Aussie048

Oh yes, I forgot to show you these pictures. The main deck has been planked and treenailed. 
 

 
The planking was done in a 3 plank shift pattern. I did a few experiments to simulate the caulking, including edge gluing black card, black paper, and black tissue paper. My problem with this method is that the paper tends to tear, no matter how sharp my scalpel is. This leads to caulking of irregular thickness. 
 
In the end, I clamped a whole bunch of planks together and painted both edges. I went over it 3 times to get a decent thickness of paint. Once sanded, it looks OK. I am happy with it!
 

 
The treenails were made from bamboo, drawn through a Byrnes draw plate. I was initially not happy with my Byrnes plate, because it kept clogging up with wood fiber, and I would have to clean out the plate after each draw! Then I worked out that I was pulling the dowels through the Byrnes plate the wrong way! Once I corrected that, it became a dream to use. These bamboo dowels have been pulled down to 0.5mm. The effect against the holly is subtle, but it's exactly what I want. 

Took a break from fabricating those infernal transom parts to doing something which was more fun. I made the staircase from the main to the lower deck. This piece will be mostly hidden so I used it as a trial run for other staircases I will have to build. 
 
First problem - the balustrades. The kit does not supply any. Commercially available balustrades can not be found in the correct size (or perhaps I am not looking in the right places). The plans suggest balustrade dimensions 9mm x 2mm, and I would agree. 3mm balustrades look too thick and awkward.
 
I fabricated my own. Those who are following this thread may recall an earlier post (here: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7195-hms-royal-william-by-keithw-euromodel-172/?p=278928 ) where I came up with the idea of threading beads on a wire. I refined that idea a little:        
 

 
First set up a production line to superglue the beads in place. 
 

 
Tie a thin thread to the wire, superglue the knot, then cut the thread flush. 
 
 
 
Wind the thread around the wire until a bulb is formed (I used my lathe at very low speed). Keep adding superglue. The idea is to impregnate the thread with superglue to make it possible to turn on a lathe later. Once done, add a layer of liquid sculpey. 
 

 
Bake the batch in the oven according to the Sculpey instructions (15 min at 150C). 
 

 
Turn the balustrades on the lathe until happy with the results, then paint. This is a comparison of the BEST effort I made with turning pear dowel on the lathe (on left) with the Sculpey-thread-bead method (on right). The problem I had with turning pear dowels is that they snapped off the lathe once they reach a certain thinness. I could never get them below 2.5mm - still too thick. 
 
To be honest I am satisfied with neither of them. The sculpey-thread-bead method does produce a superior looking balustrade, but it is VERY time consuming, VERY fiddly, and VERY inconsistent. I decided to accept the results since the staircase will be hidden, but I will need to find another method. I might try turning brass or maybe even bone. 
 
Anyway, I continued with construction. 
 
 
   
I made a jig to make sure that I aligned the various planks for the handrails properly. I decided not to follow Euromodel's plans and came up with my own dimensions (which I have supplied), because I think it looks better! Once done, I stacked both squares and drilled holes simultaneously through both, to make sure that they would align once the balustrades were fitted.
 

 
Staircase construction. Given that it would not be seen, I decided to simply paint the jig black. It would be more sturdy and easier than constructing an actual staircase. 
 

 
Staircase in position! It is mostly hidden by the quarterdeck. The my Canon macro lens (100mm f/2.8) is ruthlessly revealing but it actually looks pretty good. 

Thank you Pat.
 
Jibboom Crupper
 
The aft end of the Jibboom is held fast by the Crupper, a similar arrangement to the Gammoning on the Bowsprit :
 

 
Jib Traveller
 
This is a tricky piece of "iron" work. The Traveller holds the Jib Outhaul and the running end of the Jib Stay. It's purpose is to allow the Jib sail to be adjusted or moved along the jibboom.
 
It consists of a ring which encircles the boom, a shackle to which will be attached the outhaul and the stay, and a hook which holds the tack of the jib (the forward corner).
 
