BareHook

Hi Keith!
 
Bob's AVS is not technically out of production, but he won't manufacture a kit unless he has a lot of 8 orders and business has been slow.  He doesn't really advertise.  If you are interested, I believe he has one AVS in stock right now.  As to this Kit:  It's quite a bit different from the MS AVS.  The kit differs from Bob's previous kits in that the frames are beveled before installation, making the fairing of the hull, both inside and out, muck easier. The 3D parts are quite excellent.  The detail is amazing.  You'll have a hard time looking at typical MS, Amati, Corel Britannia metal castings and then using them.  Photo below of the 3-D printed parts.
 
PS:  If you're interested in selling "Halifax", I'll take it off your hands!

Finally at a point where I am getting to 'visually' see how big this little (not so little) boat is going to be when it's completed.
 
First I finished up the bowsprit by affixing a bunch of little cleats and sanding them to shape, and affixing the rings that support the jib boom.
 
Bowsprit & Jib Boom:

 
Next I mounted the cheeks and cross-trees on the main-mast, then put two of the chocks in, and made the third chock. After playing with the fitment of the third chock, and looking at the plans, I realized that the base of the topmast wouldn't fit through the round fitting at the top of the main-mast, so I removed the third chock and will place it after the topmast is placed permanently later on. I then made the topmast and cut the little hole in the base where a piece of wood called a 'fid' goes through it to rest on the cross-trees. I drilled a sheave slot in the top-mast, but haven't drilled the hole and placed the sheave yet.
 
Here is how the main-mast and top-mast will fit together.  Really happy with how this came out.

 
And finally, dry fitting the complete bowsprit and mast assemblies to see the overall size (minus the main boom which will extend behind the ship by several inches too).

 
It got big all of a sudden!

Hi Brian
An alternative method for the yoke is to use PE brass hooks straightened out. I just think it looks a bit cleaner and more realistic than what you have done. The method is well explained in Blue Ensigns Pegasus log and I attach a picture of my go at it for my Fly build (will delete this in a few days time to avoid confusion). It is bloody hard to do! The barrel is one of Chucks and is blackened but the yoke is painted. Although I haven't touched my model for nearly a year it is one of those repeat processes that I don't look forward to. I just used the white metal kit supplied swivels on my AVS but wish I had upgraded them now. The kit ones for the Fly are truly bad - an upgrade was definitely needed!
 
Another wee trick I did on my AVS was to wrap a bit of rope around the joint between the mast and the mast wedge at the deck. When painted this looks authentic as I believe this item was covered in canvas to seal the junction and the rope wrap covers up any gaps in the joint.
 
Cheers
Alistair
 
P.S. I think I have enough PE brass hooks for yokes to send you some if you want to go down this route...

Good to see you around Alistair, and yea, I've stuck the bowsprit assembly and main mast on already, it's pretty awesome the size jump.
 
I continue to put off doing the chain plates on the port side, and have done some experimentation (failed) and various small bits.
 
First, I decided to continue on my route of replacing most of the cast pieces in the kit by making my own mast hoops out of wood.  Unfortunately, this didn't work out so good, as the wooden hoops are just too fragile, and I can't get them cut off without breaking them.  This is partially because of their small size, and partially (or maybe mostly) because I was using a dowel as my wood, and the grain is just too big for this sort of thing.  I have an idea on how I could make it work using multiple pieces of boxwood laminated together with the grain all going the proper direction, but in the end I decided that the effort just wasn't worth it for these pieces, and the kit hoops have been primed (and now painted as well, but no photo of that).

 
The next cast piece to get trash-binned was the strap that holds the foot of the bowsprit.  This piece doesn't fit the bowsprit properly as I completed it, and it's kind of ugly anyway, so I made a new piece out of brass.  This is 5 pieces soldered together, which was quite a trial, as the pieces are so small I couldn't heat one joint without breaking another one.  In the end I got it done, it's not perfect, but it will do.  I drilled holes for brass pins that I will make to pin the strap to the deck, and to the bowsprit.  I then blackened it with Birchwood Casey Brass Black, as I can no longer get Blacken-It at the local shop.

