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Finished
 
So, first of all, if anyone is interested in why this model is finished without having any masts or rigging, allow me to refer you back to post #25.
 
I ordered resin swivel guns from Chris at Vanguard Models. These are very nicely done and far superior to the off-the-shelf metal ones from Amati. I was surprised, though, to discover that the guns did not come with any mounts. I don't blame Chris for this at all -- I never asked about the mounts and he never said anything about whether they were included. The lesson here is it pays to ask! I tried several methods to create mounts: wire (fail), cobbling something together from leftover PE parts (fail), and finally hit upon yokes made from scrap black construction paper. These look fine as long as one doesn't view them from head-on, otherwise they look impossibly thin.
 
The final shots:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
So, that brings this seventeen-year-long, on-again off-again journey to a close. I do have another wooden subject waiting in the wings, but I'll divulge that project at the proper time.
 
Cheers!
 

Finished
 
So, first of all, if anyone is interested in why this model is finished without having any masts or rigging, allow me to refer you back to post #25.
 
I ordered resin swivel guns from Chris at Vanguard Models. These are very nicely done and far superior to the off-the-shelf metal ones from Amati. I was surprised, though, to discover that the guns did not come with any mounts. I don't blame Chris for this at all -- I never asked about the mounts and he never said anything about whether they were included. The lesson here is it pays to ask! I tried several methods to create mounts: wire (fail), cobbling something together from leftover PE parts (fail), and finally hit upon yokes made from scrap black construction paper. These look fine as long as one doesn't view them from head-on, otherwise they look impossibly thin.
 
The final shots:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
So, that brings this seventeen-year-long, on-again off-again journey to a close. I do have another wooden subject waiting in the wings, but I'll divulge that project at the proper time.
 
Cheers!
 

Dad gummit! This happened last time. Stupid Google Photos! 🤬  Fixed now.
 
It was showing up on my computer at work. Go figure.

Hey, I forgot to add a shot of the name plate, also added back in December.
 

 
Swivel guns should (hopefully) be on the way soon, after which I will post a set of final photos.
 
Cheers!

She'll go back in the bookcase with glass doors.

Nevertheless, it is to these same cruel taskmasters that we must ultimately answer. 😉

More progress.
 
The Swan-class sloops had a very small number of belaying pins, located in racks along the quarterdeck railings. As usual, these off-the-shelf pins benefit from being chucked in the ol' Dremel and being turned down a bit.
 

 
And the hammock cranes are done as well. No netting -- sorry. Just don't feel up to the additional effort. The black line is also a little on the thin side, but I didn't have anything on hand that looked 'just right', and all the other available cordage was too thick.
 

 
Believe it or not, there is not much else to do. I'm planning to replace the kit swivel guns with parts from Vanguard Models once they are back in stock, and I also plan to add one or two of the anchors to the display. I also ordered a brass name badge -- she deserves at least that much. So, once all those things are in place, I will report back, but that's pretty much it for now.

Side ropes done. Moving on to hammock cranes.
 

Yes, those came in the upgrade kit. But if I were to do this one again, I would do the upgrading differently. The guns in the kit are Amati off-the-shelf parts and not period correct; you can order replacement gun sets (including carriages) from Chris at Vanguard, although he does not currently offer 6 pdr guns -- only the carriages. I would also use one of Vanguard's or Master Korabel's wooden boat kits to replace the cast metal boat. None of those aforementioned items was yet available back when I started in on this project.
 
 
Thanks. Well, the deck is, for the most part, but you'll notice I haven't included close-ups of some parts of the hull, which is the primary source of my dissatisfaction. Lessons learned!

I added rope railings to the inboard entry ladders. Most -- actually all -- of the photos I have seen of these show ropes on both sides, but it seemed to me that the post at the aft side of the top of the stairs would make the already narrow gangway just that much narrower and hazardous, essentially useless, so I decided to add only one railing. I figure anyone who would need to use two in actual practice would have been considered a hopeless landlubber.
 

 
 

I took a look around at the many fine, completed examples we have of both Fly and Pegasus in our galleries, and I now have a good idea of where to place the hammock cranes and a few other details. I would also like to thank all those builders for not arriving at any consensus at how exactly those details should look, which I feel grants me some leeway on how I wish to proceed!

Rather than spend a great deal of time creating spare masts to stow the ship's boat on, I decided to display the boat on the stand. I glued down a couple of pieces of strip wood with a slot between them to hold the boat's keel.
 

 
I had planned to install the hammock cranes, but I've discovered (or perhaps rediscovered) that the cranes came with the upgrade kit, not the original kit, and there are thus no cranes shown on the plans. I will have to peruse some other build logs to figure out the spacing for them.

I added stump masts today. I think these make a huge visual difference, as now the knowledgeable viewer knows this is supposed to be a hull model and is not simply an unrigged model.
 

 
BTW, I did not glue the masts in, just in case I ever get a wild hair and decide to add real masts -- an unlikely event, I feel, but one never knows.

Check again. It's there for me.
 
 
Tain't never gonna happen. The effort required would far out-strip my enthusiasm for the project.

Fixed (hopefully)!

First thing to do was to re-secure all the guns and tackles that had been knocked loose. Six of the eight guns in the waist needed repair of some kind. Fortunately, none of the other guns had come loose, because those would have been impossible to reach.
 

 
There were a number of holes in the deck for eyebolts that needed to be filled. These were originally left off because they needed blocks attached first. Since I'm not going to rig this model, I went ahead and added the eyebolts sans blocks.
 

Don't Get Too Excited
 
Yes, I have decided to resurrect this long-dormant and neglected build log. First, a little back story: I corresponded with Chris Watton during the development of this kit and was thus was one of the first to buy it when it hit the market all the way back in 2006. I got started on it right away and made pretty good progress at first. Now, even during my most prolific modeling outbursts, there are times when a kit just doesn't get the juices flowing like it used to and gets moved to the back burner. Being a square-rigged ship and all the work that entails, Fly has suffered a number of stints on said back burner, and the current spell has been very long indeed -- going on ten years. 😯  In addition, she has endured six moves (including one cross-country), and -- as might be expected -- she hasn't come through all of those moves completely unscathed.
 
So, why has Fly never got around to being finished? The primary reason is one that I'm sure some of you can relate to: I'm simply not satisfied with the way she has turned out so far, and that kind of puts a crimp on any desire to complete a model I know I won't be completely happy with. The two things that I particularly dislike about my work so far are first of all that I didn't do a good planking job, and as a result the model has quite a few gaps between planks. Second, I don't like the color. The kit came with dark walnut strips for the second planking, and for reasons that I can no longer recall, I stained those even darker. Since that time, I have decided that I like lighter-colored hulls better. Oh, well. Lastly, there is the not-insignificant consideration that a finished Fly would take up a lot of display space, and why devote precious space to a model that doesn't make you proud?
 
So, after much thought I decided I would eventually finish Fly as a hull model, and now seems as good a time as any to finally tick this task off my to-do list. The first things to do will be to dust the model off, repair the present damage (notably to guns and their rigging), figure out where I left off in the build sequence, and then decide how much detail I will add before finally deciding that Fly will be done enough to call done.
 
So, enjoy what is left of this journey!
 

Finished
 
So, first of all, if anyone is interested in why this model is finished without having any masts or rigging, allow me to refer you back to post #25.
 
I ordered resin swivel guns from Chris at Vanguard Models. These are very nicely done and far superior to the off-the-shelf metal ones from Amati. I was surprised, though, to discover that the guns did not come with any mounts. I don't blame Chris for this at all -- I never asked about the mounts and he never said anything about whether they were included. The lesson here is it pays to ask! I tried several methods to create mounts: wire (fail), cobbling something together from leftover PE parts (fail), and finally hit upon yokes made from scrap black construction paper. These look fine as long as one doesn't view them from head-on, otherwise they look impossibly thin.
 
The final shots:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
So, that brings this seventeen-year-long, on-again off-again journey to a close. I do have another wooden subject waiting in the wings, but I'll divulge that project at the proper time.
 
Cheers!
 

Hey, I forgot to add a shot of the name plate, also added back in December.
 

 
Swivel guns should (hopefully) be on the way soon, after which I will post a set of final photos.
 
Cheers!

More progress.
 
The Swan-class sloops had a very small number of belaying pins, located in racks along the quarterdeck railings. As usual, these off-the-shelf pins benefit from being chucked in the ol' Dremel and being turned down a bit.
 

 
And the hammock cranes are done as well. No netting -- sorry. Just don't feel up to the additional effort. The black line is also a little on the thin side, but I didn't have anything on hand that looked 'just right', and all the other available cordage was too thick.
 

 
Believe it or not, there is not much else to do. I'm planning to replace the kit swivel guns with parts from Vanguard Models once they are back in stock, and I also plan to add one or two of the anchors to the display. I also ordered a brass name badge -- she deserves at least that much. So, once all those things are in place, I will report back, but that's pretty much it for now.

Side ropes done. Moving on to hammock cranes.
 

I added rope railings to the inboard entry ladders. Most -- actually all -- of the photos I have seen of these show ropes on both sides, but it seemed to me that the post at the aft side of the top of the stairs would make the already narrow gangway just that much narrower and hazardous, essentially useless, so I decided to add only one railing. I figure anyone who would need to use two in actual practice would have been considered a hopeless landlubber.
 

 
 

Well again, a few weeks have passed since my last post.  During that time I have worked on the masts and rigging.  In my last post I mentioned that the material for the masts are cut from the basswood sheets and then sanded round.  I kind of cheated.  I fashioned the lower portion of each mast from dowelling purchased from the local hardware store and then, using a drill motor and sandpaper, I tapered the dowels so they pretty much matched the dimensions on the plans.  The other sections of the masts were fashioned from the provided material.   Turning tapered square pieces into tapered round pieces actually was easier than I thought.  First, I built a jig to hold the square pieces on edge.  The edge was then flattened by sanding and then the piece was rotated 90 degrees.  Four rotations and you have a tapered octagon stick.  Next I sanded lightly while rolling the octagon stick on my work table.  Soon you have a tapered round stick you can use for a mast section.  You do have to be careful when rolling and sanding because it is easy to end up with an elliptical stick (I know).  Since all the mast pieces were made from light woods; I opted for painting.  A coat of primer; light sanding and then a few color coats completed the masts.  I then epoxied the lower sections of each mast into their appropriate locations on the deck.
 
Next comes rigging.  The first step is constructing the chains and dead eyes.  The chains are photo ech brass.  I purchased some blackening agent and soaked the pieces for about 15 minutes.  I then epoxied the deadeyes into the "slot" on the chains.   I followed the instructions to affix the chains to the hull.  I did, however, have to touchup the chains with black paint as much of the blacken surface rubbed off.  Next came the shrouds.  Again I followed the instructions.  I did build a jig from music wire which I used to maintain the same spacing between each dead eye in the chain and the dead eye in the shroud.  Look at the side view of the model provided in the plans when working on this task.  Most of the shrouds are secured around the top of the lower section of the mast; but a few are secured around higher sections.  I didn't discover this until I had mislocated a few and had to undue my handywork.
 
With the shrouds in place I am now working the the rigging.  The best way to describe my efforts is  I AM LOST.  I find the written directions difficult to follow so I am using the side view on the plans and the photos on the box to get thru this task.  I am sure I have rigging running to places that rigging is not supposed to go and I am sure that I am not using the correct attachments; but, it looks pretty authentic to some who knows little about sailing ships.  I have a lot to learn about how to rig a model.
 
Here are a few more images of the build.

OK, here's how she looks after tonight.  
 
The bits on the table still have to get glued into place, then I need to add ballast, water test, then fill the remainder of the interior with foam so she's not likely to sink.
 
I have to do up the K488 and paint that on still as well. 
 
I figure maybe a week or two of work?