I made the shackle and hook first, silver soldering the eyes. Then I bent the ring and slipped the shackle and hook through it, closed up the ring and finally silver soldered it closed. These pics show the assembly before cleaning up and blackening :
 

 

 
And the traveller on the jibboom :
 

 
  Danny

Thanks for looking in again John, Grant, Greg and David .
 
Topgallant Shrouds and Stays
 
The Topgallant Stays are the first lines fitted, unlike on the lower masts where the shrouds and backstays are fitted first. I decided on this arrangement after reading Lees who quotes Steel on the "Order of Dressing". TFFM has the stays fitted as per the lower masts.
 
EDIT - see a few posts below. This could be wrong   .
 
The Stays and Shrouds are all served around the mast and for a few feet below. The forward stay may have been served for it's full length, but at this size of shroud (0.2mm) the serving would have looked too large so I've omitted that.
 

 
The running end of the backstays end in deadeyes fitted to the aft end of the channels on the Main mast, and on the aft deadeyes on the stools for the Mizzen and Fore masts :
 

 
The running end of the Stays on the Main and Mizzen masts lead through a block stropped around the lower mast heads and are tied to the strop of the topmast lead blocks :
 

 
An overall view of the Main Topgallant Stays and Shrouds :
 

 
The Topgallant Futtock Shrouds are fitted in similar fashion to the topmast futtocks :
 

 
  Danny

I have got the fire station and pipes installed, the pipes and reservoirs look good for scale but the fire station itself is a little large.
I am going to keep it as is as this is only a model and nothing else is particularly correct.
I may write 'FIRE' on the red vessel so people stop asking me what it is also.
 
 
 
I have looked at the copper plates for the hull, I purchased some a while ago and was put off with the gaps around the rivets when just laid like tiles.
Then I thought about overlapping tiles as they are in real life, I played around with for a while and came up with these results. You can see my first effort in the back.

 
I got them to go around 90 deg quite neatly, and this was just trial. They need trimming to fit so is time consuming but I only have small portion of hull todo.

Next I will be putting in the gun deck planking, there is a raised portion in the center planked in contrasting thicker wood that I will caulk in paper and actually sand the deck to fine finish. this should contrast the rustic look of the rest of the deck which will be caulked in brown cotton, like the other deck is. 

I usually get called Tuff, plural is not necessary  
 
But my name is Scott in Real Life.
 
I took the plunge and decided that all was ready to install the next deck. I had to trim the ends of the beams to squeeze them into the tight fit, I have filled most of the gaps this left.

 
 Then after I had installed the deck, I discovered I had forgotten the little porthole windows 
 

 
I managed to get the holes drilled by getting a pin vice inside the hull and drilling a small hole in the the correct position, which allowed me to drill from the outside of the hull. This gave me some tearout on the painted surface, but I will be able to hide with the small brass tube that is rounded over provided with the kit.
 
 

 
I am now trying to decide which horizontal knees if any I am going to install. if any at this time. They will be difficult to fit. And I worry about getting them looking consistent with the limited tools and wood that I have.
They would look great but the work involved may be too much, and the whole model would be delayed for too long.
I may just fit horizontal knees in the 'easy' positions where the smaller beams do not interfere with the fit, this would at least show the idea of horizontal knees, even if they were not all there.

I took a few photos today while test fitting some barrels.
 
I am going to treenail the barrels together into groups and then pin the groups to the model with brass pins.
 
Layout a few ropes in storage/laying around. and get some buckets scattered on the deck
 

 
Then I should be ready to install the gun deck.

Ahh, I see. I must have missed the part in the instructions where they indicated that a substitution had been made. You see, p.26 of the Royal William Interpretive Info says this: 
 

 
I guess I could be forgiven for hunting for those strips in the metal part bags  

The build is coming along nicely Keith, and a wealth of information being shared.
 
One small note of caution though - watch the masking tape on the painted lower hull - the longer you leave it there the more likely the gum will adhere to the paint and discolour or mark it.  I would consider removing the tape from the paint altogether and mask above the paint line using heavy duty paper or the like to cover the painted area?
 
cheers
 
Pat

So I started the display case today. I milled all the rough walnut and started on the table top. They are cut to length and width and ready for cutting the biscuit slots and glue up tomorrow. The biscuits add very little strength to the joints, but they help massively in aligning and keeping the boards aligned during glue-up.
 
