Welcome to the great project (or experiment) for 2026! After a brief flurry the poor old Victory is again sidelined, although I’ll try to do some more on her when I can. The ultimate aim is shown in Photo 1 – a 1:200 scale model of the World War One fast Cruiser HMS Lion. This is a card/paper model kit by the Polish company GPM which comes in a big A3 book consisting of 8 pages of fairly thick card, about the same number in paper which are designed to be glued first onto 1mm thick base card before cutting out plus a few more pages of 3D diagrams and instructions and the history of the Lion herself. That’s the eventual goal except that my intention is to use the kit as a template to build the model in plasticard or styrene sheet together with some home cast resin pieces (for multiple items) and also a few basic (very basic) 3D printed bits as well. Now this will either be a stupendous looking model – or a complete disaster. So instead of jumping straight in I thought I’d give the technique a trial run first with something a) much simpler and b) much smaller. The object of this diary therefore is another WW1 subject and also another Polish company’s card model – the 1:100 scale Royal Navy Monitor by WAK – HMS M15.
Now I’ve been working slowly forward on this model since before Christmas but just like the Lion project I didn’t want to start a diary until I was sure that this one wasn’t going to be a disaster too – this is my first attempt at a card to plasticard conversion (I could have tried the WW1 MkI British Tank or the WW2 Cromwell Tank which I also have card kits waiting for the same treatment which would have been simpler still but I decided to stick with the ship theme, plus I bought the M15 years before all the others, just after the Sopwith Pups project in fact. So far it’s going pretty well, there’s a slight bulge in the hull which shouldn’t be there, but as I’m going for a waterline model for this one, a bit of choppy water spray should come in handy there!
Photos 2 and 3 show the WAK prototype model, I contacted the company in Poland and they kindly gave me permission to use any of their publicity shots in the build diary so you can at least see what my efforts should have looked like! I should have taken more notice of the dimensions of the model though, I thought it was a lot smaller than this – at 1:100 scale she’s the same scale as my Del Prado Victory, The Victory with a crew of 850 is 26 inches long (excluding the bowsprit), the M15 with a crew of only 69 is 20 inches long in the same scale!
So in the pages to come we’ll see how the conversion takes place and the lessons to be learned for the Lion’s eventual (I hope) turn.
The M15 Class Monitor was designed not as a full on warship but as a Shore Bombardment Vessel. Horatio Nelson once said “Only a fool fights a fort with a ship”, these ships were designed to do just that! There were fourteen vessels in her class all built in 1915 under the War Emergency Program (which meant that they built the things quicker than we build their models!) She was laid down on the 1st of March 1915 in Hartlepool and launched almost two months later on the 28th of April. She was completed in June and towed to Malta to receive her main armament of a 9.2 inch gun. M15 and her next three sisters received a spare gun on a MkX mounting originally meant for the Drake and Cressy Class cruisers along with a 12pdr QF gun for self defence and a 6pdr Hotchkiss HA gun for air defence. The remaining ten ships had the same gun with a MkVI mount. Six of the class later had those 9.2 inch guns removed (to be turned into ground based artillery) and replaced with 7.5 inch cannon. There were subtle differences between the ships which I’ll mention during the build. M15 herself took part in the Third Battle of Gaza where she shelled the Turkish shore installations and also defended the Suez Canal. On the 11th of November 1917 she was torpedoed along with the destroyer HMS Staunch almost a mile off the coast in three hundred feet of water by the enemy submarine UC-38 with the loss of 26 of her crew. Altogether three of the class were lost to enemy action during the war. Regarded as generally good vessels, they did have a tendency to suddenly roll from side to side. One in the Thames estuary was recorded as having rolled suddenly by 90 degrees – 45 to port and then back again and 45 to starboard! Most were subsequently scrapped in the 1920’s, the last survivor was M23 which became a Drill Ship and lasted until 1959.
As a postscript, in 2020 the Palestinian Hamas group dived on the war grave of M15 and removed the large calibre shells to recover the high explosives.
In the first part of the build I’ll be adapting a common tool to begin the frame construction.
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Many thanks for those kind words Mark! It's proceeding pretty well so far with the main superstructure done and all the 'fiddly bits' under way! If I could only get my head around the 3D printing CAD programs I could 'fiddle' a lot more!

So carrying on, Photo 4 shows the first copy of the kit parts printed some years back along with the first collection of plasticard sheets, some bought at the same time and some donkeys years old from earlier projects (I’ve got a much bigger stock of them now! ) You can see on the print that the first section of the keel was cut out back then. I got as far as cutting it out in styrene and began to cut out the slots - and now I’ve ‘mislaid’ the ruddy piece! No matter though as since that first attempt I realised something that would save a lot of cutting out - the slots are designed to fit the cardboard pieces together and provide some extra strength to the frame as it is glued together. My model is styrene plastic - it is being ‘welded’ together with liquid poly so instead of slotting the parts they can be simply glue-welded! Actually, this did produce some difficulties which didn’t exist in the original method which I’ll have to rectify in the Lion when it’s her time but more on that later.
