HMS Royal William by KeithW - Euromodel - 1/72

[Keith_W]

Thanks for visiting my build log. The first few posts will be updated as I go along

 

From Wikipedia:

 

 

 

HMS Prince was rebuilt by Robert Lee at Chatham Dockyard in 1692, and renamed at the same time as HMS Royal William. During the War of the Grand Alliance the ship saw action at the Battle of Barfleur of 19 May 1692. The Prince belonged to the red squadron and carried the flag of Rear Admiral of the Red Sir Cloudesley Shovell. She was the first ship to break the French line during the battle.

 

Later she was rebuilt for a second time by John Naish at Portsmouth Dockyard from 1714, relaunching on 3 September 1719. She was laid up after her re-launch and saw no service at all until she was reduced to an 84-gun Second rate ship in 1756. One year later, she was part of an unsuccessful expedition against Rochefort led by Admiral Sir Edward Hawke. Her squadron, under Vice-Admiral Charles Knowles, attacked the Île-d'Aix and forced her garrison to surrender. In 1758 she participated in Boscawen's and Wolfe's attack on the French Fortress of Louisbourg (Nova Scotia) and an indecisive skirmish with a French squadron. The following year the Royal William returned to Canada under the command of Captain Hugh Pigot to join the attack on Quebec. After the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and the capture of Quebec she sailed back to England with the body of General Wolfe. In 1760 the Royal William was Boscawen's flagship when he took command of the fleet in Quiberon Bay. However, after a severe gale he was forced to return and shift his flag to the Namur. During the expedition against Belle Île of 1761 she was detached with several other ships to cruise off Brest and prevent a French counter-attack from there.

 

The Seven Years' War seems to be the last time that the Royal William played an active role. She was broken up in 1813.

 

 

LINKS TO RESOURCES

 

Euromodel website

- Royal William Product Page

- Interpretive Information by PiratePete

- Royal William Resource Information

 

Build logs on MSW

- Royal William by VinceP (Euromodel)

- Royal William by Brian C (Euromodel)

- Royal William by Denis Pink (Euromodel) 

- Royal William by Ersin Derebek (scratch) 

- Royal William by Kay (scratch) 

- Royal William by Marktiedens

- Royal William by ken3335

 

Other resources

- USNA model of Royal William

- Royal William by Victor Yankovitch, also alternative source.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Amfibius

[Keith_W]

OVERVIEW AND GENERAL KIT IMPRESSIONS

 

 

The box is really large and heavy, and arrives absolutely packed. Every bit of spare space is taken up by ... peanut foam. I filled up a plastic bag full of these annoying things and was able to get at the kit. 

 

First, the bad: 

 

 

The instructions are not very good (to say the least). For a kit of this complexity, the rather thin instruction booklet only contains THREE pages of instructions, of which the first page is taken up by the history of the ship, and some congratulatory notes. This shot is of the second page, and contains nothing that no experienced modeller wouldn't know. OTOH the plans (see next post) are excellent, however many diagrams in the plans could have been printed on smaller pieces of paper and bound in a booklet instead. As it is, all 17 sheets of plans are too large, unwieldy, and hard to find - which is why I took the trouble of making an index for myself (and for others who may follow). 

 

 

The ships boat is a cast resin item. Whilst it is well cast, other kit manufacturers are offering plank-on-frame boats. Oh yes, only one boat? For a first rate ship? 

 

 

Some of the castings are not very good. Look at how chunky this window is. This will have to go into the bin - I can only hope my skills are up to making a replacement from scratch. 

 

 

Likewise, the ship's lantern is a clumsy looking affair. 

 

 

These are meant to be gunport hinges. 

 

 

And these are meant to be gun carriages! 

 

 

The flags are printed on cloth. I am a little indifferent to the quality of the printing. 

 

 

However, the wood is of decent quality. On some older RW kits, the masts are pre-tapered. On this brand new RW kit, fresh from Italy, the masts are not. No matter, I have a lathe!

