Richard Dunn

This part of the process has taken many weeks to accomplish, so that the model is built in a way that locates every part accurately into others with tabs or half joints, also to ensure that parts go together so that they don't interfere with access to hull interior, I also had to be very careful not to build in problems where parts could not be assembled as they had to be slid or forced into 2 directions at once so assembly order became VERY important. There are 4 interior spaces that need to be fitted out as well and these had to be designed so they could be done but still have access to hull.

You will notice above the substantial Aluminium beams on the building board. Here are some images of the cad model a few hours away from being ready to cut the parts. Assembly should be fairly quick as it all slots together, yes I have done fit tests and yes it does go together. The first image shows the main longitudinal girders that help tie it all together and the first 3 images are with the superstructure lid off, the 4th shows it on.

So that was the first go at the hull which I was forced to abandon due to structural issues in the glassing of the hull. Below is the new hull and shots showing how it was planned and broken into shorter sections per layer with stepped bulkhead to keep alignment accurate athwartships. The tug is an empire class tug (Tapuhi) as a service model to the main

Hi Everybody This is my first time posting on this site although I am not new to model building. Several years ago while I was working nights I started a build of an RC model on a rather large scale of 1/35. Earlier this year I came back to it to finish it and found several major structural problems had developed due to the heat and humidity in my country, I could hve tried to fix what I had done but opted to start again and this time instead of Plank on frame I have gone with bread and butter for lower hull and plywood for the rest. Another reason for the redo is I recently purchased Stepcraft 840 CNC so will be able to translate the design into the model with much much greater accuracy. This model was initially on a build blog on another site but this has stopped being fruitful and after all the whole purpose to build blogs is to give and receive help and tips . I am nearly 50 years old and been modelling ships all my life though not this big, my father before me also built models on commission to shipping companies on 1/8 scale My background is in both furniture building for 16 years nand 20 years of 3d modelling and ship design, my main software being Rhino ,Modo and Maya. Over the recent weeks I have been building the framing and shell structure in 3d and nesting ,the parts on sheets ready to be cut on the CNC. The approach of this structure is 6.5mm 5 ply framework with a 2mm 5 ply covering to box it all out, this has all the openings cut in etc 1.5mm oversize and then the whole is plated properly with .5mm ply which also has all openings and doors etc cut into it as well as curtain plates etc, this models disp in water is 193kg and runs 2 24 volt, 450w motors powering 2 custom made 100mm props from Simon Higgins in the UK, he is also currently building 2 working lateral thrusters as they are beyond my metalwork ability. This ship was one of the most beautiful vessels built on the Clyde in the 60's. I have many links to this ship in my past and have a massive collection of plans of this ship 200 original plans and hundreds of photos. No part of ship is not photographed and plans for all of it are accounted for. I will give a few images of the first attempt so people can see the size and work that went into the model first time and will follow up with the hull as it is now and some shots of the cad model