dunnock

On the home straight. The four strakes above the wale are straightforward I made the plansheer from the basswood sheet. I placed the scarf joint a little further back than stated in the instructions, at frame 4 to balance the curve of each piece. At this point I ran out of sufficient sheet to finish the quarter deck outer planking and wale so used some stripwood I had in stock. The outer layer of the wale was cut from a sheet of 1.5mm boxwood. It took several soakings in hot water and bending to shape before it would lie easily around the bow section and I had to use a drop of CA gel to fix it at the stem. I sprung a couple of planks on the hull while clamping the after section of the wale but luckily they were easily re-fixed. The quarter deck rail and transom are made from lime stripwood and a trim of 1mm square section black boxwood completes the build. More sanding and 5 coats of shellac have been applied to finish off the hull. The hull was removed from the building board quite easily , helped by brushing IPA around the frames And the remains of the paper scraped and sanded away. Despite initial misgivings about whether I had miscalculated the position of the garboard and broad strakes, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out and is a great improvement over my previous attempts at hull planking. So overall I enjoyed this project and learnt some useful lessons for future modelling. I think that in future I will stick to tapering and edge-bending for the inner layer but, even though more time consuming, I’ll persevere with the spiling technique on the outer layer in the hope of improving further. All that remains is to find a suitable permanent mounting board and frame and get permission to put it on show somewhere in the house. Next up will be Vanguard Models' HMS Speedy. Thanks all for taking the time to look in David

Absolutely stunning Jason. It's good to see you back in the shipyard. David

Absolutely stunning BE. Your models and detailed logs are always an inspiration David

Planking continued slowly. Plenty of discarded planks and removal of poorly fitting ones but hull is now completed up to the first layer of the wale. A stealer was added at the stern at the junction of the first two bands of planking and a drop plank at the bow one strake further up. First layer of the wale Planking now complete up to the wale Looking at the hull overall, I think results have improved as I worked my way up the hull but that is the purpose of the excercise. There will be quite a lot of cleaning up to achieve a half decent result. It would have been better if I had sanded back frame 5a because it has caused a high spot at the bow. There is a similar situation at frame G. Maybe I can make these less obvious in finishing. The instructions say that now would be a good time to begin sanding so I will begin by scraping the hull followed by sanding with 120 and 200 grits. David

Very nice rigging on the guns Andrew. Not horrified at all by the lack of hooks, just impressed that you attempted to rig such small blocks. David

Looking very nice Simon. Good recovery on the planking and the hull now has a very nice finish David

I laid out the tape for the garboard strake and although the line looked good to me, I found that when it came to cutting the strake out and fixing it, the forward end finished too high. I replaced it so that the strake finished just aft of frame 5 rather than forward of it. This position corresponds more closely to Toni’s build log. The broad strake was more or less a repeat of the garboard strake. Initially I made it too wide at the forward end, removed it, thinned it down and replaced it. Most of the planks have been removed, cleaned up and replaced at least once until I was happy with their fit and placement. Perhaps by the end of the build, I'll be getting it right first time! I have also installed the first strake of the first belt of planking. I think everything looks OK however, the bottom of the stern frames look higher up the deadwood than in the photos in the manual.

Thanks James that's a very nice model. Thanks Eric for the nice comment and for putting me right ... My apologies to Toni for making wrong assumptions I fitted the counter yesterday which highlighted the need for a bit more fairing at the stern and marked the position of the wale. I'll post some pictures later. David

I’ve all but finished Vanguard Models’ HM Trial – just waiting for the flag painter (my daughter) to find time to paint the ensign – so I’ve resumed work on the half hull. No improvement in the weather but there’s not too much sawdust being created so I’m continuing indoors. As I work on the fairing, I’m finding that frames that I thought were OK turn out to be low. I don’t think that I have gone too far on the fairing because the back edges are untouched. I added shims to the lower parts of frames 4a and 5. I have also found that some of the brace pieces between frames are not as solid as I thought so I had to re-glue some of them. I think that a lot of the problem is that mounting the hull on foam-board as suggested is not a solid base. The foam-board is flexible and individual frames can move relative to the others. If I were to make another half hull model, I would use something more solid as a building board. I’m happy with the fairing which took a few hours over several days and I can now mark the wale and begin planking. David

Thanks Andrew. I thought that the anchor ring was a bit under sized so made a new one. This necessitated drilling out the hole, by which time there is precious little shank left. If you go with the kit anchor ring, it will be more robust.