My current plans are to glue the table top up then cut the profiles into it on the router table. Then it will be ready for sanding and finishing along with the rest of the table. I have attached photos of the milled boards along with the table top ready for the biscuit cutter (it is sitting on the top). The router table right now is being used for storage of the various bits and assorted ship making fittings. I need to move those into the cabinets. I just haven't gotten to that yet. TH4e chunk of wood in the background (on the table) is a part of a Connie Spar. I used pieces of this in the ship's boats and I will carve the stand for the name plate from it as well. The real Connie is permanently a part of my Connie.
 
I still have to work out how to slot the corners for the LED lighting. I have a number of ideas such as deepening the slots for the glass, or possibly even drilling a hole though it. I will work that out. I have tested the LED lighting and can;t wait for it to shine on the model. I think it will really set it off.
 
Anyway, I took a much needed night off for the National Symphony and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. 
 
Here are before and after shots of the walnut.


 
A photo of the top ready for biscuits and glue up.

 
The new router bits waiting on their chance to bite into the walnut!.

Painting goes on
 

 
And famous question "how to get teak color with acrylic" arise
 
Even I have seen many models of CS avaliable on google/search/photos, I think no one has color of teak. Of course, there is another famous question about light conditions, camera used, etc etc
 
I am not satisfied with color I get - too much dark and brown when dry
 
This is ... targeted color
 
 

 
Something has to be done
 
Experiments again
 
For instance
 

 
Hmmm
 
Not look as weathered, rather as a bad painted...
 
 

 
Hmmmmm......

Snow day today so got to work at home. A quick update...
 
I finished priming the top sides of the hull.
 

 
and gave the stripe areas three coats of white paint.
 

 
In between coats of primer, I have been making the two chain pump housings for the gun deck. Tim I, I found your build log from the cross section and you had a nice sequence for making the chain pumps, so I used it along with the plans in the AOS book.
 

 

 

 
I will paint these brown and make up the wire handles, then put them aside until I can install them.
 
Tonight I will mask off the white stripe and start painting the topsides black. I have already marked off the top of the copper plate line, which I will overlap some with the black, to get a good line at the top of the copper plates.

Geoff, I sent an email to you with the attachments.

I varnished all the yards in place after I draped the whole ship to catch any drips. Then I had to operate each studding yard to make sure they weren't varnished in a frozen position.

All yards finally done and stored in their respective positions. Now they have to be finished off by gluing the studding sail brackets in their correct position, finish sanding and varnishing them and then.....I'll start rigging them for sails. So far, I can slide the studding yards in and out. I'd like to keep them that way.  

Today I completed the ship! Almost a year to the day of when I restarted the project begun in January 1992. It has ben a lovely ride and could not have been done with out the great help and inspiration this board has given me. Now I have to put her safe and secure into her new dry dock - but it is still to be constructed. Hopefully in a few weeks she will be safe in her new home. I will feel better once she is behind glass so I can't accidentally catch a spar as I go by. Her Bowsprit seems to grow longer.
 
Anyway, here are a few photos. I will wait to close this build log out until she is in her new case.
 

 

I completed the ship's boats today. This concludes the major builds of the Connie. I say these were major since each was a scratch POF that ended up with approximately 160 pieces each. These were a fun project in themselves. I pulled the boats lines from the AOS, then did the scaled drawings based on those in DeltaCAD. 
 
So tomorrow I will be an oar making factory. I need 6 - 19mm oars and 24 - 20mm ones. I will make these like I did last time. Here are some photos of the fleet, minus the 34 foot launch which is on it's cradle over the main hatch.
 





 
 

little update......
 
trust that those who know how a "built in mistake" looks at you for all times after, I could`nt stand that faulty rigging detail any longer.....
here comes the correction...
 
