dunnock

Thanks Beef Wellington, I will be sure to add to those other Diana blogs. As for head scratching moments, I’ve already had a few and in fact I’m having one of those now. I’m contemplating removing both prow and sternpost and replacing them with boxwood, which seems to be very difficult to get hold of here in the UK. I’m waiting for a delivery from Original Marquetry, who only have 7mm thick sheet, before I take the irreversible step of cutting things out. In the meantime, I have followed your line on the bowsprit and modified the keel and bulkhead 2 to allow it to come through to a step. I've also cut away the parts of the keel that can be seen through the false deck. While I'm waiting for the boxwood, I think I'll make a start planking the part of the false deck that can be seen through the hatches of the gun deck. David

I started my first ship, HM Cutter Hunter about 25 years ago and left it on a shelf. A couple of years ago, when I finally retired, I decide to finish it. I really enjoyed doing that so I looked around for something else and settled on HMS Fly but first as a refresher, I built the Brig Scotland by Corel. When I began the build, I discovered that unlike when I started Hunter, there was now lots of help and ideas on forums like this one and I must pay tribute to all the Swan builders on this forum who gave me the inspiration to add a few more features my build of Fly. I will post some photos when I have finished some final tweaks to her. I looked at various options as a follow on from Fly but finally settled on HMS Diana. This will be my first build log, so please bear with if I make any silly errors. The ply keel and bulkheads, though not quite as easy to work as the mdf in the Amati kit, I haven't found it too difficult to work. The keel and bulkhead slots needed quite bit of cleaning up to get them to fit together, as did the false deck but I think all is looking good now. I am using AOTS Diana as a reference plus all the good information from previous builders on this site to help me. I started by drawing the waterlines on the keel and bulkheads to help with chamfer angles and planking. I marked out on the keel where it will be visible through the hatch openings on the gun deck and although they may not be clearly visible, I'm thinking of cutting these away because I don’t think that it will compromise the structure. I have also marked up the angle of the bowsprit. As noted by Beef Wellington if placed as per the kit, it will interfere with the figurehead. Strangely it seems that the angle in the top drawing of sheet 1 is correct while the drawing below has it at a shallower angle. In the end I may replace the stem with a piece of boxwood so that the edges of the ply don’t show. I have marked out and cut the rabbet and am have started to shape the bulkheads at fore and aft but have left #17 because I’m not sure if it needs any shaping.

I would like to add my congratulations on your build of Pegasus. It has helped me tremendously with my first real build of a model ship, HMS Fly. (I completed Hunter by Mamoli about 25 years ago.) I attempted many of your simpler suggested modifications where I thought I could but definitely never to the same quality that you have achieved. My rendition is far from perfect I know, but I am still quite pleased with the result and hope I have learnt enough during the build to improve on my next project, HMS Diana. I still have a few tweaks to make on Fly but when complete, I will post a few pictures. Thanks again BE and I intend to post a build log of Diana as I begin the project in the next month or so.