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Finally got up the courage to part off all of the pontoon hoops. 15 out of 16 were successful. Hoop 16, the one with the smallest diameter, was a fail. It turned out that I had not been able to lay up the hoop material tight enough to form the solid hoop. I will need to remake that one using a different technique. I may try thin shavings as Craig suggested earlier. I drilled 1/4" holes in the center blanks for hoops 2 - 14. Numbers 1 and 15 have 1/8" holes, but I think I may be able to open them to 1/4" as well. Now that I have these hoops made, I can use their outside diameters to begin construction of the pontoon building jig.

Nice diorama ,and not bad for your 1st try at armour models👍 Richard

That is awesome work .

I guess you found the review useful. The book will definitely give you some insight to the ships, their specs and how they performed. (Spoiler alert, most were under powered either because of design 'flaws' or engines not performing as spec'd.) Thanks for reading.

Garnet Tackle work.

Fore Topmast Stay rigged

After hours of work, I finally completed the ratlines on the ship's rigging. Although the task was not particularly difficult, it was incredibly tedious, and my hands were tired from tying countless knots. But the sense of accomplishment I feel now that it's done is well worth it. I'm eager to move on to the next step and start working on the standing rigging. Regardless, I'm excited to keep making progress on this project and see it come together piece by piece.

Jon - I was thinking the same thing. At worst - you have to carve it back out. Better than trying to surgically implant the fillers 8 steps later. I already added them between the 3&5, but as I ponder them - they’ll add purchase area for planking. So I’ll leave them and take the (short) time to add the fillers between 2&3. This hobby is tough in the Spring. Ground’s maintenance is screaming for attention - but these cannon slots are finally appealing work vs all this previous substrate (unseen) stuff 😂 🤣 Hopefully my summer shipwright work won’t get too sloppy between the competing priorities (vacations, swim meets, golf, etc!). I love this hobby but don’t want this taking 15 years. As my young daughter watches, I’m trying to impart so many lessons. Patience, yet knowing when to cut bait (vis-a-vis research)…perfect is the enemy of progress, magnification must be tempered by reality, jumping into the deep end is OK (after gauging the risk) - and of course- not letting her see dad get pissed off at a wooden ship model. In retrospect- this model was over my current abilities (after only completing the Swift), but not my skill - if that makes sense. Nothing I have encountered is beyond my skill - my greatest weakness so far is in not looking 3,5, 10 steps ahead. My relative failures so far have been when I said “this is good enough”, but didn’t realize the future implications. Jon - sorry for the somewhat of a ranting reply to your comment. But I suspect there are several folks who are just lurking and biding their time to begin their USS Constitution build (which has been hiding in a closet like a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle awaiting “that moment”). I just want them to jump in and carpe diem! Dont wait until your age or patience betray you. Thanks Jon!

Thanks for all the likes! Outer bulwarks glued and clamped to dry. They aligned very well with the ply. I focused on lining up the oar ports exactly as a tiny gap at the bottom between the bulwarks and white paint will be hidden by the main wales. The bulwarks are a little long, which I think is intentional and will need sanding at the stern - the prototype’s bulwarks appear similar in the instructions. Once fitted the false bulkhead ears were twisted off and any stumps sanded level with the false deck. The engraved deck was then fitted. This needed no sanding at the edges and only a tiny bit off the stern edge to get it to lie flat. Then the inner bulwarks were fitted, glued and clamped. These lined up well too. Again I focused on lining up the oar ports which does leave a bit of a gap at the bottom as described in the instructions and which will be covered up later with spirketting. I started to paint the inner bulwarks red before fitting, but decided that I’d do the second and third coats on the model and would need to mask up the deck given my propensity for getting paint everywhere! I also painted the beak head (think that’s the right term) black. Will need a little filling and more coats of paint. Lastly, the daggerboards are ready and in position, but not glued. Next is cutting out the gunports.

I have a anycubic photon m3 and the touch screen control panel cracked meaning it was really hard to use. So after googling around the process of changing spare parts didn't seem that hard, so I jumped in and tried to find a 2.8 inch touch screen replacement. Anycubic were out of stock so needed to find after market solution. I can recommend that chitu systems who write chitubox have spares for printers and I ordered the 2.8 inch screen and 7 days later it arrived from China. No instructions but tonnes of videos on the web to sort of follow. So the process to fix the screen is as follows, the photos document the steps as well: 1. Take off the bottom plate screws and remove the bottom plate. 2. Undo the electrical cables to give better access 3. Take off the plastic guard to stop cables crossing into the lcd and laser area of the printer. 4. Take off the control panel card 5. Undo the cables by flicking the little black bars on the connectors upwards. 6. Plug in the new screen and make sure the screen going in the right way up. There are no marks indicating the top on the Chinese card. 7. Re screw the screen into the printer. 8. Due to different plug in point on the replacement the original printer cable was slightly too short but chitu systems sent a spare cable in the box which was long enough. 9. Remove original cable and plug in new one. Push black retaining bars back down to lock in. 10. Replace cable guard and tuck all the cables down out of the LCD screen perimeter. 11. Test again all good before base plate placement. Plug in cables and screw down plate. I left the plastic screen protector on.. it works with it on and gives a little bit of protection from resin drips from the vat That's it.. all fixed

