Mark Pearse

Hi Michael Qld Maple is a hardwood & is used for furniture & apparently it's good for musical instruments. It's not a tough or strong timber & is fairly light. I'm familiar with Mahogany & QM is not as hard, strong or as heavy as that - & as far as Ash & Beech go, I only know what we call Ash & Beech in Australia & they are probably unrelated to what you mean - I'm assuming you might be not from Oz. The weathered look you mentioned, I think is just the medieval standard of lighting I had on in the workshop (AKA the garage) when I took the photos. I agree that it's a really lovely timber, the photo below shows a hatch on a previous build, that has been finished with shellac. thanks for the interest

I've started on the visible timberwork, the decorative stuff that is either varnished or unfinished timber on this boat. It's not usual in Australia to have much unfinished timberwork, paint or varnish are the usual finishes & of course paint is more traditional for working style boats as it's cheaper & more durable. This yacht has work boat lineage in its design, but is a pleasure craft & there is certainly pleasure to be had in the highlights that varnishwork gives. Teak decks are not common, but for this boat there is some unfinished teak, which has of course weathered to a grey. For the timber that is varnished on the actual boat, I'll use shellac, several thin coats & finished off with steel wool to give a burnished look. To my eye, a brush-applied clear finish is out of scale, the build thickness looks heavy. Also, gloss levels have a scale effect: if the viewing distance of a model is 600mm, that's 7.2m at scale. At 7.2m from full gloss varnish, you can see gloss highlights, but not much - hence the burnished, slightly lower gloss level I propose. The hatches are vanished teak, & I am using Queensland Maple. The companionway hatch commenced; it integrates with timber wok on the face of the raised deck, see photo below of the actual. Various trimming pieces of timber still to be done. Regrading the weathered teak, I'm thinking of trialling the following: sand with a heavy grit sandpaper; rub some dark grey paint into the scratches & allow to dry; paint over with thin coats of white or pale grey paint. If anyone can give advice on weathering, I would appreciate any guidance or experience on this. And the forehatch. I haven't used CA glue a lot, but for the sake of time & used it on these hatches so I could get al of the timber strips on in one session. The seam first one from the top in particular, & it's not on the surface, seems to be what soaked into the timber. I'm not sure if it will become invisible when I apply the shellac finish. I will do a test & report back. In the second photo you can see the way light reacts with Qld Maple, it's beautiful when finished.

His clothes could do with another coat of antifouling....

happy days Steven, a great save

Hi Andy That framing is indeed beautiful. The photos raised an unrelated question for me, as I will need to try to show some timber weathered on my current build - the cockpit seats & some other timbers are unfinished teak, so greyed off. It might be just a trick of the lighting, but the photos appear to show the frames in a lovely greyed off state.......as opposed to the stringers. or perhaps you're building it outside in the elements, over 5 years....

"but you said fleece" "stop whinging, it's gold, ain't it?"

Hi Steven I agree, it is looking very good. An aside inspired by your post: I was admiring how clever rigging of the Drizza & Trozza lines are, in that drawing. There is a contemporary parallel, the high-end sailing world is moving back to a greater use of ropes in rigging: rope shackles instead of solid shackles, rope & eyelets instead of blocks, rope standing rigging instead of wire....using details similar to some of the techniques in this drawing.

I've started on the rudder blade, & realised that plywood both suited the thicknesses of a sandwich approach, & also it would be very helpful to gauge accuracy of the shape - the easy visibility of the laminations is a great help with a subtle shape of changing thickness. The rudder has a few complexities: - they cleverly were able to make it very close & fair to the keel & also able to rotate a full 90º without hitting the transom (tiller is removable) - the cutout for the tiller - it has a very fine trailing edge This shows the delicate shape well: This shows the care with which they faired the rudder to the keel, the trailing edge of the keel is cupped & yet the rudder can rotate 90º...It must be that the pivot point is a bit more aft than you'd expect. It's only on anchor that you use anywhere near 90º, so it doesn't matter if the keel/rudder loses its fairness at that point. The construction will be a 3mm ply piece with a 2mm piece each side. 3mm as that's the thickness of the aperture for the tiller stock. Here's the 3 sheets, & the aperture is angled as shown. Here it is, glued up & with fairing underway. I clamped between 2 surfaces I was certain are flat, & used titebond for it's strength & simplicity of use. I am so glad I opted for plywood... And here's the tiller, when I get to it:

Hi Keith, The line of that strip looks nice. Have you tried heat on the ply?

