HMS Royal William by KeithW - Euromodel - 1/72

[Keith_W]

Thanks guys. I have a question - as you can see, the gunports are open and the guns are run out, implying readiness for battle. I want to display the model with sails, but I do not want to cover up the deck details. Would it be accurate to depict the bottom sails furled (or partially furled), with the top sails fully deployed? 

[kirill4]

Good day Keith,

It looks most of the time, only main sail shown furled... all others not...it will give to see all deck details 

Could check here, on models and pictures

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio/1845326--kirill-shabanov/collections?ii=0

[Keith_W]

Spasibo, Kirill! I looked over the museum pictures you posted. Wow, amazing ... did you make those models? 

[Kevin]

stunning work

 

[kirill4]

11 hours ago, Keith_W said:

Spasibo, Kirill! I looked over the museum pictures you posted. Wow, amazing ... did you make those models? 

Good day Keith,

You are welcome,

Did they , those museum models and pictures, help You to find sails position of your model? Which of sails combination did You choose?

[Keith_W]

37 minutes ago, kirill4 said:

Good day Keith,

You are welcome,

Did they , those museum models and pictures, help You to find sails position of your model? Which of sails combination did You choose?

 

Hello kirill. I will partially furl all the bottom sails and the middle sails, and keep the top sails unfurled. 

I have a HMS Bounty with all the sails unfurled (see my signature). In my opinion it hides too much. 

[kirill4]

Your Bounty , She is nice ! Very nice and accurate model in all details!

For me pesonaly, I like how  ship model looks with full sails on... in my opinion , sails don't hide too much on deck.. at least yards could be trimmed on side a little bit on  more sharp angle.

What do You think, on this current built model, if only lower sails to make furled... all others, top and top gallant - undone?... 

[Keith_W]

Unfortunately I failed to plan properly and I don't have enough rope to move on to the rigging. I want to replace the kit supplied rope with Syren rope. I ordered a few samples of rope from Chuck many years ago as part of a larger order, and I was really pleased with the quality. Trying to calculate how much rope to order was quite difficult, I had to measure every strand of rope I could see to get an estimate, then added 50%. THEN the Syren store was closed and I could not get my order in until the weekend. 20 days to get the rope to Australia. 

 

So I will move on to making other parts that do not need any rope. 

[kirill4]

Good day, 

As variant, You could make your own ropes... hm, but than again, need to purchase a few threads of  different diameters and some simple rope making mashine... or to wait orders supply from Syren...

All The Best!

Kirill

Edited October 9, 2023 by kirill4

[Keith_W]

I was planning on making my own rope. But then, Byrnes stopped making their rope walk. And ordering a rope walk from Syren will take as long to arrive as ordering their rope. And there is no guarantee that my rope will be better quality than theirs. Most likely not! 

[kirill4]

Oh, I see...

Own rope making machine gives undoubt advantage, You will never depends on from rope supplier... :)))

sometimes it is very handy, even You have to invest some money in the begining...

By the way,  as I know, in internet, there are many drawings of very simple types of rope machines which could be made from wast material, but besides their rough appearance, they work, and with same final results as expensive and fine designed  brand famous machines ...

I saw one machine which assembled even without any wheels!!!:))) ,

but made from two triangle flats( plywood or evev thick cartoon), 3 wires ecscentric cranks with hooks at the ends and one central hand knob on the upper flat,  to making all construction moving when You moving this knob...

it looks funny but suprisingly it works , and I saw ropes made with it, they are normal in appearance, same as any others made by means of using wheels design rope making machines...

All the best!

Kirill

[Keith_W]

Hey @piratepete007, I have a question for you. I am trying to figure out how to mount the jibboom on the bowsprit. Have I arranged the pieces correctly? 

 

The knee (in black) is in line with the bowsprit, and the jibboom is off to the side. I think this looks strange, but that's what the plans seem to indicate. I think having the jibboom in line with the bowsprit in the midline looks more correct, but the knee is shaped so that it will sit on top of the bowsprit. 

[piratepete007]

Keith, will look at that this afternoon. Out all morning.

[piratepete007]

Keith,

Would you mind contacting me?

I will look at MSW on occasions - tired of criticisms - but messages like yours today I can easily miss. I thought they also came through via an email ?

Speak later today.

Pete

 

[Keith_W]

Hi @piratepete007, I managed to find the answer in Ken's build log. He shows a clear picture of how the whole assemble works in this post. It looks as if I have arranged the pieces correctly. 

[petervisser]

Spectacular Keith! A colossus of a model. All the best with the rigging.

