John Gummersall

Prior to completing the Reach Assembly, I decided to take a break (for my eyes) and move on to the wheels. Assembling the Reach Assembly, with all the tiny screws and bolts, is defiantly not for weak eyes or large fingers. Quite a challenge. Instructions call to cut out the "life size" wheel patterns from the diagrams and use them on the jig to assemble the wheels. Here is an interesting "fun fact". The life size diagrams are not life size. Note below the outer edge of the wheel only matches up with the inner edge of the diagram. Over time either the wheels have gotten smaller or the diagram grew. Not a big deal as only the inner portion of the diagram is used to position the spokes. Not sure why I even mentioned this, other than an interesting "fun fact". For some reason the instructions call to assemble and glue all the spokes into the wheel and then trim them down to an oval shape. At my skill level, to me that is asking for trouble. Instead I choose to trim the spokes down before they are assembled into the wheel. Maybe after assembly I will do some fine tuning of the spokes, but the bulk of the trimming was done prior to assembly into the wheel. One thing to watch out for... As you might expect the wooden wheel is pretty weak prior to adding the spokes. Instructions call to clamp it down to the jig with four clamps. That part is good, but before you start gluing in spokes, dry fit four spokes (at opposite sides) to verify the wheel has remained round. Even though it looks round, chances are when adding the clamps it became a little out of round. The spokes are exactly the minimum length. If the wheel is any out of round, the spokes will be too short on at least one of the sides. In fact, initially when I was dry fitting them, the wheel was a little out of round (but not to my eye) and I thought the spokes were too short and I would have to make all new stakes. Fortunately I realized the clamping put the wheel out of round and corrected it so all the spokes would fit. Even then, with the spokes being the exact minimum length they are barely were long enough. It have been helpful if the spokes were a little longer. Once you have verified the wheel has remained round after the clamps, then start gluing them in. I choose to glue in two at a time on opposite sides.

Starting on the front and rear axles. Below is the result of gluing the wood axle caps on both axles. This is a good time to dry fit the wheels hubs onto the axles. The instructions do not call for this until the very end of the build when you are attaching the wheels. In my case, the wheel hubs did not slide onto the axles. The axles were a little thick vs the hole in the hubs. The axles had to be filed down some so they would slide on. Much easier doing this now than at the end when the cart as been built. Note on the front axle, behind the large hole for the King bolt, should be a very small slot in order to later apply the brass rod that will eventually be bent around the head plate. Verify at this point the brass rod will slip behind the hole for the King bolt. You may have to use the small drill bit and enhance the slot. Read Axle attached to the read spring bar Moving on the the Reach Assembly. Do to my limited skill, this section was about a clear a mud as to the process. I am embarrassed to admit how many times I read this section and and studied the plans before I figured it out how all the parts went together. And even then, I did not follow the process. Instructions seem to indicate to build the reach Assembly on the cart one piece at a time. To me there are just too many really small parts that need to be (shall we say) "adjusted" to get to fit together as part of this assembly. I found it easier to build the reach assembly outside the cart and then just insert it into the correct position on the cart. What makes the process confusing is that there are a number of parts that all have to come together just right in order for all the bolts to line up. Since we are dealing with the bottom of the cart there is one picture of the cart inverted in the instruction manual and there there is the one diagram of the cart that is not inverted. Between the two pictures it is really easy to get confused as to what you are dealing with. In all fairness to the instructions I guess they did a pretty good job describing the process, just that it was hard to understand the process with only these two pictures to go on. A few more pictures of this process would be really helpful. Starting to build the reach plates.. On the lower reach plate there are two holes that need to be drilled out. Final reach assemble ready to be inserted into the front spring assembly. While working on the Reach Assembly I started priming and painting the wheel hubs

Began to assemble the seat... No real issues here other than be sure to drill you holes straight or (as mentioned before) you will have an issue with room enough to apply the nuts on the bolts. And just to see how it will look I dry fitted it on the the chassis. It was then removed as it it too early to glue the seat to the chassis. Went on to add the front and rear steps and the rear spring. Rear spring took some fiddling to get it into the correct shape. Finally decided the best way to do it was to secure both feet to a solid surface. From there it was relatively easy to adjust the two springs. Once again I learned painting the Britannia before it has it's final shape is a waste of time. You just have to repaint it again. The end result. The spring on the left is better than it looks in the picture. Not sure why it looks so out of shape