Golly. Must have been some interesting effects of wind, spray, waves etc.....Would a person have had the option of choosing the heads on the leeward side?

Thanks everyone The last part of the hull is the shaped piece that completes the propellor cutaway. I glued two pieces of Huon Pine together to get the thickness, but it also gave a centreline, & I find that even on small pieces of timber it helps a lot with accuracy & symmetry etc. The infill piece roughed up: And installed: Still just roughly sanded but that's probably enough for now. The photo also shows there's a bit of detail work to clean up the joint between the transom & the planks is in order. Here's the actual one:

- what an extraordinary hull that is, & you are doing it justice

Hi everyone, not a massive update, but a pleasing one. The deck was glued down, with some small brass screws holding the shape while the glue cured. The deck setout is below, from the bow: samson post, fore hatch, mast (chain plates are deck mounted & indicated by the short pencil lines just aft of the mast), companionway hatch. The deck edges have to be sanded flush & the stem head finished off. There is the storm boards & removable side panels on the face of the raised deck line, so I did a 2mm plywood template of the shape between the cockpit seat & the underside of the deck edge while it was still accessible. I drilled more screw holes than I would need, & only used as many as was needed to hold the plywood - which was a fair bit, being curved down at the gunwales & slightly concave in the fore-aft centreline. This shows some of the raised deck face, with the side panels removed. All varnished timber, so for a nice sharp result it's going to be better if I make it on the bench & install it as one.

Hi Keith Thank you for the fascinating diversion, remarkable work & dedication to the process. I could see a lot of Oak, & some pine perhaps - did you find out much on the timber types being used?

Hi there I just came upon your log, she's a lovely boat & the model is going really nicely. On painting the metal, I haven't painted metal at scale, but in general you use an etch primer onto cleaned metal before top coating. Another possible issue is mixing time, one time I had this tiny tin of Humbrol enamel that said stir for 5 minutes....I didn't & it took a week to dry; next time I stirred for 5 minutes & it dried overnight. Earlier you asked about painting, I'm in the building industry & it's common knowledge that 90% of a good paint job is preparation. ie: use a sandable undercoat, & carefully sand it. Maybe repeat, depends on how much you want the pores of timber to be filled. Then top coat #1 , sand it carefully. Again etc until you're done. A sweet boat & the colours you chose look excellent.

The cockpit seat & scuppers area is now glued in place, & mitred at the transom. The side sections of hull were laminated to a scale thickness of about 80mm, approx 7mm actual. The width between the footwell & hull is divided by the seating backrest, which does more to keep water out of the cockpit on a windy day than it does to provide sumptuous & ergonomic seating. The width of the deck landings have been increased with strips of hardwood, Spotted Gum I think. I will use small screws to help the plywood deck to hold its camber while the glue goes off, so the screws can go into the hardwood rather than the edge of the ply. The mast sits on the 4th bulkhead back from the bow; the tripled strips are where the shroud chainplates sit. Although with a static model there's not a lot of load, it means I can have a leg on the back of the chainplates going down into the hardwood, & glued. Given it's not much work it's worth it for whatever additional strength it gives. I'm probably ready for the deck, & then probably the timber to infill& finish off the propeller cutaway. thanks,

Hi Vaddoc, She's looking fantastic, very nice work on the finishing details. I think the vertical rod is the engine throttle control. The horizontal rod just contains it against the coaming, & possibly had some notches or something to hold in set positions. The small rod just behind the engine would be the gearstick, for putting the engine into gear or neutral, probably it was just a thrust gearbox - not real gears, you just push the lever forwards against a friction plate & the propeller starts turning & the thrust of the propeller keeps the friction plate engaged until you pull the lever aft & disengage it. On the rope steering, I am guessing the reason is so they can steer the while working in another part of the boat. If you do an internet search "Herreshoff rope steering", his small yacht design the Coquina was fully rope steering. A rope might also mean that the steering would hold a certain position, especially if there was a v cleat or horn cleat - tillers are great but when free, the boat will steer where it wants to go. The rope might give some ability to set it a bit one way or the other, as well as steer while tending to the catch in your lovely fish well.....

