DaveBaxt

Thanks Mark. I still have a very long way to go

Well said Mark. I am definately bashing more than I did on my first ship I built as I have learned more about what is accurate or not with the help of friends on this forum together with the many books I have bought. I am also moving further away from the instruction manuals and hopefully one day I will hardly need them at all . My greatest help for me has as been the book by Lees 'The Masting and rigging of English ships of war' and I am trying to follow it word for word. It will be interesting to see what the differences are between this and the AOTS Diana. I wonder if one day I would have the confidence and skill required to build a model ship from scratch. Fingers crossed.

Thank you again for your input Craig it is truely appreciated. Yes I have seen a couple of the blogs where modellers have had issues with the plywood stem and I think I will do the same and replace this with boxwood if I can. I have had a number of issues too with my Endeavour ,mainly the warped keel,but was able to overcome this. Also some of the cast fittings such as the rudder hinges are more or less useless but will try the hinges os another manufacturer next time and see how it goes.Hopefully I will get the kit with the better cannon. Regards the instructions. I have found most kit instructions to be pretty vague ( Have not tried Vanguard as yet) but hopefully I will find a good blog to follow and keep me right. Any recomendations would be appriciated here. I have also seen a couple of bloggers who have had issues with the height of the stern and therefore having trouble with the stern counter not fitting properly. Hopefully I will be able to overcome these issues but will just have to hope I get enough help . Thanks again for your input best regards Dave.

Great point and I feel I should have done this a long time ago . Cheers. By the way a great online shop.

Thank you for your reply Andrew. I have too have been looking at the Snake but also the Vanguard models too. I probably would have gone for the Sphinx but rightly or wrongly have spent a small fortune on some bench power tools such as miller, drill stand, lathe and bench saw I think I am leaning more towards bashing the kit as much as my skill will allow. I also have lots of spare walnut but now starting to use boxwood instead, especially for the masts. I would also like to have a go at the Trincomalee but as you say would need to be build from scratch and do not feel I have the skill level as yet. I am now commited and no going back now. I think this next one could take me a couple of years as each time I build one it takes me twice as long as the previous one but looking forward to another challenge. I have recently booked a trip to Portsmouth for a few days with my wife and hope to spend a day at the Naval dock yard and take in the Victory whilst we are there and hopefully will take in lots of photos . Some of which will help me in some way . Best regards Dave

I have had my eye on this one for a good while and have eventually taken the plunge. Altough I am a long way off completing my current build HMS Bark Endeavour when looking at the difference in prices of kits I have noticed that as much 10% can be saved by buying now rather than waiting until the new prices are released here in the uk. So when we are talking about a £600 kit .£ 68 is quite a big saving. I see there are one or two blogs currently on the go which has helped me choose together with owning the AOTS book of the Diana so have plenty of things to help me along which I think I will need with this ship due to the size and new processes I will need to master. I appreciate there are already a few reviews on this ship but wonder if there are any more recent likes/dislikes of the kit in general inluding the condition etc. In time I will contribute to what my initial findings are if anyone is interested. Hope some of you like this post and would like to submit any thoughts then I would be grateful for any input.Best regards Dave

Thank you. I got the idea off Shipaholic, using veneers .( Thanks again Steve if you are watching) I got some samples of different colours and then soaked one of them, a 300mm , 20mm wide length overnight to remove the adesive strip.(unsure if this would do the trick) I then I cut several 2mm wide strips and wrapped them around the mast to form like a spring and then allowed to dry overnight. I then removerd and cut through using vey sharp sissors. I will see if I can hunt out a photo for you .I think I have one somewhere. Here it is some of them came out ok. I have sinse bought a 5 mtr roll . One which I think is the nearest match to boxwood.

