Mark Pearse

Hi Patrick, An Arctic Char would be very very good - do you ever catch them? On ship matters, the interior of the forecastle is fascinating, I suppose they were never really empty on a ship of war - but it's almost a very modern piece of architecture.

The hull painting is underway. I used a good quality household undercoat (Dulux oil based primer-sealer), as it sands nicely. As the boot top line is white & the hull topsides black, I painted the boot top first, in full gloss oil based enamel (Humbrol gloss white). Humbrol seem to have changed the recipe, but it went ok - but 4 coats were needed to get a really opaque layer. The flow was nice straight from the tin, but the density could be better. The underwater paint will be a matt acrylic of some sort, pale grey, or pale blue-grey; the topsides oil based enamel. After the photos I'll put some thoughts on gloss level at scale. I left the masking tape on the timberwork as I'll start the black now. And thanks to Tim Moore of this forum for the recommendation to paint some clear coating on the masking tape joint to reduce likelihood of bleeding under the tape. I did a test to check compatibility - which might be an issue down the track but it seems ok for the short time since i did the test. Undercoated, sanded & with the boot top done: This one is included to show something that to me was an important detail: the way the stem resolves to the hull as a crease, which then softens to become a faired curve some distance behind the front of the keel. The shadows show it, & it's about right to the actual yacht. For the topsides paint, I am doing a mix of Humbrol gloss black, plus about 25% Humbrol satin black added, plus a bit of Penetrol for flow. I might have added too much Penetrol as it's looking a little thin, but I'll do one coat & then judge whether to change the balance. The white boot top was left full gloss, but black will really show the gloss & I think full gloss at scale should be backed off a wee bit. This might not be an issue for a pale colour, but black will really show the gloss level.

Very nice Tim. The colour are harmonious but also credible. And I like that you can see the buoys are actually solid timber -

I have been working away, heading towards painting the hull. There's been quite a few small & exacting jobs, not ones that give a huge sense of achievement, but necessary for a good paint job - & some bits that just had to be completed. Bowsprit / stem resolution (& boot top lines): Drain holes for the scuppers area around the cockpit: Stern apertures - the square ones are the cockpit footwell drains, & the round one will be the exhaust outlet; visible also is some filler to the inside of the planking / transom joint (hood ends??). I used sanding epoxy filler for that, & a tiny tiling wedge as a spatula - the end is such a nice combination of sharp & flexible for a tricky filling job. Plus a bit more timber to the lower aft edge of the keel, also visible. Also the lower gudgeon for the rudder, which required a careful setout.....the rudder blade setout is done very well & cleverly on this particular boat: you can see that the aft edge of the keel meeting face is concave & the rudder nests into it nicely - but they managed to also allow the rudder to have a full 90º swing. This is for picnicking, you take out the tiller & the freely swinging rudder doesn't knock against the hull all afternoon. The gudgeon is pretty simple but I had to sleeve tube into tube to suit the OD & ID, seen here with the piece that wraps around ready for soldering. Then shaped & dry fitted: & then glued in place & shaped, as it has been carefully faired on the actual boat The pintle below, & the spacer was a piece sawn off the gudgeon tube: And here's the rudder in it's home position, note the faired rudder to keel junction: And at 90º: And lastly, another build of these doughty yachts has been launched, Sunday 30th December, see below. Built by retired shipwright Ian Smith, & his freely available videos online, on boat building are really excellent. Well done Smithy & Trish!

Hi Steven, if you run short on White Oak, I have some small pieces doing nothing & could post to you.

agree, the finished awning is very good

is that a low compression diesel, & the hot bulb is like a permanent glow plug..?

Looks like a massive single cylinder putt-putt engine....

Hi Steve, Nice work on the wheels. Looking at the photos, the scolloped edge is fabric rather than rigid, so perhaps paper. Cutting that shape will be difficult though. I wonder if there's a craft scissors that do it, like the zig-zag ones but curved....Spotlight are good for stuff like this & just might have it.

Hi Vaddoc, Very nice, & your metalwork is especially fine work.

Onwards... I have glued both gunwales to the hull, & the port side sponson. The timber has about 4 coats of brown-orange shellac, finished with steel wool. I will give them another go before painting. The plywood deck had a prominent change in colour of the veneers at the height the top edge needed to be, below the deck line. For the gluing, I had swallowed my pride & decided on CA glue, as I didn't want to put any mechanical fixings through the timber as I couldn't see a good way to hide them, & using CA did allow just enough time to make sure the strips were accurately placed. The sponson-gunwale relationship is critical to the appearance, so errors were just not on. The port side sponson went on quite easily yesterday, & I had a go at the starboard side, which didn't go well... I was fighting some twist in the timber & was struggling to get a good bond with the load of that twist. I've learned that with CA, you need to get a good bond first time if you can, & the struggle had gone on too long. So, I pulled it off & set up the heat bending frame with an inbuilt twist....It's not much twist, but these native hardwoods have strong opinions & this one needed more encouragement. You can see from the pencil line on the bench that the brackets were repositioned & the upper legs bent. So the sponson is in the same basic curve ....just with some twist. It's now clamped, heated (heat gun) & on the clamps for for a day. Tomorrow, I'll sand off the dried CA glue from both surfaces (vip in my experience) & try again.

Interesting lines: the boats look fat but the underwater lines look as fair as any 20C cruising yacht. The garboard looks to have a lot of twisting to do... Nice drawings too.

Thank you, all very helpful. I'll probably use epoxy glue rather than CA, & pin the timbers in position so they don't slide & set in the wrong position - which would be bloody terrible..... Then spot fill the pin holes. I'll research some suitable pins. Hi Ronald, thank you - the planking looks good at least partly as they are pre-cut & therefore constant width rather than tapered. The actual yacht is strip-planked (ie: wood/epoxy composite using narrow constant width planks, with fibreglass & epoxy resin over), & the model is following that in the planking.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the advice.

Hi Andy I'm no guitar expert, but that's a gorgeously classic shape. Understated & well proportioned indeed....