HMC Sherbourne 1763 by tkay11 - FINISHED – Caldercraft – Scale 1:64 - A Novice’s Build

[tkay11]

The pumps. This was a lovely challenge, as the kit pumps looked rather over-size and clunky. So back to the plans of the ‘Alert’ again. But how to make the yoke?

 

I decided to make it out of brass, and to hold it with a brass rod. So I cut a length of 2x0.5mm from a brass plate, drilled 0.6mm holes 7mm apart and filed down the central section to fit on to the 1mm brass rod.

 

Then I took the plunge and learnt about silver soldering (after studying the article by Russell Barnes in the Model Shipwright’s Database on this forum). What a nice skill to learn! I used a pencil torch that cost about £4 from the local DIY store, and some 62/2/36 Soft Solder Silver Paste in a 25gm syringe (£9). The only thing that surprised me was the need to refill the torch with gas lighter fuel very frequently.

 

Tony

[tkay11]

Thanks John (Jim Lad)! It's great to be back. As others have mentioned, it really is like a rejuvenation to have everyone putting as much as they can back into this site. I've now nearly restored my log. Just a few more episodes and then I'm up to date!

 

Tony

[tkay11]

Now the pump casing. I took some 0.5x2mm walnut strips and glued them around a 3mm diameter plastic tube I took from an old ball-point pen. I used CA glue which does not really stick well to the tube, but it does to the wood edges.

 

The top of the casing was made from 0.5mm walnut strip as shown in the picture.

 

The yokes were then glued to the casing using rapid epoxy adhesive, the hoops were made from 1mm strips of the black paper supplied with the kit.

 

The discharge ports were made from 2mm diameter tooth picks nicked from the kitchen table, and partly hollowed out with a 1mm drill bit. The ports were then stained using Admiralty water-based walnut stain.

 

The handles were cut from 1mm walnut strips, drilled with a 0.6mm bit.

 

The spears were made from 0.5mm brass rod, and the eyes for the spears similarly. The eyes were glued to the handles using epoxy adhesive.

 

The pumps were then assembled by sticking 0.6mm bamboo dowels through the yokes (luckily I had some dowels left over after making them for treenails).

 

Finally I gave a coat of silk varnish – which reflects the light in the photo.

 

After all that, my fear of undertaking what I thought would be unachievable has diminished. The finish is not up to the standards of others, but the learning path is well under way.

 

Tony

[tkay11]

This part of the log was added on Oct 23 2012

===

 

Re-doing the pumps. Well, the desire to do better overcame me, and I did the pumps again – this time in cherry. I’m glad I did it because I was able to correct what I didn’t like in the previous pump set:

• I bevelled the edges of the cherry strips,
• used a 3mm birch dowel as the centre on to which to glue the strips (and drilled out a 1.2mm hole to take the spears),
• made narrower metal bands,
• made the pump handles a little more accurately,
• painted the discharge ports black,
•  used refined linseed oil rather than varnish

Tony

[tkay11]

Now we get to the pawl ring for the windlass. This caused me no end of hilarity. The ring supplied with the kit is a cog, and I wanted it to look like a pawl ring. So my first attempt was to use the black card supplied with the kit, cut into 2mm strips and glued to a 3mm dowel. However, I gave up when I couldn’t get the complete ring to look balanced, and there was the additional difficulty of the card being too thin to look like the edges on a pawl ring. (I don’t know how Daniel/Siegfried did it, but his work with the card looks entirely magnificent).

 

I even tried a plastic ice cream carton that had the right thickness (0.8mm) but the plastic didn’t hold to any of the glues.

 

So I gave up with the card and thought to file the cog down so that it looked like a pawl ring. Unfortunately, whilst it was clearly a pawl ring, it had far too few edges (7) whereas the plans for the ‘Alert’ showed a pawl ring with about 14 edges.

 

So I tried a lighter’s ring, as someone had done on another model, but it was 1mm too large in diameter, had too many edges, and was, in fact, a cog wheel.

 

Then I tried cutting a rubber band into 2mm strips and gluing the edges to a 3mm dowel. But when it came to gluing each edge to the next to make a pawl ring it proved to be too difficult – the edges were so elastic that it was very hard to align them and keep the edges straight. Besides, it was again too large for the windlass.

