Richard Dunn

And here are the first 5 sheets of parts cut from high quality 5 ply 6.5mm Wisa ply.

Today started to cut the model components on the CNC but first the bread and Butter lower hull finished ready for shaping.

Hi John and Harry Yes it is certainly one of those "where was I when" moments, I was only born in 71 so not even alive although I am from Wellington, but half my family worked for the Union Steamship company and the Naval Architect who designed her was a friend of the family so it all became too much to ignore, I fell in love with the ship because of her looks, not because of her fate although in saying that a good deal of the reference I have is from the wreck including 4 hours of video documenting her scrapping as well as just her short 2 year life. John I never knew that was planned, luckily it blew out as fast as it hit, by 11.00am it was just a regular Wellington Storm but yes it was a very significant moment for design to, many Ro Ro rules and standards were changed because of her sinking and ways of stopping free surface water effect. Harry you are correct, not one person died on the ship, they died sadly on the rocks in the monstrous sea breaking on the shore or a couple of exhaustion after floating around for so long waiting to be rescued. her looks continue to inspire artists and modellers, I frequently get requests for sets of plans and photos for things ranging from paintings to models, even from people with no ties to NZ, quite amazing really.

Hello My name is Richard. I have just joined this forum in the hopes to get some help and tips when I need it for my large TEV Wahine build project I am restarting after couple of years and also just to be able to share the knowledge I have on model building after 40 years of building large scale hulls, I have some experience in design of real ships, test tank model production and have done a lot of the 3d design elements of this in Rhino3D professionally. more recently I now do 3d modelling for film and TV but I have never stopped actual miniature modelling either. I now find myself merging the skills I have gained to build models that use accurate 3d design , production of parts using traditional techniques as well as CNC, resin printing and photoetch to create fittings. Not sure how many models in this site are RC but I have been impressed for a while at the standard of the work and a good number of large boats to, which is great to see. A lot of the holes in my knowledge are based around electronics and lighting , although I think once I start fitting out I will be presented with many ideas I had not thought of to. The build I am in the middle of is big and any help I can get will be well received and I will endeavour to provide help also on subject such as 3d drafting of boats from plans or offsets, and accurate ways to build very accurate fair hulls to the standard of test tank models if required, I have considerable experience in the woodwork field as I have said, this includes most of my younger life fitting out super yachts and boat building full size yachts, also guitar building so I am full of tips for high end woodwork and techniques for hull creation. I look forward to doing this build and documenting the process on here.

Hi Brian Sort of correct, she was caught in a double Cyclone in Wellington New Zealand and foundered with loss of 51 lives. Here is an archived website about it here. https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/webarchive/wayback/20160417074849/http:/www.thewahine.co.nz/Time.html

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