Mike_H

First planking started and finished. And oh-boy did I learn a lot.

1. Soak or heat the strips.  I used an Amati nipper, and frankly, don't.
2. The pins are only temporary, so you need to pull them out.  For that reason don't use cyano glue (only did it a couple of times, no idea why)
3. Don't taper the strips to anything like a point.  I've since read some very old advice on what to do - let's see how it works on the next project - if it does, I'll share.
4. Do fill the gaps and then sand, sand and sand 

Here's a close-up of the transom with one degree of remedy.  It's rotated a small amount about both a vertical and a horizontal axis.  The vertical-axis rotation is remedied by a thin layer of filler.  The horizontal means the that the top of the transom is not quite horizontal when the boat is on an even keel.  That just needs a bit of 60/120/180 grit sanding.

Strengtheners on.  And the misalignment of the transom discovered

Does that transom look square to you?  It's sat absolutely snug in its slot, but it's not 😒

Bulkheads are a nice tight fit.  Assembled them dry.  Disassembled and then assembled with PVA glue.  Plenty of use for a T-square.  Bought a pack of two glues - Speedbond PVA and Roket Max Cyanoacrylate.  The PVA bonded quickly (10 min) and was easy to work with.  The Cyano was an eye-opener as will become apparent.

And so it begins.  Nice simple (false) keel, laser cut from ply.  Never occurred to me to sand off the char.  Correctly, at this point, I think. The keel is clamped to a Hobbyzone Small Building Slip, which worked pretty well.

Technically this is not a build log - since I've built her!  But not having discovered this forum until about halfway through, I feel I've missed out, so I thought I'd post a few pics, point out what I got wrong, and just chat about how much fun I had.  Chat back if you like!

There is one complete build log on the forum for this boat - by @Rick01, and a few partial logs.  If you want to see the full evolution of the build have a look at Rick's log.

Hello!  Or G'day, or perhaps ey up! Probably not ahoy! Anyway, my lifelong interest in 18th and 19th C. naval history means my lovely daughters have been dragged through endless museums and across endless ships - the Victory three times, I think.  So perhaps a birthday present of an Artesania Latina kit should not have been a surprise - but it certainly was a delight.  A few months later and I am completely hooked - in fact it's finished, as I will explain, and I have dreadful withdrawal symptoms waiting for its successor to be delivered.

The AL kit in question was for Endeavour's Longboat, but I started it before I found this forum so didn't create a build log - I'll do something like that retrospectively, to point our how much I got wrong, how much I learned, and how delighted I am.  I'll do that in the build logs section for ease of finding.  I've just read a post in the New member Introductions saying essentially don't run before you can crawl.  And in that respect the Longboat is a great starting project.  It remains to be seen if crawling through that was enough to prepare me for jogging through Caldercraft's HMS Snake.  Time will tell - but you will see it on this forum.