ken3335

Hello Everyone,     The building continues.
 
I've taken Marks advice and dry fitted the upper decks to get the correct placement for the mizzen mast support  which fixes onto the lower deck. The middle deck supplied needed the front cut off to fit as it was shaped to go right through to the bow but it should terminate at the first bulkhead, having seen this on other logs it didn't worry me thinking that perhaps I had done something wrong. Other than that both decks which were in halves fitted very well with only some slots needing to be opened a little, the depth of all slots on both decks needed to be about 2mm deeper so that the deck halves didn't overlap in the middle.
I've seen this kit get criticised for not being accurate and being difficult to get right, I'll add my bit. I feel that I am competent but not a very experienced builder, I am probably in the honeymoon period of building it and may later change my opinion but so far the basic structure for the hull has gone very smoothly without any issues, everything lines up and fits well and the quality of the materials has been excellent, it gives me confidence for the rest of the build.
I am showing quite a few pictures so that you can see for yourselves the fit of the parts, the lower deck is glued, the middle and upper are just dry fitted.

Hi Ken, to go to the bottom of your log, click on the 2 little arrows to the right of the page list (if more than 1 page has been posted), and then the END key on your computer. That will take you to the last post in your log.
 
Vince P. 

Hello All.  Continuing, I cut out the two blocks that are to form the bow and started to shape them according to the plan templates. I used my small Davids plane, a chisel and sanding blocks, I hadn't realised just how much effort this would take and how much dust and wood shavings it would create. I ended up after being strongly advised by my wife finishing the job outside in the garden, but she did make me a cup of tea. When they were near enough to shape I glued them in place. I then glued the four quarters of gun deck into place. I've already mentioned how well this deck fitted but it came as a pleasant surprise, this is the best fit that I've yet had in a kit. After liberally gluing I nailed along the middle and held the outer edge with clips. I made up and attached the fore and main mast steps in the keel then went for a game of bowls.
 
When I returned the glue for the bow blocks had cured so I sanded it further into shape, I'll finish it off when I sand and fair the hull ready for planking.
 
I'm very pleased with the way the build is coming together so far.

Hello All.  Continuing, I cut out the two blocks that are to form the bow and started to shape them according to the plan templates. I used my small Davids plane, a chisel and sanding blocks, I hadn't realised just how much effort this would take and how much dust and wood shavings it would create. I ended up after being strongly advised by my wife finishing the job outside in the garden, but she did make me a cup of tea. When they were near enough to shape I glued them in place. I then glued the four quarters of gun deck into place. I've already mentioned how well this deck fitted but it came as a pleasant surprise, this is the best fit that I've yet had in a kit. After liberally gluing I nailed along the middle and held the outer edge with clips. I made up and attached the fore and main mast steps in the keel then went for a game of bowls.
 
When I returned the glue for the bow blocks had cured so I sanded it further into shape, I'll finish it off when I sand and fair the hull ready for planking.
 
I'm very pleased with the way the build is coming together so far.

Thanks mate haha yeah it's been awhile. Been a very crazy couple years with work, house moves and a divorce. But in a better place now where I can relax and enjoy my hobbies again  
 
Thank you for the kind words. You should definitely start a log. Experience doesn't matt r as long as you enjoy what you're doing, plus encourages other newbies to start. Before your know it you'll have a few builds under your belt and experience will come. 
Haha thanks Ken, no race just a lot of spare time thus break  

Hi Anton, I was browsing and came across your build log, I'm interested, and will certainly be following. It looks good and is off to a very rapid start, it looks like we have a race on. A beer for the winner.
 
Ken

Hi Anton, I was browsing and came across your build log, I'm interested, and will certainly be following. It looks good and is off to a very rapid start, it looks like we have a race on. A beer for the winner.
 
Ken

Hello All.  Continuing, I cut out the two blocks that are to form the bow and started to shape them according to the plan templates. I used my small Davids plane, a chisel and sanding blocks, I hadn't realised just how much effort this would take and how much dust and wood shavings it would create. I ended up after being strongly advised by my wife finishing the job outside in the garden, but she did make me a cup of tea. When they were near enough to shape I glued them in place. I then glued the four quarters of gun deck into place. I've already mentioned how well this deck fitted but it came as a pleasant surprise, this is the best fit that I've yet had in a kit. After liberally gluing I nailed along the middle and held the outer edge with clips. I made up and attached the fore and main mast steps in the keel then went for a game of bowls.
 