Nils
 
 

as before...., lift and sheet line connected by mistake
 
 

corrective action, new portside mainyard lifting line installed

I gave the hull a few coats of gesso as a primer. I masked off the gun port openings and tried airbrushing this on, but was having too much trouble getting the right consistency, so I brushed on three coats of thinned gesso, sanded the hull down with fine sandpaper, then filled in a few more spots that showed up with the primer. I cleaned up the hull and gave it one more coat of the thinned gesso.
 

 

 
The thinned coats smoothed out nicely, so I am pleased with the brushing. I did order a new airbrush that should handle larger areas better, so I will try that with the black paint for the top sides. I am also going to get some nicer brushes. I have a few large ones but they are not as high quality as the smaller brushes I have. I already know I will have to do some brush painting on the topsides, especially around the gun ports, so if I end up doing it all by brush, that will be OK too.
 
I started experimenting with the copper tape for the copper plates. I have used this before, but I always put it on smooth. For this model, I wanted to add nail heads, so I had a cheap ponce wheel which I tried running down the edge of some left over copper tape from the back side. The nail heads looked just OK, but were not too pronounced. I modified the ponce wheel by using a cutter disk on the Dremel and cutting into each slot, then used a triangular file to sharpen the teeth.
 

 
The nail heads are now much more pronounced as you can see in these images.
 

 
I then made a jig to hold the copper tape while I make these nail heads and also when I score the individual plates from the tape, which I do with an X-Acto knife from the front side. There are two long pieces of wood on a base that are set to the width of the copper tape, which in this case is 1/4".
 

 

 
I then marked 5/8" lengths on the bottom side of the jig and ran the jig through the table saw to make the slots at 5/8" intervals. I can now place the tape in the jig upside down and score the nail heads for the ends of the plates. For the sides, I can place a 3/16" piece of wood in the slot and run the ponce wheel along it to get a nice straight line of nail heads. I can then turn the tape right side up, offset it a little bit and score the individual plates using the knife in the slots to get straight ends.
 

 
We will see how this works out when I get to the coppering.
 
 
 

To finish up from yesterday's post, here is the completed cradle, just not with any finish yet. I'll wait to do that later. There are two brass rods in each support, going from the legs through the small support base pieces and into the large base board. I used CA to glue in the brass rods and wood glue under the feet and base boards. Everything is nice and tight so should be good without any additional support, I think. I can always add support bars between the supports, but I would rather not. I had bought that base board for a previous model but didn't use it. It made a good base for the cradle. I'll probably add some felt to the arms where they contact the hull, too.
 

 
And here it is supporting the hull. I once had thoughts of carving the ends with the same billet head scroll as on the model, but the walnut seems too brittle to carve well. I may try adding some scrolls on the sides of the walnut, but we'll see.
 

 

 
I gave the hull a final sanding in preparation for priming it. There is one last step to do before that though which is to add the boards that will cover the gap between the outer planking and inner planking across the open bulwarks section. These are sort of vestiges on the existing ship, as shown on the plans. They have a groove in the outer edges so to make that I ground a profile into an old razor blade with a Dremel cutting disk.
 

 

 
The new profile is the deep one on the right. You can see some old ones that I used for other models with very unsatisfactory results. This one I made very deep so the tool won't wonder as I pull it across the edge, which was the problem with the old profiles.
 
And here is the result. This strip is just laying in the opening. I need to prime and paint it before gluing it in, as it is right up against the green plank sheer on the inside. I am really happy with how the groove came out, especially since this is basswood which doesn't like to hold a nice edge. I used a very small file to increase the bevel on the inside edges of the groove and also to clean up the bottom of it. I rounded the outside edges with some sandpaper.
 

 

 
I will start masking the hull tonight in preparation for spraying the primer. I am going to prime all the way down to the keel because I think it makes a good base for the adhesive copper tape. I have not had any problems with adhesion on previous models when I have primed the hull first. Plus, it will show areas that may still need some filler and/or sanding.

I have been using the 1mm ramin dowel for tree nails, also from modelers shipyard. it is a creamy white so I can stain it to required colour.
 
