DORIS

Dear colleagues and friends,

Thank you all very much for your comments, kind words and support. It means a lot to me and I am pleased that you like the Royal Katherine model in my rendition.

It was a really great challenge when I decided four years ago whether to go for it or not, but despite many difficulties during the building, I do not regret this decision. At the same time, I fulfilled another modeling dream, which I was able to share with you and almost to the end with my husband George. The realisation of this project brought me not only the joy of the hobby itself, but also learning and possibility of expanding the knowledge horizons about real ships, their construction and history.

My main intention was to strive for the most realistic model reconstruction of the real appearance of the Royal Katherine and to point out the various shortcomings and inaccuracies that we often encounter in documents and plans of sailboat models. In addition, I tried to create my model without the use of special tools and from the most available materials as an example of the fact that even a very modest background is not an obstacle to creating a nice and quality model, which makes this hobby available to almost everyone.

None of us can know what the future will bring, but I definitely do not want to give up my hobbies and when I find enthusiasm for a new and interesting project again, I will share it with you. 

Kind regards and all the best, 

Doris

General view and details of decoration on the stern section... 

Have a great time and enjoy the pics.

Best regards,

Doris
 

Night shots and interior of the great cabin:

Dear friends,

I am very grateful and honored reading your kind words and feel your support. Thank you all very much, I do appreciate your feedback a lot.

Th Royal Katherine has been finished a few days ago, this build took me almost four years and approximate 7000hours of work and studying. 

I am sorry that my husband could not see the completion of the model, but he supported me a lot in my hobby and shared the successes and joy of building models with me.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have helped me and followed my work through this forum.
A few days ago there was a nice report about my work on card models on Czech television. It was also dedicated to my husband, with whom I wanted to say goodbye for the last time. You can watch the report here, but it is in Czech languauge:

https://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/10805121298-gejzir/221562235000005/video/819958?fbclid=IwAR1I97p0dLk-BvV_dO7SQtBYOl3AFps7K9qI9gWhKSZ4TEeRVBBPsp-3zy0

And here you can see plenty of pics of my largest finished model - the Royal Katherine - I consider her the best ship of all I have ever created:

Dear friends, I do appreciate your comments and support. Thank you all very much.

Well, I am not sure I will start with new projects in future. I have lost motivation and enthusiasm,  always shared it with my husband and created the models also for him - he supported me a lot and loved what I did. Now I'm finishing my best model - the Royal Katherine and definitely don't want to give it up.
I added the bonnet under the fore course to achieve another detail for better realism. A followed these drawings from Lees´ book:

Now I am working on four anchors, they will be made of card.

Best regards,

Doris

Thank you all for your condolences and kind words, dear friends. Life has brought me terrible suffering, and the pain in my heart is unbearable. I know, it is necessary to go on, I try to finish everything I started, and hope that one day it will be better again.

I finished the flags, inspired by Sailmaker's painting of the Royal Katherine:

All that remains is to add anchors and flags.

The crew was originally supposed to be on the model, unfortunately I was struck by a very cruel life event, when my husband died a few months ago and it changed a lot in my life. There will be only two figures on the model that will symbolize me and my husband, it is a remembrance and a tribute to the best person I have ever known and spent with him more than 20 years. He had a wish for me to successfully complete the Royal Katherine, and I want to fulfill his wish as best as possible.

Doris

And here are already finished sails (made of cloth), including  other rigging:

Preparation of paper templates for making sails:

Almost complete running rigging:

Here you can see how big the model really is - towards its builder:

Running rigging and completing the yards...

Hello dear friends, 
First of all, I want to wish you all the best in the new year.

Thank you also for your comments and kind words.

I am currently completing the model, almost all the rigging is already done and the ship also has sails.

Here are several photos from the process of tying the ropes, as well as some examples from the books I followed and used on the model (Andreson and Lees).