 
I got the mast wedge filed to fit the mast, and rounded the outside edge.  Haven't decided yet on any detailing for this piece.

 
And finally, tossing the cast swivel guns into the bin, I started work on the replacements.  First I soldered the trunions in place, and began to form a 'yoke' to support the gun.

 
I then soldered the yoke to a rod, drilled holes for the trunion, and stuck a gun on to see how it will look.

 
Pretty happy with how these look.  Worth the effort and expense.  Opinion time - should the yoke drop right down against my existing post mounts I've made, or should the rod stand them up slightly from the mount base?

 
I will also be adding a handle to the gun.  I sort of completely forgot to do that.  Doh!
 
Another question.  The yoke is so small, that I don't think I'll be able to solder the trunions to the yoke without breaking the existing solder joint of the yoke to the rod.  Thoughts on 'fixing' the gun in place?  Super glue should work I suppose, but I'm not sure how easy that will be to make invisible, and would need to be done after blackening.  I'll play with some ideas, but more than open for suggestions on this!

Thanks for the continued likes and comments everyone.  Feel free to jump in with suggestions for improvement or telling me I'm making errors at any time.  This is only my 2nd ship, so I've got plenty to learn still.
 
Instead of finishing the chain plates and dead-eyes on the other side of the boat, I decided to play with power tools. The plans show a sheave in both the bowsprit, and the jib-boom, but the kit doesn't provide it, and both the plans and instructions say to just drill a hole for the line to run through. Well, the heck with that, I'm an idiot and decided to risk wrecking my bowsprit by building in the sheave!  I am pretty happy with how the one for the bowsprit came out, I used a small piece of dowel with a hole drilled through it and sanded down to size for the pulley.   Not super happy with how the one in the jib-boom came out, it's just so small that I had a hard time getting a clean slot cut. I didn't even try to insert a pulley. I'm hoping that with rope run through this it won't look bad.   And here is a shot of the bowsprit and jib-boom together. They aren't actually glued together, I have a bunch of work left to do adding little cleats and stuff to them. Notice the length of this assembly is slightly longer than the length of the hull of the ship it will be attached to!     Then I made the main mast. This is the longest piece of wood on the ship, and was somewhat challenging to shape because it was so long. Pictured here next to the remainder of the 1/2" square boxwood that it was carved from. The other pictures are close ups of the top and foot of the mast. Pretty happy that I pretty much nailed the shapes and size on my first go at it. I do have 1 spare piece of boxwood if I had totally messed it up, but glad I shouldn't need to use it.

So I'm learning that I really dislike working with the metal bits.  I'm not really equipped yet to do soldering on very fine parts yet (need one of those pinnable soldering mats of some kind), so I went with black coated copper wire to make the chain plates.
 
I made a simple jig after getting the length figured out on a very rough not-pretty hand made piece.

 
I test fit the first one and it was fairly decent, so I made all 4 for one side.

 
Then I bent them to fit the ship and.. I managed to flip the dead-eye in the jig on all but the first one, making them too long.  I'll remake all 4 after adjusting the jig slightly and adding side pieces so that it's not possible to flip the dead-eye the wrong way.

 
My system for these is quite simple, I'm making the joint where the cap of the channel will cover it, so the fact that it's not perfectly mated and soldered doesn't matter, and just joining the thing together with CA glue.  This seems like it is going to work just fine, but I'll end up having to re-glue them all to keep them aligned after bending them to fit, as the brittle glue joint between the two sides tends to fail when I'm bending them into the channels.  
 
They'll also be painted matte black so they aren't shiny.  If it doesn't work out, then I'll revert to doing something in brass, but I'm hoping this will work, as they seem to look just fine and once they are fixed in place with the nail/glue at the bottom and the channel cap at the top, they shouldn't be moving enough to be a problem.

Ship update!
 
