Duchess of Kingston - Beauty of the Seas - Wooden Sailing Ship 1/64

[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

[GazzaS]

Good stuff, Rob!  Is the dinghy gonna be clinker or Carvel built?

[DocRob]

39 minutes ago, GazzaS said:

Good stuff, Rob!  Is the dinghy gonna be clinker or Carvel built?

It will hopefully turn out carvel planked, at least that's the idea. The hull will be sanded smooth and painted from the outside.

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

[Peterpools]

Rob

Nice progress on the cutter, as the planking is does look very good, especially after sanding. Macro shots do present an unrealistic view in modeling as we are viewing the model as we would actually never see it. 
Keep it comin

Peter

[DocRob]

These tiny boats can truly 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.

The 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

 

[Peterpools]

Rob

Beautiful work on the cutter - a true testament to you wood ship building talents. Looks so good on the deck of the DoK.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[mark31]

just whent tru the compleet topic

yes late to this magical party.

You are doing a great job.

Also thanks for the great explenation on how to build.

Looking forward to see more.

 

Mark

[GazzaS]

The boat looks great. Rob!

[DocRob]

20 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Beautiful work on the cutter - a true testament to you wood ship building talents. Looks so good on the deck of the DoK.

Thank you Peter, it's more about patience with the little boat. I have to make three for HMS Sphinx, only the thought drives me nuts. I started to see it as an own project, given the time the boat took to assemble.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

4 hours ago, mark31 said:

just whent tru the compleet topic

yes late to this magical party.

You are doing a great job.

Also thanks for the great explenation on how to build.

Looking forward to see more.

Thank you Mark, it's an absolute fun project. I try to explain thoroughly, how I build up the DoK my way and was very pleased to see, that there was a lot of help coming from experienced members, which helped a lot.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, GazzaS said:

The boat looks great. Rob!

Thanks Gary, it has to, as it is very prominent on the deck of the DoK.

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

 

 

[Peterpools]

Rob

One beautiful cutter - awesome work

Keep 'em comin

Peter

 

[GazzaS]

Very nice.  It would be interesting to know the differences between cutter, lighter, launch, dinghy, and plain old rowboat.

[Peterpools]

13 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Very nice.  It would be interesting to know the differences between cutter, lighter, launch, dinghy, and plain old rowboat.

Gaz

Good question for sure. 

Keep 'em comin

Peter 

[GusMac]

Looks stunning Rob. 

[DocRob]

On 6/8/2022 at 9:01 PM, Peterpools said:

One beautiful cutter - awesome work

 

On 6/9/2022 at 9:48 PM, GusMac said:

Looks stunning Rob. 

 

On 6/8/2022 at 11:51 PM, GazzaS said:

Very nice.  It would be interesting to know the differences between cutter, lighter, launch, dinghy, and plain old rowboat.

Muchas gracias Amigos, I don't know to much about the differences of the different boat types. I think most has to do with the size and maybe the possibility to rig and sail.
I will dig a bit deeper as there are more types than mentioned as the pinnace, barge, yawl, ...

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 

[HubertB]

On an ordinary boat, the oars should probably be more « natural », but as this is a yacht, they look totally in their place in blue, IMHO.

Hubert

[Peterpools]

Rob

Right with Hubert -the cutter and her oars look perfect and I wouldn't change a thing

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Martinnfb]

Amazing work Rob, loving every update.

Decorating the oars in 17/18th century was very important part of exposing the nationality colours, status etc. Very prominent factor during the Napoleonic era as well.

Here some contemporary paintings where are colours vividly presented to distinguish the sides. Not saying it's 100% accurate, but noteworthy .

Cheers

Martin 

 

[DocRob]

20 hours ago, HubertB said:

On an ordinary boat, the oars should probably be more « natural », but as this is a yacht, they look totally in their place in blue, IMHO.

 

18 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Right with Hubert -the cutter and her oars look perfect and I wouldn't change a thing

Thank for helping me on different occasions Hubert and Peter. First for wording, it's oars not rows  and second for your opinion about them. I found the blue a bit too stark and prominent on deck, but on the other hand the DoK is no ordinary plain yacht and I chose the boats colors according to DoK's livery.
The other aspect was, I think I like the wooden oars a bit better, but they are a pain to refine from laser cut pear to rounded and contoured oars, a work, I hoped to spare, using the PE ones.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

9 hours ago, Martinnfb said:

Amazing work Rob, loving every update.

Decorating the oars in 17/18th century was very important part of exposing the nationality colours, status etc. Very prominent factor during the Napoleonic era as well.

Here some contemporary paintings where are colours vividly presented to distinguish the sides. Not saying it's 100% accurate, but noteworthy .

Thank you Martin, you seem to have an infinite access to pictures of all ages and subjects.  now about the decorations of oars, often to show the nationality of the boat. In my case it's historically not so far off, because the owner of the ship, the Duchess of Kingston left England after a bigamy process and the DoK sailed under French flag, with a French captain most of the time.

Cheers Rob

[GazzaS]

Looks brilliant so far, Rob!  You're really making all of the details look exceptional.