DB789

Thank you very much for the comments and likes! Really appreciated. I have been trying to research how best to do the deck planking for a kit on MSW, particularly the margin planks. I can’t find anything as it gets caught up in the search with hull planking. Does anyone have any resources on this that they can recommend? Thanks.

11 months after starting, DoK is finished. I’m very pleased with the end result, although she’s not quite as tidy as Adder or Grecian, but that’s more a measure of how easy Chris has made the latter two kits with his most recent innovations. Dok is rightly classed by Vanguard as “experienced” whereas the other two are “amateur”, she has certainly been more of a challenge and taken considerably longer to build. Learnt lots as usual and my first ship-rigged model. Overall, yet another outstanding kit of an interesting ship from Vanguard, thanks again Chris. It’s a lovely sunny day in the UK so photos outside for a change. A bit of a break from building now, after that I have Sherboune and Speedy waiting to be built. I think Sherbourne first as she’ll be nice and quick, rather than getting stuck into another year long build such as this one. I hadn’t planned to build Sherbourne, but was given her as a present. I’m glad I was as I’d like to try a few things and develop some new skills on a small build. On Sherbourne in particular I’d like to try to plank the deck myself, try ochre painted sides (whilst I love the look of the bare wood sides in many of these kits, especially in the nice pearwood Vanguard uses, I can’t imagine in real life that many ships weren’t painted to protect the wood, maybe I’m wrong?), and finally try and achieve a usable wipe-on poly which isn’t readily available in the UK.

Work in the shipyard has continued very slowly due to the lovely weather we have been having in the UK, as well as busy work. All the yards and rigging lines are now in place but most of the lifts and braces are not tied off yet so I can adjust tensions and ensure that the yards are aligned. It’s a fiddly business, as I tighten one line a couple of others seem to slacken, will take me a while to balance it out. I also need to go through the rigging and touch up painting, in particular I used unpainted brass rings attached to blocks which need to be painted black where possible, should have painted these black first (or just bought black ones next time!). Likewise the parrel beads are shiny black plastic and need to be dulled down with some matt varnish. Duchess continues to be a big learning curve for me, entirely positive. But I’m not absolutely sure whether the run of each line is exactly correct. The lines bunch going through the tops and whilst I know which is which they do tend towards a bit of a tangle, especially on the mizzen mast with the cross jack and lateen yards just below the top. Not that much left to do, but busy couple of months ahead. I’d like to take my time to ensure that I can keep everything aligned. I hope to finish her in August. Still have the anchors to add too.

Please could I have some advice. I have rigged the fore and main masts except for the yard braces, I’m now onto the mizzen mast and trying to understand how the jeers work for cross jack yard. It looks to me from Chris’s plan that the line just loops around the base of the mizzen topmast and doesn’t go through any blocks - is that correct? Where does the jeers line start - is it just tied to the mizzentop? Anything that could help me visualise this arrangement would be hugely appreciated. I’ve trawled through all the build logs on MSW without success and the Peterssen book does not cover a cross jack yard with lateen yard below. Thanks again. Dan

Rigging is progressing and the spritsail and foremast yards are fitted. I keep crossing lines and my rigging is messier than I’d like it to be. Even with Chris’s superb plans I often find it difficult to work out the path of each line through the bird’s nest of other lines. It’s all a learning curve still for me, with the plan to eventually build a frigate (Sphinx and/or Surprise) - hopefully by then I’ll have a good idea of the run of most lines. The foremast and yards are mostly rigged but I haven’t added yard braces yet as they’ll get in the way when working on the main mast yards. Still to make the main and mizzen yards. Thanks for the likes and encouragement!

Andrew and Ronald thanks so much for your encouragement, you’re very kind! Having followed logs from both of you, you’re both much more skilled at this than I am. Andrew, please do restart your Sparkler, I’m looking forward to seeing how you complete her. I felt my logs were more useful and read when they were one of the first or only logs on a kit such as Grecian, Adder and some of the later Vanguard fishing boats… I’ve tried to be much more comprehensive on those and not so detailed on a well established kit such as DoK with plenty of other much better builds. It certainly is a support network! Duchess now has all forestays and backstays in place as well as all three crowsfeet. Most of the stays are just tied on with the knots not glued, so quite messy with lots of excess thread everywhere and some lines need a little more tension. I’m not sure whether to tie off, glue and trim all the lines now or leave them so they can be removed and adjusted when the yards and their rigging is added. It’s already quite a confusing forest of threads with the lines not trimmed, but access to areas such as below the tops is already quite restricted with all the stays, crows feet and shrouds in place. Any advice very welcome! Duchess looks near completion, but I still have not made any of the yards so there’s quite a bit of work still to come. I doubt that I will have time to start making the yards on the lathe for a couple of weeks due to other commitments, but I’m looking forward to getting on with this last stage.

Eck, your Harpy looks great - so fast to build her. Vanguard’s Grecian builds into a lovely model (still my favourite build so far, just about eclipsing Adder) but she’s not a difficult build and really won’t take you long!

More slow but steady progress! Topmast and topgallant shrouds completed as are the topmast shroud ratlines. Also added the bowsprit shrouds and the forestays and mainstay. I’ve added the foremast crowsfeet too which was much easier than expected! Lots of lines not fully tied off yet so I can adjust tension if need be. Makes the model look a bit messy. Thanks for the likes. Not sure I’m adding anything with this log that much more accomplished builders haven’t already achieved on the DoK! I’m enjoying the build so will keep going with the log.

Fantastic looking Speedy, I’ve really enjoyed following your build, I’ll certainly be benefiting from your log when I build Speedy later in the year - thanks. Mine won’t look nearly as good and I’m still somewhat daunted by the rigging…. which looks a step up in terms of complexity from Adder, Grecian and Duchess of Kingston.

She looks fantastic Bob, your log is extremely helpful for my Duchess build too - so thank you.

Thanks Bob! Doesn’t look like much progress - but I have completed the ratlines for the lower shrouds and added futtock shrouds too. All very straightforward but a touch messy! I use CA for this as I don’t have the patience to use white glue…. One of the foremast catharpins was cut by accident and needs to be replaced. Made a start on the foretopmast shrouds too.

Progressing albeit still very slowly! The lower shrouds are now fitted on all three masts together with futtock staves and catharpins. I’ve just made a start on the ratlines for the foremast - surprised to find that I’m quite looking forward to doing these!

That’s Trial, not Alert. I’m away for a few days but I’ll open up my Sherbourne when I get home and will try and work out where those blocks go too.

I did try mixing dyes together based on the colour mixes on the RIT website - I think that’s probably the recommended way of dyeing. My dye mixing is all in the Nisha log that I sent to you. I only tried the sequential dyeing for this set of sails as I was disappointed by the colour achieved from tan dye alone. Had no idea if it would work, but was very pleased with the outcome.

Ranger was the sixth and last of my fishing boats, so the dying was more by feel rather than measuring out exact amounts of dye. I used the RIT liquid dyes. This is the tan one, scarlet from the same range. https://www.ritdye.com/products/tan/ I think that the sails are made of linen. I experimented a lot on old T-shirts but the cotton fabric and weave made a big difference to the end colour, so they weren’t very useful. These experiments are all in my Nisha build log, link below. Broadly I followed the instructions and timings in this RIT Dye video for the tan but adjusted the strengths. It came out a bit drab and brown so I mixed up some scarlet and as an experiment put the sails in that for max two mins, maybe less. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL6NFLL8NI0 I can’t give you more accurate guidance than stronger than the instructions say on tan and weaker on scarlet. You’ll just have to judge it. Sorry I can’t give you better guidance! Your build is looking great so far.