Glenn-UK

Poop Deck Items With all the upper decks in place I did a quick check that the masts could be located correctly. All looks good. Before adding the upper inner bulwarks I decided to make the various poop deck items. With the laser char removed the bitts were test fitted. Moving on to the skylark the various parts were gathered. I decided to use a simple jig to help with the assembly, starting with the basic frame. The jig ensured the frame was square. The central support was then added. The hatch covers were then glued in place and the assembly was placed on the deck. Next up was the two flag lockers. The PE parts were primed and painted and the various parts slotted together nicely. The wooden parts were then gathered. The side parts were then glued in place followed by the top sections. A final picture showing the poop deck with the deck items in place and the inner poop deck bulwark in place.

Quarter Galleries and Decks The basic assembly of the two quarter galleries is now complete. They look a bit messy in the attached photos as I have added some wood filler. Once the paint is applied, later on in the build process, I am confident the quarter galleries will pass muster. The outer stern patterns have also been glued in place. There is an slight issue with the rudder casing top canopy which I will rectify before the stern decorations are added. I did plank the gun deck, with box wood. However I decided to use the pearwood patterns for the upper decks as I did have a few issues with the box wood. The deck was carefully aligned and glued in placed. Next the quarterdeck was glued in place with the Captain standing watch on the poop deck. Next the gangways were glued in place. The forecastle deck is ready to be glued in place, which will be done once the gangway glue has had time to cure.

Looks good

Quarter Galleries The basic assembly is now complete. As can be seen in the attached photo's I have not covered myself in glory with this build stage. Thankfully the imperfections can be filled and sanded smooth before the painting phase. The first photo shows the inner patterns glued in place. Before the outer patterns were fitted I did soak them in water and then clamped them around a large saucepan to get the required shape. The right-hand side with the outer patterns fitted does not look too bad. I will need to add a bit of filler between these patterns and the stern counters before painting. I seemed to have a few more problems with the left-hand side. I ended up adding a couple of filler bits which we carefully shaped. It may look a bit odd at the moment but once area has been filled, sanded and painted it will look better and I am confident it will pass muster.

Looking good, your build standard is awesome and I wish I had the patience and skills to replicate. Many thanks for sharing.

Happy birthday Kevin, have a great day and maybe you can sneak the odd hour in the shipyard.

Upper and Middle Stern Counter Inner Patterns This is key aspect of the build and it is important to position upper stern counter correctly. I did do several trial fits before I was ready to glue the pattern. There are plenty of places to pin the upper stern counter pattern in place as the glue is curing. The only area I was concerned about was where the pattern is glued to the bulwarks. I had noted the pinning method used by Jim on his prototype and initially I was going to replicate. However I decided to see if I could find a way to hold the pattern in place with clamps. I made a small notch in the bulwarks and found it was possible to use clamps. The upper pattern was then carefully glued in place. Next I added a camphor to both the top and bottom edges of the middle pattern. After a little bit of sanding to get a good fit the pattern was glued in place. Prior to fitting the middle counter pattern I did find it necessary to add a small packing piece as I had removed too much material when sanding the quarter gallery assembly, as shown by the blue arrow in the next photo. I was happy with the upper stern counter pattern fit with the edge of the poop deck. I am also happy with the position of the upper pattern with respect to the top of the bulwarks, which needed to be approx 2mm higher than bulwark. The quarter gallery inner patterns also seem to be aligned with the counter patterns, so they can be fitted next.

Cabin Screen Filler - WIP As can be seen in the photo below there is a slight gap between the front cabin screen and bulwarks. The old me would have probably lived with the small gap but I decided it would look much better with a filler piece. In the next photo I have started to fashion a suitable filler. It needs a bit more work but generally I think it will look Ok. The filler pieces (left and right) will be added at a later stage once the quarterdeck has been installed and should be a nice match with the screen after the varnish has been added. Quarter Galleries - WIP Moving on to the quarter galleries. I spent a bit of time shaping them ready for the front patterns. Once I was happy with that it was time for a test fit. With the upper stern counter pattern temporarily held in place the quarter galleries were checked. Everything seems to be aligned as it should be. A little bit of excess material was removed from the aft edge of the quarter galleries so the upper and middle stern counter patterns would sit flush. In the next photo there is a quick test with one of the front patterns held in place, which is looking good. I have checked the fit of the lower quarter gallery front pattern. The black mark from my camera lens is still visible in these photos. The new lens should arrive in a few days time. As everything looked good, and after a quick paint job, the quarter galleries were glued in place. I am going to give the glue plenty of time to cure before moving on to the next task which will be to add the upper and middle inner stern counter patterns. Ensuring these counter patterns are correctly position will be a critical task. I will be taking my time to make sure these parts are correctly fitted. Famous last words!