Hello dear friends,
thank you all for your kind words, feedback and comments. I am pleased, you enjoyed the pics from progress.

On 9/9/2020 at 4:34 PM, Hubac's Historian said:

I’m not sure what scale your Sovereign is, but assuming it is the same as Katherine - this is a fascinating evolution in warship design.

 

Your work and progress are remarkable.  I really like the blocks you are using and will have to look into those, myself.

Well, Sovereign of the Seas is is approximately in 1/90 scale, and Royal Katherine in 1/55, she is much more larger, but in the photos it doesn't seem that way. On the other hand, the SoS was a huge ship and in 1/90 scale it's a great model.

On 9/9/2020 at 5:06 PM, amateur said:

Hi Doris,

 

Your rigging looks absolutely wonderful. (do you make the rope yourself, or do you have a source for that?)

 

The only thing I do not quite understand is the rigging of your top-rope: you used a sheeve rather high in foot of the topmast, I would have expected a sheeve somewhere further down the heel of the topmast (like in Andersons book pages 176/177). Rigging it through a lower sheeve would enable lifting the mast above the level of the cross trees.

 

 

[edit, 10 sept].

And looking again, I realized that the set-up is exactly as in Anderson, but not with a single, but a double top-rope. I should have seen the other rope going down. 

Did take me some time to understand that what I expected to see, is on the other side of the masttop. (And thus not visible in your pics as all pics show the same side of the model)

 

I should have seen it at once yesterday. As one of my teachers said: please think before you are going to ask silly questions....

 

Jan

Hello Jan, 

I make all ropes myself using ordinary ropewalk from Amati.

And about top-ropes - no problem, I am grateful for feedback and notification of possible errors. Exactly, I made them according to Anderson; in fact the rope on starboard side is placed a little higher - it should have been approximately in the middle, but there is a metal reinforcement inside the mast and this did not allow me drill a hole through. 

But I was already trying to move the rope a little lower to make it even more in line with reality. It's a bit visible here on the masthead. The top-rope on main mast is meanwhile without change:

https://www.modelforum.cz/download/file.php?id=1617212

 I found inspiration for example here at this museum model:

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/65964.html

On 9/9/2020 at 8:57 PM, English Rebel said:

I would love to know how you cut out the cards. Looking at them I'm sure you didn't do them by hand. The bird reminds me of this build where a parrot takes center stage and looks down at the chickens with an element of superiority. 

Look forward to following your build as you have a very unique method of construction.

Alan

Hello Alan, 

In fact, all these parts are hand made, I use common tools. I gradually add layers and glue them together, then I cut each newly glued layer with a scalpel. Finally, I sand the edges and close them with a glue.

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Yesterday I finished  ratlines on starboard shrouds, now I will continue on the other side and also add the upper catharpins (by Lees):

Have a nice day and enjoy the pics. 

And here are the current photos of the model as it looks these days:

I slightly shortened the length of the main and front yards to more closely match the proportions of the real ship.

Previous version:

current version:

Backstays and topmast + togallant shrouds.....

And other rigging.....

The corwfeet on round tops with hand made wooden blocks:

Although the masts of the Royal Katherine model are based on the proportions of Lenox's masts in Endsor's book, I found the mastheads too short and decided to make a radical adjustment.

Original appearance:

Thanks to this change the mastheads have the exact length now:

And finally it was time for the rigging ....

Here I have started with top-ropes. Wooden blocks are also modified to achieve more realistic look as it was on 17th century English ships ......

Completely assembled masts:

I will use CNC blocks from HISModel, for a long time I am very satisfied with high level of quality and service of this eshop. 

https://www.hismodel.com/articles-category-1

https://www.hismodel.com/articles-category-19

In addition, I can save a lot of time than if I made everything by hand. I tried it as well, but I would spend about a whole year to make my own wooden block. Time is too precious for me.

And here they are during the completion:

The tops are made mostly of card, but I also used wooden ribs to achieve higher solidity: