Duchess of Kingston by Delf - FINISHED - Vanguard Models - 1:64 - Boxwood version

[DelF]

Steering Gear

 

The ship's wheel was a straightforward construction from laser cut wood and photoetch. I primed the PE by blackening the parts before painting them with Admiralty walnut.

Before rigging the wheel I prepared and fitted the four cleats required on the aft deck. It's worth spending a few minutes with a fine file to round the cleats into the correct shape:

The 2mm pear blocks for the tiller rope are truly tiny. As noted in @desalgu's log they appear considerably smaller than the regular blocks supplied if you don't go for the pearwood option. As I've said before, I would always go for the pear option in Vanguard kits - they rival any other commercial blocks on the market. To strop them I used Gutermann Mara 120 thread, seizing them to ring bolts with 18/0 fly tying thread. I've covered these techniques and materials extensively in my Speedy log . For the tiller rope itself I used the Rope Rocket to make a length of 0.25mm rope using three strands of Mara 120. 

 

I figured it would be easier to reeve the rope through the blocks before the ringbolts were fastened to the deck. As per build manual I applied dilute PVA to the rope to hold it round the wheel - here's the quadhands coming in useful whilst the glue was drying:

Incidentally, there is a right way to wind the rope on the wheel and a wrong way. On the port side the rope must come off the forward end of the wheel, and off the aft end to starboard. This is because the holes for the ringbolts immediately below the wheel are offset so that the port block is further forward, ensuring that the rope is led straight down to the blocks on either side. This might be clearer in a picture from the manual:

   

Needless to say I got it wrong, but fortunately spotted the problem before applying glue. Once I'd got that right glueing the wheel and the ringbolts in place was straightforward, finishing off with seizing the tiller rope to the aftmost ringbolt on each side:

In this picture I've also fitted the roof to the little tiller housing, rounding the front corners to better match the half round pillars on the front face.

 

Btw, the tiller rope looks a lot darker in this picture than in real life.

 

I might look at the channels next. Thanks for looking in.

 

Derek

 

 

 

 

[Glenn-UK]

Nice work, as always

[glbarlow]

I wonder how many broken ankles came from nighttime strolls on the quarterdeck.😊

[David Lester]

Looking amazing, Derek. I think I'd like to tackle this one next myself.

David

[DelF]

1 hour ago, David Lester said:

I think I'd like to tackle this one next myself.

I'm sure you'd enjoy it. You're doing a fine job on Speedy and the Duchess feels like a natural progression. Similar skill level, but with different points of interest and challenges - no coppering but lots of decoration, for example.

[desalgu]

Nice looking rope & rigging!  I used similar method to rig tiller/wheel, doing it offline with quadhands.  I got distracted, so haven't glued in eyebolts or posted pictures yet.

 

I'm curious about using dark brown for tarred ropes.  I've seen quite a few people mention this when making their own rope, but don't quite understand.  I've only seen a couple of square rigged sailing ships, and I remember standing rigging looked black to me.  I suspect it's just my landlubber inexperience, but it got me thinking, tar is black so makes sense to me that if applied to rope, seems like it would be black.  

 

I don't remember running rigging on those ships, but don't remember it being lighter tan like on most models.  I'm guessing darker tan or a dirty brown color is probably right.

 

We haven't gotten this far yet, but I'm also curious what you think of the straight-line foot ropes on the yards.  Vanguard models are the only place I've seen it done like that.

 

[DelF]

15 hours ago, desalgu said:

 

I'm curious about using dark brown for tarred ropes.

Hi David. The colour of rigging in the days of sail is often a topic for debate!. My understanding is that standing rigging was treated with pine tar, also known as Stockholm tar, which is very dark but not the same as the tar used on roads nowadays. It can look black in ordinary light, until you see it alongside true black. The latter is just too stark for my taste. I googled this shot of Victory's shrouds which shows the effect light can have, with those in shadow looking black and the rest looking more or less brown as the sun hits them at different angles.

