NMBROOK

Hello Mick,
 
thanks for your nice comment.
Have just finished the bottom plating and put the hull back on the stand again. There still remain some small areas at the stern to be plated...
 
Nils
 

 
removed the stand plate, and left the 3 spindles standing
 
 

 
 

 
 

 
the last bottom plate was put on this afternoon..
 
 

 
 

 
here the staggered vertical joints can be well seen...
 
 

 
 

Good morning Denis,
 
Thank you very much for your appreciation,... it takes some time to get all those plates in the right positions and in alignment, whereby the rivet joints must be stagered in vertical direction. Am now downwards at hight of the bilge keels...
the shaft housings and the tailcone are a bit tricky..
 
Nils
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

A little update on the plating job....
 
the plates are are rubbed down on the wooden planking by meams of a soft erazor untill all the overlapping joints are thoroughly pressed down, so there will be no trapped air-boils underneath, The rubber debris from the erazor is then wiped away with a soft brush, before the next stripe goes on
 
Nils
 

 
The table guillotine is very handy for straight, clean cuts
 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

Build log part 21
 
 
Update : begin of metal-plating.....
 
after determining the positions and hights of the horizontal belts with the dummy tapes, the metal plating can begin. I chose the technique with leaving a gap between first and third belt, and then mounting the second overlapping the other two in the riveting areas. The downward next shall be done likewise.....
The rivets are ponced with modul 0,5 watchmakers toothwheel (single-row and tripple-row)
 
 
Nils
 

 
Unfortunately I do`nt have a close up pic of the KWdG riveting, but this is showing a close up of the "Imperator`s" plating
 
 

 
single- and tripple row ponce toothwheels, modul 0,5
 
 

 
larger plates around the stern...
 
 

 
shows the gap between first and third belt
 
 

 
for withstanding the high stresses in length direction, here the second belt`s edges bears riveting fields on top and bottom. The middle section of that belt will take the portholes afterwards
 
 

 
the hull rails are not overplated
 
 

Many thanks for your appreciation Mick,
 
it wo`nt take long any more with the "skin" ......
 
 
 
Here is a little update, the front of the lower deck housing, and the top small bulwark at the bow
 
Nils
 
 
 

 
this complete rounded section fits in and closes the front of the lower deck housing
The handrails are from 0,5mm brass wire
 
 

 
the little red chocks (removed later on) are only for precise positioning and aligning the sides of the promenade deck
 
 

 
for smooth transitions I preferably use 2K polyester filler
 
 

 
this deck housing is held down and in place by 4 screws
Unfortunately the surface of the stands upper plate carried away a bad stain failure, I`ll have to grind the whole surface over, or glue / iron a sheet of veneer on it, but that will wait untill all other is done
 
 

 
the last aft part of the poop is covered by ply, with a coaming rail to surround the deck planking later on. The step at the edge is to take up the L-profile where the railing will be soldered against. I intend to do the entire promenade deck edge to the sides in this way

Build log part 20
 
 
putting the hull to the stand first time and marking / checking the waterline
 
 
Nils
 

 
due to the length a 3-pedestal stand is adequate
 
 

 
the brass pedestals are from candle holders, drilled with 4 mm centerholes  for the three M4 spindles that are anchored securely in the ship`s "backbone"
 
 

 
the waterline has been marked with a soft pencil, all around
 
 

 
 

 

Thanks Boyd,
 
it still will take some time before I can mount the railings........., but here, upfront, is a little hand scetch how I intend to do so. This is what my thoughts are circling about.....
Probably I`ll have to solder the railing stripes to the brass L-profiles and the cap rails and final-paint them prior to mounting on the ship
 
Nils
 

 
scetch showing an outcut of the forecastle deck, the railing will be three or four wire only...

