Duchess of Kingston by DocRob - Vanguard Models - 1/64

[DocRob]

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

 

 

 

 

 

[Glenn-UK]

Looks like you are building an exceptional model.

[Keith Black]

Beautiful build, Rob. 

[James H]

That is just gorgeous! Thanks for sharing that 🤩

[BenD]

Well done so far! I love it when people use bright gold on the decorations. 

[chris watton]

It is very nicely done indeed, very well done!

 

Regarding the stern resin decoration, I have since halved the thickness, making it much easier to manipulate.

[DocRob]

15 hours ago, glennard2523 said:

Looks like you are building an exceptional model.

 

15 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Beautiful build, Rob.

 

14 hours ago, James H said:

That is just gorgeous! Thanks for sharing that 🤩

 

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

[DocRob]

14 hours ago, BenD said:

Well done so far! I love it when people use bright gold on the decorations. 

 

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

[DocRob]

15 hours ago, chris watton said:

It is very nicely done indeed, very well done!

 

Regarding the stern resin decoration, I have since halved the thickness, making it much easier to manipulate.

 

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 

[DocRob]

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

[Keith Black]

Rob, regarding rigging deadeyes. Because shroud lines were tarred the deadeye lanyards were not a light color. Some folks use black which I think is too dark IMHO, some use a light color which just doesn't seem right IMHO, and some (as I did) use brown. If you use the search function you'll find discussions on what folks think is appropriate for lanyard colored line.  

[DocRob]

16 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Rob, regarding rigging deadeyes. Because shroud lines were tarred the deadeye lanyards were not a light color. Some folks use black which I think is too dark IMHO, some use a light color which just doesn't seem right IMHO, and some (as I did) use brown. If you use the search function you'll find discussions on what folks think is appropriate for lanyard colored line.  

 

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

[DocRob]

I built up the the Duchess of Kingston, hull and decks complete with all the decorations during a three month period and needed almost two weeks for planking the cutter. 
I have to admit, the little bugger took a bit of wind out of my sail, but I'm stubborn enough to want the boat having finished somehow.
I'm really happy, that I wouldn't have to use the cutter in real live, as it's planking job is far away from being watertight and even if it was, it wouldn't row straigth at all. My second planking job was somewhat harder than with DoK.

 

That's it in full ugliness, before sanding
 

 

 

After a bit of sanding it looked a bit smoother. I wouldn't go to far with sanding, as the planks thickness is only 0,5 mm. I will use some filler next, liberally applied which will not disturb, because I plan to paint the outside of the hull.

 

 

Cheers Rob

[Oldsalt1950]

You are doing great Rob. Those little boats can be quite the challenge.

[DocRob]

On 6/2/2022 at 12:42 AM, Oldsalt1950 said:

You are doing great Rob. Those little boats can be quite the challenge.

Thank you Oldsalt, indeed these tiny boats can challenge my patience. I've managed to smooth the hull due to sanding and applying filler and have torn out the MDF frames, which worked surprisingly well, given the eggshell like appearance of the cutter. 
It turned out to be very time consuming, to get rid off the glue residues on the inside of the boat with sanding tools, rounded scalpel blades and small chisels.
After this was done, I made a small placement test on my DoK.

 

Cheers Rob

 

 

 

 

[DocRob]

This boat is truly a model in a model and consumes lots of time to build up. My new Sphinx kit has thee boats included, that will be a real test.
I added the spars, which are made from pearwood strips, which I soaked and clamped around a tin for drying with a curved contour. These were glued in with CA and then cut.

 

 

Finally after adding the supplements for the seat panels, the inside of the boat got a coat of varnish. The rest of the boat will be painted matching the scheme of the ship.

 

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Almost there with the Cutter. I painted the hull flat white, the seats flat red and the rudder, rows and stripe flat blue, all airbrushed with Tamiya's XF colors.
The gratings, which are made from PE, were primed, airbrushed with Desert yellow and then received a oil color treatment with a flat brush and whit spirit, to emulate a wood finish. Last was a coat of clear matte. The colors were chosen to match the DoK's colors. Some minor touch ups and fitting the rows, hooks and anchors and this little side project can be called done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

I scratch build my own supports for the boat from planking rests, cut with my trusty mitre cutter and sandwiched the MDF parts for the boats stand between them. After a coat of varnish, I added some eyebolts and decorations, which originally should be used at the hull sides, but I never liked them there.

