wefalck

'Normal' people would use PE, but Ilhan has to do all by hand 😲👍🏻👍🏻

... and the wood should not be much softer than the bulkheads, otherwise there is a tendency to sand hollows into the fillers, which defeats the object. On the other hand, one can always build up the surface again or apply wood-filler putty.

A common arrangement for the forestay and the jib-halliard is that the forestay is looped around the mast and the jib-block strop has an eye that goes around the stay just below the point were the loop of the stay closes. The strop is then fiddled from the top through the loop of the stay, effectively forming a kind of cow-hitch around the stay. The picture below is a model picture, but illustrates what I mean: I think your image of the masthead above shows just an arrangement, rather than the one you have drawn. On serving an eye: have you tried to make a 'fake' eye-splice? This mean going with the whole thread going through the thread (with the help of a needle or hypodermic needle) a couple of time and then securing this with a drop of varnish etc. That allows you to serve the splice quietely.

Doesn't look too bad at all, but seems to be a quite complex process. What about cored solder of an appropriate diameter? It bends easily without tools (so as not to leave marks) and can be drilled out at the ends as needed. It would also be easily painted black/rust.

So, here it is ... Planking the hull In principle planking this hull with styrene strips is not very different from planking with strips of wood. The styrene strips have the advantage that they can be more easily bent across the breadth. One can also shape them like metal by stretching and compressing until they conform to the shape of the solid hull. A disadvantage is that they are less stiff than wood and easily ‘sag’ in, say in thicknesses of les than 0.5 mm, but it also depends on the distance between the frames. Planking proceeded up and down from the wales and down from the covering board. The Evergreen styrene strips are sawn from sheets as is evidenced by saw-marks on the narrow sides. This results in slight variations of their width, typically up to 0.1 mm wider for a 1 mm wide strip. This has to be considered, when planning the plank layout. In the end, I didn’t actually use my new plank-clamp much. It was easier to hold the strips short with the edges upright and to scrape the edge with a scalpel to reduce the width in a controlled fashion. There was not much need to bevel the edges. The styrene cement, of course, softens or dissolves the material, which allows it to be pushed together closely, obviating the need for bevelling at least for material of 0.5 mm thickness or less. Unlike for woodworking, not many specialised tools are needed. I use a scalpel, the tools that in the old days was used to rub-on lettering comes handy to press on the strips, a large diamond nail-file for thinning down strips, and cutting-tweezers as watchmakers use them for shortening strips to length. The latter have the cutting edge bevelled only on one side, allowing for clean cuts without squashing the material. I also made small scrapers from a piece of razor-blade, held in a pin-vise. Steel-wool of various grades helps to blend-in parts or lightly round edges. The pictures show the planking after cleaning up by sanding and scraping, but before puttying any gaps that may have occurred. I went for some slight irregularity of the surface, as may be observed in a well-used older wooden ship. This livens up an otherwise somewhat sterile styrene surface. To be continued …

In 'normal' rigging practice, one would paired shrouds, but this is 'artisanal' practice and may also be determined by the available lengths of material.

The drill-press actually looks very well-made and if I didn't have my antique miniature watchmakers drill-press, I would consider it. However, one should check, whether someone offers a version for ER11 collets, rather than the bulky and likely unprecise drill-chuck. As to the tablesaw (and similar machines on offer), one should perhaps consider them as 'kits in an advanced stage of manufacture'. It may be cheaper to buy such kit and modify it to one's needs, than to buy the individual components. With a bit of effort, these machines can be turned into useful tools.

Something like that happened to me once: it was dark in the centre of Copenhagen and I reversed my 2CV into an empty slot of a car-park, when my progress was abruptly stopped. I looked into the rear and wing mirrors and couldn't see anything offending, either were there any walls or bollards. I got out of the car and bumped into a huge black candelabre - just couldn't see the thing in the dark.

That's why I was asking for some pictures. One can then comment on possible qualities and point to reliable sources.

Could you post pictures of these machines to better understand what you are talking about?

Very nice ship's capentry job ! Although on a real boat it would be a lot more physical labour to cut the rabbets, laying out in 1:1 is a lot easier than at a small scale (how do I know this ...).

Makes sense! Thinking about it, it would be also more stable during pushing, as there is less of a cantilever on the rig, than if it was pushed the other way around. I also didn't realise that there was a 'bow' end.

... equally interesting is the vertically boilered shunter on the photograph. Will you be building one too?

Would the pile-driver actually pushed from the side of the rig? I would have expected the tug to be tied up to the other side, also so that the driver can be manoeuvred into position.

We don't anything else, but quality 👍🏻