Notice also how pale the running rigging is. Of course modern ropes aren't necessarily the best guide to those used in Nelson's day, but by all accounts the hemp used in running rigging did bleach to a fairly light shade. Personally I don't like the rigging to look too bright, preferring a light grey such as this rigging on one of Victory's guns:

As with much of ship modelling, historical evidence on the colour of rigging can only take us so far, which leaves plenty of scope for exercising personal preference.

 

One final point on colour. In the later years of sail rope was replaced by steel cable for standing rigging. If the square riggers you saw were of this vintage you might have seen steel rigging painted black. 

 

On footropes, I agree the ones shown in the manual look a bit too straight. However to provide a secure platform for the sailors they wouldn't have been too loose either, apart from the upper yards that didn't have stirrups. Google helped again with this shot of the footrope on Victory's fore top yard:

 

You'll see there is a gentle curve between each pair of stirrups. I've found the best way to achieve this is by applying dilute PVA to the footrope after it has been fitted and then hanging about three bent pieces of wire (nothing too heavy) over each section of rope while it dries. This imparts a satisfactory catenary curve, and is best achieved before the yard is fitted to it's mast.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Derek

  

 

[glbarlow]

6 hours ago, DelF said:

plenty of scope for exercising personal preference.

A really good point to remember for some that want to point to a book and deem themselves as purveyors of truth and historical accuracy.  My answer is more simple, the dark brown looks better on the model than black, and is my personal preference.

 

On another note, the guy that climbs that rope ladder along the mast is braver than me, and just how huge are those deadeyes and the rope making up the shrouds. 😳 

Edited January 20, 2022 by glbarlow

[DelF]

1 hour ago, glbarlow said:

just how huge are those deadeyes and the rope making up the shrouds. 😳 

Just to prove I can be as pedantic as the next person, those look like the fore shrouds (judging by the anchor buoys) so should be 11 inches in circumference. Standard deadeyes were 1.5 times the shroud circumference, so 16.5 inches across. Or in layman’s terms, bloody big😂🤣

[desalgu]

9 hours ago, DelF said:

Hi David. The colour of rigging in the days of sail is often a topic for debate!. My understanding is that standing rigging was treated with pine tar, also known as Stockholm tar, which is very dark but not the same as the tar used on roads nowadays. It can look black in ordinary light, until you see it alongside true black.

 

 

Thanks Derek!  I hadn't thought about pine tar being used back then, and photo of Victory's shrouds in sunlight definitely looks dark brown.  The two sailing ships I remember seeing were from late 1800s or 1900, so "modern" and had iron/steel hulls.  Don't remember rigging looking like painted cable, but they might have.  Or they certainly could have used modern tar.  I've seen photos with greyish ropes for running rigging and cannons, but it didn't really register that this is what it probably looks like after being exposed to sun and weather.  

 

And I agree, those shrouds and deadeyes on Victory are bloody big!!  😅

[glbarlow]

2 hours ago, DelF said:

as pedantic

Thanks for defining “huge,” I knew we could count on you😂🤣

[DelF]

Channels & preparing the spars

 

Pinning the channels to the hull and fitting the covering strips to the channels was straightforward, following the instructions in the build manual. 

Gluing the covering strips after the channels were in place proved quite tricky, especially on the fore channels where the strips had to be curved. Clamping worked but was messy and had to be redone in a couple of places. On reflection it would have been easier to fit the strips off the model. 

I tickled the channels with 400 grit paper to soften the edges and gently round the front corners:

A quick final job for the day was to cut timber from castello boxwood sheets for the spars. Nothing wrong with the kit supplied dowel, I just prefer to make my own from boxwood. I like the colour and the ability to work from square to octagonal to round. I was fortunate to find some small offcuts left over from Caroline and Speedy that gave me all the sizes I needed. To keep track I made up a quick spreadsheet checklist - possibly OTT but I've learned from experience how easy it is to go astray on jobs like this. Where necessary I'll add extra for holding in the lathe or milling machine. Here's the sheet and the initial spar blanks waiting to be cut to their final lengths.

