Greg Davis

Doing my best, but a great deal of credit needs to go to Gerard Delacroix for the amazing accuracy across the plans he drew for the dredger.

Today I finished shorting the pillars, as well as making the mortices and tenons. All the pieces fit together nicely. So after I gaze at the current state for a while, it will be time to take the superstructure off and get work on the hull done.

It has taken quite a few days of careful filing, but now the superstructure pillars pass thru the deck planking and have their exterior portion perpendicular to the vessel. It also looks like the pillars line up where they should with respect to the the superstructure carlings. Very glad to have this done - it was a bit nerve racking for me! All of the pillars need to be shortened to their correct heights and provided with mortices for connection to the carling system. Once this is done, I will be setting these pieces aside for a while. I don't plan on actually attaching these prior to adding the doubling planks to the hull.

Given that the ship was in service for nearly 3 decades, as both an expedition ship and a school ship, it does not seem unlikely that there would be a number of changes to the deck arrangement. I have noted other differences between photographs of the ship and the kit layout. The kit shows covers that can go over the port holes along the sides of the hull, but there are photographs that do not support that (and I've decided to leave these covers off my model). Another difference is the way the chain-links come down along the sides of the ship. Construco has them bending back to the hull as they go over the fender / guard rails; a photograph shows them coming into contact with the hull above the top fender and below the lower fender (this is the way that I will be placing the chain-links). There are other differences as well - here you can see an additional window in the engine room deck house facing aft, the nameplate is of a slightly different shape, the paint scheme is not the same, ... . Without having full documentation of the ship on one specific day of its existence, it seems likely that the best one can hope for is a strong likeness of the vessel. However, when the model is done, I still believe that it will have enough 'likeness' to still be called Le Pourquoi-Pas? !

Today I finished the deckhouse over the engine room. Before that I had added a windscreen to the bridge. Here are the three largest deck structures sitting in their appropriate locations: I thought that it might be good to note that the kit instructions just say glue vents / stacks / etc to the buildings (and later the deck). For the most part, I believe that all of these details would soon fall off if attached in this manner. I inserted pins in the base of the smaller details and a dowel in the base of the smokestack. Because the structures have roof just < 1.5mm, I also placed blocks of basswood under the fixtures so the pins and dowel would have a further distance to be embedded. I guess I should do the last touches - drill holes for the masts and display supports, add the rudder and screw, ... so that I can attach the deck structure permanently!

Starting to make progress on the deck buildings now. The building housing the kitchen is done: Just behind the kitchen is the bridge. This is the structure that I am currently working on. It just needs a few more details - something to do tomorrow! Further back the start of the deckhouse over the engine room can be seen. Eventually the smoke stack will extend from it. Here is the bridge from behind

Spindle and disk sanders are truly different tools - I have both and the spindle sander came last. For myself, I find that I use the spinal sander a lot more often. One of the nice features is that I can sand both concave and convex shapes on the spindle sander. I don't know a way to work concave shapes on a disk sander. However, I can square up material and bevel along straight lines well with the disk sander. I also find the spindle sander easier to use because the velocity of the sanding surface is constant, whereas on the disk sander the angular velocity goes from 0 at the center to its highest as the radial distance increases. The varying velocity has always been a challenge to me, making it a much more touchy tool. My disk sander is part of a duel system that also has a belt sander and I find the belt sander fairly easy to use, although I always need to first check that the sanding belt has not curled up on the outer edges which then interferes with making smooth shapes. I'm sure others have completely opposite views and find their disk sander to be the favorite. It would be nice if there was somewhere you could go to give each type of sander a try before making the choice!