 

Finally, I thought I’d get back to the idea that Daniel/Siegfried had had at first: use wood. So I cut 2mm strips of lime and glued them to the edge of the same old 3mm dowel. But this time, I found the trick! Start with one of the strips glued flat to the dowel and use that as the edge to stagger the remaining strips one by one. By using PVA glue, which doesn’t set too quickly, by the time I completed the ring I could lift up the first, flat strip and insert the last remaining strip under it.

 

That just left me to cut the whole pawl ring to size (3mm wide), file the edges and paint it black.

 

HOORAY! I got there in the end! Well, at least for my level of expertise!

 

Tony

[tkay11]

The three rings compared, and initial assembly with windlass.

 

One of the things I found slightly irritating was that they suggested that a strip of 1.5mm sq walnut be used to hold the pieces of the windlass together.

 

Now 1.5mm square means that the diagonal is more than 1.5mm whilst the holes in the windlass pieces were exactly 1.5mm. This would mean I’d either have to sand the supplied strip down to achieve the diameter of 1.5mm or else make a dowel from bamboo. So out with the bamboo barbecue skewers and the drawplate and make a dowel I did – reckoning my sanding skills with fragile walnut were not likely to be good enough.

 

Tony

[tkay11]

Finally, for this stage of my work, I came to the pawl bitt post. The kit suggested just sticking  a strip of 1mm thick walnut into the post for the pawl itself, but this didn’t look at all right when looking at what a pawl should be doing.

 

So I decided to fashion the pawl out of copper sheet, and lengthen the post by 1mm so that it could take the pawl on a 0.5mm brass wire.

 

I made the pawl by annealing a 1mm strip of brass, bending it over the brass wire that I intended to use as its rod, cutting to the right length (0.7mm), and sealing the folded edges by soldering with silver flux. I then filed the brass down to the shape shown on the ‘Alert’ plans, and bent it to a gentle curve.

 

I found that annealing doesn’t seem to require red heat. I just held the strip over the tip of a candle flame and that seemed to do the trick quite well.

 

After cutting the pawl bitt post, I glued two sides of 0.5mm walnut to the post, leaving a gap between the two bits of the post, drilled a 0.5mm hole for the wire, and inserted the pawl.

 

Tony

[tkay11]

Now, as far as the windlass is concerned (and I can’t really determine whether my windlass is concerned at all), I coated the pawl bitt and windlass with refined linseed oil (as suggested by Daniel/Siegfried) and stood them together to see if they would like each other.

 

I think they do.

 

That was all a very interesting set of learning experiences!

 

Tony

[tkay11]

This part of the log was added on Jan 16 2013

===

 

The 3pdr cannon were next on the list. Most of those who build the kit talk about how the kit cannon are oversize. Well, that’s true. Their length is 23.8mm (the equivalent of 5 foot, or a 3.5pdr)), whereas a 3pdr should be 4’6”. At scale 1:64 that would mean a length of 19.05mm. Seeing as I don’t have a lathe, I reckoned that I could live with the 3.8mm difference and use the kit cannon.

 

The only thing I didn’t really like about the cannon was the trunions. They just looked like very thin pins. So I decided to drill out the old trunions and replace them with 1.6mm bamboo dowel I made from barbeque sticks using a drawplate.

 

However, when I started work on the carriages I didn’t like them at all. The carriage sides were parallel (not following the lines of the cannon), the axle trees had square axles, the wheels were so thick they made the carriages look like go-karts or quad bikes, and the carriages themselves were too long.

 

I therefore decided to embark on the rather foolish notion of building the carriages myself – especially after seeing the work of others on this forum (e.g. Dirk’s/Dubz and Daniel’s/Siegfried). The reason it was foolish is that, as you will see, the finish I achieved was not very good. All the same, the experience was worth it as I think I’ll be able to do much better in the future.

 

I decided to make carriages that at scale would be 3pdr, whilst continuing with the 3.5pdr cannon of the kit. I could have made the carriages equivalent to 3.5pdr, but my whole thinking was dogged by the well-known problem of the kit: notably that the aft two gunports are so low that the cannon only fit with difficulty. I therefore had to make a carriage that would allow the cannon to go through these aft gunports with ease. I still don’t know how others achieve this trick!

 

Below you’ll see the pictures of my first attempt. In this I used the original kit carriage sides, but replaced the axle trees with longer axles made from 1.5mm sq strips from the kit, a roughly fashioned bed for the quoin, and paper covering the wheels to look like the iron hoops.

 

Tony

[tkay11]

Whilst still thinking about the carriages, and being unsatisfied with the first attempt, I thought forward to the need for making breeching and other rope for the cannon as well as the anchors. So I decided to make a vertical ropewalk using the basic design shown in Ken’s (BRGreen)  posting (which is now lost unless he re-posts it!).

