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In the end I think that it works much better to do the decks yourself (also do the hull below it and superstructure above it ). You can use Evergreen grooved styrene (or car siding, 0.5mm). Adding margin planks and nibbing takes far more time, but if you do it before you add any details (as I did not unfortunately) it should go "fairly quickly"? You could try salvaging some parts from the kit's deck...

Final hull timbered... time to add detail!

(Obviously not Faslane)

While great fun and informative, he completely misses wave resistance, the dominant contributor to hull form shapes (from the hydrodynamical point of view); he could do a follow up on that subject alone. The mechanisms of and interaction between friction, pressure and wave drag is what makes hull form design so interesting, more so even when you add propulsion into the mix with the effect on resistance and aft body flow... He said he would do propulsion but I kinda totally lost track of his channel.

It took me about four boats before I felt comfortable with the recipe. For these boats the floors aren't gratings but a range of bottom boards, so now all the timbers were added in full. I tried both the thin and extra thin Tamiya cements; the ultra-thin evaporates in seconds, the bond is weak, and is largely useless, but the thin cement may melt the strip; you just need to be very careful. Top-left shows the chopper with a stop made from very thin styrene to get closer to the knife's edge. A small "evacuation chamber" is added to that the strip can be pushed out during the chop, rather than run the risk of the knife moving outwards. And yes, I chopped both my fingers. With 0.1mm strips consistency is very hard to obtain and this setup seems to work. Tape with markings every 2mm are added next with the first strips added every 4mm. The top right image shows the tape running over the top of the hull, but that is also a mistake; simply aligning the strip by eye from the side works better. Small strips of tape with markings are used to space the strips internally too. It's critical to get the first strip in properly aligned in all directions; best to start midships. The strips are then added every 2, 1 and 0.5mm respectively; while each range should take more time, aligning becomes easier. The strips are decapitated and a small gunwhale strips finishes off the basic interior. The first whaler is now fully stripped... three down, one to go...

Cutter #2 interior done. Didn't go as well as the previous one at first, this weekend all frames went in quite well. Sure, the bottom is a mess but bottom boards will be added later. Had a minor "incident"(Start Trek VI type) where I just added on small correction with the glue running over the outside almost ruining the model... a bit of carving later and the model can be rescued 🤕 A well, one of these buggers will end up in a larger barge so that will be the least appealing result! Added a pic of the Royal Barge and the last two scans with boat terminology from the Manual of Seamanship. For the small boat people: this little craft aboard HMS Prince of Wales measures 25ft and does not have an aft cabin ( I used the aft Bofors emplacement to estimate the length). Two of these 25ft Fast Motor Boats were destroyed by Bismarck, one damaged. Not sure if this is a replacement or if the aft cabin damage was never repaired, but it's "something else". (Several other changes are observed in the boat complement of Prince of Wales after the battle of the Denmark Straight).

So, I just thought of opening Ian Buxton's Duke of York's book... there's a small GA in there as well, but, printed much smaller than the other plans. The print is tiny and grainy but it seems like it reads Radar Office (so a small room with equipment for the pompoms?) The plans indicate a door at the funnel's side, as far aft possible, with the hinge bow-side. The small structure in centre between the pompoms has its fwd compartment as 'Ru MAG' (I think ). Could upload a scan for some pixel interpretation....

Don't have a copy of the original plans, but considering the location I'd guess it's a pompom RU magazine (the space below the upper bridge pompoms is also used as an RU magazine). NMM has a GA online but not at a legible resolution...

Rather than finishing the cutter I started/finished playing Under the Waves and resorted to some scanning. I added to shots to the Cutter page that needs a bit more attention, including information on the rigs (scanned all from the manual, need to process). The first shot from a 1918 publication shows the straight-keel cutter with the two masts. The second is from the manual of seamanship with the drop-keel variant and sloop rig. Still need to find out if the keel change and rig change coincided. I guess it would make sense with different sails and a change in your centre of effort some keel changes were needed too, but I'm not sure here. And I picked up an original Stewart Bale image of the launch of HMS Prince of Wales, updated gallery page.

I have a special Optivisor (x20 or somesuch, terrible focal depth)

Wait wot? I haven't finished a ship model in 20 years (really) and when I did, it couldn't hold a candle to you build 😆 Carving your own figures... never seen that done so well... 👍

Thanks for all the kind comments! Mojo slowly restoring to start work on cutter #2! I did notice with all this gluing and holding/squeezing this tiny hull that it is distorting and is now almost a mm too narrow;. I could say: who cares! but the difference with the other hull is quite large. It is currently being forced back (held in calipers) but I may have to use thwarts made from brass strip to force the hull back to the right width... and hope they won't buckle! An unforeseen effect; always something new!

Hull 1/4 timbered... 3 to go (image updates as progress progresses, ;his image will update with each next hull)... but these small strips drain the modeling mojo quite quickly! I can use Tamiya thin and ultra thin cement, choosing between melting strips or not really doing anything at all...

That would explain why the plates were not caulked? 🤔

Thanks for the comments 👍 Takes a fair bit of time of course, and I have to refrain myself from starting each post with: "and for my next trick I will make 20 hours and a bottle of Calvados disappear 🫗". But is is also great fun to build and study these smaller boats...

Ah yes, that nigh imperceptible difference between “that looks about right” and “it must make sense”! Keep piling on the lessons…

Some more blog WIP text copy & paste HMS Rodney hoisted a gig, a whaler and a cutter on special occasion for this very blog post; the effect of the clinker-built hulls is apparent (source bottom left,source bottom right). Would it be possible to add all the outer planks to the vacuum formed hull? I first performed a small experiment to find out if I could simulate a clinker-built hull by cladding the hull with strips. There were a few challenges. If you start at the bottom working upwards and add strips that actually overlap, then you may not end up with a regular pattern because of the very small plank width, and, the last strip will most likely not align well at the top end of the hull; the images below show that to be the case for the real boats. If you start at the top the alignment problem is 'solved' but you cannot add real overlap. I decided to work downwards without adding overlap. To get the overlap effect I scraped the hull with a sharp knife just below each plank before adding the next. The plank overlap decreases towards the bow and stern and the distance between the strips should decrease. Judging by frame length at midships and at the bow and stern—and a quick plank count—I estimated that the strip width is about 0.275/0.35mm for the whaler/cutter, and that this width tapers by about 0.1mm towards the ends for both, so I made slightly arced strips. I made a simple cutting jig with a thick strip glued to the end of a small plate with a small 0.1mm strip in between . When I normally use a chopper and hold a strip pressed (slightly) against the stop, the knife cuts cleanly and straight down to the 0.1mm timbers for the gig. But with these curved strips the reproducibility was terrible. I resorted using the square ruler setting using the depth probe of my caliper for the right spacing. You need to cut each strip in few gentle passes to avoid it to start curling (too much). Besides a few knifes I used a wide chisels for positioning and pressing the strip into place, a narrow chisel for carving away excess glue, styrene and 'recovering' the overlap effect on the outside if the caving in the hull wasn't deep enough. A set of files are good for general correction work; the one at the far right has a safe edge—meaning no teeth—so you do not ruin the adjacent strip. The strips were added at slightly less than 4 strips per hour and many pauses to let the glue set entirely. You need just the tiniest bit of ultra-thin glue and set the strip before the glue evaporates. A lot of correction and cleanup work was required afterwards as melted plastic occasionally 'spills' over when too much glue was used. For mild scratch filling I used Tamiya primer applied by a fine brush. The planks appear a bit too larger even, but for the work involved I think the effect is perfect. The whalers are only visible from one side and one cutter will be placed in a barge, so I can hide some defects.

Well, that's why they are there; they are meant to be seen and used But not to be uploaded to a website with add revenue, without proper credit to the source (some have the link copped out) and refusal to take them down when requested... Go make your own content...

No harm done, impossible to know, simply my cross to bear I suppose…

A nice website if it weren’t for the blatant image thieving (including mine)

I have some notes and pics on https://ontheslipway.com/ever-more-deckersizing; all around is indeed not correct. You’d expect something like: Crew blocking the exact spot, of course

Fortunately the Manual of Seamanship vol. II has some info So this is the dipping lug cutter; according to the manual (1937) this type is no longer being built and "will probably continue to be used for the purpose of giving both young officers and men an introduction in the art of sailing". And this is a sloop rig, and "all new cutters are being built to this design" (new in 1937, that is). Also: https://maritimeheritage.org.au/documents/Albatross significance.pdf Excellent question, by the way. Blog post test forming slowly... to be made more concise while I will now add the last outer planks on the cutter hull.... Ough comments that the straight keel at the stern was changed to a cut-out keel after 1920; I see both types aboard Hood throughout her career, but a 1941 image shows a cutter with the open keel. Cutters could be built rigged as a dipping lug or sloop (two versus one mast); the dipping lug cutter does not have a drop keel and— according to the manual of seamanship (1937)—is no longer being built. Is the change in keel at the stern indicative of a change in rig? I would assume so. There are a few internal visual clues besides counting masts and yards. A small hawser with rope is placed below the centre thwart of the dipping lug cutter where the sloop rig has its dipping keel; the hawser was moved below the after-most thwart.

Another one, and one of the finest so far. Lots to see here; funnel interior, good shot of the various boats, mast rig, etc Some updates to the ship's boats pages as well: Fun advert. Left row, third from the top: a 20ft fast tender of which I have zero info.... Opposite to it: might be the Admiral's barge variant of the standard 35ft Fast Motor Boat. Very close to the Royal barge (above) but that one is a 40ft boat... And now that I am working on small 32 ft cutter, updated that page too with the following: A cutter—presumably from HMS Ajax—assisting with the recovery of a de Havilland D.H.82B Queen Bee radio-controlled target aircraft. A cutter from HMS Rodney (1935-36) A cutter being lowered by HMS Rodney (1937-1938) A cutter aboard HMS Hood; good shot of the oars & rig in stowed position. And one of the first of the more general Manual of Seamanship drawings...

Superb work!

Yes, that's how most people do it, carving from solid material 😇 (Incidentally, I started with the cutters as these whalers are even smaller; going well, nearly done with the outline.) Great work and good progress; these small boats are very inspirational... I'm glad I'm not the only one....