Construction of HMS Diana by Raul Guzman Jr.

Many thanks to Raul Guzman Jr for this write-up on his excellent scratchbuild quarterdeck model of the frigate HMS Diana.

The HMS Diana was a heavy frigate with 38 cannon and carronades. She was built in 1794 and she would serve as scout and convoy escort due to her speed. She served in the Royal navy from 1794 to 1815, when the Dutch navy then purchased her. My model in 1/35 scale is a diorama of a good portion of her quarterdeck. The quarterdeck on a frigate was a very important part of the ship. It was the command center where the captain and/or the officer of the watch would closely supervise the business of running the ship. The idea for my model came from a resin diorama made by Cutting Edge Modelworks/Waveform. Their diorama only included two carronades on the starboard side. I decided to build the quarterdeck to include both port and starboard side and to length it to include the 9 lb. cannons that flanked the carronades and to include the capstan, mizzen mast, channels and skylight. I worked on my diorama for 55 days working, working 261 hours and 39 minutes to complete her. She is constructed out of various woods and brass. The figures were purchased from Cutting Edge Modelworks (www.meteorprod.com). Of valuable service was the purchase of the Anatomy of a Ship series book on the HMS Diana. I did the math calculations and took the drawings I needed to a professional reprographics business in town and had them rescaled to 1/35.
The first step in this fun project was to make the deck and hull sides. Using the rescaled drawings, I got the dimensions and made them out of wood as can be seen in the photo below.

I then began to plank the bulwarks from bloodwood I cut on my Byrnes saw. I have found a nice source of wood to be pen blanks. These are pieces of wood that measure 3/4â€ x 3/4â€ x 5.â€ They are turned to make writing pens. I have purchased these in ebony, boxwood, pear, maple, and bloodwood. You might also notice the sheave that has been placed in the bulwark.

After the bulwarks were up, I then turned to the deck planks. Maple was used and each plank was penciled all around the edges. The metal weights you see in the photo below are just to keep the plank down while the glue dries. The deck was tunneled. You can see the trunnel in the insert in the photo below in the upper right hand corner.

I made the gratings out of boxwood and used walnut for the hatch coamings. I wanted the area below the gratings to have depth, so I cut out part of the deck as can be seen in the next photo.

My next task was the making of the skylight. This was not an easy task, as I needed to cut wood at a 45-degree angle. I used a milling machine for that. After experimentation, you can see what I came up with below. Another angle piece has yet to be added on top.

I knew that once the deck got cluttered, it would be difficult to drill the holes for the eyebolts for the breeching ropes, so these were now done. Holes for cannon and carronades differed.

Using the drawing that I had resized, I marked what parts of the hull were going to be a certain color. I then figured out the width of the planks needed and cut them accordingly.

The structure is now starting to look like a shipâ€™s deck. The hole on the left is where the skylight will go. The holes for the mizzen mast and the capstan will later be enlarged.

The sides of the hull are now near complete. The black planks are ebony, the yellow boxwood and the red bloodwood. Notice that the yellow molding that I made. I have yet to find any blue wood, so the blue sections had to be painted. The ledge on the right is for the carronades. It allowed the carronade to come out further from the hull, thereby lessening the chance of harming the shipsâ€™ own rigging when fired. Carronades had to be confined to certain areas where they wouldnâ€™t endanger the shipâ€™s rigging from the muzzle blast.

I was planning on rigging a bit of the mizzen mast, so I found deadeyes that were or a suitable size and proceeded to change their color. I have found that using Rit fabric dye gives me a desirable finish. I soak them in the dye for 3-4 days and then dry them and soak them another 2 days in a natural wood stain. They are then allowed to dry. Before using them, I polish them with an old toothbrush and now I have deadeyes that look like they were made from ebony. Someday I may turn deadeyes from ebony, but for now this method suits me.

The deadeyes are then stropped. I cut brass tubing with my Preac saw, blacken them with chemicals (I use Blacken-It) and then use needle nose pliers to get them to the shape I need around the deadeye. You can see the process below. Using different size tubing gives you a longer â€œtailâ€, so experiment.

I now turned my attention to turning the carronades. I had drawings at 1/35 scale and used them often to check against the work. I found turning the carronades easier than turning cannons. The four carronades for this project were the first carronades I had ever made.

The carronade is starting to take shape. The cutting tool above was the main one I used.

The hardest part was getting the four carronades to look alike. A good file is used to round certain areas. A person needs to be very alert when doing this to not have the file run into the 3 jaw chuck and have the file fly into the air and possibly doing harm.

The file can also be used to polish the brass. Other parts of the carronade I milled using an end mill on my Proxxon milling machine. These parts will be attached with super glue to the end of the carronade. I am slowly learning more and more uses for my milling machine.