When I returned the glue for the bow blocks had cured so I sanded it further into shape, I'll finish it off when I sand and fair the hull ready for planking.
 
I'm very pleased with the way the build is coming together so far.

Hi Anton, I was browsing and came across your build log, I'm interested, and will certainly be following. It looks good and is off to a very rapid start, it looks like we have a race on. A beer for the winner.
 
Ken

Haha well Saschas far from poor has the run of the house and keeps me company in the shed. Which reminds me to me to take her for a walk and release some of her energy 

Hi Ken I just found your log it is off to an excellent start and very well documented ,I will be keen to follow along

Hello All.  Continuing, I cut out the two blocks that are to form the bow and started to shape them according to the plan templates. I used my small Davids plane, a chisel and sanding blocks, I hadn't realised just how much effort this would take and how much dust and wood shavings it would create. I ended up after being strongly advised by my wife finishing the job outside in the garden, but she did make me a cup of tea. When they were near enough to shape I glued them in place. I then glued the four quarters of gun deck into place. I've already mentioned how well this deck fitted but it came as a pleasant surprise, this is the best fit that I've yet had in a kit. After liberally gluing I nailed along the middle and held the outer edge with clips. I made up and attached the fore and main mast steps in the keel then went for a game of bowls.
 
When I returned the glue for the bow blocks had cured so I sanded it further into shape, I'll finish it off when I sand and fair the hull ready for planking.
 
I'm very pleased with the way the build is coming together so far.

Hello All.  Continuing, I cut out the two blocks that are to form the bow and started to shape them according to the plan templates. I used my small Davids plane, a chisel and sanding blocks, I hadn't realised just how much effort this would take and how much dust and wood shavings it would create. I ended up after being strongly advised by my wife finishing the job outside in the garden, but she did make me a cup of tea. When they were near enough to shape I glued them in place. I then glued the four quarters of gun deck into place. I've already mentioned how well this deck fitted but it came as a pleasant surprise, this is the best fit that I've yet had in a kit. After liberally gluing I nailed along the middle and held the outer edge with clips. I made up and attached the fore and main mast steps in the keel then went for a game of bowls.
 
When I returned the glue for the bow blocks had cured so I sanded it further into shape, I'll finish it off when I sand and fair the hull ready for planking.
 
I'm very pleased with the way the build is coming together so far.

Hello All.  Continuing, I cut out the two blocks that are to form the bow and started to shape them according to the plan templates. I used my small Davids plane, a chisel and sanding blocks, I hadn't realised just how much effort this would take and how much dust and wood shavings it would create. I ended up after being strongly advised by my wife finishing the job outside in the garden, but she did make me a cup of tea. When they were near enough to shape I glued them in place. I then glued the four quarters of gun deck into place. I've already mentioned how well this deck fitted but it came as a pleasant surprise, this is the best fit that I've yet had in a kit. After liberally gluing I nailed along the middle and held the outer edge with clips. I made up and attached the fore and main mast steps in the keel then went for a game of bowls.
 
When I returned the glue for the bow blocks had cured so I sanded it further into shape, I'll finish it off when I sand and fair the hull ready for planking.
 
I'm very pleased with the way the build is coming together so far.

Hello Everyone,      Many thanks for your responses to my questions. Mark your suggestion about how I should proceed makes complete sense and is the way to go, I would probably have gone astray there and regretted it later.
I downloaded and printed Pete's "An Interpretive Build" along with the English plan translation from the Euromodel web site. Pete should be congratulated for putting such a complete and professionally presented document of this build together and making it readily available. I also managed to get a copy of Keith Jullier's book from EBay.
 
The build continues but more of that later. Perhaps it has happened to others as well but this project is causing a bit of a lifestyle change at home, for good or bad only time will tell. I mentioned earlier that I share a room for modelling with my wife who has the larger half for her office/study, it was a pleasant cosy area, nicely carpeted with pictures and wall hangings. Now the pictures have mostly been removed and every available space has been covered with the plans, it seems that whenever she comes into the room she has to negotiate the plans laid out on the floor. I have a vacuum cleaner permanently set up by my bench as I foolishly promised to keep the area clean and free from sawdust, I really meant to at the time. Today I started carving and sanding the bow blocks, have you seen just how much dust and wood shavings this creates, needless to say I got another yellow card and was sent outside to continue in the garden.  I think that I need to factor into the cost of building this model the cost of several meals out buy way of appeasement to keep her onboard .
 

Hello Everyone,  First I would like to thank those members that gave me the thumbs up, it's encouraging to feel that someone is out there and following my build.
The build continues. After yesterdays successful start today I put the six stringers in and the blocks on the rear bulkhead. The stringers are 4mm x 6mm, they needed to be bent on the 6mm width and the bend at the bow was such that I didn't think that it would be easy. I soaked the front 6" in boiling water for a few hours but the first one that I tried split, fortunately there was plenty left in the length. I had read somewhere that ammonia  softens the resins in wood, we had some in the house so I soaked the ends in it for about an hour after which the were quite pliable and bent easily.
The next problem was how to hold them firmly in place whilst the glue dried, I thought that the way the deck supports had been made lent the use of small cable ties to be used. I attached the first at the bow and when I attached and tightened the others they pulled the stringers into there respective slots and formed the necessary curve. The stringers went readily into there slots with only the slightest of adjustments, looking along the line of them they appear to run nicely with only one about 1mm out, I think that I've been lucky so far. The filler blocks at the rear at first caused a bit of confusion as to the correct placement, I took note of what Vince did and copied that.
 
I got my first "Yellow Card" from my wife!  She objected to the house smelling like the toilets of a pub on a Saturday night, so in future no ammonia in the house.
 
A question. I will be fixing the lower gun deck soon, is there any good reason why I shouldn't fix the middle gun deck at the same time. A previous build used long strips instead of individual ones for the dummy gun carriages and they worked well for me, I was thinking of fitting these at the same time as the decks, your thoughts on this.

Hello Everyone,    Have you ever felt keen to start a new build but apprehensive of actually making that first cut, it's the moment of no turning back, you are committed. Well I find myself in that position now so here goes, wish me luck.
I started by cleaning up the bulkheads and the very substantial keel, 10mm thick ply, which was quite true. The ply parts on my kits to date have already been numbered so here is the first difference, I had to identify the parts from the excellent plans, I quite liked that simple difference as I now even at this early stage feel more engaged with the build.
I dry fitted the bulkheads and found that as has been said by others they were a very loose fit, the keel slots were about 1.5mm too large and needed packing, the bulkhead slots were a good fit, just a little tight needing a light sand to allow for glue in the joint but I could find no issues at this stage. I tapered the rear of the keel by about 5mm but there is still plenty of wood left.
I decided to go about gluing and aligning the bulkheads in a sequence that was slightly different from what others seem to do, it worked out extremely well and is the method that I will use in the future, I'll add pictures but what I did was to take Peters advice from his "Interpretive Build" and carefully mark the centre of each bulkhead at the top, I then glued bulkhead 1 which is the central one into place, I made particular effort to get this first one perfectly square and true then let it cure overnight. This morning I did the same with the front and the rear bulkheads using the centre marks to line them up and making sure that the lower gun deck fitted. After the glue had grabbed but not cured I then did the in-between bulkheads, other than quickly checking that they were square it proved very easy just looking down the centre line to align them perfectly, the eye quickly picked up even a 1mm difference. When the glue had grabbed I slotted the lower gun deck into place and found that it went in perfectly with  only a little encouragement, much easier that I had been expecting.
 
I took the pictures quite soon after and on looking at them I noticed that one of the bulkheads was slightly out of true and needed adjusting and that the second one from the front was sitting too high, this seemed strange as it was fully home in the keel, I have adjusted this lower now and hope that there wasn't a reason that I haven't spotted for it being higher. Well the first cut has well and truly been made, no going back now. 
 