Thanks very much Martin,
 
I have now made the forecastle deck, planked it and put it on permanently, further the anchor tubes dry fitted in with flanges on the sides.
Some days ago I bought some photo etched copper railing stripes (5 wire plus handrail). Will need to do some trials how to fasten these best. The stripes are only 8mm high (scale 1:144)
 
Nils
 
 

 
the forecastle deck planked with 2mm wide and 0,8 mm thick stips of pinewood
 
 

 
raw fit, the flange base for the deck side tube ends
 
 

 
I think these stripes can be soldered to L-typ profiles and then fixed to the edges of the deck-planking
 
 

 
a view under the forecastle deck....
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

Thanks guys. I have been following the other logs & am aware of some of the issues. I dry fitted the bulkheads to the keel former & found I had to make a few adjustments to the slots in the forward bulkheads like the rest of you. Also frame F is a little short at the top - will need to add a shim across the top. After making those adjustments everything lined up nicely.
 

 

 
Mark
 
 

Thank you Ulises,my old bookmark didn't work with the new format.I have redone it now  
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Thank you Ulises,my old bookmark didn't work with the new format.I have redone it now  
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Great work Ulises Sadly the link I gave you for the build on the Russian forum seems to have disappeared.They were doing some changes a couple of weeks ago,hopefully it will rematerialise in the future.
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Hi all - this will be my attempt at building the Royal William from Euromodel. I say attempt because I consider my skills as just average. Upon opening the very heavy box I took a few pictures of the contents.All the bulkheads & the keel former are nicely laser cut. The keel former is good & straight but some of the bulkheads are warped a little. The contents include the usual fittings & a lot of cast metal pieces - most nicely done. There are 17 sheets of very nicely done 1:1 plans & a lot of strip wood which seems to be good quality.
 

 

 

 
Mark
 
 

Thank you Ulises,my old bookmark didn't work with the new format.I have redone it now  
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Thanks a lot for the likes and comments Michael and David B. I can't wait to see it finished myself.
 
Nigel: I could enter the forum. It seems to have a different format. Try this link: http://gallery.shipmodeling.ru/

Great work Ulises Sadly the link I gave you for the build on the Russian forum seems to have disappeared.They were doing some changes a couple of weeks ago,hopefully it will rematerialise in the future.
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Hello shipmates, I managed to install the pin racks, stanchions and handrails to the bow deck... :)
Thank you for all the likes and vistis to my build log.
 
Kind Regards
Dimitris

This is the last edition of the slideshow. Hopefully successful.
The following vehicles will certainly be. I very much hope that the next time I will have more time to show the technology works in more detail. Although I note that recently I often use digital technology and precision equipment. This aspect is not very useful for the creation of the classic models of the ships so little use.

Nigel, Ferit, and Frank thanks for your kind remarks, as well for the "likes".
 
As I have said before I have learned so much from looking at and reading the wonderful build logs here at MSW. Still learning but getting better (:-)
 
Regards,
 
Michael

Hello shipmates, David B-Patrick--Jeff-Nigel (NMBROOK) ,I appreciate your kind words of support .
Nils-Brian-Don-Nigel I do thank you for your visits to my build log and also for your likes.
 
I was thinking how to simulate the black plates under the eyepins that are placed throughout the deck. So i found these plastic pieces from packaging... I painted them black and i cut them in half . I drilled them, and then put the eyepins inside. 8 are ready, 72 to go... :angry:  Also the 2 windlasses on the stern deck are in place.
 
Kind Regards
Dimitris

Теперь мой друг и фотограф Геннадий Баши сделал слайд-шоу.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d6sbyzZLvw&feature=youtu.be
Я настаивал на музыку Сметаны, Вивальди, Бизе. Тем не менее, это также хороший выбор правильно.

Mortar Barrel continued....
 
Once the barrel had been bored, it was time to part off the workpiece to its final length and shape the base end.  A mandrel was then turned down from some aluminium bar stock, so that it was an easy slide fit in to the barrel, and this was then drilled with a 3/32” end mill, using the same set-up on the Mill as previously.  The mandrel was then placed inside the barrel and a securing pin of 3/32” brass rod was inserted to hold the mandrel securely in place. The pin was a tight push fit, which made the whole assembly quite secure.
 

