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DB789

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  1. Continued slow progress - life very busy, especially kids been at home all day during the school holidays limiting time available for boat building. Masts stepped - only main mast glued at this point. Main and mizzen sails added. Shrouds and deadeyes to add next, hopefully get the main shrouds rigged this evening. Nice present from my wife for Christmas! Ranger, the sixth and last of the Vanguard fishers. I look forward to building her. She looks to be just as excellent and high quality a kit as the other fishing boats. I am undecided whether to build Ranger or Vanguard’s Alert next. I have both kits. Part of me wants to complete the fishing boat fleet, on the other hand, I’ve built five fishers in ten months and maybe a change would be fun - Alert would certainly be more challenging.
  2. Craigie, I’ll get some of those too. Glenn, I have reverse action tweezers too and like you struggled with the rigging to the belaying pins on this boat. Glad to know that this one’s rigging is actually a little tricky and that the rigging of bigger models is not necessarily harder. Thank you both.
  3. Hi Craigie, sorry to hijack the thread, but I don’t have rigging tools. I’ve had a quick look on CMB - please could you let me know what set you went for as I’ll get the same. Just about to rig Erycina, sails dyed, spars ready, rigging next. Many thanks Dan
  4. Looking great Glenn. I had exactly the same difficulties belaying some of the rigging to the belaying pins just behind the mast and below the shrouds. I didn’t mention it as it seemed a bit feeble compared the the intricacies of rigging on most of the models on MSW! It’s one of the reasons I found this one a little harder than any others in Vanguard’s excellent fishing boat range.
  5. Life has been busy, so slow progress on Erycina. I’m also deliberately spinning this build out so I have something to build over Christmas, with the in-laws staying, and not a brand new project. The deck furniture is now complete and the masts in position but not glued. Bowsprit is glued. The lines of this fishing trawler are rather lovely. Onto the rest of the spars next. Plus I still need to add the decals on the sides tomorrow.
  6. She’s looking great Glenn. I found the planking on this boat harder than all the other Vanguard fishing boats, except the Zulu with her raked stern post (and I’ve yet to build Ranger). Luckily I think I just about got away with the bare wood above the waterline without filling (although plenty below). Probably wouldn’t have met the exacting standards of the more experienced builders on here, but I was happy. I really look forward to seeing the colour scheme - she’ll look very different. How will you paint the etched lettering on the stern? I struggled with that.
  7. Jonathan, That is impressively organised. I wish I had the patience to be so thorough… I’m hooked on the Vanguard fishers too, my fifth, Erycina, is mostly built now and nearly ready to be masted and rigged. Fifie, Nisha and Zulu were also my first three fishers (and builds). I thought Zulu was a really enjoyable build and fairly straightforward, biggest challenges I had as a near beginner were planking to that raked sternpost and getting a suitable waterline on her. Enjoy! Dan
  8. Timberheads being added. I’ve decided to go for the contrast look with wood timberheads against a green bulwark. It looked good on Nisha so I’ve duplicated the look! Then railings added. The side railings are too long and needed to be sanded shorter to get the transom railing in the right place. Also added some PE eyelets, lots more fittings to follow tomorrow, waiting for the black paint to dry on the PE. The wood, including deck have been liberally treated with Danish oil to make them a bit darker. It’s still a little wet here in the photos so may lighten as it dries.
  9. Next apply masking tape ready for the black hull. I’m using Chaos Black for the hull, same as I used on Nisha and the Zulu. This is a lovely paint that sits really well on the hull. But it does chip easily as I experienced on those two builds. The black goes on beautifully, but the green bulwark has already got tatty from extra sanding, paint leakage and the masking tape. Easily touched up. Then the deck, aft companionway steps and two of the three chimneys are fitted. All are straightforward. Next apply some gloss varnish to where decals will go and once dry apply the stern decal. Then fit the outer stern counter. Then the rubbing strakes / go faster stripe are fitted. I’ve painted these white and they are a little more prominent than I expected. I’ve been using Tamiya Flat black acrylic to tidy up chips in the black paint, but it’s not a good match so I l’ll redo with the Humbrol enamel black tomorrow instead.
  10. She looks super Glenn. Thanks for the detailed log. I’m following with my Erycina build a bit behind and this is really useful.
  11. Settled for a fully painted hull. Red oxide below the waterline, black above with the green bulwark. So smothered the hull with filler to fill any small gaps and even out any low spots. For this I used a mixture of Ronseal filler and titebond glue. I usually use a white plastic based filler which is quite soft and is sub-optimal often sanding out of the cracks again when you later sand the hull. This new filler is very strong and hard and applying it everywhere was a huge mistake. It set rock hard and I’ve been sanding like crazy to remove it. It is much harder than the wood so it’s quite hard to sand in raised bits of filler without eroding all the wood! Eventually I got close to a smooth finish and applied masking tape to the green bulwarks and painted all the hull below the bulwarks with the red oxide primer (it’s the undercoat for the black above the waterline too). Then filled any remaining small gaps and sanded hard again to improve the finish. I assembled the rudder and painted this too. That’s enough sanding. Added the rudder hinges / pintles to the hull then a final coat of paint. Rudder attached but not glued. The end finish is OK with a few small line showing faintly - which I want to show this is planked not pre-formed. In a few spots the filler is still raised and just visible on very close inspection (see above) through the paint. I’m going to leave these as the wood around them is likely quite thin now and I don’t want to sand through. Need to add the waterline and mask for the black paint next. Not sure I’ll use that filler combination again except very sparingly - it’s a much better filler but poses additional challenges!