The kit is supplied with various size bolts, the smallest ones are 3/16" and 1/4". They come attached to a single pieces of metal and need to be cut off (as shown below). The problem is they are way too short. They are supposed to be long enough to go through the designated part and be long enough to put a nut on the other end. As I started out every place I put a 3/16" bolt it was not long enough to reach the nut. In many cases I had to just glue the nut over where the bolt was supposed to extend. I finally got smart (way too late) and just started using the 1/4" nuts every place it called for a 3/16" nut. Problem is, I will run out of 1/4" nuts. Since this was Model Expo (and they easily replace missing or broken parts), yesterday I requested extra 1/4" nuts. They should show up in the next week or so. If you are starting out on this model, I would suggest right away asking Model Expo for extra 1/4" nuts.. you will be glad you did Started on the seat. Main "gotcha" here (and it got me) is with drilling the holes for the seat rail. You drill from the inside out. That part is easy, but the holes are so close together, that unless you drill the hole exactly parallel they there will not be enough room on the outside to put the two nuts. Here is the seat from the inside And from the outside. If the holes are drilled correctly the nuts should be next to each other. But if they are off at all, there will not be enough room for the two nuts. In my case, since I did not realize this until I drilled the holes, about all I could do was fill off the bolts and just glue on the nuts, like the bolts came all they way through. Seems that one nut needs a little touch up paint Bending the apron wood and attaching the right angle bolts is pretty straight forward Front side Back side Front spring bar attached to the chassis is pretty straight forward Underside view Top view

Jan, Interesting site....He is truly dedicated to his craft. I admire him and his work.

After a lot of Britannia cleanup I decided to prime/paint all the metal parts. Took some time to get this point. Almost every hole on each Britannia part had to be reamed out with the #55 drill bit. In addition many of the skinny parts had to be re-shaped to be close to the final shape they would take on the model. Below starts the primming And after the final coat of black. At the time I felt the best way to deal with all the small nuts on the brass was to prime/paint them in place and then separate them. That turned out to be a waste of time. Priming/painting went great, the problem is when you remove the nuts from the brass there are a couple little "tags" on each nut where it was attached to the next nut. In the process of filing off the "tags", all the paint came off. In the future I would suggest, first separating each nut, file the smooth, and then mount each on a toothpick for painting. That way after painting not additional handling is required prior to putting them on the model. Below you can see one of the painted nuts cut from the brass. By the time you trim off the tabs, to look like the nut on the left, all the paint is gone. Thus the toothpick method mentioned above is best for these nuts At this point comes my (shall we say) first "executive decision"... On the bottom side of the base there are 65+ little holes to where nails are to be inserted. Below you can see both the large and tiny holes. Supplied nails are to be inserted into these tiny holes, cut off from the other side, to where only the nail heads would show on the bottom of the buckboard. These nail heads will only be seen if one picks up the buckboard and looks underneath. As you can see below, the supplied nails and no where near consistent in size. I put a few in and they looked terrible. I just could not see putting in 65+ of these nails that would never be seen. Not only are they ugly, but some if the tiny holes are so close to the edge, I can easily see splitting the wood. To me it was just not worth all the pain for what would be an ugly mess. Thus I choose to skip these nails. If one really wanted to build the model correctly, I would suggest ordering some good nails from Model Motorcars. They are somewhat expensive, but they are high quality nails and would look much better than what I have going here. Even from the side view, the heads just do not look right Moving on to building the seat and platform brackets. Instructions call to build a simple jig to assist in drilling the holes in the seat and platform bracket. At first I was a little Leary of this jig, but it turned out to be simple and every accurate. The only issue with the seat and platform brackets is the instructions call to insert the 1/4" and 3/16" bolts (circled below) after gluing the seat and platform brackets to the seat springs. Problem is there is not enough room between the spring and the bracket to insert the bolts. Thus you have to bend the Britannia springs out of shape, insert the bolts, and then bend the spring back into shape. Bending these Britannia springs (without breaking them) is it's own form of excitement. I would suggest gluing in the bolts before attaching the seat and platform brackets to the springs