You can see the parts now before they are blackened.

I needed to make the carronade slide and carriages. I made them out of bloodwood. To make all the parts for the carronades took me one full week, working 4-5 hours a day.

Notice that the breeching loop (cascable ring), the step sight and the base patch have been added. The larger piece of wood (the slide) is upside down so you can see the wheels/trucks for the carronade to turn it at an angle. Now it was time to work on the cannons. The carriages were once again made from bloodwood. I cemented a 1/35 scale drawing for the 9 pound cannon on a piece of wood and placed it in a vise on my milling machine. I then used an end mill to cut out the â€œstepsâ€ to the carriage as seen in the photo. This wood will then be sliced off on my table saw.

I then began to turn the cannons. Once again I had paper copies that I imposed often against the work to see where the reinforcements should go and checking the width with calipers. My cannon turning experience was rather limited, so I worked slowly, taking about 90 minutes to turn a cannon barrel. Iâ€™ve learned its best not to rush any modeling task.

My photos donâ€™t show an important part of turning the cannon barrels. I found the muzzle and the cascable/button to be difficult to make and to have them look identical. I made two forming tools (they are not pictured) one for each end of the cannon, which greatly aided in shaping. In the photo below, a cut off tool is being used to cut off the barrel from the stock.

In the photo below I am turning Brazilian cherry to make the trucks/wheels for the cannon carriages. Just like in turning cannon barrels, the first step is boring a hole in the stock. This is actually a very easy thing to do. A center drill is placed in the cam locking tailstock and brought into contact with the work piece. The center drill is now replaced with a drill bit and the hole is drilled. Notice here that I have now turned to a 4 jaw chuck to turn a rectangular piece of wood into a round piece.

Parts of the cannon carriages are now made and ready to assemble on a jig.

Now for the part that I thought would be difficult, drilling the trunnions. The trunnion goes a little below center on the barrel. My fears were unfounded due to my X-Y table on my milling machine. I had an end mill that was the size of trunnion and using the X-Y table I was able to move the end mill to the precise spot to bore.

Here you can see how I cradled the cannon barrel for drilling and not scratch the surface. The white is balsa wood with rubber (black) on the sides. When I tightly clamped the barrel. The balsa and rubber conform to the shape of the brass. It was important to angle the barrel so the trunnion would not be slanted. I was able to get all four cannons done with no problem.

The barrels have been blackened, sprayed with a matte finish and are being test fitted.

Now I had to make the capsquare to clamp the barrels down. I know mine are not historically accurate, but at this point in my experience they will do. After the brass sheet was bent and drilled, it had to be re-blackened. The trunnions I turned from brass rod to fit the trunnion holes in the barrels. Little nails keep the capsquare in place.

The capstan I made from walnut, but I didnâ€™t have a large enough piece, so I had to glue several pieces together. Notice only the drum head section had to be that large. The part that is held by the 4 jaw chuck is much smaller.

Now that the drum is turned I sliced pieces that corresponded to the drawings. The center part will have holes for the bars, so they have been marked to have slots cut out.

holes for the bars are now cut. The part that fits into the 4 jaw chuck is still attached because after gluing it all back together, I want to finish it using the lathe.

The drum is back together and the upper and lower chocks were turned from the same piece of walnut. The whelps have been cut with a scroll and table saw.

The whelps and chocks are now glued to the capstan barrel.

After gluing the drum on, I used a natural wood stain to give it a rich walnut color as can be seen in the photo below. I locked it with a washer below deck, so it will turn.

Now was a task that I had dread about, the shipâ€™s wheel. It would be my first and it had to be a double wheel with 10 spoke on each one. I began by using a boring tool on the lathe to cut the felloe. This boring tool I also used to cut the chocks for the capstan. I cut three felloes, an extra one just in case of an accident.

I then took walnut and cut it to the length and width required for the spokes. To make them look alike, I slotted the spoke material as to where the curves would start and end. You can see that in the insert in the upper left on the photo below. I then drilled a collet blank to hold the wood and used files to shape the spokes. Notice the collet for the lathe.

I had purchased the resin kit of the Diana diorama in 1/35 scale, so I was able to use their jig for setting up the wheel. The knave I turned in walnut and cemented a pattern from the drawings I had rescaled. This gave me an idea as where the spokes should go. The handles would come later; they would be the top part of walnut belay pins.

The stanchions were made from walnut, as was the drum. It was all put together and glued to the deck after attaching the ropes and figuring where they would go into the deck. Natural wood stain was added and presto, my first ever shipâ€™s wheel was finished. I was pleased.

I wanted to add a mizzen mast and its top, so I began to make the parts. The black parts are made from ebony. When the natural wood stain is added, it will look much darker.

