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JC Harrison London 'Harpalyce' based on the entrance to the Royal Docks 
w/c 16.5" X 11.5"

@Wintergreen
@jdbondy
@mtaylor
 
Hello,
thank you for your interest and the nice comments and also thank you to the others, also for the many LIKES.
 
Here I continue with my report:
Ratlines for the topmast shrouds - Enflechures
Long enough I shied away from attaching the ratlines to the topmast shrouds, also aware that this requires extremely sensitive precision work. 
The ratlines for the topmast shrouds of the La Créole had a smaller diameter than those of the lower shrouds, so these have ø 0.25 mm in model scale. Some time ago I made a successful attempt to attach these thin ratlines to the outer shrouds by means of eyes. The formation of the corresponding eyes was done by a simple splice or fake splice.
I also reported that for this difficult work in the rigging an adapted working height is very advantageous. Accordingly, I got myself a scissor lift in order to obtain the optimum working height steplessly.
Who doesn't know the strain of maintaining a steady hand when doing detailed work in the rigging. A flexible support option close to the position to be worked on would certainly be a great help. With this in mind, briefly searched for suitable material for implementation and set to work. 
In addition, besides the storage facility for rigging tools etc., appropriate lighting was also installed, which brings even more advantages for working in the rigging.
In retrospect, I am very glad to have built this simple auxiliary device. It facilitates this work immensely. It is easy to adapt to new situations.

 
Now back to the actual topic, the ratlines of the topmast shrouds. I started with the mizzen topmast to see if it is at all feasible in the intended form. The further up you go in the direction of the crosstrees, the smaller the distance between the shrouds, which ultimately means less and less space for the simple splice. In the end, I achieved it. In this respect, the way is now clear for the remaining ratlines.

 

  
The last picture should give an impression of the different thicknesses of the ratlines. 

 
See you soon ...
 

HMS King Sol ASW Trawler hard worked little ship. Returned to owners post WW2 Scraped 1961.
watercolour 11" X 8"

Good morning.

In addition to the Phantom and Wanderer listed below I also have a steel model kit of the Game of Thrones Red Keep by Metal Earth.  Of course I still have the U.S.S.  Constitution in dry dock waiting to be repaired. 😢

In addition to the Phantom and Wanderer listed below I also have a steel model kit of the Game of Thrones Red Keep by Metal Earth.  Of course I still have the U.S.S.  Constitution in dry dock waiting to be repaired. 😢

In addition to the Phantom and Wanderer listed below I also have a steel model kit of the Game of Thrones Red Keep by Metal Earth.  Of course I still have the U.S.S.  Constitution in dry dock waiting to be repaired. 😢

In addition to the Phantom and Wanderer listed below I also have a steel model kit of the Game of Thrones Red Keep by Metal Earth.  Of course I still have the U.S.S.  Constitution in dry dock waiting to be repaired. 😢

Just for a change, a wee pencil drawing this afternoon. 'Baron Scott' 11” X 8”

Continuation:  War pennant (flamme de guerre)
I continued with the making of the flags and the long pennant for the La Créole. 
  
  
The following picture thus shows the finished flags and the flamme de guerre with indication of the original sizes.

   
In the next two pictures, the war pennant can be seen again on the model, especially the detail on the flag button with the flag line sheared through and the pennant wood. 

 

 
I provisionally sheared the flag line of the large flag at the gaff through the iron single block at the nock.For the detail to attach the flag line to the eye of the boltrope, I used a toggle as in the original. 

Source: Wictionary
 

 
However, the final assembly of the flags and the long pennant will be done just before the model is completed, as this fine silk fabric is not very durable.
So until then, off it goes into the "evidence room" with the other "suspects" until the final installation.
 
 
To be continued ...

PS: Macro shots are merciless ...
 

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally time to install the two-piece finish decking panels which required quite a bit of fiddly trimming to slip under the waterways and line up at the center-line. I test fit the two panels several times, both to make sure they fit properly and to practice my clamping procedure. That’s due to the fact that the white carpenters glue that I have, only has about a five minute window before the pieces can no longer be re-positioned.
    The port side was done first. Since the hawse pipe fitting for the anchor was made in two separate pieces (One through the bow and one through the deck.) the anchor chain had to be threaded through both of them before the deck could be attached. (Actually I darn near forgot about that myself!)

