Gabek

Excellent work, Pat.
Just so happens that Daz is sitting on my desktop ready for me to soak hours into!  Glad to see the fabulous results you’re getting.
Clear skies!
Gabe

This past weekend I got the guns assembled and set in place.   It was a fiddly job, but I'm happy with the result.   In the first photo you can sort of see my process.   I used a couple of nails placed exactly the distance apart that the hooks would hang on the model and then set all that with a tiny bit of glue.   This way the lines don't fight themselves and will hold on the right distance.   Then I coiled the extra upside-down onto some blue tape and used some tiny bits of glue to hold the coil.   After flipping back over the whole thing was set.   Then everything was attached. 
 

Excellent work, Pat.
Just so happens that Daz is sitting on my desktop ready for me to soak hours into!  Glad to see the fabulous results you’re getting.
Clear skies!
Gabe

Excellent work, Pat.
Just so happens that Daz is sitting on my desktop ready for me to soak hours into!  Glad to see the fabulous results you’re getting.
Clear skies!
Gabe

More of the DUKW driver: 
Daz file cleaned up and made printable by Game Print. Bad gaps all filled in with no serious loss of detail. 
Pics show the figure fresh off the printer and post-cure, no fettling yet. But depending on the skill of the digital sculptor, some amazing detail can be included, as evidenced by the lacing, cuffs, collars, face. Of course a lot of this would be lost in smaller scales... this big boy is 1:8. BTW, I didn't bother buying the hair package! But he'll be wearing a helmet anyway.
 

Ha...   Im not sure how I would describe it.  I would say there are certainly a lot of aspects that are "easy."    But also quite a few that were at least confounding to me.   I would say the biggest single difference is the lack of traditional instructions.   I did a lot of things out in a sequence that I would not do again precisely because I wasnt thinking the steps all the way through, and had no real manual to follow.   Now that Im this far along Ive gotten better, but do still think I could do things differently.   Having all the build logs for the Triton on MSW definitely eases the transition from having instructions as those builds provide plenty of reference when you get stuck somewhere.   Im a little worried about this for the next build to be honest.  

Almost 3 full months since my last update!   Oh man...   this "return to normal" stuff has really caught up with me.   With the holidays, the new year, and a bunch of hiring, chess tournaments and the start of the basketball season (I am my daughters BBall coach) Ive had so little time to update.   I have, however, continued to steadily work on my Triton.   I think I'm starting to see the end game a little clearer and am starting to think about the case a little more earnestly, thanks to the encouragement in the above comments.  
 
Since my last update much of the detail work has started.   After planking the exterior and interior of the hull, along with the gun deck I chose to carry on with hull details.   I chose walnut as a contrasting material and haven't found the grain too distracting.   As Ive said prior, I take it as a point of pride to make something beautiful from relatively sustainable materials and have resisted a desire to use the more exotic (and likely more beautiful) hardwoods.  This being a first full scratch project for me, I also wanted to limit the damage to the pocketbook, knowing full well I was likely to burn through a lot of material on screw-ups!  
 
After wrapping-up the cannon carraiges:
 

 
The rail cap, fenders and trim were all made from this walnut, which was the same as used in the wales.  In the first photo you can see my paper mock-up used to template the fender shape.  A sharp eye might also note that I screwed-up in sequence and neglected to include the outboard trim as I was planking the exterior.  Thus I had to mount the trim over the planking.  A small error that I intend to make sure not to lose track of in future builds.   You'll also notice some weird sequencing as I decided to do one side in a slightly different order (caulking, details, etc).  One thing I learned again, having learned it earlier and then entirely forgotten, is that you must seal the wood prior to the caulking step otherwise the excess will not wipe away as cleanly.  

I then began work on caulking the gun deck planking, and started assembling the gun tackle per the plans.   Ive always enjoyed the process of preparing block and rigging so took some enjoyment in this step.   I decided it better to do only some of the gun prep and not mount them as it seemed much easier to complete the rest of details (gangways, ladders) prior to mounting and setting the guns and tackle.  I also opted to not treenail the interior gunwales despite having done so with lower decks as there is a concentration of detail in this area and I was worried it would end-up creating a cluttered look.  I'm still confident in this decision.   I also made a few ladders before settling on the below iteration.  I now know much more about this process and hopefully will have better luck with the gangway ladder later.
 
