Mike Y

Phew, it's done! The film removed, no scratches underneath it. No more display case photos, I promise! This log will finally get some model updates. To summarise the experience from this case build: 1) Designing your own construction is fun and adds a lot of experience. It is difficult to estimate the proportions in SketchUp, I should have done some 1:1 mock-up with cardboard and sticks. If I do it again - I would make it flatter and lower. 2) Same for LEDs - test how the light hits the model. Both top and bottom strips are angled incorrectly (top one is hitting the wall, while bottom one is highlighting all the dust on the floor). Not a super big deal, but not as nice as I planned. 3) Epoxy is a blessing, holding together tiny crossgrain-to-crossgrain joints well enough. 4) Be super pedantic about square angles, even a tiny misalignment sums up to a big skew on a long distance. 5) Pear wood is nice. 6) Sanding is magic! 7) The Admiral is a keeper for tolerating that "hamster hut" in our living room Though I secured my daughter's support by promising her that her model would also be in that case.

Thanks everybody! Kurt, it is not explicitly vented, but the wall is not ideally flat and the wallpaper is textured, so there are enough gaps on the back side of the case for air to flow in and out. Not planning any extra air holes (gaps), they will let too much dust inside. druxey, yes, a good forstner bit would make it easier and safer, but it is too expensive for a one-time operation. Also, could not find a bit of a right diameter (36mm), they are sold with pretty big diameter increments in that size range. Hole saw of this type could be squeezed with a ziptie to adjust the diameter +/- few mm.

Final touches on the display case. Installing the pear "skirts". They needs to be thinned down a bit, and they are too wide for my thickness planer. So I planed them manually. Was a bit too aggressive, and, whooops! Argh! I do not have any spare wood, did not expected to break a simple flat sheet Luckily, it broke quite clearly, and it was easy to glue it back together: The crack is barely visible on the finished product. Installing the skirts. They are glued with epoxy, to avoid any cupping / warping due to moisture. It was a breeze, epoxy is so much better for that kind of work! Now I can fine fit all pieces together. A bit of planing: And then a lot of sanding. I love sanding, it turns ugly into smooth and beautiful, hiding all mistakes Now the part that made me nervous - cutting a hole for the LED control knob. There is only one chance to do it right, and no spare wood to cover mistakes. So I scored the circle to reduce tearout (breaking the wood fibers that could be teared apart by the drill otherwise): And then applied tonns of masking tape and started to drill, slooooooowly. The hole saw is adjusted to the precise diameter with a zip tie Few nervous minutes later - the hole looks pretty hole-ish! Phew, no screw-up. After a bit of sanding magic: And the final result: I'm a bit scared to pull all that plastic away, already got used to it

This is the first RC build that I see where the boat moves like a real thing. Smooth turns, the motor power is just right, it does not fly on top with an overpowered motor. Great work!

Carl, it is more than big enough, at least for my little apartment. Will build a bigger once once I get a villa Kurt, planing epoxy is quite easy. WestSystem epoxy that I use does not harden to rock-solid mass that plane will have problems with, it has a bit of elasticity, probably because it is designed for marine applications and it should not be brittle, and should handle temperature variations. Steve, Druxey - thanks!

The treenail colour also matters a lot. Real treenails are basically invisible, you need go come very close to see them (except iron bolts). Model ones are mostly an aesthetics choice, where colour contrast affects visual size much more than the diameter. It would be wise to make a large enough test piece, using the same wood and plank size as on a real model, and then experiment with various woods and sizes. Always put the finish on, since it changes the treenail colour a lot (absorbing into endgrain differently than into the plank). if you add various finishes in the mix - the number of test boards might increase

Thanks a lot for comments and likes! Let's make some epoxy mess first: Plane it: Sand it: The result is silky smooth, even before any finish! After two coats of OSMO Polyx finish, I finally connected all wiring and permanently glued the case in place. There is no way back! Oh, I also have a model of a ship, need to show it in the build log every now and then, as is tradition: Now just a bunch of small things are left - install the skirt, carefully plane/sand everything to get rid of any gaps, make holes for light controls, finish sand and refinish everything.

