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

[DocRob]

16 hours ago, Martinnfb said:

She's becoming alive 

Indeed Martin, she starts to show the beauty of the name giving Duchess, who was often described as irresistible.

13 hours ago, GusMac said:

Looking great. Think you've gone the right way with just the one stern rail and it looks great in gold!

Thank you Gus, after I thinned the stern rail to half thickness, I thought it would look good now. Somehow it ties the stern together, to put it in a transformed phrase from a movie sporting 'The Dude' .

Cheers Rob

[KevinM]

Nice lines and Color in that one Rob!

[Bomber_County]

Just catching up Rob after a nightmare week at work. Your build is stunning and so neat, looking for to the masts etc…

[DocRob]

On 4/30/2022 at 1:49 PM, KevinM said:

Nice lines and Color in that one Rob!

Thank you Kevin, she has her looks.

On 4/30/2022 at 5:19 PM, Bomber_County said:

Just catching up Rob after a nightmare week at work. Your build is stunning and so neat, looking for to the masts etc…

Thank you Phil, I hope you could relax a bit this weekend. There is still some work to do, before I set the masts. It's the rigging which gives me the creeps.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Now it's time to fit the deck with all the necessary clutter. first was the main staircase, which  is wonderfully represented and I took a pic, before I inserted it. First I thought about thinning the single steps a bit, but you can't see too much and I skipped the thought. The stairs where only varnished, as I wanted a rich deep ton of wood.

Here the staircase is inserted, but still lacks a railing. I also added the quarter dome on the backside of the entrance doors, which gor it's copper color with the again formidable and shining Vallejo Liquid Gold colors. The steering wheel assembly got painted and varnished, but is not glued on yet.

Next there were the channels to install on the outside of the hull. These are made of 1,5 mm thick wood and need to be drilled with a 0,5 mm drill bit on the thin side, to accept bras rod for enforcement. I only have my big standing drill machine to do this, frightening. I hold the marked pieces with a self holding tweezer upright and drilled at the marked spots.

This is, how the channels are assembled.

After two nerve wrecking hours, I glued the channels on with CA and am very happy, that this step is done.

Cheers Rob

[KevinM]

4 hours ago, DocRob said:

I glued the channels on with CA and am very happy, that this step is done.

Is it CA for the fast set Rob? I was thinking of using Titebond?

[DocRob]

5 minutes ago, KevinM said:

Is it CA for the fast set Rob? I was thinking of using Titebond?

It's not only the fast curing time, it's also, that I wanted to have a good wood to brass bond.

Looking at the DoK build a bit more abstract, it allows the plastic model builder to use his learned skills more than usual with other wooden kits. Chris from Vanguard uses lots of PE and resin parts and techniques not too typical for wooden ship models. That's a great start to get accustomed with the subject for us. Not everything is new and different. I've seen traditional wooden ship builders complain. Why using an airbrush, why masking techniques, resin, CA, PE, burnishing the stuff,...
What he actually does, is making wooden ship building easier accessible for us plastic glue sniffers.
I used CA a lot through this build. I never especially liked the stuff before, but used it a lot when necessary while building plastic models with added resin or PE.
With this build, I use CA more often than I really needed to, because I learned to enjoy the convenience of fast setting and good bond. You need to employ a good discipline while working with CA, to have no spills and residues in unwanted places, which is the downside of the stuff. 

Cheers Rob

[GazzaS]

Wow, Rob!  Really jumping forward, now. Looks excellent.

[Peterpools]

Rob

OMG, I've been catching up, carefully reading each update, post, all the comments from the guys and soaking in your wonderful images. I don't know where to start or even what to say - I'm just overwhelmed at your progress and talent in the kits construction. Problems have arisen, solved with thought and skill and an 'boat load' of patience. Neat, clean and beautiful work. Bravo ... on breaking new ground.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[DocRob]

9 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Wow, Rob!  Really jumping forward, now. Looks excellent.

Thank you Gary, I tell you about fast progress, when I mastered the first rigging steps . Until now, everything was somehow manageable, what I haven't expected. One of the next steps will be to rig the rudder assembly with some of these tiny (1/64 scale ) eyebolts and blocks. 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

7 hours ago, Peterpools said:

OMG, I've been catching up, carefully reading each update, post, all the comments from the guys and soaking in your wonderful images. I don't know where to start or even what to say - I'm just overwhelmed at your progress and talent in the kits construction. Problems have arisen, solved with thought and skill and an 'boat load' of patience. Neat, clean and beautiful work. Bravo ... on breaking new ground.