Before starting the new build there was one thing I definitely needed - a ‘dry dock jig to ensure the parts were glued together at exact right angles. There was a Youtube video where a chap built one which gave me the ideas and I did try that approach but as soon as the screws were tightened up it always went a degree or two off the true right angle so I came up with something else that took my inaccuracies out of the equation! Photo 5 shows the basis for the dock - a large mitre box designed for cutting wide skirting boards (shown in the inset panel in it’s original state). This cost about £12 on eBay. The larger picture shows the nearside wall having been sawn off level with the base leaving an ’L’ shaped platform with a perfect right angle. Next I purchased a pack of two tin sheets on eBay again, these were from Albion Alloys (I think). One of them was cut to size to fit the height of the wall whilst the other was left full size to lay on the floor of the base and both were then contact glued down with spring clamps to keep them flat until set. Photo 6 illustrates the wall being glued in, the base part is just laid in place here.
Back to the new styrene keel section, this is shown about to be cut out from a ‘second hand’ section of 2mm plasticard with the positions of the ribs also marked in. Once cut out the keel section was placed on the jig as seen in Photo 7 - and this is the reason for that tin plate - the styrene parts are kept dead flat against the jig by the use of tiny rare earth magnets - tiny but very strong! The starboard flat base section (essentially the bottom of the waterline) was then drawn out and cut out and then glued to the bottom of the keel ensuring the rib markings all lined up. To ensure the ribs themselves were square edged they were sanded down flat on the Proops sanding jig set at 90 degrees as shown in Photo 9. This jig comes with a sanding block that takes the spare or replacement sanding sheets sold by Proops. They also sell spare sanding blocks as well - but be warned - the spare blocks, although the same size and taking the same sandpaper DO NOT FIT THE JIG! The spare blocks are stand alone sanders with curved sides - the jig block has only one curved side, the other is completely flat to slide across the jig! The spare version will rock to and fro (as I found out!)
The final picture, Photo 10 shows the first of the ribs W2 glued onto the keel/base. This was kept square with mini set squares used vertically and horizontally. There is actually a W1 rib which I left out. The kit keel in cardboard is 1mm thick, the styrene keel is 2mm and the W1 rib is not much more than 1mm at the top anyway. When the basic frame was completed I sanded down the bow to follow the lines of the base and the hull plating followed those lines pretty well without the first rib.
In the next instalment the ribs go in and the next indispensable tool (which needed no alterations) comes into it’s own.
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

So carrying on from last time, the starboard rear waterline base is seen cut out and marked for the ribs laying alongside the frame in Photo 19. The rest of the frame was then slid forward on the jig until the base section could fit in place, butted up to the forward base and sitting under the keel where it was glued into position as seen in Photo 20. The next part was the rear section of the keel shown in its pre-cut out form in Photo 21. Note that this part is not a straight forward cut out, as the deck isn’t actually level – it rises up slightly towards the stern! The same piece is shown beside the frame, cut and sanded with the remaining rib positions marked in as well in Photo 22.
The entire frame was then slid even further forward on the jig so that the rear keel could be glued down and fixed with the magnets as seen in Photo 23. Photo 24 shows the same thing a little closer in. The rest of the starboard ribs were then cut out and sanded until the whole of the starboard frame was completed as illustrated in Photo 25. As mentioned earlier, the concave ribs were shaped with the rotary tool and the sanding cylinder. The majority of the ribs further back from the bow however have convex curves which are easier to achieve – especially with the incredibly useful tool seen in Photo 26. This is my Parkside Sander (available from Lidl and Aldi when they ARE available – I got this one through ebay instead). The one thing that you have to bear in mind though is that when sanding styrene sheet, unlike sanding wood, the sander isn’t actually removing the material. Wood is turned into sawdust which can be removed via the vacuum attachment but the styrene is simply melted and moved to the underside of the strip being sanded! Photo 27 shows two identical ribs under construction. The top one is finished all bar some final hand sanding, the bottom one shows that melted plastic on the underside of the rib. It’s no problem however as the melted part easily ‘snaps’ off the strip at the end but it can’t build up too much as there is only a tiny gap between the sanding disc and the moveable table that the strip rests on so it’s necessary to remove the melted waste periodically or else you can’t rotate the material to create the smooth curves (it jams up!) Photo 28 shows the waste after a simple twist to snap it off.
With the starboard half completed, the next task was to cut and glue the port side bases. The bow section is seen alongside the frame in Photo 29 and in the process of gluing together, held down flat by the magnets in Photo 30. The rib positions had already been drawn in before the glue was applied. The stern base came next, the styrene part is seen beside the kit cardboard original in Photo 31. The entire frame was then slid forward on the jig to allow the stern section to be fixed and glued in position as shown in Photo 32. The port framework was completed far quicker as I had made two of each rib as I was working along the starboard side. All it required was some slight sanding off of the keel facing edge on some of the ribs to compensate for that 2mm keel again (strangely some of them didn't need any sanding down - I'm not sure how that happened!) The finished framework is seen (at last) in the final Photo 33.
With the frame completed the next part will be to create the deck sections, they will be coming in the next instalment.
Until then Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.