I'm just glad there are no stuns'l booms! 

 

Next job, some more deck furniture interspersed with spar making.

 

Derek

Edited January 22, 2022 by DelF

[DelF]

Gratings

 

The kit supplies nicely made wooden gratings and coamings for the fore, main and hawse hatches. The gratings on Speedy were photoetch which, although well made, didn't allow me to camber them. On previous build I had cambered gratings by rubbing them against sandpaper stuck to a board with a gentle concave curve. However the Duchess's gratings come with very finely etched lines to represent the battens and ledges and I didn't want to lose them, deciding instead to use heat bending.

 

Starting with the main hatch as a test piece, and with a fair degree of trepidation, I put it in freshly boiled water for a few minutes before clamping it face down inside a tin of the right diameter. I tried using the outside but found it was too tricky trying to get two clamps on such a small component. One clamp in the middle on the inside did the job:

Once dried the grating fitted neatly in the coaming with a pleasing camber - apologies for the poor focus but I was holding my phone one-handed:

The next job was to add a curved section to each end of the coaming to match the grating. I started by gluing two small pieces of scrap boxwood to the coaming. Once dried, I pared down the excess with a mini chisel and finished with sandpaper:

Here's the final result:

 

Worth the bit of extra effort, I think. I'm pleased that it's still possible to see the battens running fore and aft, as they should. Now I know the method works I'll try it on the hawse hatch. Although it's a lot smaller I should be able to impart a slight camber if I'm careful. However the fore hatch is a lot smaller still - the grating's only about 10mm square - so I'd be on a hiding to nothing if I tried to bend it. Besides, it's so small I suspect any camber would be almost imperceptible.

 

In between finishing hatches I'm planning to start blackening batches of ringbolts which need to be in place before I fit the deck furniture.

 

Thanks as always for the likes and supportive comments.

 

Derek 

 

[ccoyle]

To quote The Old Man from Das Boot: "Clever trick!"

[glbarlow]

Well done, I’m always impressed with your creativity. And I agree, attention to small things as you do sum together into a great model.  

[BobG]

Fantastic work on those gratings and coamings, Derek!

[DelF]

Gratings & Blackening Revisited

 

The bending method I tried out on the main hatch worked equally well on the hawse hatch:

 

With lots of hooks and ringbolts to blacken I decided to revisit the process I use. For some time now I've used Birchwood Casey Brass Black in conjunction with the preparation method I found here on the forum. In brief, I put the pieces to be blackened in jewelers' pickling solution heated in a slow cooker for 10 minutes (holding small components in a plastic tea strainer for ease of handling), then into a baking soda solution to neutralise the acid, then isopropyl alcohol for final degreasing (others use acetone but I prefer IPA) and finally a minute in Brass Black before rinsing in water.  Generally this works well, the only problem arising when I have to blacken large numbers of small components and I find it difficult to ensure all surfaces get properly treated. Consequently I would find myself doing lots of small blackening runs. The solution when I thought of it was so obvious I was annoyed with myself for not thinking of it sooner. I found a small plastic container that my wife had years ago for cleaning contact lenses and was therefore leak-proof. Here it is alongside the slow cooker (£cheap from Argos):

 Once out of the baking soda, put the components in the container with a few drops of IPA, shake vigorously, rinse and replace with Brass Black, shake again and rinse. Result - I was able to treat over 100 items in one go, all well and evenly blackened:

 

It's not easy to see on this photo, but the pumps didn't blacken quite so well. However I think that was because I'd glued the components together before blackening them and some of the CA had leaked where it oughtn't. Not a problem that some minor touching up won't solve.

More deck furniture next.

 

Derek

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by DelF
Clarification

[Rustyj]

Looking really good. I don't have good luck blackening so I appreciate your advice and will give it a go. Thanks Derek!

