Royal William by marktiedens - FINISHED - Euromodel - scale 1:72

[marktiedens]

Hi Greg - nothing special to space the pins. just dry fit them to see how it would look & then glued them in place. I was going to space them farther apart but after laying them out I liked the close together look better. 

 

Mark

[marktiedens]

A little update - second planking complete! The wood for the second planking was not the best quality - the thickness & width was consistent but the surfaces were very rough on some planks. A lot of scraping & sanding will be needed. It looks a little splotchy now since I haven`t started any scraping or sanding yet. I was a little disappointed that I had to use one stealer on each side at the stern .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark

[NMBROOK]

A LITTLE update?   Planking looks great Mark  A good sand and scrape will eliminate any blemishes in the timber.

 

Kind Regards

 

Nigel

[marktiedens]

Thanks Nigel - I guess it is more than a little update . I wish I could have gotten better wood for the planking,but I would have had to spend 2 to 3 hundred USD for better wood like pear or boxwood .Anyway,I told myself when I started this build I would try to make the best of the kit parts.I don`t know why the planking strips were cut so poorly while the deck planks were very nice & smooth.

 

Mark

[Seventynet]

The planking looks first rate Mark. Nice job. You may find that after a good scrape that the wood all of a sudden looks very nice. That's what I discovered with mine, even though I had a large percentage of really poor planks. The trick is to not go right through the planks, like I did once.

 

Best, Ian

[marktiedens]

Thanks Ian - I know I can get it smoothed down ok,it`s just a lot of work .After building 20-some ships these are probably the roughest I have come across - they look like they were cut on a 10 inch table saw with a dull blade.

 

Mark

[fmodajr]

Mark,

 

Very nice job with the 2nd planking layer!

 

Frank

[Seventynet]

Mark, I hope I didn't cause offence with my usual over-enthusiastic know it all comments. Of course you would know when wood would good enough to reuse. Best, Ian

[petervisser]

Fantastico Mark! What a bruiser of a ship, once you see the size of the hull.

 

Thanks for the update. Very inspiring.

 

Peter

[marktiedens]

Frank - thanks very much. Glad to get that part done.

 

Janos - thanks very much. Actually I was just joking about needing a stealer - I originally thought I would need 2 or 3 .

 

Ian - no offense taken. I am always open to suggestions or constructive criticism.

 

Peter - thanks also for your nice comment.It is one big ship - I haven`t figured out where I`m going to put it when finished.

 

I have scraped,sanded,scraped some more,& sanded some more,so it is looking pretty decent now. More pics when I have finished the gun port linings.

 

Mark

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Mark

Brilliant second planking! A little scrapping and sanding is all you need to do!

Cheers

Greg

[Beef Wellington]

Mark, nice work.  Love the shot of the bow, such really nice curves.  Sure it was a challenge to plank.

[marktiedens]

Greg - thanks very much. Sanding is underway!

 

Jason - thanks also. I really like that bow shot too. The bow is rather bluff,so a bit of edge bending was required but it came out ok. I did not need any drop planks.

 

Mark

[md1400cs]

Mark,

 

All mates are right -Don't beat yourself up - Your planking is so excellent.

 

Now just give that elbow and fingers a solid workout. Very much enjoying following along.

 

PS: Always had my eye on this ship as well. Maybe one day. 

 

Michael

[marktiedens]

Thanks Michael - your thoughts are appreciated.

 

Mark

[marktiedens]

A little more progress - planking all sanded down smooth & all gun ports that will be open are lined. I pre-painted the 1 by 5 mm strips for the linings before installing them - much easier than trying to paint them in place. No finish has been applied to the hull yet so it looks a little dull. Next up will be the stern galleries.

 

 

 

 

Mark

[Seventynet]

Hi Mark,

 

That looks fabulous. I should mention that I have gun port envy. Yours are so precise looking. Mine... well they need a lot of work.

 

Best, Ian

[marktiedens]

Thanks Ian - those gun ports were a bit fiddly to do,but I am happy with them.

 

Mark

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Mark

Congratulations on a first class final panking! Good idea to prepaint the gunports sides, and Ian is correct saying that the ports alignment looks superb!

