Johnnyreg

Denis, Mike. Thank you both for your good advice. Denis: They are all the same (5mm). Forgot to mention that the sketch in my last post is a cross section of the 5mm Walnut Rudder Post and the 5mm MDF main keel which shows the proposed tapering to 3mm. I think I am now about 95% sure on the theory on how the planking is to be done but will hang fire until the FFM books arrive before I start. Besides there are other things to get on with before the hull planking. Mike: I looked at the caldercraft swivel cannons and they do 2 lengths (14.5 & 17mm) and are pre drilled for pivot pin. I will add these to my choices. Thanks for that. I think I will go with scale planking based on both your advice and being historically correct. John

Mike, SpyGlass & Denis. Mike: Thanks for your very detailed and informative post. I think I will end up buying all the FFM books eventually for the same reason as you but 1&2 will do for starters (already ordered) I've read other builders views on the canon scale and I think I might go for the RB ones myself after I've checked the scales for myself. Did you use the smaller RB canons for the swivel ones too? I looked up your build posts regarding the bitts and hatch anomalies and I have a rough idea what you mean but to be honest my primitive brain now hurts and it's late. I've made a note to revisit your posts, on page 8, when I get to that bit and have the bits (bitts) in my hands and I'm sure I'll understand better so thanks for warning me. SpyGlass: Thanks for your kind words regarding my previous attempt at planking. Will do better next time though. I won't be ignoring yours or anyone's advice. Don't worry I'm making plenty of notes. Re your BEFORE THE GLUE points, good advise indeed. I was thinking about 2 brass pillar mounting points so will google a source for these, unless anyone knows of one, preferably in the UK? Not sure about my skill level on doing a rabbet yet. I have questions about these see below. Denis: Welcome aboard. It was your kind words of encouragement that prompted me to do this build log so thanks for that. I'll try not to let you down. If I make a fool of myself it's all your fault . Questions for all: 1. When these full size boats were built I doubt they used one plank for the full length of the hull so what are your thoughts about shorter lengths for the second planking? Would you simulate this with scoring or use separate sections to highlight the different wood shades. 2. I'm trying to get my head round rabbets and tapering the aft keel area. Would you cut a rabbet to accommodate both sets of planking (1.5 + 1.0 = 2.5mm wide) or just the 2nd layer (1.0mm wide)? I've made this sketch of how I think the aft keel area will look, am I on the right lines? View from above Rudder post: Cheers John

Yes I was toying with buying some plans from NMM myself but I'm holding off for now till I get the FFM books (1 & 2) there's five plans for the Fly @ £25 each. I bet they are things of beauty. I will definitely check out the Dan Vadas Vulture build, thank you. I've only done planking once before on my Norden and no one has seen it before because I used filler and paint to hide it. Here it is I won't be doing this on my Fly although I was planning on painting below the waterline anyway. Having said that I wouldn't be happy with it unless it was perfect all over. I'm hoping the FFM books will help me achieve this. The dreaded gunport strips do seem to be troublesome for a lot of the builders here but at the moment that bit seems a million miles away. I'll cross that "bridge" when I come to it Thanks for all this info it's exactly what I need. Thanks for all the likes also. John

Hi SpyGlass It's a honour to have you drop by. I'm on a mission to read all the Fly & Pegasus builds on here before I start my build and I'm up to MartinW's Fly up to now, so I've still a fair way to go. I did have a quick look at your co build and the hull work is amazing. I'm reading the builds in order so as not to miss any but I look forward to reading your co build in full. If my hull is half as good as yours I'll be very happy. I did know they were sister ships and I did struggle to choose which one to build and now I've forgotten why I ended up choosing the Fly. I wasn't too impressed with the castings either. I will have a look at the Pegasus photo etched ones so thanks for that. Cheers John

Oliver24 and Chris, Thanks for dropping by. Oliver24: The instructions are not too bad regarding where to start the planking and some of the techniques you will need to apply. This is only my second model so this is an area I am unsure about also. I'm hoping the FFM books will help me complete this stage. If you want to get a heads up on what the kit instructions are like you can download both the manuals from historicships.com site after finding the Fly kit. Chris: thanks for the welcome. I can now view the Fly drawings online, now I have the reference numbers. They are a bit pricey aren't they. Following your good advice, I will wait until I've received the FFM books Cheers John

