Micklen32

Isn't it just I just wish it went a bit more deeply into the masts and sails as the instructions on my kit stop at masts and sails and life size plans take over I am schooling myself here by having at least ten minutes a day staring at them and slowly getting it together They are quite complicated things and when I get to actually fitting the sails I hope someone might be able to guide me a bit there as it's something I have never done At the moment my build is drying as I had a major fill at the stern After taking a good look at what I had and the photos in the instructions it came to me that the stern looked more like it needed filliong rather than sanding off and so it proved The bow came up nicely and I am now sitting watching The Open golf on tenterhooks hoping it dries nicely Keep it up Mick

No it is a pain that they give you nice swatches of the paint but not the stain I am hoping it will be fairly light like that link to the wood sample The colour on the Endeavour is a wierd one and it doesn't help OcCre calling it 'Yellow/Orange' I couldn't find a stain like it but they have one in the ' Build the Endeavour ' as it is on the video of the build http://www.build-endeavour.com/en/guide.html# That may have been made up specially for the build though Mick

Hi Anja Here is a link so you can see swatches of the paints http://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/admiralty_paints_water.html Unfortunately they do not show the stains I am hoping the stain is similar to the cherry wood I used to use when I made pens http://www.laminart.com/img/product/cad/9_7950_cad.jpg Keep it up Mick

Yes Sjors The blocks of balsa are in the kit for the bow and the ply shapes to fill the stern Glue them in and cut and sand to shape then put the finish straight on to that Therefore the finish on them has to be good to take the 0.6mm strips directly I will take a fair bit of time on this stage to make sure the finish goes on easily I would be interested what you and the Endeavour builders think of my colour choice I have got Caldercraft Admiralty French Blue for the top of the hull Admiralty Dull Black for the black rubbing strakes and for the bit between the two that OcCre call "yellow/orange" stain I have decided to use the Admiralty Cherry stain that should look very nice I hope Keep it up Mick

Evening all Hi Steve I tend to make use of a nice little hammer that I own to ensure the pins are at least level with the surface, if not slightly indented As I said I do tend to rely quite a bit on a rough filling I am just at that stage of my build now Today I have finished the first planking Given it a rough coat of filler where needed And filled the bits in the bow and stern with parts provided to do so Got the hard work to come now All the cutting and sanding of the hull and the infills of balsa and ply Need to take a bit of care as well as the pin pushing did not do my arthritis any good at all Anyway I will see how much I can get on with tomorrow I am expecting soon to have to give this a rest as the parts for the Taxi should arrive soon and I want to finish that Keep it up Mick

Good morning everyone Yes the build does seem very similar indeed and when I went and had a look at the partwork build videos it did look identical Adriaan, Sjors, What goes there is a pair of doors so it can be used to load cars and lorries and become a channel ferry No????? Ok, I have four big blocks of what I presume is balsa that are stuck in there to give a nice solid bow The stern however uses plywood as it seems the partwork uses for the bow They will be going in before much longer however I have to finish the first layer of planking and see if I can come to terms with this new pin pusher Steve, I have to say your first layer of planking is good enough to be the top layer I have to admit I do tend to rely a bit on sanding and filler to get mine perfect I think maybe what I should have done was to have soaked ALL the planking to make it a lot more supple and easier to handle as the 2mm lime can be a little brittle Keep it up Mick

Been SO hot today Managed to do some first planking Got that far both sides at lunch time I was watching the Open golf as well After lunch I did manage to finish one side The other side is close to finish You may see some, nay, a lot of the pins didn't go in straight I was using a new pin pusher as the pins I get with the OcCre kits don't want to go in the original old pusher I had I can 't seem to get the hang of the new one at all With the old one the pin went right inside the tube but the new one is much shorter and the pin sticks out a few mm I couldn't get the feel of it right so I was getting a lot of bent pins Hey ho though, providing I get the finish nice and smooth that will be fine I will finish the first layer of plankety planking tomorrow Then a bit of sanding and filling I guess Keep it up Mick

Er......................No!!!!!!! 90 is quite high enough thank you Wayne Mick

Well if I get mine half as good I will be twice as happy Great planking Theo Keep it up Mick

Hi Bankie Isn't it amazing how the build between two different kits are so different for the same ship I am a LONG way from doing my gunwales The ship is half finished before mine go on Also same as Adriaan you have no mast or keel holes set in the decks That has got to make life difficult I would have thought No doubt it will all come together in the end It is certainly coming along well now You are a lot neater with your edges than I am Keep it up Mick

If you were over here you would be able to follow the Test match and the Open golf That would give you something to do and keep you from being bored I must admit I can only watch the TV and do nothing else for a short time before I have to go and build a bit I hope you can get back to your build before too long Take care Keep it up Mick

Evening all and thank you for your comments Nice gentle day today Sjors so I feel fine Apart from the heat and lack of cooling breeze Even the fans seem to be blowing warm air First job was getting the first strip of the first level planking lined up with the lower deck then glued and nailed in place Then it was just a case of plankety planking I had to soak the end of a few strips to bend the top three round the bow Below that the bow is going to be blocked out solid with blocks of balsa and the stern is filled out with what they are calling stern transome reinforcements I suppose they gotta call them something The bow went well but the stern was very difficult and I think there will be a bit of filling there Still that's the easy bit I have put one strip each side at the keel but that is going to be very tricky to come round to the ones I fitted today In the instructions they advise keeping them fairly straing then cutting a lot of filler pieces I finished off today by fitting a couple of reinforcement pieces to the stern, but I don't think you want photos of things like that do you Ok so tomorrow will be filled with Come on Sjors Plank plank plankety planking Keep it up Mick