Cheers,

Peter

[BANYAN]

Great to see you back at this build Keith; sorry I missed your return.  The build is coming on very nicely.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Keith_W]

My order for rope from Chuck at Syren arrived faster than expected - 12 days instead of the anticipated 20 days. This means I can get back to work on what I dread the most - rigging. 

 

I would like to thank @BANYAN for lending me his rope server. I was originally going to serve my rope with tan string, but he convinced me to use black. He also pointed out that some lines were served along their entire length, e.g. the first line in the shroud, to prevent chafing. I had forgotten this. I have VERY FINE black string, and even with the machine it took forever to serve 56 lengths of rope for the shrouds. This is his machine: 

Notice there are two motors - one to turn the rope, the other to advance the feed. It is possible to set the machine up, leave it running, go make a coffee, etc. and return to have your rope all nicely served. I forgot to ask if it had an auto-off feature, because I was not game to leave it running unattended. It's not my machine! So I sat there and manually served all the rope. It took a really long time. On the plus side, I covered a lot of podcasts. 

 

All the rope has been served and tagged sequentially so I don't lose track of which is which. 

 

The served rope neatly stacked. The fid was made by cutting off the bottom of the topmast and topgallant mast, cutting a square hole using the table saw as a dado cutter, and gluing the bottom back on. Once securely glued on, a hole was drilled from the bottom, through the fid, and the whole thing was pinned together. It was sanded flat and painted, and you can not see that it has been cut. I know that the crows nest should be painted all black, but I like the contrast of the pearwood to black so I left it that way. 

 

 

I have also constructed a base out of plywood and veneered it with maple burl. The reason I did not use the Euromodel base is because I need to route power into the ship through the supports. You may recall from my earlier posts that very early in the build, I drilled a hole into the keel, placed a nut there, and soldered wire to the nut to run power to the whole ship. The whole thing was reinforced with spare plywood. This was always the plan. 

 

You can see the support I made for the ship in the second photo. This is 3mm brass rod, bent to shape with the help of my vice. It was then soldered with reinforcements. It is then screwed through the base into the hull with an extra thick stainless steel bolt, and I made the base extra wide. The base is also ballasted for even more stability. It is really solid and stable and I doubt it would tip over in the car even if I took a fast corner. 

 

I can tell you that applying burl veneer is not easy! When you receive it, burl is always badly warped thanks to the grain of wood running in different directions, and there are holes everywhere. The first step is to flatten the veneer - spray it with water, then sandwich it between two melamine boards. After 24 hours, it is dry and must be used within a few hours otherwise it will curl up again (don't ask me how I know). Then brush on some PVA thinned with water (70/30) on both the veneer and the substrate (the plywood frame), and sandwich between the boards again. Wait 24 hours. Then trim and apply the edge veneers, trying to match the grain as best as you can. Clamp and wait 24 hours per side. Then it's clean up time - patch all the holes with spare veneer, trying to achieve a colour match. Make up some filler by mixing sawdust with thinned PVA. Sand the whole thing flat, going down the grits to 600. Then I applied Tung oil. So far 6 coats. I am waiting for the last coat to dry before I seal it with wipe-on poly. It is almost 2 weeks and the Tung oil still feels a little bit oily. 

 

If you look closely, you can see that I applied the top veneer before the edges. In hindsight, I can recommend that you do not do this, because you can see the side of the edge veneer. I should have applied the edge veneer first, and then the top veneer so that it overhangs the edge. 

Removing the name plate reveals a hidden compartment with the battery and a switch. 

 

After going through all that rope, I found that I did not order enough. Another order was fired off to Chuck, hopefully this will be enough rope to finish the project. And I am woefully short of deadeyes, Euromodel did not supply anywhere near enough of the 3mm deadeyes. I have put together a shopping list and will visit my hobby shop later this week. 

Edited October 30, 2023 by Keith_W

[BANYAN]

Glad to hear that the machine worked well for you Keith.  I did have plans to eventually fit limit (cut-out) switches but never got around to it.  I must confess though, that the plans/schematics for this were provided by a club member and some of the metal work done with the assistance of mechanically gifted friend.

 

For those interested, the server is designed to turn the rope to be served either CW or CCW depending on its lay.  The server mechanism (head) can also be driven in either direction that best suits the task at hand.  Both motors are also speed controlled such that once you find the sweet-spot for turning the rope and moving the head such that it lays up closely but does not override/over-wrap), it can just be left to its own devices.  The head, especially the tensioning device, is still a little crude but I have plans for that :).

 

Also, the lighting effect Keith has achieved looks absolutely brilliant in real life.

 

Cheers

 

Pat