Needs to soak for a long time to make sure stain penetrates to center of dowel, and then needs to be passed through drawplate again, but you have as many coloured treenails as you have stains.

Got the barrels from the kit finished.
I will go through the process I came up with for 'fixing' them up.
 
I started with the supplied barrels. I did not like the smoothness of them not showing up the separate pieces of wood, and the bands or hoops were blended into the barrel not giving a clear margin to paint up to. Also there seemed to few hoops with just 2.
 

 
I had lots of barrels to do.
 
 

 
First I played around with pencil lines and pieces of card for hoops but did not like the results so I decided to 'caulk' the barrels the same as I have been doing with the decks, using dark cotton to show up the edges of the wood.
This needed grooves cut into the sides of the barrel, I used a miter box and razor saw to start the grooves.
The pegs on the bottom of the miter box worked well, but the pegs shown in the photo used as clamps proved to be too complex to reposition each time. It worked out quicker to just use my thumb.
 

 
The miter box and razor saw got the groove started but still needed to be finished of 'freehand' with the razor saw. It was important to make sure that the grooves were deep enough and that they carried through around the top and bottom. This was to make the barrel look like it was individual pieces of wood but also to make sure that there was a space to hide the fuzzy end of the cotton when it is cut of.
 

 
 
Next was to file off the original hoop and most of the stain while I was at it.
The 'wall thickness' of the originals was varied and mostly too thick, so I evened up the thickness with a file.
 

Next was to sand all the barrels ready for staining.
I then had to freehand all the grooves again with the razor saw to make sure that they were deep enough and cleared of saw dust.
 

 
Then the barrels were ready for staining various colours and fitting cotton into all the grooves.
 
 

 
The cotton is 'glued' into position with the first of many coats of Liquid Poly. the cotton must be soaked with polly but the overall coat must be thin as there will be many more coats.
Also the cotton must be pulled up into the groove at the top and bottom while the first coat dries, it is then partially pulled out of just the end of the groove, so it can be clipped of cleanly and pushed back into the groove with a cotton bud soaked in poly.
 

 
After getting all the grooved filled with cotton I needed hoops.
I again used cotton
The first wind of cotton around the barrel was held in position with tiny drops of CA glue, it was then easy to keep winding and finish with another tiny drop of CA glue. Then I used a cotton bud to soak the cotton hoopin liquid poly , I did 1 hoop at a time letting it dry between coats of poly. (sticky finger prints look bad)
 


 
I still have some detailing I want to do to individualize them even more, I want to fit some with bungs and corks stopcock etc. But I want to label some of them. Flags of origin pics of contents etc. if this sort of thing was done or not I am not sure, other than the XXX lable on rum barrels. Any Ideas?
 

 
Oh and I made a half barrel as I am doing a cutaway model. Going to 'fill' it up with resin, the blue is just coloured marker to show through the resin.
 
 
Next is the barrels I got from RB models in Poland
 

 
I have done a few trial things to them so far.
I will stain them different colours etc.but I really want to work out a way of fixing the ends of the smaller ones.
The hoops are done with a 2B pencil.
 

 
I am making more barrels than I need, but I will just choose best of the bunch to go on the model.

Thank you very much B.E. ,
 
when looking at the close up yard tip, I recognized that I had by mistake tied the topsail sheet, one turn around the upper lift line. Its not obvious to see, for someone who does`nt know, but it looks at me now. As the line-ends have been snipped off already, I Would have to put new lines on to get that one mended. Decision : leave as is...
 
Nils
 
 

 
....not free from mistakes....
 
 

 
Skylight simply glued to deck, and tabernacle tied down on deck
 
 

 
beginning to clean up the line ends, all belaying places on gallows posts rail occupied now
 
 

 
close up at the port quarter
 
 

 
helmsman working place

I rough finished all the main yards and stored them in their respective positions.

Thank you Michael and Denis.

It seems strike will be really over until end of week ...

And new stage of drama starts ... hunting lost clients ...

But it is ok, this is life

Two more fields to go