DocRob

Started reading the Pellew bio today. He's still on HMS Juno but it seems to be a good read. I'm definitely interested into the Indy kit, but with that size, I'm not so sure. It's not only about displaying when ready, but also handling in the cave, I'm a bit afraid of. Maybe this changes with the Duchess of Kingston finished in a while. On the other hand, I can't stop savouring your log, open end... Cheers Rob

A very interesting discussion you have here, about mills. I'm actually thinking about buying one and have ruled out the Proxxon MF 70 as being to small, specially considering the possible way of the table, too fast for some materials and last but not least, being limited to tiny tools with only one shaft diameter. As an alternative in the Proxxon range, I figured it could be possible to combine the stand BFB2000, the table KT150 and the motor BFw 40/E. All components are a bit bigger and sturdier than with the MF 70, but are still compact enough. You can go from 600-9000 rpm and use tools with up to a 6 mm shaft. I would be interested, if somebody has experiences with the combo or parts of it. The price tag is around 600€, more or less double than the MF 70. Cheers Rob

Very nice work on the rigging David. I have to thank you for your immense resourceful build log, which I used as a reference for my newb build of the very same ship. I have to admit, that I stole one or two alterations from your log, like the brass pump outlets and the rounded mast bases. The 18 ft cutter, which I probably add (if I manage to build the tiny thing up) was planned and purchased from the beginning, though. I will follow your rigging experiences with great interest, as this is the part of the build, where I'm completely lost and need to absorb some help from more experienced builders like you and others here. Cheers Rob

If this is still of interest, I built the same kit some years ago and had absolutely no issues with the masks, which I also purchased from Cult man, alon with the electronics. The masks where left in the box for some years and showed no sign of ageing. Cheers Rob

The planking looks really nice Kev. Like you, I recently joined here and it was also caused by a Vanguard kit, in my case the Duchess of Kingston. Your Nisha sports some nice contours, always looking like a dynamic raceboat. Cheers Rob

A truly fantastic build with interesting problem solving and a beautiful and different look, through the use of boxwood. I hope you don't mind, if I peek in and learn from your build, as you are slightly ahead of me with the DoK and way ahead in craftsmanship. Cheers Rob

Thank you for the information Keith, I haven't thought about it, but it makes sense to tar the shroud lines, given their exposed position. In case of my build, mind it's my first rigging job and I have no other material available, than what is in the box, I will use, the natural colored one. I have to get a feeling for the materials first and therefore stay with the manual. I have no idea, how much yarn will be used and if there is spare amount, sufficient to change the color, in this case at least to black. I'm living a bit isolated and it's sometimes very hard for me to purchase modelling goods, and that gets even harder, as I don't have the knowledge what to buy. I will keep your information stored though for future builds and will sure browse through a lot of rigging threads here soon. Cheers Rob

Thank you Kev and Mark, I use airbrushes since I was twenty years old, primarily on paper for making posters, designs and old school animations. Later I used it for modelling purposes and have accumulated some expertise. In plastic modelling, there nearly is no way around an airbrush, for wooden ship models, I found it at least very helpful. On my Duchess of Kingston build it spared me all the rattle cans and helps with even coatings without brushstrokes and dense coverage. To prime and spray the underwater area was easy and I sprayed all the golden photo etch decorations with the airbrush, after priming. and later all the black parts like eyebolts, deadeyes,... directly on their PE sheets. Really useful is an airbrush, for spraying cannon barrels, where I used matte black and then iron pigments to enhance the metallic effect. In all, it needs some patience and discipline to learn how to airbrush, but as wooden ship modelers, there should be plenty of that. If you have any questions about airbrushing, feel free to contact me or better start a thread or expand an existing one. I will answer as best as I can. Cheers Rob

Vielen Dank, Veszett und Cathead. Ich wusste gar nicht, das hier auch Deutsch gesprochen wird. Ich freue mich sehr über die freundliche Aufnahme hier be MSW. Viele Grüße Robert