Not much to really report today...... Started inserting the boiler deck stationaries. As Cathead mentioned on previous post, putting a square stick into a round hole works out pretty well. Just the smallest touch of glue and the stationary easily slides into place. 1/4" above the huricane deck was easily maintained with a 1/4" piece of wood as a guide As you can see toward the middle of the boat the hurricane deck flared up a bit on the overhang and to be (shall we say) persuaded with some jigs to keep the proper curve. Same jigs used between the main deck and the boiler deck were modified and did the job well. Once glue dried, the hurricane deck was in the correct position. Closer look at the stationaries... No big deal.

Cathead, I agree with what you are saying... As I tried to dry fit some of the square stationaries into the round holes, those little extra bits of tape really help hold the stationary in place. With the hurricane deck glued down it was a simple thing to slightly lift up the aft portion of the deck and slip in back wall. For those that follow in the future with the chaperon... when building that back wall, the jig provided is good in helping with the curve, but not that accurate. Even my "juice can" method (mentioned earlier) is rough... No matter how you bend the walls, the most crucial point, and it really should emphasized in the instructions, is that that back wall curves need to match the last holes in the boiler deck floor. Otherwise the wall will not match up to the last stationaries and will just looks off. Had I know that fact when I was bending the walls, I would have insured the final bends matched the last stationary holes. In my case even with a little fiddling, the wall does not match up exactly to that last stationaries. At this point I think I am going to leave it as is..... But don't make the same mistake. This could have been better had I know the exact bend was critical As for the bow and the forward stairs, as mentioned earlier, save yourself a lot of grief and do not mount the stairs prior to the hurricane deck as stated in the instructions. Once the hurricane deck is down it is easy to slip it into place. No way could I have glued those stairs in prior to the hurricane deck as expect them to line up exactly

Brian, That is a good comment.... And it would be like me to forget that. But fortunately this time I did not. Before I masked the sky light I located where the Texas cabin would be located and laid down the wood foundation to support the walls. Then I laid down the masking tape and painted around where the Texas cabin would be formed.... I will say, there is one issue with the masking tape method.. On the Boiler deck the stationary holes around the edge are square (to accept the 1/16" stationaries). But unless you have some sort to square drill (and I do not), to free up the holes (covered by tape) you have to drill or poke them out,,,, and they end up more or less round. But when I comes time to put in the stationaries, square wood is close to round, and with a hold that small, the square wood fills up the hole and it is not noticed.

Earlier I said I was not going to start this build until end of October....and that is mostly true,,, But just could not help myself. I just had to open the box and do a few initial things. Started out by cleaning up the char marks and staining the most of the wood components. Only wooden spokes and wheels are still in the box. There are so many spokes, I figured by the time I got the that part of the build I would have lost some of the spokes. Here are the non-wheel wooden parts Started cleaning up the Britannia metal parts. As mentioned earlier this will be the (shall we say) "interesting" part of the build. Anyone who has worked with Britannia knows what I am about to say... UGH.. As with most Britannia parts, the metal is soft and does not come easily out of the mold when formed at the factory. As such, many of the parts are mis-shaped and/or have rough edges that need to be cleaned up. I would say with this model the Britannia is as you would expect... no better and no worse than any other Britannia parts on other models. Since many of the parts are mis-shaped, I would suggest as you clean them up, to look on the plans and try to bend the part into (more or less) the correct shape before you prime and paint it To me, doing all the bending after the part is painted, could tend to knock off some paint and require touch-up. I will say that some of these Britannia parts will be somewhat of a challenge. Most of the Britannia parts are to be "simulated" bolted to the wood chassis. As you can see the chassis clearly shows where the parts will be placed. And the parts have the holes drilled into them. Problem is, being Britannia parts, many of the holes in the parts are mis-shaped and/or or never formed properly in the mold, In the part below I have positioned it close to where it will eventfully be placed. The part (circled below) shows both outer holes pretty well formed, but the circled part hole is complexly filled in with metal. Normally drilling out the hole would not be a problem, but the mis-shaped part is only a little bigger than the hole I need to drill. I give that hole a try, but I have a feeling the part will break, and I will have to "simulate" a bolt running through it. In the end no one will be able to tell the difference but it would have been nice to have the part large enough to drill the correct hole size. I won't show other parts with this same issue, as you get the idea, but it looks like there are a number of parts that will need their holes drilled. I just we just chalk it up to "fun with Britannia" 🙂

