SiriusVoyager

Welcome to MSW!

Maybe a hot Iron and roll the soaked dowel on a flat surface?

Welcome to MSW!

Welcome to MSW!

I repainted the deck and re-placed the bulwarks. It looks better now. I also started with the first layer planking. In the past I tried to avoid using nails. This time I decided to try using nails instead of CA glue.

Welcome to MSW!

I can't believe that I asked about this a year and a half ago, but I finally got around to trying out some drill bits from McMaster. I am pretty happy with them so far.

Welcome to MSW!

Welcome to MSW!

Welcome to MSW!

Welcome to MSW!

Very nice! Welcome to MSW!

I am a little frustrated with myself on this update. Things are looking a bit rough. I have spent half of my time since the last update trying to redo my some of my work. At the end of the day, most of the rough parts will be covered up by planking. Painting the deck was a bit difficult for some reason. I kept getting two spots (starboard bow and port of the mizzen mast) that that always ended up significantly lighter than the rest of the deck.. Even after multiple coats, sanding and repainting, the color seems to be lighter. The camera is a cruel mistress as well as in person it looked more uniform. I will touch it up again in the morning. I have coated it with shellac. As far as the color, it appeared to me that the photos have two or three different colors. Some of it may have been lighting, but at times the colors look too different. Because of this I wasn't worried too much about the specific color. The edges of the deck aren't painted because the bulwark will be built up over the edge of the deck. I left the bare deck so that it can be glued directly to wood. The bulwarks took some struggle to get on, particularly on the bow. I should have started at the bow and worked my way stern. The tip of the bow gets removed to allow for the bowsprit so it didn't need to line up perfectly, though I would have preferred if they had. The transom was fairly straightforward. It had to be bent a bit to fit into place. The I used an iron to help bend the wood and it burnt a bit. Finally, The last issue I had was with faring the bulkheads. There are notches in each bulkhead. The instructions say to use them as a guide for the first plank. However, some of the instruction photos do not show them. I decided to use a little scrap to fill them in, as can seen in photos above. If I have to sand them away when I do the planking, so be it. Hopefully My future updates will look much better. 13:10/27:45

It really depends on what you want to build, how much you want to spend and how confident you are in building.

Welcome to MSW!

Many of us have started with that very same series. Welcome to MSW!

Welcome to MSW!

Very nice! Thank your for taking the time to make a post hoc build log.

Very cool custom base to hide the electronics. The Italian flag makes for great accent mark.

Thanks @JacquesCousteau! That is a good idea on scribing the planks if needed. I definitely was going to experiment to try and match the color first, but I may not have even thought about the paint filling in the small gaps between planks. I concur about them being just slightly visible from photos.

The Santa Eulalia has two stacked octagons for the wedges, while the kit supplied a simple ring. Since I will be painting the deck and the wedges are painted, I will be adding them to the deck now. The supplied ring is on the left, next to the first layer of octagon that I made for each mast. I used scrap wood sanded at 67.5 angles and glued them together. It was tricky to do using the Ultimation sander with repeater because they were almost too small. Making the second octagon with the even smaller pieces was basically not possible on the repeater due to the small size. I also attempted to cut the small pieces using a miter box and razor saw. It sort of worked, but the razor saw was too much for the small pieces and it looked rough. I then decided that I could simply sand down the included rings and it worked quite well. I centered the ring on crossing lines of my work mat and marked 8 even edges to help keep things aligned. I then sanded each edge little by little keeping everything even, It resulted in a pretty good octagon. They were a bit too tall so I sanded them down to about half their original height. The Base octagon was a bit too wide so I sanded it down as well, which was pretty simple since it already had its shape. I used the mast to make sure each was centered. All three glued into place. I applied a thin coat of sanding sealer. I left an edge around the sides of the deck where the bulwark will overlap. 4:45/14:35

Very nice work!

A strip of walnut lines the small ledge between the main deck and the slightly raised stern deck. The strip of wood used for structural support and the edge of the sub deck didn't line up so a bit of careful trimming was necessary. Frame piece in place. It had to be bent a little to match the camber of the deck. The instructions call for placing the stern deck planking prior to the frame piece, but I wanted the frame piece in place to provide an edge for the planks to butt up against. Deck planking completed. 3:50/9:50

Those are some great models! Welcome to MSW!

After thinking about it some more, I have decided to paint the deck after all. I think when I am done and doing side by side comparisons, I will appreciate that I attempted to match the actual ship. I think the deck color can be made with a simple mix of yellow ochre and raw sienna, but that will take a bit of testing. Because of that I have stopped drawing the caulking between the planks. I have kept cutting them to size to that everything is consistent in appearance. I have finished the laying the planking on the main deck. It just needs some trimming along the edges. This is where I got to when I realized that I didn't leave the mast holes. Fortunately it was easy to access them from below. The optical illusion of the planks fanning out towards the bow is a bit trippy. 1:15/ 6:00