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This looks like a kit model of the Half Moon, only pierced for four guns instead of the more usual eight -- perhaps an older Corel or Billing Boats kit.

This is not to be unexpected. It reminds of me of Neil Peart, the late drummer for Rush. After his wife passed away, he took a long hiatus from the band, but he came back to it eventually. If you are passionate about something, as your models clearly show, you will return to it at some point. But time away for grieving is something none of us would begrudge you. Take care of yourself, Chris

"Kit bashing" is a loosely defined term in the hobby that simply means that a kit hasn't been built straight out of the box. This could be anything from scratch-building parts to replace the off-the-shelf fittings in a kit, to adding a lot of extra detail to a kit, to substantially reworking a kit to represent a vessel other than the kit subject.

I had another go at the fiberglassing today and things went much better, faster, and easier. Why is it always the first crack at any new skill that sucks the worst? My daughter simply observed that it's like the first pancakes in a batch, which I thought was a good analogy.

Thankfully, unlike my canoe project, the PWS-10 requires no fiberglass work. After the cylinder head covers were done, the two fuselage sections mated, and a few other bits added, this part of the build came to a successful conclusion. Of course, I still need to do this all over again for White Tail when its laser set arrives in the mail.

I will try to stay positive with this post. Wish me luck. 😜 I decided it was time to attempt my first ever fiberglass job. The result looks like I've never done fiberglass before. Things started off well enough. I got the fillets between panels 1 and 2 done quickly and without much difficulty. (The spreader bar in the image is temporary.) Spreading out the fiberglass cloth was a bit more of a challenge, but I got that done, too. So then it was time to add the resin ... and that's where the wheels fell off. Despite my best efforts to get the cloth as smooth as possible, once the resin went on every slightest imperfection in the cloth turned into a wet, sticky wrinkle. It was a nightmare trying to get the resin spread quickly and all the tiny wrinkles ironed out. Time turned out to be my enemy, as once again the working time for the resin proved to be too short. I didn't take a picture of this step, as I was very unhappy with the process and result and have decided to postpone photographing it until after the resin hardens and I can better assess what the true damage is. Hopefully it will not be as bad as I fear and Mr. Sander and me will be able to put things right. Hopefully.

That is a ginormous Tic-Tac! 😉

You are nearing the finish! As for where to belay the yard lift, you have some leeway as to where to do that. If there is a pin rail at the base of the mast, I suspect that's where it would go, probably via a block seized to the deck.

These old wooden runabouts are things of beauty. Good luck on your project!

Beautiful model, Bill! I'm looking hard for the horrendous block-stropping and over-gluing, but darned if I can see any. Cheers!

I'm very pleased to see another Soclaine kit being featured here, since we rarely see them. True that Soclaine are not on the cutting edge of kit design, but they offer some interesting subjects, and Recouvrance is a beautiful ship. I wish you well on this project!

Just be forewarned that lots of masts and cannon also involves a lot of tedious and repetitive tasks, which is not everyone's cup of tea. Say, for example, you build a frigate with 24 guns on its upper deck. That's 24 barrels and 24 carriages to assemble. If you rig the guns, then that's 6 blocks per gun (144 total) plus 3 ropes per gun to attach and coil down on deck (72 total). A basic carriage usually has 12 wooden parts and roughly 13 metal parts, 25 per gun, meaning 600 total for 24 guns. All together, that's 840 parts just for the deck guns alone. Still undaunted? Then I will second the advice about Vanguard Models. Take care!

I liked it when my kids were 2, 4, and 8 -- when asked, I would state their ages as 2 to the first, two squared, and two cubed!

Weathered decks on working ships tend to look pretty bland and worn. Star of India in San Diego just got a new deck in 2017, and the contrast between the old deck and the new deck is interesting.

That is a beefy looking hull structure! And I like that it's not a gigantic model -- the scale produces a manageable model.

Welcome, Rachel. Depending on where you are in SoCal, you may be able to attend meetings for one or the other of two very good local modeling clubs (if and when they get back to meeting face-to-face). One is the Ship Modelers Association, which meets in Fullerton (link), and the other is the San Diego Ship Modelers Guild (link) -- both great groups where you can get additional advice and coaching. Enjoy your stay here!

Love it! What's next?

My condolences, Doris. Your tribute to your husband is a very touching gesture, and your model is, as always, spectacular. Kind regards.

Brian, that is a very interesting story. Please feel free to post your pictures in this thread, as they are relevant to anyone building or thinking of building this model. Cheers!

Yep. 😉

Eh, squeezed some more work in. All louvered panels done and a dry fit of the two fuselage sections. The machine guns are 95% hidden.

I proposed to my wife at the original Panda Inn in Pasadena. That was right around the time the owners started up their first Express location. Have yet to see a "Gasthaus Express" or similar.

That strip should be sufficiently bendy that soaking it and clamping it to the fascia until dry should do the trick. An inexpensive upgrade would be to replace the square stock (which is a simplified kit element) with beaded strip. Some modelers make their own with a homemade scraper, but you can also buy double-beaded basswood strip from BlueJacket. I used this on HMS Fly to good effect.

Work continues. Next comes the forward fuselage. The fit of these parts has been exemplary. The only hiccup was the most forward section, and the difficulty was caused by my not getting the joiner strip properly positioned on the adjacent internal bulkhead. The fix was not difficult. The recesses for the gun channels are cut out after the skins are attached, and the channels are formed from separate parts; got these done decently, too -- they're not easy. Along the bottom of the forward fuselage are four louvered panels. One option for these is to simply glue the printed louvers onto the fuselage skins. The kit is designed, though, so that the louvers can be "opened" -- there are even two black cylinders incorporated into the internal fuselage structure to present a properly inky interior. As designed, there are panels to be cut out (one is visible in these shots) and replaced by the louvered parts. This seemed to me to be too ticklish a detail to pull off, so I settled on a third option. I painted the cut-out panels black and opened up the louvers before gluing their panel over the painted space. The glued panel required quite a bit of touch-up afterward, but I think the finished result is worth the effort. On the next panel, I'm going to try gluing the panel down first before opening up the louvers. Until next time! Which might be a while, because my vacation is officially ending, and it's back to work tomorrow. Bleah! 😜

You did a fine job!