cog

More progress today  -  I took the tape off both fuselage  sections and surveyed  the seams,  they were not too bad  just needed some light sanding with 1000 wet and dry,  I then turned my attention to how the two sections join  -  they lock into each other but it was very tight so the sanding stick and several dry fits and with a kind of "click"  - they joined together,  I pushed a bit of  glue into the seam  then pushed them together.
 
I left it for a few hours then I added a pe  fuel  cap ontop  and while at it  I even put two masks  on the lower forward  windows.
 
Oh!  I also added a strengthening  strip with 2mm  paper underneath the fuselage.
 
OC.

More work  today   starting by  cleaning up both fuselage sides  - there was quite a bit to trim/sand off,  next  I glued the front engine bay  firewall bulkhead  (I decided to remove the engine mount  from the Merlin  as it was going to foul the fuselage)  I will still fit the engine as it has the exhaust manifolds attached to it.
I  also had some small fitting to add inside the cockpit  - I have to say the quality of the moldings and engraving is very high  and frankly wouldn't really benefit form PE  - this is the status before I add some paint.
 
OC.

Thanks everybody for all the likes.
 
I've added all the benches for the starboard side
 
  and lined up the slots for the benches in the port stringer and glued it on


 
  
Here are the benches for the port side ready for gluing into place.

And I've scarphed on the "tail" extensions for the stringers. Once the glue is dry I'll start curving them to fit the curve of the tail.
  
Quiet awhile ago I did a lot of experimenting on how best to make the shields for the pavesade - the row of shields along the side of the ship to protect the upper oarsmen, bearing in mind that real shields were pretty darned thin (usually between 7 and 10mm = about quarter to half an inch), which scales at 1/7 to 1/5 of a millimeter (= about 6 to 10 thousandths of an inch if my maths is correct)
 
 Turns out tissues (as in blowing your nose!) are the best material for this job. I made a mould out of builder's bog, put in layers of tissue glued together with (quite a lot of) PVA (white) glue and squoze (is that a word?) the resultant paper/glue gunge between the male and female halves of the mould. Once dry I had to trim each shield to shape, then sand to get a reasonably smooth surface for painting. I've done about 5 so far - another 45 or so to go.

I've put a lot of research into the shield "devices" (decoration) used by the Byzantines, and once I've made the rest of the shields I'll be able to paint them with accurate designs, though I'm mixing and matching the colours to a certain extent (within the colour palette I know the Byzantines to have used). 
 
Steven 

I was thinking more in the line of some 20 weeks ... Glad the blackening didn't disolve the parts during that time, Sam. Every bit of progress is progress. You should be used to yours by now. Mine is even slower (if possible at all) The detail on the yard is wonderful.

Now that I've got a reasonably accurate table saw and the padauk planks are cut, it's back to work.
 
The recessed helm station on the Spirit 130 has been bothering me.  It seems with the raised cabin and a single wheel, the helmsperson would have a tough time seeing what's ahead.  So I filled it in with balsa to see how it would look without it.
 
I made up the aft crew seat similar to what is on the Spirit 130.  The other seating and the flooring didn't have the dark trim.

But the dark separation between the planks didn't show upon the flooring or forward seating.  Don't know why.
 

However, the rowers were not a Broadway chorus line: the slight variation in oar placement makes the overall effect more realistic. Looks good to me!

I glued all the oars into place. Looked good. A lovely line of oars, all at the same angle, with the blades all at the same height.
  
I'd had a cunning plan, as seen in the top diagram below. Each oar was to be glued as it passed through the oarport and the inner end glued to a beam running the length of the ship, making it all very secure.
 
But I'd made a mistake. I don't quite know how I came to do it. The first indication was when Pat (Banyan) asked me something on the lines of how I was going to make sure the oars were going to be kept in place when the ship was transported. I thought "no worries - I have already developed a cunning plan to deal with that". Unfortunately for reasons I don't recall (something to do with the angle of the bow-most oar) I only glued the oars at the oarport and not at the beam (as in the lower diagram), thinking "she'll be right" (Australian term for "I can't be fussed doing it properly - but what could possibly go wrong?").

Then AAARRRGGGHHH!  The oars started to droop, and many of them were easy to push out of alignment.
 
