Model Ship Update

I've been in a bit of a holding pattern with this. Part of it has been that I have been pretty busy since Christmas but perhaps the bigger reason is that I was getting a bit discouraged and needed to take a break.



The problem was in the planking. The instructions with the kit are not nearly clear enough and I should have spent more time doing some research at the start. I figured I could just fit each piece on the fly and any imperfections could be sanded away. What I should have done was some careful measuring and calculating at the front, tapering and twisting each piece as necessary. Doing this by look, on the fly, just had the pieces not fitting together as they should, with small errors compounding by the end, especially around the bow.

I tried filling in with wedge shaped pieces and then sanding the whole thing smooth, but the close-up of the bow in the last shot shows what I ended up with. I'm going to varnish as it is when ready and then try mixing coloured, MinWax, wood filler to match the finished colour. This stuff is made for finishing furniture, so hopefully I can get a satisfactory result.

In the meantime, I've begun working with smaller trim-like work, like the water way that can be seen on the sides of the maindeck in the above pictures. Next is the railing and trim. There is also a double width of planking right at the boundary between the light and dark wood that runs the length of the ship. It can be seen best in the third picture. This will eventually be painted black. This work is certainly more enjoyable then the planking, so I think I'll be working on it more for the next while.

Mike