Jim - It is a WEN 6510T 3.5 Amp Oscillating Spindle Sander and cost about $125. There appear to be a number of oscillating spindle sanders around this price point that are the same except for color / branding. I like orange and have a few other power tools marketed by Wen - all of which have worked fine for me. The only thing that I would note about the sander is that the plastic inserts around the sanding drum don't quite match the height of the table so thin and / or small work pieces pieces can catch on the edge if you are not careful. At some point I will remake the inserts to exactly match the table height. Wen (and others) also make more expensive oscillating spindle sanders with a tilting table (> $200). There have been a few times when I wished I had spent a bit more and obtained on of these in order to make certain bevels more easily. Nevertheless, I have been very satisfied with what I have and am not looking to replace it anytime soon. Greg

I'm now making some progress on the superstructure. The carlings and cross-bars have been formed. Here they are before being permanently attached to one-another: Today I have been fastening them together. The unit will be placed on the pillars all at once. There are mortices on the underside of the carlings to accept the top of the pillars. Final fitting of the pillars is coming up soon. The carlings were the most complicated parts here. Each is made of two pieces that are joined by a scarf joint. I wasn't sure how I was going to do this, so I decided to lay out the the scarf joints and join two pieces of wood before cutting anything out. The process started by milling the adjoining pieces of wood and then connecting them. Next I milled the slots for the cross-bars and then started to cut out the desired shape. First one side, then some sanding, and followed by the other side. I finally ended up with two nice carlings that just needed the undersides to be morticed. I don't know if this would be the 'right way' to do the job; but it did seem to work for me! So on to the pillar fitting, additional superstructure fittings, and a whole lot of knees to keep the structure where it belongs under load.

Finally done painting the vents and stacks. Also have painted the screw. In all cases I chose colors that are muted than shown on the kit. I should get to attaching some of these to the deck and deck structures soon. Last week I got to visit my son in Seattle; while I was there we had a chance to see the actual boat that will be one of my upcoming builds - Slo Mo Shun IV: I have the Billings RC kit of this boat and plan to build it for my grandsons (unless I find it is too much fun and can't give it up!). I had done some research on Slo-mo-shun IV, but didn't read what I had found closely enough. I thought the boat was at the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum in Kent, Washington so we took a drive down there to find I had been mistaken. However, it was a great visit where we got to look at some spectacular racing boats including Sol-mo-shun V. The Museum historian, Skip Young, spent a lot of time with us and told us a lot of wonderful stories. It turns out that the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum is where Slo-mu-shun IV had been restored in the 90's. He also knew where Slo-mo-shun IV was - less than a mile from where my son lives - in the Museum of History and Industry. So we drove backup to Seattle and got a look at the boat. Unlike most of the boats in the Hydroplane Museum, in MOHAI the boat has been hung so it was not possible to get a nice picture of the whole boat. However, I did get enough to help me out when I get to building the model.

With the deck smoothed out with 220 grit sandpaper; here's the state of affairs as January comes to a close, and 6 months have passed since I began this project. February tasks will focus on deck fittings, the superstructure, as well as the doubling hull planks. Thank you so much to everyone that has been providing me encouragement and following my progress! Greg

The remaining deck planks have been fitted. The holes for the fasteners have been drilled and a good start has been made on inserting and then smoothing the copper fasteners - only 300 or so to go! Some additional sanding / smoothing will then be done. Not too much though as the planking came together quite nicely.

The most exterior port deck strake was completed a couple of days ago. Today I spent a good deal of time with the easier deck planks. Six more planks, each having at least one curved edge, to go and I will have as much of the deck planked as I have planned. The region in the center of the deck that needs to be removed has been marked on the beams. So maybe some beam sawing soon; and yes, that is some whiskey on the right!

I've never used Humbrol paints. I have read a lot of good things about them, but there are no local places for me to obtain the product. I could order them online. Do you think they are far superior to other paints or are they just the go-to in the UK?

The first deck plank on the starboard side is done. There is a scarf joint between the 4th and 3rd bollards, but it is not too easy to see right now - it spans the first three of the four deck beams between the bollards.. It should show up pretty well after the deck is oiled. Time to work on the port side plank!

OK - I got up the nerve to start the outermost deck strakes and the first (of 4) is now fitted. I chose not to make a template for this piece, instead here's how I got this far. First I took a piece of stock large enough to cover this part of the strake and marked where a bollard would go thru the strake. A hole was drilled and then filed to the shape of the bollard. With the stake positioned on the top of this bollard, the position of the next bollard was marked, drilled, and shaped. As I made it to the last bollard, the piece of wood was looking like this: After the last recess was made, a little more filing allowed the blank slide to the deck beams. I then marked the intersection with the hull planks and cut off the exterior excess. A bit of sanding evened the deck plank edge to the hull planking. Next I marked the inner edge to create the desired width of the plank. After cutting the interior excess and sanding it was done (for now). Currently the piece is .5mm to wide and this will be shored up after it is scarfed to the second part of this strake. So three more pieces and two scarf joints to go here! Also, I will need to pierce these strakes for the superstructure pillars. I plan on doing that work after the strakes have been attached to the vessel.