Havagooday

Greg

Edited April 13, 2016 by Greg the peg leg sailor

[marktiedens]

Thanks Greg

 

Mark

[marktiedens]

Update - started working on the transom & ran into a problem. After a lot of measuring & head scratching it seems the 2 main pieces that make up the transom support were made wrong. After contacting piratepete007 - the writer of the interpretive manuals - he contacted Euromodel & found out that a few years back the people doing the laser cutting cut a batch of these timbers the wrong thickness. I was going to contact them for some replacement parts but decided to just make new ones - not too difficult. In the first picture you can see the 2 parts sitting on top of each other,the thicker one on the bottom as it shows in the plans & Pete`s info. The problem is the thinner top piece should be wider than the bottom one. The second picture is of the new pieces I made. Finally,in the last picture I used one of the bulkhead knock-outs as a template to form the correct deck camber on them. Euromodel knew about the bad parts,but someone unknowingly put them into some kits. I guess I am a perfect example of Murphy`s law.

 

 

 

 

Mark

[piratepete007]

Euromodel were more than happy to replace those incorrect pieces but Mark - to his credit - substituted his own. He is to be commended for taking this approach; many others would not ! I think the essence of problem solving is good communication and Mark and I did that through a series of PM's.

 

Pete

[marktiedens]

Hi all - moving forward on the transom. After studying the plans & Pete`s info I started with the upper transom support,which is the base for the entire stern assembly - it needs to be close to correct or everything will be off. First thing I did was attach some short planks in the position of the lower wale - that way I could slide the transom support in to the same place every time while fitting it to the sides of the hull.

 

 

Then after fitting to the sides of the hull I installed a couple of dowels in the front edge so I could install it in the same place after removing the 2 short planks. The distance from the top of the upper support was 98mm - just what it should be to the upper quarter deck.

 

 

Then I proceeded to shape the upper transom support. I used the metal bands that fit between the 2 support pieces as a guide to shaping the bottom.The profile of the top of this piece was not altered.

 

 

Then I shaped the lower support both from the sides of the hull & the bottom of the upper support. Then the fun part - cutting the groove for the metal bands to sit in. Took most of a day with my little exacto chisel & files.Meanwhile, I installed 2 dowels to keep the 2 pieces in alignment. A dry fit of the 2 support pieces & metal bands came out pretty good.

 

 

 

My hand held Proxxon belt sander was a BIG help in shaping these pieces.

 

Mark

Edited April 20, 2016 by marktiedens

[donrobinson]

Real nice job Mark

[piratepete007]

Mark - all seems to be going well so far. I like the addition of the small strips to ensure correct transom supporting block angle.  As I sit here in the background, I just wish I had the availability of all these RW posts when I did mine. These postings in fact are encouraging me to go back and do some savage re-writing of my original notes !!! One thing I am reconsidering is to actually bend the wales into the 'final' shape over the first planking in what I consider would be their approximate position. After drying, they would be removed. That way the major forming is done. When the second planking and stern ornamentation is completed, the wales can be added - I think - without too much extra trouble.

 

Just a thought and would appreciate a few comments without hi-jacking your post.

 

Pete

Edited April 20, 2016 by piratepete007

[Keith_W]

Beautiful work, Mark. I have to say that your accuracy and neatness is on a level beyond mine. That plank solution to positioning the transom support is brilliant, I wish I thought of that. I worked off pencil marks drawn on the hull - nowhere as accurate or repeatable as what you did. Also love the precision of your cut piece. Pete should strongly consider inserting this suggestion into his I-I. 

 

Pete, your I-I states that in a real ship, the wales go on first and then the hull planking is fit around the wales. I saw that before I applied my second planking, and considered adding the wales first. In hindsight, it was something I should have done. Those walnut wales are extremely difficult to bend, I could not get them to sit correctly. They protruded at such an angle that at a few points, I sanded through the entire thickness of the plank. All hidden with filler and black paint now. 

[piratepete007]

Keith - my notes are already amended and also include a few of Mark's photos (with permission). By soaking those wales in dilute ammonia (cloudy ammonia in supermarkets) for a minimum of seven days, they become so pliable that clamping them down onto the first planking until dry works a treat. Of course you guys would know about the use of ammonia but maybe some others who read this may find that useful to know. The only problem of adding those reformed wale strips on after the second planking is that historically they would then project out from the hull surface a little too much - but lets not get too pedantic.

