edmay

Still some sanding, filling and final touches needs to be done

Working on the bow
Pic 12 shows how I after soaking the plank let it run along the previous planking marking a few referencepoints on both the plank to be and the plank already fitted.
Pic 13 shows how I took messurements at each referencepoint using the dividers and transfering them to the plank creating a line along which the plank needs to be tapered. Ingenious is it not 
 
Pic 14: The final cut   (Yes I am a Pink Floyd fan)

Hello Stp,  ,Our language is to" Enjoy model ship building" Your Victory is looking real nice ,mistakes are part of learning ,  well done .Edwin

Stage one is to decide how may strakes I want to use in one go, in this case I chose 5 strakes, holding the m up midship and drawing a line along the lowest one I get a battenline where 5 strakes will fit midships....... So far so good.......
 
I then place a strake along this line and letting it run naturally along the hull fore and aft, drawing a line above I  get a natural flow of the strake which is what I´m looking for, I want to put a minimum of stress to the plank when glued to the ship as this helps to keep the keel straight and aids to the overall strength of the hull.
 
More to come ( I´ll be going on for a while

Hello
 
A few words on how I use a set of proportional dividers during planking, I hope some of you can find it useful
 
I´m planking HMS Victory and in doing so I´m putting my set of proportional dividers to good use. This tool is not by any meens absolutely nessecary to have if your starting out on your first few kits, but as one gets further in to the hobby one finds that this Little engenious tool has many uses around the ship, one beeing aiding in those precarious tapering jobs during planking.
 
When I first started to look for a set of dividers I noticed that they where not that easy to come by in Sweden and that turned out to be a story in it self. I cant remember how, but I got in contact with a violin builder in germany by the age of 80-something. He apparently also made proportional dividers of different sizes. Now I had little knowledge about theese thingies and what size I needed for my models. This man simply sent me a few samples of his dividers in different sizes stating. - Pay for the one you want and send the rest back !!! So I did just that. You don´t find that kind of confidence and trust in people often theese days, in the years to come I recieved a christmastcard from him every year as probably most of his violincostumers.
 
So what does the dividers do, originaly designed to divide circles in equal parts this tool serves by dividing a sertain distance into equal parts depending on how you set them. I have set the  dividers in the Picture to 3 meaning that the smaller pointers will show exactly 1/3 of the distance between the larger ones.
 
Lets get ito it

so far.... 

Hi gang,
 
Sorry I haven't been on here lately to answer questions, but I'm at the end part of yet another major house (and WORKSHOP) move which has taken all my time. Hopefully this is the LAST one .
 
First off, thanks for all the kind comments. I'll try to answer all the questions in order.
 
 
Spyglass, David has answered the question perfectly. It's indeed using as little PVA glue as possible to maintain a join in position without too much work with Isopropyl Alcohol later on to remove the piece. This is fairly essential when you have one or more permanently glued joints close-by. I use a combination of clamps and masking tape to hold the piece in position, and sometimes just hold it with my fingers for a couple of minutes if all else fails until the glue bonds. I use a couple of types of PVA, some set a lot faster than others.
 
 
A bit of picture angle, but there will be more work done in this area later - there is a chock to be fitted between the head rails, it's a lot easier to cut it in when the rails have been fitted.
 
 
As noted above I also use tape and clamps, but the key word is PATIENCE .
 
Toni and Russell - I'm glad you are following my build and getting the odd "heads up" about any problems I've encountered .
 
Work will recommence on Vulture sometime in the next couple of weeks after I have my new workshop fully completed.
 
  Danny

Thanks once again for dropping by my log David, John, Mark, Grant and Grant, as well as all those who "Liked" .
 
Head Beam and Grating Battens
 
A main Beam runs athwartships to support the lower sections of the head rails. This beam has a 1.5" roundup, and is recessed into the stem. Two knees attach the beam to the rails. At this stage I've only spot-glued the beam and knees into place so I can mark the positions of all the grating ledges which follow. I'll remove the beam and knees to cut the mortices for the ledges  :
 

 

 

 
A "Heads Up" to other Swan builders using TFFM. If you intend constructing all the Headworks I recommend that you start the Waist Rail a distance from the stem. The actual distance depends on whether you are going to fit the aft Seats of Ease or not (see Section 11.2). It's probably a good idea to leave the foremost section of the waist rail off until you get to this stage.
 
The problem occurred on mine when it came time to fit the Grating Battens - the waist rail was directly in the way. This may be just a peculiarity of my ship, and others may be different depending on the exact height of the rail (it's possible I may have made a boo-boo regarding the height, but I don't think so ).
 