 
 

Hello Everyone, Thanks for all your encouraging remarks it gives me confidence knowing that there's a world of support out there. I know what you mean about putting a little bit of extra into the build and the pleasure that it can add, I did a bit on the Fly, the ships boat was a scratch build, my first attempt. I didn't like the bare look of the waist without one so got I carried away. What I don't want is to get so focused on small detail that the main build grinds to a halt. I have a slight problem with my hand having lost a couple of fingers, it's not really an issue but with small fiddly stuff especially tiny blocks I can get frustrated and annoyed with with myself, it's this that I want to avoid as it might dampen my enthusiasm for the build

Hello Everyone.
 
I am going to start building the Royal William by Euromodel.
 
First I will introduce myself. My name is Ken, I am 70 years old, retired and I live in the north west of England. I started building model boats from kits about six years ago not as a serious builder with a passion for accuracy or perfection but as a pleasant way to pass my time and that is how I will approach this build.
 
This will be my fifth build and thanks to following some of the many excellent build logs posted on this site I have improved to a point where I feel that I really should try a challenging project, believe me this build will put me way beyond my comfort zone.
 
This will be my first build log, having benefited from other members hard work I somehow feel an obligation to contribute. I will need to get a grip of photographing my work and learn how to post, I don't use social media, I'm of the generation that didn't come to grips with it and already it feels like homework so bear with me.
 
My intention for this build is to first start with the mindset to see it through to completion, I have seen too many builds come to nought because builders get so engrossed with detail and expect perfection during the early stages that they make no progress and get disheartened. I will build it as much as possible just with what is supplied in the kit and I will leave the enhancing, fine detailing and perfect technique for others who are more competent. I hope to learn a lot along the way but initially you will probably see what many of us do, get a kit and muddle through as best as we can.
 
I shan't go into details about the kit as there are already excellent in depth logs already on this site that I couldn't improve on, I agree with most of what has already been said
but would add that this is a very different kit to any others that I've seen and I'm not disappointed with what I got.
 
For building I don't have the luxury of a well equipped  workshop but have the use of a corner of an office/study that I share with my wife. I have a six foot worktop, a Proxxon drill and sander and a selection of hand tools to use, again like many this is just what we have. Wish me luck.
 
I've just tried downloading some pics and found it quite easy, they are my work place and a couple of my last build, HMS Fly. The plan gives some idea of the size difference.
 

Fantastic! I'll be following this build. Hopefully i'll finish my build before you, given my 3 year head start  

Thanks for the warning, the printer is now covered. My wife wants a new, very expensive sewing machine and to buy her a replacement laser printer as well would have hurt.
 

it would be wise to put something over the printer so the dust doesn't get in there or you will end up buying a new printer, trust me I learn that the hard way LOL.

Yes, a very nice work place (hopefully the printer don't mind some dust...)  I will follow this build with interest!! 
 
Niklas

That's a comfortable looking workspace! I have a small shed which I have all my tools set up in. It's ok in size with lights and power but gets hot during the day even with the doors open and freezing at nights recently. Luckily my girl prefers if I'm in the house for some reason so if it's not too messy I can work in the living area. But I'm on top of cleaning after every model shift haha to keep that privilege 

Hello Everyone,      Many thanks for your responses to my questions. Mark your suggestion about how I should proceed makes complete sense and is the way to go, I would probably have gone astray there and regretted it later.
I downloaded and printed Pete's "An Interpretive Build" along with the English plan translation from the Euromodel web site. Pete should be congratulated for putting such a complete and professionally presented document of this build together and making it readily available. I also managed to get a copy of Keith Jullier's book from EBay.
 
The build continues but more of that later. Perhaps it has happened to others as well but this project is causing a bit of a lifestyle change at home, for good or bad only time will tell. I mentioned earlier that I share a room for modelling with my wife who has the larger half for her office/study, it was a pleasant cosy area, nicely carpeted with pictures and wall hangings. Now the pictures have mostly been removed and every available space has been covered with the plans, it seems that whenever she comes into the room she has to negotiate the plans laid out on the floor. I have a vacuum cleaner permanently set up by my bench as I foolishly promised to keep the area clean and free from sawdust, I really meant to at the time. Today I started carving and sanding the bow blocks, have you seen just how much dust and wood shavings this creates, needless to say I got another yellow card and was sent outside to continue in the garden.  I think that I need to factor into the cost of building this model the cost of several meals out buy way of appeasement to keep her onboard .