A few more bits a pieces added to the bowsprit including the cleats for the gammoning, fairlead, wooden bands and woldongs. All fairly straight forward other than a bit tricky getting the wooden bands to stay in place . I ended up using two spots of CA whhere the two ends meet and then running a bead of superphatic glue on the inside of the bands before running 0.5mm black thread for the woldings. Just a few more cleats for the Stays and preventer stays and then the collars to complete. Next will I will be moving onto carrying out ptetty much the above to the main,fore and mizzen masts. Starting with the fitting of the cheeks to the main and fore masts.

Completed the spare masts including the spare stunsaol booms. I stiil need to attatch the lower stunsail booms to the channels but all in good time. I have also done some work on the bowsprit and Jibboom but still need to add the cleats and fairlead saddle. Also fro Lees book there are no iron bands only rope woldings with wooden rings on each side as per the other masts other than the iron bands on the caps. For the bowsprit bees I made my own as per lees book and also fitted some bees blocks. which helped to secure the bees. I also made the bowsprit cap too. Here is a few photos of this weeks work. Doesn't seem a lot but there you go.

Some nice looking cannon and the blocks look nice too! Keep up the good work.

Sorry if this has already been asked before but can you give us a link to where you got the copper tape from and what is the scale of the tiles? I am not having much luck trying to source this in the UK. any links would be fantastic. How do you work how much tape do you need? Thank you and by the way fantastice looking job and thank you for sharing. Best regards Dave

Hope you get sorted with the boxwood but if you are living in Malaysia perhaps there may be a problem with differences in humidity as you can confirm it is very high humidity where you live and not so high here in the uk. Not sure if its more of a problem going the other way high to low and not low to high humidity. Good luck

Regards Box wood and where to get it. I am not sure where you are from but here in the uk I and a few others are get it from here https://shop.exotichardwoods.co.uk/boxwoods/page/5/ If you tell them its for model ships they might sort you some best quallity stuff. They also do some 8mm thick. I have recently made some masts out of it. If you are not from the uk then perhaps some of our American friends can help you here. Some really nice planking there. I look forward to see how you resolve the problem with the high stern area. Good luck. Dave

I really like the look of that jig you made for the ladders on a 3 D printer. Making ladders is somthing I struggle with and need more practice. I like the way you used a different way of positioning the gun ports on the outer first planking. You deffinately have some terriific ideas and perhaps might try some of these when I come to build my Diana. All is looking great so far. Best of luck.

Great to see another build log of the Diana by Caldercraft and one I would like to follow from the beginning, live as it were. I like how you did the blocks fore and aft but more than usual ie as soon as the area where the planks start to bend. In the past I have always had to add filler in this area after the first layer of planks have been layed.. I too was think of adding blocks nearer to midships so think you will get a better smoother curve with your planking. Great idea too for the tree nails. Well done. Keep up the good work and I look forward to your progress. Best regards Dave

After adjusting the main mast to that of the which I think would be the correct position above the real keel some 30mm lower than before and also corrisponds with similar t the Caldercraft length. Here the resemblence stops as all other masts are in line with Lees book. However the lower masts also resemble RC Anderson book 'The rigging of ships in the days of the sprit sail' whereby the cap of the fore mast is in line of the main mast 3/4 of the head. Also the mizzen cap is in line with the top of the main mast. This allows clearance of mizzen shrouds of the bulwark rail. Now moving onto the Spritsail and again following lees book for length and shape ets. What I cannot make my mind up is regarding how many woldings . Lees book suggests between 3 and 6 and I have decided on perhaps 4 . Also Iron hoops are for a later date and replacing the woldings . However the AOTS and other references show Iron hoops but no woldings. So I cannot make my mind up. Any suggestions in this area would be welcome. Further check in Lees book page 183 for all other ships after 1745 gives the bowsprit mast as 0.63x the main mast which worke out at just over 202mm. This seems way longer than the Caldercraft dimentions. However I also checked with Monfeld's book which is even longer and worked from the breadth of the ship. I have therefore decided to continue using Lees book for reference as much as possible.