The Return - The Captain's Cabin I have now returned from a truly memorably Blue Danube river cruise. Saltsburg was very impressive and my wife and I climbed the 144 step steps to visit Nonnberg Abbey (home of Maria Von Trapp when she was a nun). After walking getting back to Salzburg's cathedral my wife could not find her phone. In the searing 35 degree heat I ran back to the abbey bounding up the 144 stairs two at a time. Thankfully the phone was still on a pew. I then ran back to the cathedral bounding back down the 144 steps. My wife rewarded me with a nice cool banana milkshake. As can be seen in the picture below, which was taken before my epic run, I seem to have a horse on my head. The steps behind the fountain is where they sang the doe re me song in the Sound Of Music (Mirabell Gardens, Saltsburg). So this morning it is time to resume work on the Indy and the first task was to finish off the Captain's cabin. I added a green baize effect to the table top. After searching for some suitable material I ended up using a piece of sandpaper which was just the right shade of green. The various charts and maps were then cut of of the manual and carefully arranged on the furniture. Sadly my camera lens got damaged during the holiday so each picture has a black mark, as indicated by the arrow on the first photo. Despite several attempts to clean the lens the mark is still there so I have ended up ordering a new lens which should arrive int he next few days. I tried a few different arrangements before deciding on the following arrangement for the table and chairs. I opted to add the plan sheet of the Indy to the top of the cabinet. The workmanship on the cabin screen is not my best work.

Nice work great work. I do like making the masts, bowsprit and yards but it will be a few weeks before I reach that stage.

Thanks, overall I'm happy with how my Indy is looking so far.

Thank Chris, 😊

As I wait to leave home for our next holiday I decided I would take a few pictures of the Indy, showing how she will be left in my absence. I have dry fitted the poop deck beams and placed the poop deck base pattern in position. It was a great fit. The quarterdeck, walkways and forecastle pear patterns have also been placed in position (dry fit), noting the bulkhead ears still need to be removed from the forecastle area which is why it is sitting proud. With the various decks in place a check was made that the bowsprit, foremast, main mast and miizzen mast would all locate properly, which they did. The view to the cabin area looks good. I will add some pear fillers where the screen meets the bulwarks to hide the gap. The captain has been inspecting the work and seems reasonably happy with the progress to date. I am using clamps to hold the dry fitted decks in position. I hope that, when I return from my holiday, they will have retained the required shape which will make the gluing process a bit easier. The quarter galleries have also been dry fitted, and although not shown in the final photo, the top and middle stern patterns have also been checked and everything seems to line up. On my return from holiday the first task will be to complete all work related to the poop deck area.

Looking at the drawing the pivot seems to be the screw adjustment the end of the barrel, opposite to the mizzen end.

Carronades The 4 off carronades have been fully built and I am really pleased with how they look. They also look nice when added to the cabin. As can be seen in the next photo there is a slight error with how I aligned the inner bulwark pattern (yellow arrow). As it will not be seen once the poop deck has been added I am not going to worry about it. The captain is a little bit happier with his cabin. The table and chairs have been oil painted. I have no idea how long it takes for oil paint to fully dry. They were painted over 24 hours ago and they are still not dry. I will probably add a green baize to the table top before I add the maps and charts. I am now going to be AWOL from the shipyard until a week on Saturday as my wife and I are travelling to Budapest tomorrow for another river trip as we enjoyed the one last month so much. This time down we cruise down the Blue Danube, visiting places such as Bratislava, Esztergom, Durnstein, Vienna and Salzburg. My wife loves the Sound of Music so she is really looking forward to visiting Salzburg. I am looking forward to visiting Durnstein whose castle imprisoned Richard the Lionheart in 1192 after he was shipwrecked on his return from the crusades.

Work on the Quarter Gallery Area As much as I would have liked to replicate the quarter gallery area to the same standard as produced by Jim on his prototype build my efforts have sadly fallen someway short as the following set of photo's will demonstrate. Once the poop deck has been installed much of this area is only visible through some cut-outs thankfully. Before fitting the screens the gun ports were coated with a diluted wood filler solution and then painted red. The cabin screens require some door handles. My first check was to make sure that I could feed the handles through the holes from both sides. Once that was done the eyebolts were trimmed to sized and glued in place. I did like the natural finish of the eyebolts so decided not to paint them black. The next photo shows just how badly I finished of the screen. Although the spray mount did prevent the curling when the two screen parts were clued together I had some problems with curly during the painting phase. The screens were then added to the deck. I used the relevant poop deck beams to make sure the screens were correctly aligned. The poop deck beams are only dry fitted at this stage of the build. The captain, after a brief inspection, was not very impressed with his cabin. I fear I may be flogged as a result. There are 4 off 42-pounder carronades to build for the two cabin areas. There is a t-piece which allows the the carronade carriage to slide over the top of the carronade skead. In the build manual the top of the t-piece , when fitted, is shown to be proud of the carriage. This is only possible if the bottom of the t-piece (yellow arrow) is rotated through 90 degrees so it fits in the slot but would be an incorrect assembly. The top of the t-piece, when correctly fitted, actually sits flush with the top of the carriage (blue arrow). The basic assembly of the carronades is complete, noting the carriage is only dry fitted as the parts need to be painted flat red before the assembly phase.