 

The only differences in my ropewalk were

 

1. using an old 35mm film canister to house the reversing switch;

 

2. keeping the old head of the shaver and screwing it direct to the faceplate so that it would be very easy to pull the shaver off the machine.

 

3. keeping the back of the shaver on and drilling holes for the wires from the power source and to the motor.

 

I soon found out that the fishing swivel I was using was useless, so bought a ball-bearing swivel which improved rope-making considerably. I also found that the weight I had to use was far less than first expected. 10gm seemed to do the trick for the thread I was using.

 

The breeching rope should be 4.25” circumference. This translates to 0.54mm diameter at scale. I achieved this using some old thread of my mothers. However, I have so far only been able to make left-handed thread from the right-handed thread that I have. I know I should be able to unwind the right-handed thread in order to make right-handed rope, but so far I have failed to manage it.

 

Tony

[tkay11]

My dissatisfaction with the first attempt at gun carriages led to the 2nd where I tried to cut out the carriages from 1.6mm cherry wood board. I found I couldn’t manage to cut out the sides accurately so went back to thinking how I could do this. My answer was to scale the 4pdr carriage designs found in the AOTS book on the Alert down to 3pdr scale and then print out a sheet of them. To do this I used Photoshop rather than TurboCad as I found it faster. The printouts were pasted directly on to the cherry board, then cut them using a combination of jeweller’s saw and scalpel blade.

 

Tony

[tkay11]

The bases of the carriages were then simply made using 1.7mm bamboo dowel (that drawplate sure comes in handy) and walnut strips on either side to mimic the axle tree.

 

The sides were then glued to the axle trees with PVA glue, and their alignment was made using a form cut from the plans and pasted to the cherry strip. The sides were 1mm further apart than dictated by the plan because of the over-size cannon I was using.

 

The kit wheels were filed down to scale using a simple jig made of 1mm strips of lime that had been unused from the kit.

 

Because of the variety of woods I had used in making the carriages, and because I knew I could not achieve the kind of beautiful finish others have achieved, I decided I had to paint them in red ochre.

 

I had experimented with putting strips of black paper round the wheel rims to mimic the iron hoops that I have seen on other wheels, but in the end decided to paint the black on the rims. This I did by painting one side in ochre red, then, after it had dried, sticking the wheel face down to some Tamiya masking tape. I then painted the edges red to ensure that there was a seal to prevent any black paint escaping to the sides, and finished with two coats of black round the edges.

 

Unfortunately, although the wheels are now the right kind of width, the finish is extremely rough. Next time I’ll try hard to make my own wheels.
 

Tony

[tkay11]

After the wheels were put on, the axle ends were sanded down to 1.3mm from the wheels, and 0.4mm holes were drilled to accommodate the axle pins. The axle pins were made of 0.4mm copper wire, snipped off by some really excellent (but amazingly cheap) side cutting pliers of the type used for printed circuit boards. The axles were then painted.

 

Tony

[tkay11]

The carriages then had their eyebolts put in. At first I tried to make the eyebolts myself, using 0.4mm copper wire, but the results were too big and too rough. So I resorted to buying a pack of 0.3mm brass etched eyelets after a hint from Dirk/Dubz who did the same. These are really great! All I then had to do was to make the rings – which I did as so many have done, by winding 0.4mm copper wire round a 1mm drill bit, then cutting off the rings using the side-cutting pliers.

 

I used brass blackener, as usual, for all the rings and eyebolts.

 

This now leaves me with the rest of the gun tackle to make and the blocks to hold the ropes. That’s going to take me quite some time as new skills are required!

 

Tony

[tkay11]

After the torment of trying to get the carriages right, I decided I’d start another build whilst thinking of how I might approach the building of the blocks and tackle for the guns.

 

I settled on a rather rare pirate ship, whose plans have only recently been found. I decided I’d pretty much scratch build it from some plastic pieces I found in a box lying around in my daughter’s home.

 

You’ll get the idea from the following pictures. At the moment I’m still struggling with the size of the treenails on the decking, and am having trouble scaling the stairway.

 

Then there’s the vexed question of the planking. I decided that the lower decks would benefit from a lot more ventilation, and so left the planks separated along their length. However, I could be persuaded to fill them with some black paper or other caulking.

 

You’ll probably notice the colour scheme, too. This is entirely in keeping with the fearless Captain Tony’s wishes to be noticed and recognised at once.

 

The main thing, though, that I’d like help with from others on this forum, is to find out the name of the ship. I have the captain’s name, but unfortunately no mention is made (in any reference I can find) to the name.

 

As part of my recuperation, I also made myself a pseudo-lathe using my electric drill in the same manner others have used on this forum. I had been intending to use it to make wheels, but in the end decided just to stay with the kit wheels. I am sure it’ll be useful for the masts and yards.

 

Tony

[cog]

Tony,

 

You're doing great! Nearly there ...

[tkay11]

Haha, Carl! That's now as far as I posted previously. Coming up at some time in the future:

 

Cannon rigging

Shot racks

Deck fittings continued

 

...and... perhaps (if I am at all successful) building a longboat for the cutter. The trouble with this particular scheme is that I was following the build of a 1:48 Victory by someone from South America. In it there were some really nice ideas about building a small longboat using layers of MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard). The trouble is that build seems now lost for the moment and I am hoping the person manages to re-post it all. Nevertheless, I have drawn up plans for the longboat and have cut out the first overall shape. If you don't see any more posts in this build about a longboat you'll know I've not managed it!

 

I also seem to have spent ages learning about cutting more accurately, making lots and lots of small parts, learning from other people's builds, etc. It's going to be quite a relief to get back to what is beginning to look like a boat!

 

Thanks for looking in,

 

Tony

[hopeful]

Enjoyed visiting and reading through your build log today, terrific. Anyone building the Sherbourne will be very lucky to be able to refer to your log. Super photos and explanations. Very nice work indeed!

 

Wish you well as you continue with your build.

 

BFN

 

 

Cheers,

 

Hopeful aka David

 

 

“there is wisdom in many voices”

 

 

Completed: Sharpie Schooner (Midwest) Posted on kit build log.

 

Current: Sultana (MSW) Updating the build log and continuing on with the build

 

 

Next: Lady Nelson (Amati Victory)

 

[tkay11]

Thanks, David. I feel a tiny bit guilty at the moment, because I am still trying to build the ship's boat rather than just getting on with the kit (there is no mention of a boat in the kit, and I haven't seen anyone put a boat on the Sherbourne). This has taken up much more time than I thought it would.

 

However, it is great fun learning all these new skills and, as has been repeated so often on this site, 'it ain't a hobby if you hurry'. The thing about the ship's boat is that it is teaching me about drafting and lofting plans from CAD. Then there's the practical side of discovering I can actually carve the shape of a boat from a few bits of MDF (medium-density fibreboard, as it's known in the UK). It may all come to naught when I come to the framing and planking, though!

 

I'm looking forward to your Lady Nelson build.

 

Tony

[Blueskippy]

Tony

I had the same idea about a ships boat and ordered a caldercraft one - accordingto their blurb the 19 foot one was suitable, ,,,,,,,,,, nope, it was so big it would not fit anywhere on the deck. My own fault for not measuring and taking their word for it.

That said it was lots if fun to do and using an idea from another manufacturers advert, I mounted it as if being towed as you will see in the gallery (I have since added the tow rope).

By the way your Sherbourne looks superb, cant wait to see the completed article.

[Blue Ensign]

Enjoyed reading the trials and tribulations of your build Tony, and you certainly seem to have got value for money out of the learning process.

 

A model is more than just the sum of its parts and you are producing a very attractive cutter with some nice little additional touches.

 

Cheers,

 

B.E.

[tkay11]

Thanks, Skippy. I too thought of buying one of the Jotika boats. I think there's a 12' version available from Cornwall Model Boats for about £15, but I thought that if I gave in after all the time and effort I've devoted to trying to work out how to build one it would be a complete waste. As it turns out, I've now completed the keel and ribs and should start planking once I return from my current trip in Northern Nigeria and the follow-up work I'll have to do once home. I should be able to send some pictures of progress so far. It's interesting that you've chosen the same colour scheme as I have for your Sherbourne and I hope my effort will turn out as nicely as yours. Even my boat is too long for the Sherbourne at 16', so I'll either keep it separate as you have done or else make a smaller boat now that I'm beginning to see how it all can be done.

 

And thanks B.E., too for looking in and your kind comments. Value for money it certainly is: huge amounts of fun, endless learning and totally absorbing whenever I can find the time to devote to it.