  12. Bulwarks painted matt green (Tamiya XF-5) inside and out. Needed a couple of coats. The etching for timberhead positions is still clearly visible through the paint. Tamiya masking tape is very good and delivers a clean line. Tiny bit of paint bleeding on the port side, but can easily be cleaned up and will be hidden by the rubbing strake. Once the paint is dry I can make a start on the timberheads.
  13. The bulkhead ears were twisted off and removed. The etched deck for Erycina came with more laser char marks than normal but could be easily cleaned off with some very fine sandpaper. The dust clogged up some of the laser etching so I ran a scalpel along all of the lines to clear them. Then I put a coat of Danish oil on the deck which made it a little darker. The deck fits very well, just need a little laser char removal at the edges to fit perfectly. I haven’t glued it yet as I’ll be painting the inner bulwarks. The varnish for the wipe-on poly came early and having applied it using Glennard’s 50:50 recipe of varnish to white spirit the pear wood does look super.
  14. I’ve been doing some research to help educate what colour scheme to choose. There’s four photos I could find of Erycina. I suspect that most of these were taken towards the end of her life (1930s) when photography was more prevalent. It’s clear that she had a painted hull by that point in her life. Unlike most photos of smacks her anti-fouling paint is much higher on her hull than her waterline. It’s possible (likely?) that this wasn’t the case when she was built and more likely that this was done to provide some additional protection to her wood later during her long, 50 year plus working life. There is a lightly coloured rubbing strake under the upper bulwark but it’s much slighter than the one in the kit. I have been going through Marsh’s Sailing Trawlers again. As far as I can tell from the B&W photos, most smacks seemed to have had dark painted bulwarks and hull above the waterline. Below is a Plymouth ketch (not Erycina) and a Brixham ketch, both seem to be painted a dark colour. Sometimes there’s a clear tonal difference between the bulwark and rest of the hull, suggesting a different colour (see below, another Brixham boat). Some of the Brixham boats had the hull below the bulwark a paler colour, including Ibex, Erycina’s main racing rival, and other boats from Upham’s yard in Brixham. It’s hard to tell, but to me the paler lower hulls look to be painted not varnished wood. Nisha was a Brixham boat built at Upham’s so the kit’s colour scheme could be suitable for her, but Erycina was a Plymouth boat. None of the photos show these boats having a white “bootstrap” line between the lower hull and the anti-fouling paint. On the basis of this research I’m erring towards a green bulwark as per the kit, with a white rubbing strake and a black hull below that down to the waterline where I won’t have a white “bootstrap” before the red oxide anti-fouling paint.
  15. Craigie, she’s looking stunning, be a pity if you didn’t finish her. I really like your colour scheme.
  16. Life has been busy, but I’ve finished the second planking. Starboard side planked below. Note, I’ve broken the middle section of the rear transom - I’ll add it back later. Both sides complete. The planking is tidy above the waterline but will need some fuller and sanding to fill a few small gaps below the waterline. As is typically the case with my planking, there’s stealers and slivers below the waterline too. I don’t mind too much what goes on down there as it will all be painted. I still haven’t decided what to do for the paint scheme. I’ve some Ronseal polyeurethane varnish as recommended by Glennard to make some wipe-on poly arriving on Monday. I’ll see how good the wood looks with that applied before making a final decision.
  17. Glenn, thanks for sharing that. It will be a real help to me and looks an easier way of seizing than I’ve been doing up until now. I’ve bought a quad hands on your recommendation and it was excellent to use on Saucy Jack. Your Erycina is looking super. Mine is still in the second planking phase.
  18. First planking sanded and filled. It’s very smooth to the touch, much smoother than it looks in the photos. Outer keel, stem and sternpost glued and clamped to dry. Stern counter was soaked in hot water for 30 mins. I thought that it had split but it’s just a mark on the wood. Then clamped on to dry overnight before being glued… …and sanded to shape on the sides. Starboard outer bulwark glued in place. Port outer bulwark glued and being held by clamps. As others have mentioned and similar to Nisha the holes at the bow don’t line up up between inner and outer bulwarks. It’s a rare occasion that Vanguard’s models don’t fit together perfectly, but it is very easily resolved. I’ll start the second planking in a few days!
  19. Hi Max, thanks. It’s mainly Vanguard - the kits are so high quality and a pleasure to build. They’ve been a fantastic introduction to building model boats for me. I had no interest in British working boats before starting to build these… but it’s amazing how beautiful these old trawlers were. Erycina which is my current build has stunning lines and reminds me more of a racing yacht.
  20. Hi Max, I’ve just finished building Saucy Jack, she’s a super boat to build and the end model looks lovely. My build log is below, hope it’s useful. I strongly recommend James H’s build log of the prototype as well. Good luck, looking good so far. Dan
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