Thanks for the likes and all the very kind compliments. Anchors I attempted to make the anchors back in November but broke both of them when trying to fit the anchor rings. The replacements arrived soon after but left it a while before having another go. Despite being as careful as possible, I still broke another anchor when trying to insert the ring. Thankfully Chris had sent me three replacements and the final one was drilled out and the ring inserted without any damage. Puddening of the ring still took a lot of care. I used 0.45mm dark brown rope and 0.1mm thread for the seizings. The cat block is a 4mm double block with hook made from 0.7mm brass wire and blackened. The iron band is represented by heat shrink tubing. The cat block is rigged with 0.35mm rope. It is tied off at the inner eyebolt on the cathead and threads through the block and both sheaves in the cathead and tied off at a cleat on the inboard side of the cathead. The anchor is lashed to a convenient timberhead by the shank painter and at the arm. The ensign will be the final touch which will be added as soon as my Flag Maker has space in her busy schedule! Thanks for looking in David

A quick update. I’ve spent the last few days making hanks and tidying the deck. I have used the method of wrapping rope around pins arranged in an elipse but have always had difficulty making the hanks hang realistically, especially thinner ropes. I now prefer the method published by @carlo_l How I make rope hanks, fast and easy technique - My JIG - Model Tips and Tricks and Making Jigs - Model Ship World™ although I change it slightly by tying off the hank and then making the loop. The coils are made in the normal way by laying rope down on the sticky side of masking tape and fixing with dilute pva. David

Thanks Andrew and Thukydides for your kind words. I will be pressing my daughter into flag making as the very last step, although she doesn't know it yet! Kate made such a good job of jacks and ensigns for Fly and Diana that she is designated Chief Flag-Maker. 😃 David

Thanks for the likes and encouraging comments. Forward Braces Looking at the main yard braces, the plans show they are tied off to the bowsprit bitts but I’d tied off the inhauler to one of them. I reviewed all my bowsprit rigging against the photos of the model in the RMG and other references. In the photo its not clear that an inhauler is present and Marquardt refers to Lever saying that on small ships, an inhauler was not rigged. For this reason (and for expediency), I have decided to remove the inhauler. The main yard braces are 0.66 times the appropriate stay. I used 0.6mm rope. They are spliced around the end of the bowsprit, lead through the brace pendants and back through the outer sheaves of the triple block and tied off at the forward bitts. The topsail yard braces, using, 45mm rope, are spliced around the yard arm, run through 3mm blocks hooked into the eyebolts at the cranse and run back to the crossbeam of the forward bitts. I left both sets of braces slack but some more work is needed to make them hang satisfactorily. I use dilute pva and weight the rope along its length with paper clips. Aft Braces Prompted by Andrew, I considered the aft braces. There are none shown on the museum model of Trial but all the of the cutters photographed by @tkay11 show them fitted and Marquardt also lists them. I decided to fit them. Looking at the photos of the 1763 cutter, the aft braces are shown threaded through a sheathed hole in the stern and I’ve tried to copy this effect. An eyebolt is glued in far aft and two holes drilled in the side forward of the eyebolt. The eyes of ringbolts are Ca’d over the holes to add to the effect. The braces are rigged in a similar manner to the fore braces with pendants on the main yard and spliced to the arm of the topsail yard. The main yard brace is tied to the eyebolt, passes through the brace block, leads through the forward hole in the stern and is belayed at the aft cleats. The topsail brace goes through the aft hole and is belayed to the nearest timberhead. Like the fore braces, I have left them slack. Bowlines Bowlines are not present on the Greenwich model and maybe it’s not appropriate to add them when there are no sails on the model. Marquardt says that the main yard bowlines are threaded through a double block on the end of the bowsprit. Although I tried, I could see no way of adding a block easily with all the other rigging in the way so I decided to added only topsail bowlines. These lead through thimbles stropped to the end of the ‘sprit. The thimbles are difficult to see with all that's going on. The bowlines are hitched to the yard in-board of the yardarm cleats with a timberhitch and lead through the thimbles. I was running out of suitable belay points up front so they are tied off to the winch standards. I used 0.35mm rope. I’ve gone beyond my original rigging plan and the model now looks very busy around the bowsprit. and I’m calling a halt. It’s time to tidy up all the trailing ropes and make some hanks and coils, not one of my favourite bits of the build. I’ve tried various methods of making hanks but I struggle to make them look very convincing. Ah well onwards.. David