Here is what it looks like at the end. The ebony is dense and this part of the model was heavy.

To make it a diorama, I knew I would need some figures. I bought four from Cutting Edge/Waveform. They were all alike. I decided I needed to cut arms, legs, etc to make them different and added epoxy putty to fill in gaps. Below you can see how the arm was repositioned before the epoxy was added. I used paper clips to hold the position.

Here are three of the four crew members. They have different poses now.

My fourth figure, I tried to make him shirt less. He came out a little too muscular, but there were probably sailors like that. Figure altering is still something I need to improve on.

I figured it would be much easier to rig the carronades first and then rig the outside cannons. I didnâ€™t realize it would take me four days to rig the eight guns.

Finally all the weapons were in place and rigged.

I then completed the rail and hammock netting. The netting was a vinyl that I bought in a fabric store and sprayed flat black. When that was done, I could proceed to tie the deadeyes and rig the shrouds and ratlines.

Here is what it looks like with the rigging done. I added a portion of the foot ropes to the yard.

The binnacle shown below (in front of the wheel) was fun to make. The three rectangular areas below the compass were cut out with a small end mill on the milling machine

Here one can see some of the gun accessories I made for the eight weapons.

The gun accessories were placed rather haphazardly on deck. It is a good feeling to get to this stage in a project, when you can look (and hopefully admire) at the fruits of your labor.

I invite you to see the Diana album in the Photo Gallery section for more and larger photos. The gallery section contains 47 of the nearly 300 photos I took of this build. If you ever wish to contact me for information regarding my models, you can contact me (Raul Guzman Jr.) at guzmanshipmodels@gmail.com

Many thanks, Raul.

Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 4:40 pm • Post subject: HMS Diana

Excellent work Raul. I think many of us scratchbuilders will graduate a class of modeling school by watching just his photosâ€¦Thanks for sharing

Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 5:25 pm • Post subject:

Raul,

Your work is wonderful! Thanks for posting the details of how you make these works of art.

Scott

Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 6:28 pm • Post subject:

Raul,

I just read this thread and am very impressed, and learned a lot.

Scott

Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 3:10 am • Post subject:

Hi Raul,

For some reason I missed this thread when you first posted - I am sorry I did as it is EXCELLENT work. Not only is the description good reading, I have learned a few techniques along the way - many thanbks

Pat

Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 7:29 am • Post subject:

Now. that is what I call a post ! I can trawl through it time and again and not only enjoy the workmanship but pick up tips and ways "how to"
Raul, I was interested in your lathe for taper turning the canon, is this a unimat with a swiveling headstock or one with a taper turning cross slide ?also what did you spray the canon with to get tha wonderful weathered effect ?
Salty

Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 12:46 pm • Post subject: Lathe & cannon

Salty:
My lathe is the MicroLux 7 x 14 that I bought from Mico-Mark. It has a taper turning cross slide. I believe the taper I used was one notch (5 notches equal 10). After using Blacken-It, I coated the cannons with a satin spray.

Raul

Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 4:40 pm • Post subject:

Raul,

Just found your write up and must say, CONGRATULATIONS ON A JOB EXTREMELY WELL DONE. Any thoughts to doing the same for an entire model and writing a book?

Questions if you don't mind. What blade do you use when cutting stropping rings from brass tubing? I have been cutting slices on my lathe up to now but it is tough keeping the exact same width on every slice. Also, with such thin slices on the saw, do you have a special filler piece around the blade to keep the pieces from tearing and going into the saw's base?

Last question, the stropped blocks have a black colored seizing. What material is this, thread or something else?

THANK YOU

Allan

Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:03 pm • Post subject:

Allan:
I think that writing a book might come when my abilities improve considerably both in terms of modelling and writing. Thanks for the suggestion, it will plant the seed thought into my mind. The rings I cut from brass are cut on my Preac saw using a 0.025 blade. I have also used a 0.020 blade. These rings are very thin and they do sometimes fall down into the area where the sawdust goes. Sometimes they "fly" in different directions. Usually it take two passes on the blade to cut the tubing. The first cut goes through most of the brass and then I turn it around to cut the other part and carefully cut it free. I usually have to cut more than I need to have enough. In the area where the saw dust collects I keep clean, so it is easy to find them if they fall down through. The blocks you asked about are stropped with black thread/linen.

Raul Guzman Jr.
current build: Oliver Cromwell

Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:19 pm • Post subject:

Raul:
I have admired the Diana model for some time now for the general "idea" of the model as well as some of its detail. My favorite piece on the model, aside from the guns and carriages, is probably the capstan. It looks wonderful.

One day, I may have to try another of these types of models and yours has given me lots of good ideas to ponder for later on down the road.

Russ