CTDavies

No real reason to be overly meticulous here, as this is actually still the first planking. But I think it might help in the long run to do the first planking exactly like the second to get 'a feel' for the quirks of it all. Sort of a full dress rehearsal. We'll see... For the wale I'm using walnut, for the rest I will be using a lighter wood, maybe boxwood, for a contrast

Thanks, No Idea, that's very kind. So now, after 10 years, something exciting is happening: the main wale. This is probably the most vital part of any scale model boat. Get it wrong and it will jump at you for ever like a tooth gap in a smile. So I'm taking my time with this. I used the side view of Sheet 1 and measured the distance from a reference line below the keel and made a pencil mark on the model at the precise point of the bottom line of the wale. The reference line was actually the building board where the model is mounted on. Dimensions drawn onto the Sheet 1... ...and the point of the bottom line of the wale transfered on the formers, according to the dimensions Taking my time with this, but hopefully not another ten years Thanks for looking in, Chris

It is almost 10 years ago to the day that I bought this kit. This is far too embarrasing, as the saga with the lower deck continues. I did the columns yet once more as I found an online dealer who had ones for sale. Although they had a square profile, they were easily rounded off by fixing them in a Dremel and shaping them with a file. Although far from 100% scale accurate they were good enough for this purpose. In the lower deck they will be hard to see once the upper deck has been added. Finally the whole thing could be buttoned up and the false gun deck glued in place. So what I did in the past 10 years is basically the first chapter on page three. Instead of adding the hatches and planking the instructions says here 'Stain the centre section of this deck Walnut as a small part is just visible in the completed model'. Filling the space between the bulkheads is also not required per the instructions, I did this because I am hoping for some benefits when planking the hull, which will be the next step. I turned 64 just before Christmas, so I have at least another 36 years to go, so I'm in good shape so far. Chris, from Germany

From our short holiday in Den Helder, north-west Holland. Previously know as Willemsoord, this is where the Dutch Royal Navy was stationed for the past 300 or so years. This is the No.1 dock there, where the (ex HMS) Diana was destroyed in a fire. This place is a lot like the historic docks in Plymouth and I’m going back tomorrow to check some of the historic buildings there.

Thanks Dave, that was a very kind comment. I'm hoping I will post much more in future, although progress really takes time. I wasn't really happy with the pillars even in yellow ochre as they also got lost in the depths of the lower deck, so I decided to go all out and paint them white, at least the upper half of them. From what I have read the ship's captain had the right to 'personalise' his ship and paint it including its interior as he felt suitable. From brousing through books I couls see that on the Victory they were dark brown or black, on the Trincomalee also but on old pictures of the Implacable I could see two colour tones, so from this I assume there wasn't a strict code to adhere to. So mine are now white, at least the upper half of them is. I also painted the gratings gloss dark brown so that they remain conspicuous once everything has been buttoned up. Not 100% accurate but at least they can still be seen from the top, but only just. I started on the ladders just to see how they all fit into the scheme of things. Maybe a bit too chunky? The gun deck gratings will eventually cover everything up here, but I will leave the hatches open as if the ship is being loaded right now. A PIA was me being ham fisted all along and breaking off the the extensions on the bulkheads for the bulwalk planking and quarter deck beams. I decided it was time for a real fix here. Oh yes, extending the front main hatch as described in my previous post was wrong. So this was reversed.

Fantastic answer, Henry!! I'm sure what you wrote about the Constitution also applies to the HMS Diana. I still need to dig into this a bit more though, as I'm not sure what a Viol is, but you've helped a huge bit forward. Thanks!!

Good evening All, I've noticed something that seems to be unique on large frigattes concerning the handling of the anchors on large frigattes, maybe not only British ones. On HMS Diana (1794) the hawse pipes are slightly abover the upper (gun) deck. The riding bit is behind them on the same deck which means the cables enter the boat through the hawse pipes and remain on the upper (gun) deck at least as far as the riding bit. The cable tier on a large frigatte is about midship (according to Tosti) but two decks lower. My question is, where does the anchor cable pass into the lower deck and from there into the hold area with the anchor tier. I'm assuming a manger was behind the hawse pipes to scrape off the wet cables before these moved to the riding bit. But after this there is a gap in my trial of thought where the cables were connected to the messenger via several 'nippings'. The messenger must have been mounted right under a deck, via rollers. But which deck? And where did the cable drop from upper (gun) deck to the lower deck and from there to the cable tier? On the Victory this is easy. According to Nepean the hawse pipes were just above the lower gun deck. This is also where the riding bits were. Right under the lower gun decke was... (you guessed it) the cable tier. I hope I'm making sense here... Any help here is greatly appreciated. Chris

I was a bit disappointed to see that the black pillars got totally lost under the upper (gun) deck so I painted the middle section yellow ochre hoping this would improve their visibilty a bit. Also, I still needed to add some gratings to the lower hatches that needed to be scratch built as the kit doesn't provide any materials for this. For them I ordered some generic items, which compared well size wise with others I have for 1/64th scale boats. At least the pillars are now slightly visible, heaven knows how conspicuous they will be under five or so jolly boats, though. But to get the gratings more conspicuous I painted them (or airbrushed them is more correct as most painting I do is done with an airbrush) gloss black. The reflection of the gloss paint helped them being more visible and, although they might be too glossy as they are right now, I might just leave them this way to prevent them from getting completely lost under the upper (gun) deck and boats and wotnot. I was thinking of adding anchor cables, but after some studying I realised that they were up on the gun deck. Question here is, would the messenger be in place all the time or would it be removed while the ship is out at sea? The anchor cables probably disappear down into the orlop deck holds through the very front hatch, but what about the messengers? Please tune in...