Thanks for the likes, encouragement and helpful comments The Ropes at the front End I made the traveller some time ago and kept it safe with a note on the plans not to forget it.. Not a part of the kit, so I made it from a piece of brass strip, formed around a dowel a quarter larger than the thickest part of the bowsprit. I threaded a hook on to the traveller before soldering the ends together . The ring was made from wire bent to shape and hooked on to the ring. In hindsight, The whole assembly was treated with brass black. I don’t think the hook is required but having nothing else to go on, I modelled it on the one I made for Diana. I haven’t used the PE pieces supplied in the kit to tie off a lot of the rigging at the forward end of the sprit but followed @Blue Ensign's description of the cranse in his Alert log.. Heat shrink tubing and three 2mm eyebolts were used. A 5mm triple block was tied to the top eyebolt for the topmast stay and main braces. The topmast stay is made from 0.45mm rope served for 40mm below the mast. The stay passes through the centre sheave of the bowsprit block and ends in a thimble. A 0.25mm lanyard connects the stay to a thimble seized to the eyebolt at the stem. The braces are made from 0.45mm rope with a hook seized in the forward end and a thimble in the after part. They are hooked into the eyebolts at the bowsprit and lashed with a lanyard to the thimbles tied to eyebolts in the bow just beyond the catheads. Before final fitting, I checked that the anchors don’t foul the braces when raised or lowered. There is no bobstay in the kit plans but one is clearly shown on the RMG model and I have tried to copy its form. I spliced a 4mm block to the bowsprit. The bobstay is 6mm rope and has a 4mm block seized in the forward end and passes through a hole in the stem and is spliced to itself. The tackle is 0.35mm rope and I have tied it off at a timberhead in the bow. The jib halyard, outhauler and inhauler took a bit of working out and then I realised that I had forgotten to form a sheave in the bowsprit. For the halyard, I am again grateful to BE and his Alert log for his excellent analysis and explanations taken from Steel and Marquardt. I seized a 4mm block in a served strop which is spliced around the starboard side of the mast cap. The halyard is psliced to the ring of the traveller passes through the block at the mast cap and ends in a 4mm double block. The fall is made from a 3.5mm single block hooked to an eyebolt into an eyebolt on the deck beside the mast. The outhauler is spliced to the traveller ring and passes through the sheave in the sprit and leads back to the bowsprit bitts The inhauler is tied off to the starboard side of the bitts. The halyard falls Sorry I forgot to take a lot photos of the intermediate stages. I will try to do better On the home straight now with just braces and the anchor to add and then a lot of tidying up before making hanks. David

Thanks Thukydides and Andrew for your inputs. Thuky this is bit of rigging I mean- sorry for not being clear. The arrow indicates the ropes in question which I think run up to a block on a long strop at the cap and then probably down to the main bitts as you say. Perhaps the fixed end is tied to a bolt on the cap runs through the sheave on the yard, up to the block at the cap and then down to the bitts. But what is it for? Andrew, I was wondering about the the braces running to the stern and was undecided about fitting them. I think that if I can make a convincing job, I will add them presuming the fixed end is tied to an eyebolt at the stern. I'm not sure what you mean about the stern fillets. I have brought the flag halliard down to the bar on the stern transom. David

