GuntherMT

Great patience, it looks amazing.

Ahoy Mates
 
SRC: With all the carbon we are dumping the ice is beating me by miles 
 
Dragzz: No, The Ratt has always been my priority. The Vic is my mistress 
 
Russ; Thx again, I am hoping that I will be able to do something about the windows I cut out. The more I work on them the more I think I need to work on something else. My skills are just not up to it yet. I am getting there though
 
Micheal: Yes, activity is a good thing. I often wonder if sometimes too much is not the best thing for the grey stuff. 
 
Scott: Thank you, I would love to have that blue on my build but I just can't make it work like you did 
 
Popeye: I am sure the dinosaurs saw that space rock as just a little hiccup too. "LOL"  All kidding aside it really is just a big learning experience for me; which I really enjoy. Having a finished ship on my shelf does sound nice though. Maybe one day. 
 
Martin: Speaking of finished ship on his shelf. I am jealous. And now i find out you won the prize ship. Even more so. Good luck with that build. It really looks like a great kit. 
 
Back to the build 
 
HAPPY DAYS   :) :)
 
Well it really was an interesting journey doing these gunports. Full of happiness and despair.  Like an endless roller-coaster that has finally come to rest they have now been complete.  The starboard side  actually came out better and I did touch up the port although it does not look as good, it does looks good enough. At some point I really need to move forward and i think that time passed around Christmas of last year. This one really was a whopper 
 
As for anyone following this build I am posting what I learned in hopes it will save others from my folly. 
 
First and I believe this was already mentioned but it is important. The ports do not need to be exactly right when framed (just close and not larger then required); you can give yourself some room by using slightly wider wood then suggested in the plans. Once installed you can view them all together and then make adjustments either before or after planking. After being the harder of the two. The key for me was looking at them all as one facet of the ship. Fixating on one port only led me down the wrong path. 
 
There is a lot of discussion regarding the orientation of gunports. Where as there is, I am sure cases where the ports are not  square to the bulkheads I have found through considerable research they are not the majority. While some may look like this on the plans in most cases it is because the plans are 2D and we live in 3D. 
 
Yes it is not easy to get them to look right,  much easier to just tilt them a bit and this is your choice as you are the captain of your ship. Some are titled on my port side and the first one on the starboard too. Not because they should be but because that was the best i could do. I am however very happy with what I have achieved and think any further action will only lead to major repairs. 
 
When adjusting your ports I found it best to do them in groups never finishing one before all of them are at least 85% done. It is more important to get the orientation right first and then slowly expand them using a jig. I used one of the white metal lids included with the kit. To get them aligned I put my kit in the jig. Once in the magical jig i was able to mark my hull with reference lines which made cutting out the ports much easier. I did not just mark the ports but made lines to guide me while doing them. With the hull planked a mistake here would be hard to repair. My last window is actually slightly larger. That is where I learned to do them in groups and not one at a time.  I also learned not to do them in order but to skip around. Adjusting one between two that are right is much easier. 
 
In a nut shell: I found it was easier to get the ports correct in a smaller version and then scale them up using a jig. The key being to start small get the look you are happy with first. 
 
Next stop is deck planking. In usual JPett fashion we will be expanding this into a project. i put in some basswood so that I could cut into it to terminate the planking. I will be using paper for caulking. I am not sure if I will be trying any of those fancy planks on the gun deck. I might on the upper decks. 
 
 
First pic shows the Ratt in the jig 
 
Second shows reference lines, port jig and the order i used to do the ports 
 
Third show that in celebration we have cleaned the shipyard. 
 
Thanks for stopping by and comments as always are welcome 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I started a gun rope coil factory. I gave up on the plastic rolling device since it got very gummy fast. I used 50% PVA and 50% water to soak the rope. Then I just carefully rolled the ropes in my fingers to make the coils. I check several models and very strict Flemish coils looked a bit parade like and not the way guns would be ready for battle. So I made them less formal looking. I still have about a dozen to go.