I now had the tricky job of removing the forward section of the rail with a lot of headwork structures getting in the way. It took a while, but no harm done :
 

 
The grating battens need mortices cut in for the grating ledges. This job was a lot easier to do before I cut the pieces from the stock :
 

 
The battens fitted in place :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Thankyou Jim and David B for your encouragement - all helps to keep the motivation up!
 
23 & 24 Cabins M and N.  Now completed without any new dramas and shown in position (but not yet fixed until painted).   The skylights have been painted (it took four thin coats to get a satisfactory cover) and the deck planking completed on the 3rd deck, the skylights and cabin M.  The next step is to ‘stain’ all these decks at the same time and hopefully achieve a uniform finish between them.  Then it is a matter of painting the Cabins M and N and fixing them all in position.  But I must remember to add the edging strips to the skylights and cabin M before fixing in place to make life a bit easier.
 

Getting there! 

Before putting in place Cabins H & I, I decided to drill the 1st deck at the location of the masts in front of the main staircase as access would be difficult later.  I used the deck plans to locate the position for drilling and, guess what, at 10cm spacing as per the drawing they miss the hull and go through the underside decking.  As the masts are free standing I decided it was necessary to seat them in the hull and re-drilled the holes at 90mm centres.  So I have a couple of spare holes that will require a coil of rope or similar to cover them.
Anybody following this log one day with their build - beware!
 

15 Finishing the first deck.  The edging to the first deck and second deck is now completed together with the vertical ‘reinforcements’ and horizontal strips in the area of the paddlewheel housing. This is how the model now looks at the completion of  stage 20 with cabins H & I in place ready for decking level 3.   
 

 
Note that the upper horizontal white strip on the paddlewheel housing does not line up with the horizontal strip to the rear of the housing.  Oops!  This is because the line of the upper white strip is governed by the position of the windows on cabin E.  I used the cabin elevation on the plans to set out the windows that was obviously incorrect and I did not foresee this problem.  Needless to say the instructions don’t mention it.  I don’t think the error requires any drastic corrective action.
 
While I think of it you will see that I fixed some 'skis' to the underside of the hull before I flipped it over when I had completed the underside planking.  The skis are helpful in setting the model up at an angle when fixing edge strips etc and when I get to fixing the balustrades at the upper levels.

Painting and window/door installation.   The instructions contain several pictures of the model during construction before any wall planking or paint is applied.   This is obviously just for illustration purposes as it clear that the wall cladding and the painting has to be completed progressively before each level of cabins is fixed in place.  It also seems advantageous to me to install the windows and doors progressively rather than fixing at a later stage.  Fixing the wall planking I have already mentioned.  Here are cabins A,B,C, and E with planking in place and ready for painting.
 

 
It is always difficult to get good coverage with white paint.  I tried sealing, then I tried priming but in the end it still required several coats before a satisfactory result was obtained.  I used a flat enamel hobby paint and the coats had to be applied thinly otherwise the wall joints begins to disappear in the layers of paint.  For weathering I applied a very weak solution of a grey water-based paint (that the kids use) that was quickly wiped off with a clean cloth.  The effect is aided with the ribbing in the wall plankng and the result looks like a white painted boat that needs a coat of paint!  Whether it is successful I will leave to others to judge.
 
There are a load of lead cast windows and doors in the model (the don’t say how many in the parts list) – too many to paint one at a time.  They are well made and only the odd one or two need filing to remove excess etc.  I pickled them in vinegar as suggested in another section of MSW.   I tried spraying them laid out on paper but found that the window openings clogged up as the paint puddled on the paper.  Instead I made a simple rack from two square balsa beads, spaced at the correct distance to seat the windows.  I sprayed two thin layers of paint using an off-the-shelf can of domestic spray paint.
 
Edit 3/5/2014.  There are two types of window on the model, 4 pane and 6 pane windows.  Glaringly obvious when you see it but I didn't.  Fortunately I correctly used the 6 pane windows on the lower cabins but the windows on the raised cabin should have been 4 pane for example.  I don't think it will be a problem.  The pilot's cabin will have to be all be 4 pane windows instead of 6 and the error will not be obvious - I hope!
 

 

 

 
To fix the windows and doors I used a small dot of epoxy, hopefully sufficient to keep them in place.  For a model of this scale it is important to have the windows as perfectly in line horizontally and vertically as possible.  A 0.5 mm misalignment on the model would be equivalent to a 75mm misalignment full scale!  As there is little clearance within the window cutout to maneuver the window for alignment, it is important to make the window cut-outs in the wall planking correctly aligned during the planking process.  Easier said than done of course!