Thanks a lot for the tip, bought a bunch of sheets just for the future. So far the price from my favourite European vendor (Arkowood) is the same as it was in 2015, but good to know that it might increase soon!

That is an impressive control and precision! A trick that only a true craftsman can achieve!

Fantastic research, and now I started watching The Terror show It is great when enthusiasts are recognised and are invited to participate in relevant projects. You are one of the luckiest modellers out there, your unique model got way more views by general public than most of the others. Looking forward for further updates in the log, and hope that the Occre story would have a semi-happy-ending!

The floor is completed! I had no extra wood, every single plank was used, just a few cutoff pieces remaining. That was close! Now need to fill some gaps with epoxy, cross fingers and plane it smooth!

Hi Lawrence, No paneling planned - there are no exposed wires, everything is properly soldered and covered with heat shrink (few exposed wires can't be soldered now, need to wait until the case is glued in place). It is just 24v on most of the wires, and 220v switch would be turned off most of the time. If I close it (for example, thin plywood on magnets) - then it would be actually less safe - in case of some issues I would not smell any melting, and can't test if the wires are cool enough. But, if needed, it would be quite easy to close at least some parts, magnets joints would be practical Yes, it is around 2mm, your gut feeling is correct!

Nice mouldings, good idea to make one long rear panel instead of two, looks better. For the detailing - it was quite easy to scrape it on a boxwood strip. Your wood looks fluffier (though hard to say on a photo), so maybe it is the wood. I never got anything similar on a soft wood (tried on a kit supplied basswood and failed).

The links to the pictures are broken

The case floor planking is moving with a steady pace. However, it turned out trickier than I though. The wood (willow) is not behaving properly - cups a lot due to a glue moisture, and, apparently, shrinks afterwards. So I stopped applying moisture to planks, otherwise I get shrinkage (I promise this joint was super tight initially). The shrinkage ratio is definitely higher then with pear. And made plexiglas plates that allow me to put a steady pressure on a whole plank, ignoring thickness of planks around it. So now I can put some heavy books instead of these weights: A week later, some planks started to shrink and deform where there was not enough glue. Argh! And applying glue to the entire planks = moisture = cupping and shrinkage. Basically this setup and this wood (willow) is really not suited for a water-based glue. Ideally I should have used a vacuum bag and epoxy instead of PVA. But I would not dare mixing so many batches of epoxy, and I will definitely screw up the alignment if trying to glue more than one pair of planks at a time. So the plan is simple - glue as it goes, let it dry for a week to make sure all gaps are opened. After that - inject epoxy under distorted planks, hoping it would lock everything in place. Fill other gaps with epoxy as well. Luckily the epoxy I have (west systems) is similar in colour, no need to dye it or mix it with sawdust (otherwise it might be too thick to get into the gaps). Also finished all the wiring and tested it. It works! To make things more complicated, I passed through a single power cable that powers the case itself and a stereo system located nearby. The case has a 220v switch (just in case) and a dimmer regulator. It looks messy, but all wire connections are carefully spliced, soldered, isolated and I tried to be very careful and cut no corners. Do not want this thing to be a hazard.

Sorry for bad photo quality, but it illustrates same style - dark blue and black colours. From the Maritime Museum of Hamburg.

Installed decorative keel "tabs", that was easy: Drilled the rudder hole (this was too scary to give to Daria), but she filed that hole to shape: And she made an "eye" Previously I was filing all tabs for her (they are oversized in the kit), but now she is doing it herself. Though I am keeping an eye on a file angle, this is quite tricky for her, so far. But improving slowly. This is also the only photo in this update done by me Stem and stern dry fitted. Note the ebony piece, fantastic quality! And she is proud of the composition of this photo Will go pretty far on Instagram! Quote from the author: "I wanted to make a fun photo for you , to have a photo with more colours. Other photos have very few colours - brown, black, that's it. This one has more!"