Well 34 1\4 hours over 28 days and I have finally got my rear section windows / frames and trims completed. This took so long due to being so repetitive and not something I can sit doing for long periods, not to mention tearing off all the previously installed frames and vaneer.

Hi,
 
Studying the instructions I realized the lowest wale is a walnut strip 8mm wide by 3mm thick, and it must curve around the entire bow. I was trying to decide how and where to start the single planking, but given the size of the wale, I thought I'd better start there. I never have tried to bend such a big strip around a sharp curve like that, and if I couldn't get that done, ship building was going to take a down turn. Compared to the wale the regular planks would be a piece of cake.
 
I may have an unusual way of bending planks, and I didn't know if it would work on the wale. I have an old small coffee percolator and I start by getting water boiling in it and sticking in the planks for 30 minutes.
 

 
I bought a very handy little tool on Amazon. It is the blue strip in the photo below, and will bend around anything and then hold its shape. I use it to determine the shape required on the bow, and then transfer that shape to a piece of scrap wood. I then cut along the shape line with a hand held jig saw making a 2 piece bending jig. I then take the wood that has been soaking, and gently start bending it to conform to the shape, finally clamping and letting it dry overnight. I really didn't think the 2 wale strips would bend without breaking, so I went very slowly, holding my breath all the way. All went well, and we will see how it turned out tomorrow morning.
 

 
Prior to any soaking and bending, I sanded all bulkheads to provide a smooth curve for the planks.
 

 
 

An update on progress so far.
 
Looking at the gun carriages for the gun deck I think I need to make a further adjustment to the shape of them.  From looking at photographs there seems to be an arc shape cut out betwwen the wheels of the gun carriage. 
 
On to progress.  I decided that the smaller ships boats were not to great in terms of detail so I decided to attempt to improve them.  I started with the 28 ft cutter (as it is described in Revell's instructions).  I found a couple of sources on the internet with plans and scratch built wood versions which is what I have attempted to replicate.
 
Here are the work in progress pictures as I tackled the work:
 

 

 

 

 
And here are some shots of the finished article:
 

 

 

 
I'm happy with the end result but I have created a lot of extra work for myself to do the other boats in a similar way.
 
I'm also not sure what to do at this stage about the pinnace (long boat) and the lack of it in the Revell kit.  I may have a go at scratch building it out of plastic.
 
All comments welcome!
 
Stuart

Good afternoon my friends
 
masting continues, and all are wip
 
the main still has to grow another 6 inches but i am getting close to the ceiling, the main top still has to have blocks fitted
the bowspit is more or less finished with the exception of painting and blocks, must admit i enjoyed build that the plans didnt help through, worse than useless wrt to some of the info required
 

Ahoy Mates
 
Dragzz: your a better man then I. Not knowing what I am doing; I did not have the courage to bring out those guns. 
 
GuntherMT: Welcome to my build. This would not be the first time I did something backwards on my build. 
 
Bill Hime: Ditto on my last reply and thx for stopping by. I am primarily using 320 and 400 sandpaper, I have some 150 but use it sparingly. I don't trust myself with anything stronger. Slow would be an understatement. 
 
Back to the build: 
 
Well in typical JPett fashion we are totally over thinking these fillers ' I think"
 
 After spending over 2 hours with my little battens and sandpaper I have made yet another change. It seems to me that the "tuck' of this filler should allow for the planking to lie flat up to the point where the thickness of the two layers of planking matches the space between the filler and the stern. Only here it should curve in to meet the keel. Should it do so where the gap exceeds the space taken by the planking there would be a space on the finished hull.. Like I said, it is entirely possible that there is way to much thinking going on here and the reason for this post 
 
Please let me know what you think
 
Note for those following: I sanded the filler to match the stern on the top where the planking curves into the stern and enough so that the two layers planking will fit without having to sand one layer down to nothing.  See the pic in my previous post. This required me to take quite a bit off the filler. I believe that this could have been prevented by having bulkhead 14 positioned slightly more forward as i see this could have been done on my build. There is some space and I would recommend using the stern fillers to position this bulkhead
 
In the pic I have highlighted the "tuck" You can see that on one side where it used to be bring the planks into the stern well before the two marks. The marks show where the thickness of the planking matches the space between the ends of the keel and the filler. On the other side i have raised the position where the planks will still lie flat up to just before this point. 
 