After redoing the workshop, I got back to the final deck details prior to starting to work my way forward and upward!
 
I completed the timberheads, swivel gun support posts, and the channels in preparation to begin the chain-plate fabrication next.
 

 
I think I'll make a dummy mast so that I can attach rope to get the angle on the chain-plates correct, and then make some sort of a jig (I've got some ideas from other build logs here) for positioning the upper dead-eyes later.  I've decided to replace the kit dead-eyes with Syren ones, and I've got them assembled but not sanded yet.  Also, after messing around again with the kit brittania cast swivel guns, decided to throw them out, and ordered brass swivel guns which I'll need to fabricate a yoke and handles for.

As some (or all) of you may have gathered by now, I'm quite easily distracted by "shiny things".  My most recent distraction was that I finally decided that I needed to finish my work room, which required quite a bit of re-working.
 
First I removed the temporary hanging lights I had rigged, and spent far more time working over my head than I have done in a very long time, which reminded me that working on overhead stuff truly sucks.  I used Wiremold to tap two circuits out of my overhead light fixture (was wired for a ceiling fan that was never installed in this room).  I then hung 3 awesome LED light fixtures from Costco (3700 lumens each @ 4000K, for only a 30 watt draw), these are all wired to the same circuit.
 

 
So much light, it's awesome.
Next up, launched into a furniture assembling marathon, and replaced my two 20" deep, very crowded work benches with 3 x 30" x 60" surfaces, allowing me to move both existing work benches to the back side of the room and dedicate them to my ever-growing collection of power tools.  Thanks to Frank for pointing me at Ikea for these fantastic table-tops and shelf units.
 

 
I still have to mount two more of these LED fixtures, which will be on the other circuit so they are separately switched over the two work benches, but that will come later.  I've got a ton of work now just to get organized into the new area, since everything has to be relocated to the new drawer units under the new work area.  
 
Hopefully my next update will have actual ship progress again, now that I'm pretty much done with the room layout (and there is no room left for any other additions).

The catheads turned into an unexpected issue.  The angle built into the laser cut parts appeared to be completely wrong.  When the 'flat' on the bottom of the cathead was placed on the cap rail per the plans and instructions, the base was standing proud of the inside of the bulwarks near the deck by about 1/4".   Not sure if they are cut wrong, or if I somehow managed to get the angle on my bulwarks that far off of what they should be.
 
The solutions that I could think of were:
1) Cut an angle into the cap rail making the catheads stick up at an angle more severe than that shown in the plans.  Issue being that I was not sure the cap rail had enough thickness to actually support that angle, and the base of the catheads on the bulwarks would be lowered, possibly enough to interfere with the waterway.
2) File the bottom of the cathead  to make it fit, again causing a fairly steep angle, and presenting issues with how to shape the bottom edge of the cathead once that much of and angle was built into the 'flat'.
3) Modify the catheads by separating them into two pieces right at the corner, and changing the angle.  Issue - getting them aligned properly upon re-assembly, and making the join neat enough to not be visible on completion.
 
I eliminated #1 almost immediately, as if it didn't work right, I would have the problem of wrecked cap rails which would be a huge task to replace.
 
#2 seemed to be a problem with the shaping and the angle both.
 
So I went with #3.  Using the UMM micro-saw, I carefully sliced the cathead into two pieces, right at, and parallel to the 'flat' where the cathead would sit on the cap rail.  I then filed the piece that would go on the bulkhead, a little bit at a time, test fitting until I hit the right angle, and to keep the mating surface reasonable close through the entire process.  I then drilled a small hole into the bulkhead piece, and inserted a small brass nail cut to leave just the pointy tip exposed.  I then pressed the two pieces together carefully aligning them.  The tip of the nail gave me a point to drill the hole into the top piece, and I then replaced the pointy brass nail with a slightly longer one cut to be a pin to help secure the two parts together.
 
I took a picture after the first one was complete, overlaid on the one that was still unmodified to show how much angle I changed.