[DelF]

Belfry - an exercise in char removal!

 

I spent an inordinate amount of time on this task, mostly dealing with char removal and related issues. Don't get me wrong, I love the quality of the laser cut parts and for me they add greatly to the model, but they bring their own challenges. I have also noticed a difference in the quality since Chris got his own laser cutting machine, For example, on Speedy some of the tiny parts such as cleats tended to crumble - they were so small they were as much char as wood - whereas on the Duchess the laser seems to have achieved very fine tolerances with no bad effects. This allows great detail in the laser cut parts; the downside is that the more intricate parts are more challenging to de-char. This is particularly true of the end grain where the char seems to be particularly stubborn, and of course the end grain on components cut from flat sheets can appear in a variety of places. Also, I'm working in boxwood which tends to show the char more than pear.

 

I use a combination of scraping, filing and sanding to remove char. I've even resorted to taking off fine slices on the table saw and mill. Sometimes however even that isn't enough, as evidenced by the belfry where I just couldn't get rid of the striped effect created by the end grain of the main upright sandwiched between two veneers:

 

I considered several options including painting the belfry and fitting a copper roof. I decided to maintain as much of the bare wood look I've gone for with this model. The solution was a spare piece of boxwood cut to 0.4 mm on the Byrnes saw. I  soaked it in boiling water for five minutes before clamping it to the belfry and leaving it to dry. I reverted to wet bending as I didn't think dry heat would work on such a short length with two fairly tight changes of direction. Anyway it worked. Once dry I clamped it again, this time with PVA:

Here it is after a light sanding:

Incidentally I've fitted the metal handle for the bell. This isn't described in the manual but is listed in the parts and shown on the plans. From a practical perspective it saves crew having to climb on the winch to ring the bell! The slightly tricky bit is ensuring the pin holding the bell is very short, otherwise it'll foul the hole required by the handle.

 

The next job will be preparing the winch that sits just aft of the belfry.

 

Derek

 

Edited January 29, 2022 by DelF
Typo

[glbarlow]

Nice work on the belfry solution, end grain char is the worst. I have some luck with a #11 blade but if tolerances allow sometimes I hit ever so gently with the Byrnes sander. That of course wouldn’t work on the belfry, hence another creative solution by Derek. 

[desalgu]

Even with pear, I spend a lot of time sanding laser char.  I'm doing gun carriages with 400 grit sandpaper and it's rather tedious.  Pear is the same way, end grain is the most difficult to remove char, although being darker wood, I've gotten away with just removing the worst of it. 

 

Beautiful work, and as always, I learn a lot.  I didn't realize gratings had slight curvature, although it certainly makes sense and looks great.

 

Previously, I've had trouble blackening brass, so resorted to painting.  The problem with painting is it flakes off easily, so lots of touch up.  After seeing what you do, I'll have to try blackening again sometime.

 

Love your "roof" on the belfry and the bell handle.  I probably would have missed the handle without your build log!

 

[DelF]

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

 

On 1/26/2022 at 4:09 PM, Rustyj said:

I don't have good luck blackening so I appreciate your advice and will give it a go

13 hours ago, desalgu said:

After seeing what you do, I'll have to try blackening again sometime

I've found that blackening is like silver soldering - preparation is everything. Skimping on any part of the process will spoil the result. For me the game changer was the pickling bath that I read about in the forum post I referenced earlier. I couldn't find the Sparex brand in the UK but the jewellers' pickling solution I buy works fine. Apparently the "PH minus" products people use in spas and hot tubs also works. I can't vouch for that as my wife treats our spa as her personal domain and I'm not allowed near the chemicals. The second game changer was using the leakproof bottle to shake the components, enabling me to deal with large batches. The process may seem time consuming but once you develop a routine it's pretty straightforward and well worth the effort. Certainly a lot easier and more effective than painting!

 

One final point. If you lightly buff blackened components with a soft cloth or Q-tip they will look even more like iron - look at the cannon barrels in the earlier link. 