The second image shows my batten and the new path of the planks 
 
The third my "Vic SticK" which is a jig I made using the two layers of planking for the kit. i seem to have developed an obsession with these little jigs. They all have names "lol"  
 
Please feel free to comment, Suggestions are always welcome here and I have no problem with criticism provided it is accompanied with a suggestions. I can always glue some wood back on and consider my time spent learning. 

Thank you Slog.
 
I've finished the reinforcement blocks finally, although I chose to completely fill the final two gaps at the bow rather than use the blocks, in order to help me see the 'flow' of the hull up there when I get to fairing.
 
While doing the reinforcement blocks, I used the opportunity to correct any minor out of square issues with the bulkheads.  I did this by measuring at multiple points along the top of each bulkhead, always taking my measurements off of bulkhead 'O' which I took great care to square up with all the stern bulkheads and the keel.
 

 
After measuring to determine if I needed any adjustments to the bulkheads, I would cut individual blocks and then fine tune them until they caused the measurements from bulkhead 'O' to be right where I wanted them, and equal on both sides.  I was having some issues where the addition of the glue prior to final fitting would actually change my measurements slightly, so I devised a technique to apply the glue after fitting the blocks in place, so that I did not need to compensate for the glue thickness on the ends of the blocks.
 
After my final measurements and test fitting was complete, I cut a 'cross' into both ends of the block with a razor saw.
 

 
I would then slightly widen the leg of the cross that would be 'outboard', and then place the block without glue, and hold it in place (if needed) with needle nose pliers, while I used a syringe to inject the glue into the cross via the slightly wider leg.
 

 
As can be seen here, the glue would flow through the cross, and would almost always bubble out of each of the other three points almost equally. 
 

 
This method seemed to work quite well, and I had no measurement changes between the final test fit, and the glued in blocks after starting this system.  After the glue had set for a couple minutes I would then use the syringe to lay a 'bead' of glue around all four edges of the block where it laid against the bulkheads.  Testing several blocks that were completely dried shows that they have plenty of strength with this system.
 
After inserting the last two spaces with filler blocks, this is where I'm currently at. 
 

 
Every bulkhead is even with bulkhead 'O'  along at least 3 points on each side, to less than 0.5mm now with all reinforcements in place.
 
Next I'll begin to work on the sub-decks braces and sub-decks for fitment, and the bow fillers I think.

Thank you Slog.
 
I've finished the reinforcement blocks finally, although I chose to completely fill the final two gaps at the bow rather than use the blocks, in order to help me see the 'flow' of the hull up there when I get to fairing.
 
While doing the reinforcement blocks, I used the opportunity to correct any minor out of square issues with the bulkheads.  I did this by measuring at multiple points along the top of each bulkhead, always taking my measurements off of bulkhead 'O' which I took great care to square up with all the stern bulkheads and the keel.
 

 
After measuring to determine if I needed any adjustments to the bulkheads, I would cut individual blocks and then fine tune them until they caused the measurements from bulkhead 'O' to be right where I wanted them, and equal on both sides.  I was having some issues where the addition of the glue prior to final fitting would actually change my measurements slightly, so I devised a technique to apply the glue after fitting the blocks in place, so that I did not need to compensate for the glue thickness on the ends of the blocks.
 
After my final measurements and test fitting was complete, I cut a 'cross' into both ends of the block with a razor saw.
 

 
I would then slightly widen the leg of the cross that would be 'outboard', and then place the block without glue, and hold it in place (if needed) with needle nose pliers, while I used a syringe to inject the glue into the cross via the slightly wider leg.
 

 
As can be seen here, the glue would flow through the cross, and would almost always bubble out of each of the other three points almost equally. 
 