 

 

The bulkheads are unbelievably thick and sturdy - 10mm thick! 

 

 

Some other castings, like the figurehead, are excellent. 

 

 

And so are the castings for the stern decorations. 

 

 

... and the side decorations. 

 

 

The blocks are probably the best I have ever seen included in a model kit. Unfortunately, they are all mixed up in a bag. I will have to carefully sort them and put them away. 

Edited June 26, 2014 by KeithW

[Keith_W]

INDEX OF PLANS

 

 

Sheet 1: Overview of ship

 

 

Sheet 2: Masts and Yards

 

 

Sheet 3: Decorations

 

   

 

Sheets 4, 5, 6, 7: General construction details

 

 

Sheet 8: Longitudinal and Cross section (for scratch builders) 

 

 

 

Sheets 9, 10: Deck furniture

 

 

 

Sheets 11, 12: Standing rigging

 

  

 

Sheets 13, 14, 15: Running rigging

 

 

Sheet 16: Mast and yard details

 

 

Sheet 17: Ships plan

Edited June 26, 2014 by KeithW

[Keith_W]

Reserved (3) for future update. 

[Keith_W]

My kit room has been tidied and prepared for the new build. It won't look as neat as this for another three years. Let's go!!! 

 

 

The room has been re-arranged with the power tool bench behind me, and the main modelling table in front of me. All I need to do is turn around to have access to power tools. The desk by the window is where I will do all the Dremelling. Not pictured is my new shelving unit where all my tools, paints, and glues are neatly stowed away. Also not pictured is the clipboard where the plans will be displayed. 

 

 

The main modelling table with the modelling lamp. You can also see my handheld vacuum which is vital for keeping the peace in the household. 

 

 

The tool bench, from (L-R): Sherline 4410 Lathe, Byrnes Disc Sander, Proxxon MF70 mill. 

 

[mspringer]

Glad to see another Royal William started.  I've always wanted to add one of these to my stash so I'll pull up a chair.  I'll be interested to hear how useful the "interpretive information" on the Euromodel site is.  Some of it looks good.

 

I also like your workroom setup...very functional.

 

Enjoy!

 

Mark

[The Sailor]

Hi Keith,

nice to see another build log of the RW. I look forward to following with big interest.

[Keith_W]

Yes Brian, it would appear that there are some differences between your kit and mine. 

 

By the way, I joined a local woodworker's club (here's a shout out to Waverley Woodworkers Club) so that I can have access to their tools ... and what a collection they have! The WWC is more set up for people who work with larger scale projects, so all their equipment is full size. Their lathe is large enough to turn bowls, for example. Otherwise, they have every piece of equipment that we would need - drill press, disc sander, drum sander, belt sander, router, lathes, mills, grinders, polishers, jig saws, band saws, etc. They will save me a fortune on tools, but I would still benefit from miniaturized versions of the above for our hobby. 

 

Anyway, I did more work on the boat today. 

 

 

The first thing I did was to lay out all the frames against the plans. In particular, I was looking for the incorrectly labelled bulkheads E and F as noted by VinceP in his build log. Sure enough, as he described, on Plan Sheet 4 the drawing shows correct placement of the bulkheads, but the labels for E and F are the wrong way round. Importantly, the bulkheads themselves are correctly labelled. 

 

As noted elsewhere, the RW bulkheads are named according to ship builders convention, as follows: 

(STERN) 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 0 - A - B - C - D - E - F (BOW)

 

 

 

The next thing is to drill the holes in the false keel for future attachment of a stand. The drill press at the WWC came in handy. I drilled a 6mm diameter hole in the 10mm width false keel - only 2mm of clearance either side! The precision of the drill press ensured that my hole was perfectly centered. The above pictures show me milling a hole to accept the nut. Not pictured are the cheeks that I made to strengthen the weakened keel and to hold the nut in. 

