James H

I did sort of bend his ear about a Brixham boat.....y'know, being one of England's most important fishing ports 😆

Those will look real nice in white/ochre!

How far is this one from release now?

I marked lines on the ply where the bulkheads were, by lying dry first. I then drilled holes into those lines. After soaking the ply, the part was then laid around hull again and then pinned through the drilled holes into the bulkheads.

STAGE 72: LEFT DOOR HINGE AND LOCK A little fiddly this one, but goes together nicely. The spring is slid onto the lock handle and then the assembly is screwed into the mechanism. Don't tighten too much or the lock won't move. The door hinge is now screwed into place. And the lock mechanism and hinge cover are pushed into place. STAGE 73: RIGHT DOOR, TRIM & RIVETS This one simply builds up the right door as per the left. Until pack 10, see you soon!

STAGE 69: TRUNK, EMBLEM & LICENSE PLATE LIGHT The emblem is screwed into place and the latch and license plate light are pushed into position. STAGE 70: TRUNK HINGES, BRACKET, & REAR LICENSE PLATE Now the trunk hinges are fitted. Followed by the license plate, screwed into place from behind. STAGE 71: LEFT DOOR, TRIM & RIVETS The left door trim is screwed into the interior of the left door. The door top rivets are then shipped from their sprue and pushed into place as shown.

STAGE 67: STEERING SYSTEM SHAFT, CAM GEAR BRACKET & COVER After screwing the cam gear bracket into place, the steering shaft can be threaded into position and secured in place. STAGE 68: STEERING ROD & COLUMN The steering column is first inserted through the rear of the instrument panel and the steering wheel pushed into place. This is quite a tight fit and quick tap with a rubber tipped model hammer drove it full home (no pun intended!) NOW we can get rid of the saggy front wheels! The springs are first slid onto the hub tubes and then the wheels aligned. The steering rod is then pushed into position on the seat and fastened at both sides on top of the springs. No more saggy wheels 🙂

Pack 9 Quite a bit of work in this pack and.....YES!!...we manage to get rid of that pesky front wheel sag on the main chassis, which has driven me mad for a couple of months now. STAGE 65: DRIVER SEAT-BELT HARNESS, HOOKS & FRONT LATERAL CAGE RIGHT BAR The u-shaped roll bar from an earlier pack is now resurrected and the belts are fastened to it. First, the bracket, then the harness hooks. The right lateral cage bar is now pushed into place on the firewall. STAGE 66: OIL VAPOUR CANISTER, PIPES, CAP, & AIR INTAKE PIPE A few more detail bits for the firewall. First, the oil vapour canister is built and plugged into position. Now the air intake pipe is attached.

STAGE 63: CABLE HARNESS AND ELECTRICAL DEVICES 'Electrical devices' is a generic term for everything that bolts to the firewall. Note also a nicely moulded wiring harness. The harness is first plugged into the various holes, and then the electrical devices into position as shown, trapping the harness in places. STAGE 64: MORE ELECTRICAL DEVICES More 'electrical devices' to complete the firewall. more soon!

STAGE 61: FIREWALL A nice looking part, but literally nothing to do until.... STAGE 62: SPEAKER AND SPEAKER HOLDER Now the firewall can be populated with components, but first, the speaker is installed.

STAGE 59: FUEL PUMPS, PIPES, TRUNK HINGE & LOCK Trunk detail is now added with the two fuel pumps and their plumbing. This all fits superbly with too awkwardness, and exactly as shown. The pics in the instructions are quite small so it took a moment to fathom which pump was which. The true support is now fitted, albeit it drops off quite easily but think that will be sorted in a later issue. STAGE 60: REAR FENDER PART & CABLE HOLDER The rear fender is another large part and this now bolts to the tank and truck assembly after first threading the specific cables through the correct fender opening. A cable clip is now used to channel all wiring into the same locale.