 
This method seemed to work quite well, and I had no measurement changes between the final test fit, and the glued in blocks after starting this system.  After the glue had set for a couple minutes I would then use the syringe to lay a 'bead' of glue around all four edges of the block where it laid against the bulkheads.  Testing several blocks that were completely dried shows that they have plenty of strength with this system.
 
After inserting the last two spaces with filler blocks, this is where I'm currently at. 
 

 
Every bulkhead is even with bulkhead 'O'  along at least 3 points on each side, to less than 0.5mm now with all reinforcements in place.
 
Next I'll begin to work on the sub-decks braces and sub-decks for fitment, and the bow fillers I think.

Thank you Slog.
 
I've finished the reinforcement blocks finally, although I chose to completely fill the final two gaps at the bow rather than use the blocks, in order to help me see the 'flow' of the hull up there when I get to fairing.
 
While doing the reinforcement blocks, I used the opportunity to correct any minor out of square issues with the bulkheads.  I did this by measuring at multiple points along the top of each bulkhead, always taking my measurements off of bulkhead 'O' which I took great care to square up with all the stern bulkheads and the keel.
 

 
After measuring to determine if I needed any adjustments to the bulkheads, I would cut individual blocks and then fine tune them until they caused the measurements from bulkhead 'O' to be right where I wanted them, and equal on both sides.  I was having some issues where the addition of the glue prior to final fitting would actually change my measurements slightly, so I devised a technique to apply the glue after fitting the blocks in place, so that I did not need to compensate for the glue thickness on the ends of the blocks.
 
After my final measurements and test fitting was complete, I cut a 'cross' into both ends of the block with a razor saw.
 

 
I would then slightly widen the leg of the cross that would be 'outboard', and then place the block without glue, and hold it in place (if needed) with needle nose pliers, while I used a syringe to inject the glue into the cross via the slightly wider leg.
 

 
As can be seen here, the glue would flow through the cross, and would almost always bubble out of each of the other three points almost equally. 
 

 
This method seemed to work quite well, and I had no measurement changes between the final test fit, and the glued in blocks after starting this system.  After the glue had set for a couple minutes I would then use the syringe to lay a 'bead' of glue around all four edges of the block where it laid against the bulkheads.  Testing several blocks that were completely dried shows that they have plenty of strength with this system.
 
After inserting the last two spaces with filler blocks, this is where I'm currently at. 
 

 
Every bulkhead is even with bulkhead 'O'  along at least 3 points on each side, to less than 0.5mm now with all reinforcements in place.
 
Next I'll begin to work on the sub-decks braces and sub-decks for fitment, and the bow fillers I think.

It was time to get back to the rigging. As far as tools, I use several different kinds of tweezers, little clamps to hold lines out of the way until I need them and probably most important a pair of surgical hemostats which are like super locking tweezers and also just the right weight to put tension on lines, and a good pair of scissors that are sharp at the tips for snipping off lines.  I've had a lot of trouble finding good scissors over the years and one problem is that rigging is the only place on a build where I use CA glue.  I use it to secure knots and a lot of times when snipping off the end of a line that I've dabbed with CA it will get on the scissors and over time basically ruin them.  So I usually now just buy cheap scissors from the two dollar shop, bend them so they will cut at the tips and use them till they give up the ghost.
 
The last important rigging tool I think is a needle threader.  I usually don't need it for blocks and deadeyes but sometimes its very useful.  Lastly, I have a 24 inch lazy susan which is like a turntable.  I put the ship on it and it's easy to turn the ship and work on alternate sides.
 
Here are the hemostats and scissors in operation.
 

 
The standing rigging job starts with the shrouds.  The instructions don't tell you this specifically but you should alternate port and starboard pairs as you go up so that the shroud lines look neat at the top of the mast.  You also want them to fan out neatly and not be twisted or overlap at the top of the mast.  I suppose you could reeve the deadeyes as you prepare each shroud pair, but I do that work all at once.  I put a piece of tape and sequentially number each of the stays so I can easily sort them later.  Here they are in place and ready to be reeved.
 

