P/S Britannia (P&A Campbell, 1894) in 1/64 scale from "Model Boats" plan

[PeeWee]

progress is coming along apace there. looking good and can not wait till the details start to go on, watching with interest

[E Pinniger]

I'll be away for a week or so from Wednesday so won't be able to post any more updates until next week. I've been working on the masts, deck fittings, paddle box platforms, and cabin woodwork, so should have plenty to post once I've sorted the photos out
In the meantime, here's the final update for now, showing the remainder of the deck planking:





Next I planked the forward deck. The surface irregularities should be removed when I sand the completed deck.




- and the poop deck (is this the correct term? since it's lower, rather than higher, than the main deck)




Finally, the flying bridge deck on the wheelhouse. The hatch cover sections are also shown in this photo, with their planking sanded down.




Here's the completed deck planking, sanded down thoroughly and given a couple of coats of satin oil-based varnish.








Some closeup photos. Unfortunately, sanding the decks down showed the disadvantages of using plywood, rather than solid wood such as lime or obechi, for planking! On some of the raised edges and corners, I sanded through to the darker wood layer at the centre of the ply, giving the decks a rather patchy look. Hopefully this should be less evident on the finished model once the various deck fittings, passenger seats and liferafts are in place.

[E Pinniger]

I finally managed to give Britannia a proper sail at Black Park a couple of weeks ago. The changes I'd made to the ballast and motor wiring made a big difference - the model is now easy to steer, sails smoothly, and is reasonably stable - although it still does have a tendency to lean over to one side or the other, seemingly independent of the wind direction or how the model is turning! It did seem to stand up to wind gusts well, though. Overall, given the very basic running gear setup and my lack of experience with paddlers, I'm fairly pleased with how it sails.

Here are some more photos. You'll probably notice a number of additions to the model such as the masts and cowl vents - I'll post closeups and work-in-progress photos of these soon.

[PeeWee]

looking great on the water, putting my lack of progress to shame   

[E Pinniger]

Here's some photos showing some of the work I've done over the last couple of months. I sailed Britannia again today but forgot my camera so didn't get any photos, but it looks much the same as in the above photos anyway (the only additions are the funnel caps + gratings, all the other fittings I'm working on haven't been added to the model yet).







A small but significant feature is the solid bulwark at the bow. I traced this from the plan onto a piece of scrap paper, then used this as a template to mark out the shape of the bulwark onto thin aluminium sheet.






The paddle boxes have small platforms/decks on top, accessed from the main deck by inclined ladders. I made the basic structure of the platforms from styrene sheet. The bottom edges of the end pieces are curved to fit the top of the paddle box (not particularly obvious in the above photos).







Once the platforms were complete, I painted them along with the upper surfaces of the paddle boxes, then added wooden deck planking using the same method and materials as before.




The cowl vents are made from commercial plastic fittings, with bases added along with metal handles (on the full-size ship, these are to allow the crew to rotate the vents into the wind) and in some cases lengthened using styrene tube. Like all the fittings on the model, they have metal pegs in the base to allow them to be more securely attached to the deck.



These two larger ventilators go at the aft end of the main deck. I think they were chimneys for the galley stoves, as they look a lot like the vent cowls seen on stove chimneys. They're made from assorted styrene bits (stock tube and strip, spares box washers and domes) with metal handles and pegs.




Here are the painted vents. The cowl vents have interiors painted in dark blue rather than the usual red (I used Citadel "Regal Blue"), a distinctive P&A Campbell feature.


More updates soon with the masts, bridge woodwork and deck fittings.

(edited to fix incorrect photo links)

[the bombus]

very nice work ,i am look forward to the rest of the deckfittings
i like details . congrat. on your work
greetings from The Bombus

[R.G.Y.]

That's the right colour for the inside of the vents. Well done, they also had a gold pin stripe around the rim. But the ex Campbell's engineer I knew let me omit that on my Glen Usk. Geoff

[E Pinniger]

Apologies for the lack of updates lately. I've been making steady progress on Britannia over the last couple of months (though somewhat distracted by railway modelling - well, at least it still involves steam-powered things with wheels, even if they don't float!) - I've nearly finished making the deck railings and am currently working on the lifeboat davits. Not much left to do now other than the boats and liferafts! I'll post some more updates soon hopefully.