Onward and upward... At long last the hurricane deck is finally ready to glue. All holes have been enlarged and ready to accept the corresponding parts that come next. As for the simulated tar paper strips, I think the masking tape idea worked out OK. As indicated earlier, at my skill level I do not think I could have pulled off silk span or tissue paper methods. A couple of points for those of us less skilled,,,, The instructions call to glue the forward stairs, from the boiler deck to the hurricane deck before gluing down the hurricane deck. In my opinion, no way would I be able to pull that off and have the stairs align properly with the hurricane deck. If those stairs were glued down prior to the hurricane deck, with all the alignment (shall we say) "fun" lining up the hurricane deck with the stationaries, it would be too much to hope to assume those stairs would be in the correct position. Instead, since the hurricane deck overhangs the boiler deck, will be an easy effort to just slip in the forward stairs after the hurricane deck is glued down and before the stationaries are inserted. Below is a show showing plenty of room to insert the stairs and secure them down to the proper size prior to the stationaries. Same issue with the boiler deck back wall. Instructions call to glue down the back boiler deck wall when you glue down the boiler deck structure. In the below picture, neither the back wall or hurricane deck have been glued down. As you can see, the edge of the back wall should align with the last stationery. In theory, if you were every accurate with the bending of this wall, it will align with the last stationaries. But if that bend was not exact (due to lack of skill of the builder), there will be an issue aligning with the last stationaries. Even if you bends were exact, after aligning the hurricane deck over the boiler deck, the back wall my not align with stationary. However, if you do not glue down the back wall until after the hurricane deck is aligned, then you can fudge a little to make the wall edges align with the last stationary. In my case there was fudging involved... Again,,,, these last two issue are only for us less skilled builders 🙂 Here is a picture of the hurricane deck being glued down with back wall open. After the glue dries, the back wall will be inserted similar to the forward stairs mentioned earlier Time to glue and pile on the weight.. everything including the kitchen sink... That coffee can is filled with water to add a little more weight. Hope is does not leak, or there will be a lot of tears,,,,

CDW..... Interesting story.... Thanks for sharing... john

Brian,,,, I mis-spoke..... You are so right,,,, Putting the bull rails up are nothing compared to the battens on the Boiler deck structure .... I have not had that (shall we say) "fun" with the Texas deck cabin walls yet.... Plan to have that "fun" next week.... At least there are not as many on the Texas deck cabin walls as the Boiler deck structure.

After working on several year long plus (to complete) models I wanted what I call a "quick win". Basically something that was quick and easy, but looked kind of neat. Saw the Model Shipways Buckboard wagon and the Hearse. Both caught my attention, but I settled on the Buckwagon... Maybe next time when I need a break from the marathons I will pick the Hearse. It looked like a "quick win" too. It will probably not be until end of the month (oct 2023) before I actually start on it, but I wanted to get the log started and the initial contents displayed. Also a word of warning... even though I call this a "quick win", in reality it will not be quick. I am not a true full time modeler... I only work models in my spare time... So this will not be one of those logs where you can follow along a I go. Log will be complete, but it will not necessarily be "quick". Once I complete the model this log will be able to be referenced by future builders of the Buckboard model. Hear is a quick view of the contents.. Seems like a nice instruction manual - about 50 pages with nice pictures. only three small wood sheets.. You can see why this falls into the "quick win" category. Three full page diagrams. The first one labeling many of the parts The 2nd and 3rd pages show various views and sections of the wagon Pins, wire, wheel hubs, and 2 drill bits. The drill bits are a nice touch. A ton of small soft BRITANNIA parts. UGH,,, some of these look so fragile, they look like they might break just looking at them... Will be (shall we say) "interesting" straightening them, cleaning them up, and painting them... Finally some Photo etched parts, dowel, and wood strip, and a cloth sets of strips... (shown in black on the left).