 

 

 

Start of bulkhead attachment. The bulkheads were attached with the aid of a square to ensure ... squareness. As noted elsewhere, the bulkheads are a rather sloppy fit and need to be shimmed. 

 

 

All the bulkheads have now been fitted. Alignment was checked visually and with the aid of a stringer (not shown). 

 

  

 

Additional reinforcements were made to ensure hull rigidity. These were made from scrap wood - there is more than enough left over to make these parts! 

 

At this point, I chose to install the lower gun deck. This deck has notches for the bulkheads pre-cut, so it made sense to install it to help check alignment. Note that the deck is supplied in left and right halves, but installation is impossible unless it is also cut across the beam (into quarters). 

 

[Keith_W]

 

As of tonight, the hull is almost complete and will be ready for planking in a couple of days. I still need to shape the stern and bow fillers and bevel the bulkheads. 

 

 

I installed additional reinforcements for the top deck bulkheads. The frame is now incredibly rigid. 

 

 

I thought I would draw attention to a problem with bulkhead "F". I am not sure if other RW builders encountered the same problem as me - none of them have mentioned it at least. Note that bulkheads E and F are correctly installed with respect to the false keel. Also, the stringers for the main and middle deck run straight and true - they are so perfectly aligned that they simply fell in! Yet, bulkhead F has a pronounced 1mm step at the level of the fo'c'sle deck, AND the lower deck stringer is bent downwards. 

 

The exact same problem is present on the other side, so it's not as if I installed bulkhead "F" at an angle. Did any of you have this problem? 

[Landlubber Mike]

Keith, I'm very excited to follow this build.  I have the Friedrich Wilhelm which is a very nice kit, but the Royal William seems to be the pinnacle of all kits. Looking forward to following your journey.

[Bindy]

Hi Keith,

 

What a great (and informative) start to your new log. I can't wait to see what you can do with such a magnificent ship!

[Keith_W]

Thanks Mark, Brian, Richard, Mike, and Belinda. Brian, did you encounter the same problem with Frame "F" that I described? 
 
Anyway, with that in mind, I did more work today. The Frame "F" thing made me suspect that Euromodel is no Model Shipways, where things simply fall together precisely with minimal fuss. I became even more vigilant for kit errors - e.g. holes or notches cut in the wrong spot, etc. Every move was triple checked with the plans and other build logs. 
 
I soon came across this problem: 
 

 
How do I align the rear planking supports (Parts no. 28 and 29) with regard to Frame 8? The plans and instructions do not indicate this clearly. This is VERY IMPORTANT because correct placement of this part determines where the planking will terminate below the transom. Furthermore, if the part is placed as the plans suggest, the upper edge of the part describes an angle, as shown in the red line above! When Keith Julier built his RW, on p.34 he says: 
 
 

"[...] In my particular case I found I had a little more space than I had casting! This amounted to 2mm in total [...]"

 
 
Did Keith Julier place Part 29 wrongly, leading to a taller transom than provided for by the kit, thus leading to his 2mm surplus? 
 

 
I have coloured in the plans to make them easier to follow. This is what I mean - the plans suggest that the lower edge of Part 29 should correspond with the curve of Frame 8. This was also the approach suggested by Pete in his Interpretive Info, and also followed by VinceP. 

 

 

Another view of the same area (from Plan Sheet 7, again coloured for interpretation) suggests that the transom extends below the level of the top of the false keel, therefore the run of planking should terminate slightly above the bottom of Frame 8. 

 

 

In the end, I decided to align the tip of Part 29 to just below the bottom deck. This means that the lower edge of Part 29 is flush with Frame 8, and the vertical edge of Part 29 is square to the false keel. Time will tell if I have made the correct decision ... if my rear planking looks strange, it will be this that is to blame! 

Edited June 29, 2014 by KeithW

[Keith_W]

Here are a couple more minor kit issues. 

