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

[E Pinniger]

I made the lettering on the stern using Slaters styrene letters. These are glued to a base plate of thin styrene sheet, which is both easier and more secure than attempting to superglue them straight to the hull.





The nameplate glued in place on stern. The "plating" here is not a very neat job, due to the curvature of the hull, but should look OK when painted black!

[E Pinniger]

The original builder had made a start on the paddle boxes and sponsons, using thin balsa sheet. Though the parts were neatly made, I decided to make new ones from styrene sheet, giving a much better surface finish without the need for filling and sanding!






The paddle boxes and sponsons were also made from styrene sheet, glued to the styrene section either side of the hull. The corners of the paddle boxes are reinforced with thick styrene strips.








Here are some photos of the sponson houses either side of the boxes, also made from styrene. The cut-outs on the paddle box sides were simply cut out with a sharp #11 knife (after marking with pencil) then sanded smooth.

[E Pinniger]

Finally, here are the completed paddle box assemblies. The porthole surrounds and the rims of the paddle box holes are made from metal eyelets, the rivets are actual copper rivets with the stems cut off. The hole for the paddle wheel shaft is non-prototypical and will be covered over once the model is complete (without this hole it would be impossible to install or remove the paddle wheels)
The nameplates and decorative carvings will be added at a later stage (translation - I haven't worked out how to make them yet!) The final photo shows the hull sprayed with primer and a couple of test patches of paint.

[the bombus]

Hi there,
following your build with great interest
Hope you do'nt mind me stealing a idea or two from you 
I do love her lines
Keep on building .
greetings from The Bombus

[Mike]

Hi, I am also following you build,Your boat is coming along well.
 You have lots of good photo's. Keep them coming. Prentice.

[E Pinniger]

Thanks again for the replies. I attempted to give the model another test sail yesterday, but the high winds meant that conditions really weren't suited to paddle steamers! From the small amount of time the model was on the water, the modified ballast seems to have improved its stability a lot.
I've ordered some suppressor capacitors which hopefully will fix or at least reduce the servo interference when fitted to the motors. I'm also planning to wire up the motors in series (currently they're wired up in parallel) which should both reduce battery range and give finer speed control over the motors.

Back to the build photos:



Now the hull and paddle boxes are basically complete, I sprayed the whole thing with a couple of coats of Halford grey primer. It's now ready for painting - this was done by brush using Revell, Citadel and Lifecolor acrylic paints.
P&A Campbell's steamers had a complicated paint scheme - the lower 2/3 or so of the hull was the usual black, with anti-fouling red below the waterline, but the upper 1/3 was a slightly pinkish off-white/light grey called "French Grey", divided from the black by a thin light brown stripe, with a golden yellow stripe a couple of feet below. The strake at the top of the hull was also painted light brown. Finally, the (quite wide) boot stripe was painted a pale bluish-green colour.
I used Revell's Satin Black and Hull Red for the main hull colours, and their Satin Light Grey for the upper hull - this doesn't have the pinkish tone of the actual paint but otherwise is very close in appearance. The stripes are Revell Satin Light Brown and Citadel Golden Yellow, and the boot stripe Lifecolour Italian Interior Green.






I started painting with the stripes, which were then covered with masking tape of the right width before overpainting with the main hull colours. This might seem like a back-to-front way of doing things, but I find it's easier to get stripes of consistent width this way!

[E Pinniger]

Next the hull bottom is painted with Revell "Hull Red" and the lower hull sides with Revell Satin Black.



After removing the masking tape on the lower 2 stripes, I found the boot stripe - masked with 10mm Tamiya tape - turned out almost perfectly, needing retouching in only a few spots, but the yellow stripe - for which I used bog-standard masking tape of 3mm thickness, as I couldn't find any good quality tape thin enough - had bled badly and needed a lot of retouching. The upper brown stripe turned out similarly. At least both stripes are straight and even in width!




Finally, I painted the upper hull sides with Revell Satin Light Grey - which doesn't have a pinkish tinge but otherwise appears to be a fairly close match in tone and lightness for "French Grey". It doesn't cover very well, even over a light grey base coat, so I needed 3 coats to get a reasonably good finish.
The yellow + brown stripes have also now been retouched.



Here's a photo of the (almost) fully painted hull - the only painting left to do is the brown/yellow porthole surrounds.

[mjt60a]

Looking good, I especially like the look of the paddle vents!

[E Pinniger]

Looking good, I especially like the look of the paddle vents!

Unfortunately they're not totally even in width, but they look OK if you don't look too closely!

I've now installed the suppressor capacitors on the motors, which has completely solved the problem of servo interference. This should (hopefully) make steering a lot easier, as previously the rudder would turn hard to one side as soon as you moved the throttle past the first notch!. I've also rewired the motors in serial, which again should improve handling as it reduces the maximum speed by 50%, hence giving finer throttle control at lower speeds (higher motor speeds seem to be largely useless with paddlers, this one at least, just churning up the water more with very little increase in speed!
I hope to give the model another test sail soon but this will be dependent on the weather.