More progress is being made on the deck structures and it can be seen that they take up a lot of the deck space. The three largest now have their basic form. The front one (kitchen cabin) needs a few doors, smoke stacks, and a ventilator; the middle one (observation structure) needs doors, ladders, windows, and bell; the last one (above the engine) needs doors, ventilator, and smoke stack. The ventilators and stacks are assembled. The paint is starting to be applied. The vents and smoke stack are being painted an off-white / beige - the same color as the hull upperworks. The color is 8 parts titanium white to 1 part yellow oxide. I like this softer color much more than the bright white shown on the kit's box top. The acrylic paint that I am using builds up slowly, thus a large number of coats are needed - especially on the metal casting. The three stacks on the left will be black when done, as will the upper part of the smokestack.

The top of the deck beams, ledges, top timbers, an planking now all blend together nicely. Even though everything was in pretty good order, it took awhile because I used 220 grit sandpaper for the whole process. I didn't want to create any indentations that were not supposed to be. Now I need to take another look at the 14 timber extensions that will form the bollards. They need to be of the correct cross-sectional dimension and shape before the outermost strake of the deck is fitted. I believe that these strakes will be 'testing' to make as they are formed from two pieces of wood scarfed together and will each have 13 piercings to accommodate the bollards and superstructure pillars.

The laminated rails are being classified as a success and have been installed. I am starting to work on the deck structures as a break from the main hull structure (which needs some more rails, ...). The first structure is where the kitchen was situated. Going back to the rails for a moment - I am glad I went with the laminations, especially for the rail over the stern. Even here the bend is severe enough that I needed to soak each of the three pieces in water to achieve the necessary bend. So that piece took a couple of days to make. Again, I don't see how anyone could be expected to edge bend these rails successfully. I was telling my wife today that if I had tried to build this kit when I first got it (about 10 years ago), that there would have been a very high chance that it would have become kindling long before I had gotten this far!

Well, the staining of the rails made in basswood did not go well at all, as I ended up with a motley mess! Fortunately, another kit was willing to donate some wood that matched Le Pouquioi - pas? kit's top rail. I trimmed it down, and am laminating it together. A little smoothing will follow, and I am fairly certain that an acceptable set of rails will be had. The difference in quality is easy to see:

Thank you!

I decided to try laminating three strips of basswood together to form the rail. After attaching the plans to my drafting table (with some waxed paper atop) I used some pins to keep the inner strip to the correct contour. The three strips were glued together thru most of the major curved section near the bow and then a second row of pins secured then in place. Once the initial part of the lamination was dry the rest was glued and pinned in place. The rail will need to be stained, but it looks like this may work well - and there could be an added benefit of using the laminations to center the rail on the ship.

The port holes have been added As has the hawse holes. Also, some of the paint on the trailboards has been sanded/scraped off to highlight the scrollwork. The kit instructions claim that the top rail can be bent from a 1.5 x 4mm strip of wood. I have doubts that this can be done as it would require a good deal of edge bending. However, I did give it a good go - but this is as far as I can get after a couple of days: I calling this a top rail fail and will work out the rail in an alternative manner. I haven't decided on what method that I will try next but have a couple in mind, including using shorter pieces jointed together and laminating thinner more bendable pieces [three 1.5mm (1/16") square strips would easily do the job here]. Soon the multitude of deck furniture can be started!

The lower portions of the uprights for the superstructure have been beveled and shortened to near their final length. The upper portion of the uprights are getting close to their final vertical orientation. I don't think that anymore can be done with them at this point. The outermost deck planks will need to be installed before going further with these pieces. The oil has cured to a point that I feel comfortable to working toward the final deck beam curvatures. I think that tomorrow some sanding is going to be the call of order.

Everyone - thank you for the positive comments and reassurance that the project is going in the right direction! Greg