 


The last few weeks Ive been struggling through the brass work for the gangway supports.   I first made a set using the entirely wrong brass material and stumbled my way through an appropriate soldering technique.   My first attempts are in the first picture where it can be clearly seen that too much solder is being used, too much heat and just a generally poor construction method.   I then switched to strips I had to cut myself (as opposed to pre-milled brass stock) and dialed in my soldering until I got consistent and clean results. 
 


 
The gangway supports in place, I just cut and temporary set the skid-beams.   I'm starting to work on assembling the gun-tackle components now in preparation of final fitting.   Now that things in my life have settled a bit I'm hoping to be posting a bit more regularly and look forward to catching up on all the great builds Ive been missing!  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Forget Hero Forge, see elsewhere here about Daz (and probably others).
I was able to get a WW2 army uniform for a figure, pose him, and he's now on my printer. Big guy, for my 1:8 scale DUKW. 

Wow! The tartans must have been a real challenge!  Well done, Roger!
- Gabe

Nice way of building those metal knees.
 
Tony

Wonderful progress. It's really nice to see, that people give this old group project a try or continue their build.

It's looking really good

Very nice work!

Tony

Thanks Pete, its maple wood from USA, they call it Hard Maple. very bright sort of wood hard with almost no grain and with little mirrors on radial cut.

Hello,
 
thanks Gabe for this pictures, now it is clear for me.
Some photos of my progress: 

Thanks Dupree for your words. Thanks for likes too.I am now working on the "second floor" or gun deck and then I will add some photos again.

Great detail and excellent presentation of your build log.

Hello,thanks for your likes and thaks for looking.
A little update: lower deck, carriages, planks for wales, deck planking, treenailing...

Thanks for all the supporting comments and likes, folks!
 
This was a psychologically tough stage - painting the hold.  Even drawing a pencil line on that clean wood gave me heartburn! For quite some time I guessed and second-guessed this decision but when I sat down to do this there was no hesitation.  I started with a Vallejo acrylic primer, followed later by Vallejo white.  The aft part of the model will remain unpainted.  The three forward-most pillars were painted as well.  Once everything was dry I brushed on a matt varnish to the entire hold and all pillars.
 


 
So, while things were drying I was drafting the iron pigs in Fusion 360 (free version) based on the proportions and layout according to Anatomy of the Ship:  The Frigate Diana. In photos of ballast in HMS Victory and HMS Trincomalee you can see the ubiquitous British government broad arrow so I added them to the design.  By my count, I would need over 200 pieces of this permanent ballast.    Rather than printing 200 single pigs I created side-by-side “gangs" of 10, 6, and 3 along with some singles.  I soon realized that end-to-end gangs could be used so I designed sets of 2, 3, 4, and 6.  [I plan to dedicate a post to this whole process shortly].

 
Looking closely at the Diana plans I discovered I had to add ballast cants that run parallel to the limber strakes and act as a stop for the iron ballast.  The cant can be seen in the photo of HMS Trincomalee's hold.  Yes, I had to add pieces to the FRESHLY PAINTED AND VARNISHED hold!  Well, time to scrape…



I made suitable stock on my table saw, scraped the paint + varnish so I could glue down the ballast cants in place.  I had some ballast fresh off of the printer and couldn’t wait to see how things looked together. 



After trimming and painting the newly installed cants I went to work on the limber boards. To get the bevels on the edges of such thin, flexible strips I ended up clamping the pieces between two popsicles sticks. This let me hold them  at a constant angle, making the bevels on the limber boards quite sharp.


Once shaped, I painted the limber boards (and the keelson) a dark brown based on HMS Trincomalee. I was going to cut the limber boards shorter but couldn’t find the correct lengths.  I was going to ask you folks if you knew the right dimension until I discovered it a few minutes ago! Looking at the photo of the Trincomalee's hold just now I can clearly see the cut lines.  Before I install them on the model I will chop these to an accurate size.
 
