HMS Diana 1794 by Ray - FINISHED - Caldercraft - A 38 gun Heavy Frigate

[WackoWolf]

Ray,

 

    The deck planking is coming along beautiful. You doing an excellent job. Keep the pictures coming.

[mort stoll]

Hi Ray,

 

Welcome back. Glad to hear the surgery went ok. I am sure it is painful. Just be careful and listen to the doctor and the Admiral. They know best. Your build log is worth waiting for.  Thanks for the diagram of your jig. I will try it when I build my Diana.

 

Mort

[Ray]

I have started the second side of the gun deck planking and have now laid the waterway and the top & butt planks, bit of a job to concentrate due to the pain relief so I only did a small bit at a time, I have also cut sanded blackened the edges of quite a few lengths of 3mm planking.

 

 

Top & butt plank template

 

 

Water way and planking

 

 

Top & but planking all done

 

Ready for 3mm planks

 

Pile of 3mm planks ready to lay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ray]

The gun deck planking has been completed, sanded and varnished, I think it looked its best sanded and wiped down with wet wipes and dried, but to leave it unvarnished would not be practical, to easy for it to be marked spilt on and alike during the rest of the build. In the photos it does look a bit mottled but does not look so in real life. I must admit to being pleased with the deck and well worth the replacing of the timber and the top and butt-planking pattern with the wide planking near the deck hatches and the 3mm planking in-between. One thing I did not add was treenails, I think at this scale you are right on the edge of them being added or not, I did try them on a test piece and decided against two reasons firstly I did not know where they would be on the top and butt planks and secondly they looked a bit crowded on the 3mm width ones.

 

Next jobs plank the inner gun deck bulwarks and balsa fill between the first few bow and stern frames.

 

 

planking under way second side

 

 

Gun deck planked

 

 

Gundeck planked and sanded

 

Gun deck finshed

 

 

 

 

[runner63]

Ray,

 

Interesting technique on the decking, I must remember this

 

runner63

[rdsaplala]

Hi Ray,

 

Just catching up, I'm pleased to hear that your knee surgery came along smoothly, very nice deck planking work Sir, very neat caulking and I really like the grain of those planks you're using

[mort stoll]

Hi Ray,

 

can you post a picture of your deck at the stem?

 

Thanks,

Mort

[Ray]

Thanks for the comments guys

Mort

 

I hope one of these photos show the stem planking you would like to see.

 

The inner wall of the gun deck has now been fitted, I painted the first three planks just to help keep a nice line to where it joins the waterway, later I will sand down and repaint the whole inner wall.

I have also started to dry fit the top ply deck this needed some of the slots adjusting and at the moment it is just clamped and taped down, as the next job is to fit the transom parts and I think having the deck in place will help to align the parts. You can also now see how little of the gun deck can actually been seen.

 

Inner gun deck wall started

 

Planking

 

inner gun deck walls done

 

top deck dry fitted

 

 

gun deck through top deck

 

 

 

[mort stoll]

Nice Work Ray. The pictures are great.

 

Thanks,

Mort

[Beef Wellington]

Have to agree with Mort, looks lovely.  Its a shame that the top deck covers up the gun deck given the fantastic planking job you did, maybe you can see more in person than the photo's suggest (?)

 

I'm curious how you are finding the Diana kit, is she really a larger Pegasus, or is there a higher skill level needed do you think?  Not that I'm suggesting for one moment that Pegasus does not require skill, I'm more slowly noodling on my possible next build, and Diana and Pegasus are definitley at the top of that list, but I want something 'manangeable' after my Snake.

[Ray]

Hi Jason

              You can not see much more of the gun deck than can be seen in the photo, you will see all the deck fittings and the cannons which I will fully rig, again I will only rig the ones you can see the same as in my pegasus build. The kit so far very good, maybe not quite as good as the Pegasus kit and some have said this because this is an early kit in the Caldercrafts range, it is a step up from Pegasus but I would think not to big a one from Snake,

I decided to build Diana over  HMS Agamemnon size being one issue Pegasus hull is 21 inches Diana 32 inches so not to large I liked the lower gun deck, and with Diana you have a fully armed top deck, I am going to replace the caronades with 9 pounders as built so plently to see, plus a three decker will be next.

[Ray]

The troublesome transom

 

I have had a building break over the last 2 weeks as since the knee replacement I have had a bit of a reaction to the morphine pain medication, and ended up with a change to a different type of pain relief which made me sick and being a bit away with the fairies, so now its somewhere in-between so back to the build.

 

　

I remember reading how these parts are a pain to fit and get right, and it is difficult to see if it will be ok until much later, if you dry fit all the parts edge to edge as they are cut they fit ok, but warnings have been made do not get it set to high. I looked at it a fair bit before deciding to not fit the parts until now as I mentioned it the last post, as I thought having the deck on would help and I believe it does, plus I scanned the side plan and cut out the side view and laid it up to the hull, (as you can see it the photo), this I used to help line it all up, and to me looks to be right anyway its now all fitted, but time and maybe some fettling will tell.

