ibozev

A lot of sanding these days 😅. I am happy that I bought OcCre's sanders, especially the curved one - it was much easier to do the job on the stern. I totally recommend these tools to other beginners like me!

Thanks! 😁

The deck is sealed. I used OcCre's Satin Varnish and a brush. Although it dried very quickly I decided to glue the deck to the false keel on the other day, just to be sure the varnish is completely dry. Mounting the deck was a bit tricky, that's why I called a friend for some help 😄. I think we did a great job and happily we also managed to straighten the spine! I used OcCre's White Glue and a standard super glue just for fixing the deck on place. The reinforcements were also glued.

Quick update from today. After I spent almost a day reading about the different deck patterns (actually I didn't like the one from the instructions), finally I've managed to made my deck. I am really happy with the final result: P.S. I've used 3 butt pattern (1 - 4 - 2 - 3) with 12cm planks and 3cm distance between the beams. Here is a link to very useful topic:

Hello all and thanks for your advice! Here is the progress from today and yesterday: First of all I drawn straight lines on the underside of the deck, as BikerMart suggested: Then sanded the stern and tried to place the deck on the false keel just to check if the bend probably will be fixed after gluing. And this is the result. I can say that I am hopeful. 🙂 Then I sanded all of the planks needed for the deck and began with the caulking. For this purpose I used 7B pencil - the softest and darkest I've found in the bookstore: I decided to follow the instructions (about this part) and chose to use contact cement for the deck, although many people wrote that PVA is the better solution. This is the result before sanding and trimming the excess: And this is the final result (before varnishing and marking the deck pattern):

Hello Joachim and thanks for your reply! Is there any way to straighten the spine at this phase? I saw in other logs that this is a common issue with this kit. My thoughts are that when the deck is completely attached and fixed with CA in the corners (points between deck and bulkheads), the spine will be straight.

Hello everyone and greetings from Bulgaria! 🙂 I'm really happy to be part of this huge community and for me will be a pleasure to share with you my first ever build log. Actually, I am a total beginner in this new hobby and I don't now anything about ships terminology and building techniques. In the past I've solved a lot of jigsaw puzzles (one of my other hobbies), LEGO and UGears kits, but I think it's time for something more difficult and time consuming. This new journey will be very challenging, but also interesting for me. Surely I will learn many new things and hope this won't be my first and last ship model. But enough talking about me, let's go to the actual build log: Initially I was decided to buy something huge and more difficult, with many sails and ropes, but after several days of research I found this great forum and read a few of the beginner topics. Now I am supper happy that I didn't make such a stupid mistake to buy an impossible (for me) ship model kit. So I chose the OcCre's beginner kit - Polaris. As I mentioned I am a total beginner, that's why I ordered bunch of tools with the kit (hope that's almost everything I need for the build). After I've sorted all of the wooden parts and I've started assembling the bulkheads to the false keel. One thing that I noticed during sanding, is that the false keel is a little bend. Maybe this won't be noticeable after the deck is mounted? For this reason I used two big clamps to keep the false keel straight when gluing the bulkheads: To keep the bulkheads in 90 degrees angle I used small metal plates (I saw this technique in another Polaris log). I could say this method was very helpful, because it wasn't necessary to hold each part with hands till the glue is completely dry: And this is the final result, again you can see the slight bend of the false keel: Next will be the decking. I plan to start it in the coming days. Unfortunately I don't have enough time to build after work and most of the progress will be done during weekends. But anyway, it's more important to me to build it well, rather than fast. 🙂