 
Now it was time to break out the “secret weapon”.  The base of the Mortar Barrel is a hemisphere in shape.  I’d been pondering how to achieve this, when I discovered that Sherline make a “Radius Turning Attachment” for exactly this purpose.  Happy days – a solution to my quandary AND a new accessory!     
 
Here is a picture of the setup, showing the mortar barrel being held in a 3-jaw self-centring chuck by the temporary mandrel.  The radius turning tool is mounted on the cross slide and is quick and easy to set-up and to use.  In this picture, I’ve already started to shape the end, having taken the first couple of passes with the tool.
 

 
A few minutes later and voilà, a perfect hemisphere:
 

 
Prior to commencing to use the radius turning tool, I had used a small centre drill to mark the centre of the end of the base.  Once the radius had been turned, a 3/16” end mill was inserted in the tailstock, and a hole drilled to a depth of 5/16” – the reason will become clear shortly.
 
With this hole drilled, the workpiece was again moved across, with the chuck, onto the rotary table on the Mill, this time mounted in the horizontal position.  The 3/16” end mill was transferred to the Mill and the previously bored hole was used to index the mill table into alignment. The pin in the mandrel was used as a guide to align the barrel such that a slot could now be cut at 90-degrees to the pin. In the following picture, the slot has already been cut to the depth of the previously bored hole (ie 5/16”).
 

 
The base of the mortar barrel is an interesting configuration, and includes the trunnion bar that also blends into the mortar barrel body.  I elected to make this in two pieces, both from 3/16” square stock. The first piece would carry a trapezoid shape to blend into the barrel body, while the second piece would have its end turned into a cylindrical shape to form the trunnions.  Sounds complex, but was really quite easy.  A piece of 1/4" square stock was first re-sized to 3/16” square using the Brynes disc sander. The trapezoid shape was also achieved using the disc sander, while the trunnion bar was simply turned down on each end in the lathe.  Here is a picture of the components prior to assembly:
 

 
The pieces were then assembled and the mandrel and locating pin removed. The hole from the locating pin was filled by a mixture of PVA glue and some of those ebony shavings saved from the first part of the process.  Two handles were made by bending a piece of 1/32” brass wire, chemically blackened and epoxied in place.  Here is the final product prior to receiving a coat of Wipe-On Poly:
 

 
 
And here it is with a “test” fit to the Turntable:
 

 
The completed assembly was given a coat of Wipe-On Poly, and then posed in the firing position for a few final photos (the poly is not yet dry here, hence the slight sheen):
 

 

 
 

 
All in all, I’m well pleased with the way this turned out.  Time spent up front measuring and working out the workflow process was well invested, as was the money spent on the radius turning attachment.  Amazingly, there were no re-dos in the entire process!     Next up – the 4-pounder guns and carriages. 

Thanks again one and all for all the encouraging comments and the "likes".  Life's been a bit hectic lately, so it's been a little while between updates.  I also needed to do some thinking about the next stage, as well as acquiring a new "secret weapon" (more on that later).  At last, this weekend I got to spend some quality time in the shipyard and am well pleased with the results.  I have completed the making of the Mortar Barrel, and documented my process fairly thoroughly in the hope that it may help others who progress down this path, or who (like me) are still novices in the world of machining. This post will therefore be in two parts.
 
The Mortar Barrel
 
The Mortar Barrel is another challenging but fun mini-project in its own right. 
 

 
I decided to turn the Barrel from Ebony, so the starting point was a 1” square piece of Ebony about 90mm long. I chucked this in a self-centring 4-jaw chuck, drilled a centre hole in one end, and mounted it with a live centre.
 

 
The first job was turn the square to a round, with a diameter equal to the maximum diameter of the Mortar Barrel.  Not having much experience in turning Ebony (or anything else for that matter) I used only very light cuts of about 0.25mm depth – it took a while!
 

 
And here’s what was removed to allow the cylinder to emerge:
 

 
Once that little mess was cleaned up, it was time to cut in the various sections of the barrel and reinforcing bands.  I had spent quite a bit of time with the drawings and a ruler measuring where all of these went, and writing myself a set of step-by-step instructions to make the task easier.  This paid off and all went well.  I had to do quite a bit of swapping out of cutting bit from right to left hand bits, and while this is no big deal, it did illustrate the advantage of having a quick-change tool post. (Something to add to the never-ending “accessories to purchase” list!).
 

 
At this point I decided it was a good time to drill the holes to take the “handles”, so the whole piece was transferred in the chuck to the Milling machine.  I mounted the chuck directly onto the rotary table, which itself was mounted on a right-angle attachment.  A right angle tailstock completed the setup, and we were ready to use the sensitive drill attachment, equipped with a No.67 drill bit.  The rotary table was used to position two sets of holes, 60 degrees apart.
 

 
While still in this configuration, I swapped out the drilling attachment for a 3/32” end mill, rotated the piece so that bottom dead centre was facing up, and drilled a hole near where the bottom of the barrel bore would be (more on that shortly).
 
Then it was time to transfer the workpiece, still in the chuck, back to the lathe, where a 5/16” end mill was used to bore out the bore.  An end mill was used in preference to a drill bit for this as it has cutting edges on the sides as well as the end, and so makes a very neat job. The bore was taken down to the bottom of what would become the mid-section of the barrel. (It was very difficult to get a decent photo of this on the lathe).
 

 
Continued next post........
 
 

Gun Port Adjustments
 
At this point, I would like to acknowledge the advice/assistance of master modeller Dan Pariser.  
 
After posting my previous progress report, Dan very kindly sent me a PM noting the discrepancies in the heights of the gunport openings.  These are quite obvious in the last two photos of my previous update.  The ports had been constructed according to the drawings, with only the aft port closed on all four sides, and the middle and forward ports being open to the sheer rail.  There may also have been some accumulated error at play here as well. I had been feeling uneasy about this aspect myself, so when it was noted by Dan I just knew I couldn’t leave it as it was.
 
First of all, I made up a rough dummy canon block from some scrap MDF to check the height of the lower edges of the ports:
 

 

 
This showed that the aft port on the starboard side was considerably lower than the others on that side, so I had to extend the height of this port before adding a larger fillet to the bottom of it.  Next, I made up some fillet stock by laminating some scraps of Pear, Yellow Heart and Red Heart:
 

 
Then I cut some fillets roughly to length and then individually sized them to suit each gunport using the Byrnes disc sander:

 
The fillets were then glued in place in their respective gunport. The surrounding area was given a light sand and a coat of Wipe-On Poly to blend with the surrounding area.
 

 

 
Although there remain some visible joints, I think this looks better than the odd sized ports.  With the 20/20 vision of hindsight, these fixes would have been better done prior to the addition of internal and external planking.  Had I done this, the fix would have remained invisible.  Lesson learned.  
 
Thanks again Dan for bringing this to my attention.

The shipyard has been closed for most of the weekend as we mourn the passing of the Shipyard Supervisor, Sam the Chocolate Labrador. After a lengthy battle with pharyngeal paralysis over the last year, Sam was put to sleep by our Vet on Saturday morning.  He went peacefully, in his favourite bed in the sun in our family room, with the Admiral and I by his side. We miss him terribly but remember fondly the 13 years of love and devotion he gave us. I thought I would share a few photos of my best mate and shadow for so long.
 
Sam came to us as a one-year-old pup:
 

 
It didn't take him long to work out that the most comfortable seat in the house was mine.  Here he is, a couple of years ago, aged 12:
 

 
More recently, at the grand old age of 14, he's had a young playmate for company and he's been very tolerant of her:
 

 
They liked to share the sunshine together:
 

 
I miss him like crazy, but will always smile when I think of him with those doleful eyes and the tail that never stopped wagging.