 
    Once it was threaded through, I tied a thread to both ends to keep it from pulling itself out later when I wouldn’t be able to access the pipes. The glue was spread quite liberally on the false deck to help give me a little extra time for the glue to set.  The deck panel was slipped into place,  the lighting wire ends were pulled through the holes for the deck house lighting, and was especially careful not to knock off the hawse pipe fitting attached to the underside of the finish deck panel.

 
    Several scraps of 1/32” basswood were wedged into the gap between the upper waterway and the finish deck to apply pressure around the perimeter. (As shown here on the starboard side.)

 
    This gap will later be filled by the beveled lower waterway. After that, numerous rubber bands were stretched across the hull with short blocks of wood slipped under them to apply even pressure along the carefully positioned center of the deck as shown below.

 
    The ship was then given two days for the glue to set and I removed all the clamps and wedges to examine the results shown below.

 
    To my dismay, when testing the fit of the starboard side deck sheet I discovered that there was an uneven gap along the center line stretching from the main hatch to the stern. By inserting an Allen wrench into the wiring hole as shown below and pulling toward the center-line I found that I could close up most of the gap.

 

 
    So in addition to using wedges along the perimeter, rubber bands with the wood blocks to hold down the starboard side deck along the center, I also had to apply some sideways pressure toward the center-line to close up the gap. So my hands were full, to say the least, trying to get everything done before the glue set.

 
    After letting the glue set again for two days, all the clamps and wedges were once again removed to reveal that although most of the gap was gone, a thin tapered gap still remained!  I sliced some tapered wedges from a sheet of decking and after numerous attempts of fitting, sanding, and refitting, I finally ended up with this barely noticeable filler.

 
    Luckily, I think most of the filler will be hidden by deck structures. I think that my next feature to work on will be the beveled lower waterway once I work out how to accomplish it. Making more templates seems to be the way to go as there will have to be several gaps left for the scuppers. I think the material shall be maple rather than basswood as it will more resistant to denting when it is pushed into place. As I work out the details, I will switch over to my somewhat neglected Phantom for a bit.
    At any rate this is the current status of the Wanderer.

 

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally time to install the two-piece finish decking panels which required quite a bit of fiddly trimming to slip under the waterways and line up at the center-line. I test fit the two panels several times, both to make sure they fit properly and to practice my clamping procedure. That’s due to the fact that the white carpenters glue that I have, only has about a five minute window before the pieces can no longer be re-positioned.
    The port side was done first. Since the hawse pipe fitting for the anchor was made in two separate pieces (One through the bow and one through the deck.) the anchor chain had to be threaded through both of them before the deck could be attached. (Actually I darn near forgot about that myself!)

 
    Once it was threaded through, I tied a thread to both ends to keep it from pulling itself out later when I wouldn’t be able to access the pipes. The glue was spread quite liberally on the false deck to help give me a little extra time for the glue to set.  The deck panel was slipped into place,  the lighting wire ends were pulled through the holes for the deck house lighting, and was especially careful not to knock off the hawse pipe fitting attached to the underside of the finish deck panel.

 
    Several scraps of 1/32” basswood were wedged into the gap between the upper waterway and the finish deck to apply pressure around the perimeter. (As shown here on the starboard side.)

 
    This gap will later be filled by the beveled lower waterway. After that, numerous rubber bands were stretched across the hull with short blocks of wood slipped under them to apply even pressure along the carefully positioned center of the deck as shown below.

 
    The ship was then given two days for the glue to set and I removed all the clamps and wedges to examine the results shown below.

 
    To my dismay, when testing the fit of the starboard side deck sheet I discovered that there was an uneven gap along the center line stretching from the main hatch to the stern. By inserting an Allen wrench into the wiring hole as shown below and pulling toward the center-line I found that I could close up most of the gap.

 

 
    So in addition to using wedges along the perimeter, rubber bands with the wood blocks to hold down the starboard side deck along the center, I also had to apply some sideways pressure toward the center-line to close up the gap. So my hands were full, to say the least, trying to get everything done before the glue set.

 
    After letting the glue set again for two days, all the clamps and wedges were once again removed to reveal that although most of the gap was gone, a thin tapered gap still remained!  I sliced some tapered wedges from a sheet of decking and after numerous attempts of fitting, sanding, and refitting, I finally ended up with this barely noticeable filler.