 
Seemed to work ok, so I cut the other one and followed the same procedure, and then mounted them both on the rail.  Right after that I realized I forgot to drill the other hole in the cathead for the rope.  Doh!  So I carefully drilled out the other hole while supporting the cathead with a finger.

 
Issue defeated.  I'll decide after I finish all the knightsheads and swivel gun supports whether these will be painted per the instructions or left natural, as I'll need to do a fair amount of touch-up painting where I removed the paint to get a good joint between the bulwarks / cap rail and the catheads.

Thank you all for the likes and comments.  Now that the pumps are done, I finally installed the companionway in it's permanent home.

 
And then I buckled down and did it.  All the guns are rigged.  Woo!

Went back into the workshop and made the pumps.  The kit used to include walnut dowel for the pump bodies, but at some point they changed it and only give beech dowels, so they required staining.  I used card-stock for the bands instead of brass, because it's so easy to work with and it is painted black anyway.  I used the hard brass nails from my Carmen kit for the rods and handle pivots instead of the softer brass rod from the kit.  It's slightly smaller diameter, but not enough to really change the visual look at all.
 

This wooden boat hobby has changed my definitions of what is a 'productive day', as the time frame for finishing a project is so long.  I consider today to be a productive day, and I may actually go back and do more before it's over.
 
First I finished up the rest of the guns, and did some touch up painting on all of them.

 
Next I tackled the rudder.  I completely forgot to take any pictures of this in progress, but it starts out as a laser cut walnut piece with no taper.  To make it into a proper rudder, first it has to be tapered front to rear (it's about 1/2 the thickness along the back edge as it is at the front), and rounded at the front.  Then the lines have to be measured out and etched.  This is to simulate the fact that a real rudder wasn't a single piece of wood, it's built up out of multiple timbers.  In this case 4 pieces.   Next I have to cut recesses for the pintles.  This was accomplished with a very sharp, small chisel.

 
Next up, I got to learn something new!  Soldering.  I've soldered a lot of electronics before, but by before I mean 30+ years ago.  Soldering brass using flux, silver solder, and a torch is all new, but for my first effort I think it came out ok. 
 
I made the pintle - brass pin soldered to the strap that will go into that recess I cut into the rudder.

 
The plans make the gudgeon (the strap that the pintles drop into on the ship side) by simply using the brass strap, and letting the pintle drop into it.  I decided to solder a tiny brass tube onto the gudgeon to make them work like a real one would. 

 
Tthe pintle is too long currently, it will be trimmed later.

 
Now i just need to make two more sets of pintles and gudgeons, but my eyes are bugging me so not sure I'll get back to it today or not.

Thanks for the comments and likes!  SalD - I will be taking most of my vacation this year by going to the conference at Mystic.  Really looking forward to that.  In the mean time, I'll take a few days off here and there.
 
The learning trials of ship-building continue.  Each little gun carriage gets 5 eye-bolts, which means I have to drill 5 little tiny holes (#78 drill).  I started with a pin-vise and I discovered rapidly that the boxwood which these carriages are made out of is a LOT harder than the basswood I've been drilling before, and it took 10 minutes to drill one hole through the side of a carriage, and I had 29 more holes to drill.  Ugh.  Then a lightbulb went off and I remembered that Mahuna had gotten me this really awesome collection of little drill-bits that were very sharp but needed to be used in a press, since they are very hard/brittle.  Well, I don't have a drill press yet, but I did just recently get a little Proxxon mill, so I chucked up the #78 bit, and then clamped the first carriage in the tool-bed vise.   So awesome, got the 29 holes done in less time than the first one, and they are much more precisely located than they would have been.

 
Next up, I cut down the eye-bolts and glued 3 of them into each carriage.  The other two for each carriage get a ring that the breech line will go through later on when they are rigged to the deck.  These eye-bolts and rings are tiny and I ended up doing all this work wearing an optivisor magnifier thing.