 
And after the reeving:
 

 
It's always a challenge to get each of the top deadeyes in a perfectly straight line.  I use a heavy wire bent to the right length.  I put one end in the bottom hole of the bottom deadeye and the other end in the top hole of the top deadeye as I'm securing the top deadeye to the shroud.  Technically, they should all be equal but inevitably a few imperfections occur, usually because over or undertight reeving.  
 

 
The next task is tying the ratlines--or as it's called 'rattling the shrouds.'  I don't know about you but I can only do a little bit at at time.  It's not a bad idea to make a jig out of cardboard that you can lay in behind the shrouds to serve as a guide for how far apart to space the lines.  I've never been able to do it by eye.  
 
You then do the same process with the topmasts as far as shrouds and ratlines.
 

 

 
 
And the next step is to secure the stays and also install the futtock shrouds.  
 

 
 
 

Thank you Mr. Helmsman.
I think preparation work makes the difference. Will always recomend using balsa on POB models. Dust is the only problem with this sort of tree. I've learned many new words when my wife found the dust even in the soup. He-he.
Making the cap rail is a serious problem as it needs edge bending. My solution was to create cap rail in the bow part from separate planks.

When glued and sanded they look like one solid wood. Black paint will finish the process.


Transom cap rail made of special wood which bends easily. I'm not sure what kind of wood it is. Just bought it in a hobby shop.

 
 

Thank you Slog.
 
I've finished the reinforcement blocks finally, although I chose to completely fill the final two gaps at the bow rather than use the blocks, in order to help me see the 'flow' of the hull up there when I get to fairing.
 
While doing the reinforcement blocks, I used the opportunity to correct any minor out of square issues with the bulkheads.  I did this by measuring at multiple points along the top of each bulkhead, always taking my measurements off of bulkhead 'O' which I took great care to square up with all the stern bulkheads and the keel.
 

 
After measuring to determine if I needed any adjustments to the bulkheads, I would cut individual blocks and then fine tune them until they caused the measurements from bulkhead 'O' to be right where I wanted them, and equal on both sides.  I was having some issues where the addition of the glue prior to final fitting would actually change my measurements slightly, so I devised a technique to apply the glue after fitting the blocks in place, so that I did not need to compensate for the glue thickness on the ends of the blocks.
 
After my final measurements and test fitting was complete, I cut a 'cross' into both ends of the block with a razor saw.
 

 
I would then slightly widen the leg of the cross that would be 'outboard', and then place the block without glue, and hold it in place (if needed) with needle nose pliers, while I used a syringe to inject the glue into the cross via the slightly wider leg.
 

 
As can be seen here, the glue would flow through the cross, and would almost always bubble out of each of the other three points almost equally. 
 

 
This method seemed to work quite well, and I had no measurement changes between the final test fit, and the glued in blocks after starting this system.  After the glue had set for a couple minutes I would then use the syringe to lay a 'bead' of glue around all four edges of the block where it laid against the bulkheads.  Testing several blocks that were completely dried shows that they have plenty of strength with this system.
 
After inserting the last two spaces with filler blocks, this is where I'm currently at. 
 

 
Every bulkhead is even with bulkhead 'O'  along at least 3 points on each side, to less than 0.5mm now with all reinforcements in place.
 
Next I'll begin to work on the sub-decks braces and sub-decks for fitment, and the bow fillers I think.

Progressing on the bottom planking.
I'm cutting the planks about 125mm long, and staggering the joints, every 4th set of planks match.
 
The bow: I am dropping the top few planks - the covering plank I make wider by adding a short piece to make a half "arrow" head. Slow going but hopefully not only look good, but the lower planks end up lying naturally on the hull to the bow.
 
The stern: slightly getting thinner over to the stem 4.2mm, from there plan to thin the planks down to 2.5mm for the concave bend towards the keel. That will be challenging.
 