Hi Steven My only comment on the anchor is that the stock needs to be perpendicular to the curved hooking part, to encourage the hooked ends to bite into the sea floor. Apologies if you already were aware of this, I understand your drawing might have been just to get the proportion right. Noting that it would have been straightforward to make the stocks so they can be parallel to the hooked part when sitting against the ship's hull, & perpendicular when the anchor is deployed.

The basic forms of the cockpit area can be framed up in ply, & I'm using 2mm birch. The footwell was done but doing the deck & scuppers area in one required some joggle stick style paperwork as it's enclosed on 3 sides, & 2 of them aren't vertical. It looks unlikely in the photo, but actually it was easy to do accurately. I could slide a metal ruler below the paper to be able to press the tape down onto something at the right level without distorting it. And sitting loosely in place. In the photo it's sitting 2mm too high at the stern - it will mitre to the top of the transom & so sit down lower, as this boat has no timber trimming piece or fashion piece there to cover a join that could split later. The alignment at the sides (to the hull) isn't critical, the raking strips of hull above the ply will be built up to 6-7mm thick or about 70-85mm actual, which can sit on top of the plywood. Unlike many remarkable builds on this forum, I'm not concerning myself with the inner parts of the vessel being true the actual boat.

Hi Roel, Thank you for taking part....& I agree they are a funny hull shape. A design that is definitely trying to get the most boat from the least timber - noting that the original was designed in 1933 & I think that's the depression or soon after. I think people then also just tried harder to get more from less - 7.3m wasn't a small boat in those days, but it certainly is now.

Druxey - thank you & a good suggestion, I didn't consider that. Keith, thanks also - the effort to set up interlocking frames was an interesting exercise & enforced accuracy. It also worked well with the available drawings on the boat, just the full sized lines - it's a quirk that the boats built to the design are not the same, they do vary but most keep to the concept of the underwater lines from the original design. John, thanks - I knew I'd heard that phrase before...now I just need 50,000 'volunteers' to assist on the build.

It's exciting to have a stage where there's a great leap forwards in what the model looks like. This was one of those weekends, spending time taking pleasure in the unfolding of the model. Turning the model right way up & trimming the aft hull sections makes a big difference, she's looking a lot more like a yacht now. And not just like a yacht - the beamy but well proportioned lines are starting to show. The support is from some free foamcore cardboard, it was easy to make but I'm not sure it's going to last the distance. Stout boats, definitely not a racehorse, with just a hint of of tumblehome.... The large volume of the hulls is really evident here. I have added some scrap lead inside the hull, I think it feels better if they are slightly heavy & it's probably safer for the model. Those 4 pieces, found on a building site, are probably about 500g or 1lb. Cut into 4 pieces & glued in place. Hopefully the time spent working out the pre-cut plywood frames will make the next stages simpler. It can be quite tricky to measure - for example - the height of a cockpit sole off the hull. Next I'll start laying the cockpit plywood, & have a think about the rigging - if there needs to be anything done now while access in the hull is still possible, such as backing for the chainplates. One more thing, on the related 28' design for Maluka: following her good result in the recent Fastnet, there's an article on her in the June Classic Boat mag. She's still in the UK & her owner will be cruising the north east coast of the UK the next few weeks.

that handle method for the wheel is a good one, & I hope it separates well for you

You're making it appear easy. And that's a nice hammer.

Some photos showing the hull with outer stem & keel glued on. Also some initial shaping of the stem piece. Interesting how the parallel planks give some optical illusions, as the ones closest to the keel have their rocker upside down. Some photos are almost unusable from this effect. The aft part of the hull & keel are smoothly faired. The front section of the keel meets the hull at a crease rather than a faired shape. You can see this in the hull photo from Vanity, below. At this stage I don't know for sure if I will need to use any filler or not, in the keel/hull area.