 
    Luckily, I think most of the filler will be hidden by deck structures. I think that my next feature to work on will be the beveled lower waterway once I work out how to accomplish it. Making more templates seems to be the way to go as there will have to be several gaps left for the scuppers. I think the material shall be maple rather than basswood as it will more resistant to denting when it is pushed into place. As I work out the details, I will switch over to my somewhat neglected Phantom for a bit.
    At any rate this is the current status of the Wanderer.

 

Been away from my build (and the log) for a while now for many reasons, but I finally made a bit more progress by making the cavels.
Contrary to actual photos of the ship, both the A.J. Fisher plans and the Aurora kit indicated double timber or iron mooring bits mounted on the deck as shown below.

 

 
As a matter of fact, of all of the whalers of that era that I was able to examine, I couldn’t find any with this feature!
In truth, the photos actually indicated that mooring lines passed through round mooring ports and were tied off to wood cavels mounted on pairs of stanchions. Here is a detail sketch of the cavels below.
    I decided to model the arrangement of the cavels similar to those on the Charles W. Morgan. Two of these mooring ports passed through the outer hull, the solid blocking between stanchions and through the cavels. The other four just passed through the outer hull and were tied off to cavels on adjoining pairs of stanchions.
    Although Aurora had all six of these mooring line ports correctly located in the plastic bulwarks, they were also grossly over sized (nearly the full height of the bulwark) as shown below.  So the hawse lips on the outside surface of the hull had to be filed off flat, the holes filled in with plastic putty and sanded smooth in preparation to resizing them to match the size of the holes in the cavels and align with them.

 

 
These cavels were cut from some 1/32” thick hard maple ripped down to 5/64” wide. I nixed using basswood for these due to the fact that the two with hawse holes required drilling a hole nearly the entire width of the cavel and I envisioned problems with splitting them. (In fact, even with the hard maple, several of them did just that.)
    First, I held the strip directly up against the stanchions and marked the distance from the outside edges of the paired stanchions directly onto the strip leaving a bit extra for the horns.
    Second, a set of dividers was used to mark a consistent extension horn length and the cavels were cut and filed to their finished length. I found the horn ends themselves to be difficult to shape with any consistency until finally, I clamped the cavels at the bottom of my machinist vise with the end exposed just beyond the notch to line up the top and bottom of the cut vertically. Then by using a three sided mini file with one face riding flat on the edge of the vise, I filed the top edge of the cavel down until the bevel just touched the end of the horn.

 
    Then, with the piece still clamped in the vise, I filed the bottom edge until it also just touched the end to match.
 
 
    Once each end was done, it was flipped end for end in the vise and done similarly. Naturally, I cut several extras just in case any of them split. True, the angled end was a bit shorter than in the photos, but at least now the ends all matched each other.
The two cavels that needed the mooring port holes drilled through them were tackled next. Some solid basswood blocking to fit between the stanchions was cut and glued to the backside of those cavels. I marked the location of the holes in the center and brushed the face of the pieces with poly and let them dry before actually drilling the holes to help prevent them from splitting, since the holes were nearly the same width as the cavels. Drilling a small pilot hole with a pin vise, I gradually increased the hole to the inside diameter of the hawse pipe lips.
Once all of the cavels were all completed, I made this jig below from scraps to hold them in position 1/64” above the upper waterway while gluing them into place.

 
    Making those tiny mooring pipe lips maybe beyond my skill, but later on, after applying the self-adhesive backed wood-grain tape on the outer hull, I will attempt to see if I can form some new lips for the inside and outside lips. For now, I’ll simply leave the holes.
    Right now I needed to find a way to align those holes in the cavels with the holes passing through the blocking and the plastic hull, because I didn’t have enough room to get a regular drill in place between the bulwarks. This was eventually solved by using a much smaller drill bit mounted in this micro drill chuck that can handle up to a #61 bit and closes to 0. It’s perfect for getting into those tight spots.
    I simply laid the drill bit flat with the bottom of the hole in the cavel and drilled it by hand until the bit emerged on the outside of the hull. This gave me the position of the lower edge of the hole on the outside and by allowing for the size of the new bit, I was able to enlarge the hole to align with the hole in the cavel.
    Now that the cavels are installed, the insides of the bulwarks were given the final coat of white paint and all of the masking was removed.

My strategy for gluing down the finish decking is to use 1/32” thick scraps of basswood (the beveled waterway thickness) as wedges to hold down the edge of the decking while clamping down the center of the decks with blocks of wood on the deck and rubber bands around the entire hull.  Since this will be a somewhat time consuming procedure I will be switching to some Elmer’s white glue that requires a longer cure time. 
    This requires the top edge of the false deck to have a gap of 1/16” below the waterway extension. (That’s 1/32” for the finish decking plus 1/32” for the beveled waterway.)  With a very sharp chisel I went all the way around the hull and carved the gap close to that required, and finished up with a sanding disc mounted in my Dremel tool.

 
    Once that was finished, I drilled those elongated holes in the finish deck for the anchor chain hawse pipe fittings and shimmed the fittings with 1/32” thick basswood so the top of the fitting was flush with the deck surface.  These were then secured with some thin CA.  Access holes for the LEDs in the deck houses were drilled and the opening for the skylight was cut.

                                                            
    Once the waterway extensions were installed, I used a pallet knife to fill the gap in the extension with some Elmer’s wood filler.
    The stanchions, made with 1/16” x 1/8” basswood, were tackled after the waterways were sanded smooth.  The basswood tends to finish rather fuzzy, so whenever I use these thin strips to make tiny repetitive parts, the first thing that I do is to lightly draw the whole strip between my fingers and a fine grit sanding stick.  Flipping the strip over to do all four faces this way doesn’t reduce the dimensions of the strip by much at all, it just takes off the fuzz and leaves me with a nice long handle to draw the strip.

                                                           
    Once the strip is smooth, one end of the strip is cut square, and it’s stood up vertically in place.  If any adjustment to the cut is required, like a back bevel or angle side to side, it’s adjusted with a medium grit sanding stick while using the excess as a handle. For these stanchions, I set up my Chop-It block with a sharp razor blade and set the stop just a bit overlong to the height of the bulwark, leaving the remaining to be sanded flush after placement. (Since the top of these stanchions must meet the bottom of the main cap so it can lie flat with no visible gap).

                                                           
    I determined that the center-to-center spacing of the stanchions was about four feet to scale.  Taking my original paper deck template and a compass set at this spacing, the locations were stepped off along the edges and marked.  The template was set in the waterway gap on one side and a stanchion was held in place above each mark and given a drop of CA glue to secure it.  This was repeated for the other side and finally the five stanchions at the stern transom were glued in place in the gaps left where the previous ones were removed.

                                                          
    On this ship there were a total of 44 stanchions visible, but this whole process only took about an hour to complete.  After the glue set overnight, the stanchion tops were all trimmed off.  Then after a bit of masking, my newly made - and as yet untested- spray booth will finally be utilized to spray the inside of the bulwarks white!  Here are  the trimmed stanchions in place.

                                                           

At first I thought about simply cutting the new hatch opening in the existing finish deck and patching the old hole, but unless the patch could replace the center of the deck from the trypots structure all the way back to the deck houses, the patch would be obvious.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough of the 1/32” deck planking with 1/8” wide deck boards remaining to do that.
    I did however, have two sheets of the 1/32” basswood decking with 3/32” wide planks, So I decided to use them.  While these planks are narrower than the ones on the lower deck, I don’t think that it will be all that noticeable. The trennel pattern needs to be slightly different, as each plank will show only one at each beam as opposed to the wider planking that had two, but the plank butt pattern will be the same.
    Taking the old finish decks and taping them onto the new sheets, the shape was traced onto the new sheets.  The new sheets were roughly cut with the scroll saw and finish shaped with my small belt sander as done before, but with the new hatch location cut out.  Next, the new decks were taken back to the drawing board and the butt and trennel pattern was applied.  Here is a photo comparison of the original plastic deck and the two wooden ones, showing just how far off the hatch location was.

                                                           
    Here is a closer view of the plank trennel pattern of the wood decks.

                                                           
    The silver lining in the extra work involved was that patching of the incorrect anchor chain openings in the deck, the holes for the bollards (which were never a feature of the ship), and the other erroneous holes would no longer be needed to be patched.
    The new finish decks were stained with Minwax light oak finish to match the old decks, given two coats of polyurethane and set aside to dry.
    Meanwhile two new sections of the false deck were cut and fit to replace the old sections that were no longer usable.  They were drilled and new trennels were used once again to glue them down.

