HMS Royal William by KeithW - Euromodel - 1/72

[Keith_W]

Hi all, i'm back! I took a break because I was frustrated by the first galley on the stern. Having decided to scratch build the stern, and not use the metal plates supplied by Euromodel, I had to come up with a method to make the windows and still let the internal lighting shine through. I thought about building a wooden frame and cutting holes in it, but in the end I decided to make the part out of acrylic and veneer over it. 

 

This is what I am talking about: 

 

 

This is a surprisingly complex part to make! The part curves in three directions, and must be precisely cut to fit the lower transom, the deck above it AND the side strakes. You can see my various failed attempts ... I made and remade this part four times. I FINALLY managed to fabricate a piece that I liked. 

 

 

This is how it sits on the stern. 

 

 

The upper deck will be built together as a unit. 

 

 

I have also made a start on the next cabin piece. This one is a little more complex, it protrudes out into the deck. Once again, I decided to scratch build the piece myself instead of using the Euromodel supplied plates. 

 

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Keith

WELCOME BACK I think it is far for me to say, on the behalf of MSW, that we all miss you.

 

Your approach to the transom is simply brilliant,  but it looks so bloody hard to do. Well done my mate.

 

Keep up your log now that you have started it again. 

 

Havagooday mate

Greg

[marktiedens]

WOW! Very interesting approach - looks like a lot of fiddly work.

 

Mark

[GLakie]

That part looks like it was a nightmare to build, but it seems you've got a handle on it. Nice work Keith! 

[yancovitch]

wow...talk about innovative!....................

[Keith_W]

Thank you for following my log and all the likes, everyone.

 

Greg: I should thank you also for all the messages you've been sending me throughout the year, pestering me to restart my build log. Life got in the way, and life will get in the way again. That's what happens when you're NOT retired and you have to pay off your mortgage!

 

Mark and George and Victor: I can tell you it was a major pain in the ***. As you can imagine, the angle of the windows is adjusted by moving the top plate relative to the bottom plate ... but if you do that, the side curves (the horn-like things which curve from the transom to the hull) are no longer in alignment. Even my carefully made card template got me "roughly" in the ballpark. Each successive iteration was a refinement of the previous.

 

Rick: I read that book when I was a teenager

 

Anyway, I worked on a dummy cabin plate as "proof of concept" before tackling the stern. This part will by partially hidden by the deck above it, so any mistakes here won't be so visible.

 

 

Here, the acrylic master is being covered by veneer plates. You can see two methods of constructing the windows - on leftmost, I cut out each cross member and glued it in place (VERY time consuming). The window next to it, I simply laid the cross member across. The difference is not visible if you are looking at the window straight on, but if you look at it at an angle, you can see that the window is not quite right (see later).

 

 

The scratch made part compared to the Euromodel supplied metal plate. I have yet to make the doors. Like the other cabin plates, the doors will be shown partially open.

 

 

Installed in situ.

 

I COULD make the column decoration, but I think it looks nicer unadorned. What do you think?

[yancovitch]

i'd make the colums....maybe make a mold of the white metal one, and cast in acrylic or whatever....i don't remember, but i think i painted them  gold .....i always found that much of the cast metal was a pain in the a---.............wait till you get to the rails ...the stuff i got in my kit many years ago, wouldn't bend  a smidgen ..........i got the acrylic liquid and powder from my wife who worked in a dental office...i used that a lot..................cheers................

[Keith_W]

Yes Victor, you did paint yours gold. Here is a picture of your ship:

 

 

I went to the other forum and downloaded every single picture you uploaded. I reference them constantly! OK I will go make the columns then.

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Keith

Great job to say the least! I'm glad that you have decided to make the columns, it will look much better.

I'm sorry mate if I was a pain in the rectum with all of my messages lol.

[BANYAN]

Hi Keith, welcome back

 

Some nice progress on the RW mate - I'd do the columns in acrylic also - adds that extra nice detail.

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited January 11, 2016 by BANYAN

[marktiedens]

Maybe you could cut the columns out of the metal piece & use them?