 After considerable angst (in which I considered pulling off all the decking above the oars, replacing the oars and re-gluing the decking, which I'm sure would have turned it into a dog's breakfast) I decided the best thing to do was to pull each oar out of the hull and re-glue it to the inner beam the way I'd originally planned. Very labour intensive.  Here it is with only a few oars re-done (note the base of a carved figure being used to push the oarblade up as far as it will go, to push the inner end down against the beam).
 

I made sure that looking from directly above, the oars are all at the same horizontal angle (the one exception is an oar I haven't yet fixed).
 

I've just finished doing them all, and for some reason despite the internal beam being nicely aligned, several of the oars are now a little too high or too low compared with the rest. Well, I've decided I just have to suck it up - the glue has set belowdecks and there's nothing I can do about it. And you do have to look pretty carefully to see it - as usual, the photos exaggerate the fault. And the alternative would have been much worse.
  
Sigh.
 
Steven
 

Looks great Steven, and those oarsmen really set it off.  As to my earlier comments, I was referencing the lining not so much a waterway.  I think that a waterway as you have used it is the way to go.
 
cheers
 
Pat

Thanks, GrandpaPhil.
 
Pat, yes I'd thought of that and it is still a consideration, but it seems to me that if there was a heavy rain or big waves (though rough seas would be strenuously avoided as endangering a ship so inherently unseaworthy - lots of incidents of whole fleets of galleys being sunk by storms) the "gratings" in the centre (my solution to the lower oarsmen's need for lots of air if they were to function efficiently) could be covered with tarpaulins.
 
As they tried to beach the ships every night if at all possible, to renew their water (oarsmen sweat a lot and need to drink a lot of water), they could pull out the bung and drain what water had accumulated in the hull. But they'd still want to avoid having to pump out more than absolutely necessary in between times, so they'd try to keep water from running down between the deck and the sides of the ship from the effects of spray.  
 
This is all highly theoretical of course, based purely on speculation on my part and I've no idea if that's what they really did. But till some archaeologist finds a dromon (maybe in the Black Sea?) who's to tell me I'm wrong?
 
Anyhow, I've put in the waterways and they look pretty good.
 
    
And now I've finally been able to start putting in the benches for the upper oarsmen.
    
 
Steven

Thanks for all the comments and likes.
 
Mark, thanks for your comment, but I am very aware this model isn't "museum quality". With an undetermined number of years of extra experience I might one day aspire to that kind of level - if I ever do - but it's certainly not now.
 
Having glued in the lower bank of oars, I've now been free to complete the deck.
     
Those little clothespegs are very useful, but of course towards the edges there's no longer any room for them, so I had to weigh the last few planks down with whatever came to hand. It seems to have worked. Now to sand down the deck to make all smooth.
 
Then I have to face a problem I've been avoiding up till now. The original galley wrecks found at Yenikapi in Istanbul were single-banked and didn't have a deck. Accordingly they didn't have an inner planking - the inner sides of the frames were left open. There wasn't any need for an inner planking or a waterway to keep water from seeping down between the outer edge of the (non-existent) deck and belowdecks.
 
Unfortunately this is not the case with the dromon, and I've been debating with myself whether to install inner planking at least above deck level, so there isn't a gap in the decking between the frames and the side of the ship.  But if I do, the "wall" of the hull will be thicker than the gunwale is wide.
 
So - do I add another stringer at the inner edge of the gunwale, so the planking doesn't overlap (or is that underlap) the gunwale? I think I have to. Decisions, decisions . . .
 
Steven
 

After a long time, some updates: I've installed the upper wales and then I've cut all upper parts of frames. I've also finished the upper part of the stern.

I hear reminiscing of the poor gentry ...

I hear reminiscing of the poor gentry ...

I hear reminiscing of the poor gentry ...

I hear reminiscing of the poor gentry ...

I hear reminiscing of the poor gentry ...

I hear reminiscing of the poor gentry ...

Looks great, Jack.  As for the lights... don't tell anyone you didn't use them all.   If I remember right, the two down low were for fog.  Then two for "low beams" and two more for the equivalent of "high beams".  

Nicely done!

Looks Super,    very nice details.
 
OC.

Classy looking car, Jack. Well done.

Very nicely done, Jack. I like the closed top, looks more classy, more RR

Pocher has a very limited choice at present. It used to be far better. Prices have always been through the roof, their models, however, are truely beautiful

Very nicely done, Jack. I like the closed top, looks more classy, more RR

Very nicely done, Jack. I like the closed top, looks more classy, more RR