 

 

 

The middle gun deck is supplied pre-cut with a rounded bow section. However, as you can see, the rounded bow section will clash with the front bow filler block. The solution is to simply cut the deck and discard the piece. 

 

  

 

The keel describes a sloppy fit with the false keel. After checking with the plans, and confirming that the top of the keel is supposed to rise to the level of the main deck (if the bowsprit wasn't in the way), I shaved away the area painted in red. I now have a perfectly fitting keel. 

 

 

 

The kit doesn't include a mizzenmast support, so I fabricated one and installed it. 

 

 

My wife returned from a day of shopping to find that I had turned nearly every spare inch of floor space into reading space for Royal William plans! She was not very impressed, especially since I had not kept the modelling door closed and the dust was in the main living area. I had to put a stop to my modelling and vacuum the house.

Edited July 1, 2014 by KeithW

[Keith_W]

Time for an update, as well as a few other notes on building this magnificent ship.

 

 

The bow filler blocks were a real pain to fabricate. To help get the correct contour, I photocopied the plans and cut out guides to check the shape at different levels. It really helps that Euromodel's plans are so detailed - by far the best I have ever seen. It more than makes up for the scanty instructions.

 

 

Completed bow filler block (left). The one on the right was roughly shaped with a belt sander.

 

 

I used my Proxxon MF70 mill to shape the keel so that they fit together.

 

 

Start of planking! I decided to start at the lower gun deck and go both upwards and downwards. As you can see I managed to get a really tight bend at the stern.

 

 

The bow, with the bow filler blocks installed. The plans are rather sketchy regarding how they should be placed, but it made sense to bring them up to the level of the main deck. If you do so, there will be a gap in the middle because the false keel does not rise high enough. I installed a block (arrowed) to help support the main deck which will be installed later.

 

 

I then started tracing the gunport pattern out onto some tracing paper.

 

 

Note that there are FOUR different sizes of gunports. Interestingly, none of the other build logs mention this. Pete's Interpretive Info on the Euromodel website suggests that only TWO different gunport sizes are present (14mm x 14mm, and 13mm x 13mm). The gunport sizes I measured out were:

 

14mm x 13mm <-- lower gun deck

13mm x 12mm <-- middle gun deck

11mm x 10mm <-- main deck

9mm x 9mm <-- hindcastle

 

Perhaps Pete would like to check his plans (I used Plan sheet #7) and amend his I-I accordingly?

 

 

I have now installed five planks on the lower gun deck, all without tapering. This weekend I will cut out the gunports.

 

 

I also took some measurements of the bulkheads below the lower gun deck - these will all have to be tapered.I used these measurements to calculate how wide each plank should be at each bulkhead. Disappointingly, the lower graph (a graphical representation of the shape of the plank) suggests that shaping these planks won't be so easy!

[Sir Charles Edward]

I have this kit also and noticed the same things that you have in my first look through of the plans.  I had not noticed the clunky windows though, the figurehead is indeed excellent and most of the other metal decorations seem well done.  I am not sure if I will be able to paint that figurehead as suggested, but will try.  The wood is of good quality also, and I will have to do the same thing with the numerous blocks and etc.  I actually counted those blocks and found out that I was missing quite a few but Euromodel happily sent me loads of extra plus an entire "set" of additional metal parts, including a ships wheel and few other things that I had not thought of when I was planning this build.

 

You are correct the assembled hull, which is where I suspended this project, is extremely sturdy, and I added a few extra supports per Pete's interpretive instructions, which makes it by far the heaviest hull that I have yet to build.  I have communicated with Pete via email and he has assisted me greatly in my own construction plan of this kit.

 

I have already installed the first and second battery decks into the carcass and that was a pain to cut those mahogany pre-cut sheets in half just to allow them to slide into place through the stern gallery.  There was a lot of cutting and fitting to make those decks fit, and it is fortunate that they will not be visible on the completed model.