Before starting work on the superstructure, here's a photo of the removable hatches which cover the radio/battery/motor area, the rudder servo and tiller arm. Britannia's minimal superstructure means that there isn't much to cover access hatches (the engine house roof isn't big enough to provide access to all of the main compartment, and there's nothing to cover the rudder and tiller), so removable sections of deck are the only option. To attach them, I glued micro magnets to the hull, and pieces of thin steel sheet to the hatches. This holds them securely in place without the need for screws or similar.
The "open" photos were taken after the deck planking had been started. The separate hatch sections added a lot of extra work to the process of planking the decks!

[E Pinniger]

Now the hull is complete, I can move on to the deck planking and the superstructure and upper works, starting with the wheelhouse. This is a rather small structure with a curved front and a "flying" bridge on top. This photo shows the basic structure made from 1mm styrene sheet and styrene strip detailing. The plan sheet doesn't show the wheelhouse's aft bulkhead, and I couldn't find any photos showing this area - so I guessed that it would have a door with a window on either side.





I decided to assemble the wheelhouse at this stage (after painting the interior black) and add the window glazing and teak framing later. The thin plywood sheet on the flying bridge (not glued in place yet) will provide a base to glue the bridge's deck planking to.




The painted wheelhouse, with unpainted patches for the doors (which will be made from teak stained ply, as will the window frames). I'm not sure whether the margin strip on the flying bridge was painted light brown or if it was actual teak wood - I went with the former, but now suspect the latter after more careful inspection of photos! - but the brown margin strip doesn't look too bad, and matches the hull top strake.

[PeeWee]

thats a nice looking bridge and the teak doors will set it off a treat

[the bombus]

Hi there,
Whatever you do , just don't stop making those nice pictures 
I for one will use them in the (hopefull) not so far future as reference for my first building with plasticard.
a marvelous job ,if someone thinks differend send them to me 
Greetings from The Bombus

[E Pinniger]

Thanks for the kind comments... though I'd hasten to add that many areas of the model don't really bear close inspection (the hull plating, for example), and even those areas where I'm pleased with the final result (e.g the deck planking) are simplified or inaccurate!

On to constructing the funnels:



The funnels and engine house roof are the only other main superstructure component on Britannia in its post-war fit. The funnels are made from lengths of cardboard tube from clingfilm/food wrap rolls - this type of cardboard tube is very thick (3mm) and strong, and can be sawn and cut much like wood, so it's ideal for modelling purposes. Britannia's funnels should actually be oval in cross-section but after numerous attempts at making neat, convincing-looking oval tubes, I gave up and stuck with round ones!



The card tubes are covered with a skin of litho plate (thin aluminium sheet) attached with CA. Funnel bands are styrene strip. Finally, I drilled out holes for the rigging eyebolts and steam whistle, which will be added later, as will the caps for the funnels.

[E Pinniger]

The engine house roof is made from styrene sheet. I used lengths of styrene tube to make the curved corners.



The completed roof assembly, with holes cut for the funnels.



Funnels installed. The plate in between the funnels is a non-prototypical addition to strengthen the engine house roof and prevent it  from buckling (I should have made the roof from thicker-gauge styrene sheet in the first place!). The small holes are for the rigging eyebolts and the attachment pegs for the engine room cowl vents.



The funnels and wheelhouse are painted with Halfords gloss "Appliance White" over an undercoat of grey primer. I usually steer clear of using spray paints like this on superstructure and fittings (as it's hard to get an exact colour match when retouching with a brush) but, in this case, the minimal superstructure/upper works on Britannia mean that the funnels are very prominent, so the paint job needs to be as neat and even as possible (white is very hard to brush-paint at the best of times, even over light grey primer). The black-painted funnel tops (as yet unmade) will be attached later, for now I've just painted the funnel interiors black (since taking the above photo)



The plans specify dark brown paint for the engine house roof. I used Revell acrylic Leather Brown.



The model now looks a lot more "ship-shape" with the wheelhouse and funnels in place! The next stage is the deck planking - now completed, I just need to sort out the photos and upload them.

[E Pinniger]

To plank the decks, I used 4mm wide strips of thin (1mm) plywood. I bought a huge bundle of this very cheaply at a model show a few years ago - enough to plank the decks of several sizeable models The strips are close to the right size for deck planks in the region of 1/48 scale - a bit too big for the 1/64 Britannia, but they still don't look bad in my opinion. I'm not sure what wood they're made from (birch?) but they also have pretty much the right colour for weathered and bleached decking - especially as there's a slight colour variation between individual strips which looks very convincing when made into deck planks.




Planking starts with the margin planks around the deck edges, superstructure, and larger fittings (specifically, the bow and stern windlasses, which I haven't made yet). For sharply curved sections (such as the stern and the wheelhouse front), I cut appropriately shaped from 1mm ply sheet, rather than attempting to bend the pre-cut ply strips to fit!




Work started on planking the aft deck. To represent the caulking in between the planks, I used a waterproof black marker pen run along one edge of the ply strip. The "shift" pattern I used is very simplified (plank ends on alternate rows); my attempts at making a realistic plank pattern have ended up in a total mess (plank rows getting "out of step" with each other due to slightly varying plank lengths), so now I just use a simplified pattern and try to get it as neat as possible!





Progress on planking the amidships area, including the rudder servo access hatch.