When trying to refine the re-scaled (and corrected) bulkheads to the Great Harry, I used springy wire to hold against the sides (fore-to-aft) in many places and sighted down the wire to see the 'ins and outs' of how the wire ran. Some places required veneer strips to be glued to the edges of the errant bulkheads where the wire run 'dipped' - and fairing by sanding where they pushed out. This seems to be an iterative process no matter how careful one is with scaling, drafting and scroll saw cutting. The extra care done at this stage will pay-off with the first planking being better - with less sanding or filling required prior to second planking. Having done a hull already that was single planked, I'm a convert to second planking.

Hi fellow model builders, I´m wondering if it would be worth to buy this set from Revell. Someone offers me the Revell kit H-364:995 from 1959. The price is quiet the one of the 2017 model Revell 0542. As far as the seller knows is the kit complete, all bags sealed (one bag has been resealed) and the box is still okiesh, some dents (which I expect for a 65 yrs old kit) but in general the entire box and kit looks good. I mean, the kit is 9 yrs older than me, so I have no clue about this kit. Is it worth it or should I get hold of the 2017 kit (someone else offered me for quiet a good price - cheaper than the 1959 kit). Micha

Next step is actually sanding off that filler/primer again to show where the bad spots are. It happens from time to time that there is a spot where the 2 components haven't mixed well and soft spots appear. In this case it's not very surprising that this happened due to the large amount of filler needed. If I encounter such a spot, I immediately see it when I'm sanding and I scrape it out with a knife until I hit hard edges. I then refill it with a smaller and better mixed amount of filler. On below picture you see such soft spot just on starboard of the stem, here I already removed some of the bad mixture. In following picture you see a spot where not enough filler was applied and a "hollow" was present in front of a frame. It shows immediately by keeping the dark colour of the primer/spray filler and getting a rather sharp outline. So extra filler was applied. and sanded smooth again. In the above pics you can also see the start of the "warts" for the anchors. To keep the anchors from hitting the rather large bulbous bow, the hawse pipes extend beyond that bow. A lot of work for a hull, but since the build is 90% hull, it should also look accurate. After the main hull work came the rudder and prop. I made the prop of 0.3mm styrene. Luckily it's a gigantic propeller in real life, so making a model of it still results in a decent size propeller (same in fact for the rudder). And a picture of the real backside of the vessel during one of her rare actual port calls. You can see how wide she is by looking at those lifeboats and the distance between them...

Very well done and the dio just adds a lot.

So progress is slow as each bulkhead has to have the stringers attached to add support for the spacers to be inserted. While I do this, I created the forward section of the false deck but for some reason I haven't been able to accurately set the width. Correcting this by adding extra wood around the edges. Still a little more to do there. I tried out a set of strips to check the run and this identified a few errors in drawing and cutting out of the bulkheads. All fixable so no real problem and all the errors will be below the decks and will not see the light of day once the hull is planked. One thing, in this hobby, when someone asked what tools they need, tell them to buy lots of clamps. And when they think they have enough, go and buy some more, you can never have too many clamps. Simon

Finally an update. I'm reading and re-reading the instructions and looking at other logs of this ship. And I currently have all the framing (I think) done. About to start marking the top lines of the frames. Hopefully I get more time to spend on this project but seems real life keeps dragging me off.

Very nice work, Ken! Congratulations!

Boarding steps-- I would have made the steps the full width of the hammock opening, but the carronade position wouldn't allow it. The hammock position corresponds to Chappelle's sail plan drawing and also the location of the outboard boarding steps shown on the hull plan, but a little foresight may have warranted shifting the steps and opening just a bit. Ron

Nicely done!

Thats it, I have completed the build, and I think the furled sail is the pose I will display this boat. I sure appreciate this forum for all the information it provides. And especially those people who built their Fifie's before me or are in work building theirs now. It is an inspiring community, and all are very talented. I get better with each kit I build - but looking at other builds I see even better skills. All the insight, tips and examples continue to inform me of how to be better. Also, thanks for all the comments as they are encouraging. God bless you all, and thanks again. - Ken

Hello, I search informations about quarter block for footrope (pictures, explanation...) : there is a reference in the AOTS for the yards. Thank's in advance.

When in doubt with fillers between bulkheads, do more than less. It can't hurt to have extra filler. Jon

I was going to ask! I assume the real boat must have been well-ballasted, and the upper works very lightly built, to stay upright. Very cool build!

Practicum question - Hunt’s guide states to add an outer Planksheer (filler) between bow framework timbers 3&5. Shouldn’t that be 2&3?

Congratulations! Nicely done!