Thanks Jack. I learn more from my mistakes so I do like to highlight both my successes and failures.

Thanks, I agree. I can't wait to see the end result when the cabin work is complete. The use of the Spray Mount is a game changer with regards to gluing thin patterns back to back without the dreaded curl.

Cabin Screens Using the spray mount adhesive the three cabin screen parts were glued together without any curling. With the quarter gallery inner bulwarks clamped in place the basic cabin screens were test fitted along with the two pear deck sections which sit either side of the middle screen. Everything seems to fit together. In the first photo I did place the forward most screen the wrong way round. The forward screen has now been turned around. The quarter gallery bulwark test fit. The second cabin area with deck parts test fitted. More work is required to complete the screen assemblies such as adding window frames, Columns, painting, etc. The quarter gallery bulwarks also needs to be painted. I have received some oil paints today so the quarter gallery furniture (table and chairs) can be painted.

Rudder Housing and Quarter Gallery Deck With the stern cabin rear bulkhead glued in place it was time to fit the Quarter Gallery Deck. The kit supplied deck does require a little bit of trimming. I opted to make a left and right half carboard template which were cut to the required dimensions. With the cardboard template placed on top of the quarter gallery deck I was able to trim it to the right size. A trial fit shows it is aligned and two pins drop nicely into the holes beneath the deck. Next the rudder housing was assembled. I started with the left and right back pieces and used the top pattern to check the position. The next two pieces were then added. Once again the top panel was used to check the alignment. The final end piece was glued in place along with the top panel. It is not my best work as you can seer that the left hand side panel is a bit askew where it joins the central end panel. However when the poop deck is installed, it will be difficult to see this housing so I am content with the outcome. Next up will be the assembly of the various cabin screens. I have bought some spray mount for this task which should prevent the warping of the parts which normally happens when pva is used.

Rudder Housing Jig The assembly of the rudder housing comprises 6 parts. Each of the 5 side parts requires bevelling of the edges to get the required shaping of the rudder housing. As I think this could be a tricky little assembly to get right I decided I should make a simple jig to assist with the bevelling. I thought this small side project might be of interest to some of the Indy builders. Step 1 - Mark out the required pattern Using a scrap bit of MDF I used the top rudder housing pattern to draw the required outer edge shape. Once that was done I was able to add the inner edges. Step 2 - Making the Jig Using some spare planking material I glued support pieces to either side of the guide lines. I started with adding the support pieces to the outer edges and used the top pattern to double check the were correctly positioned. Once I was happy with the outer supports I cut and glued the inner support pieces. This time I used the side patters to ensure the correct gap was set. Step 3 - Bevelling the edges The bevelling of the edges was a relatively simple task. As each part was bevelled it was tested in the jig. I used to the top part to double check the alignment. Fingers crossed this means when it time to fit the parts to the quarter gallery deck there should not be any problems.

Many thanks, I am taking more time than normal for me to check things before I glue things.

I use the other build logs as a guide in conjunction with the manual and plan sheets. I would strongly recommend that you test fit the hanging knees with the deck beams before the deck beams are glued in place. So much easier to see what mods, if any, are required to the knees.

Thanks, I have already started to make a simple jig to help with the alignment and fitting, using the top shelf as a guide

Gun Deck Hatches I realised that I had not fitted the coamings to the gun deck hatches. This has now been rectified. When looking at the next photo I noticed one of cannon balls is trying to escape. I did consider the suggestion made by Jim of splitting the deck patterns in to three parts, but decided to try gluing the first (right hand side) as one complete piece. Using plenty of the clamps the deck pattern was glued in place. Whilst waiting for glue to dry I decided build a couple of deck items. I think they turned out OK. After another trial fit of the left hand deck pattern I decided to fit as one complete piece. There was plenty of clamps used as the glue was left to cure. A couple of hours later the clamps were removed and the masts and bitts were test fitted. Everything was perfectly aligned. The scrap framework was then successfully removed and the remaining bulkhead ear remnants were sanded flat to the deck level. The remaining bulwarks were then sanded smooth. To finish of todays work a test fit of the stern cabin rear bulkhead was undertaken. I also started to look at the assembly of the rudder casing and concluded that this is going to be a tricky little item to build.