Yesterday saw me making that set of steps and a surround My first job was staining and fitting those That went quite easy It was the next job that seemed to take most of the rest of the day First I simply lined the hole Easy stuff Then I made up the surround Then, and this is what took forever, I had to make the top It didn't help that it was the hottest day of the year This top consisted of 8 strips, 16 eyes and 16 rings Those strips are loose and can be either on or off Last bit I did was just to surround the false keel opening Next job is to sand the frame down and start the first layer of planking I am going to do this carefully to try and limit the sanding and filling that I normally have a lot of Keep it up Mick

Hi Adriaan Good work with the gunwales My instructions don't get as far as the gunwales before I have to start the first layer of planking which is the next job for me after a bit of sanding I am going to take my time with this to hopefully limit the sanding and filling necessary I normally tend to rush the first layer a bit as I know I can patch up but this time I will try and get it right How long before you start the planking??? Take care with yourself then Adriaan Keep it up Mick

Adding my ten penneth Adriaan Take care and just relax for a bit Hope you are feeling a lot better soon All the best Mick

Well they let me back Just got to wear this funny bracelet thing on my ankle Anyway back to work Bulwarks next First the precut parts to make a backing for the next layer On the inside of these was glued 2mm of lime And cut and sanded to the bulwark level While these were drying off I fitted the stern support Then the finish of a lime veneer went on all round That finished it looked good and I was pleased with the job Again I had a bit of time left so I constructed some stairs and a hatch surround What was that about the macro lens doing no favours Well that's another good days work I will do a bit more of the deck furniture tomorrow and stain them Keep it up Mick

Nice planking Theo Looking forward to seeing it sanded and polished or whatever you are going to finish it with Keep it up Mick

Ok Sjors I have had a think and I reckon we can use our National anthem So we can sing it to God save the Queen We will use a long E in plankety Ok you got the tune in mind Right here we go Plank plank plankeeeeeeerty plank Plank plank plankeeeeeeerty plank Plank plank plank plank Plank plank plank plank Plank plank plankeeeeeeerty plank Plank plank plankeeeeeeerty plank Plank plaaank plaaankeeeeeeerty plank Plaaankeeerty plank |I will see if I can get the normal words replaced with these for all occasions Damn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They're coming to take me away ha ha he he ho ho |Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Ok hard at work today to get the upper decks finished My first job was to fit the two small bulkheads and the deck supports And dry test the decks As you can see this will totally cover the lower deck and a good third of the middle deck All that planking covered Right, plank plank plankety plank Not a lot else to say What follows here is a good look at all the decks As you can imagine that is a good days work there I am well happy with the way it looks LOTS more slope on the upper stern deck than I imagined I can see my sea legs sending me toppling down the slope there Anyway I had five minutes at the end of the day No time for anything serious so I just fitted the stern reinforcements Now tomorrow I can start building YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Keep it up Mick P.S. Whoops Just noticed deliberate mistake and am finishing the drawn caulking on the bow upper deck

Hi Adriaan Good to see you are ok because like Sjors I was wondering where you had got to If you are cold you should come here While I was working on the build today I can honestly say I was soggy Not used to it being 80f here in England Got the window wide open and the fan on Still, good to see you Keep it up Mick

Ok thanks Sjors I will give it a go I have emoji on the iPad but i get no options to use anything at all The tool bars are not showing on my iPad at all Keep it up Mick

Just as a thought Rob In the instructions OcCre say to use a pencil I used that on the Spirit build and although I personally wasn't happy with it as I had used thread on earlier builds With this build I am using a fibre tip pen to do the plank end caulking and the wood pegs and that seems to match the thread very well One thing I have not made plain is that I use white glue for the planking not contact To get the thread on I run a small amount down the edge, push the thread into it and use the rounded edge of a tongue depressor to get it how I want then I run down the glue for the planks and push the planks into the thread That does not take as long as it sounds Obviously it takes longer than just laying planks but I think it gives a much more realistic finish Can't use the emoticons with the iPad. Damn Have to edit on the PC Ah that's better Keep it up Mick

Thank you Sjors That is indeed how it will be That lower deck is totally covered by upper decks so it would appear darker anyway so I will leave it so and the upper decks will be as the middle deck is Keep it up Mick

Hi Sjors Yes you certainly know yourself even if it's 3 layers down Anyway the first job today was to finish off the lifeboat It's really annoying on the photo as the paint looks nice and smooth when you pick it up and look Almost makes we want to clean it all up and paint again but we all know how difficult that would be on something so small and delicate Now the lower decks I finished the planking and rubbed in some beeswax I was amazed, there must have been some sort of tint in the wax It didn't look like it until you rubbed it in Anyway that will be the lower deck so it will be dark anyway The second deck needed supports so these went on next Simple planks glued to the frame I then dry fitted the decks They did not line up perfectly as you can see but slight pressure bought the hatch sides into line so they would be fine I wanted a strip pf caulking down between the two halves of the deck As you can see I glued a length of the thread to the edge of the deck and the first row of planks Hopefully that should work well So I planked the decks and rubbed in some different beeswax that I hoped had no tint in it I think they turned out quite nice I have never been one for bright wood I like a bit of texture to it and I think this wax gave it just enough Two more decks to fit and then the building starts Just remember Mick GET IT RIGHT FIRST TIME!!!!!!!!! Keep it up Mick

I can only keep saying the same words Great work Lovely build Astounding It really is nice though Grant It's a little similar to mine only there is nowhere for a sail so whether it was purely a row boat It has 10 thole pins so I am making 10 oars for it Keep it up Mick