The model is even better than she was before (at least for a casual observer ), and there is something improved in the way you make the photos - it is lighter and clearer now!

Very unusual vessel, real eye candy!

Thanks Pat & Carl! Milled the rest of the flooring. Dry-fit confirmed that I have enough wood (phew!), but just enough - no room for whoopsies: There are some synergies between our hobbies, knitting weights are handy First planks are in! Now it is quite mechanical, planning to install one pair every evening:

Milled joints have one problem - they are nearly invisible if not highlighted with a darker colour Welcome to the "how did I managed to survive without a mill" club!

Hej Jörgen, Actually never heard about Biltema's one. Checked their website, it looks like one of those OEM saws that are sold under a dozen different brands. Unsure about the quality and haven't saw it in person. And for the price of 3200 kr there are plenty of better options, for sure! Especially considering shipping from Germany. No problem with cutting planking, though I would not trust it to cut super straight lines. It would be similar to cutting planks with a scroll saw, just faster. Andi, thanks for the info! Hope that Proxxon will work just fine for you.

Impressive amount of details in that document! Looking forward to see some build logs based on it

The display case progresses. Sloooowly (live gets in a way, in a good way). Only get 1-2hrs of hobby per week, assuming no trips. Everything is milled up, and miters are cut using miter jig on a table saw and fine tuned with a disk sander + miniature block plane. First series of strips buckled up significantly, because of a moisture in the glue. But I quickly realised that I do not really need to spread a glue over the entire plank - few spots is enough for it to be in place. So I apply the glue in lines: And brush some water on tope of the plank before putting a weight on it - that helps to neutralise moisture on both sides of the plank, or even force it to bow in another direction. After that, plexiglass plates + Books help to clamp it down: That process worked well, all planks are now flat and there is no buckling. Next strake was made of willow, 4cm wide. It was carefully straightened with a plane and straightedge before passing it through table saw: The idea was good, until I screwed up. I was trying to carefully align the grain pattern, so the sapwood strip will be on the outside... Except one plank where I made a mistake: With very little material to spare, I will reuse this plank for the central part of the floor. So the left plank was made out of two cutoff pieces. Not ideal, but not super bad: Nothing is sanded or finished, so pardon for some glue lines.

Thanks, greenstone! In a meanwhile, we had a bit of delay because of another project: this took a bit longer than expected - the manual is 400 steps long, but the result is amazing - pneumatic cylinders work, fantastic! Back to ship modelling - we started fitting the deck. It was an exercise in an endless cycle of "sand a bit - try again - make some pencil marks - sand a bit more". The deck is laser cut to separate planks that are tied together by a few tabs. They are probably supposed to be installed separately, but we decided to cut some corners and install the deck as a single piece. Daria had no problems sanding thin veneer, but I helped a bit every now and then - the process is too repetitive for a child. The glue-up was simple in the beginning, but turned into a nightmare quite soon - planks swelled because of the moisture in the glue, became wider and started to push each other out. I ended up cutting off some planks in the middle to leave the room for expansion. It was a mess and the glue dried to quick, so no photos. While I was loosing a battle against the glue and moisture and swelling planks - Daria decided to cheer me up and made a cute drawing of us working on a model That helped! Resulting deck: Fitting few parts around transom to close it off, I let her use the disk sander, which made her super happy - using some real adult tools, yay! Then we did a bit of scraping: A lot of sanding: And - finally - finishing! Used some Danish oil. Might be a bit too shiny, but it is the easiest finish to apply and dries relatively quick: Final result. Kind of blotchy, unfortunately. Maybe we should have sanded the deck more. The wood is not monotonous and have a bit different texture in different places. But it's good enough for the purpose!