                                                            
   Having set overnight, the stubs of the trennels were snipped off and the bulwark foil tape finish was removed in the areas where the new stanchions would be visible, since both their size and spacing were wrong.  (If anyone has any doubts about the effectiveness of the adhesive on the tape, rest assured that if the difficulty of removing them is any indication, they will stay put for a long time!)  
    I also felt that a little reinforcement for the decking at the chain hawse holes was needed, so I glued a hefty timber below the decking for that.  Then the trennel ends were all sanded flush to the deck.

 
     The anchor chain hawse pipe fittings were carefully removed from the old decking so I can use those holes drilled in the decking as guides for drilling matching holes in the new decks.

                                                     
 Taking strips of 3/64” square basswood, the waterway extension was added by shimming it in place and spot gluing it with CA glue.  Once they were held in place the shims were removed and I ran a continuous bead of CA on the entire run of the extension.  (Since the waterway will be painted white rather than stained, the CA discoloring of the extension was not a concern and the glue will allow the extension to become hardened.)

                                                          
    Applying the extension across the stern was the most difficult area to apply.  The angled stanchions were removed, but since the new ones will occupy the same spots, the tape was left as is.  I wasn’t happy with this first attempt with bending a single 3/64” stick, as it wasn’t wide enough to cover the edge of the deck when it was test fit. 

                                                           
    At first, an additional stick was added, but the joint was too obvious.  These were removed and replaced with this 3/64” x 1/8” strip scribed to fit as a 3/16” wide waterway.

                                                           
    Lastly, I replaced the white foil tape on the areas of the bulwarks that I had just removed in preparation to installing the new stanchions. 

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally time to install the two-piece finish decking panels which required quite a bit of fiddly trimming to slip under the waterways and line up at the center-line. I test fit the two panels several times, both to make sure they fit properly and to practice my clamping procedure. That’s due to the fact that the white carpenters glue that I have, only has about a five minute window before the pieces can no longer be re-positioned.
    The port side was done first. Since the hawse pipe fitting for the anchor was made in two separate pieces (One through the bow and one through the deck.) the anchor chain had to be threaded through both of them before the deck could be attached. (Actually I darn near forgot about that myself!)

 
    Once it was threaded through, I tied a thread to both ends to keep it from pulling itself out later when I wouldn’t be able to access the pipes. The glue was spread quite liberally on the false deck to help give me a little extra time for the glue to set.  The deck panel was slipped into place,  the lighting wire ends were pulled through the holes for the deck house lighting, and was especially careful not to knock off the hawse pipe fitting attached to the underside of the finish deck panel.

 
    Several scraps of 1/32” basswood were wedged into the gap between the upper waterway and the finish deck to apply pressure around the perimeter. (As shown here on the starboard side.)

 
    This gap will later be filled by the beveled lower waterway. After that, numerous rubber bands were stretched across the hull with short blocks of wood slipped under them to apply even pressure along the carefully positioned center of the deck as shown below.

 
    The ship was then given two days for the glue to set and I removed all the clamps and wedges to examine the results shown below.

 
    To my dismay, when testing the fit of the starboard side deck sheet I discovered that there was an uneven gap along the center line stretching from the main hatch to the stern. By inserting an Allen wrench into the wiring hole as shown below and pulling toward the center-line I found that I could close up most of the gap.

 

 
    So in addition to using wedges along the perimeter, rubber bands with the wood blocks to hold down the starboard side deck along the center, I also had to apply some sideways pressure toward the center-line to close up the gap. So my hands were full, to say the least, trying to get everything done before the glue set.

 
    After letting the glue set again for two days, all the clamps and wedges were once again removed to reveal that although most of the gap was gone, a thin tapered gap still remained!  I sliced some tapered wedges from a sheet of decking and after numerous attempts of fitting, sanding, and refitting, I finally ended up with this barely noticeable filler.

 
    Luckily, I think most of the filler will be hidden by deck structures. I think that my next feature to work on will be the beveled lower waterway once I work out how to accomplish it. Making more templates seems to be the way to go as there will have to be several gaps left for the scuppers. I think the material shall be maple rather than basswood as it will more resistant to denting when it is pushed into place. As I work out the details, I will switch over to my somewhat neglected Phantom for a bit.
    At any rate this is the current status of the Wanderer.

 

Good morning.

Coasters
Does this help?
 