I have redone the parrels for a third time, staining them with walnut wood dye to darken them and take the shine off. I’m back from a very windy trip to Scotland and the ropes have arrived from Canada so rigging can continue. First though, I’m still puzzling about the main yard and its parrel. I found a copy of Marquardt’s 18th Century Rigs and Rigging in the UK so splashed out for it. In the section on cutters, his drawing on page 132 shows the yard running on a horse with a halyard running down to the deck. The kit plans show that the main yard floats free of the mast on its sling but the RMG model shows both a sling and parrels. I don’t understand the reason for fitting both since if the yard is on a sling, it can’t easily be raised or lowered so why fit parrels? I planned to follow the rigging on the model of Trial as closely as I can, so I will leave the main yard with parrel and sling but I’m not sure that it makes much sense The main yard lifts are fitted using 0.6mm rope. They feed through the 4mm blocks stropped to the mast cap. Tricky tying them to the small belay pins that I’ve used but with a bit of dilute pva and patience, I got there in the end. I forgot to take photos at the time so the next two shots also include topsail rigging. The Topsail Yard Like the main yard, I pinned it in place to make it easier to rig. The topsail yard tye is looped around the yard and passes through a sheave in the mast head. There is a 4mm double block spliced in the end. The fall leads to a block hooked into the eyebolt on the port channel and is tied off to the aft cavel cleat. Topsail Lifts are tied to the yard ends run through the thimbles at the mast head and down to the pin racks. The topsail sheet is set up with an eye and leads through the sheaves in the yardarm to the crossbeam of the main bitts. The clueline is timber-hitched to the yard and runs through a 4mm block toggled to the sheet and then up through the block on the yard and down to the outside of the main bitts. There is another conundrum relating to the RMG model of Trial. The photos taken by @tkay11 show a second set of sheaves in the main yard. It’s difficult to see, but it looks as if two ropes run through each sheave from a block stopped to the mast cap. I presume that the rope runs to the deck but I can find no reference to this piece of rigging in either Lees, Steel or Marquardt. I added this second set of sheaves when I made the main yard but I can't rig them until I can be sure how it runs. I have left fitting the bowsprit until last because once fitted, turning the model becomes more difficult but it can’t be delayed any longer. Thanks for looking in and for the likes. David

Thanks Glenn and to others for their likes. I've been working on the half hull for the last week or so but fresh supplies of rope have now arrived so I'll be coming back to Trial (guilty as charged 😉) after my trip to Scotland for a bit of birding and hill-walking next week. David

I used white charting tape to establish the line of the top rail and was surprised at how much had to be trimmed from the tops of most of the frames. Compared to the instructions and Toni’s log I had quite sizeable chunks to remove. I checked and measured several times and then realised that Toni's frames sit higher in the keel than on my version because as Toni says, he forgot to cut deeper notches. I carefully sawed through the frames, even so several spacers came loose and had to be reglued. The top edges were sanded to finish. Checking the run of the frames before starting the fairing process there are 4 that are low: 1, D, E and Gb. The top of frame 5a was also finished below the level of the toprail so this was built up too. These are built up with pieces of 1mm limewood strip. Now it’s time to create a lot of sawdust but I will take a break until the weather improves because it needs to be done outside. In the meantime I will return to finish HM Cutter Trial because fresh supplies of rope arrived from Canada the other day. Thanks for the likes and for looking in David

Before beginning to fit the bulkheads the notches in the keelson need to be cut closer to the rabbet. This is simple enough with a sharp scalpel. The central bulkheads are added first with spacers to provide extra bracing. Bulkheads 1 to 4 and A to E are straightforward and progress is quick. The spacers require a little work to fit snugly. The stern bulkheads are tackled next but before that can be done, the deadwood has to be sanded back. Bulkheads G and H are used to mark the bearding line and the wood aft of this is sanded out to meet the depth of the rabbet at the keel. Immediately below the deadwood the keel a 90ºnotch is cut. The deadwood, sternpost and transom piece can now be glued to the baseboard. I forgot to take a separate shot of this stage but below shows bearding line, deadwood sanded back and frames F and G installed. The frames F to H can then be fitted together with their spacers, including the filler pieces Ga and Gb. Frames G, H and the filler pieces are trimmed at the lower end to match the bearding line. The basswood ply splinters quite easily when they are trimmed. I will need to cut back frame H a little further but that can be done during fairing. The stem requires a bit more work. The slots for 4a and 5 needed deepening a little. A notch has to be cut in the stemson for bulkhead 5a and the lower end of the frame trimmed to run close to the rabbet. 5 and 5a are then fixed in place with a spacer. A further filler piece, 5b is provided which is glued onto the stemson and the fore of frame 5. A final filler piece is required that I made from a piece of 1.5mm limewood strip to fill the space up to the bow rabbet. The instructions recommend leaving the transom off for the moment because it is vulnerable to damage. With the framing complete, this marks the first milestone of the half hull project. The lines of the hull are quite pleasing in this shot but the flat bow gives me some concern for the planking. Thanks for looking in David

