HMS Peregrine by Gaz - Corel - 1:96 - first build

[Gaz]

Good evening all,  

 

This is my first log and first ship as i delve in to the world of model ship building. I have a fair bit of Sci-Fi model building and painting behind me and i am hoping that I can bring that patience across to ship building. The model I have is the lovely HMS Peregrine by Corel, it is slightly bigger than i would have liked for a first ship, however, as it was given to me by a friend of the family that had lost patience and given up was not going to look a gift horse... 

 

So where am i at now? Well the model came with the hull already built and it looks although they had an initial crack at planking and that is where they gave up. I have spent the initial few hours organising the pile of jumbled up wood, translating the instructions from Italian and researching wood colors to allow me to identify the correct planks. This to my deliberate and need for organised structure brain was fun in itself. I have then spent a bit of time measuring and checking symmetry where i found that the hatches were 2mm off centre, so they had to come off, next comes removing excess glue and sanding the bow.  

 

Now this is where my first disagreement comes with the instructions which is telling me to fix the gunwales and planking before the decking. however, it would appear if I did this then getting a nice smooth deck flush with the planking will be nigh on impossible. So it looks like i will be going off piste, i will update later and tell you all if I regret or approve of this. Due to working away for weeks at a time the updates may be infrequent or splurges of progressive. 

 

Please see the photos attached of the ship so far and prior to fixing errors (you can see how off centre the hatches are), also my organised drawer of wood that I spent far too long doing. 

 

[oakheart]

That looks like a good start,

 

Tim

 

[Thukydides]

Welcome to MSW. Good luck on your journey here. I also came from the sci-fi plastic modelling world and while some of it translates, working with wood is a different beast and you will make a lot of mistakes along the way.

 

A few suggestions to help you get the most out of MSW and help you on your way:

1. Read all the other logs on your ship you can. Many will talk about the challenges they encountered helping you to avoid them.
2. If you run into issues contact the authors of those logs, most are usually happy to help.
3. Don’t only post in your log. Look around, see what others are doing and encourage them as well.
4. Treat every step as its own project. You will never regret going too slow, but you might regret rushing through something. This is a marathon not a sprint. I have been working on my first build for almost three years and my only regrets relate to the times I decided it was good enough instead of going back to fix something.

Good luck

[Gaz]

Thank you both for the advice and encouragement.

[James H]

Welcome to MSW!

 

Your workshop is SO tidy. That will have to change!

[Gaz]

Log 2 - Further Preparation

 

Still in the prep phase and fixing errors before I head away with work for the next couple of week. Not a lot visually has changed, but most of my time has been spent sanding bulkheads and reading up on planking. I have also decided to plank the deck first as getting a tight fit in the corners after planking the hull would have proved difficult. Here I found my first couple of learning points, thanks to my predecessor builder. 

 

1. Don't add upper decks if you don't have to, as decking the lower or even measuring will prove difficult. 

2. 1mm out in one section can cause big issues further along. 

3. Check symmetry. 

 

Next stage when i get back is to cut the Rebbet line as per, my new favorite pdf "Simple hull planking techniques for beginners". Then planing the decks with 90mm planks spaced 30mm off (maybe not historically correct, but for a first build and my autistic brain, the symmetry makes me happy). I also have to repair the rear transom section uprights as they look far from correct. But that is all upon my return and I am looking forward to it. 

 

 

[Old Collingwood]

Warm welcome  to  the  family,  thats a  Super start,  I also had  this  kit  - it  was gifted  to  me  from an old  neighbour  after I tried  to  save  his  life  with chest compressions  after his  heart  failed,   anyway  as a  thank you  his  wife  gifted me  this  kit.

 

OC.

[Gaz]

@Old Collingwood thank you for the reply, great effort on attempting to save his life. If you have any tips for the kit I would love to hear them. Unfortunately work has got in the way of working on the kit lately. But hopefully towards the end of the month I will get chance to tackle it again. 

[Old Collingwood]

4 minutes ago, Gaz said:

@Old Collingwood thank you for the reply, great effort on attempting to save his life. If you have any tips for the kit I would love to hear them. Unfortunately work has got in the way of working on the kit lately. But hopefully towards the end of the month I will get chance to tackle it again. 

To be honest  I never got  round to  starting it   - I passed  it  on  to an other.

 

OC.

[Gaz]

Log 3. 

 

I have finally managed to back to the workshop, and after some reading realised that a rabbit line was needed to be cut in. Unfortunately, as the frame had been built prior to me  actually getting the required angle was difficult. It also seems that there is many opinions on planking and building, so I think a lot of it must come down personal preference together with trial and error. 

Once I had cut in the line, I then decided to start with planking the main deck. I decided to go for a symmetrical look with each plank 90mm and offset by 30mm. Sure this ain't the best way but will see how it ends up. 

[hamilton]

Hello Gaz

Great start on the Peregrine. I believe this kit was released at around the same time as the Corel Greyhound and Eagle kits. My experience with the Greyhound was that it was a very challenging model with a great number of flaws in the design. But from what I see here these same problems don't seem to be at issue with the Peregrine! 

 

You'll find that there are few kits that have pre-cut rabbets - this is something that you either have to cut in yourself or that is created by narrowing the false keel and attaching separate keel, sternpost and stem parts. Corel's practice seems to be to provide a centre keel piece that includes the keel, so the bearding and rabbet lines must be traced from the plans and the rabbet joint carved out - this can be challenging on the smaller scale kits and especially since the ply used by Corel is not of the best quality - more like pressboard with thin veneers on either side. But you are doing a great job with these elements and it'll be nice to see the model shaping up.

hamilton

[Gaz]

Good evening Hamilton, 

 

Thank you for the comment, the plans and instructions didn't mention or show the rabbet or bearding lines, so it was fun trying to guesstimate the lines. Strangely the plans for the stern show more planks than you can actually fit in this area. Reading a few of your early logs on the greyhound it seems you were also doing as much head scratching as I have been doing lol. 

The attached picture is about as much guidance you get for the stern. 

[AJohnson]

Just found this log and will follow along, did you start the planking since your last log. Great start so far!

[Gaz]

Hello AJohnson,

 

Thank you and yes I did, but due to real life getting in the way not very much. I spent much of the time practising plank bending to get it to sit nicely on the Hull, whilst also learning that a pin pusher would be nice. Hopefully I will get a chance to carry on with it soon.