Each Plank:
Managing to glue each plank with a drop of fast drying glue at each end, and between with the 2 part epoxy. Tried a couple of different ways, but this is process is working fine.
All epoxy glue on the hull first(leave gaps at ends, and sometimes a spot in between if the plank is not sitting flat enough). Drop of fast glue on one end only, push the plank on(let it dry within seconds) then drop of fast glue on the other end, push plank on - let it dry. Then work the plank between the ends flat squeezing out excess glue, clean up and plank done.
 
My biggest issue is, not all the planks are same thickness and even the width varies slightly. Talk about life wasn't meant to be easy.
 
Rowan - thanks for your kind words, started following your build with interest.
 
Dave R.

here in this pic u will i now have the main deck all planked and now glued in place still needs some clean up that will be all done real soon still need to do last part of the main deck at the bow let me what u all think
 
 

Thanks for all the encouragement guys. I spent the afternoon applying the "puddening" to the anchor rings (quite a tricky little job) and making the two large cat blocks to weigh the anchors....

As per the instruction sheet I've started fitting the first planking. Garboard and top plank fitted without too much trouble but I then thought that maybe I'd missed an instruction to fit the false keel and bow, but no, according the the book these are fitted "after" final planking (or that's how I read it)! This really didn't make sense so I trial fitted both keel and bow to discover that for the keel to meet the false bow I needed a 1mm shim under it. No problem here however as I keep all the off-cuts from anything I'm making and was able to split one of the bits of ply that the original frame was in. It also needed more packing in the bow and stern to have any hope of getting the flow of the planking somewhere near correct. Note - don't follow the (very limited) instruction re planking with the kit as it has planks ending in points and flowing anywhere but to the bow and stern!!

1st try at planking
 
Bow with additional filling and false bow in place.

Stern area with 1mm shim added between garboards to bring keel up to the correct height.
 
Obviously I'll need a bit of filling and sanding in due course. Any recommendations as to a particular wood filler to use?
 

Thanks Rich, and I got your message and sent him an email.
 
Alistair, thanks for the tip - I could probably use that same filler that messed up the Carmen hull so much, as it's very light colored (which was the problem with it in that scenario on walnut).  I'll do some testing with that.
 
Fairly brief update tonight, spent most of the day at a charity event so not much time on the ship.
 
I finished gluing in all the bulkheads, and I have started placing reinforcing blocks between the bulkheads.  I'm using 5/16" square basswood for the blocks.  I was going to use balsa, but it's just as expensive as basswood, so I just got basswood figuring it will always be useful to have extra basswood bits around.
 
After last nights update, I decided to do "one more bulkhead" before bed.  Yea, I'm dumb that way.  I managed to get distracted after gluing it in place and setting the blocks against it, and left it so long that the excess glue got onto the blocks and glued the bulkhead to both blocks.  I broke both sides of the bulkhead trying to get them apart.  Because the center slot was solid, and the breaks were both clean, I drilled a hole through the center of the now solid slot, drilled a hole into both sides and pinned the broken pieces all back together with a single long pin made from a toothpick.  After the glue dried, I think it's the strongest bulkhead I have now.
 

So I do believe that you lot of scallywags in this community have completely warped my concept of what exactly a "kit" for building a model is...
 

So this is really much easier than I expected it to be.  I measured along the longest bulkhead from keel to deck level with a tick strip, and set my chopper to that length and cut up one of the 3/64 basswood deck planks.  This made 9 pieces of the exact same width as the bulkheads.  I threw these into water to soak for a while, and then got after it.
 
I started with bulkhead F, which was the one that had the bad laser cut, with one side lower than it should be.  It's also the '3rd' bulkhead in the previous photos that didn't reach the bearding line, so I shimmed the top and sanded it down, and then shimmed both sides of the bottom.
 

 
The wet basswood is really amazingly easy to bend.  All of the terrible time I had with the planks on the Carmen made me think this was going to be a giant frustrating mess, and instead, they just bend right around the bulkhead, no problem at all.  I went ahead and bottom shimmed G, and double bottom shimmed H.