 

Anyway, I look forward to watching your progress, as I will be starting this project up again in a few years and will need all of the help that I can get with it.  The Royal William is one of six kits that I have on the bench in various stages of hull planking.  I am currently only working on one kit, OcCre Montanes, trying to complete it, and I have been reposting my build log of that ship here. 

 

Then the plan is to will finish Mamoli's Sao Miguel, Corel's Wappen von Hamburg, two Albatross kits, one from OcCre and the other from Constructo.  After these kits are done, I may be able to attempt the fairly advanced kit Royal William.

[Keith_W]

Thank you for your comment, Sir Charles. I am actually putting together an inventory of things I would like to request from Euromodel. I haven't yet done a block count, and in fact I dread doing it. I have noticed that my ships wheel is missing too. I was also going to order additional dummy guns, because I plan to display guns where the kit suggests the gunports should be closed.

[Sir Charles Edward]

Yes, I remember that going through the plans, but I also remember a comment from an interpretive instructions from the Euromodel site that mentions that those closed gun ports actually are located directly on a bulkhead, and the bulkhead would have to be cut out to make room for a cannon.

[Keith_W]

Yes, Sir Charles. The closed gunports are located directly on the bulkhead. I do have a plan to add additional structural reinforcements around the gunports. I was going to do it all today but unfortunately I had to take the wife to the city!

[Keith_W]

Hey guys, I have a question!!! Please refer to this diagram:

 

 

When gunports are aligned on the ship, are they aligned vertically (A) or do they follow the curve of the deck and wales of the ship ( ? I would have thought that (A) is correct.

 

The reason why I ask is because the Euromodel plans show both.

 

 

At the stern, you can see that the gunports are aligned vertically.

 

 

However, at the bow, the gunports seem to slope up to match the curve of the deck?

 

I think this looks really odd. Which is correct?

[Sir Charles Edward]

My Montanes follows the curve of the wales very slightly on the 2nd battery, but they are far more shallow with only two gun decks than the RW.  As this picture shows my 1st battery wales are apparently way off the mark in curvature, but the precut bulwarks, which already had the gun ports cut into them, do show a distinctive curve that my wale should have followed.  Ah, live and learn.

 

 

 

 

[Keith_W]

Thanks Brian and Sir Charles. I decided to cut the gunports vertically.

 

 

Thanks to me not reading the (*&^(&^&% plans properly, I cut the gunports 4mm too low! This is me correcting the mistake.

 

 

This is my gunport cutting jig. The hole in the middle is where a pin goes through. I mark the position of the gunport with a pin, then place the jig on top. I trace the outline of the gunport, then cut it out using a knife and a drill. If I can pass the gunport jig tightly through the hole, it is the correct size.

[Sir Charles Edward]

Yes, the second planking will cover all of that up.  I still hope that my RW will look similar to yours, when I start it up again.

[pirozzi]

Hey guys, I have a question!!! Please refer to this diagram:

 

gunports.png

 

When gunports are aligned on the ship, are they aligned vertically (A) or do they follow the curve of the deck and wales of the ship ( ? I would have thought that (A) is correct.

 

The reason why I ask is because the Euromodel plans show both.

 

P7064025.JPG

 

At the stern, you can see that the gunports are aligned vertically.

 

P7064026.JPG

 

However, at the bow, the gunports seem to slope up to match the curve of the deck?

 

I think this looks really odd. Which is correct?

Hi Keith,

The gunports should be parallel to the horizontal plain and follow the curvature of the deck as to height off the deck.

 

Vince P.

[Keith_W]

 

Planking continues. The lower deck gunports have been cut out and the dummy gun supports have been installed. The lower deck has been painted black.

[Keith_W]

Thanks for all the likes, everyone! It's a nice feeling to have more likes than posts Anyway, work continues.

 

 

As per other build logs, I installed some nails into the keel to keep it stable because a great heavy mass of metal decorations will be cantilevered off the beakhead.

