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Simon

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About Simon

  • Birthday 09/21/1954

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Rio de Janeiro
  • Interests
    sailing, weekend H-D, trying to mend things without botching the job.

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  • Skype
    simonclayton123

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  1. Thanks Shawn, I really had fun with the Tender and learnt a lot as a first build - particularly about how NOT to do the planking ! I am now kind of stuck with an Italian version of HMS Victory - the instructions are really dreadful, unlike the Tender where they were very precise. I need to buy a tool for inserting tiny nails and of course can't find it here in Brazil - and mail order from abroad very often gets 'lost' in Customs ! But i'll be travelling to UK shortly so will get all tooled up (buying the right tool is half the fun of this business.....) and hopefully come back with renewed enthusiasm. great detail on your model by the way - seems like you have been doing this for years ! cheers Simon
  2. Thanks Volker - Victory was my first plastic kit too (after doing some Revell aeroplanes)....that was probably about 45 years ago...aaagh ! I have just worked out (again) how to turn my signature below for HMS Victory into a link to the build log so you can have a look if you wish......have only just started and a long way to go ! cheers Simon
  3. In spite of the high cost of living, it remains very popular

  4. Thanks guys for the positive comments - I guess we are still like 8 year old children and thrive on encouragement ! Wayne + Tom - glad you approved of the colours as it was totally 'hit and miss'. I was always sure I didn't want to paint the boat as I love the grain and shades and contrasts you find in wood. Next time around I am going to take a lot more care (and exercise greater patience) with the planking Adam + Eddie - very much appreciated. One thing I can say is that after doing this first build and going back to look at some build logs of similar boats.....it all seems to make so much more sense. Yet when I looked at the logs in advance it was like a different world. Guess that's what they call building up experience..... cheers Simon
  5. Great work Thomas -looking forward to seeing you in action on the planking as I have yet to conquer my fear of Garboard strake, spiling, stealers etc !! Seeing others in action really helps. cheers Simon
  6. Well, this is it......I am calling it a day on the Tender having tried to stain the wood and not really got it right....... Pete had suggested Danish oil or Tung oil but I couldnt find them here in Rio so I bought some stains and experimented first with Cherry which was too pinkish and then with Mahogany which was too dark..... I then mixed the two and got a reasonable colour but it did not stain evenly......which was when I decided ...what the hell, I´ll cover the external hull with floor wax which at least will fill inthe gaps and should give an old burnished look to the boat The wax has indeed filled the gaps but is clearly visible in this photo....but I am going to leave it a while to collect dust and then smooth it down again with a cloth I stained the base dark and attached rope around it ........ but didnt really like the result so painted it off white and am still deciding whether to keep the rope or not. I then decided to varnish the interior of the boat with matt finish and now have a bit of a mess as the wax has oozed through from the outside. I quite like the rough finish so may just leave it like that....it looks something of an antique boat !! so here are some more photos and I can see that the flash mercilessly picks out the unvarnished bits so will have to go back to them. all in all it has been a fantastic learning experience and I now move on to HMS Victory by Mamoli which I hadnt realised was solid wood hull and quite tiny 1:325.................thanks to all at MSW for making this such an enjoyable hobby Simon
  7. I agree with Philo426 about mindset. I recall making plastic boats and planes as a kid and my attention span was extremely limited....I could never have contemplated a wooden kit build. I find now at the age of 58 that part of the fun of my first wooden build is in applying extreme patience and focus. There is a certain masochistic pleasure in leaving the clamps on overnight so that first thing in the morning you can take them off and see that you have made one more step towards completion...as a kid I could NEVER do that. I have read in this fantastic site that you should treat each step as a project in itself....in that way you are constantly having a sense of achievment - even over the tiniest detail such as carving the handle on an oar and realising, my goodness, that actually looks realistic ! So, what is entry level ? I have been very well served with the Midwest Boston Whitehall Tender with fantastic instructions for everything except the details of planking. I found wonderful information about planking in MSW but I couldnt apply it 100% to my situation. And that has been frustrating. Now that I have almost finished I have discovered the Group Build Project and wish I had started with that....in fact I am thinking of buying the Longboat. What the beginner needs is the confidence that comes from watching his peers build the same boat and face the same challenges and share their ideas (and frustrations).Picking up amazing tips and suggestions and encouragement on the way and isnt that what MSW is all about ? If I had to build my boat in isolation I reckon I would have given up half way throught the planking ! thanks to you all ! Simon
  8. Thanks Pete....that is exactly the finish I am looking for ! Of course it is never going to look as beautiful as your fine dinghy but I reckon it might just do the trick. Problem now is to identify the equivalent in Brazil - I see from Google that Danish Oil is a proprietary name made by Rustins and produced from something akin to the Brazil nut - so has to be around here somewhere ! cheers Simon
