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Thanks, Grant, I think I'm stuck mostly in a "gray area" rather than the dark side, as I plan to scavenge kit parts for most of my fittings

Oh wow! 1999 posts, congrats in advance Commodore Sjors! 

OK, OK, enough is enough guys, I will speak in defense of my good friend Sjors: No more hitting below the belt OK?

.....we all know what's down there  

Marvelous work as always, Robert, and those ridding bitts are just so sweet to look at, I wish I could get mine to look half as nice when I get to that stage

Keep up the top-notch job my friend

Beautiful modifications on the masts, Popeye, and those scratchbuilt blocks are magnificent

And there we go, a brand new 100% scratchbuilt boat in the making, wow! I see not only the dead flat bulkhead, but even the 1/2 dead flat fore/aft of it, and of course all the fore and aft sections, now that's what I call attention to detail!   Excellent work as always, Grant

Wow! Your coppering looks great, Mobbsie, very nice and clean work, top-notch job my friend! 

Marvelous work on the rudder trunk and stern lights, Danny   

Wow! at the scale you're working on, those rabbets on the lights must be a fraction of a millimeter in size, amazing! 

Very nice work on the galleries, Sjors, doesn't it feel great to be able to make your own ship parts?  

Be careful my friend, the pull of the dark side is strong, and I sense much force within you   

Thanks for the kind words, Mark and Sjors, this is what I love about MSW, lots of supportive friends to keep the spirits up when the times get tough

Very nice fix on the mast, Peter, it looks great  

I think it was sort of a blessing in disguise that it happened this early, imagine how it would have been if it snapped when all the running rigging is already in place

Hahaha you're hilarious, Popeye, sorry Sjors, I didn't know the "balls joke" would be resurrected by my last statement..... but it seems that Popeye has already "started the balls rolling"

Hi Ray,

Just catching up, wow! she's really coming along Sir, beautiful work on the hull planking and the coppering work is really top-notch!

Hi Sjors,

Wow! I've been away for a while and I'm very surprised at the amount of progress you've made

I see that you've already taken in your own share of the "dark side", marvelous work on the new transom, my friend, it looks great   

I admire your courage in rebuilding this new part, you sure have a lot of "balls" or should I say, uhm, I mean cannon balls ( hehehe sorry, I can't help injecting that "balls" joke on the past few chapters was just too hilarious so I can't help bringing it up again )

Thanks for the kind words, Grant and Mark

I jumped into this "darkside" stuff so I might as well go the whole hog and start with the original plans , lately however, I can't help having that strange feeling that I may be biting off more than I could chew 

Thanks for the info, Danny

Hi guys,

Just a wee bit of update, I haven't done much wood work lately as I've been stuck on the computer learning new stuff that will hopefully help me in modifying my bulkheads. Druxey has been so very kind to share some techniques on interpreting admiralty plans as well as identifying and correcting distortions so I'm knee deep in reading right now (thank you so much, Druxey )

I also thought I'd try out going a bit more high-tech in doing my modifications so I've been learning the ropes on this CAD program called Inkscape. It's quite a learning curve but I think I'm getting the hang of it  My NMM draught has arrived, but unfortunately is too big to fit any scanners in our area for uploading unto CAD, thank goodness Christian has a smaller copy, which he has shared with me, thanks Christian

I have uploaded the three contemporary plans (as built plans, as designed/proposed plans and inboard profile plans for the Modified Mermaid Class) unto Inkscape and surprisingly, they all match pretty well.

As an example, here are the juxtaposed body plans of the as built and as designed plans showing just how close the lines are to each other:

Their profiles also match pretty closely with the main difference being in the bowsprit, foremast and quartergalleries positions:

I have also uploaded the MSW plan as I plan to tweak it to match the three plans then use it to cut my new centerboard (yup, I will be redoing all my centerboard and bulkheads and using there references:

That's it for now, will post more detailed pics once I get the hang of this CAD stuff.

Thanks for the info, Mark, I will give it a try

She's looking great, Russ, very nice work on the windlass

Ingenious modifications for the forcastle bulkheads and excellent fix on the rabbets, Danny, truly inspiring

Thanks too for sharing your technique on making the frames for the stern lights, I will be eagerly taking notes watching you work on those tricky bits.

Just a small question on the stern frames/timbers if I may:

Are all the stern timbers/frames identical in shape and their apparent differences in height levels and fore/aft positions is just due to the shape of the wing transom?

Thanks very much.

Beautiful work on the Capstan, Mark, I dread making this particular fitting as making several identical whelps seems to be a rather daunting task, but you've handled everything perfectly, I salute you my friend 

Congratulations on your twins, Mike, I'm pleased to know that you will be resuming work on Badger soon, she's looking great my friend, excellent work