JeffT

Looks great Lou!

Hello Algirdas. Welcome to MSW. Nice work on the Vasa!

Welcome to MSW. Its looking good so far!

Thanks!

They may be but I'm not sure. I decided to leave them natural on mine though.

Looks awesome!

Hi Bob. Welcome to MSW

Thanks Tom.

Looks great so far Jon.

Thanks Jon. Yes, they will break. I can attest to that personally. 😀

Looks excellent.

Thanks Richard.

I finally have another post. I've decided to start with the Fife rails next. I've been wrestling with the fore fife rail for about the last month. It has been way more difficult than maybe it should have been. I encountered a problem with some of the kit parts which got a bit frustrating. First off the picture below shows the metal barrels included with the kit which supposedly you can just glue a wooden block of the appropriate size to both ends to construct the bitts. I tried to use the parts but oh no, its not that easy. I could not get a consistent result for the life of me. So I abandoned this method after a few failed attempts. Instead I made the parts from scratch as I've seen a few others do. I started with some square stock cut to the needed length with the Byrnes saw and then marked them with a line. I then used a razor blade to cut across each line. You can see that in the picture below. Then using the tools pictured I carved out the barrel shape for each bitt. The tools. This is the end result. I then glued the bitts to the fife rail, made the riding bitts and attached the knees. Then glued it all together. When I attempted to fit the assembled fife rail around the mast boot, it wouldn't fit. The knees were too close together to fit around the boot. I probably should have checked the kit supplied fife rail against the plans but I didn't. Turns out they didn't match and the kit supplied part was too small. Specifically, the two parallel rails were too close together. So I had to take everything apart and of course broke a few things along the way. I had to make a new fife rail using strip wood and salvaged the two parallel rails. One of the knees also broke so I had to make another one. I also had to make another 3 bitts. Then repeat some of that since I had to start over one more time after that. The finished product is below. Its not perfect but it is going to have to do. The plans show a copper cap on top of the riding bitts which I simulated with copper tape. I also just gave it a couple of coats if wipe-on poly and left it natural. The mid and aft fife rails have no knees so I expect things to go a bit smoother for those two.

Welcome to MSW. Nice work on the Syren and the plan rack.

welcome to MSW

Welcome to MSW

Welcome to MSW Nathan

Hello. Welcome to MSW 🙂 My wife is from South Korea

The same thing happened to me when I ordered but it took more like a month and a half.

welcome to MSW

hello and welcome