grendel

Tim, I have just the one picture of the deck support spacing, it looks like I am using heavier beams than original, but the spacing is about right, as scale beams would be very fiddly to install, so I am happy I have a good compromise..

if you are an archer only google fletching for putting feathers on arrows - is all I am saying.

Here we have the finished floor section, and in situ, with the steps. Another rib fitted and a further one steamed, another roof beam steamed, I will need a few of these. two more deck supports inserted along the side deck. and that is todays work done. A fair bit done here and there through the day.

ok so I got it out just in time, as it was starting to stick, well its out and I have put the steps on, the cockpit floor can now sit for a while until the glue sets. today has just been pottering around, but I hope this shows the level of detail I will be going to.

well the blinds are disassembled, 966 planks 1" wide, that will make twice that many half the width, less than a penny a plank. In the meantime some detail work has been progressing, the steps in the cockpit are under construction. the tricky bit here is gluing it up, tight to the surrounding structure, without gluing it to that structure. the trick will be moving it before the glue has set hard enough to make things difficult, but hard enough so it doesnt all fall to bits, careful control of glue placement is also crucial.

this mornings trip to the boot fair yielded 4x 45" and 2x 26" wooden blinds, all for £15 thats an awful lot of planking material. I probably wont use this on this project, but it will certainly save me a fortune in planking timbers.

well the glue dried, was cleaned up, and the filler applied and sanded. I also found an alternative use for something handed out at work for winter weather - a tyre tread gauge - this is excellent for measuring small dimensions (up to 20mm) in tight spaces. This was used to measure some tight dimensions in the transom cockpit, so that the sides of the cockpit could be made. both sides are now made and are gluing into position, once these are dry then the cockpit floor can have the steps added.

I used to have no tv signal, despite the fact that we have a local booster transmitter, by looking at the map we were on an almost dead straight line from the transmitter through the tower of Canterbury cathedral - we had no channels, fast forward 2 years and on one of my searches I saw that the local boosters had the aerials oriented vertically rather than horizontally (or is it the other way round), turned the aerial 90 degrees, and I now have all of the freeview channels (well all of the limited ones a booster transmits, basically bbc itv and a couple of others 12 in all)

the bow block has been glued now, once it it set, the glue will be chased out and filler will be used to create a seamless join.

this morning after all the shopping etc some more work has been done, deck supports added roof beams steamed and ribs steamed and fitted. I got my mini henry out to clear some of the dust caused by sanding the bow. this has enough suck to remove the dust, without removing anything else.

so after that burst of enthusiasm earlier, I still fitted in a standard days work on the models, ribs stuck, and new ones bent up, moor roof beams shaped, and a couple more side deck supports added. The workforce now have a floor to stand on in the cockpit, so are happier now.

This is bad, got home from work and was working on the model even before having my dinner so much so I didnt hear the timer so it had longer in the oven than it should (oops), still I am much happier with the shape, plus it is once again as smooth as I had it yesterday.

not to mention an annual anniversary

That's great, you will also have a chance to get hands on with at least model #1 and we might be able to get a picture or two of the two together (Broad Ambition and the Model that is).

I can see one of the models will have to have a spare blue fender...

more to the shape shown here I think. - much better to have not taken enough off at this point than to have taken too much and have to start again. I think once I have achieved this i will be happy. its not about time really- its about getting it right, if the bow was too sharp I would forever be unhappy

I was looking at this last night and comparing it to the photographs I have of Broad Ambition, I have come to the conclusion that there is still more work to do here, I think I need to flatten off he nose somewhat, as BA is more rounded, and this prow is a bit too angular still - going to too much of a point, this will be my task over the weekend, as it is at the moment the prow badge would be too flat to fit across the bow, and would have too many gaps, so the prow will need flattening back to a gentler curve- at least at the top - more sanding to come, a shame as the wood feels silky smooth at the moment. Not to worry though, it will get back to that again, maybe I will try with the small planes first, though this oak is mighty hard stuff.