Today, I continued with the 18ft cutter, which is indeed very tiny. I beveled the spars with a sanding stick and applied the first planks. The manual recommends wood glue for the task, I think because the MDF spars will be torn out later. I decided to use CA on the bow and the last two pearwood spars and wood glue for the rest. The planks were first glued into the slot with CA-glue. I used my plank bending pliers cautiously for a little pre bending and twisted the plank between my fingers, which seems to soften them a bit. After the CA on the bow cured, I glued the plank onto the rest of the spars. The next planks will be tapered and beveled, but I wanted one full plank first. Meanwhile, I used the curing times to test, if the appropriate yarns fit through the deadeyes, which they luckily did after a little cleanup with a 0,5 mm drill bit and applying some wood glue on to the end of the yarn. Cheers Rob

Thank you Chris, you can be proud of your kit. It nearly never frustrated a newb like me and that's a big compliment to your design and documentation. The resin on the stern area was not the problem, I easily pre formed it with a hairdryer, a task which only took five minutes. The problem arose, after pre bending the wooden stern fascia part. I let the part soak in warm water and let dry overnight clamped to a large tin. On the next day the curve was perfect, but there was no way to fit the PE or resin parts correctly, the wood was nearly one cm wider now. I used a hairdryer on it, which shrunk it again, but I lost the curve and the wood became brittle. After that, the parts size changed daily with the humidity of the air, which was between 25% and 85% by the time. I then decided, I have to apply the stern in one rapid go with all the parts painted and prepared. I added some plank rests as supports to the hull, to have a larger gluing area. I glued the resin onto the wood with CA and after some minutes of drying time, glued all to the hull again with loads of CA and let dry clamped over night and hoping the CA would bond everything in place, which it luckily did. Lessons learned, I will never again damp bend a stern fascia, which is only slightly curved. It's easier to bend it while applying. Cheers Rob

Thank you Ben, I read the Biography of the name giving Duchess of Kingston and decided, I wanted a bright appearance of my kit colorful and proud with gold decorations, fitting to the vivid live of the real Lady Chudleigh. I really like to apply wearing and weathering on kits and will do that later with a wooden ship model for the first time, possibly a fishing vessel. When I prepared for my DoK build, I searched my rich stash of paint jars for a sufficient gold tone and found none. Tamiya XF gold was horrible with grainy pigments, Scale 75's Elven Gold was good to brush, but not so good to airbrush, the other way around, it was with AK's Extreme Metals gold, which is perfect to airbrush, but not usable for paint brushing, Ak's Metal Waxes where ruled out too. In Chris's manual Vallejo's Liquid Gold was recommended and it is perfect for the job. You can brush or airbrush it, with nearly no visible grain and the color flows perfectly, which makes painting of tiny details very easy. The coverage is also very good. Cheers Rob

Thank you Gentlemen for your encouraging posts. I will need some courage for the rigging phase of the build, which is starting soon and I'm completely new to the subject. Cheers Rob

Thank you Gary, I have some ship plastic models in my stash, which will be build sooner or later. The 1/350 USS Arizona will be first among them on the slipway, added with a heavy dose of PE, a wooden deck and sailors. But first, I have to manage the DoK build, which is a pure pleasure until now. I hope it keeps like that through the rigging stage. Thank you John and greetings to 'OZ' from my tiny island on the other side of the world. It's great to see, that MSW represents a whole planet of maritime addicts. Cheers Rob

Thank you Allen, I will try to make myself useful here and hopefully can contribute a bit. From what I have seen already, this is a very knowledgable and helpful place. Cheers Rob

Thank you Mark, I have the feeling that it will take me longer to explore MSW, than to learn how to build wooden ships . I haven't seen the non ship modelling section until now, but will certainly dive into it. As I said, I'm an active member on Large Scale Modeler and will continue to post there. I will have to see, if and how I manage both. Cheers Rob

Thank you for your welcoming messages Edward, Ryland and Rob. I'm overwhelmed by the reception here on MSW. Until now I was peeping here with a purpose for my build and now I realize more and more how large this community is and how widespread the knowledge is. I will need some time to snuggle in, but I'm sure, I like it here. Cheers Rob

My name is Robert and I'm a new member here on MSW. I introduced myself here and thankfully got a very nice reception. Three month ago, I started to build the Duchess of Kingston from Vanguard Models, my first 'real' wooden ship build and wrote a build log on the more plastic orientated partner forum Large Scale Modeler. https://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/14865-duchess-of-kingston-beauty-of-the-seas-wooden-sailing-ship-164/ I will continue the build log in both forums and hope to receive some of your expertise and help, when needed. I completed the hull with all the deck assemblies lately and have to start the dreaded rigging, an area, where I have only experiences through putting the strings into large scale WWI era planes. I hope I will not bore you with the umpteenth log of a Duchess of Kingston build, but the kit itself is so well designed, that it motivated me around the sharpest cliffs, I had to manage to get to this point. The DoK is buildable by a relative beginner, with some experience and patience under the belt. BTW: thanks to @glennard2523, @rafine, @desalgu and @Rustyj, whose experiences with their builds I absorbed. I got many inspirations from other members here too, but followed your builds closely. I will start my log here by showing you where I actually am with the build. If you have questions about the former build stages, please follow the link above or ask here. The last thing I did was building up my second planked hull, in this case the 18ft cutter from Chris Watton, as I will try to integrate it onto the deck of the Duchess. I like a busy deck and if I can manage to get this fiddly boat done, it will be added. The Duchess of Kingston itself looks like on the following pictures. It's 99% kit build with only a few little variations. I added some basic rigging for the cannons and some brass outlets for the pumps. Some parts were refined a bit to fit better into the design. Except some areas of concern, the build was straightforward, trouble free and very rewarding. I had some problems with the stern fascia, which I bent damp into shape, only to learn that the size increases or decreases by more than 5mm depending on the humidity of the air. I finally glued the part in with some supports and lot of CA glue. The deck railing proved to be very brittle , but somehow, I finally fiddled them into place in one piece. The rest of the build was curse free and pure fun. Cheers Rob

Thank you Keith and Andrew, I will not leave plastic/resin modelling, but wooden ships will become more prominent in my modelling career. I enjoy jumping between subjects and scales. I'm easily bored by redundance and therefore willing to challenge myself a bit with my builds. Cheers Rob

Thank you Dave, Ben and Dave for your friendly reception. I hope this will be a win win situation, as I have plenty of knowledge to share with plastic kits and an engineering background and a curious wandering mind. Cheers Rob

A warm hello to all the members here and a big thank you to the Admins, to accept me in your midth. My name is Robert and I'm living on the Canary Islands, a dream to live near the sea, which I fulfilled some years ago. I was born in West Berlin (Germany) some decades ago. As I'm German, English is not my mothers tongue and I hope, I can make myself understood here. I speak some Spanish too, but this seems also not very helpful here. I build plastic model kits since I was a kid, with a long break, between the age from 25 to 45. After having a lot of stress at the latter age, I found plastic modelling was a perfect release for that nagging pressure and a great way to get balanced and relaxed again, besides different types of sports, so I started again. There were not a lot of ships build by me, with only a few exceptions, but the maritime sector always fascinated me. I read my Hornblower and others, when young, I'm an active surfer, bodyboarder and swimmer. Since some years, I'm a very active member in the partner forum Large Scale Modeler (under the same name), which is a modelling home for me and I show a lot of work in progress threads and discuss a lot with the members there. I always liked LSM, because it's open for every scale and subject, with an emphasis on larger scales naturally. I like to jump between subjects and build planes, armor, cars and motorbikes, sci-fi and steampunk and a few ships. What drives me here, is that I started to build my first wooden ship build recently. That's not entirely true, as I half build a wooden Kutter before and built a wooden RC raceboat in my twenties. Three month ago I started to build the Duchess of Kingston from Chris Watton and I wrote a build log on LSM, where I got a lot of help and response. Now, reaching the mysterious point of rigging in the build, I decided, it's a good time to surround me with the complete knowledge here and hope to receive some help, when needed. I always think of Forums as two way information. Naturally as a relative beginner to the subject, I' cant help with the special knowledge in wooden ship modelling to much, but I have a lot to give too, modelling wise. I know about airbrushing, working with photoetch and resin, plastic kits in all their aspects and not the least something about photographing, sometimes not so easy with model kits. In plastic modelling, one of the most interesting aspects to me, is depicting materials as best as possible, be it metal, wood, cloth, ..., in their various conditions over time and wear. When building the DoK, I found, that a modern designed kit needs more from my learned techniques, than was the case with the way older Kutter kit, That was a great relief for me, because I did not feel completely lost and was very eager to learn all I needed to build the DoK. I like to challenge myself and learn new things permanently and I have to say, that the Duchess of Kingston build was so enjoyable, that it definitely will not be my last wooden ship model. Again, thank you for letting me into MSW and feel free to discuss everything with me. Cheers Rob