Hi Mike Thanks for following and welcome aboard. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction re the Fly drawings which I've now found. For anyone else who's looking, the list is here http://www.admiraltymodels.com/NMM_Swan_class_plans__3_.pdf if you make a note of all the ZAZxxxx numbers for your ship and then go to the NMM Collections site here http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections.html#!cbrowse click "more search options" and tick "finding reference" and type your ZAZxxxx number and search it should come up. You can then view online or add to your own collection, if you've registered. John

Hi All For anyone that wants to join me and more importantly HELP me, welcome aboard. This is only my second build. My first build was a Billing Norden, so this is a big step up in the challenge stakes. I did enjoy building my Norden and I was very pleased with the finished model. However I built it to look exactly like the picture on the box , which is why I bought it, without doing much research. This build will be different and I fully intend researching prior to progressing too far and I would also like to do some scratch building here and there. I've read some of the other Fly logs here which have given me some ideas (thanks to them). The reason I chose the Fly is because I just love the look of it, and I wanted a real challenge. The HMS Fly kit and the upgrade kit arrived last week and 10 minutes later I was into the box. There is obviously lots of stuff in the box but here is just some of it as I didn’t take many pictures. I was pleasantly surprised when I rummaged through the instructions and drawing sheets, which give far more information than my Billing kit did, and seem to be made of good quality paper, time will tell. Hang what’s this on the box? !!! Really… First thing I wanted to do was check the contents… Checking done and there are a few items on the parts list that are missing and also not referenced on the drawing sheets or instructions: Item 3a - Deck support frame - Brian (probablynot) kindly informed me his kit also has this item missing and thinks it's now redundant and might get in the way of other items fitted later. I guessed it went between 2a and 4a here… Items 271 and 272 Quarter figure castings (left & right) - Not sure yet if these are missing or redundant, can anyone shed any light on these please? Otherwise everything looks in order. Next I checked the rigging twine and marked up for later. Let’s get started… I pencilled the part numbers on the laser cut bulkhead and keel parts and then carefully cut these out of their respective sheets. I then assembled these dry and everything fits really well. I should point out that these parts are made from 5mm laser cut MDF not ply as the parts list says, but from what I've read on other Fly builds I think this is the norm now. And this is where I’m at. I feel I need to read some of the logs here some more and do more research before I get the glue out. I’ve ordered the first two Seawatch FFM books as it appears that a number of the Fly/Pegasus builders here rate them highly. I’m also looking on the National Maritime Museum website and trying to find the original Fly drawings but I’m struggling to find them. If anyone has had more luck than me, a few pointers would be greatly appreciated? Also anyone who has obtained copies, were they any help? What is the quality and size?

Yes I noticed all the fly logs, ten in all, soon to be eleven . I'm slowly reading them all, phew. No shelving this time, promise <tease>I've made a start on it and....... read the build to find out </tease> Back to your beauty... I might of missed something but which bit were you thinking of doing orange, below the waterline? mentioned it to my Admiral and she pulled a face as well. Cheers John

I totally agree Denis with all that you say. Elsewhere on this site I've seen the difference between a supplied cast part and a scratch built substitute and I think we would all agree which looks better. Also your funnel bend and "groovy" winch spools are so much more accurate. I totally get it. I came on this site to learn, get feedback and share, so don't worry, all is good. I will do a build log of the Fly but it may be mainly a winter thing as the Admiral and I like getting out and about and we have an allotment to look after in the warmer months. I promise to do some scratch work on my Fly build as well Looking forward to your next update. Cheers John

Hi Denis It may be the programmer in me but I took great pride in methodically making mine look exactly like the picture on the box. I think it's the way my brain works. With it being my first model and me being a novice I presumed the kit was historically correct but I've learnt an important lesson. I suppose what's important really is we all enjoy the journey (tick) and the finished result (tick) Hopefully on my future journeys I'll learn from all you guys and also get more adventurous and scratch build a little. Keep up the good work. Cheers John

