Greg M

I'm very excited about joining this project and realize I'm a bit of a Johnny come lately here, but will do my best to catch up without rushing. Ordered up the plans today, which have already shipped and should arrive Wednesday. Ordered 12 sheets of 1/4"x12x24 Plywood which should arrive on Thursday. Bought plenty of extra plywood and ordered 3 copies of the false keel, so plenty of room for mistakes. The last major task for this week is to find a nice scroll saw. I had a cheap variable speed years ago that slowly ramped up the speed to max the longer it was used, so I never got very good with it. Time to hit the reset button. I'm going to use this as an opportunity to start milling my own strips as well, but will hold off on that for a little bit. It's probably going to take a couple weeks before I really get going as I work through my current build, so targeting late September for having the bulkheads assembled and faired.

I bought a Phantom kit quite a few years ago; the parts sheet is dated 2004. Just getting back into the hobby after quite a few years away, I figured it would be a pretty quick build to brush the rust off and Chuck’s practicum takes away a lot of the guess-work/analyses paralysis. I didn’t start taking pictures until yesterday when I started coppering the hull, but I’ll start taking them more frequently going forward. This is where I was when I decided to start the log yesterday. I had a roll of 3/16" copper that I bought many years ago that was cut into 1/2" lengths. Perhaps a little oversized, but I overlapped and didn't want to lose motivation so early into the project. My first attempt ever at coppering; all of my previous models have been painted below the waterline. One of the biggest problems I have always struggled with is asymmetric waterlines. I realized after 4 rows of copper that if I progressively applied the copper, I could see any asymmetry immediately as it developed and correct. A weekend well spent of applying several hundred very small pieces of copper to a piece of wood. The copper is about an 1/8" high between stations 6-8, but I'm fighting the urge to shave it or redo the copper. My hope is by this time next week to have the deck, waterways, scuppers, rudder, etc installed. Just have to wait to see what the week brings.

Thank You all for the warm welcome back. It's nice to see the amount of names I recognize. Great idea on the pictures of the Phantom. I'm still early enough (halfway through coppering the hull) that not too much progress hasn't been captured. I'll start a build log tomorrow.

Hello everyone. I was a pretty active member on the old MSW about 10-12 years ago, during my younger single days, but somewhere in getting married and kids I drifted away from the hobby. I had been working towards learning the skills of a true POF with my last build being The Lively. During the current lockdown and the boredom that comes with it, I had the sudden urge a couple weeks ago to try something new (again) and pulled out my old tools and kits and have started in on the Model Shipways Phantom figuring it would take a little bit for the skills to come back, it's not too daunting. A quick google search every time I was trying to remember a technique kept taking me here, so joining NRG and this forum was a no brainer. Looking forward to taking the time to see everything I've missed and continuing to learn. I keep finding myself being drawn to The Winchelsea group build, so already starting to think that may be where I head to next.