Pete

[marktiedens]

First,Thanks for all the nice comments. 

 

Pete - That sounds like it may be a good idea to pre-bend at least the lower wales. 2 by 7mm walnut is a real pain to bend.

 

Keith - I was considering installing the wales before the transom,but did not want to try & chisel parts of it out while at the same time trying to fit the galleries. I also thought about just installing the lower wales first,but I didn`t know exactly where to end them under the transom. They appear to end in a curve to match the bottom decoration,which can`t be put on until the transom supports are i place. I am considering making the lower wales out of basswood - much easier to bend. Since they will be painted black it doesn`t really matter what kind of wood they are. The only trouble with using basswood for the wales is I would have to be careful not to ding them up - basswood is kind of soft. I may try to bend those walnut strips first to see how they come out. I remember when I built the Wappen Von Hamburg the lower wale was 3 by 8mm walnut - talk about hard to bend.

 

Mark

[piratepete007]

Now here is a philosophical comment which might just make things a little easier or maybe more difficult. It may be a little cavalier of me to say so but whilst the drawings from Euromodel are accurate and historically correct, I have been wondering of late whether I should or need to be absolutely precise to a fraction of a millimeter. When all the stern ornamentation is in place and the second planking is there, the positioning of the wale could well be a little subjective ! How come ? Well, we are looking at a three-dimensional model that is accurately portrayed in a two dimensional drawing. No question on that. Reality is that say, 45 mm. measured vertically off the plan could easily be 49 mm. when measured on the hull surface since the hull curves inwards. The purists will throw their hands up in the air but the most simple approach is to eye-ball the plans(along with measuring) and produce a 'best fit' for the wale positioning. My point is that in the past I have been critical of those who do not have the wale exactly butting up against a certain point on the stern metal castings. Is there room allowed in our thinking to tolerate small discrepancies ? After all this is a quasi-scratch build anyway. So look at the various photos in the Photogallery for the Royal William on the Euromodel website and compare what you see against what is in the drawings. Many small variations will be noticed.

 

In summary, the important thing with the wales is that they follow the line of second planking (as they would have done historically) and that the stern ornamentation inclination follow the lines of the wales. If the conjunction of the wales and metal pieces varies a little, maybe this is not a big issue ???

 

It depends on what you want to achieve but what I am saying is maybe we should be prepared to exercise a degree of your own interpretation. I have yet to see two identical Royal William ships.

 

So much for a little bit of raving on my part.

 

Pete

[DenPink]

Now here is a philosophical comment which might just make things a little easier or maybe more difficult. It may be a little cavalier of me to say so but whilst the drawings from Euromodel are accurate and historically correct, I have been wondering of late whether I should or need to be absolutely precise to a fraction of a millimeter. When all the stern ornamentation is in place and the second planking is there, the positioning of the wale could well be a little subjective ! How come ? Well, we are looking at a three-dimensional model that is accurately portrayed in a two dimensional drawing. No question on that. Reality is that say, 45 mm. measured vertically off the plan could easily be 49 mm. when measured on the hull surface since the hull curves inwards. The purists will throw their hands up in the air but the most simple approach is to eye-ball the plans(along with measuring) and produce a 'best fit' for the wale positioning. My point is that in the past I have been critical of those who do not have the wale exactly butting up against a certain point on the stern metal castings. Is there room allowed in our thinking to tolerate small discrepancies ? After all this is a quasi-scratch build anyway. So look at the various photos in the Photogallery for the Royal William on the Euromodel website and compare what you see against what is in the drawings. Many small variations will be noticed.

 

In summary, the important thing with the wales is that they follow the line of second planking (as they would have done historically) and that the stern ornamentation inclination follow the lines of the wales. If the conjunction of the wales and metal pieces varies a little, maybe this is not a big issue ???

 

It depends on what you want to achieve but what I am saying is maybe we should be prepared to exercise a degree of your own interpretation. I have yet to see two identical Royal William ships.

 

So much for a little bit of raving on my part.

 

Pete

All I will say Pete is very well said.

 

Denis.