 

Mark

[Keith_W]

After Victor, Greg, Pat, and Mark suggested the columns ... I went ahead and made them. I flattened a dowel by passing it through the thickness sander, then made the feet out of pear. Painted the whole thing gold, and mounted them on the panel.

 

 

I think it DOES look much better! The whole thing has a more pronounced 3D effect than the part supplied by Euromodel.

 

I have also mounted the doors. Yes, I know there are no doors in the plans. Call it artistic license. I have to show off the parquetry floor somehow.

 

 

Dry fitted on the deck.

[usedtosail]

Yes, those column really make a nice addition. Great job.

[yancovitch]

much better!

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Patrick

A bloody marverous job! Looks a lot better and I love the doors. There must have been doors there or how else could you go in to see the beautiful floor!

Havagooday

Greg

Edited January 11, 2016 by Greg the peg leg sailor

[Keith_W]

I will be going overseas for a few weeks tomorrow, so no ship modelling. I thought I would post a quick update on stuff i've been working on.

 

 

 

The fo'c'sle deck has now been planked. Note that the marine walk is integrated into the fo'c'sle deck and has been planked with the deck. I am not installing any deck furniture until the ship is fully built up, which is why the deck looks so sparse. Only things that need to be there are there.

 

 

In my previous post I said that I had made four attempts at making the acrylic transom piece. Well, you can make that five attempts. After the last effort, which I thought was "definitive", I discovered several errors. The most serious was that the top piece was far too curved. Quite subtle and not seen in pictures. I only noticed it when I made a final inspection prior to commencing work on it. So I had to fabricate another one.

 

 

A new feature of the new transom piece is that the acrylic supports are sanded to make them cloudy. This will help diffuse the light from the LED's better.

 

 

 

This shows how the galleries in the transom piece are made. The entire piece has severe curves, so it is best built up in sections. The sections are then glued to the acrylic support. The advantage of sections is - if I make a mistake, I can just ditch the section without having to re-fabricate the whole part (which I have already done - five times!). Also, it is easier to bend sections around the curve.

 

You can see the pencil guides I use to help align window frames. The curved tops of the windows were made on my mill - I milled out a channel from a block of pear, then sliced off slices with my table saw.

 

 

The windows curve severely around the side of the transom piece. I decided to hide the split under a column. Once it is sanded, painted, and the column decoration goes on, the split will be invisible.

 

 

 

Completed, with wood filler to disguise holes. Whilst waiting for the putty to dry, I thought i'd test out what it would look like with lights on.

 

If we count all the failed attempts at transom pieces, it would have taken me about 10 days work to get to this point, on this piece alone!

 

 

Progress as of now. A number of flaws are evident - but nothing some sandpaper won't fix. The windows look slightly opaque - that's my layer of Kristal Kleer drying. Kristal Kleer helps hide any marks on the window - smudges from superglue, accidental cuts, etc. Also, it clings to the side of the frames by surface tension and makes each window pane slightly curved.

 

Note there are a couple of open windows. I took a photo of the painting below when I visited the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. It is of the Royal George, but I have been taking reference off it:

 

 

The painting shows that the windows open by sliding upwards. I did the same with my transom piece. Hey - it's scratchbuilt. May as well show off.

 

Right now I am racking my brains to come up with a solution for making the column decoration. I have a few ideas. Watch this space, I will update it when I get back from holidays and try out a few things.

Edited January 21, 2016 by KeithW

[BANYAN]

Coming along very nicely Keith.  Enjoy the holiday mate, I'll pass on your  'apologies' at our next meeting.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[GLakie]

I think you've done a splendid job on what looks like an extremely difficult part of the assembly. 

[marktiedens]

Looks very nice - do you anticipate any trouble rigging the guns with the marines walk over the top of them?

 

Mark

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Keith

Great job on t he transom! If you ask me it was 10 days well spent. 

Are you going to Thailand again?  Anyhow Havagoodone

Greg

[yancovitch]

that definitely is a difficult area ....so many angles....coming along well.....good shew

[Keith_W]

@ Pat, George, Brian, and Victor - thank you!

