gjdale

Outstanding Ed. You raise the bar ever higher!

Happy Birthday John! Planking looks great - well done!

And how WAS your conversation with the moose Augie? I'll wager HE didn't keep asking for pictures! :P

Fabulous work there Sherry. Love the stern work, and the gunports look spot on too!

Thanks for that advice Andy - especially on the shelf life of an open can!

Thanks for all the encouragement guys. The re-do on the paint job has been progressing slowly but steadily, and it seems successfully. After four coats of yellow ochre, I unmasked this evening and after a tiny bit of cleanup was able to apply a new coat of Dull Cote. I hunted down the Testors Dull Cote on Monday afternoon and, with some trepidation, applied the first coat this evening. So far, so good. No puckering or lifting. Will leave another 24 hours and apply a second coat. Will post some pics when that's done successfully, then should be able to add some of the previously made bits on the weekend.

Very nice Mark, But you didn't need to flip the picture for we Southern Hemisphere folk, it was already the right way up! :P

Just fabulous Paul, as always.

Very nice Rodger - almost there.

Be afraid. Be very afraid........

Nice work Robbyn. I see you're well and truly on your way to the darkside when you pull off pieces you don't like and remake them. Good for you!

Who's a lucky boy then, Richard?

Thanks for the words of commiseration/encouragement guys! Okay, so re-painting is underway. I used a new tin of Humbrol today, just in case the last lot was "off". Spent a lot of time mixing the paint back into itself - don't know about you folks, but whenever I open a tin of Humbrol the paint pigment seems to set in a semi-solid ball in the bottom of the tin and its a B* of a job to get it to re-combine into the paint. I was assisted in this by a neat little battery operated paint stirrer that I picked up from MicroMark some time ago but had not yet used. Have managed to apply three coats today (thinned and applied with the airbrush). I'll see how it looks in the morning but might need to do one more. In the meantime, I've been working on some of the internal fittings. To start with, I made up the thwarts using a combination of Pear with a Holly trim. I then made a mast support from a piece of brass tube and some brass strap that I silver soldered together and then blackened with Casey Birchwood Brass Black. The big news here is that I think I have finally passed my Chemistry Prac., as it actually seemed to work. I discovered a huge secret - follow the instructions on the bottle!!!! :P Honestly, instead of all the variety of combinations of dilution strengths and soak times, etc. I just did what it said on the bottle. Clean thoroughly (I used the Casey Birchwood cleaner), rinse in cold water, apply blackening solution straight from the bottle using a cotton bud (you might know them as Q-tips), wait for one minute, rinse in cold water, then repeat until you have desired depth of colour. I ended up doing this four times to achieve a result that I was happy with, and it didn't rub off either! Here's a picture of the completed support fixed to the thwart: There is a little bit of glue residue evident in the photo, but that should clean up okay. I have also completed making up the footwalling. I used Holly for this and ran a pencil lead along one edge of each plank to bring out the joins. I made this up on a paper backing, which was subsequently removed. In the picture below it is ready for installing. I have also completed the cap rails and painted them in preparation for installation. And I have made up the risers to support the thwarts. I did these on the Byrnes saw by temporarily spot gluing the two pieces together, marking out for the rebates for the thwarts and then running them through the saw. These too are ready for installation. The thwarts are all assembled as blanks with one end finished and the other end to be cut to size on fitting. All I need now is to successfully finish off re-painting and I'll be ready to move forward again.

Nice paint job Sjors. Don't overdo it on the cake or you'll need to join the bicycle race to work it off!

More fabulous work Daniel

I actually tried to get the Testors Dullcote, but the Hobby Shop didn't have any in stock. The Tamiya was the only one they had, and man does it smell bad! You can almost feel your insides being stripped away. Might have to search further afield to find the Testors. Hope they don't decide to discontinue it like they did with the Floquil paints.

Quite possible Andy - I've probably committed a cardinal sin by mixing paint types here. The white is a Floquil flat enamel paint, the yellow ochre is a Humbrol gloss enamel, and the matte varnish is something I picked up in an art supply store as I didn't like the overpowering smell that came from the Tamiya flat clear. The art supply variant claims to be for use on both oil and acrylic paint, so I figured it should do the trick. Of course, I didn't do anything sensible like testing on some scrap first! Where would the fun be in that?

Minor setback today. I sprayed a Matte varnish over my little boat this afternoon. While the interior was fine, the band of yellow ochre on the exterior puckered up and started to lift off. I don't know whether it was a reaction with the yellow ochre paint, or whether I might have sprayed on far too much of the varnish. The only difference on the exterior was that the yellow ochre was painted over the top of the white paint, while on the interior it was straight onto the wood (the interior seems to be fine).. Don't know if that might have had something to do with it. After waiting for it to dry, I then scraped off the yellow ochre, using an Exacto knife. Interestingly, the white paint underneath seemed unaffected and the yellow ochre came off quite cleanly. I've since re-masked in preparation for another go at the yellow ochre tomorrow. No pics for now - forgot to take any of the puckered paint job. I'll re-post once I've finished fixing it.

HOLD THE BUS!!! :D Happy Birthday Sjors, May Anja treat you to even more goodies for the toy (er, I mean tool) shop. :P

Wow! Great job Sjors. REALLY well done my friend. You should be very pleased with the result of your scratch efforts here. Looking forward to watching your slow transformation to the dark side. Bwahahah!

Nicely done Mobbsie, Good pick up and fix on the transom too - I'm sure you'll be well satisfied with it once completed. Looking great. I expect you'll be on to the rigging by next week at your usual pace of building.

Hey Andy, A while back we were sharing our favourite Farside cartoons. Given the venerability of some of us, this one seems kind of appropriate:

Congratulations Brian - you won't be disappointed, I'm sure.

Looks great Augie - you're certainly sneaking up on that finish line!

Yep, gotta agree there. As well as having all the ones Mark mentioned, I just received my copy of The Restoration Warship. Got it for a very good price through Abe Books. Another nice addition to the Library / Coffee Table. Hello, my name is Grant and I am a ship modelling book-aholic............