I think every business has a Bert, we certainly did at one office I worked at, I cant remember his name, so we will call him Bert. Bert was the handyman, anything that occurred and Bert was called, a light bulb was out, and Bert appeared, sensibly wearing his rubber gloves to avoid electric shock, up the ladder he would go, and in a trice the bulb was changed. Bert also had his daily rounds, cleaning here, cleaning there, signs would go up outside the ladies as he cleaned them, wearing of course his trusty rubber gloves to protect his hands, then the gents, where he would diligently scrub the urinals until they gleamed, still wearing his trusty rubber gloves. Now these rubber gloves as far as we can tell were a heavy duty pair, maybe even jointers gloves for live working, safe to grasp a live cable and not feel a thing, they were probably as old as Bert, maybe even issued when he joined, the natural rubber colour had gone a mottled shade of yellowy browny sort of colour, and Bert used them for every messy job. He even used them when he cleaned out the coffee machine, polishing up the spigots, and cleaning out the drip trays, emptying the bucket of overspills down his special sink in the toilets, carefully washing all the washable parts, yes still wearing his rubber gloves (after I noticed I didnt have coffee from the machine again). His sink was the same one he took other moveable tings to be scrubbed clean- toilet parts when they had jammed I never did see toilet parts and coffee machine parts in the sink at the same time though as that would have been unhygienic.

I wasnt quite happy that the bow followed on from the lines of the hull, so just for a change, nothing else got done, instead I spent nearly an hour working on the bow of model #1. Compare the first and next to last pictures, the hull now flows into the bow a lot nicer, I then went down through the sandpaper grades, 60, 80, 120, 400, 600 getting a good finish on the bow, there are still a few scuffs that can be sanded out, but the timber looks gorgeous, nice grain and figure, once that is coated in some nice varnish I am hoping it will look as good as the real thing, adding that bow on has really brought this hull to life. So while I am disappointed I got nothing else done, I am really happy I took the time to concentrate on that one detail.

just mention the cost to replace if its left outside and stolen, and you will have trouble taking it back out of the kitchen

the reason we got rid of the timer, we were getting through one a year, when they installed it they put the timer smack under the overflow of the heater, this drips occasionally, straight onto the timer, until it shorts out and sttops working.

we havnt had a timer on the central heating for a few years now, basically a timer controls 2 switches one turns the heating on, the other the hot water, I hard wired the timer out of the circuit to supply the hot water, then removed the actuator on the water / heating valve, turn the valve to the mid position - hot water and heating all on constant (this was the setting we had the timer on) come summer the valve is manually turned to water only. heating - since we put the conservatory on the second half of the back of the house, following cavity wall insulation, we have just the one radiator downstairs in the loo, set to 2 on the thermostat, this keeps the whole house warm - T shirt and shorts warm, upstairs the hot water pipes between the boiler and tank keep that warm- despite the lagged pipes.

as are decent washing machines - we could kick ourselves now we had an old miele washing machine - we bought it third hand, from a lady who had got it as part payment for her wages when a nursing home closed. it even came with instructions on how to fit the coin meter. anyway after 5 years (of our use) it had a grumbling bearing and a squeaky drive belt, and we got the chance to get my wifes great uncles brand new machine from his estate - it still had washing in it and had been used maybe half a dozen times. worst thing we ever did, yes it runs ok, but doesnt have the capacity and sheer grunt, and the pump is forever getting clogged up. we did replace our dead dishwasher with a miele, and have had no problems from that.

Well aside from gluing a rib and some steaming, a lot of the rest of the work ground to a halt this evening as I had some serious sanding to do, a lot of rough shaping is done, now I just need to go through the grades of sandpaper to bring this chunk of oak to its final silky smooth oak finish. as Griff would say, I am right chuffed to get this shaped up.

yes that sounds more of an option than naming a hire or private boat.