Elia

Alfons, That looks super. The color of the deck very much compliments the white painted furniture, the rigging ironwork, the windlass, and hull details. You sure have your painting technique down. All of your painted finishes are opaque, and smooth, and brush stroke free. All of it is impressive, but the area which catches my eye is the interior surface(s) of the dory - small features, the rail over hang, and the inner plank surfaces are clean and smooth. Really really nice work there. Cheers, Elia

Ed, Beautiful work. Elia

Oh my! I wish had enough free time for 8-10 hrs/week. These days 8-10 hrs/month is a good month for me. Cheers! Elia

Russ, It is good to see you at the schooner again, making clean and steady progress. The port rail looks good, as does the deck planking. Cheers, Elia

Len, The overall views of the hull are truly impressive. The yards and component blocks and strops look super and will compliment the hull very well. Super work (as usual!) Len. Cheers, Elia

Toni, That is beautiful, crisp, and fine detailing. Very, very nice. Elia

I too have some fine brass chain from Blue Jacket Shipcrafters, and recently have purchased some very nice anchor stud link chain made by Caldercraft. Elia

Tom, I've just started using an Optivisor and very much like for the magification work. Far, far less expensive than the dental device. Maybe $50 US. There are multiple lens sets available for differing magnifications (and corresponding focal distances). Elia

PopJack, That turned out quite well! Elia

That is quite convincing, Remco. Very, very nice. Cheers, Elia

Clare, It is good to see you at the Saginaw again. The deck light looks great, and the deck house quite the part. Cheers, Elia

Bob, Lettie is already looking rather sweet! Very nice lines. A thought on your comment about adding a lot of filler planks at the stern - something quite common on the banks schooners of the very late 1800s and through the their demise in the 1930s was the shape and sweep of the garboard strake and the three strakes of planking above it. The garboard maybe have been 20" in width at the sternpost on larger schooners, with each successively higher strake plank a little less in width at the sternpost. The planks narrowed appreciably amidship and the resulting flow of the strakes didn't require many, if any, stealers. If you are interested I can post a picture or two to illustrate this. And I like that sign! Cheers, Elia

ThorBob, Welcome back! Long time no see. I too welcome seeing your log rebuilt. That is a great looking model you had built. Cheers, Elia

Colin, Very nice work on the masting. It all looks very sharp - from mast shaping to the wooldings, the bees and sheaves, the mast head details. Those will compliment the hull quite nicely. Cheers, Elia

Ron, Your little gem continues to get honed further. Beautiful work. I especially like that aft platform notched around the frames - too nice. Of those spacers you've got setting the height of the seat risers - how are they secured? Do they lock into the clinker planking? Cheers, Elia

Sam, So true. I can't believe how quickly I've adopted the optivisor. Now almost nothing requiring fine vision and detail is done without them. Outstanding device. I think the only complaint I have is with the optional light. I find it works quite well and is a worthy addition to the optivisor. The battery case, though, slides around on the headband. Easily remedied with some tape. I highly recommend to any modeler who's eyes aren't 20/20 any longer look into one of these. Cheers, Elia

Beautiful, Ron, beautiful. A little jewel of a boat. Elia

Ron, That is outstanding. Clinker planking is intimidating to me and you've made a sweet ship's boat with clinker planking. Sweet. Elia

Len, That is some beautiful work there. Very clean, crisp, and orderly. Super nice. Have a happy, healthy New Year! Cheers, Elia

Beautiful work Tim, and a prudent way to proceed. It's a dreary day here in the Philadelphia region today, too. Yes - a good day to work on the ship. Cheers, Elia

Alfons, Thank you. I have no doubt you would make absolutely outstanding chainplates if you chose to. Funny thing - when I ordered the deadeyes from Blue Jacket I hadn't realized that the lower deadeyes were doubled stropped. So I had ordered single grooved deadeyes. In fact, Blue Jacket sells double stropped deadeyes! And they also sell entire stropped deadeye/stropped/chainplate Britannia castings! Ordering those would have surely made my life easier. But then I wouldn't have had this modeling experience, one I'm thankful to have worked through. Cheers, Elia

Tim, Your PT boat is shaping up nicely! I agree with Popeye - drilling that casting and yielding such a thin and consistent thickness wall is no small feat. Sweet. I really like the mixed materials of this build. Cheers, Elia

Small progress update Arethusa. I've been working more of the fiddly bits of ironwork for the deck. Following are chainplate assemblies. I mentioned previously that I was 'stuck' on making the double stropped lower deadeyes. I had fashioned the strops from 0.015" diameter brass wire, looping it around two pins a given distance apart on a wood board. I pinched the wire adjacent to each pin, and soldered the overlap of the two free ends with Stay Brite solder. After trimming the excess, and sanding the soldered end into somewhat reasonable shape I used a drill bit which as about the same diameter as the deadeyes to create the strop shape. Pliers were used to straighten the 'lug' ends of the strop. Once those were all formed I painted the entire strop dull silver except for the non-soldered lug end. Here is a photo of the some of the parts in manufacturing sequence. On the left is a straight strop after the one end was soldered and sanding/filed. Next to it is a formed hoop strop, the deadeye, the brass rivet, and the chainplate. Next is the soldered assembly. And last is the assembly with the rivet stem trimmed off. Here is a photo of all of the parts prior to mass soldering production: Here is a photo of my soldering pad and the assembly secured with wire and a pin: I placed the manufactured 0.8mm head diameter rivet head at the end of the strop which had been soldered so that the other end, which would be soldered to the unpainted strop was as far away from the strop soldered joint as possible - to mitigate as much as possible the heat from the full assembly soldering from damaging the first soldered joint. This may have been overkill, as the second soldered joint was made using TIX, which has a melt temp of 270F, whereas Stay Brite has a melt temp of 450F or so. In any case the plan worked acceptably. There were variations in forming of the strop loops, and the soldered joints, resulting in more than I want, but all in all acceptable to proceed with. The final parts assembled, trimmed, and touch up silver paint applied. Soon I'll install them on the ship. Cheers, Elia

Beautiful work, Ron. Those clinker stakes lay so nicely on top of the adjacent ones, and the symmetry is impressive. So very very sharp. Cheers, Elia

Ron, Thank you. You are very generous. For the past couple of years I have found my eyes to be getting progressively worse - as in my nearest focal distance has been continually getting farther away from my eyes, make it more and more difficult to see small details clearly. Many times I find myself making things two or three times until I am somewhat satisfied with one of my efforts. Only rarely am I happy with the first. I hope the optivisor changes this dynamic. It is like seeing for the first time again....and with magnification! Cheers, Elia