Pack 8 This pack came together quite quickly, and didn't need the chassis at this time, so all work was a lot smaller and concentrated on the fuel tank and electronics, plus some cockpit elements. STAGE 57: FUEL TANK STAGE 58: REAR TRUNK This is the main part of the fuel tank that we started earlier, and bolted the electronics into . Now we can complete the tank and route the cables appropriately. I just hope the boards all work well as there's no test for it before encasing inside the car. Specific cables pass through specific openings, and the whole assembly screw tightly shut. STAGE 58: REAR TRUNK The boot, as we call it in the UK, is now tackled. The rear panel first screws to the main section. The completed fuel tank now bolts to the underside. Be careful no wires are trapped anywhere here.

Some pictures of the problem would be good to see where you're at.

It's designed to be as easy to build as possible. With a couple of builds under your belt, you should have no problem with this. I'd say that in comparison to Flirt or Duchess, this is no harder....there's just more of it. There's also refinements in these designs as they're released, and also during this specific build. There have been numerous changes that I've discussed with Chris and he's implemented them, reducing as many of the possible pitfalls as you can on a wooden model.

Not yet, but Amati have been in contact and want this to progress very shortly. I know they've had other priorities with Bismarck and also the effects the pandemic has had on their production, but watch this space.

This update takes me up to hull completion (apart from fitting the lanterns and quarterdeck hammock cranes which will be fitted later). Work starts on fitting out the forecastle deck, fitting out with the hatch assembly, belfry, fore bitts cross beams and the breast beam rails. Of course, there's those catheads which need fitting. These are designed with engravings that mean each cathead is an easy, multipart assembly, and they look rather nice when built up. Opening up the bulwark holes for the catheads was the longest task here, taking about 90 mins in total, but they fit superbly. Ok, back onto the quarterdeck, fitting the stairs I made much earlier in this build. The same goes for my capstan and hatch assembly. The ship's wheel unit is something I made up in the last week, and that goes nicely into position. Now, the quarterdeck breast beam rails are installed. These did look fiddly, but they fit together as easy as Lego! That's right down to installing the PE hammock cranes through all slots in each layer. When complete, these are painted black. Time for timberheads! (and quarterdeck rail stanchions). Followed by the rails: Off to the other end of Sphinx now as I build up the head rails. These are made from laminated pear and the top of these are shaped as I did with the timberheads on the gunwales. Those 'seats of ease' are also installed. Remember those cannon port lids? Here they are, finally installed. The boat beams are now slightly different to the ones I used as they are engraved with the positions of the specific boat cradles, making things a little easier for the builder. The mounts for the beams are cast in a tough resin, attached with CA once I'd measured the 'between centres' to the holes in the gangways. Hammock cranes are now installed and rigged. The boomkins and figurehead parts are fitted, completing this update... Here's a few pics of the build so far. Tomorrow I'll be sending Chris a pen drive with over 830+ photos and 24,000 words of text. Your instruction manual will be epic, in every sense of the word 😆

I really MUST source some of those in the UK!

There's so many tasks on a model which some modellers with either: Fail at. Hate. This is designed to still be something you build and not just 'assemble', but at the same time, it's also designed to make those build tasks a little easier and in many cases, quicker. It's still not a model you can just jump into and build in a couple of months. I've been on this 12 weeks now, and I've still about 5 more to go, give or take. I know that I also work full time and have been creating content for a manual that will around 900 images and 20,000+ words, but I do work relatively quickly as I need to......Chris needs to be able to bring income from this intensive period of design and prototype build. Sorry about lack of update today. I sort of underestimated the list of last tasks to complete the hull. I'm working on this tonight and rest of tomorrow night too.

I definitely wouldn't think so.

That's looking perfect to me. Nice call on the bending former too.

I'm hoping to make an update on Monday with a completed hull, fingers crossed.

Yup. My basic formula is a 50:50 paint to thinners. If enamel, I think a little more.

Here's my speckled and toy-like airbrush result To be honest, if that's what you're getting or seen, it's because the paint isn't being thinned enough. I work almost exclusively in acrylics now, and this Typhoon was done entirely in acrylic.

That's looking real good. No probs so far?

I'm always a sucker for the hard way, so for me, I'd carve it out and finish with some sandpaper wrapped around a steel rule.