I tried to fit them as best I could. The next time it might be better to work from the waterway into the centre. Anyway I have now completed planking the deck. It took quite a lot of scraping and sanding to get a reasonable surface but it's now done and a couple of coats of thinned matt varnish applied to give some protection. I placed temporary supports under the deck because it was very flexible especially around the hatch openings. I'm now moving on to the inner walls. Looking at the AotS, on page 108, the spirketting is in top & butt planking, Overall the bulwarks are scale 6mm in thickness, but the kit bulkheads are nearly 4mm, plus two layers of lime and a layer of walnut makes a total thickness of 8mm. I am reluctant to thin the bulkheads and using thinner planks might weaken the structure for cutting gunports. I have decided to lay the spirketting and string in 1.5 lime and then the quickwork in 1mm tanganyika. However I've just realised that the lime strip supplied by caldercaraft is 6mm not 5 as stated in the instructions which will throw out the line of the gunports with respect to the inner planking. I don't have any other suitable stripwood so it's another order to CMB. While laying up the first run of spirketting, I realised that bulkhead 6 on the starboard side is misplace and will need thinning on the inside and adding to on the outside.
  22. dunnock
    Jason and Thunder, interesting to see your comments on the mizzen mast position. It seems OK to take the easy road and leave it where it is. I've started planking the gun deck using maple strip but I've come to a halt because for some inexplicable reason, I didn't order enough so I'm waiting for a delivery from CMB. I began from the centre line with 3mm as far as the outer edges of the hatch openings then a couple of runs of 5mm followed by more 3mm. I thought that I would have go at top and butt planking and have completed the first two rows. I am now puzzling over how to make a decent job of the final two rows up to the waterway while waiting for the rest of the wood to arrive.
  23. dunnock
    Welcome aboard Rob and Thunder and thanks for your comments and encouragement. I ordered some boxwood from OM for the stem and sternpost plus a few sheets of 1.5 and 3mm which arrived the other day. As you say, they are most helpful and respond to enquiries very quickly. I hadn't thought of using boxwood for the visible planking above the wales but I am seriously considering it now. While I was waiting for the boxwood to arrive, I planked the visible section of the false deck using the kit supplied tanganika. It is pretty rough on the edges and needed a fair bit of dressing; ok for this largely hidden area but I will be using some maple that I bought from CMB for the other decks. I used a Pigma brush pen as recommended by Ray to colour both edges of the strips before laying, which I found much easier and gave better results than my previous method of using a 4B pencil. The planks in the photo look a bit muddy but are better in reality. My boxwood arrived from Original Marquetry so I set about marking out a new stern post and stem. I used the drawings from AotS for the stem. Having satisfied myself that the replacements were ok, I took the plunge and cut off the appropriate parts of the keel. A little filing, sanding and a thin filling piece required, but overall I was happy with the fit. At some point I had an accident with one of the bulkheads, which hopefully I can fix later. As other builders have spotted, the position of the mizzen mast is slightly aft compared to AotS and the space between skylight mast bitts and mast is pretty tight on the kit plan. I have decided to leave the mast where it is and move the skylight back a few mm. The bulkheads and deck are now glued and fixed. I'll carry on with the termination pieces and the balsa infills but leave the stern section off for the time being.
  24. dunnock
    Hi Peter, Your model of Diana is becoming a beautiful looking ship. I'm just starting out on the Diana voyage and your log has been very helpful in pointing out some of the pitfalls of this kit which I'm hoping to avoid. No doubt I'll create a few of my own too which I'll write up in my log. cheers Dvid
  25. dunnock
    Hi Rob, Your Ethalion is beautiful ship with some great attention to detail. I'm just starting out on my build of Diana so I hope that you won't mind if I pick up on some of your ideas to help me through. Thanks also for developing your picture resizer app which has made starting my first log so much easier. David

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