Beef Wellington

Now that is stunning, really nice idea on the base, and the grounded anchor is a great touch. Airing my dirty laundry, the reason my Snake is still inches from completion is because I just can't get round to figuring out options for a display base.

Very nice Stergios, thanks for the photos of your progress! Rigging is looking very neat and tidy.

Don't envy you Greg, think the monotonous tasks just vary by ship and modeling medium 😞 Question though, would the plans have been painted with a land or naval camo? Thinking greens/browns for the former, and greens/blues for the latter? I could see it being either consider the GZ's situation.

Definitely NOT the horrible Old Leopard! Your solution on the upper masts with the tenon worked out very well it seems. Great work Jim, love the full hull shots.

Beautiful Nils, love the photos of the outside of the hull, very nice clinker planking. How exposed will the engine be? That's a project in its own right I suspect, sadly I'm not very knowledgeable about boat engines to help answer your question, think Wefalck has done that though!

The Kettenkrad must have just chewed up the decking something rotten, guessing it was used to pull planes and dollies? Really, a Kubelwagen? What was that used for, heading into town at night? 🙂

Mort - so glad you've decided to start a build log, will be very interested to follow your progress. Can't wait for the pictures!

This kit really looks like a gem and you are doing such a beautiful job building her. Love the colours, and the crispness of your work is exceptional.

Carl - those louvres look so much better...

Hi Nils, glad you posted in my log otherwise I wouldn't have known about your new Zeesboot project, quite the scale, I'm sure she'll be stunning and very interesting construction. Also congratulation on the puppy, we seem to have got ours both at the same time! Casper looks a real cutie!

Thanks Pat, Carl, Kevin, Jean-Paul and 'the likes' for not forgetting me! Update on a modification made right back at the start of the build. I had initially planned to add a bowsprit step to achieve 2 things: a little more 'interest' on for the upper deck for those peeking through gun ports and a more robust engineering solution to the attachment of the bowsprit. Both of these are still valid, but a third reason has also just become apparent to make me very glad I decided to mod this. Bottom line, I can't quite see myself moving forward and rigging 'Jason' at this point, which would still be a long way off if past progress is any indication. However, I would like to leave that option open for the future, and this allows me keep moving forward without making any sort of final decision. Some angled 'wedges' were added to the first deck frame to match the angle of the bowsprit step which was then glued into place. A pin was then inserted at the center position of the bowsprit position. Maybe went overboard on securing this, but don' think you can be too careful, it was pinned at the bottom, PVA glue secured to the beam, and then pinned into the beam. While positioning all this it was important to keep checking the clearance over the figurehead, I'd worked through this already when making the original modification and luckily no further complications arose. A hole can then simply be drilled into the end of the bowsprit, and once the aft end is appropriately angled, this sits very snuggly and securely even without glue. The benefit is that this is removable and replaceable even with the fo'c'sl deck in place. I've made up a 'stub' that will probably be used for now, and also a dowel that can be made into a bowsprit should I also go in that direction. The fore bits are also now glued in position with a few other details which will likely be lost when the fo'c'sl goes on, but its fun to experiment. In other news, there was some months ago an addition to the Wellington family, her name is Mazie, and shes a loveable 14 week old 'Whoodle' (Wheaton terrier/poodle mix). While she has many particular skills, dockyard assistance is not currently one of them...

Despite the fiddliness those swivel guns came out really well! I need to start thinking about lids myself. Quick question on the KristalKlear as your lights turned out really nicely. I've never used it before but have some waiting, how did you apply it? The guidance seems to suggest building it up once in position but its hard to mentally get comfortable with that, and I don't want to mess it up and ruin the PE. Any concerns with it not drying completely clear?

This kit looks fascinating, so much complexity in a good way. Nice start!

I think there is a definite gap in the market for this type of fully framed model, definitely would also be interested in learning more as this comes to market.

Sorry for hijacking here, but just to add Rob's excellent summary above. The other factor to be aware of is what the ship plans show, they could be as designed, as built, as refitted etc. Its possible to purchase the Diana plans at full scale and it amazing the amount of additional detail that can be seen, and notated on other plans (for example, the Diana plan indicates that the Jason's and Diamonds foremast was moved forward 6 1/4 inches), suggesting that specifically identified plans per the NMM may not be unique to a ship, but more to a class. Regarding the open bulwark topic, the fashion was shifting at exactly the time these were designed and built. Armament carried is a similar situation. Bottom line, even for specific ships, there is latitude to build how you would like and still be 'historically accurate' - just look at the debate that goes on about the configuration of HMS Victory at Trafalgar, and she's still in existence! I'd recommend buying the Diana AOTS book, in the historical preamble there is lots of context to the above points.