Brian, It was frustrating at times and very monotonous putting in 80 planks, but looking at the final product, the bull rails really do look better mounted inward.

On to the outer bull rails.. These are 1/32" x 3/32" boards mounted on both the port and starboard side of the first nine stationaries. There are 80 of them - 40 on each side. The instructions call to mount the bull rails to parts 48 (bull rail brackets) mounted on on both sides of the stationaries on each side of the boat - "facing outward".. As mbp521 (Brian) mentioned earlier, this realistically is backwards. The bull rails are intended for the crew to be able to temporarily add or remove them to allow for easier loading or unloading cargo. Problem is with them facing outward there is no easy way for the crew (on board) to adjust them. Realistically the bull rails should be mounted facing inward. That way the crew can easily add or remove the rails as needed. Having said that, while more realistic, mounting the bull rails from the inside is easier said then done. There are five rows of bull rails and by the time you get to the 5th row there is very little room for big fingers to easily put in the rails. It can be done, but expect to have some level of frustration putting in these 80 bull rails - and of course knocking some out as you go 🙂 Below is my attempt at the bull rails

I appreciate the suggestions of "silk paper used to wrap gifts" and " regular tissue paper and ModgePodge", but I think at this time I am pretty well committed to masking tape. Below are the results after painting them a matte black. After overlapping the tape I sprayed from the opposite side of the wrapped tape to more show the seams... Not real sure I like the result as the seams show up as a lighter color than the black... Not a realistic look for tar seams, but I may leave it vs applying another coat of black and cover up the seams... Once piece of advice for novices' like my self... If you do cover the hurricane deck flooring with something, before you mount it on the main deck structure, be sure to verify all the holes in the deck have been opened up to later accept the pieces that will be going through them. Much easier now before you glue down the deck ceiling In preparation for laying the hurricane deck flooring I wanted to double check the alignment of all the posts and stairs that need to line up. In doing so I noticed the back stairs do not exactly line up with the wall etching. From the plans the stairs are supposed to line up against the wall - thus the etchings. When I first put on the vertical strips on the walls I assumed all was good and followed the lines. After seeing about a 1/2" gap between the stairs and wall I decided that needed to change. Others have mentioned this little fact, but I forgot. Since there is about a 1/2" gap that probably was wide enough for a person to slip by, so rather than extend the stair sides to meet the wall I decided to add the strips over the stairs etching in the wall. In the below picture, it shows the remains of the five partial strips that originally were on the wall. This was in preparation for adding new full strips. Below shows the new strips added. I probably should have closed up the etching before attaching the strips, and it would have been a lot easier, but closing that gap with a little extra paint can be done now too. Moral of this lesson is be sure to check the back stairs before you lay the hurricane deck flooring and make a decision as to what you want to do about the gap With all in place the boiler deck structures can now be attached to top of the main deck. Below are a few pictures of the final result One thing to note, on some of the raw corners I added some right angle styrene pieces to cover up the raw corner. I have some of them marked below with circles. Just noticed I have some extra glue showing,,,, need to break out the paint and fine brush 🙂

Earlier I was commenting on how I was in a quandary over the simulated tar paper for the Hurricane Deck, Skylight Roof, Texas Roof, and Pilot House Roof. Instructions call just to paint them all black, but others have commented that cutting silk span in strips and painting them black gave a realistic looks of tar paper. No way at my skill level was I going to be able to make strips of silk span look anything like tar paper. Beside, silk span seem to be really hard to find and very expensive. Cathead had suggested using overlapped masking tape strips and painting them black. That sounded like a neat idea and one that I could probably manage. Below is my attempt at applying the masking tape strips. If you look closely you will see the overlapped strips simulating the tar paper seams. Once they are painted black I think they will be a good simulation of tar paper strips Hurricane Deck Skylight Roof with Texas dry fitted. Texas Roof - You can see the outline where the Pilot house will be located Pilot House Roof Tomorrow I will get out the spray gun and a lot of black paint and spray away....

Started working on the stationaries... Stationary should extend above the boiler deck floor by 1/16"... In my case I felt it easier to make a little jig to insure they were all consistent. Below shows the jig. It really made it easier. Just placed the jig atop each stationary hole and inserted the stationary from the bottom until it hit the top if the jig. Also depicted in the below shots are the other jigs I used to insure equal spacing between the main and boiler deck. I would strongly suggest something like them. They take all the sport out of trying to insure a level deck. On to the Texas. Instructions here call to do something similar to what was done with the boiler deck walls. Make a jig and slightly score the etched marks to make bending them. It also says not to wet them due to the wall would end up cupped in the drying process. With my skill,,,,, no way was I going to be successful scoring those walls and bending them into the jig without breaking them. I more skilled modeler could do it, but not me. Instead I really needed to soak the walls to make those bends, but did not want the cupping effect. The cupping effect comes because the jig they suggest using only supports the bend in three places. A full jig that supported the entire bend would prevent the cupping effect. I found that a small juice can is very close to the proper bend that is required for these walls, and fully supports the entire wall over the bend. Thus I was able to soak the walls, bend them around the juice can, and let dry. The additional pieces of wood help support the wall over the bend. End result is very close to the actual bend required. At that point you can briefly soak the wall section and then use the suggested jig to get the required bend. Since the original bend was very close to the required size, the second bend in the jig has far less stress on the wood and thus not cupping as it dries. End result is a pretty good bend and way better than I could have done it by scoring the walls. Note I have also attached the 3/16x3/16 wood strips around the top of the Texas. I really liked them vs the suggested 1/16x1/16 strips. Much for forgiving and give a great gluing surface.. Since the Texas is a curved structure, one long strip will not do it. You have to break them into smaller pieces to more conform to the Texas curved top. I attached this picture just to show once again that "you can never have enough clamps" 🙂 Here is a fun fact that a more experienced modeler would know (obviously not me). Never assume the instructions or diagrams are correct. Always verify 🙂 Below is a picture the the Skylight roof showing where the Texas is to be located. Foolishly thinking the etching was correct I happily glued the 3/16 square strips on to it in preparation for installing the Texas. Note below the etching is not in the center of the Skylight roof. After the strips were dry and I dry fitted the Texas, the problem was very obvious. The etching is 10mm from the port side and 7mm from the starboard side. Thus, time for the alcohol and pry up the strips and re-center the Texas location. Maybe it is just my model, but please verify before you glue down the strips

MCB and Cathead, Thanks for the suggestions.... I appreciate the suggestions. I really did not want to just paint the deck black... I will give both of your methods a try on some scrap wood and see what I can do with it.

It has been some time (to say the least) since I last posted. Been out of town and away from the shipyard. I was able to take a few part with me to work on remotely. Was not able to take the hull due to it's size. Completed the boiler deck structure walls. Not a lot to say about this as it is pretty straight foreword, but very very repetitive. You will go crazy with all those 1/32" vertical pieces on the walls and then sanding them down to 1/64". After the vertical pieces were stalled, the walls were air brushed white. Afterward the red doors were attached with door knobs. Next took on the two boiler deck stairs. The forward stairs are is the larger on the and smaller steps goes on the aft starboard side. Only issue I had here was the fact that the step "runs" (on both sets of stairs) were a little short. Not sure it it was to do lack to skill on my part (in assembling the stairs) or were not sized right at the factory. Either way, they could not be used or there would have been a small gap in each step. There is plenty of 1/16" wood supplied with the kit and it was easy just to make new "run" steps and use those instead of the supplied ones. Still need some touchup paint, but they are more or less ready. Finally took on the Pilot House. This also is pretty foreword. I ordered a 1/48 scale pot belly stove and ships wheel to add a little more detail, but they have yet to arrive. As for the window, I know some have split the windows to simulate sliding windows. Not sure I have the skill to do that. I tried to simulate that by holding up one window over the other to see what that looked like but I just could not get it to look very good. I may try again when I get to the ship yard, but at this time I am leaning just to use the whole windows. As for the foreword window, that one will remain open. Still need some touch up paint when I get back. View of the foreword side Back side view View with Pilot House top on top. Not painted yet, just wanted to see what it would look like 🙂 On the topic, I am still on the fence as to the covering for the boiler deck, Skylight, Texas, and Pilot House. Kit calls just to paint it flat black to simulate tar paper. I know others have used silk span strips to better simulate tar paper, but I am having trouble locating some silk span. I found some at BlueJacket Ship Crafters, but it is $6.00 a sheet with $6.00 shipping. Not sure I want to go down that road, but I admit it would look much better than just flat black paint. Have to think on that some. And below are the windows mentioned above. At this time they just have one coat of while paint. Again an airbrush makes this task really easy to get a smooth finish