The lower deck looked a bit bare, so to add a bit of business, I put some pillars where I expexted some would be. The AotS didn't show any but there were some on the Pandora drawings from which I could make an estimated guess. I also looked around a bit to find some information on the colour the could have been, and while Victory, Tricomalee and Unicorn are all pretty much the same here, the Victory's pillars were painted black as well as the coaming carlings. Problem with the pillars being black is, you can hardly see them once the gun deck is on. Oh well, I know they're there... I'm glad I didn't add any ladders here.

The person I had bought the kit from had cut the plywood lower deck in half, which makes sence as fitting it in one piece would be extremely difficult. There is support where the deck is glied along the centre line keel part but for the other areas I glued small tabs to both halves which interlock for more support here. the tabs are tapered at therir tips to help final assembly the coaming carlings were glued to the lower side of the ply deck and painted white like the deck beams. There are a few gaps at the joints but these will be fixed with white filler later when the deck has been put in place plenty of construction notes and guide lines for glueing on the deck

Where I had left of on the Diana I was in the process of rearranging the upper deck beams as the bulkheads with their appropriate beams didn't line up with the hatches and ladder ways. The beams on bulk heads 8 and 9 were ommited and 4 other ones placed around them I also added a doubler to the rear side of beam 6 (on the left here)... ...as a large hatch for the fore hold was missing on the kit and this would be the ledge needed for the coaming carling. This is where I'm at now, a nice evening's worth of modelling. The front hatch between bulkheads 6 and 7 has been added. My wife wants her dining room back

So just a little over four years ago I decided to put my Diana by the side for a while as I realised it might be a project too large for my skills. Also, the studs for planking the bulwarks (for lack of a better word) kept breaking off which was a royal PIA. To top ist all off, I was trying to pull a plastic model kit from out of the stash which was on the shelf above the Diana, which ended up in the whole stash coming down with some kits hitting her and breaking off four or five more studs in the process. I carefully retrieved her, glued the studs back on as well as I could and totally disheartened put her away again. A simpler kit was definitely needed to gain some more experience. So I bought an Amati HMS Fly which was supposed to be built out of the box, but I struggled here on the second planking, as I was trying to invent my own procedures instead of adhering to the recommended ways here, which in the end didn't work out well. So the decision was made for another step down and I bought the wonderful Erycina kit from Vanguard Models together with their Saucy Jack. Erycina's hull is very slim as she was built for speed and I decided to work on her first. Success! The hull turned out beautifully as can be seen on a thread here. The Saucy Jack had a more bulbous hull which, as I had expected, was a bit more of a challenge, but I got it done, and I am very satisfied with it. My second success! The Diana and the Fly had been watching me from the distance the whole time, but I wanted to do another simpler and smaller boat before I get them back on the building board. The next project was the Amati Lady Nelson. By this time I was fairly confident with planking hulls, only this time I decided the shape the individual planks for the second planking by soaking them and bending with a bending iron and also shaping the planks laterally with a flat iron (for the required banana shape). The whole world changed! This is definitely the way to go, the Lady Nelson's hull is the best I have built so far and she turned out very well. I have not tackled the rigging yet on any of the models, as that is the next step I need to learn. Here you have part of my little shipyard at its current stage (I've need to learn again how to upload images here so I hope this works). The Diana urgently needed some attention as studs were coming off again and she started to look a bit sorry for herself.

I'm definitely going to get one. But although I have the Trial Cutter, an HMS Alert and a Lady Nelson lined up as options for my next project, I'm thinking of getting the Version 2023 Speedy as that would fit quite nicely for the next step up on the ladder. Hmmmm, tough decisions to make...

The nice thing about these fishing boats is you don't have to adhere to a specific colour scheme. I checked some Youtube videos on Channel Cutters, Fishing Boats etc and got some nice ideas there. I had problems with the stern frames being to short and the transom mirror (is that the right word? - part 80) standing proud and kept breaking off along the top as it is extremely thin, so in the end I extended the frames. This wasn't an easy task with everything in places. Maybe master Chris wants to have another look at this area.

Hi All, a few photos to show you all my Saucy Jack project. I never intended to start a fully fledge build log so I hardly too any photos of the building process. I hope it's ok just to show the current status. This is one of Vanguard Models' fishing boats which are intended for beginners, like me. The nice thing about them is, you can actually finish them as they are easy to build and they don't take too long, unless you're a slow builder like I am. I am also building a Vanguard Models Ericyna right now of which I hace also posted some pictures here. With both I have now reached the stage where I have too start the rigging. I have never done this before so I need to take my time here.