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

[GazzaS]

I will cross my fingers for your transom, Rob.  Hopefully it will look just as good when you see it next.

[DocRob]

4 hours ago, GazzaS said:

I will cross my fingers for your transom, Rob.  Hopefully it will look just as good when you see it next.

Thanks Gary the stern piece is a true shape shifter, I will go to my cave now and check, not without a cloud full of thoughts in my head .

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

After all that self inflicted stress, some relief finally. The stern fascia's glue hold up, even some wiggling couldn't pry it loose, phew. I added the ready painted PE-window frames and the gold PE decoration between the windows with CA. A few touch ups later, I added the wooden rail under the windows and could make it fit without a gap under resin decoration. I'd seen gaps there on other builds and didn't like the look and tried everything to let these parts meet closely.

The kit supplies two more protruding golden rails under the stern fascia, like shown in this manual pic, but I'm not sure if I like them at all. If I decide to add them, they will be in natural wood, as I don't want to have golden decorations below a certain level. I prepared the lower halved ones yesterday and blue tacked them on and still am not sure, if the look benefits with these. 

Cheers Rob

 

[KevinM]

Looking mighty good Rob I have the Baltimore II framed the easy part ..........planking?scared me.

[DocRob]

3 hours ago, KevinM said:

Looking mighty good Rob I have the Baltimore II framed the easy part ..........planking?scared me.

Thank you Kevin, if you are prepared and have a good plan, planking is demanding, but not frightening. When I understand it right, your Baltimore is a relatively modern ship, where there is paint on the planks, which is more forgiving, than a natural wood look. I'd like to see you Wip-ing your build.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

I added some more decorations to the stern and put on the horseshoe and fish PE with pins and glue. I then prepared all the bow parts, which needed to be beveled in some cases and painted them black. The catheads were also painted and the holes, where they pass the bulwark were adjusted with a file.
The Duchess of Kingston starts to look like a real lady, slowly.

Cheers Rob

[GazzaS]

Looks brilliant, Rob!  Glad to see these lower works coming to fruition.

[belugawhaleman]

Fantastic work Rob!

[DocRob]

11 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Looks brilliant, Rob!  Glad to see these lower works coming to fruition.

 

9 hours ago, belugawhaleman said:

Fantastic work Rob!

Muchas gracias señhores. This kit builds like an onion, you start with a frame, first and second planking, wooden decorations, PE-decorations. You add layer per layer to finish the hull. The design is exceptional clever.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Today, I moved to the bow, where I assembled the prepared parts. The whole assembly is a bit delicate and in the pics there are still missing two supports for the protruding catheads, which wouldn't like to fit like I wanted. There is a minor mistake in the manual, which claims to glue on the decorative wooden rails, which curls in front of the Lions foot. If you glue them on on both sides you can't add the figurehead later, like it is supposed. I glued the rail only on one side as I like to add the figurehead very late in the build for safety reasons.

 

Here are two pics of the stern, one with additional wooden rails and one without. As I'm still not sure, if I will mount them, I'm interested in your opinion. I have a little tendency to go on without the rails

Cheers Rob

[HubertB]

IMHO, it looks better with the rails, at least the one above the rudder post.

Hubert

[GusMac]

11 minutes ago, HubertB said:

IMHO, it looks better with the rails, at least the one above the rudder post.

Hubert

I'm with Hubert on this one. The top rail follows the curve of the stern rail above but the split one curving the other way looks a bit disconcerting to me and throws the look off.

[DocRob]

12 hours ago, HubertB said:

IMHO, it looks better with the rails, at least the one above the rudder post.

 

12 hours ago, GusMac said:

I'm with Hubert on this one. The top rail follows the curve of the stern rail above but the split one curving the other way looks a bit disconcerting to me and throws the look off.

Thank you Hubert and Gus, the result of my little poll is clear and I will add the upper rail and skip the lower. In the manual, the lower halved one is perfectly straight and covers the seam, but my stern section came out a bit different, so it would look even more silly, to use the halved lower rails straight. I'm with you Gus, the lower ones disturb the lines of the stern.
As I'm only applying the upper one, I will paint it gold and I will try to thin the wood a bit, because it looks a bit blocky from above.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Today, I managed to apply most of the PE decorations to the hull . I decided to use CA instead of Future / Klear, as I do not trust the floor polish to adhere enough.
I worked with a certain discipline, using always fresh liquid CA, used an applicator to put it on very thin, holding near the end of the part with a tweezer and place it with a toothpick pushing it on on the other side. This way, I had only one tiny smear and only, because I orientated the PE part wrong.

There are two types of white window frames supplied, I mention it only, because I had not realized that, until I tried to glue them in. It's barely visible on the bench, but you will notice on the ship, as they are slightly angled.

Cheers Rob

[HubertB]

I hope you have not glued the window yet, Rob, because the front one should be on the rear, port side, judging from the angle.

Hubert

[DocRob]

3 hours ago, HubertB said:

I hope you have not glued the window yet, Rob, because the front one should be on the rear, port side, judging from the angle.

My bad Hubert. I had it glued wrong and the picture was taken, before I corrected the mistake. You have eagles eyes .

Cheers Rob

 

[GazzaS]

Now that is some eye popping detail, Rob!

 

[DocRob]

12 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Now that is some eye popping detail, Rob!

Thanks Gary, I added some more to the starboard side today, but I think that's all now.

Cheers Rob

[Martinnfb]

Beauty ! 

[GusMac]

Looking really good Rob. Can't wait to see how the masts, etc go together.

[GazzaS]

It looks so very nice and pretty, Rob.  I've always wondered if these ships were actually longer than the masts were tall.

[DocRob]

16 hours ago, Martinnfb said:

Beauty ! 

Muchas gracias Martin.

15 hours ago, GusMac said:

Looking really good Rob. Can't wait to see how the masts, etc go together.

Masts Gus, I haven't lost a thought about these until now, thanks for the brain bug . If you mean rigging by etc., I have a second brain bug now.

3 hours ago, GazzaS said:

It looks so very nice and pretty, Rob.  I've always wondered if these ships were actually longer than the masts were tall.

Thank you Gary, in case of DoK, the length of the deck is almost the same as the height of the main mast. It doesn't look like, but the ship was really used for traveling from Calais to St. Petersburg more than once and seemingly also from Calais to Rome. 
The DoK was once nearly wrecked through a the heaviest storm of the century, moored near St. Petersburg, but thanks to Katharina the Great, the masts were rebuild and the ship repaired. 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Page 47 of 80 in the manual and the text under the pics says 'Your hull should now look like this'. That means to me, a milestone is reached. The hull is complete after not even two month, much faster than expected.
I added the mid deck bulwark, after assembling this with windows, decoration, hinges and lastly a tiny crown above the door. I managed to mount the rudder, which I finished with hinges made from PE before. 
The last addition was the now gold painted stern railing and then I again touched the gold paint up by brush, where I caused damage through handling, and here she is.

Cheers Rob

[Martinnfb]

She's becoming alive 

[GusMac]

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