Olha, Oseberg has been on my list of future builds. The version of Oseberg from Pavel Nikitin looks really good. This may be my next build. Looking forward to following your build. Excellent unboxing video. Really first rate. john

As planking proceeds I guess it is time to air a little dirty laundry.... In regards to the boiler deck, the instructions call to glue the four pieces that make up the boiler deck into one solid piece and then attach it to the hull. That part is good... problem is since I was planning on planking the deck I felt it would be best to plank it after it was attached to the hull. My thinking at the time was that the extra glue and planking might make the deck stiffer and harder to attached to the hull. There are two problem with that logic... First issue is that since the vertical stationaries have not been attached yet, there is a lot of boiler decking in the front half of the boat without much support. And 1/16" planking being what it is,,,,, it could easily break when applying the planking if too much pressure is applied to the planks Ask me how I know this 🙂 You can see from the picture below where a little too much much pressure was applied.... calling for a repair job. What you can not see is all the tears.. The second issue with planking the deck after it is applied to the hull is also related to the lack of support on the deck. That being the glue as it dries tends to bend the decking (that is not supported) upward. I don't have a picture of it, but with the decking curved up on both sides, the hull looked like a bird flying. Thus repair job #2 comes into play. Basically I wetted the boards that needed to be bent back into shape and added some (shall we say) persuasion to hold them down. To insure they boards did not bend too far down there are some 3/16"x3/16" temporary support posts applied along the side of the hull. They are not glued and just held in place by the pressure of the "persuasion". Once the deck dry they will easily be removed. Disaster averted.. Had the same issue with a stern section but got creative with a clamp for the "persuasion". So,,,, if you plan to plank the deck I would suggest you plank the deck before it is attached to the hull. The planks will tend to bend the deck, but at least you will have a flat surface to add some weight to hold the decking down until the glue dries. And in reality the extra 1/32" planking will not add that much stiffness to the deck and will certainly be easier than trying to deal with split and bent decking if you plank after the deck is attached to the hull. Dumb you get early,,,, smart you get late 🙂 Tomorrow I will do the same process to the other side of the boiler deck

Finally started the planking of the boiler deck.... I hate deck planking,,,, I really like the look, but I hate doing it. Way to tedious and the process gets old pretty fast. As before I used the 1,3,5,2,4 planking pattern. Since deck planking is not fun enough I decided to take a break from planking and have even more fun with the 1/32" square battens on the boiler deck walls. Talk about getting old fast,,, wow.. Prior to planking I painted the walls just to get the first few coats on them. I then added the 1/32" square battens. After that I will just air brush to put on the final coats. Probably could have just waiting until all battens were installed, but I figured it would be easier this way. Once all is painted I will add the windows/doors that were painted earlier. Instructions call to sand the 1/32" battens down to 1/64" to look more realistic. When I first read that I thought that was some sort of designer joke, as no way (at my skill level) would I be able to do that. But when you think about it, after the battens are glued into place, a sanding stick easily trims them down to look more realistic. Note in the stern wall section the battens (in red) do not go all the way to the top. This is to allow for the deck trim (added later) to not interfere with the battens. In order to get a better connection between the side and bow sections, I added a piece of scrap wood. I plan to connect the side and bow sections together and then put the structure onto the boat. If I glued the pieces to the hull separately, I have a feeling that joint would not go together too well. Looking ahead I noticed a little issue,,,, with next boiler deck ceiling (Hurricane deck floor). What is wrong with this picture? Seems to be an issue with the smoke stack hole on part 123S. 🙂 Not a big deal, it will be awhile before I get to that point. I opened a ticket with Model Shipways and I am sure a new part will be here well before I need it.

Brian, Thanks for that heads up.... You are correct.... if the bull rails were installed as indicated in the instructions it would be rather difficult for workers to take them up and down from onboard the ship. When I get to that stage I will mount them as you suggest...