Thank you for your kind words and good to hear you are having a go too. Doing it from square stock gives you a different choice of wood instead of the soft very grainy wood supplied in the kits, not discounting that they are all warped, or at least the ones I received were. I have cheated a bit using a lathe but as Allan said with a bit of practice you can achieve pretty good masts without one and I am hoping to move away from the machines as much as my skills will allow. It is quite enjoyable using the miniture had tools . I look forward to you starting the HMS Snake, another ship that I too am interested in doing. At ther moment I am still leaning towards the Diana, also by Caldercraft and will end up bashing quite a lot.( as I have the AOTS Diana book) .

p.S Well spotted Steve. I have just checked the sizes of all the masts and guess what. I forgot to allow for the difference in depth of the mastsin the model compaired to that of the Lees calculations! Ggggrrr! It would apear that Caldercraft model is not too far out, at least for the lower main mast anyway. So will need to either make a new one or adapt the one I have already made. Due to the taper and the machines flats for the cheeks being now too long as well. I will probably have to make a new one. I will also need to adjust the heights of both the fore and mizzen lower masts to suit the main lower mast. Thank you once again Steve for helping me before I progressed too far and now there is not too much work to do again even though I probably need the practice.

Thank you Allan your input is always welcome and truely appreciated. I think my next set of tools will be a decent set of chisels and using this for tapering the square mast heads is something else I would like to try. I still need lots more practice with the hand tools but in the mean time using a milling machine is much more accurate at least it is for me personally but definately would like try other methods. Best regards Dave

Hello Steve and thanks for your input. I have yet to make some adjustments to the final height of the lower masts. I worked all the lengths useing Lees book from the main mast and that from the breast of the ship and then worked out all the other masts as per lees book..There could also be an issue with the height in which the lower masts sit on the false keel rahter than in reality just above the true keel.I thought I had subtracted the difference from this but will check again.The fore masts need to come up slightly iso the cap is 2/3rd up the main mast head. The miizzen lower cap is in line with the floor of the main mast . I checked to see if the mizzen shrouds clear the rails bulwarks and they do.Hope this makes sense. Best regards Dave

Thank you Gregory. Dividing head, also made by Proxxon and is listed as an accessory .

Thanks for youtr input Sam. Its always good to see another Endeavour Build. So I will keep an eye open for your blog

Masts Made a good start on the Masts using Lees book 'The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War' for all the sizes . I did however compaired the design with the AOTS drawings which were slightly different but used this design instead. I made all the masts from boxwood planks and cut off square section and using the 7:10:7 formular to then trim the square section into an octogon and then rounded off using a miniture block plane and sanding on a small Proxxon lathe. The flats for the cheeks on the lower masts were acheived by using a Proxxon Milling machine as were then octogon sections for the mast blocks and square section for the mast head. The tapers on the mast heads were achieved by stepping using the milling machine and then filing to gave a taper. Although the above work took me longer than it probably would of using hand tools than using machines instead . I personally though it made a better job than what I could have done by hand. Here is a few photos of the progress. This is the first time I have made the masts from square stock but after a bit of practice, I found it quite relaxing and enjoyed using the various machines. I have made a start on the spare masts but still got a few more to make As you can see from the above photos I used the kits Trestle trees and cross trees and I intend to use the kits floors and some other parts made out of walnut as these areas will be painted black and are quite good. I have still got a lot more work to do such a fitting the cheeks, woldings and iron straps to the lower masts. I also have to make the holes for the sheaves and fid holes in the topsail masts which might be tricky trying to make them look realistic. Anywway here is the work so far.

I found this part of the Bounty build very tricky and I think you have made a very good effort and looks good. Well done and keep up the excellent work.

Derek you have done a lot of work sinse the last time I managed to take a look. You really work so fast considering how beautiful your work is. The deck fittings are coming along nicely and them gun carrages are superb to mention just a few.I f I could create something half as good I would be more than pleased with myself. Keep up the excelent work and I look forward to watching your progress. Best regards Dave