 
I assembled all of the rings to their eye-bolts and used a tiny drop of CA glue to join the ends of the ring.  Probably didn't need to do that.  Then I decided to just finish one gun assembly because I wanted to see it done.  I used very small strips of manila folder to form the trunion caps.  These were supposed to be made out of brass, but I made both brass and the paper ones, and the paper look better as I can't seem to get a nice smooth curve out of brass at this small scale.  I put in the eye-bolt / rings on each side, added a handle to the quoin, and painted the rims of the wheels black to simulate iron bands.  I was planning to add some more bolts and other details, like the retaining pins on each axle, but these things are so small that I decided I wasn't up to the task, so I think this is how the guns will all be completed, other than some clean up and touch up painting later on.  

 
The paint looks really rough zoomed in this close, but even 6" away with my naked eye it looks smooth.  Macro photography is both a blessing and a curse.

Ahoy mates!
 
I know it's difficult to believe, but I really didn't fall off the face of the earth, rather life just sometimes gets in the way of hobbies, and I had a stretch of work where I was working 70+ hours per week (went 6 weeks straight without even a day off), and then I went on a short vacation/road trip to a track event at Miller Motorsports Park.
 
I thought the work stuff was behind me for a while, but then my manager announced that I was in charge of the June release and oh, by the way, she was off to India for a month+ so not only was I in charge, but surprise, she wasn't going to be here to show me all the stuff I needed to do (none of which she has documented of course), so I was sort of muddling through on my own.  Then, her boss says "Oh, by the way, I'm on vacation for the next two weeks".  
 
Cool.  So the person who normally does it is in India, and the person who used to do it is gone on vacation.  Wee..  
 
In any case, I've actually gotten back to a little bit of ship-work in the last couple weeks, but it's been rather slow going.  Slow as in I've been working on gun carriages, and getting one of them done every few days.  So really really slow.
 
First I assembled one to make sure that the slightly larger than the kit carriages from Syren would work ok.

 
Looks fine to me!  Of course after this it occurred to me that a smart person would have painted the parts before assembly.
 
I finally got an air compressor, so I laid out the rest of the parts and primed them.

 
I then painted them all, but didn't take any photo's, and began assembly.  Late in the assembly process I did snap a couple pictures, but they are mostly pretty boring.

 
Tonight I got carriage #6 done finally, so I figured I'd stick them on deck and see how they look.  No quoins, so the barrels are a bit high in the gun ports.

 
Lots of work still to do on these, I have to respray them to get the parts without paint covered, make the quoins, add all the eye-bolts, then make the caps to hold the guns on, glue all the various bits in place and do paint touch-ups, etc.
 
Oh, and I also need to complete the finish on the hull & deck, right now there is only a single coat of poly on everything, and I need to buff that and add another couple of coats before I start putting stuff on the deck that will make it difficult/impossible to do later on.
 
But, it's good to see at least a tiny bit of progress after the almost 2 months since I finished the poop deck.

Karl,
Amazing work! I really like your display cases as well, did you make them? if so can your share a bit on the methods used?
 
That's quite a ship, you never get a feel for the scale until you see the photos next to your furniture and especially where the top masts stretch up toward the ceiling!
 
If I ever manage to get across the pond to Germany, I hope I can stop by for a close-up view.
 
Ken

Hi friends,
 
Completion of the main mast
 
with shrouds and ratlines.
 
Karl   
 
 
 
T e i l   5 8

Been a little while, thank you for all of the kind words and likes.
 
Work has been extremely busy, so I have only spent a very small amount of time here and there on the AVS lately, but this morning I decided to make a few hours of time to put the poop deck to rest.  I started trimming the planks for this part weeks ago, and just couldn't seem to get the time to finish.
 
For anyone else building a model with tapered planks like the poop deck of the AVS, I found a very simple jig in another AVS build log that works quite well for making the planks so they don't have to be done completely by hand, 26 times.
 
First up, I cut 28 pieces of plank to the appropriate length.  I use a simple jig that I made to cut the hull planks to 4", and just measured and cut a new slot for cutting these planks:

 
The angle jig is surprisingly simple, but I don't think I would have thought of it if I hadn't seen it in another build log.  I apologize for not giving proper credit, but I can't seem to locate it again right now.
 