Hi Denis Don't worry I had plenty of Duh moments on mine which I haven't mentioned yet. I promise I will come clean when I do my back dated build log later in the week. Looking back I think I took the easy route regarding the decking on mine (structures on Decking) but didn't know any better and the instructions didn't give any clues. As you say the Billing instructions presume you have previous knowledge of these things. I think your plan of doing the decking and leaving the structure areas clear makes a lot of sense and will be more elegant when complete. I look forward to seeing and learning. I like the funnel bend, nice touch. Good look on finding any winch info. I just copied what was on another model in the end. Keep up up the cracking work Cheers John

Looking good. Phew, glad we sorted the funnel thing out as I thought I'd missed something out. One of of the trickiest bits of the whole model for me was getting the two top rails on but you seem to have just done that with no sweat so hats off to you. Did you glue the two halves together first? The marking on your deck, one is the pilot house but not sure what the other one is called but should it be the other side of the mast hole? I planked the whole deck first and then fastened the two structures to the planked deck using thin strips of masking tape as placement guides. Are you fastening the structures first and then decking around them? Cheers John

Great news you found your prop Denis , glad to help. Regarding the chimney, no I didn't add anything bespoke as it was my first build I stuck religiously to the kit instructions because that is what instructions are there for right? Also I'm not confident enough yet. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Cheers John

Hi Denis Thanks for your nice words on my Norden, both here and in my gallery. Wow, that would have been great to meet the main man Mr Billing himself. Firstly I have to correct myself, I checked the date of my first photo of my build and it was Jan 2007 so it took me 11 years to complete. When I bought my kit (2007) it came with a prop it was item F40 and it was 28mm dia. I believe it was a gold plastic part, I didn't paint it, and it came loose with the anchor. It had a 2mm hole in so I used the supplied 2mm wire (F410) which I'm not sure your kit will have as I downloaded a recent manual and the 2mm wire is not included. By funnel I presume you mean these bits on the left in which case yes I did as shown. I am indeed building another, a HMS Fly which I received yesterday. I might have bit off a bit to much but will SHOUT for help if I need it. There are plenty of builds on here that I am studying so should be ok. Keep up the good work. Cheers John

Forgot to say I also really struggled to find resources on the winches and the Norden boat in general. I got in touch with Amerang (the uk distributer) and the guy said the model is generic of several different variants of the boat. Cheers John

Hi. Great work you're doing there. Looking forward to seeing your progress. I have just (yesterday) completed this great looking model (see my gallery) and I hope you don't take as long as it took me as it has taken me seven years although I have to say that six of them years it was on a shelf collecting dust. It was my first build. I have only recently discovered and joined this brilliant site so I can't do a full build log like yours but I took plenty of photos so plan on doing a brief, mainly pictures, log sometime this week. There are a few tricky bits (for a novice like me anyway) which I will include. I will let you know when the log is completed. Cheers John

Hi James Thanks for your welcome. York is nice we visit often too. Cheers John

Thanks for pointing that out Mark. I will use the updated version in future Cheers John

Thanks for that Mark. I've saved the PDF doc so now will have it close to hand. Lots of Fly info now so really good news. Cheers John

Hi Nigel. Thanks for the welcome. I used to go fishing on the Swale at Asenby quite a few years ago when river fishing was fashionable. In latter years I used to go fishing at Woodlands Lakes at Carlton Minniot. Not been for about 4 years now. Weather not good at the moment so rather stop in and whittle anyway. Cheers John

Hi Derek. Thanks for the welcome. John

Hi Mike Thanks for the welcome. There are some nice girls in Harrogate, I know I married one of em. John

Hi Geoff. Thanks for the welcome. John

Hi John Thanks for the welcome Cheers John

Hi Jim Thanks for the welcome. It is a big jump I know but I just love the look of it. I found a good site that will hopefully help me here: http://hmsfly.com. There doesn't appear to be anything about this model here on MSW unless anyone knows better? John