Muchas gracias Peter, and welcome back on the deck of the Dok. I thought a lot about starting the build, given it's such a complicated and strange thing, with wood and rigging and all the felt obstacles. In fact, I'm glad I started, it's so much fun, which drives me to the bench, because the build is so rewarding. I chose to start now, because spring is always the worst time of the year weather wise. It's cold, windy, rainy with lots of grey days and not even surfable waves, a perfect time for a bigger project. The most important thing is to have some time to spend with such a build to have a kind of flow and stay focused.

Cheers Rob
 

[Peterpools]

Hi Rob

Good to be back in the saddle and so close to the finish line we can taste it. I have a lot of catching up to do over the next few days or more, nothing more enjoyable seeing what everyone has accomplished over the past months. I do have my sea legs on and ready for the rest of the voyage.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[DocRob]

It may looks if I lost some pace and there is a bit of truth in it. First rigging is taking place and I have to consider how I tackle this theoretical and practical, which knots are appropriate and lots of other stuff. The first bit is the rudder mechanism, which includes the tiniest used blocks of 2 mm, where a thread of 0,25 mm has to be looped through and another knotted around, fixing the block to an eyebolt . I used a 0,5mm drill bit to widen the holes in the block and prepared the yarn which of course has a bigger diameter after cutting with diluted wood glue. I then managed to fiddle the thread through.

Cheers Rob

[GusMac]

Rather you than me Rob, not sure my eyesight would cope with that!

[Peterpools]

Rob

Delicate and intricate are two words that surely describe this delicate procedure.

No doubt you will pull it off beautifully.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[DocRob]

15 hours ago, GusMac said:

Rather you than me Rob, not sure my eyesight would cope with that!

I had the same feeling Gus. I managed rigging of WNW kits, but that's metal tube and fishing line. Wood and thread, is a different pair of shoes though. I hope, Im able to tackle this somehow.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

13 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Delicate and intricate are two words that surely describe this delicate procedure.

No doubt you will pull it off beautifully.

I hope with the shrouds and other rigging it will be a bit easier. These are by far the tiniest blocks and I'm lucky, I opted for the better pearwood blocks, when buying the kit.
I bought two books about rigging and hope that will help. There's a whole array of new obstacles to master, well, I will take my time and hope to get into a flow.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

After a lot of trying, testing and preparing, I finally got the rudder drive assembled. First I sprayed all the PE eyebolts and other PE parts for rigging in semi matte black, after priming of course. I had the parts primed together  with the gold painted PE for decorations, otherwise, I would have burnished the black parts.

I decided, to fiddle all eight blocks onto the natural colored thread, which was not easy to do, even after I drilled the holes in the blocks out. Then I added small length of black thread around the blocks and the last two were attached to the rudder tiller arm and secured with a tiny drop of CA.

Next, I attached eyebolts to the remaining six blocks, the same way. In some build logs, I saw that the short ends of black thread were seized (thickened with knotted thread). After seeing how delicate the whole affair is, I skipped that. It's 1/64 and the pics are heavily macroed.

The rudder assembly got mounted, starting with the steering wheel and then working towards the tiller arm, gluing the PE eyebolts into the 0,8 mm pre drilled holes. As the natural colored thread is still movable, like the real thing, it was easy to tauten the assembly and sling a knot around the last eyebolt. 

I'm really happy that this is beyond me and the result is not perfect, but sufficient. I even swore sometimes, a thing I can't remember to have done before while building the DoK. 

Finally I added some railings for the staircase, made from PE on a wooden frame. It's interesting, that the PE is supplied in three different thicknesses, 0,2 mm, 0,4 mm and like the railings 0,6 mm, which allows for a little relief detail. I first considered to cut the posts of the railings and substitute them with self made ones, produced from pear wood rests on my mini lathe, but I was only not able to make two posts looking the same, let alone four.

Cheers Rob

[GazzaS]

I'm quite impressed by your level of detailing with the rigging and steering.  Somehow, I thought that tiller arrangement would all be below decks with only the wheel visible.  Thanks for the education.