Lovely stuff Jesse, rigging looks very neat and you did a great job with the line you used. Glad I didn't miss the end which seems to be approaching soon 🙂

Beautiful work Greg and very interesting subject. I go away for a few months an you start, and nearly complete, this beast...

Hi all, Well finally been able to get some things done that tangibly move things forward. The area around the mainmast is one of the more interesting and complex areas to get situated. All of these items were scratchbuilt, which of course resulted in the usual re-does as the geometry is critical to get right as the pump axel and cranks need to align with minimal tolerances. Capstan and aft coamings now glued into position, the deck beam needs to be modified to allow the capstan to be positioned appropriately. Little bit of rework on the pumps, the simulated leather washer I had previously painted kept jumping out at me and was a little too 'in your face'. Stripped this off and went with what seems to be a more traditional modeling approach to use layer of wood to simulate the gasket and plug. Here they are in final position. The main jeer bitts were then positioned first once the pumps were in place to finalise the dimensions of the middle pump brakes. The kit supplies some PE for these, but knew that these would never be satisfactory and have been planning to make my own. The supplied wire is around 0.8mm, so 1mm square styrene sections were drilled and cut to give a little more of an authentic look to the winches. To say this process is delicate and frustrating is an understatement - once drilled, the there is barely any structural strength to the styrene around the hole. The aft winches were made in one piece which allowed them to be aligned relatively easily and secured using thin CA which worked quite well. Once glued, the styrene was then gently filed to give a hint of the actual shape. Rhodings were made out of boxwood and painted, to my eye this gave a little better scale look. The stanchions had been made previously, and notches cut into the deck beam to allow these to be secured. The stanchions were finalized and installed...making the second curved bracing element to be the same as the first took a lot longer than expected. The layout of the main topsail sheet bitts dictates that the winches need to made separately reflecting actual practice. These longer winches proved much more challenging than the shorter ones, and many were attempted before 2 acceptable ones were completed. Elm tree pumps were shaped from boxwood stock, and the PE fittings came from an extra set I found left over from my Snake build. These were fun items to make up, but will not be finally fixed just yet as they are very delicate. Overall shots with everything in place shows just how crowed this area really is. Overall, very happy with how this ultimately turned out. The main topsheet bitts align underneath the deck beam at the forward end of the quarterdeck. Overlaying scaled copy from AOTS, one can get a good sense for the reason for the scuttles in the quarterdeck which would have been necessary to be able to remove the various pump shafts. I'm considering modding the quarterdeck to allow these scuttles to be left open to allow the pump mechanisms to be better seen.

Hi Ben, I also went with red in the hawse holes, mainly because it seemed consistent and brings a nice contrast which can be seen on many contemporary models. In reality, the holes would probably have been lined with lead sheet. Nice work on the headworks by the way!

Great to see you making progress again, very nice rigging and attention to detail. Love the anchor buoy, you really captured the feel of the real thing.

Fantastic metalwork Pat, pleasure to catch up on all the great progress, the small details are the 'fun' things but make the model IMHO. Would love to have your abilities here!

Fantastic work Bob, catching up from my hiatus. Love the effect you've achieved on the stern fascia, rally blends in and is very much to my taste. Everything is looking so clean and precise as well on all of those tricky areas, well done!

Nice progress Thunder, I do like the look of the walnut and black, very appealing.

Been a little absent, but very enjoyable to catch up on your wonderful progress Rob, must feel good to have the upper deck on and planked. How did you actually taper the planks to the right shape (sanding, cutting,...?) - you achieved a very nice curve. Will certainly be picking your brains going forward. The headwork are honestly a head scratcher to me and I've been mulling that over for many months as I think many parts will need to be scratched to get a pleasing look. As you point out, the kit supplied parts are not the right shape, and the ply is just horrible quality (at least mine were). I'm trying to decide whether the grating s should be a series of flat sections, or one continuous curve as I've seen on some models, the latter obviously being rather more challenging.

Glad you've jumped into this BE, very intrigued to see one of Chris' new kits come together with your usual excellence in execution.