Good day day,
 
Dear Bruma,
First, I would like to wish You Very Happy New Year!
Your building is going fantastic well !!! 
I follow your reports with great interest, thanks for posting!
there are a few pictures which could be useful ( artist Christopher Blossom)  with furled sails as You asked in one of your previous post ...
All The Best! 
Kirill

Thank you all for the kind comments and suggestions, I really appreciate all of them!
 
@Snug Harbor Johnny:
Thank you for the idea! It will surely come handy for my mizzen cro’jack: it will be furled. 
Talking about furled sails, if you or anybody else has some picture of real clipper-like sails furled, it will be really helpful. I’m struggling to find good pictures to use as reference. 
That being said, you mention:
 
 
 
Well, I quite like this detail! Here it is my attempt to replicate the jackstay on the main course yard:
 

So that I can also answer to a question posed by Rwiederrich:
 
 
Yes indeed! And I hope the wires are visible in the previous picture.
I really like all those little details, they reveal the incredibly complex nature of those sailing pieces of art.
 
 
 
Thank you for posting your masterpiece. I already know your creature, they were part of the inspiration that brought me to the Cutty Sark, and I really like the diorama idea! 
 
Update time:
Main mast stepped and the standing rigging (of the main mast) almost completed! 
 
Since the process is almost the same as the fore mast, I will just put some pictures! 
Just a side note: royal and skysail back stays are still missing, as are some fairleads. 
 
 


 

 

 

 
Before stepping the mast, I prepared the tackles for the main course yard lift. They are in a quite tricky and crowded location. This area will be a lot more crowded, but all the other tackles have to be fitted once the yards are in place. 
I hope the job is visible from this pictures:
 

 
Talking about crowded areas, the foot of the main mast is one of them and to make things even worse, the mainstay and the main topmast stay needs to find her way in this intricate forest…
I already tied them on the port side, but the line needs to go up to the main mast and come back to the fore mast, starboard side, tied to the eye bolts on deck. 
In doing so, they have to pass between the mast and the tackles (tree for each side, one for the lift, another one for the lower topsail sheet and the last one for topgallant sheet). 
Well, long story short, it was not so relaxing. But I’m glad I did it. 
The result is barely visible, but I know I did it, and that’s enough. 
Here you can see the mainstay and the relative cleat: 
 

 
And here the whole (I hope ordered) mess:
 
 

 

 

 

 
Well, that’s all for today's update, please critique and point out errors or anything you don’t like, I really appreciate all your feedback!
 

Commissioning or war pennant (flamme de guerre)
After I was able to clarify (details here LINK) how big the commissioning pennant of the French corvette was, the thought came about which material it should be made of. In order to transfer the lightness of the original pennants to scale, only fine silk fabric came into question for me, which I had to dye accordingly.


As in the original, I put the pennant together from three parts (tricolor). The pennant edges were carefully coated with white glue according to the template. After the glue had dried, the pennant parts could be cut out with a scalpel and glued together.


The silk used is a very filigree fabric and slightly shimmering through, which was also intended. Therefore a mishap happened when cutting the pennant. So the end of the pennant has become a little crooked. Nevertheless, I wanted to see how the long pennant looked on the model and then temporarily hoisted it for a picture on the main mast and am so far satisfied with the result.


Ultimately, I now know how to make the pennant and can get to the final and exact production. I'll use the same method to make the flags.
Up soon …

Well…………….perhaps I am being foolish, but I have decided that I can’t go on with the Wanderer being done incorrectly.  As that friend of mine that I began this build for has passed a while ago, it became my own project to complete.  To build it as shown on the plans and model kit, knowing that those inaccuracies are there would just continue to gnaw at me no end. 
    So now I’m looking at quite a lot of major surgery.  To get a look at how to move the hatch to the correct location, the majority of the false deck needed to be removed first.  Since the deck already had a break at beam #4, just ahead of the foremast, the job was already half done.   I figured that the second break should be on frame #11, just aft of the main mast.
    Using a cut off wheel in my Dremel and a #11 Exacto blade when near the waterways, I cut the second separation line.  Luckily for me, the false deck was merely pegged in place with wood trennels rather than being completely glued down.  So using my smallest brad pointed drill bit (so it wouldn’t wander) once again in the Dremel, I drilled through the false deck cutting off the end of the trennels.  There was a little glue that had spread around the trennels, but with a little gentle persuasion with a long thin flat metal bar, the sections were popped off.
    Here is a photo below of the results of this process so far. 
  