I like the look, as it fits to the other sub assemblies on deck. What I'm not sure about, is the look of the blue etched rows, which I may exchange for the also supplied wooden ones, painted differently, maybe whit and natural wood. What do you think.

Cheers Rob 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DocRob]

I didn't like the look of my blue PE oars and I had to do something about them, as they were too prominent on deck of the DoK. I de-charred the also supplied ones from pear wood, rounded them cautiously with sanding paper and files and gave them a coat of Wipe on Poly, followed by blue for the blades and gold for the handles.
Now I like the look and it was well worth the extra effort to tear off the PE oars, rip of the seat planks, clean them from CA and repaint them.
The supports were glued to the deck, but the boat will be removed, as it may is in the way, while rigging.
Next is cleaning of the bench and then, it's rigging time .

Cheers Rob

 

 

 

 

 

[DocRob]

It looks like I have done not a lot with the build and it's partly true, as I'm pounding a lot of rigging concerned themes in my head and also read a bit in other DoK threads. I've been fitting the deadeyes into the strops, which was easy for the 3 mm deadeyes and a bit more daunting with the 5 mm ones, which needed quite some bending.

Meanwhile, I test assembled the masts, to check their angles and found the mizzen mast to be a bit to far angled to the back. I'm not sure, how to adjust this. One possibility would be to enlarge the hole in the lower deck somehow, the other to shorten the mast and insert a kind of support through the staircase onto the lower deck.

Any other ideas and suggestions are welcome.

 

Cheers Rob

 

[chris watton]

That mizzen does seem to have excessive rake. I know the mizzen rakes aft quite a bit, but are you sure the mast is stepped in the hole on the keel correctly? They way everything is designed should ensure the masts are all aligned and angled perfectly.

 

ETA, It may be OK, here is the prototype model:

Edited June 20, 2022 by chris watton

[James H]

From the plans. You could make a template of the aft angle, from the plans, then match it to what you have on your model to check the angle is correct.

 

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, chris watton said:

That mizzen does seem to have excessive rake. I know the mizzen rakes aft quite a bit, but are you sure the mast is stepped in the hole on the keel correctly? They way everything is designed should ensure the masts are all aligned and angled perfectly.

 

ETA, It may be OK, here is the prototype model:

 

Thanks  for answering Chris. The mizzen mast is inserted correctly into the hole of the lower deck. I checked with other builds here on MSW and the build log from @glennard2523 shows a similar rake.
I looked at the manual and drawings and it is angled too much aft for my liking. The last shroud (aft) should at least have an 90 degrees angle, which is not the case with mine.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, James H said:

From the plans. You could make a template of the aft angle, from the plans, then match it to what you have on your model to check the angle is correct.

 

Thank you James, I checked with the plans and my mizzen mast definitely rakes more to the aft.  I think, I will extend the masts lower end eccentric under deck, if this is possible through the staircase opening. The part, which will extend below the lower deck will be connected with a brass rod to the mast, which sits on the lower deck than, partly. 

[Keith Black]

 Per Mr Google increased mizzen rake allows for more weather helm. 

[DocRob]

7 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Per Mr Google increased mizzen rake allows for more weather helm. 

Well, thanks Keith, I always liked problem solving through putting a good story around as an excuse. I thought about that too .

 

Cheers Rob

[Glenn-UK]

I have has a look at my completed build and the my mizzen mast rake angle looks good and as far as I can tell it matches what is shown in the manual and plan sheets.

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, glennard2523 said:

I have has a look at my completed build and the my mizzen mast rake angle looks good and as far as I can tell it matches what is shown in the manual and plan sheets.

Thanks for checking Glenn, your DoK looks wonderful, I hope mine come out half as good. Your rake seems to be a bit smaller on mine, but it looked very similar on one of your WIP pics, maybe because of the angle the pic was taken. 
My mizzen mast almost touches the binnacle housing. 
I will measure the distance between main mast and mizzen mast at a defined height near the platform, to check against the plan and will decide then, if it's a design feature or if I have to do something about it.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Another idea to correct the angle of the mizzen mast could be to insert a wood screw without head into the masts end, glue it in with CA and then screw the mast into the lower deck. Sounds like maybe the most simple option to me.

 

Cheers Rob

[Keith Black]

 Rob, I think adding a screw and screwing the mizzen into the lower deck would be an alignment nightmare, IMHO.