 

P S parts 26 and 27 I marked up wrongly so 27 is 26 and they are fitted correctly

 

top deck and transom dry fitted

 

scanned part of plan taped to hull to help alinement

top parts glued up

 

all parts glued and fitted

 

 

 

[mort stoll]

Hi Ray,

 

Great idea the way you handled the transom it was ingenious. I was curious to see your solution to that issue. I would think you will not have a problem with it. Sorry about the knee problems. Hope the new pain medication works.

 

Keep up the great work my friend,

Mort

[Ray]

I pined the top deck in place next which showed up one problem, one frame13 is to high or rather the deck beam part is, which puts a hump on the line the top plank would take, I could have removed the deck and dressed down the beam but I thought all the pin holes would be not as tight when the deck was refitted so I decided to leave it for now and just make sure the top plank runs at the correct height.

The next job was to balsa fill between the first few bow frames and the last stern ones and sand down. I then trimmed the top deck so that it did not protrude past the outer edge of the frames ready to start planking.

 

Inbetween thefirst few frames have been filled with balsa and sanned down

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mobbsie]

Hi Ray

 

She's coming along nicely mate, that hump you spoke of is not visible to my eye, but then I do wear glasses.   

 

mobbsie

[Ray]

First planking

 

I have started the first planking, and the first plank to be laid lines up with the top, of the top deck, as mentioned before at frame 13 the cross beam is to high so I allowed for this also at the bow the balsa fillers had pushed up the ply deck about the width of the ply so I also allowed for this by setting the first plank that width low. One other problem is that on some of the frames dip in one side, so a filler strip needed to be glued to the frame to counter this, it is not a frame misalignment problem as no reduction of the frames were needed on the other side, and visa versa, I tacked a plank on both sides before gluing up to check I had a nice even curve the same both sides with no dips or humps, two planks a side have now been attached the rest to do, I also removed the top deck.

 

 

First plank on shows high deck beam frame 13

 

 

 

 

shows same curve both sides with frame 16 reduced and 15 packed out

 

 

 

 

First two rows of planking on

[yvesvidal]

Ray,

 

what a lovely ship. Your craftsmanship is remarkable. I cannot wait to see more of that beautiful Frigate.

I am also comparing CalderCraft  with Model Shipways kits and the various techniques used by British and American designers.

Very interesting.

 

Yves

[Ray]

First planking continued

An update on the first planking no problems so far I am laying the planks damp to very damp, I soak the planks in an blanked off length of pvc pipe, and then bend and cut them damp, I fix with pins using PVA speed bond and after fixing the first two rows full width, I am tapering the rest at the bows I do it by eye and feel.

 

First few rows on

 

A few more rows on

 

A few more rows on shows balsa filler helping with pinning planks

 

Stern planking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Timmo]

Looking good so far Ray. Clearly a lot of work in the gun deck planking. Keep it up.

What's the width if the ply used for the keel? I'm thinking maybe Diana for my next build and am wondering if replacing the ply stem with walnut or something else would be feasible.

Wayne

[Ray]

Hi Wayne

                The ply keel is 5mm thick and I think it could do with updating in the kit, so that a hard wood section is added  at the bow as that is the only part seen, I am undecided as to what finish to go for I will most likely try and stain the ply to match the planking and if that fails paint it black. In hindsight I could have let a section in if I could have found a piece off 5mm timber to match the planking.

[Timmo]

Thanks ray. Looking forward to watching the build

[Ray]

Planking update just over two thirds done now, photos show a stealer being added

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ray]

First planking has been completed and sanded down. Next will add the quarterdeck planking for which I will make a template first as I am building her as lunched with an open rail and only 9 pounders on the quarterdeck

 

Last few planks to fit

 

last planks on

 

First planking completed

 

 

Sanded down

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[yvesvidal]

WOW!!! I am sure it feels good to have reached that stage.

 

Congratulations.

Yves

[Timmo]

Looking good Ray. Nice milestone to reach

[Ray]

Thanks for the comments guys just a bit more to do on the first planking as detailed below

 

With the first planking completed and sanded down I filled a few slight dips, and low planks and sanded again. I then made a template for the quarterdeck bulwark, for as built configuration of 1794 all 9 pounders cannon and a rail, when happy with the look I glued together two of the lime planks and made the two bulwarks and after cutting the tops off the frames glued them on, then a second filler and sanding was then done.

 

The card template and the timber quaterdeck sides

 

Quaterdeck sides fitted and filled

 

The quaterdeck sides finshed

 

Main deck gun ports next

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rdsaplala]

Splendid planking work Ray, she sure has some lovely lines :-)

[Timmo]

Without being that familiar with the kit I was wondering how you'd do the upper planking. Looks fairly simple but effective. Awaiting the rails up there with interest.

[Beef Wellington]

Very nice Ray, she certainly has some nice lines and seems to be a big girl!  If you ever have a moment, I'd love to see a picture with Diana next to your Pegasus to get a sense of the difference in size.

[Barbossa]

Hi Ray

 

It is a pleasure to follow your progress. Whenever I go through your log, I hear my Diana calling for attention.

Just in case : perhaps you took already this precaution to compare the position of the gunports of the quarterdeck with the(main)  channels.