The jig is made up of a 1/4" piece of wood that the deck plank lays against, 2 x 1/4" end pieces which are cut to length (sanded to final length after glue is dried) to give the proper taper, and a couple pieces of .030" (deck plank thickness) of planking placed to hold the deck plank in place, and also to support the straight edge used for cutting.

 
Place the plank into the jig, hold a straight edge up against the end 'stop' pieces, and then using very light pressure on the blade, simply cut along the straight edge to make tapered planks.  I used a very thin steel straight edge for the actual cuts, the clear plastic one is for the photo only to show how it rests on the support planks.

 
Then, start placing planks!

 
Didn't take any other in-progress shots, it's just normal planking, but care must be taken to bevel the edges, as the curve of this deck will cause significant gapping if the planks are left straight edged.
 
Once complete there is a ledge left at the front end of the deck.

 
This ledge is a place for a moulding to go, which is supposed to be made out of walnut.  However, I happened to have a piece of swiss pear that was almost exactly the right dimensions to make this moulding, so of course, I had to try it.  I used a heat gun and pre-bent the curve into the wood so that it laid evenly all along the top edge of the deck, and then I beveled the back, and rounded the front.  I also used a very sharp 2mm chisel to fine tune the front edge of the deck until I was happy with the fit along the edge.

 
And finally, I sanded to 320 grit, and applied a coat of wipe-on poly which is currently drying.

 
There are some fitment/gap issues along the top edges on both ends of the quarter deck wall, but I don't really see any way to fix them as they are built into the ship from mistakes made earlier in the contruction, so I'm just going to move on and hopefully they won't be very noticeable after the ship is finished with so much other stuff to catch the attention of the observer.
 
Next I think I need to assemble the cannon carriages.

Work continues on the fore mast yards and rigging. I have been doing the topsail and lower yards. The lower is now done and mounted and the rigging begun. The attached photos show the progression of work on the lower yard. It follows my usual scheme of starting with a round dowel, then cutting and filing a square section. adding wood strip to build up the square section, then filing that eight sided, then tapering and shaping the yard and finally adding the cleats. After completion of that work, the yard was prepared for mounting by painting it black, adding the foot ropes, the various blocks and lines attached to the yard and the studdingsail boom brackets and booms. Quite a tangle when it got done.
 
The lower yard has now been mounted and I've begun running the rigging lines, but won't do photos until I've done the topsail yard, which is now in process.
 
Bob

Few more details added as I continue to put off cutting the tapered planks for the poop deck.  
 
Added the bottom molding and the door handles and hinges for the quarterdeck wall.
 

 
It's amazing how terrible the unfinished wood can look in macro photographs.

BTW just noticed the index on the first post, Awsome idea especially for the longer build logs

Edit: Adding an index
 
Section 1 - Pre-planking work.
Beginning the bulkheads
Shimming the bulkheads
Cutting the Rabbet
Reinforcing the bulkheads
Fairing bulkhead tops and placing sub-decks
Shimming bulkhead extensions and fairing
Stern building issues
Stern construction
Knights heads and first planks
Waterways and transom work
 
Section 2 - First planking and surrounding work.
Stern windows and planking
Outer bulwark planking
Lower planking part 1
Side-bar - Reno trip
Lower planking part 2
Lower planking part 3
Lower planking part 4
 
Section 3 - Wales and inner bulwarks
Wales part 1
Wales part 2 and spirketing plank 1
Spirketing plank 2
Inner bulwarks
The black strake & inner bulwarks painting
Scuppers and inner bulwarks painting
Outer bulwarks 2nd planking and more painting
Outer bulwarks 2nd planking and Cap Rail
Stern cap rail and planking
 
