Peter S

I did manage to get one of chainplates threaded more by luck than anything else. Put a tiny bit of CA onto the end of the thread and then was able to pass it through the eye of the chain plate. Then remembered I had a the HM Sherbourne kit and the thread there is a much better quality so used that thread instead. Big difference! Big learning curve doing the seizing. Not as easy as I thought. Really only one out of the four was reasonable. But learnt a lot which was what this model is all about! Have not the mast and bowsprit installed and put the two forestays in place.

Thanks for your suggestion Chris. In the end I used the broken bit and pushed the piece that was broken further in which left just enough room to fix the tiller. Reasonably happy with the outcome. Rudder is now installed. One question I have is do you let the rudder swing freely or do you lock it amidships with some glue? Started building the deadeye assemblies while waiting for some pain to dry. The kit calls for the chain plate to be seized to the deadeye. However trying to pass the thread through the chain plate is near impossible. Or at least I have not yet been able to manage it. The thread just starts to fray. The hole in the chain plate is 1mm and the thread is 0.5mm. Has anyone got any ideas on how to achieve threading the chain plate. The pic above is from the instructions. Hoping there might be a few tricks to try that I am not aware about. I suspect that a big part of the problem is that quality of the thread is not very good. Cheers Peter

Finished rudder assembly though not without some drama. Managed to break a drill bit in the rudder (where the tiller is attached). Was unable to get it out as it broke without leaving anything protruding. Anyone have any ideas on how to remove the broken piece? With the bit broken it impedes inserting the tiller. Only solution I can think of is to remake the rudder.

Thanks for this. Where did you get that information/diagram from? Is there a bigger document with more information. Always looking for documents/books with useful information. Really appreciate the feedback. I did try the drill method with spectacular failure. The drill was way too fast and the spar got the wobbles and snapped at the chuck. Oh well it was a learning exercise and fortunately I had decided to do this test knowing that I had enough for a spare. Phew! Might have to invest in a miniature plane at some point. I did these by hand, continually turning while moving the sandpaper up and down. Seemed to work out pretty well. Managed to to do the 4 spars this afternoon! Working on the rudder assembly now. And then it will be onto the rigging.

I too have just purchased the Sherbourne, though I still need to finish HM Bounty Joly Boat before I can start. I will be following your log with a lot of interest 🙂 Cheer Peter

Has anyone got any pointers and/or videos on how best to taper the spars to ensure that the tape is even and centred? Remember reading somewhere about using a drill but can't find where I read that or if there was any pointers on how it was used. Tks

Finally managed to attach the wales, although need to work out how to bend the last few mm's at the bow to attach to the hull. Had a few dramas getting the cap rails attached as well. Took a number of attempts to get the rail bent into the correct shape. Unfortunately I did manage to break one but luckily there was spare piece of timber so had to do it all over again. Have now positioned the thwarts and glued them in place. Next step is work on the rudder. This is currently undergoing painting in readiness. After that will start on the spars. Some pictures below - still a bit rough in parts and needs some touch-up on some of the paint work but starting to look like a Jolly Boat!

Great job. I have just ordered this kit from Vanguard and it is scheduled to arrive next week. I am still building the HMS Bounty Jolly Boat from AL but wanted to get the kit now in readiness to start. Have really enjoyed reading your log and will be using it a lot when I commence work. Just hope I can get the same fantastic outcome as you have achieved. You have definitely set the bar high!

Thanks Jeff. Was thinking I might have to go this route though was hoping that there was some magic solution that I hadn't yet found 🙃. Appreciate the feedback!

Think I have made a bit of mistake. I have stained and then varnished the top half of the hull before attaching the wales on either side. Am having a great deal of difficulty getting the wales to stick to the varnish. I have tried PVA and also CA gel but with no success to date. It seems that the varnish does not like to be adhered to! Any suggestions?

Finally decided that I had applied enough coats and pulled off the masking tape. Unfortunately in doing so it has peeled away some of the varnish. Not happy about that. Will not use that masking tape again. Even though it was a reputable brand specifically designed for use in painting! Will attempt to apply another coat of varnish to see if that improves the look.

Been a while since my last post but have been busy with a few outside projects, namely moving and packing up the house. Have now moved permanently to the South Coast of New South Wales and loving it! Finished off the sanding of the hull and was reasonably happy with the result. Had decided (right from the beginning) that I would follow the AL painting scheme and had bout the relevant AL paints, though as the stains were out of stock I have been purchasing what I need from the local hardware retailer. Fortunately I could get reasonably small batches. (I had been worried that I might have to get 500ml to 1000mls!) Stained and varnished the upper hull as per the instructions. (Sorry no pics) Then marked the waterline. Found this to be a lot harder than anticipated. Found it difficult to get pencil marks on the varnish. Eventually marked and then taped the waterline. Sanded the lower hull to remove the stain and varnish and started applying the paint. Have so far applied around 10 coats of the AL white paint (using a paint brush). Am definitely not happy with quality, am finding it very thin and runny. Not sure if that should be expected but I just keep adding coats trying to get a consistent colour across the hull. Has anyone else experienced this or do most airbrush. Has been a real learning curve with painting and think for the future I will look at the Vallejo paints as they seem to be popular and have good comments. Adding all these coats has certainly slowed down progress as I really can't do too much more until the hull is finished. Will post some pics once I decide that have applied enough coats!

Thanks Jeff. The advice has been great and extremely helpful. Agree about fairing. Took me quite a while to realise not only how important it is to do properly but also to figure out just what to do. Doing the planking shows what needs to be done and what should be done. Will hopefully put this newly gained knowledge into practice for the next model. But still have quite a bit to do on this one yet. The planking took a lot longer than I had anticipated but that's OK. As they say patience is the name of the game. Now it is sand and sand and sand again 🙂

As you can see above I was also experimenting with using some wood filler, just to see how it works out. As mentioned the main planking is now complete with sanding started. Seems like once I think it is nearly ready I realise that more sanding is needed. However it is starting to look a lot better. Apologise for my photos. Am not good with the camera

Well! It has been quite a while since my last post and so much as happened including selling the house! Finally placed and glued the "whisky" plank today (though the whisky will have to wait until after dry July! Not good timing 🙂 ) Learnt so much in doing this planking. Some planks were really good and others are very ho-hum. The important thing is that I learnt heaps, had lots of fun and generally took my time. Typically each plank would take 2 days. First day was spent trying to get it bent into the right shape. Mostly this was achieved by soaking the plank in hot water for 5 to 10 minutes and then fitting the plank to the frames. The hardest part was trying to hold the planks into the correct position with clamps and anything that I could find. This was not always as successful as I would have liked especially when there was little space to put a clamp in place. But I never used any pins and only ever used wood glue and not super glue. Once clamped left the plank to dry for 24 hours and then glued it in place. Found that I still needed to clamp whilst the glue dried but generally the plank had the correct shape. Of course bending around the stem was challenging (as many have mentioned). As much as I wanted to plank the "proper way" as per Chuck's instructions, I really need to spile a number of planks but did not have the material to cut them out, only having the planking provided in the kit. So in the end I did need to put in a couple of "filler" planks. These ended up working really well and was very pleased the results albeit not proper boat building! But it did teach me a whole lot of techniques on shaping planks to the shapes I needed. Some pictures below. This first batch are some I tool a few weeks ago showing the planking progress