Prins Willem, a VOC spiegelretourship

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Aug 9, 2020
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Rijnsaterwoude, The Netherlands
The Prins Willem is probably the largest spiegelretourship (a merchant vessel for the East-India trade), that was build in the 17th century by the VOC (United East-India trade companies).
In 1650 the ship was launched in Middelburg.
In 1651 the ship sailed the first time to Batatvia (East-India).
In the first war between England and Holland (Actually the Republic of the seven procinces) the VOC barrowed 5 vessels to the state to serve in the war.
To fulfill the function as ship of war the armament was enlarged. The PW was for a short period the flagship of admiral Witte de Wit. After participate in the battle of Duins the ship was returned to the VOC.
The PW served as retourship for the VOC until 1662. In 1662 the ship was wrecked in a heavy storm near the isle of Mauritius.

The model will be fitted like she was after the returning to the VOC.
I'll use the book of Herman Ketting incl. the belonging plans.
Actually the building has started the end of may and some progress has been made. I keep a build-log on a dutch modellers forum modelbouwforum.nl, the coming days I'll make a build-log on this forum too.

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By means of photoshop I've enlarged the plans to a scale of 1:75

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For the method of building I've chosen for the method most frequented by kit-models. It's a very nice jigsaw piece of work.
 
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@All thank you for your comments.


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The jig-saw job of keel and timber is finished.

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I've scanned then plans from Ketting with the flat-bedscanner, enlarged to 1:75, printed en glued to the plywood. Not a very accurate procedure but good enough for our goal.
At the bow and the stern I've used balsa for support of the planking. It should yet be sanded.


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After sanding it looks like this.

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The stern after sanding.

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The upperdeck and foredeck has been mounted.

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Most decks are supplied with gratings for fresh air to the underlying decks and for loading and unloading cargo.

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However the decks beneath the upperdeck not will be mounted since it is hidden after planking the hull. The stairs to the lower deck is mounted.
 
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The false keel is glued with oak planks 1,6x6 mm. The hull will also been made of oak planks 1,6x6 mm.

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The luizenplecht (I believe the correct English word is beakhead??) is planked with abachi 1x4 mm, the bulkhead is clinckerbuild with green painted lath 0,5x4 mm. Later on there will be some ornaments on the bulkhead.

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The fore-castledeck and the upper-deck are planked as far as possible. The upper-deck isn't complete planked, the bulkheads which are stick above the deck wil be broke away after completing the planking of the hull.
After that the planking of the deck can be finished.
The deck is randomly planked, the dutch (who as known look twice upon a dime) wil have used every available plank and don't want to be limited by a planking-sytem.

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The planking of the hull has started.

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The part of the bulkhead above the upperdeck is glued with cellotape to prohibit accidently glueing the planks to the top of the bulkhead. After planking this tops will be broken away.
 
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The planking has reached the second row of gunports.

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The cutting of the gunports has started and the first accident occured.

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Happily repairing was easy. Still some sanding with CPA which will fill the cracks with sand-dust.

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I'd the hinge glued to the gunner's-cabindoor, when I realized that the hull had at least one sand-turn to go, so the hinge will surely come of.

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For the second row of guns I'll use input(??)guns. After painting black this foundation for the guns will be glued behind the gunports,

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I had still aan amount of guns in stock and I tried one dry fit. Unfortunately the gun is too small and I had to buy new ones.
 
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Then the planking is done, still some sanding and the hull will be ready.

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To draw the waterline I used a cross line laser. A device I bought for a few Euro in the LIDL a great German foodmarket.

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After painting the underwatership it came out that still some correction work had to be done.

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The parts of the bulkheads above the upperdeck have been broken away, so the deck-planking can be finished.
 
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Then the planking is done, still some sanding and the hull will be ready.

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To draw the waterline I used a cross line laser. A device I bought for a few Euro in the LIDL a great German foodmarket.

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After painting the underwatership it came out that still some correction work had to be done.

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The parts of the bulwarks above the upperdeck have been broken away, so the deck-planking can be finished.

You progress really fast and beautifully, well done for the solution you gave to the part that fell apart on the planking board :) Thumbsup
 
You progress really fast and beautifully, well done for the solution you gave to the part that fell apart on the planking board :) Thumbsup

As I mentioned before the building of the PW has started the end of may. I'm now synchronizing the build log with the reality, so it only seems to be fast . In reality the build is more progressed. A few postings more and the build-log will give de present progress of the project.
 
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The planking of the upperdek is finished.

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On second thoughts a couple of holes for the guns are misplaced. The drill has walked away during the drilling of the hole. So some correctionwork had to be done. From an oaklath of 6 mm I made a couple of oak disks of 6mm section. With these small discs you can fill the wrong holes and drill the hole again.