    Since the inner deck was suspended with four posts hanging from the beams above (see post #24), I’ll need to saw through those posts and more than likely make new ones to hold it in the new location.  Looking at it now, it appears that another small section of the false deck will need to be removed to get access to the bottom of beam #12 to rehang the assembly.
     As the bottom deck was glued to the plastic hull with CA glue, getting that loose may be futile, so I will probably just glue another layer of decking right on top of it.  Moving the hatch aft should also be entertaining as the main mast will have to pass through both of the lower decks!

At this point, I continued to work on the outer hull.  The vertical rub rails on the Aurora kit are misrepresented as solid lumps rather than the actual rails, which are shaped metal bars with spacers to hold them away from the hull. (The photo below clearly shows this.)

    Also there are not nearly enough of them as each pair of davits required two or three of them and the kit had only one.  Therefore those plastic lumps were also filed and sanded off and will be scratch built.
    Another feature that is shown different than the actual feature is the removable gangway section of the bulwark at the cut-in platform.  The kit indicates a pronounced pair of wood jambs that project well beyond the surface of the hull and above the cap rail as you can see below.

     Once again, that’s not an accurate representation as shown in this photo below.

     Very early on, I had decided to display the model with the gangway left open, so I cut it loose from the bulwark at that time.  Now, I also needed to remove those jambs, so a bit more surgery was required so I could once again improve the accuracy of my model.  In that photo, there also appears to be an additional layer of protective planking that I will be adding below the opening where the whale carcass would rub against the hull. 
    Assuming that the average shoe size back then was around 10 or 11 inches long, the photo also allowed me to get a good idea of the actual size of a lot of the details.  On the lower left of the photo it also shows the stud-link anchor chain running past the hatch apparently to the chain locker pipes just after the main mast.  (I have no exact location.)  That’s opposed to the chain pipes just behind the windlass as shown on both the Aurora model and the A.J. Fisher plans.  Another benefit of removing both the vertical rub rails and the gangway jambs is that it will make installing the vinyl tape planking easier with uninterrupted runs.  
    Further review of the photographs led me to make a few changes to the interior of the bulwarks.  One thing became readily apparent.  The stanchions are way too far apart, and while their width seems accurate, the depth should be thicker.  So once again I’ll need to go back to the drawing board and revise my original diagram for the bulwark that I drew up way back on 6/23/2018 in post #15.  Meanwhile I’ll remove the too thin stanchions that I’ve already changed once before.   

What‘s that saying about the best laid plans of mice and men?  Oh yeah.   I decided that the next step now had to be changed from painting the copper hull to installing the wooden deck.  Due to the manhandling of the hull that would be necessary while installing the decks, all of my masking now had to be removed.  Oh well, better than risking damage to the paint job.
    The false deck needed to be installed first, but clamping the false deck down presented quite a problem since it curved front to back and side to side at the same time and the bulwarks were in the way.  Because the glue needed to be spread out on all of the deck beams, by the time the glue was spread, there wouldn’t be enough time to set all the clamps before the glue set up.  So, rather than trying to glue the deck directly to the beams, I ended up pinning it down. (That’s where the ends of those tooth picks used for the pegs in the last posting got to be used up.)
    Taking the starboard side of the false deck in hand, I lined it up with the centerline of the ship and clamped it in place.  I put tic marks along the centerline to mark where the edges of the beams were located.  While the starboard side was still in place, the port side was fit in place and the tic marks were transferred to that side also.   I also cut small holes in the decks where the wires for the cabin lights would be located.

            
   At this time I needed to figure out how I was going to fit the finish deck in place with the hawse pipe fittings attached to the bottom side of the deck, since once the deck was attached I would no longer have access to the inside of the hull.  My solution called for separating the bow ends of the false deck from the remaining deck to make things easier to handle.  Once the bow ends were separated, a section of the false deck surrounding the pipes was cut free and the remaining bows false deck was cut just a bit bigger so that when the finish deck was attached it would allow some extra clearance.  I fit the pipe through both the hole in the false deck bow section and the bottom of the finish deck, and glued it in place with medium CA leaving the pipe flush with the top surface of the finish deck as shown below.
                                       
    The false decks were removed and the tic marks were extended across the top surfaces using my thin beam metal square that I picked up from Micro-Mark.  (Yes, I know their stuff is pricey, but they do carry some products that you can’t readily find anywhere else.)
    Starting with the port side deck, it was realigned and clamped in place.  The outer edge of the deck was fitted with pairs of 1/32” thick wedges set under the plastic waterway to force it down to the perimeter ledger and the tops of the beck beams. (That’s 1/32” for the finish deck and 1/32” for the additional wood waterway with scuppers shown way back on post # 15.)