Well - - - surprise, surprise, surprise - - - I did manage to get some work done after all.  
 
I remade the port propeller and salvaged only three blades, which is okay.  So, I remade the hub and cemented the three blades in it, all before lunch.  This gave the epoxy time to cure enough so I could repaint the hub and started polishing the blades.  It looks okay for me, they all track but still need to be balanced - - - you read John Lad??  
 
I also finished the three blades for the starboard propeller and cut the grooves in it for the blades.  They are actually ready to be cemented into the hub but - - -  Being busy tomorrow gathering "stuff" to bring with us to PIT, packing and still mowing the lawn I may not have time to log on to MSW.  But all yuns can do without me for a while    I'll be reading a lot of build logs while with the kids   
 
Okay, here are the pics of the three bladed propeller and again my thanks to Jan for this good catch, bravo!
 

This is the photo of the O19 on the ways and close to launch with the three bladed prop clearly visible.  It could have spit me in the eye, that close.
 

This shows the remade port propeller with THREE blades this time, looking forward and above.  It took me 2 hours to so 
 

Another shot looking aft.  
 

Taken from the side.
 
Cheers,

Hi Denis and Vince,Starting out right with two of the same kits will create the  confidence,to quickly share ideas,problems,and be more pleasurable just as the Niagara modelers, must have felt,like being in one room,fairly instant answers depending a little on time zones,You are both teachers and learners,hope you have lots of chairs,beer etc,Your logs will be interesting to a large crowd,booking seats for two(Urmilla)Edwin

Hi Denis,
I was anticipating this new build log.   No cheating now! You have to finish the SOS first. Those were the Admiral's orders as I recall.  Since we built the SOS together, I am really looking forward to building the RW with you. We really learned a lot from each other by swapping stuff as we went along.
 
Vince P.

Hi Vince
 
The Admiral has got the ankle chains out ready to put on me + the cat of 9 tails ( but thinking of sending her on a long weekends holiday ) what do you think      . 
 
Denis,

Hi all
 
Royal William.
My first impression is that the quality of the materials are excellent, the castings are also well made, not a lot of work to be done on them.
 
I have had two extra sets of plans made, one set I have had laminated so I can use a marker pen on them and I can wipe it off as necessary.
 
What did please me was that the plans were rolled and not folded.
 
The cost of the plans and laminating came to $500nz, it was the laminating that cost the most as the plans are large.
 
Time now to have a long read and study of the plans.
 
Will have to wait till the admiral goes out before I can have a play with her ha ha.
 
Denis.

Hello Augie, An Italian Bricky,is there no end to your talents,nice work. How are you at building BBQ's,Edwin

Hello Augie, An Italian Bricky,is there no end to your talents,nice work. How are you at building BBQ's,Edwin

The brick platform for the stove has been completed.
 
I decided to create a base for the (individual) bricks inside the coaming.  The base is 1/32" balsa sheet, painted grey:
 

 

 
3/32 x 1/32" planks were then painted two colors and cut into 'bricks' as seen below:
 

 
The ends of the faux bricks were touched up and then laid individually:
 

 
It's not perfect,  but I'm pleased.  About 60% of the platform will be covered by the stove itself.
 
Next on the agenda is the checkerboard floor for the Great Cabin....as per Ben's 'suggestion'.  Though this may require Divine Intervention, I'll give it a shot.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi Denis!
 
I do agree with 11 out of 10 for your rat lines, but I think your new signature gets the same rating. Very clever!!
 
I have to agree with Sailor123456880 though and ask for more pictures and showing more of your magnificent build

Dave B...... thanks Dave for your input, it's not perfect yet, but I'll get it down after a couple more dozen planks 
 
 
Hi Russ..... Glad you looked in, you're right.... there is a little dip there, tomorrow I'll loosen it and shim it some. I've been trying to watch that , I've had to shim a few bulkheads , that one slipped thru. Thanks for the heads up!
 
 
Hey Augie...... thanks, .but no thanks on the thickness sander, I've got enough tools already that I don't ( know how to) use

Hello Denis!
 
I can't wait to see what someone with your skills (and new toys) can accomplish with a ship as beautiful as this one, particularly after what I have seen in your Sovereign of the Seas!  And I am so very happy that I am lucky enough to watch from the very first steps and have my pencil and paper ready to take notes and learn as you go!