Auger

Don’t let that photo fool you, he actually has it pretty good.

Meet Vladimir and his spiritual advisor Eric. He’s been confined to the hospital tank because each time I introduce him to the other tanks, he attacks the other fish.
 

Wow, I like the effect of the light through the ladder hole. Maybe a good place for one of the figures. 
 

So, I’ve started the balusters, the real test of one’s patience. But I believe I’ve found my workflow and things are starting to move a little more quickly; I’m happy with the result so far. Tricky little bendy things they are…

excuse the wet glue in the first photo. Was looking for my routine and things got messy on the first part. Some sanding to follow.

😁

From the photo I think the color is alright. When I was out in the Pacific somewhere really deep, looking down into the water, I could see the sun rays going down for what seemed to be forever. The water almost looked electric blue, I’ll never forget that. Nor the sparrow that came out of nowhere and landed on the railing next to me one day. I dared not move as to not disturb it’s rest. It saw me but we kept our distances and it flew away after a good 5 to 10 minutes. God only knows where it had come from.

Personally, I like this look. I think it’s elegant and draws ones eye more to the model. It’s fine, it’s clear and it’s clean. It also shows the path in which you had to work; it’s impressive.

Just my 2 cent comment.

The rigging on my Constructo Enterprise sags in the winter when there’s high humidity. During the summer it tightens back up. I watch the triatic stay, it sags, it goes taught…

I did the bees wax melt on all of my lines when building. Maybe that’s helping a little.

Spring is here, a nice tulip vase from Delft, Netherlands.

The keys to the Chateau Versailles.

Also, picked up one of these off amazon and am really liking it.

Ha-haha… have to keep reminding myself that this is super up-close. People won’t see that! 

Haven’t been back home in a while and running low on my Gorilla wood glue, so, I’m going to give this stuff a try.

The nice thing about the spacer is that I can remove it straight out with tweezers while the glue is still wet and move on to the next…

Pfff…. Every time i post a photo, I see something that I need to fix. Makes for a better build, right?!

Stbd side

…and of course working to music as always.

Started measuring and cutting the railings. I made a little jig of sorts to keep things even across the deck. I think it’s self explanatory; it worked out pretty well. Obviously some finishing required, just waiting for the wood glue to dry.

Minor setback. Keep at it, you’re really creating something unique.

Buy a bottle, pour it into another, good to go! Share it with others upon completion.

Or, visit a local bar and ask them to save an empty bottle for you.

Cheers!

Insane patients brother. 
keep going…

Installed the railing support posts on both sides, still plugging along.

When you (sorry, they) insert needles like this, do you (they) drill pilot holes first? 

Ha, ha-ha… love this guy!

So at this point I’ve noticed a few flaws with this kit. The decks don’t really line up in terms of the pre-cut holes for the masts and stacks. The base plates for the main steam stacks within the second deck aren’t even close and for me, were useless. I ended up using epoxy to seat the main stacks to a part of these seating plates. Furthermore, the fantail stack holes don’t line up so there’s a lot of fine cutting and filing of the third deck holes to get the stacks vertical. Also, there’s a lot of interference between the first and second decks when installing the fantail stacks, which requires some whittling of the stack bases in order to get them to install correctly. I used some clamps to hold the stacks towards aft while the glue was drying.

…and my fingers got spray painted today so they look the way they do.

I believe that I can correct this with the stack rigging by adding a little tension to the bow-side rigging.