                                                        
    In addition to the wedges, I used some small C-clamps wherever they could be set and used heavy weights to hold down the center of the deck.  (These small C-clamps were rather cheaply made and turned very hard.  Using this Slipstick dry lubricant on the threads helped quite a bit.)

                                                            
    Using a 3/32”” drill bit in my battery powered General screwdriver/drill, holes were drilled through the false deck into the beams below as shown on the layout that I had just drawn on the topside of the false deck. Drilling one hole at a time, working around my clamps and weights in two rows, I used the cut off ends of those toothpicks, dipped the end in carpenters’ wood glue, and pressed them into the holes (with those D batteries again) to pin down the deck. (A-la trennels.)  This section of the false deck was then set aside to cure overnight.  Removing the clamps and wedges, the ends of the pins were snipped off and sanded flush.

                                                            
    So now the starboard side of the false deck was clamped and installed similarly.

                                                         
    So here it is with both port and starboard false decks finished.

                                                          
    The two bow sections of the false deck were now done similarly.

                                                      
    The false deck is now complete.

                                                                                                                     

Surprisingly enough, the elevator tech showed up on the 9th as promised.  After about an hour of testing and adjusting the limit switches, it was ready to go again!!!  So now I was finally able to get a few things taken care of.
     The launching way ramp was glued into place on the display base with the anchoring bolts tightened down to help clamp it in place.

    Now the braces for the ways were begun by gluing the 3/32” x 1/4” basswood vertical braces up against the timber walls with carpenters glue.  (The concept was shown on a June 7, 2019 posting.)  Each one needed to be a different length, so it was all “cut to fit”, no mass production here. 
    I just held each brace momentarily in place for the glue to get tacky before setting the following one.  To keep the spacing more consistent, I cut this spacing block to go between.

Once all 32 vertical braces were installed, I gave them a good coating of Minwax light oak finish with a small brush.
     Now it was time to make the diagonal braces that were made with short pieces of 3/16” birch dowel. Unfortunately, each one of them was also a different length so more “cut to fit” was involved.  These were set at an angle of roughly 45 degrees. The bottom ends were set with carpenters glue into shallow depressions drilled in the base and the top ends were also glued and partially beveled to sit flat against the vertical braces.  On the top of each brace, a small depression was made with a very sharp F drafting pencil lead to represent a metal spike to secure them.  (Similar to my method of showing trennels made in the decking on my June 28, 2018 log entry.) Once all these diagonal braces were installed they were also stained in place.  Here are the ways shown below at this point.

    The bottom ends of all the diagonal braces were held in place with wooden pegs driven into the ground at an angle of roughly 45 degrees.  To make the pegs I clipped the pointed ends off of some round wood tooth picks and used the remaining center portion. (The pointed ends will be used later as trennels to hold down the false deck.)  One end was sanded smooth for the exposed end of the peg.  Using a steel center punch, I located the hole for the peg right up against the bottom of the diagonal braces and gave it a sharp rap with my hand as shown here.

    Once all of the impressions for locating the pegs were made I came back with a drill bit matching the diameter of the tooth picks and drilled about  a ½ “  deep hole  at a 45 degree angle.

    I laid out the pegs at the holes with the sanded ends set near the holes to speed things up a bit and keep me from putting the wrong end in the hole. 

    Now, production style, I installed the pegs one by one.  I bottomed out the sanded end of the peg in the hole, clipped it to length, removed the peg, dipped the clipped end in carpenters glue, and pushed that end of the peg back into the hole using a D sized battery. (Using the flat end of the battery gave me more control and caused less damage to the sanded ends of the pegs than using a hammer.)  I repeated this operation for all 32 pegs.  Once the pegs were installed they were all stained in place.

    So, the launching ways as shown below are complete except for the main hull braces which won’t be installed until the hull is in mounted on the stand.

    There are some more details to add yet, but they can wait until later.