Again, I was so excited that I couldn’t wait to paint all the ballast I had printed before dry fitting to my Triton.  So, with limber boards in place, this is what the iron ballast on a frigate would look like: 

 
Iron ballast was arranged in three tiers (see the previous layout photo).  The starboard side of the hold (left in the picture) has an accurate set up with two tiers (the third tier would be just a couple of pigs next to the well).  The port side (right in the picture) is only the first tier. The broad arrows look white but are just filled with resin dust from sanding.  I took pains to print the arrows in a random pattern (using dice!). 
 
I'm amazed at the amount and breadth of the ballast on these ships!  I'm glad that I’m adding them.  Painting and installing them permanently is next (gulp!)
 
Clear skies,
Gabe
 

Great work on your Triton! Well done.
 
Here are a few pictures from Anatomy of a Ship: The Frigate Diana (White, 1987) and AotS: The 24-Gun Frigate Pandora (McKay and Coleman, 1992) that might help.
 
Clear skies and sharp tools!
- Gabe
 

Wow! The tartans must have been a real challenge!  Well done, Roger!
- Gabe

The ballast will add to the details and it looks great.  

Thanks for all the supporting comments and likes, folks!
 
This was a psychologically tough stage - painting the hold.  Even drawing a pencil line on that clean wood gave me heartburn! For quite some time I guessed and second-guessed this decision but when I sat down to do this there was no hesitation.  I started with a Vallejo acrylic primer, followed later by Vallejo white.  The aft part of the model will remain unpainted.  The three forward-most pillars were painted as well.  Once everything was dry I brushed on a matt varnish to the entire hold and all pillars.
 


 
So, while things were drying I was drafting the iron pigs in Fusion 360 (free version) based on the proportions and layout according to Anatomy of the Ship:  The Frigate Diana. In photos of ballast in HMS Victory and HMS Trincomalee you can see the ubiquitous British government broad arrow so I added them to the design.  By my count, I would need over 200 pieces of this permanent ballast.    Rather than printing 200 single pigs I created side-by-side “gangs" of 10, 6, and 3 along with some singles.  I soon realized that end-to-end gangs could be used so I designed sets of 2, 3, 4, and 6.  [I plan to dedicate a post to this whole process shortly].

 
Looking closely at the Diana plans I discovered I had to add ballast cants that run parallel to the limber strakes and act as a stop for the iron ballast.  The cant can be seen in the photo of HMS Trincomalee's hold.  Yes, I had to add pieces to the FRESHLY PAINTED AND VARNISHED hold!  Well, time to scrape…



I made suitable stock on my table saw, scraped the paint + varnish so I could glue down the ballast cants in place.  I had some ballast fresh off of the printer and couldn’t wait to see how things looked together. 



After trimming and painting the newly installed cants I went to work on the limber boards. To get the bevels on the edges of such thin, flexible strips I ended up clamping the pieces between two popsicles sticks. This let me hold them  at a constant angle, making the bevels on the limber boards quite sharp.


Once shaped, I painted the limber boards (and the keelson) a dark brown based on HMS Trincomalee. I was going to cut the limber boards shorter but couldn’t find the correct lengths.  I was going to ask you folks if you knew the right dimension until I discovered it a few minutes ago! Looking at the photo of the Trincomalee's hold just now I can clearly see the cut lines.  Before I install them on the model I will chop these to an accurate size.
 
Again, I was so excited that I couldn’t wait to paint all the ballast I had printed before dry fitting to my Triton.  So, with limber boards in place, this is what the iron ballast on a frigate would look like: 

 
Iron ballast was arranged in three tiers (see the previous layout photo).  The starboard side of the hold (left in the picture) has an accurate set up with two tiers (the third tier would be just a couple of pigs next to the well).  The port side (right in the picture) is only the first tier. The broad arrows look white but are just filled with resin dust from sanding.  I took pains to print the arrows in a random pattern (using dice!). 
 
I'm amazed at the amount and breadth of the ballast on these ships!  I'm glad that I’m adding them.  Painting and installing them permanently is next (gulp!)
 
Clear skies,
Gabe
 

Great work on your Triton! Well done.
 
Here are a few pictures from Anatomy of a Ship: The Frigate Diana (White, 1987) and AotS: The 24-Gun Frigate Pandora (McKay and Coleman, 1992) that might help.
 
Clear skies and sharp tools!
- Gabe
 

Wow! The tartans must have been a real challenge!  Well done, Roger!
- Gabe