 

 

The keel is also attached to the false keel by means of wooden dowels. Even with no glue, the whole shebang is rock solid!

 

 

Planking has now proceeded to below the level of the wales, and up to the second deck. Not shown are the blocks to support the dummy guns. These things are virtually impossible to photograph, because they are painted black against the entire lower deck, which has also been painted black. This is a good thing, because I don't want to see the dummy blocks. It IS a bit difficult trying to locate the holes for installation of the dummy guns when everything is black though.

 

BTW, the second deck fit perfectly a few weeks ago when I was fettling it. Now, with all the planks in place, somehow the deck won't fit! After quite a bit of cursing and a lot of anxiety (did I somehow distort the shape of the ship when I planked it?) ... it all measures correctly. Phew.

 

As you can see, the second deck is also painted black. The rear section has been covered with foil for lighting.

 

 

I was not sure how to route power into the ship. You can see a little excavation which I dug out on the false keel because I was planning to put a connector there. Then I hit upon a simple idea - why not simply electrify the support rods that I was planning to install anyway? I soldered the wire unto a nut and installed it.

 

 

We have no lights ...

 

 

AND NOW WE HAVE LIGHTS! EUREKA!! The idea worked!!!

 

As you can see, the LED's are SMD's (surface mount diodes) which are absolutely tiny. I glued them to a block of wood and then angled them outwards slightly. Yes, I know that Euromodel supply metal plates in place of windows, so you will never see the LED's if you build the ship as per the kit. However, I plan to fabricate my own replacement windows. I'm not sure how i'm going to do that, given that I have never made windows as small as this before, but time will tell ... I'll think of something! I hope!

 

That's it for now. I will install the garboard planks and then work the planking upwards to close the gap.

[mij]

One`s always curious whats inside a model, how it was built and other knowledge.

Nice build Keith

 

Kind Regards

 

mij

[Kevin]

yippppeeeeeeeeeee another RW build for me to follow, sorry I am late

[Keith_W]

Hi Geoff, yes they are just LED's. To be honest, I thought of them rather late in the build (i.e. just last week), hence the late addition. Otherwise, I would have planned for them from the start.

 

I wanted randomly flickering LED's, but all the googling I have done suggests a level of skill which I do not have - or at least, something which I do not have the inclination to acquire at this point in time, e.g. the ability to program an Arduino board. I am sure I could acquire those skills, but maybe i'll implement it in my next model - whatever it may be.

[Bootes]

Hi Keith

just read through your build log. Wow your doing a great job there, I don't think I could work without a really well pictured and informative booklet. I'm only on my second wood build. I hadn't thought of the aluminium foil at the stern, great idea and will use it on my victory. As per my post, you could change out those standard LED's for Flickering ones of the same size as you have plenty of room.

Keep up the good work

Bootes

[Keith_W]

Hi Bootes, to be honest I have been assisted greatly by following other build logs here and by the availability of the "interpretive info" on Euromodel's website that I linked to in my first post. This is quite an enjoyable build, but I am learning that a Euromodel kit is not quite the same as a kit from Amati or Model Shipways. It is a kit in name only, in that you are theoretically supplied with enough material to build a boat. However, if you hang around this forum for too long, your expectations of how a boat should be built becomes quite high - which means a lot of scratchbuilding and modifications.

 

The presence of the LED's in the rear indicates that I am planning to discard the kit windows, which are supplied as solid chunks of metal. I have had sleepless nights wondering how on earth I am going to make those. We shall see!

 

As for the flickering LED's, thank you for suggesting the modules on eBay in the other thread. To install those, I would have to undo some work I have already done, but that's OK. I would install the flickering LED modules inside the ship and power them through the support stands. I will have to think hard about where i'm going to put them though - because the second deck has already been installed, access to the first deck is permanently sealed - which means that options for placement becomes very limited!