Well, it has been a little over a month since my last update.  I’ve been working constantly, but I’ve been hesitant to update because I wasn’t proud of my progress.  I hit some issues, which is something I imagine happens to many first-time ship modelers.

My last update saw the cap rail installed.  In the last month, I’ve gotten all the deck furniture installed as well as the bowsprit.

So…deck stuff…

I built a few of the aft buildings several months ago, but wasn’t happy with the results.  I rebuilt them.  The skylight took 3 tries.  The first attempt was just a failure (tried to cut the windows out of sheet stock).  The second attempt failed to take the thickness of the window framing into account when shaping the main structure (so it ended up being too large overall).  The third try worked.

As some other build logs have mentioned, the rear deck is a little crowded, and if dimensions are not exactly right, things don’t fit right.  I ran into this.  So, I decided to stop, and approach it from a different way.   I copied the plans for the rear deck and put it on a small build board.  This is a hold-over from my days building Model Airways planes, where much of the framing is built on top of plans on a pin-able build board.  I used a piece of commercial ceiling tile ($5 at a big-box hardware store).  The plans were laid on top, covered with wax paper and pinned down.  This let me build each piece and pin it in place to ensure I got all the sizes right.

Anyway…got all the deck stuff built, and moved on to the bowsprit.  Much celebration was had when I read in Chuck’s practicum that I was halfway done.  The bowsprit was straight-forward and relatively easy to build.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be diving into the last few pieces necessary to begin running the rigging for bowsprit.  I’m excited to finally start in on some rigging.

I mentioned that I’m not proud of the results…which comes down to a few things…

• I haven’t been using primer as much as I should.  Many pieces would look better if I took the time to properly sand/primer/sand/paint.
• I didn’t pay enough attention to measurements on the plans as I should have.  The rear deck wasn’t deep enough.  Some dimensions are just ‘off’.
• There’s just a lack of ‘polish’ compared to just about every other build I see on the forum.  I keep reminding myself that this is my first ship build, and many forum members have been building for a very, very long time.

At the end of the day, this build was always about cutting my teeth on ship building.  I’m definitely learning.  There have been moments where I felt the desire to stop the build and move on to a new ship where I could apply what I’ve learned, but I’m determined to see this through.  I’m sure I’ll learn a ton by finishing this out, which will make the next build even better.  Plus, my family doesn’t notice any of the things I’m freaking out about (and they think what I’ve done is amazing), so I guess I’m still doing well from the ‘non-ship-builder’ point of view.