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It was only a question of a few mm's, but it had still to been fixed.

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The bulkhead of the "luizenplecht" (beakhead), the ornaments are made of Darwi-clay (self-hardening). Later the hole for the bowsprit had to finish off.

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At first I'd made a simplified bulkhead before the rudder. But on second thoughts I didn't like it and I decided to follow the book of Herman K. in a more accurate way.

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The bulkhead has two passages and two stairs to the place of the helmsman.

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The innerplanks of the fortuining are mounted.

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The gunwale is mounted. It is made of 2x 2x1 mm walnut.

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I've chosen to make the rudder at this stadium now it is still simple to lay the ship on her side.

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Before the rudder can be hanged, I must first glue the painting on the convex counter. The painting is a copy of "The return to Amsterdam of the second expedition to East-India" from Andries van Eertvelt.
Although it isn't the original painting of the PW I do think it gives a good representation of the sphere.
 
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My wife advised me to use an another colour for the fortuining. At first I had chosen "permanent green light" from Talens a rather vivid colour. It is now changed by "olive green deep"from Talens. I think it is more corresponding with the historic reality.

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The galleon is finished and waiting for the ornaments.

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After some playing with Darwi-clay the galleon is decorated with a lion and a couple of fantasy figures. I don't think there is a great sculptor in me.

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With some fantasy you can see fishes on the gallery.

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Next project is the decorated stern.
 
The contruction of the stern-ornaments has racked my brains, At first I have tried with Darwi-clay, but at the end I've chosen to do it with fret-saw from 4 mm pear-wood and then finish off with knifes and frais.
I didn't have 4 mm pear-wood so I made it by pasting 5x2 mm lath crosswise.

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For the laying femalefigures on the gallery I paste the rough form from pear-wood 5x2 mm and after that finished it with knifes and frais.

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The image for the emblema is fret-sawed from 4 mm pear-wood and finished with knifes and frais.

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The remaining part of the image, under which prince Willem, is fret-sawed from pear-wood and finished with knifes and frais.
The rough form of the decorated framing of the stern is made from pear-wood 5x2 mm, finished with knifes and frais.

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The final result, however I think that the stern might have one another painting. A photo is less merciful then the human eye.
With this post the log-build is synchronized with the build-progress in reality.
 
@ Frankieg, thank you for your kind words, unfortunately I never saw the replica in reality.

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I make the guns of the PW with the laser-cut parts, which Kolderstok supplies with the De 7 P. including the brass gun barrels. Kolderstok also sells these parts separately.
I make the brass black using patina black, also supplied by Kolderstok.

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The guns are placed dry-fit. The bottom row of guns consists of plug-in cannons.

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At the campaign deck I deviate from the drawings of Ketting. In his drawings there are no stairs to the campaign deck, any more than hatches in the campaign deck. I thought it would be better to give the crew the opportunity to reach the campaign deck.

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I made the channels from 1.6x6 mm and 1.6x4 mm oak slats glued together in advance with the plank bender bent in the sheer of the ship, so that in the end the channels are 3.2x10 mm oak.

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The capstan is made of two pieces of round wood of resp. 12 and 8 mm in diameter.

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I made the eyelets for attaching the gun tackles from 0.4 mm iron wire.

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The block of the gun tackle is attached to the eyelet with a half stitch in the rope. The half stitch is then secured with CA and the rope cut off as short as possible..

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The first gun is equipped with firing tackles and retrieval tackle. I leave out the troot brail so as not to make too much of a rope mess.
Still eleven guns to go.
 
The Prins Willem is probably the largest spiegelretourship (a merchant vessel for the East-India trade), that was build in the 17th century by the VOC (United East-India trade companies).
In 1650 the ship was launched in Middelburg.
In 1651 the ship sailed the first time to Batatvia (East-India).
In the first war between England and Holland (Actually the Republic of the seven procinces) the VOC barrowed 5 vessels to the state to serve in the war.
To fulfill the function as ship of war the armament was enlarged. The PW was for a short period the flagship of admiral Witte de Wit. After participate in the battle of Duins the ship was returned to the VOC.
The PW served as retourship for the VOC until 1662. In 1662 the ship was wrecked in a heavy storm near the isle of Mauritius.

The model will be fitted like she was after the returning to the VOC.
I'll use the book of Herman Ketting incl. the belonging plans.
Actually the building has started the end of may and some progress has been made. I keep a build-log on a dutch modellers forum modelbouwforum.nl, the coming days I'll make a build-log on this forum too.

View attachment 172088

By means of photoshop I've enlarged the plans to a scale of 1:75

View attachment 172089

For the method of building I've chosen for the method most frequented by kit-models. It's a very nice jigsaw piece of work.
Hi Andre, how do derive your bulkhead drawings from the plans? Also the false keel ?
 
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