tomasg

Added the ones that go on the hull.

Outer handrail, it s stated to be basswood in the plans, but it s very different then the deck planks that are basswood. But i think it gets together well with the green....

After a long discussion between the three builders and the fourth family member and after some testing we came to the joint decision to deviate from the blue color on the box, instead opting for the green! Pictures and research of the Thermopylae on the web helped here:

I decided to paint the inner side of the bulwarks white, because the superstructure would be a combination of white and another color....

Some more....

Here are some detailed pictures of the planking, i must say that it was a challenge, the first layer is 1,5 mm x 3 mm, the second one is 0,5 mm x 3 mm, not much room for a lot of sanding As always, the wood is beautiful in the kits, the second layer is walnut, but i find it a bit light and a bit reddish in tone.

Proud of "their" first planking

I am posting this way because i was afraid that it would be too much pictures for a single post. Sanding is another thing they enjoyed As it was the varnishing.....

I did most of the work, obviously, but they where happy to help The planking of the deck was one of the parts where they where able to work on a lot. Also panting stuff is something they can do also.

Ah the joy of the first planking

Is there a way to add some text below the pictures in the post, i mean kind of adding a picture and then writing a comment? Anyway here the work has started:

Hello everybody. So this is our first log on MSW. A brief introduction before i begin with the log. It all started as i begin to work on my Le Superbe (log to follow, if there is some interest) after a long long time. In fact i stopped working on it after the birth of my first son, Timotej, ten years ago. So now after ten years and with two sons, the second one is Tristan (eight years old), i ended building a new model. It was logic, as they where very attracted by the Le Superbe, even more so after i started to work on her again. After some time and a lot of offerings for help from both of them , i decided that it was better to start a new one with them. There s a shop in Trieste not to far away from where we live, where i bought all of my previous kits. Thermopylae was almost a random choice, the choice of the kits in the shop was not very large. I know it s not the best choice for a first build, even less for someone that young, but the whole idea is for them to assist me, another reason is that i think that after some time they ll find it boring and will give up on the build, so i would have to finish it myself, more on that later. Ok now the more interesting part, this is my fifth build and also my fifth Mantua group (Mantua, Sergal, Panart) kit. I have no experience with other manufacturers, because when i stared there was no internet It s a classic kit, with all the good and the bad things. One thing worth to mention is that this must be a newer kit, as the etched brass parts are being replaced with wood etched parts, see the stickers on the box and picturs in the log for that. By far the most difficult thing is the scale of the model, being 42 and having a strong dioptrie of -6 and and what is worse a slight predioptrie. In comparison Le Superbe looks gigantic. We started the build a month ago, the pictures i took so far where not meant for a log, so they are not very detailed, but i ll take more step by step ones in the future. So here we go, the most sweet moment, at home inspecting the kit: