chris watton

What a superb looking model!

If you look at a 2 or 3 decker, you will see the same, the upper gun deck (which incorporates the Weather Deck) has few gun port lids PS - Diana was my very first wooden ship kit design (25 years ago)! I have learned a lot since then, so apologies for its many shortcomings.....

Having only a few gun port lids on the upper, or as is the case for a frigate like Diana, the main gundeck, was standard practice, it seems, for the British ships at least. It is important to note that the crew did not actually sleep on the gun deck, but the deck below. This was the nice thing about working on a frigate, each crewman had a lot more space to themselves than larger, or smaller vessels.

For me, any steel hulled vessel is better in plastic/GRP and all wooden vessels are better in wood. I would never choose a plank on bulkhead version of say, Titanic, Yamato, Bismarck over a plastic/GRP kit version, makes little sense to me unless the model I want to build has not yet been made into plastic kit form.

Ah, OK. I have always put the mast caps on from the tops and slid down into position. If I didn't do that, then I would square the lower part of the mast enough so it could be fitted through the mast cap hole.

You can push the topmast through the hole in the mast cap and then add the fid.

Thank you. I did know, I have read this book twice over: The Struggle for Sea Power: The Royal Navy vs the World, 1775-1782 by Dr Sam Willis The Struggle for Sea Power: The Royal Navy vs the World, 1775-1782: Amazon.co.uk: Dr Sam Willis: 9781848878471: Books Highly recommended.

Glenn, that is a fantastic job you have done there, well done!

I find that working for myself is much better, I can streamline my projects. What I start, I can finish, rather than when being paid by someone else, having to put up with starting one project and half way through, asked to drop that and start something else. Rinse and repeat.. No plans for 48th scale for my main line of kits, very happy sticking with 64th.

Yes, decks, inner and outer bulwarks, spirketting and main wale all have etched detail, including trenails. (Even gunwales have scarphing detail). Haven't worked out a price yet, as I haven't long started this one. I did want it to go in one of the smaller fully printed boxes, that the last four fishing boats use, as I love those. However, I realised that if I were to use those, I would have to either remove the longer parts like the bulwarks and gunwales from their host sheets, or split them. Neither option was palatable to me, so it will have to go in a Fifie/Zulu sized box.

Paint the area above waterline to the top edge of the main wale black, leave the area in between the main wale and upper rail wood, and the area above the upper rail black. That would work

Hull alone is around 335mm long. With masts and spars around 560mm long and 520 high overall (including drop keels) Kit will come with mirrored base. For the drop keel winch drums, I originally did these in laser cut wood, but was not happy with this solution, so I designed the drum in 3-d with a hole big enough for the 1mm brass rod to slide through plus another smaller offset hole to take the 'rope' that was attached to the drop keel, to lift it up and down. These are 3-d printed, so the holes will always be there on every one. I think this was the better solution. Each keel has an engraved line, so you know exactly how far to drop the keels.

Cheers! A big part of this is James Hatch, who has been building the Grecian, photographing the stages and writing the text, leaving me free to start Trial Cutter. I thought I'd try that out and see how it went, and it seems to have gone very well, adding the outer bulwarks after the planking was complete and painted meant that it was free from any potential sanding/glue marks or paint overspray. No soaking in water at all for inner and outer bulwark patterns, but I did for main wale, but for the final kit, this will be in 0.8mm pear, not 1mm, so that should negate the need for soaking in water.

I meant to add this pic in my initial post, the three that didn't make the cut, although the first, the one furthest away was always just a test to see how the initial designs looked - the one in the middle was used for all bulwark template patterns, and the nearest almost was the one, but decided to change the sliding keel parts so the modeller could add them once the hull is complete, rather than fit them before the deck is added.

I did actually download all those pics and used them as a reference for some areas! The actual plans and contemporary model are so different in places!

Around 8 weeks, I should think I have been taking pics during the build for the manual, and most of the hull is now done. Like Grecian, the channels are slotted and glued into place, as are the inner bulwark fittings like the pin rail and cleats - no need for drilling and pinning in place on this one.

I think the best thing to do, if you are undecided, is to buy both! lol

Cheers! I am a little rusty when it came to doing a nicer model, rather than speed built just for pics for jim. The designs are 100% done. I have changed a few things whilst building this. For example, I felt the 1mm pear was just ever so slightly too thick, so have put them on a 0.8mm pear file (inner/outer bulwarks, main wale, upper rails and gunwale) All of the planking is very easy, and all is painted. All above the white painted area are pre cut.

Not sure about the inner bulwark ladders, may delete those.... I have opted for a mirrored base for this one. And I just realised I left off the hatch for the toilet at the stern..

And this is where I am with the model now, waiting for my PE...

The Trial Class Cutter (1788) was a vessel with three sliding keels' Agreeable to a plan suggested by Captain Schank, She was just over 65 feet along the main deck and 121 tons. She was initially armed with 8 x 3 pounder cannon, but in 1793, 4 x 12 pounder carronades were added, bringing he armament up to 12 guns. She was launched in 1790, and hulked in 1810. She became a depot ship at Waterford; by the 1840's to Callao in Peru as a coal depot, being finally sold in 1848, after well over half a century in service. (Sailing Navy List - David Lyon) I wanted to develop a smaller cutter. I even thought about doing a much improved Sherbourne. However, I have little stomach for treading old ground when there are still so many wonderful subjects that have not been tackled. One such subject was the Trial Cutter (quite a bit larger than Sherbourne), and I thought it would be more of a challenge and more unusual, due to the three drop keels. For the designs, I have utilised both the original plans and the contemporary model. I wanted to develop not a simple beginners kit, but a nicely detailed smaller kit, with etched planking and treenail detail on the inner and outer hull, just to see how that kind of detail would work out. So, I started designs way back at the end of February. I had three stabs at the hull design before I settled on the forth. The original designs were to have the drop keels fitted very early in the build, and they dropped down to a pre determined level. That was pretty cool, but it would have meant adding the rope to the tops of the keels and keeping them free of glue and paint and whatever else throughout the hull build. I ditched that idea and came up with a simpler solution, where the keels are added only after most of the hull is complete. So here is where I am up to. I cannot do much more until I have my photo etched samples arrive, but I did manage to cannibalise some parts from scrap sheets, like eyebolts, winch handles, belaying pins etc. Here are some pics!

Superb progress.