Beef Wellington

Those rails look fantastic Dave, nicely done. Did you use kit supplied pieces or make your own?

Dang...still searching for a simple non-power tool solution. Your balcony chequer looks fantastic.

Lovely Nigel, very impressive. I see you shaped a piece of decorative strip beneath the windows, how did you do this? If it was with a scraper, how did you make it? Would love to try making my own at some point.

Nice Jim, if you add what you've done and what I've done, we'd both be done by now Seriously, looks great. I've had a few detours, I've decided to redo the footropes on the fore yards which is a little tricky when doing it when the yards are on the ship. I also decided to add ratlines to the topgallant shrouds, even though these are identified in the plan, I can find no logical sense why they wouldn't be there as the topgallant yards should have foot ropes and the chaps need to get to them somehow...

Very interesting subject Michael, makes a change from the usual suspects. I too am interested to see the differences between a Danish and English, French construction.

Nice looking top and shrouds Kevin. Glad to see you back at it.

If you keep it as it is you shouldn't encounter any problems in future stages of rigging... ...but, personally, I would move the the futtock stave to keep everything looking consistent. I feel that I've spent so much time and effort on my model already that I know that I would be very unsatisfied at the end if I let something go that I know I could have fixed. But that's me...

I think only you can answer that Stergios Don't think you will encounter a specific issue other than visual appearance. Maybe try to put the yard in place to see what it looks like and whether you are comfortable. Last night I fixed a couple of ratlines which was very challenging given other rigging now in place, but it could be done, its just down to your own appetite.

Great work Per. Can you disguise the dip with a thin wood strip simulating a batten although probably it will not be seen at all when the deck is installed. Slightly off topic....think we need to have a 'guess the beverage' break, my first guess would be "The Yamazaki" Single Malt...

Wonderful work Siggi, love the first 'eye level' shot.

Hard to tell from the photo, but the foremast futtock stave looks to be the one that is a little high based on where the cheeks are, although it should only be a visual thing. From pictures I've studies, the futtock stave is at a very similar level to the yard when in position, as the catharpins helped keep the shrouds from interfering with a yard braced round. If the yard does not interfere with the shroud then I think you should be OK...

Very nice wales Mike, looks great. Definitely agree that its important to get these correctly placed, and I'm mulling over how I want to approach this on 'Jason'. Looking forward to more planking going on!

Hi Stergios, I'm sure you have a lot of distractions, hope you're doing OK and able to find time to continue building your Snake. Best wishes.

Mike, Jesse, Michael, Joe, Jimz - thanks for kind words and support and all of the likes. Mort - I am so glad you posted!! I had bought some beeswax near the start of the build, of course that was 3yrs ago and I had completely forgotten I had it after putting it at the back of the cabinet. I undid some of the lines that I could and followed your guidance, it really does help, not just with fuzzies but also makes it easier to work with especially with belaying. I realized re-looking at the picture that I have to also remind myself that I will not be looking at the model through a microscope, it looks no-where near as bad in person to the unaided eye. Something else I noticed in the photos, some of the footropes are not that even and think I can do better, especially using the beeswax. Not committing yet, but think there will be redo here as well.

Cheers Jim and the likes, and thanks Mort - unfortunately I'm way beyond that decision but something to think about for the future... Rigging seems to be a little bit of a neglected area on this site, so wanted to post few pics of progress, for things specific to this kit where may be of help to others and also to hopefully capture where I've deviated from the plans. Petersson has been INVALUABLE! As a side note, I also nearly had a heart attack when I brought Snake outside for a few photos - I normally work in artificial light in my basement, and the natural light made all sorts of sorts of previously unseen 'fuzzies' VERY apparent. I vow never to use kit supplied line again, but am committed to making it work here for consistency. Will probably try brushing on some dilute PVA to try to tame them at some point. I've found the following 3 scenarios to be common: Plans are not clear - in these cases I've tried to follow Petersson Plans are clear enough and are somewhat consistent with Petersson - in these cases I've followed the plans but tweaked in some cases where it seems to make more sense Plans are clear enough, but differ from Petersson - in these cases I've followed the plans, unless Petersson seems more logical/elegant. Foreyard and Fore Topmast Fore yard prior to installation. Jeers and slings also pre-rigged Foremast installed. I used thicker line on the jeers (.75mm) as this seemed more in keeping with pictures I've found and attached round the yard following Petersson. As expected, I found lashing the slings rather challenging. I found the trusses could be made following plans and Petersson, but was the devil trying to get in place with all pendants and catharpins. Truss in place (sorry picture is little blurry), I did not even attempt to put in the knave line! Fore-topmast in place. Found the parrals very fiddly to do, but they can be done according to Petersson. I gave the parral beads a couple of goes in the drum sander to take off the shine and it gave a very pleasing result. The fore-topsail yard tie and lifts were taken around the fore-topmast with an eye splice as per Petersson. Belaying items for the foremast is rather challenging on Snake as the for'd bits are very close to the platform and leaves very little room for maneuver. I also didn't make this any easier by belaying the hawsers around the bits either. And finally, where things stand currently...I added flemish horses to the fore-topsail which are not identified in the Snake plans, but seem pretty ubiquitous and covered in Lever.

Jesse - I like the fake sheaves, I'm thinking of doing something similar, and think you are spot on that these don't need to be perfect give the impression and the line will obscure any imperfections.

Nice work RMC, the paint and the sharpness of your hull and paintwork really is to be admired, the shots really show that off. Well done

Siggi - I much prefer the single colour.

Hi Peter, coppering looks great. I'm sure you've thought this through, but wouldn't shortening the longboat alter the lines of the hull and result in an abrupt transition. Very interested to see how you work through this.

That looks fantastic Siggi as always. Beautiful work.

I think the question to also consider is where the people who build and rig replica ships, write AOTS books etc get their information from? I'd guess that these people similarly suffer from lack of clarity and definitive answers because they use exactly the same (hopefully primary) sources available to the rest of us (i.e. there isn't a 'book of secrets' out there that you are only allowed to see if you are building a full sized replica!). Maybe the question is how much variation would there have been across a contemporaneous fleet simply because of differences of opinion and standards of the officers and men who actually did the work, ostensibly within the official accepted standards of the day. When faced with this question on my Snake build, I chose not serve the top and topgallant shrouds all the way down, but this was based solely on my personal opinion that the serving would make the shroud look to thick and out of scale.

Per - nice start, will be following your progress. Even though I'm not building a Swan myself, I did just order a copy of TFFM Vol 2 after managing to find a cheap copy of Vol 1 in a book store - there is so much useful info that is applicable to other builds as well. The best price I could find was on Seawatch books, far from cheap but definitely better than the ridiculous $400 or more being asked on ebay/Amazon. http://www.seawatchbooks.com/109001

Fantastic work Daniel, goes without saying. Are you sure you didn't miss anyone? Great stuff.

Mike, Joe - thanks for taking the time explain, very helpful indeed. I think I'm getting into some new 'lots of questions' territory. Nigel - likewise, happy you are "back" All the best.

Nils, thank you! What I have just realized is that those diagrams also include the bolt-rope on the sail which caused my confusion. So it seems the situation is as follows, the Sheet terminates with a tack knot, and the knot is secured into a loop built into the stropping of the clue line block. This is illustrated on page 49 of Petersson. The situation for the top-gallant sheet and clue-line is not illustrated, but if the logic of the situation for the topsail sheet and clue continues, then the top-gallant sheet would also terminate in a tack knot, but this would be secured into a loop in the top-gallant clue line as it seems no block is used in this circumstance (extrapolated interpretation of Petersson page 50)