 

Both (Skippy's and BE's) of your posts stimulated me to look at all your builds. I hadn't seen them before (edit: no, I've just realised that's not true as I now remember I had a good look at BE's build of the boats on Pickle) and I really have enjoyed what I have seen so far. The descriptions and research you've both done are very interesting -- in addition to the fact that you both have created such beautiful models. I'll now be following your builds with attention and once I'm home I'll be looking them up especially for the details of the rigging. I noticed also the detail about the rudder cover -- something I've been thinking of attempting.

 

Tony

Edited April 12, 2013 by tkay11

[tkay11]

Having prepared the cannon and the shot holders, my eye drifted around the deck and I wondered about the absence of a ship’s boat in the kit. Clearly if one was to be built, it would be better to do it before work on the masts and rigging. So I decided to see whether I could build one. This decision has taken up a very large amount of time since it meant I had to learn a lot of new skills.

 

First thing to do was to decide on the boat. The Anatomy of the Ship book on the Cutter Alert has plans for a 16ft ‘longboat’. Since the Alert had roughly the same dimensions as the Sherbourne, I thought it reasonable to use those plans.

 

So I took a scan of the page of those plans and traced them in Photoshop. Since the half-breadth and body plans only show half a section, each half was duplicated and flipped to make up the whole sections and waterlines.

 

Tony

 

This allowed me to make a page of the sheer plan, the sections and waterlines that I could print out ready for cutting as templates.

 

 

 

Tony

[tkay11]

After reviewing all the methods of making ship’s boats (electro-plating, carving and hollowing out a shell, building up round a solid mould), I settle on building up round a solid mould as recommended in Zu Mondfeld’s book ‘Historic Ship Models’. This was partly because there is an excellent build of ship’s boats on this site by Alexandru using exactly this method. You can see that at http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/1474-34-ft-hms-victory-launch-by-alexandru-scale-148-completed/. So I studied that, as well as the explanations in other books, and plunged in.

 

The first step of this process was to paste templates to sections of MDF (medium density fibreboard) which were cut to the height of each waterline section. Others had built the whole block in one go, but I thought that by building it up by waterline I could keep a good focus on aligning the templates to the mould as I filed down, and at the same time this would give me a rough guide as to where to file. As recommended, the section representing the rail was made much taller to allow for the ribs to be glued to the solid mould above the sheer line but not to the mould below (allowing the mould eventually to be removed).

 

I used a sanding drum on my rotary tool to make sure of the overall maximum dimensions of the uppermost block, then glued the sections together.

 

 

 

 

Then using the templates of the sections and the sheer plan, I was able to file and sand the block down to a rough shape.

 

 

Tony

Edited April 15, 2013 by tkay11

[tkay11]

THE NEED TO RE-THINK!

 

It was at this stage that I realised that I had not thought of some essential aspects:

1. I hadn’t figured out how the keel at the stern end would be shaped and then after looking more closely at Alexandru’s build I realised I would have to make the keel taller at the stern.
2. I hadn’t allowed for the fact that the transom and stern post on the plan were seen from the rear at 90⁰, and therefore had to be corrected for foreshortening if I was to have a template for the transom.
3. I hadn’t allowed for the width of the frames on the mould, since they were going to have to lie between the mould and the planks.

It was at this stage that I almost gave up on the enterprise, and either make a ship’s boat using one of those made by Jotika, or not to have one at all. However, on reflection, I thought that I’d gone so far and it was all in the pursuit of learning how to model boats, so I persevered.

 

I therefore decided I’d have to have another method to make all this more accurate, and that meant using a CAD package rather than Photoshop. And that in turn meant I’d have to learn how to use that package since I had minimal experience of CAD. Last year I had been lucky enough to have a colleague who no longer wanted his CAD package as he found it too complex, and he gave me his TurboCAD 19. I had fiddled with it a bit at the time, but got no further than tracing and using that to make the cannon trucks. Now it was time to get more serious.

 

After learning the ins and outs of Bezier curves, I eventually was able to make a 3D model which gave me a good idea of what I was aiming at.

 

 

The sections then had to be re-scanned and an inner line drawn 0.5mm from the outer edge to allow for the ribs. This was done by drawing a series of 0.5mm lines perpendicular to the outer Bezier curve, then linking up the vertices of those lines with another Bezier curve. You might notice on the picture that I have the 'Stern Angled' and 'Stern' views muddled, but you'll get the idea!

 

 

Then the sheer plan and waterlines were re-drawn, again using the same method to draw an internal line to allow space for the ribs.