  9. I now need some advice as I want to give the boat as natural a finish as possible, preferably without painting it as I love wood and the grain and the shades; when you can see each plank individually (albeit incorrectly installed) you can reflect on the time that went into putting it all together. My problem is the mess I got into with the clinker effect (I failed to measure, taper, and bevel - let alone do proper spiling where required). This meant that when it came to sanding I got the outer hull fairly smooth but it feels and looks like an eggshell. Having said that, I was amazed at how much strength came into the construction after fitting the whales, and ribs, and the rub rail, as well as the seats of course. There is no way I can properly sand the inside of the boat or I will go right through the hull and anyway the clinker effect on the inside is quite attractive (to my sore eyes). It´s a pity that I made a lousy attempt at filling the gaps with sawdust and glue as it has just left it very messy but this has been mitigated somewhat by the seats and knees. obviously there are gaps that really require a wood filler but then I assume that will stain the planks on either side of the cracks.....and I would be nervous about doing any more sanding for fear of going through the hull! The gaps are not huge so if there was a really viscous stain or varnish that could seep into them that would be perfect......... any ideas ??
  10. now on the home stretch.....bit of a botch job but have learnt a lot about what NOT to do in making model boats..... Here are the gaps between the planks and here some more at the transom: so i thought I would try some home made filler mixing white glue and sawdust which I had collected....disaster ! the breasthook broke whilst I was sanding so I cut a triangle from the basswood die-cut sheet and found the Dremel very useful for getting a clean curve: started to work on the ribs and wet them then cut them roughly to length to they could be jammed in position and dry to the right shape: next came the floor strips and the adapted soldering iron was very useful for giving the right curve to the one inch pieces I then decided really to try and get something right so I cut 6 half inch triangles from a scrap piece of die-cut sheet and again using the dremel started shaping the knees to fit between the seats and the bottom of the inwhale. I had already spent quite a bit of time trying to get the seats right.....in the end it worked out quite well: I then fitted the mahogany rub rail and made 4 rowlock blocks which I then drilled in order to take the rowlocks. Naturally I got a bit carried away and the drill bit came right out through the hull...... it was fun fashioning the oars from dowel and strips of planking..... not far to go now
  11. Time to face up to the trickier part of the planking..... using pins to stop wet plank lifting from the frame and perpetuating the clinker effect. Of course if I had followed the advice of Capn Rat Fink earlier I would have been putting a bevel (or chamfer ?) on each plank and tapered them off at the ends in a more methodical, calculated fashion......but the instructions just made it all look too easy ! Then I went for the Garboard plank......... and now time to fill the gap for which had to glue two planks together: but not a perfect fit. This has made me realise that I need to up my game a little. A perfect fit is not impossible....it is so wonderful to work with this soft basswood so it just takes a little more focus, a little more measuring perhaps, learning a few more tricks (like using masking tape to measure the gap - ). all good fun: more tomorrow.
  12. Moving rather slowly on this and wishing I had read Chuck S´s log on the 18th century longboat as I could have avoided the many mishaps which I will document here. There are a lot of similarities in the builds - specifically the single planking. But I am learning with each mistake and enjoying trying to find a fix where possible. I said if the clinkering got too bad I would start again but after a couple of nights just staring at it I thought that if I ripped off all the planks I would probably be bringing my new career as a modelist to an abrupt end. So I filled the largest gap with a tailored splinter...... The Gap:] and the splinter: and, thanks to the kind comments of you people out there, I discovered that shaping the planks was just too simple by soaking them in a bottle and then clamping them in place until they dried - incidentally, the wine bottle I picked up to fill with water had the cork pushed in (just shows how desperate I get!). So when I inserted a plank into the bottle the cork naturally sought the surface and in so doing jammed the plank in position thus preventing it from floating half out of the bottle. Neat. wet plank drying: and setting into position:
  13. wow...didnt expect so much input ! many thanks to all and I am going to experiment with the pvc glue+ sawdust combination and separately see what I can find locally for wood stains and fillers. Unfortunately living in Brazil we don´t have much - if anything- in the way of hobby shops but I can check out what furniture makers use (by the way, am not complaining about living in Rio - hobbies here are very much the outdoor kind, and generally involve a beach !). cheers Simon
  14. as i finish the planking on my first-build Whitehall tender I can see rather a lot of daylight between the planks ! What is the best way to fill these gaps....should I be collecting up the saw dust to make some sort of paste ? I want to varnish the hull but I know this will just enhance each and every defect (no shortage of those I'm afraid !). any ideas welcome thanks Simon
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