Swinging the lead

Rudder not yet finished. Took most of a Sunday afternoon. All metal work will be painted Matt black. Yours is coming along excellently. 

Looking good. I would say the hardest part is done. Plain sailing from now on! Some of the brass etch is tiny. 

You’ve done a good job so far. The wood for the deck is not the best, very flaky. I’ve started the planking. No problem so far. Take your time getting the first one right. The rest should follow easily. 

At the moment I am cleaning up all the brass etch ready for the paint shop. 

Didn’t mean to high Jack your build log, just showing how good they build. Looking forward following your build. 

With a dry fit I found the 3 keel pieces very tight managed to file the frame to fit. It might be best to small pieces of scrap wood to make sure it fits when building the frame. Hope this makes sense. 

I am building this at the moment. This is my third Master Korabel. Exceptional kits. Very completely and the instructions are second to non. One piece of advice I would give is to give the frame parts a very slight sanding. Just take off the char. Otherwise the fit is that excellent you might not get them apart. And age is just a number!

These are excellent kits. I sent for this and the John Smith open boat. Took a while to be delivered, but considering what’s going on in there country it’s very understandable. With regards to this kit a couple of weeks after delivery I got a email informing me of the problem and replacements would be sent. These arrived about 2 weeks later. Like I said excellent kits and service. 

I ordered 2 items yesterday. Having problems making payments and contacting them. They look like excellent kits. 

I am intrigued by these kits. I know they come with paints but was the deck printed in colour or did you paint it. Also can you tell me the thickness of card for the various structures. I believe the masts are wood dowel? You are doing a excellent job. Ken

I’ve been doing POF models for nearly 50 years. Very really do we hear about warped keels. In the early days the were made out of inferior ply wood not even marine ply and they were punched out the same with the bulkheads. Try getting a 3/8 inch warp out of the keel. Ive seen much discussion over the use of MDF. This is the idea material very stable. Also the engineering involved in these kits,especially Vanguard models makes this a thing of the past. The kits today are very refined, mainly due to Chris Watton designs. And a very brief email to Chris he mentioned he cut his teeth on the likes of Billings kits. 

Good to see you back. Initial international postage was combined for about 3 books. I think this worked out about £35. Which was liveable. However this stopped and it was £35 per book! So l am sure something could be worked out.

Afternoon all,check out Hobbyzone a Polish company make a similar tool. Bought it last year not yet tried it out. They've been mentioned on this site before. Some nice items, including a couple of building boards. Also a very solid waterline marker, which is in constant use. Regards