[DelF]

Cannon

 

I haven't been able to spend much time in the workshop for the last week or so, just enough to potter around on a couple of odd jobs including making up one of the cannon:

 

Looking at the close-up the handle I've fitted in the quoin looks over-scale and I'll replace it with a smaller piece of wire.  That apart, I'm reasonably happy with the result and will follow the same process with the remaining five guns. I'll just mention the main points of interest. 

 

First, the char cleaned off well, the only tricky part being the wheel rims which I tackled by jamming them on a cocktail stick held in the lath:

 

 

I sanded the axles by hand to round them off then painted them black. 

 

I felt the kit ringbolts were too big so I made my own with 0.3mm brass wire bent round a 0.5mm drill bit:

 

 

I used a slightly different technique for the breech rings. I described this in detail in my Speedy log, from which I've copied these photos which hopefully explain the technique:

I drilled 0.4 mm holes in the carriage as there was no provision for breech rings in the kit.

 

The barrel was painted with Admiralty Ironwork Black then lightly treated with rust coloured weathering powder.

 

Here's the obligatory finger shot to show how small these little blighters really are:

 

 

Derek

 

 

[glbarlow]

Nice looking cannon. I’m sure you plan to fully rig each one right😂😁

[DelF]

1 hour ago, glbarlow said:

I’m sure you plan to fully rig each one right

🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

[Blue Ensign]

Coming together very nicely Derek, 👍

 

 

B.E.

[Theodosius]

wow, this guns are realy small! 😄

[DelF]

Cannon #2

 

Thanks as always for the kind comments and likes.

 

I've finished building the cannon, with just a couple of additional points to record. First, I found rounding off the axles by hand with sandpaper was a bit hit and miss so I decided I needed something a bit more accurate and repeatable. I used a short length of brass tube with a suitable internal diameter (I think it was 1/16") mounted in the lathe. First I filed the end from the outside to create a sharp edge then, holding an axle carefully with pliers and gently pressing against the spinning tube, the result was just the right amount of rounding:

 

I also found gluing the components of the carriage tricky so I milled a couple of 1.5mm slots in a small piece of wood to make the job easier:

 

 

Next I dug out a little jig I'd made to shape the cap-squares for Speedy, just a groove half the depth of a drill bit the same diameter as the trunnions. A thumbnail either side and the cap-square is ready-shaped to fit.

 

 

Here's the completed cannon:

 

Despite encouragement (?) from Mr Barlow (@glbarlow) I'm not going to fully rig the guns. I've done it once, for Speedy, and once is enough - a least for a while. I'll do the breechings though, as I think the guns will look bare without them.

 

I've run up some 0.7 mm line on the Rope Rocket for the breech rope and made a start on the first couple of guns. According to Lavery in The Arming & Fitting of English Ships of War, breech ropes were typically three times the length of the barrel to allow for just the right amount of recoil. I'm making mine 85mm to allow a few mill for seizing. I'm doing the latter on the quadhands - here's a picture and for more information I've described the process in more detail in my Speedy log here. 

Lastly I thought I'd have a go at making up the shot garlands. Rather than building these on a piece of clear film as suggested in the manual I used double-sided sticky tape. Starting with one sticky side facing up and the backing paper still on the bottom face, it was easy to arrange the balls without them rolling around:

 

 

I had intended to build my own frame around the resulting triangle as I felt the kit garland was a little chunky. I'd done this for Royal Caroline and it worked well. However before committing to that I thought I'd try thinning the laser-cut kit garland down a bit, holding it very carefully against my sander. The result looks quite decent so I might go for this method:

 

The next steps are to cut the triangle off the sticky tape, remove the backing paper then stick straight onto the deck:

 

 

Looks like someone's about to start a game of snooker or pool!

 

Derek

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by DelF

[glbarlow]

28 minutes ago, DelF said:

Despite encouragement (?) from Mr Barlow (

🤣😂

[Glenn-UK]

Nice work as always