Paul Le Wol

Keith, love the group picture. This is going to be a great looking presentation!

Glen, Big Country is a fine looking animal!

Thank you Jacques, I have been airbrushing them and then touching them up with a brush after they are installed. For some reason these two ended up being different colours. Thank you Glen, I appreciate your comments very much. Keith, thank you very much for your nice comments!

Hi Everyone, I hope you’re all ready for the holidays. Thank you so much for the Comments and Likes. I started making shackles with a jig that was made for a previous build. The vertical bit is a #59 and the horizontal bit is a #70. I think the vertical bit should have been a little smaller. The copper wire is 22 gauge. The shackle was slid onto a 1/32” piece of brass and squeezed flat. The end of a wire was squeezed flat to make it appear to be a thumb screw and soldered to the shackle. I’m not sure of how many shackles, rings, and turnbuckles were used on these boats as opposed to other types so I’m just going with the minimum amount. The blocks mounted on the gaffs for the peak halliards were seized to a loop of rope and the ends of the rope were threaded through a hole that was drilled in the gaffs. The rope was long enough to be able to loop the block around the end of the gaff although it could have been threaded through the hole in the opposite direction. CA was applied at each end of the hole. The gaffs were mounted and rigged. The windlass was finished using some spare parts from Cheerful. It’s kind of rudimentary but I ran out of spare parts. Right now I’m tying off and trimming excess rope and planning the fences that run each side of the cabin. Have a great Christmas and New Year’s.

Congratulations Jacques on the completion of your Canoa de Rancho. This has been a most enjoyable build!

Beautiful rope and sail work Jacques!

Congratulations Chris on completing a wonderful model! I look forward to seeing your New Year project

Thank you very much Tim. Building this model was a very enjoyable experience and Chuck’s excellent monograph was of immense help to me. There’s something about Cutters that you have to love!

Hi Tim, thank you. Chuck has a Rope and Block list as part of Cheerful’s monograph. I picked up whatever was on that list. They are very nice. They just needed a bit of material removed where the rope enters and exits around the sheave. From looking on the Syren website the new ones look even more nice. Good luck with your Speedy. She looks amazing!

Hi Tim, the blocks look great. It’s nice the way the rope runs around the sheave. Did you have to shape them at all?

Hi Jacques, your Chilota is coming along very nicely. In post #32 the second photo shows that one of the deck planks looks somewhat wider than the others. Do you think that is a structural thing?

‘Thank you Gary. I appreciate your Comments very much!

Rick, John, Keith, and Al. Thank you so much for your great Comments!

Thank you Rick. I really appreciate your comment!

Hi Everyone, wishing you all well. Thank you all for the Comments and Likes. This build seems to be coming together quickly. This update consists of a bunch of little things. The first thing that I wanted to do was to tie off the standing ends of the lazy jacks to the foremast. Too many ropes and not enough cleats. The ropes were marked where they pass the center of the cleats and tied together on the marks. The pairs of ropes on each side of the mast were then pulled down and hooked under the cleats Rope coils should hide this indiscretion. The stove pipe on the cabin roof is made from excess parts of carrier sheets and a thumb tack. After priming, the parts that are supposed to be made of metal were painted with Vallejo Steel Grey. The dredge rollers are made from aluminum tubes telescoping from 1/8” down to 1/16” with #22 wire acting as an axle. The rudder was glued into place with CA and the main sheet horse was also attached with CA. And finally the main boom was mounted. A piece of #22 wire is used for a pin to secure it to the mast. The lazy jacks were threaded onto the boom first. Once again the rope is allowed the settle into place. The gaffs will be next. Hope to see you then!