While working on my latest model, HM Cutter Trial from Vanguard Models, I realised that it would be a good idea to have some further practice in hull preparation and planking before embarking on another full ship project. I’m hoping that this project will teach me some new techniques and help me make a better job of planking than I have previously. I am using the suggested ¼” foam-board as a base on which to build and used spraymount to glue the body plan to it. Laying out the keel, keelson stem and stern, it is clear that some trimming and fitting of the bow keelson is needed The whole kit is made in basswood making it pretty easy to cut and sand. The risk is taking off too much so slow and easy is the rule. Once the stemson is cut to length and sanded to fit the keelson lines up pretty well with the drawing. I didn’t need to fettle any of the slots for the bulkhead on the main keelson but the bow keelson required a bit of a tickle with a sanding stick. The rabbet is marked up with a pair of compasses. I measured the thickness of the sheets provided for planking which varied between 0.85 and 0.99mm. I took 0.9 as a rough mean and marked the rabbet. I used a chisel to remove the rough, then a file and finally scraped it clean with a razor blade. The keel and keelson were straightforward as a simplified 45º angle was used for the whole length. The stem is a little more difficult to do with a changing angle as the rabbet rises up the the stem pieces. However the manual provided and Toni’s log Half Hull Planking Project - Planking Downloads and Tutorials and Videos - Model Ship World™ provide plenty of useful detail and photos to help work it out Once the rabbet is cut, the keel and stem pieces can be glued up. I have used minimal glue to fix the pieces to the board to make it easier to remove the model when completed. At this stage the deadwood and stern pieces are not glued . David

Main Yard The main yard is pinned and glued to the mast. The sling is made from 0.45mm served rope. An eye is seized in one end and a thimble seized off centre such that the eye sits on the starboard side of the mast. The difficulty is getting the correct length so that there is enough distance to tie the lanyard between the two thimbles on yard and sling. I think that the sling could have been a little shorter in hindsight but I will leave it as it is. The main yard shows a double parrel on the NMG model but Lees says that parrels were superseded by rope truss pendants about 1760. I decided to go with parrels. Tricky to fit making sure that the parrel ropes are not tide up with horses or other lines running down aft of the mast. Now that they are fitted they look slightly over size and too bright. I have stripped back some of the running rigging. I thought that using the line supplied in the kit would be OK but there is quite a contrast between that and the RoS line that I had used for e.g. the flag halliard. It was causing quite a clash to my eyes so I have decided to order more rope and strip out the kit lines. I have also swapped out the parrel beads on the main and driver booms. The beads in the kit were black and shiny and didn’t look right so I have replaced them with some wooden beads from CMB. Like the main yard, now that they are fitted, they look too bright and oversized. I may have to redo the booms or at least darken the trucks so that they are less obtrusive. In the meantime, while waiting for ropes and mulling over parrels, I have begun another project – the NRG Half Hull which I will post later today. Thanks for looking in. David

I hope that I'm not stepping out of line here but Rob Durant @robdurant produced a programme called Picture Resizer and added a link to download on his log for HMS Diana built as Ethalion. I've used it for all my log pictures. It's simple to use and with a setting of 600 for the width, it works every time. David

Hi Theodosius, Sorry I missed your earlier post. I have had one of these machines for a few years and find that it works very well. The end pieces look to have been upgraded to something more substantial since my version. The only problem that I have found is that eventually the handles snap if you are tying off and tensioning the rope to them. I have repaired mine by gluing some spare brass sheet to them with epoxy. David

Andrew, Nice extra detailing with the added forward hatch and work on the gratings. I like your framing around the slots for the keels too. I missed that detail from the photos but I will try to add it retrospectively. David