HMS Agamemnon's Launch by Andyrew - Disarmodel - 1:30 Scale

[Andyrew]

It's been quite a while since my last build, I've been really busy at work, we had a Technician leave just before Christmas and have now got 2 new Apprentices, they have had to be trained in the basics of the job, and of course, as is traditional with all new Apprentices, several practical tricks have to be played on them, sent to the Stores for a long weight (wait) and the one that caught me out when I was an Apprentice, a 100 Farad Capacitor which would have been about the size of a small town. I've been interested by Disar Models for a while but have never seen anything built of theirs until about 4 months ago when I found a YouTube video of a Spanish chap building HMS Agamemnon's Launch and decided to get one knowing that if I had any problems I could watch his videos. 

So lets have a look inside the box,

 

The Instruction Manual has nice colour photos, a small amount of written instructions in 5 languages including English and a parts list. Having read through it several times there are a few areas that might require a bit of guesswork so this might not be a kit for a first build.

The Frames and Keel are Laser cut in 5mm Plywood, there was a slight warp in the Keel but this disappeared when I removed it from the fret. The other 2 sheets are Laser cut Mansonia wood which is African Walnut,

All the strip wood is nicely cut with straight edges, it's a mixture of Mansonia and Iroka.

 

The Plastic box contains the various Blocks, Dead Eyes, Brass wire and strip, 2 Barrels, the Anchor, Tiller and Ensign.

2 Spools and a length of thread for the rigging.

There aren't any plans just a doubled sided colour pictures of the completed model, there doesn't seem to be any measurements for the lengths and diameters of the Mast and Spars so I guess I'll have to measure these pictures.

Cheers Andy

[Cathead]

Huh, never heard of this company before, what's your sense of how the kit stacks up against other manufacturers?

[Andyrew]

17 hours ago, Cathead said:

Huh, never heard of this company before, what's your sense of how the kit stacks up against other manufacturers?

Overall I'm impressed by this kit, the wood is good quality and there is plenty of it. The various fittings are fine, a couple of Blocks are a little out of shape but that is quite common in many other kits. The manual is mostly good clear photos but there is very little written instructions and in one or two places it's a bit unclear how to go about things, but that's part of the fun with this hobby, working out things for yourself, keeps those little grey cells active 😀. The one down side for me is the lack of any plans, you have to hunt round for various measurements, Mast and Spars, but overall I would say it's very similar in quality to A.L. or OCCRE, and good value, this kit cost me around £70. Disar make quite a few ship kits and they are mostly subjects that other manufacturers don't do.

The first step is to attach the Frames to the Keel, all the parts are on a 5mm Plywood sheet which was slightly warped, but this seemed to straighten once all the parts had been removed. 

The fit on most of the Frames was a little loose so I glued them one at a time making sure each was straight and level, and that the glue had set before the next one was fitted.

 

I left the "skeleton" for a few days and then started fitting the Floor planking. This is 5mm by 1mm Mansonia wood, a hard wood so I used a small razor saw to cut them.

 

Cheers Andy

[allanyed]

Hi Andy,

 

Thank you for sharing this.  This looks like a very nice kit overall.  I noticed that this kit has more frames than many of the others that you mentioned, which is a big plus.  I believe a 30 foot launch, which would have been carried on a 64 in 1781,  would have had more frames that were sided 2.25"  but what they provided is much closer to an actual launch than some others shown on build logs here.  

 

Looking forward to your next posts!

 

Allan

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by allanyed

[Gus M]

Hi Andy, It's a great work, I'll follow this thread, I need to learn. Thanks for sharing