Sloop Speedwell 1752 by JeffT - Syren Ship Model Company - 1:32 scale - POF Sloop

[JeffT]

Thanks Rick.

[JeffT]

I finished up the apron. I was hesitant to trim the parts all the way down to the line due to potential errors on my part, so stopped a bit short of that and will finish fairing them later. I did accidentally chip a piece off the top of the number 2 part and had to make a repair. You can see that in the last picture.

I then did a dry fit of the remaining keel parts. I noted that the keel is slightly longer than the plan but I believe that is intentional based on what I read in the instructions. I think the most critical point going forward is to make sure the upper and lower apron are in the right position.

I mentioned this previously, I have a gap between the lower apron and the rabbet strip. I didn't sand anything there so not sure what caused it. I reduced the thickness of the plank forming the rabbet strip immediately behind the laser cut part of the rabbet strip and that did nothing. I need to figure out how to deal with this. I may remove the rabbet strip there and try again. Or maybe I should just fill the gap with some strip material. You can see the gap in the picture below.

[Freebird]

Jeff, is the lower apron a tight fit between the upper apron and the riser? If so, that'll compress the wood a little and not allow the apron to seat properly. I too had some gap on the lower apron, I gently sanded ends of the apron until the gap was smaller and used a clamp to seat fully on the rabbet strip. It didn't take too much effort to get the apron in place. Best Regards .... Rick

[JeffT]

I think that may be the case. I will double check everything.

[JeffT]

I'm a little behind on this. I've had a couple medical procedures to deal with over the last two weeks so I haven't been able to do much. I'll be back on it soon.

[JeffT]

Trying to get back in the saddle here. Continuing on with my gap issue with the apron. I went back a couple of steps here and removed most of the forward parts of the rabbet strip and replaced it. This was because I removed some material in an attempt to get the apron to sit flush, which didn't work. I decided to replace the rabbet strips with the 1/16 strip included in the kit. I cut the first two parts to match the length of the kit parts. I soaked them and clamped in place to hold the shape and then glued them on afterwards. I also removed two of the upper parts to allow the apron to flex a bit. They may have also have been causing the lower apron to straighten a bit. At this point its nearly a perfect fit and it doesn't look like I will need any flex at all. The next challenge for me is gluing the parts on. These parts are wider than the keel so I will need to figure out how to make sure I get them properly centered.