Section 4 - Outer painting and 2nd planking below wales.
Bulwark painting
Lower planking part 1
Lower planking part 2
Lower planking part 3
Lower planking part 4
Lower planking part 5
Lower planking part 6
Planking time-lapse video
Lower planking completion
Sweep ports part 1
Sweep ports part 2
 
Section 5 - Deck & furniture
Main hatch and scuttle port
Companionway
Deck planking begins
Remaking the galley hatch
Deck planking continued
Deck planking complete - tree nailing
Planking the poop deck
Guns!
Rudder
Rigging the Cannons - beginning
Ships wheel
Rigging the Cannons - continued
Rigging the Cannons - rope coils
Stropping a single block
Making the Catheads
Elm tree pumps
Ladders and Binnacle
Swivel gun posts and channels
Chain plates & dead-eyes
 
Section 6 - Masts & Standing Rigging
Bowsprit sheaves & main mast construction
Jib boom & Top mast
Gaff, boom & yards
Swivel Gun yoke jig
Swivel Gun soldering - mount, yoke, handles.
Main mast standing rigging begins
Shroud Lanyards
Mounting the Bowsprit
Bobstay & Forestay
Naming Day
 
Section 7 - Running Rigging
Beginning the running rigging
Sidebar - San Diego Festival of Sail trip (link to other thread)
Running rigging completed
Rope coils
Anchor buoys
End of the line
 
------------------------------
Beginning of build log:
 
Just starting up the log with what appears to be the traditional 'unboxing' post.  This was actually done on September 6th, but I did not see any point in opening a build log while I was still working on the Carmen, as I'm not going to attempt to do multiple builds at once yet (no room, even if I wanted to).
 
I took inventory using the parts list included, and everything seems to be ship-shape.  I will likely not actually begin working on this until the weekend, as I've got an idea for a display stand for the Carmen to take to my office (my not at home office), and now that I'm done building the Carmen, I want to read through the instructions and some build logs for the AVS before I begin.
 
Until then, here are the unboxing photo's.
 

Looking really good!
Just a thought, when you plank the poop deck, make sure you bevel the planks or you will end up with wide gaps due to the radius of the deck arc.
 
Ken

I've now made, mounted and rigged the spritsail and sprit topsail yards. The yards themselves were easy, since they are round in section throughout and only required tapering before adding the yard and arm cleats. I pre- rigged the yards by adding the halliard block, parrel, lifts and braces before mounting them on the pins previously set in the bowsprit and jibboom. 
 
The parrels were then completed and the halliards and lifts were led through their respective blocks/thimbles and back to the bow pinrail, where they were tied off and separate rope coils added.The braces were led back through the the blocks under the fore top (an incredibly fiddly job), but won't be tied off until sometime during the fore mast rigging. The last task was to complete the rigging of the jibboom  and flying jibboom guys by leading them through eyebolts on the yards back to blocks and tackles at the bows that were tied off on the pinrail and coils added.
 
Next will be the foremast yards and rigging.
 
Bob

So I've actually accomplished some more things on the AVS over the last few days, in the form of completing most of the quarter-deck.  Today I completed the quarter-deck, and then began drilling holes.  Ended up with 510 holes (I think), and only after it was completed and I was editing the photo's to upload did I notice that I missed a pair of holes on a butt joint.  Oops.  I also managed to knock one out on the quarter deck, so after the poly has dried I'll have to add the 2 missing ones and repair the one that came out.
 
I got going on things and didn't take any in-progress photo's of the quarter deck, or the tree-nailing except for the first shot.
 

Thanks everyone for the kind words and likes.
 
The main deck planking is all placed. I learned a number of things doing this, and in retrospect I would have done a few things differently (where the butt-ends landed, I should have started the hook & scarf at least one, and probably 2 planks earlier), but overall I'm fairly happy with the final results. 
 
Now I need to plank the quarter-deck, and then do a full scraping and get a couple coats of poly down (oh, and open up the holes for mast, stove pipe, etc.) before drilling a bunch of little holes!  I also need to make some small adjustments to the main hatch, and re-poly all the deck furniture which is all still just sitting in place, not glued.