amateur

I discovered that I do not have any (!) pictures taken of the build up of the gallion.... I don't know why, presumably becasue it was not the easiest part to make, as I did some adjustents to the lion, and to the bow, so the ready made etched parts did not really fit well....

Knees of the head Here my own lack of planking skills was very visible (remember: PW was an dis my very first "real" kit) The positioning of the hawse holes if not as it should be, as the wales should (but aren't) almost horizontal towards the stern. And painted black: Visible on this last pic is a slight adaptation I made to the kit: I removed the top-layer of the plywoodkeel, and replaced it with a new top-layer, which reflects the historic correct build-up of the stern. Jan

Ed, Thanks for taking the time to repost. Your log is so full of info, we'll definitely be patient, as it is well worth waiting for! Jan

In all these years, I discovered a couple of 'historically incorrect' things in the kit, but no major construction errors. However, there was one serious mistake in the Corel kit. I think the kit had a redesign somewhere in its history. The photoetched parts were not compeltely matching the drawings (one doorpost too many), and one part seriously too large. The width of the deck is less than drawing and etched parts assume. The result is that there is a mismatch of about 1 cm between drawing and the model. Some cheating to get things fitted was necessary: I had to takle small corners out of the doorposts, in order to position them slightly more to the centre of the ship than indicated in the drawing. Also, the two outermost placed figures between the two decks, had to undergo some surgery, and I made indentations in the ships sides to get them placed properly. The four figures to be placed left and right of the doors, were placed on top of the doors. Finally, the strip above was the major problem: it did not fit, and due to the pattern there was no way to shorten it, while preserving the whole thing aligned. So I replaced that one with a version of thin cardboard (again, being glad that I decided to pain the whole ship)

Next were the golden parts on the side galleries: The white stuff you can see here is not filler, it is the glue I used. I used kind of gap filling, montage kit. slow curing, remaining a bit elastic. As the fit of many of the metal parts was lousy, this gap filling stuff worked fine with me (especially, while the stuf can be easily cut with a knife when dry) On this pic, you can see a second change I made to the kit: part of the smaller ports in the hull were assumed to be gunports by Corel. However, on the ketting drawing there is no deck behind it (at least not at such a level that a gun could be placed at the port) Ketting assumes that these ports are just for ventilation/light. I decided to keep these ports closed. So they were not actually made as ports, they were just cut into the planks, using a small chisel.

I'll try to give you a short reminder of what she looked before the pic above. I started her as early as the year 2000. (birthday present from my wife, which I told her would do for about four birthdays ) I had the book of Ketting onthe PW in my posession a long time before 2000. So I decided at the start that I would follow the kit, but would try to make some adjustments to get her more in line with the drawings in Ketting. I did this in a more or less informal way: a look at the Coreldrawing, a look at the book, and make something taht looked OK. Over the years, I discovered that I should have planned these adjustments a bit more carefully, as I had some repairs, adjustmants and changes to make which could have been avoided if the changes had been more carefully planned. I bought my first digital camera in 2007, so the first I can show you, is how she looked then. Although not complettely in focus, you can see the first change I made to the kit: I changed the size and position of the gunports: Corel positions them right between the wales over the full length of the ship, Ketting shows the more usual run for Durtch ships: the sheer of the wales being larger that the curvature of the deck, so the aftermost ports do get into the wales. (Later I realized I should have done so with the round ports at the upper deck, also. Too late to change them now.) Finally, something I did not change, but should have done: Corel makes the width of the high stern too large: the lower end has the correct width, the upper deck (and thus the width of the stern) should have been considerably smaller. You can see that there is much filler between the golden pieces, and some bare, grey metal showing. This is because the quality of the castings was not to good. So some action was needed to get things fitted to the stern. I had deceided to paint the whole thing, even before I discovered these problems. (That's why you can see red in the gunports, and white on the hull (which I discovered afterwards, should have been a couple of milimeter's higher up, but again: too late for that now

Thisis how she was, one and a half year ago. And to be honest, she is sitting on the table next to me, and I don't see much of a difference More will follow soon. Jan

I once had a build log of my Prins Willem here on MSW. I also had a backup of it on my PC. Some months ago I deleted that one.... I wish I hadn't done so I will try to recreate some of it over the next weekends. Perhaps that will give me some inspiration to continue her rigging, as I haven't done much over that last months. Jan