 

@ Greg, off to Malaysia for my cousin's wedding, then off to Japan for a food holiday. Have a number of nice restaurants lined up!

 

@ Mark, no problem rigging the cannons at all. I rig the cannons on a jig - to mount them, I simply push the pins into the pre-drilled holes and glue it in place. I have tested it to make sure I have enough clearance. No problem!

 

To be honest, this piece has been bugging me ever since BEFORE I bought the kit. Brian C will tell you that I came up with a plan to deal with this before deciding to buy the kit, because I decided early on that I did not want to use the metal plates. The most beautiful part of this ship is the stern, and I am sure that people who look at the model will spend a lot of time looking at it. Those kit supplied metal plates are, sorry to say, plain ugly.

 

Tackling this part was my greatest fear, and it is a relief to have pulled it off. My second greatest fear will be coming up next ... that is, installing the railings for the next level. I have a plan for that, and a few backup plans. We will see!

Edited January 21, 2016 by KeithW

[yancovitch]

yea...those metal windows- railings etc. (wouldn't bend, made them out of wood) are the weakest part of the kit....smart move.......the sculptures at the stern could have been more refined too, although those on the frieze etc were fine...at least from the kit i got many years ago............haha...i gave my model to a dentist to pay for my wife's veneers......i don't really have it all together upstairs .....

Edited January 21, 2016 by yancovitch

[GLakie]

Happy Birthday Keith! 

[Keith_W]

Thanks Victor and George  

[BANYAN]

Happy birthday mate; have a few coldies and a good lie down

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

Happy belated birthday Keith and happy Australia Day.

Hope that you are having a great time in Malaysia!

Havagooday

Greg,

[Keith_W]

FINISHED!!!

 

Well, just finished that stern piece. Here it is, compared to the Euromodel part. The piece painted red is the deck above it:

 

 

Fabricating this piece alone has taken me longer than it did to build an aircraft carrier when I was a kid.

 

For those who are curious (and have not been following the build log), this was the process:

 

- make paper templates. Bottom reference is the top of Piece 54. Top reference is the deck above, which I had to make first. From the deck above, a template was made to ensure the windows had the same inclination as the transom.

 

- use paper templates to cut out acrylic pieces. Cut out acrylic spacers, then glue both pieces together. Sand the two pieces so that the correct inclination/slope is obtained.

 

- using acetate sheet, veneer the piece in sections.

 

- to make windows, route a U-shaped channel through a block of wood. Slice cheeks off with a table saw. Arrange the cheeks on the acetate sheet. Use styrene strips to make the windows.

 

- sand all the above and paint.

 

 

The rear of the ship shows the columns. These were made in two parts:

 

- a dowel was drawn through a thickness sander to give it a D-shape. Styrene strip wrapped and glued around the column. Each window has a slightly different height of column, I had to measure every window and adjust.

 

- the decoration on top was made by soldering six 0.5mm brass rod together to make a flat piece. Sections were then cut out and bent to shape.

 

 

Precise, tight fit between the rear piece and the rest of the ship! This is a dry fit, and there are no gaps. Bodes well for later.

 

 

What she looks like at the moment.

 

 

The lighting for this deck has also been completed.

 

Oh yes, and please welcome my new camera - a Sony A7S2 with a 35mm f/1.4 Zeiss lens. I haven't bought the Macro lens yet, but it will come! I sold the 5DMk3 a couple of months back. No regrets, the new camera is awesome!

Edited February 16, 2016 by KeithW

[GLakie]

Congrats on getting past this milestone Keith.  Oh and congrats on the new camera also! 

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Keith.

Firstly welcome back to down under. How was t h e wedding of your cousin and the beautiful food in Japan?

Congratulations on a incredible transom of the RW. It really shows off your excellent and imaginative solution for a difficult area of yhe ship. I'm certain other RW builders from now on will be looking deaply at this method. Well done mate.

can't wait for the next entry.

Havagooday

Greg