 
Couldn't ask for anything better than the result.

 
Based on how easy this was, I'm going to use more of the deck planking (since I'm not going to plank the deck with it) and shim out every bulkhead that isn't touching the bearding line, even if it's very close.  That way I should have a much easier time fairing, as I'll not run into a low spot that makes me have to shim a bulkhead that is already glued to the keel.
Thoughts on extending the shims up the bulkhead extensions?  Is there any point to that, or will I just need to sand them all down like I did on bulkhead F already?

Thanks gentlemen.
 
I did send a note to ME, but am going to move forward as if it's not going to be corrected.
 
I cleaned up all the bulkheads.  I expect that almost all of these will need fairing which should clean them up further.
 

 
Then I began test fitting, and adjusting each bulkhead.  Every single one needed to be opened up slightly either on the bulkhead slot, the keel slot, or both.  A few sat slightly high at the top of the keel and needed the slot sanded a bit deeper, and one of them required about a 1/32 shim.  Overall I think they came out pretty well, but I'm concerned about two bulkheads (and probably the one ahead of these two as well) as they do not extend down far enough.
 

 
What is the best approach to fix this?  Is it easier to sand the slot down until the bottom is good, and shim the top for the deck, or am I better off adding material to the bottom of these bulkheads and then fairing them down?  I'm thinking that adding to the bottom will be more difficult, but is probably the right approach so that I don't mess up the bulkhead extension positions (although looking at the photo's, those appear to have 'high' extensions as well).
 
Other than those 'short' bulkheads the rest seem to be pretty good.  The Carmen was a lot easier when I had no idea I was supposed to do any of this stuff. 
 

 
A good number of the bulkheads do not extend down to the bearding line.  Do I need to add material to all the bulkheads that don't extend to the bearding line, or just to the ones that break the 'flow' along the bulkheads?

Thank you for all the likes and kind comments, and now for a final update on the Carmen.
 
For display, I decided that I'd like to take it to the office and keep it there, since I'm a bit of a hermit and nobody would ever see it at my house. The problem is, that being both very light, and a bit fragile, I figured it would be a week or less before the nighttime cleaning crew managed to knock it over and wreck it. So I decided to make a display shelf.

I went to Lowe's and bought a couple short pieces of red oak. Since I have no 'full size' woodworking tools besides a circle saw, that's what I used to cut the wood, but of course I have no way to make proper joints, so I just cut a couple of pieces of the 'leg' wood and glued them inside the main legs for support, used lots of Titebond wood glue, and clamped the hell out of it overnight. Seems pretty solid, especially considering that it's only got to hold up a really light little boat. It's main purpose in life is to anchor the boat down. For that, I measured the spot where the boat's stand needed to sit to keep it centered on the shelf, and drilled a couple holes part-way through the shelf, and then drilled much smaller holes the rest of the way through. I then drilled a couple small holes into the boat stand, and anchored the boat stand to the shelf with some small wood screws. I then finished it by using Min-wax wipe on Poly (clear satin), and gave it three coats with steel-wool buffing between coats.

Pretty happy with it considering my lack of tools to do a 'proper' job. I certainly wouldn't try to use it for anything that could put significant side to side stress on the legs.
 

 
And in natural light.

 
Monday morning Carmen is off to the office!

I finished my first furled sail.  I started with the main top gallant yard, since it seemed to be the easiest.  I will, however, install the completed yards in the order used in the Syren documentation.  I used Amati sail cloth. 
After doing some research, I followed the procedure that ‘flyer’ describes in this HMS Pegasus build log (entry # 307, 310, 315 and 316).  I feel I didn’t need the Stop Fraying product since Aleene’s Tacky Glue, which I used to glue the hems, prevented fraying.  Also, since Peterseen’s book and the Syren documentation didn’t show buntlines on the top gallant yards, I left them off.
The completed top gallant sail:

And the sail bound and furled on the yard:

 

Happy Birthday Michael.