 

At the same time, the stations were re-drawn so that I could use them as frame (or rib) placements. This was done by fitting a series of 14 vertical lines equally spaced between the junction of the keel with the stern post and the foremost section (E) on the original plans. Then two lines were drawn 0.5mm forward and aft of each station line to represent the ribs.

 

These station lines were then drawn on each of the waterline plans in order to allow making of a jig that would hold the whole assembly.

 

 

I was able to see from the scanned plan that the aft sections could follow what had looked like a buttock line. I therefore cut the keel out of 1.6mm cherry and filed down the mould to this new shape. This time I also allowed not only for the rabbet, but also for the ribs.

 

I cut out the rib spaces on the keel using a saw and needle file that was luckily the same width as the ribs (1mm) to a depth of 0.5mm or so. To check the depth I used a strip of 0.5mm thick walnut strip.

 

 

You’ll notice from the pictures that my sanding of the block was not accurate for sections 0-7, and that I filed away too much from the mould. However, because of the method I was using I reckoned it was unimportant since the important thing was to have space to glue the ribs to the keel.

 

 

 

Tony

 

Edited April 15, 2013 by tkay11

[tkay11]

The next stage was to make the ribs. I decided that the easiest way of doing this would be to print lines 1mm apart in the CAD programme, paste these to 4mm x 0.5mm walnut strips and cut them out using a scalpel.

 

After enquiring of others on this site the size to make the ribs, it was clear that if they were to be to scale they should be 0.5mm x 0.5mm. However, I found that my accuracy in cutting would be best left at 1mm x 0.5mm.

 

I estimated the length needed for the ribs by sticking sellotape to the outside of the mould and marking off the top edges, then laying the sellotape on a board and measuring the distance.

 

 

 

 

The first attempts at bending these very thin and narrow strips to the hull showed that I needed to improve my technique. Simply soaking in water then bending as had been done for the main ship’s planking proved impossible as the ribs simply fractured along the sharpest parts of the curve.

 

I was able to overcome this problem by wiping the soaked planks with PVA glue. Whilst they were still moist, I then slowly bent them round my plank bender whilst playing a hair dryer on to them. At this stage I used pliers to hold the end of the rib as it was far too hot to allow my fingers anywhere near the assembly. This allowed the planks to benefit from direct heat, as well as to dry out the glue very quickly and hold the shape of the curve. The curve was finished by holding the rib to the still hot post of my plank bender and shaping it till it matched the shape of the mould at its position.

 

 

 

The keel and stern were then glued with epoxy to the ribs, and an extra rib added by the stem to act as further support for the planks at the bow.

 

I then made a block on which to place the mould, pasted the breadth plan to some thick card and cut out the pattern. This pattern was stuck to the MDF block. The reason for the thick card was to provide a space which would hold the mould to the block.

 

I then drilled 1.2mm holes at each station point around the template as shown in Milton Roth’s book ‘Ship Modeling from Stem to Stern’. These holes would then act as ‘locks’ for the top parts of the ribs.

 

A rabbet was cut into the keel with a scalpel. The sternpost and transom were then cut out of 1.6mm cherry sheet and glued to the keel.

 

Extra strips of wood were added to the stem in order to provide a hold for the planks. PVA glue was used to do this.

 

Clingfilm was then used to cover the whole mould, and the shaped ribs were inserted over this into the receiving holes of the template and block. The clingfilm stops the ribs or planks being glued to the mould – thus allowing the mould to be removed easily once the planking is completed.

 

 

 

 

So right now I’ve reached the basic stage of having established the basic shape of the boat. Next step is to do the planking!

 

One of the problems I foresee is the length of the boat and how it is supposed to fit on the ship. Skippy decided he’d tow his behind the Sherbourne. I’m still thinking about this.

 

Maybe one day I’ll even get back to the kit of the ship I’m supposed to be building.

 

Tony

 

[Blue Ensign]

I admire your tenacity in sticking with the boat Tony, I'm sure it will pay dividends in the end.

 

You will have a boat that you have wholly created yourself to be proud of, and learned another new skill into the bargain.

 

I look forward to seeing the finished article.

 

Regards,

 

B.E.

 

 

 

[tkay11]

Thanks, B.E. Totally agreed -- really worth sticking to it, whatever the outcome.

 

Tony

[Jim Lad]

Good on you, Tony!  Your perseverence is really paying off.  I'm looking forward to further instalments of your small boat build.

 

John

[tkay11]

Thanks, John. I'm glad to know you're still keeping an eye on me!

 

Tony