 

Have you ever considered silk thread?  It's much less fuzzy than other threads, and after you've worked it and it has gotten a bit fuzzy, it can be de-fuzzed with the quickest lick of flame.  And I mean quick!  Then, it can be sealed with CA.  It won't look as Rope-like in macro photos.  But I much prefer it to fuzzy thread.

[DocRob]

12 hours ago, GazzaS said:

I'm quite impressed by your level of detailing with the rigging and steering.  Somehow, I thought that tiller arrangement would all be below decks with only the wheel visible.  Thanks for the education.

Thank you Gary, I guess in the case of DoK, the rudder arrangement was adapted to the deck, to have more room to party in the cabin. There was even a mirror clad organ on board along other clutter. Not a good idea of dancing some elaborated minuets, while stumbling over the ropes of the steering mechanism.

12 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Have you ever considered silk thread?  It's much less fuzzy than other threads, and after you've worked it and it has gotten a bit fuzzy, it can be de-fuzzed with the quickest lick of flame.  And I mean quick!  Then, it can be sealed with CA.  It won't look as Rope-like in macro photos.  But I much prefer it to fuzzy thread.

I'm completely new to rigging with yarn. I only used what is supplied with the kit until now and I think it's high quality yarn, made by Güttermann. I do like the rope like appearance of the material and it was easy to get good tight knots into it, with a drop of CA for securing. 
I just had a quick look for silk thread and it seems to be really expensive, two meters for 6 Euros, was the first I found with a diameter of 0,45 mm . I considered using a flame to get rid of some fuzzy residues, but wouldn't like my work destroyed by fire and chickened out.

Cheers Rob

[GazzaS]

44 minutes ago, DocRob said:

 

I'm completely new to rigging with yarn. I only used what is supplied with the kit until now and I think it's high quality yarn, made by Güttermann. I do like the rope like appearance of the material and it was easy to get good tight knots into it, with a drop of CA for securing. 
I just had a quick look for silk thread and it seems to be really expensive, two meters for 6 Euros, was the first I found with a diameter of 0,45 mm . I considered using a flame to get rid of some fuzzy residues, but wouldn't like my work destroyed by fire and chickened out.

Cheers Rob

The silk thread I have is Guttermann.  I've had it for a while, but cannot remember what I paid for it. 

[Peterpools]

Rob

Amazed at the rigging for the rudder and the details that need to be completed; looks so good to my eyes. Completely agree that posting images as macros help us see the details but were looking at them so unrealistically as compared to if we were actually viewing the model in person. I do take a lot more macro/close up images of my builds but rarely use them just for this reason. It's nice to see the details but they also over emphasize the imperfections that could never be seen plus some dust that was not seen prior to the shoot. My personal choice to be close for impact and let the work speak for itself but to back off on macro work if possible.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

 

[DocRob]

7 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Amazed at the rigging for the rudder and the details that need to be completed; looks so good to my eyes. Completely agree that posting images as macros help us see the details but were looking at them so unrealistically as compared to if we were actually viewing the model in person. I do take a lot more macro/close up images of my builds but rarely use them just for this reason. It's nice to see the details but they also over emphasize the imperfections that could never be seen plus some dust that was not seen prior to the shoot. My personal choice to be close for impact and let the work speak for itself but to back off on macro work if possible.

Thank you Peter, for now the rigging is finished and will haunt me at a later stage again.
Concerning the macro photos, I have to admit, that I really like them, even if they are emphasizing on details, which never would be visible in such brutal clarity with the real eye. When I do a WIP, I like to be criticized, and this is helped by a little overemphasizing through a macro lens.
A WIP is a build log for others and me, which could be used ass reference. I'm sure, I have forgotten half of my solutions during the build in two years and can reference to my WIP. Therefore it's helpful to show all the details, nice or not.

Cheers Rob
 

[DocRob]

Today, I prepared the belaying rails around the masts. This included a lot of sanding, to get rid of the char and give the parts a better three dimensional appearance. Than they were varnished and left to dry. 
While working on these, a thought struck me, as there will be more and more delicate details added to the decks. Do the masts fit and do they have the right angles. I cut the lower parts of the masts to size and inserted them into their slots. The opening for the foremast needed some filing, the others fitted perfectly. Again, nice design by Chris as the masts sit very tight and barely movable into the slots. The angles seem to be good according to the plans. The fore and main mast look really thick with their 8 mm diameter, but this is supposed to be so.

Cheers Rob

[Martinnfb]

Phenomenal!